by Shay Zana
Up ahead, the Marauding Exile is emanating its black light energy with bursts from its main thrusters, preparing to flee from the planet, leaving many of the crew still in the jungles of Olympus.
"There's no time! Just get us out of here now!" Rockland thrusts his finger through the air, directing Zee to get the ship off the ground immediately. Although he knows he will regret leaving his people behind later, right now it is just not an option to wait for them. If he does wait, they will not make it and the Exile will be engulfed.
Without hesitation, the Flight Lieutenant obliges and takes control of the warship's systems, utilising the kinetic panels that serve as interactive controls.
The Spartan warship's thrusters sputter and now fluidly produce thick streams of light energy, beginning to lift the vessel off the jungle floor.
From the bridge of the warship, Rockland grimaces at the destruction outside the windows. He can see the heat rolling off of the skies, the bustling of the jungle, and the entire interior of the bridge grumbles as the pyroclastic-flow tears its way toward them. His teeth chatter painfully.
"Shield layer one at one hundred percent, layer two rising, thrusters burning... come the fuck on, baby girl," Zee yaps as he hastily pulls the vessel upward.
"Just go!" Rockland roars in response, no longer able to contain his desperation.
"Go-go-go!" Mazayus shouts to his fellow Paragons, catching a glimpse of the streaming converted light energy through the jungle up ahead. As they push through the remainder of the jungle, floundering and blundering, they suddenly find themselves on a stretch of flattened trees. Above, not a metre off the ground, is the Marauding Exile, a stunning vessel of sharp design. Without second thoughts, the Paragons all come to the same conclusion; to board the UEU Spartan.
Natheus, being the fastest, reaches the vessel first and jumps through the kinetic barrier into the cargo hold. He skids to a halt, gyrates around, and catches a flying Kitera as Deo practically throws her through the barrier. Boone and Mazayus follow, having to leap upward, pulling themselves up with powerful arms. The vessel is nearly two metres off the ground now. Deo jumps up last, the action of throwing the Cipher delaying him. He barely grabs the edge of the vessel as the rumbling atmosphere and his injuries falter his spatial awareness. The others all go to grab him at the same time, hefting him up and through the glinting white barrier. They collapse back in a heap.
As they stand, breathing heavily, they watch through the kinetic barrier as the volcanic cloud groans at them and the Marauding Exile. Before the ship can even gain enough altitude, they are engulfed. The ship's shields brighten in pulsation, oscillating to reflect and repel the intense heat of the pyroclastic cloud smothering them. After a strum of power travels the warship, the cloud is suddenly gone in a spiral of wind behind the thrusters. The Marauding Exile is plummeting upward, through the skies and attempting to leave the atmosphere of the crumbling planet.
As the lands below shrink in the distance, they can see the ground fracturing and tearing apart along the main fault line. The edges of the two plates thrust and heave upward, grinding against one another, and as this happens, the volcano erupts with even more violence, throwing hot molten lava high up from the crater of the mountain. Lava continues to sneak up from the cracks between the plates all over the land, spitting out from the ground in hues of bright reds and oranges. The sky has become electrically charged, gathering around the fuming volcano and producing bolts of lightning high within the black clouds.
Kitera watches in complete horror, the burning ache of her shard wound now gone from her mind as she is enveloped in the pain from Olympus. She feels the growing lava resonating in the deep, connected with it, sharing the pain.
The soil surrounding the volcano suddenly shifts and appears to be imploding, sinking inward, but now a mighty boom pushes at it, and a volcanic explosion of massive proportions shakes the lands, blowing the mountain to pieces as a bomb of liquid fire erupts from within.
The Paragons almost jump out of their skins, tensing from the event.
As the lava is sent soaring up into the sky at great altitudes, a great hole is left where the volcanic mountain once lay, still throwing out magma and molten rock.
"We need to get to the bridge," Mazayus says, tearing his visor away from the unbelievable spectacle.
The war drums of nature have broken.
The end of Olympus is here.
FALLING MOONS
Zee's eyes ricochet around the many terminals in front of him, his hands punching in commands to the warship, trying to get her out of the planet's atmosphere. What is left of the moon, Phila, has now collided with its closest neighbour, Mara, and is displaying a bright explosive shockwave across the space around the day side of the planet. Fiery cascades of rock spread over each moon, and the very core of Phila is exposed, letting molten crust fly into the zero gravity of space.
Zee performs skilful evasive maneuvers through the high altitudes of Olympus, dodging falling moon fragments. The Marauding Exile is a nimble vessel, one of the fastest Spartan warships in the UEU and easily the most flexible. Under Dylan Zee's capable hands, the warship erratically morphs its shape to allow for 360 degree spins, shaping itself through otherwise blocked paths of moon fragments. Its wings retract and reform, sliding themselves as close to the vessel as possible, or completely reshaping to keep aerodynamics, but to allow the vessel to perform otherwise impossible acrobatics.
“Fuck!” The curse words fly from Zee’s lips every time his vessel comes within an inch from impact. “Shit-fucker! Holy mother of space-whores! Fuck, fuck fuck!”
Rockland cannot help but duck down every time Zee brings the Exile under a moon fragment, and even though he is confident in the helmsman's abilities, he still cannot believe half the things he is able to pull off.
Zee heaves the Marauding Exile up by its prow, performing a total back-flip with the vessel while it works with him to morph its edges and make itself slimmer and easier to flip.
Flames swish over the shields of the ship, fallen from the moons’ cores and the power of their impacts together, and some fires seem to have just appeared out of thin air around the planet, gliding over the skies like a river of fire. Kitera reminisces about her vision as she looks back through the barrier behind her at the turmoil of Olympus below. It all seems painstakingly similar.
Boone has reached the white platform, claiming it to be a lift, and is figuring out how to use it. Surrounding them are multiple V-22 Daggers stationed along the walls, capsules, and other vehicles less suitable for the environment of Olympus. Black energy continues to lightly seep from the cores of each Dagger, indicating that they have just been used.
Deo examines the Daggers thoughtfully. They are not rated for space, and neither are the capsules, much to his annoyance, but he has always wanted to pilot a Dagger, just never had the chance.
"Seems simple enough," Boone mutters as he activates the panel from the platform. The white technology shimmers with microscopic nano-machines, the UEU's take on organic entity particles. The platform is able to carry a capacity of ten, so the five of them have no trouble fitting onto it together.
Smoothly, the nanites of the platform work together and take the team up to their selected floor, the command deck. The Paragons have heard other Paragons speak about UEU technology with nanites when they infiltrated their vessels or bases, but none of them have ever encountered this type of technology before. The Marauding Exile seems to be cutting edge, and they cannot help but agree that it is a stunning vessel.
Once the platform reaches the command deck and the team appear through the holographic section of the floor, they immediately explode into a defensive formation.
The UEU crew operating on the deck are caught completely off guard, some scattering to cover and others just freezing on the spot, surrendering.
The ones that scatter are the guards, and the Paragons act accordingly, taking defensive positions and returning fire once the guards begin to
open fire.
While shards begin to fly, Kitera runs for cover behind a console, roughly shoving a technician out of the way as she does so. The technician gives an angered yelp and decides to defend her carefully picked spot by punching her across the face viscously, creating a loud thump against her cheek bone. Kitera staggers to the floor, but anger quickly takes control of her, and before the woman knows it, she has kicked her in both shins with her bare feet, knocking her off balance and forcing her to lurch forward to catch it again. This gives Kitera the chance to send the instep of her foot into the woman’s chin with such force that she bites the tip of her tongue off as her teeth clamp down on it. The technician cries out horribly, a drawn out and wailing shriek as blood pours from her mouth. Kitera gets back to her feet in a fluent leap and now clobbers her across the head with her elbow, ceasing the short battle to end with the woman writhing in pain on the floor.
The Paragons navigate themselves around the deck, not having much need for cover as their entities work hard to do the covering for them. The deck is flaring with shards, pulsing shields and blazing entities. To the Cipher, the environment is just a mesh of yells, screams, blood, and energy.
Mazayus spins his armoured body at an erratic speed, deflecting shards, flinging his dual blades behind every movement in the close quarters of the deck. The entity encased blades make contact with their designated targets, slashing, slicing, blocking, stabbing and thrusting. Mazayus sets his sights toward his next target, a marine who is taking cover behind a support structure on the left side of the spacious deck. The marine uses a cocktail of ice and lightning shards. When his ice shards make contact with his target, he follows up with an electrical element, the current burning the ice to create a splash of electrified fluid. Devastating against shields and entities.
Mazayus’ eyes strain toward where his aim will meet. With a swift fling of his arm, a blade is mailed to the soldier. The soldier throws his body away from the glowing blade, but Mazayus' aim proves to be true as his blade strikes the weapon in the man’s hand, pushing it from his grasp and pinning it into the wall down the hall. Left with only a pistol, the marine lands on his stomach and begins to fire rapidly at the approaching Mazayus, his finger tugging wildly on the trigger.
Mazayus' entity washes over him as he sprints forward. Drawing one SMG, he sends a rapid volley of ice shards right back at the marine. When in range, he takes advantage of the crippled movements of the soldier by swiping his blade at his throat, but the marine manages to block the attack with his weapon stock, though still knocked back by the powerful Paragon. Mazayus tosses his SMG up, freeing his hands to take his blade in a double grip. He thrusts it at the soldier again, this time making his mark. The entity flowing over the blade now spreads through the insides of the man as the blade pierces his lung. It mangles his insides and burn at his inner flesh, forcing an excruciating scream from his mouth.
The soldier empties dying fire into Mazayus’ entity at point blank, an erratic desperation controlling his trigger finger. Violent light is born between them. To end his suffering, Mazayus catches his sailing weapon, curiously morphed in a shotgun form. Aiming the barrels at the visor of his suffering opponent, he pulls the trigger, blowing his head off with many fire shard fragments and disintegrating his skull into hot ash. That never gets old.
Boone sets his Genesis back to a lightning element, knowing that anything like a mini-nuke would be disastrous inside a ship. That hellfire is reserved only as a last resort up against heavy units. He fires an arc from the hip as he springs out from cover, hitting his mark as a clutter of soldiers are killed instantly by the electric blast, their shields standing no chance, blood popping. A woman’s suit ruptures and vents pure oxygen, and as she releases the last fire shard from her weapon in a stroke of death, the oxygen catches the flame and erupts in a large gassy cloud, spreading over a group of soldiers in an unexpected apocalypse.
Boone stares in awe at the explosion, laughing hysterically, loving the sight of rupturing fire before his eyes, and slightly surprised by his luck. He receives some fire and quickly ducks back down into cover behind a shard riddled terminal. He wants to keep his entity alive for as long as possible, as his movements are not as nimble as the others, due to the mammoth in his arms. Swiftly, he morphs his Genesis and lets the weapon transform before firing a heavy chain gun variant, cutting down anything that falls into his sights. If his face was not covered by his visor, then his smile would be visible from across the deck.
Natheus meets his mark with every trigger release of his Parallel, while simultaneously wielding his Phoenix as a single blade and slashing it through anyone who draws close enough to him. When one hand is tasked with taking the life of another with his Phoenix, he wields his Parallel sniper as a blunt instrument, smacking the butt of it into his foes.
Deo is fighting just as efficiently as he would be without an injury, using his shotgun to punch holes into many bodies. His fists collide with many visors, the armour plating on his knuckles breaking through. He smashes open a man’s visor, not enough to injure his face, but just enough force to break the visor. As the man stumbles backward in shock, Deo primes a grenade and forces it into the man’s open helmet, wedging it against his jaw. The man screams, and this is all he is able to do before Deo straight-kicks him back amongst a group of soldiers taking cover. The grenade explodes in a violent explosive element, blowing apart many soldiers around the area.
The Marauding Exile rocks in movement as its shields are impacted with constant moon fragments that rain down from orbit. Combat with such thudding instability is difficult. Soldiers and Paragons alike are thrown around inside the vessel, their shards missing their marks as their rifle arms falter to catch their balance. Stray fire punctures holes through the hull, hitting the shields from the inside.
Kitera and the several non-combatants are pushed from their cover and sent sliding across the floors as the ship veers to the left slightly, the gravitational field faltering for a moment as the helmsman attempts to divert more power to their shields.
"For such a slim girl, she's not too good at pulling her fuckin’ ass around," Zee comments restlessly about the Marauding Exile as his hands work frantically over the controls.
After sealing the bridge shut so that the attacking Paragons cannot reach them, Rockland races back over to the helm behind Zee. "What's the problem?"
"Aside from the colliding moons, erupting volcano, over ten pointer earthquakes, the sleeping guardian virus in our systems and a few Paragons hitching a ride? Oh, just a black hole in the centre of the planet trying to suck us in, no biggy."
"What!?"
Zee bashes his fingers through the controls for a moment before answering. "Analysts are detecting an event horizon growing from the centre of Olympus. I have no shitting idea how it's affecting us and not the planet, but it's there, no doubt about it."
"Are you sure it's not the virus giving off false readings?"
The ship veers sharply again, but this time, Zee manages to stabilize it by morphing the ship's stern to balance out. "Lander says he's sure."
Rockland's face shoots with relief. "Lander made it aboard? Oh thank the gods..."
"Right now, thanking the fucking gods would be the last thing to do... Sir," Zee replies smartly right after nearly falling out of his chair as the ship lurches to the right. It nearly flips over backward with the wild gravity fluctuations around Olympus.
Once Rockland is back on his feet, he clutches the back of the helmsman chair to steady himself. "Jump to SSV! Now!"
"I can't! Not until we leave atmosphere, otherwise the Exile and the entire planet will be torn apart and sent to the Underworld for all we know."
On a previous mission, the UEU took a fleet of Metropolis class starships to the planet Victory, a rescue mission caused by a similar event. Once they had evacuated all the civilians in the colony, they attempted to jump to star shift five while still in the exosphere of the planet, and the result was devastating. All
ships were imploded, along with the entire planet, and were never seen or heard of again. They never arrived at their destination, and it was presumed an SS failure and a total loss. The anomaly is still unexplained, so a new protocol was put into place in the UEU Scattered Planet Navy to prevent this from happening again. If any vessels were in the atmosphere or any radius of an event, they must first exit radius before jumping to star shift speeds.
Rockland growls lowly at this, increasing his grip on the back of the helmsman chair. "Divert all power to the quantum drive core."
"I've diverted as much power as I can to the shields, if I weaken them, we'll be smashed to millions of pieces by these damned moon fragments," Zee counters.
"And if we don't divert more power to the drive core, we'll be sucked into that black hole!"
"Either way’s a bitch if you ask me."
"I am asking you, Zee!"
Both men are rendered silent in horrid thought. But now Zee sighs and gives a shrug. "Commander, it's your call."
To Rockland, both alternatives are just as bad as each other. One almost guarantees fatal impact, and the other being sucked into a black hole and either crushed to death or taken to some random destination. Nobody knows what really happens to people taken through a black hole. It is presumed death, but who knows? Maybe the Serenity Spiritual Natives are right and black holes really do take people to the Underworld... He does not want to find out.
"Divert power to the drive core, and evade those fragments like your life depends on it."
