United We Stand

by Christian Messe

  They used to be a tannish, white color, with deep black eyes, and an eerie red pupil in the center. Little green men. Their ships were also saucer-shaped, but more primitive looking, and in their maiden state, looked black and red, the same colors as the Jupitain Horde. Then, the disgusting truth was revealed. These Martian’s ships had claws, linked to the bottom of their vessels by chain… to grab humans, and abduct them, for experiments…

  Evidence showed that the species had been doing this since the dawn of humanity’s existence, maybe even before the dinosaurs. Their laboratories were packed to the brim, most in ruins, some intact, with cryo-pods, filled with humans. Unknown to the ‘new Martians’ though, was the fact that every human there was someone that had played a huge role on Earth, or was of some importance, then vanished without a trace…

  Some were rehabilitated and allowed to live peacefully inside of the Martian mothership, but as for the causes of extinction for the previous inhabitants of the planet, details varied. The most agreed on scenario, was a civil war, that destroyed most of the planet’s resources, and then the deadly outbreak of a biological weapon, that killed every living thing on Mars, even the little bits of vegetation it had left.

  After a few seconds, they leaned back, but the moment was over when the loud blast of a horn sounded in the distance.

  “Oh no,” Imp whispered.

  The two of them could hear the sound of frantic Kelisian footsteps, and Imp’s father’s voice on the intercom.

  “All essential personnel make their way up to the command center immediately.”

  “I’ll be back,” Imp said.

  Abigail looked back at him, as he ran to the command center.

  He took two separate helivators, and when he reached the room, everyone inside was looking out the view window.

  “D-do they see us?” A Kelisian General asked.

  “No, they’re not aiming for us,” said a Data Analyzer.

  Imp watched as the Jupitain ships slowly flew past them, they were at least twenty miles out, but the Saucer’s camo seemed to be working.

  “Vice-Admiral Smith, ready every fighter in every hangar, I need every able body ready for any possible attack that might happen, we’re not taking any chances.”

  The Vice-Admiral was the only human in the command center, and he was the only human Imp had ever known his father to somewhat respect. He knew that the Admiral had come from a rehabilitation, but not which one. He was an expert military strategist and had a perfect safety record.

  “Wait, if they’re not headed for Mars, then where are they go…” The General started. He didn’t have to finish the sentence.

  “The only other planet in this Solar System that can sustain life is Earth; the organisms there don’t stand a chance.” Another Kelisian officer said.

  “Whoa, wait-w-we have to stop them! We can’t let them reach Earth!”

  “How? How Imptanius, please tell me, because we aren’t exactly in a position to do something like that. I don’t think I need to remind you how they toppled the Nova Alliance with a brigade of over one-hundred thousand warships, or how they…”

  “No, you don’t have to remind me! I-I just can’t believe that we’re sacrificing the last independent planet left in the Galaxy that can sustain life! We’ve been developing stronger firepower, the new laser cannons…”

  “Aren’t finished yet! Face it; if we attack them again, we’ll lose everything! Just like what happened on Neptune.”

  “We left them. We left them to die!”

  “We would have shared the same fate. We lost one of our Saucers that day. This is the last one that's still operational; we can’t afford another massacre like that again… besides, unlike Neptune, these prims serve no value to us.”

  The human Admiral didn’t even look conflicted somehow. Imp looked at his father like he was a completely different person, then into the void of space, he gazed at the fifty warships, with the giant flagship in the middle of the formation. Thousands of tiny specs, fighters, surrounded the fleet, getting ready to destroy another world. Imp walked out, refusing to lose to the Jupitains again. He wasn’t just the privileged son of a high ranking official. He was a genius.

  He walked to the design room, which was about a mile away, and entered a white room, with streaks of green lights along the walls. He pressed a button on a thick metal pedestal, and a picture of a flying saucer appeared, with a circular hole under it, what the Kelisians used for weaponry, and replaced the part with the laser cannon’s blueprints.

  “We can’t lose another world, not again.”

  “Working on something?”

  Imp turned around to see the Head Engineer walk into the room. “I’ve been designing that for a few years now, trying to think of something that could break through those monster’s shields more efficiently,” he said.

  Imp turned back around and kept his eyes on the hologram. “Any luck?”

  “Terrible luck would be an understatement.”

  “That’s reassuring.”

  “Sarcasm? Have you been around your human pet too long?”

  “She’s a person, and she’s beautiful.”

  “Oh, I see, she’s the reason you’re doing this. No wonder you didn’t care about the other thousands of worlds we had to leave.”

  Imp clenched his fists, “I cared about all of them!”

  “Ok ok,” The engineer said, feeling a little guilty, “But seriously, why do you care about these prims in particular so much? Your female’s safe here, and in all honesty, are those people really worth saving… I mean, do you watch their news? They’re pretty stupid, and they’ve only been through they’re fifth evolutionary cycle…”

  “Varan, I need your help to save not only Earth, but our race as well, if we don’t do something, they will find us, and we will only be able to watch as our loved ones are killed.”

  Varan looked at Imp, “Buddy, there’s nothing we can do, we’ve had all our top engineers assigned to this project, even the eggheads over in Nylon Council on the other side of the ship.”

  Imp looked at him, sinisterly, “I care about those prims because I’m tired, of this… ‘mistake,’ of an experiment, that was carelessly released, killing innocents without any mercy, any remorse at all… they’re not alive, they’re just an infection, spreading across the Galaxy, massacring the very people we swore to protect… it only took me now to realize that we have to do something before everything is gone.”

  The engineer was speechless. “I-I’ll see what I can do…”

  Imp nodded.

  Over eighty Earth days passed, the two Kelisian spies on Earth were either in hiding or had been killed. Imp and Varan had been working on prototype after prototype of the laser cannon, but each attempt wouldn’t go through the Jupitain shield until after over a dozen shots.

  “This is pretty hopeless,” Varan said.

  “We have to keep trying,” Imp replied.

  “You know, we’ve been at this for almost five denmics, we should take a break, have you matted with your human pet yet?”

  Imp kept his eyes on the laser cannon, “Any different topics?” He replied.

  “You’re pretty persistent, how do you even know that even if we do make a laser powerful enough to break through the shields quicker, that the Main Leader will even try to liberate Earth?”

  Imp looked up at him.

  “I’m not asking.”

  Then it happened. Two hours after the conversation, the Head Engineer was gone, and Imp was alone, working on the laser. He fired it in the simulator, and at first, the shield absorbed it, but then the green light appeared again and created a hole in the shield. It exploded, and the invisible barrier collapsed, dissipating like tiny pieces of glass.

  “I-I did it; it worked, It, it worked!”

  He started to laugh, and then he laughed harder until he was so happy he couldn’t breathe. When he opened the data storage though, he saw something that made him drop the laser. A different fi
le, imprinted was similar to the blueprint he had just created, but it was far more advanced and finished over a year ago — the day after the collapse of Neptune.

  “T-this is impossible.”

  Suddenly, an alarm blared in the large room, echoing off the walls. The thick metallic door slammed closed behind him, loudly. Imp ran over to it and hit it furiously. He waited there for about thirty seconds, trapped inside, until an intercom blared from the ceiling, in his father’s voice.

  “Unidentified citizen, you have trespassed through classified files, and are now a traitor to the Kelisian Empire, you are to be executed, effective immediately… in three…” Small holes started to open inside the walls, preparing to release toxic gas into the airtight room.

  “2…”

  “DAD!”

  “…S-son?”

  The holes closed, and the door opened. Twenty guards in high tech, full body armor were standing at the opening, rifles armed. His father pushed through them, eyes wide, face filled with shock. He had the entire Saucer’s security settings attached to a control module on his right arm.

  “How could you?” Imp said first.

  His father’s expression went stern, “How could I what?! Why were you looking through classified flies?! You weren’t even supposed to be in there; this is an Xfinity class facility. How’d you get access?”

  “How could you?” Imp said again.

  His father knew what he was talking about. “It… it was the only way, we-we can’t risk anything, the design is for emergencies only…”

  “They're already installed aren’t they?!” Imp shouted.

  His father didn’t say anything.

  “We could’ve stopped them, the day they came… we-we could’ve gone back to Neptune!”

  His father just stood there, looking devastated.

  “You weren’t supposed to see that…” A feminine voice said calmly — the Main Leader. Every soldier, including Imp’s father, bowed at her entrance. Imp didn’t.

  “You’re a monster,” Imp mumbled.

  “Son!!” His father screamed desperately.

  The Main Leader gestured at his father to be quiet. She was unbelievably calm. She smiled.

  “What are you gonna do huh, kill me? Keep your horrible secret safe?”

  She gestured for a soldier to come over next to her from the hallway. He walked in, with Abigail in a headlock. She was kicking and yelling, but the soldier was hopelessly stronger.

  “Abby…” Imp breathed.

  “Killing you is quite simply a waste of your talents… and I know that threatening your own life wouldn’t affect your decisions, but I know she will.” She looked at Abigail and caressed her chin softly. “If you even slightly mention any of this to anyone, I will kill her. Then I’ll kill the traitor Varan, and then finally… put you in a place, the lowest, most useless, possible position where you’ll rot, knowing that you tried to sacrifice our entire civilization, our legacy… for some primitive world.”

  “Not sacrifice,” Imp said.

  The Main Leader lifted an eyebrow.

  “Redeem.” He lifted a small compact, energy generator he took from the room when they opened the door and threw it into the crowd of soldiers like a grenade.

  “Grenade!” A soldier yelled.

  It didn’t kill anybody, but it sent everyone flying backward into walls and adjacent hallways. Imp sprinted towards Abigail, grabbed her hand, and ran with her as fast as he could towards any nearby hangar.

  The Main Leader got up, and looked back at them, barely frowning.

  “Where are we going?!” Abigail asked, “Didn’t you hear her? She’s gonna kill us!”

  “If we make it to the hangar, and fly towards the E6s, that would make them discover we’re here, forcing the fleet to react and send in reinforcements.”

  They were running extremely fast, pushing random civilians walking past them. A series of enormous emergency doors started to close quickly, behind them.

  “They’re gonna trap us!” Abigail yelled.

  The doors were catching up, closing closer and closer towards them.

  Imp groaned angrily and picked Abigail up. He was surprisingly strong, and Abigail was shocked too.

  “Imp what are you doing?!” She screamed.

  He roared, trying to beat the doors. He made it through the second to last one, just barely getting trapped. He turned after a few yards, into a small maintenance hangar, with a few fighters, and a frigate inside. The frigate looked just like a fighter, a simple flying saucer, but it was roughly three times bigger.

  Imp let Abigail down and ran with her inside. He tried to activate it, but its activation program was locked with a password. Imp cursed. He could hear shouting, and then the sound of the emergency doors opening in the distance.

  “We’ll have to take separate fighters,” Imp said.

  “You… you really want to do this?! What if they don’t send help?” Abigail asked frantically.

  “You don’t have to go,” Imp said.

  She didn’t reply, she grabbed him and kissed him on the lips quickly, smiled, then ran towards another saucer.

  Imp didn’t have time to think about her. He sprinted towards a separate saucer and started it up. The engines started softly, the sleek design compact, and efficient. It lifted into the air, then began to speed out of the hangar. Abigail followed behind. Everything Imp had told her about flying saucers was about to pay off.

  Suddenly, a giant metal door started to close the hangar’s main exit. Imp and Abigail sped out just barely past it before it slammed into the wall with a phoom!

  Over a hundred soldiers rushed into the hangar, unable to see their targets flee because of the giant door blocking the view of space.

  The Main Leader sauntered behind, Imp’s father with her. She frowned.

  “They’re gonna show the E6s that we’re here…” A soldier realized.

  “Mobilize the fleet…” The Main leader said, quietly.

  “But Ma’am…” A General started.

  She said it louder. “Mobilize. The Fleet.”

  CHAPTER 6

  “You know, ‘Imp’ I remember every last detail, of the day the Kelisians left my people for dead, during the invasion of Neptune, how your fleet left without warning because you simply. Didn’t. care.” Karalus said.

  “That’s not true; your thoughts have corrupted your mind!”

  “Thoughts have corrupted my mind?” Karalus mimicked, “What the hell is that even supposed to mean? My thoughts of everyone I’ve ever known and loved being murdered has somehow, corrupted me? Insanity. Of course, though, I’d be more understanding… if your entire race wasn’t filled with cowardly, lying, manipulative scum… that needs to be erased from existence.”

  The blue man picked up a glass, cylinder container, and held it up in front of Imp’s face. Inside it was black goo — Dark matter.

  “With just this, you can create over a thousand E6s! With a thousand more, you’re unstoppable!”

  Imp grimaced.

  “Dark matter, in it’s prime, can kill anyone, and anything… instantly, if exposed to enough, but don’t worry, I have something special in store for you, so I won’t be using this.”

  Imp was strapped to a chair, with a holographic display of his mind in front of him.

  “I’m going to access your thoughts, and tear you apart from the inside; after all, the son of a Kelisian commander must have many secrets, hidden beneath.”

  “How are you controlling them? The E6s?!” Burst Imp, “They obey you, and for some reason, you didn’t deactivate them?!”

  “It’s simple really; I hacked into the system that was controlling their visors, without them, they’re just a pile of dark goo, whoever controlled them originally, doesn’t anymore… and why? Why not deactivate them? I’ll do that when there aren’t any Kelisians left breathing.”

  “But then… why did you attack Earth if you only wanted us?” Imp gasped.

  “Truthfully,
I didn’t want that rock to stay safe after I had suffered so greatly… I wanted to see what would happen I suppose. It wasn’t exactly a risk, and I collected a few ounces of Dark matter from their core as well. It was entertaining and productive.”

  “Your… you’re a complete monster!” Imp shouted.

  “I’m the monster? Now really Kelisian, after what you pulled, I call that hypocritical, but enough, discussion, I’m going to find out what’s in your head.”

  A laser scanned Imp’s forehead, and the hologram formed into images of Imp’s memories. Some about his childhood, remembrances of the Jupitains conquering countless planets, the advanced laser cannons, and of course, Abigail.

  “Wow, I wonder what happened to her? Want me to take a look?”

  “Get out of my head!”

  Karalus pressed two fingers against the hologram and zoomed in on the memories about Abigail.

  “I don’t remember teaching you how to fly this well,” Past Imp said.

  “Let’s not focus on that now; we need to start heading for the Eastern coast of Asia, if we do enough damage to the E6’s fleet there, we might be able to get the attention of the Kelisian fleet,” Abigail said.

  “Stop it, stop it!!”

  “What happens next?”

  “Shut up!” Imp screamed.

  “They're too many!” Abigail said.

  “Just shoot them down, focus on the nearest fighters, wait, watch out!” Imp replied, frantically.

  “I-I can’t shake them, auugh! help!”

  “Hang on I’m coming!”

  “Help!!”

  “Auuugh!!” Imp shouted.

  “Yes, yes, yes!! This is exactly what I wanted, a Kelisian, to feel at least a fraction of what I felt, the day my world died! Are you suffering Imp? Are you?!”

  “Please-please stop,” Imp said, pathetically.

  Karalus smiled sinisterly. He paused, then calmed down slightly, “You see the original inhabitants of Cyrus were war-torn, wanted nothing more but to conquer the Universe, but they didn’t get too far, as you already know. The E6s, their own creation destroyed them, made them extinct, but I’m not here for Universal domination. I’m here to settle the score. To get revenge, on the beings who killed me, made me turn into this, and when I’m done, the Kelisian race will cease to exist.”