Titan Fleet: The Robur

by Jason J Black

  Nova pushes the Invictus to its limits, avoiding several large blasts from the mothership. The concentration could not be broken and she was probably the best pilot in the Titan Fleet, so they had a great chance of escape. The Invictus edged away slightly from the sluggish mothership, and the turrets began to sing out a song of destruction as the ball ships approached in droves of tens to start with. As the metal began to litter space, Nova picks up a signal from the planet.

  “Pace, we have something coming in from the planet. Shall I put it on screen?” asks Megan, who is monitoring communications. Pace nods and a familiar face pops up on screen and it is a sight for sore eyes.

  “Captain, we can see you made it out in one piece and we wanted to thank you and your crew for getting us to safety.”

  Pace smiles at the screen. “It was a pleasure, Drax. Is Steg well?”

  Drax nods and the screen pans to her asleep in a long golden chair, which was more like a bed. “She is indeed well, but before you part the solar system and we say goodbye, we have a surprise for you. But first you must head for these coordinates and then stop.”

  Pace laughs at Drax. “Drax, I’m sorry, but we are kind of busy at this precise moment, fighting off not only ball ships, but a huge mothership, and we are stopping for nothing, unless you need our help.”

  Drax appears back on screen once more.

  “Captain, it is time for you to trust us, like we trusted you. Now, please head here, it will be safe there, trust me.”

  Pace receives the data and nods at Nova to head towards the coordinates in space, which is not far away from them. The ball ships continue their attack and a second large blast hits the hull of the Invictus. This time the shields are hit and the ship begins to overheat. Several more blasts take out the shields altogether, and damage alarms begin to sound on the bridge. The Invictus is now taking a pounding. Pieces of metal hull are being peeled off the ship like an orange.

  “Damn it, Titch, can’t you and Anc get your finger out and fix this mess?” shouts Pace in frustration. There is a burning smell wafting up his nose now, and they have not come all this way to fail now.

  “Okey dokey, Captain, but we just do not have all of the components to fix it all,” replies Titch, trying to please his master. A shaky voice is heard on the comms, just a little more than a whisper.

  “What seems to be the problem? I can help from here. Padley will not let me leave medbay.” It was Rusty. He had come around, and although he was patched up, he was still groggy from all the meds he had pumping into him.

  “Good to hear your voice buddy. Take it easy and do as Padley instructs. You can help from there, just get better. That is an order.” Pace is relieved that Rusty is alive. He had not forgotten him, and he knew is friend was in good hands, and knowing that everyone was on board gave him a new lease of life. They were not going to die in space, and he wanted to see this surprise.

  “Stop here, Nova. This is it.” Nova brings the Invictus to a stop and turns to face the approaching mothership, and Sam fires the large gun at the mothership again which, as before, shakes it and takes its shields off line, and the turret guns do a little bit more damage to it. A wave of ball ships now surround the Invictus, buzzing them as they fly past, blasting at their hull. More damage has been done, but with Titch and Rusty working as one, at least they have managed to get the shields back online, for the time being anyway.

  “Umm, we have something strange going on below us on the planet. It’s like a giant earthquake. Look!” Megan puts the video feed through to other on board monitors, to show the others what the cameras are picking up on the surface of the planet.

  The planet below is undergoing a massive earthquake. It can be see almost all over one side of the planet. It was as if something was trying to dig itself out, and a few moments pass and sure enough, a shiny metal structure begins to appear within the walls of the sacred grounds. It looks like new metal buildings are being formed, where the old ones had stood before the invasion. The outer walls begin to glow a golden pulsating colour, and this was an amazing sight to see from up in space.

  “They have rebuilt their city. That is a surprise, but what does it have to do with us?” moans Talia, worried about the approaching mothership. “Captain, we need to get out of here, they are almost on us.”

  Pace agrees and gives the signal to Nova and she engages the engines to turn the ship. However, it does not move, so she checks her controls for damage and tries again, with the same end result.

  “Umm, we can’t move, Cap. Something is holding us here.” Megan checks her data and figures out the problem.

  “It is a beam from the planet keeping us here. A Gulmed beam. I don’t believe they would trap us, do you?” Megan is hoping that the Gulmeds have not sold them in a deal.

  Pace responds, “How much do you trust them? You spent more time with them than me.”

  Talia interrupts, “Look, the ball ships are unable to damage us and you may not have noticed, but the last blast from the mothership just bounced off us. It is a protection beam of sorts, it must be.”

  Megan agrees with Talia. “The Gulmeds did save our lives a few times, as did we for them. So answering your question, Pace, yes, I do trust them.”

  Pace smiles and rubs his hand across his chin. “Then we have nothing to worry about.”

  The crew continue to watch the surface, as the city is restored below them. The mothership has now stopped moving, and is bombarding the Invictus with all it has got.

  A large dome has appeared in the middle of the city. A new palace is appearing, and now it looks like the city has begun to lift off the ground, like a ship.

  “Cap, it’s a ship! Look! The whole city is a ship and it’s now travelling up towards us.”

  Nova and the others cannot believe their eyes. Most ships were built in space, and they can now see that this ship had been sat in a large crater all this time and had gone unnoticed.

  The Gulmeds ship broke the atmosphere, and then moved in between the Blue mothership and the Invictus. The mothership was a lot bigger than the Gulmeds ship, but the Gulmeds ship was far more advanced in technology and was uninfected by the Blues and their attacks.

  The main screen lit up with the smiles of Drax and Steg, who were in their spacesuits and grinning.

  “You see, a good surprise, yes? We will take care of the Blue mothership and they will be no more. We wanted to say thank you for saving our race, and we will forever be your ally. Talia and Megan have keys to contact us in their hands. Farewell my friends.”

  Pace stands up in front of his chair and salutes his allies with respect.

  “It was an honour to meet you and thank you for keeping my family alive. I will never forget it.”

  One by one, the crew of the Invictus stand and salute and say their farewells, and then the beam of light holding the ship is released. They all take their seats, watching their screens as the ball ships attack. Their shields go offline. It must have been the sheer power flowing into the ship. A couple of thuds on the hull are heard, but the crew do not worry, as the shields come back online after a couple of minutes. They slowly turn and watch, as they leave the Gulmeds to deal with the mothership.

  The Gulmed ship begins to generate light and a pure power all around the ship. It is hard to make out any of the structures now, only a huge ball of pulsating white light, like a supernova, can be seen. The Blue mothership begins to flee, it has worked out that it is no match for the Gulmeds. A huge thick beam of pure white light extends from the Gulmeds ship onto the Blue mothership, and the mothership begins to lose its shields and then crack into hundreds of pieces, which explode in a rainbow coloured light flash. The left over debris of the mothership floats as a reminder that good always prevails.

  The crew of the Invictus see the destruction of the unstoppable ship, and will sleep easy tonight, in peace and without a worry. Sighs of relief and some tears of joy roll down happy faces, and the crew of the Invictus set their course for the Fa
hrenheit, and their reunion and resettlement of the human race.

  “One thing before we go home.” Pace stands up and pulls something from his broken metal arm and walks over to Megan. Pace kneels down and opens his hand. There is a small metal ring in the palm of his hand.

  “Megan, I thought I had lost you several times and time is important to us all. I don’t want to waste any more time without you. Will you marry me?” Pace looks into Megan’s eyes. He has never imagined he would love anyone as much. A gentle hand touches his face and soft lips touch his. Eyes meet without words and he knows the answer.

  “I would love to. A new life, a new start.”

  Nova looks at Sam and smiles, and Talia begins to well up.

  “I would say it was time for a jolly good knees up. Leave that on auto pilot, you lot follow me.” Pace leads everyone off the bridge and into medbay to see Rusty, where they all stand in a circle and have a group hug. Pace presses a panel on the wall and a large crate of drinks appears, much to everyone’s surprise.

  “Oh, this is my secret stash, now drink up.”

  “Cheers!”

  The Invictus slowly limps its way out of the system and towards the meeting point. Its journey not ended yet, and the crew have only started to live life. Who knows what the universe has to offer next.

  The End …

  … For Now

  Glossary

  Aliens Races

  · Almaks: Fast moving, stealthy, grey skin, usually dressed in dark green with cloaks, wolf like shout, silver rod for weapons. The elites have two rods and armour covered in bone. The master is very large with giant bird shoulder pads, long grey face with green patches, and spike horns all over, black sunken eyes, bones on armour, carries a bright white spear.

  · Gooloo: White fluffy fur, two arms and legs, four black eyes, toad like mouth, long rat type tail, large as a lion, sharp teeth and barbed tongue. They live underground, eat meat and hunt in packs, are many in number.

  · Gulmeds: Tall, skinny, bald humanoids from planet Daratchy with orange eyes, and purple skin. Can live hundreds of years. Are self-regenerating and have great healing powers. Sworn healers of the Tarkons, who protect them in return.

  · Oakthians: Also called Blues. Metal claws, two eyes, blue/purple skin, hard to cut. They can’t breathe oxygen as it’s poison to them, they spread green gas to poison humans, which is also their air. The smaller ones have two arms and small scales and bumps. The medium sized ones have four arms, horns, thick scales and can jump a fair distance and can fling flesh eating parasites. Evil red eyes, dark blue skin with lava red veins all over. Some of them are known to regenerate from death. The large ones have four legs, two arms, two to four wire like barbs like tendrils that tangle prey, very strong, red eyes, dark blue skin, with black stripes. There is also a leader caste of five blues, human like, light blue skin, tall, two arms with metal fingers. They float around on a green mist, very intelligent, smell of rotting flesh, have force fields, high pitched scream, very tall, orange eyes, they like to suck blood.

  · Tarkons: Alien race of brutish fighters, sworn to protect the Gulmeds with their lives. Very muscular build, tall, scaly red skin. Wear spiked armour and helmets that cover most of face. Carry large hammers and large shield.

  Robots

  · Anc: Large robot, built for salvage and defence. His feet have floor grapples, and he has two grapple chains on his arm, plus a burst plasma cannon and light shield on the other, thick hull plating, repulsars in his palms to knock things over, incinerator cannon on his chest panel, silver, 8’ tall.

  · Padley: White metal armour, rolls around on wheels that pop out of the bottom of her feet for speed. She is a medical, bio and mech healer. She has a defibrillator on tendrils that shoot out of her chest area. Her white metal armour is such that it looks like she is dressed like a female with a skirt and she has a soft female voice.

  · Titch: 3’ tall, blue, and glows blue, tech robot, fixes things, he has fixing tools and little welder.

  About the Author

  Jason J Black was born and still lives in Bristol in the United Kingdom, with his wife, Sara.

  Jason has always enjoyed writing short stories throughout his life, but began writing after the sad passing of his mother, Jean Black, which drove him to achieve his dream of having a published novel.

  Jason is currently working on a thriller and a children’s book. Book III of the Titan Fleet series, entitled Titan Fleet: The Fahrenheit will follow shortly after.

  Thank You

  If you enjoyed reading Titan Fleet: The Robur, please leave a review on Amazon, even if it’s only a line or two. It would make all the difference and your support and feedback would be very much appreciated.

  Thank you.

  Other Books by Jason J Black

  Titan Fleet: The Invictus

  Amazon UK:-

  http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00QXRCJ1C

  Amazon USA:-

  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QXRCJ1C

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