United We Stand

by Christian Messe

  “What was…” A worker started.

  The ground shook again, violently.

  “It’s coming from the holo-lift!” A guard yelled. Then, it broke through. A Cyrisian machine. A robot. It had mechanical legs that resembled a spider, with a right-side-up cylinder as its body, with two laser miniguns attached, one on either side. There was a red dot glowing in the center. It’s targeting system, with a transmitter like object drilled into its back, like it was sending out signals. It smashed through the elevator shaft, killing the guard nearby instantly.

  It let out a haunting mechanical screech and started firing volleys of laser bolts at anyone nearby with its quad cannons. It was killing for seemingly no reason. Dozens of bodies dropped, and the sound of screams began to faint. Karalus grabbed Ranoah without a second thought, and sprinted to another room, filled with Neptunian special forces. The forces ran past, heading for the mechanical monster.

  “Don’t worry,” One said, “We’ll take care of that thing!” He ran towards it with the other two dozen soldiers and was almost instantly cut up by the volley of lasers. Another guard activated a blue holo-shield, that had a metal symbol that resembled the letter, X, in the middle. A blue, energy barrier developed on all sides of it, forming a large shield that covered most of the guard’s body. He had a laser rifle in his other hand. It looked clunky and high tech.

  He shot at the advancing robot repeatedly, streaks of yellow light flashing from the rifle’s barrel, sending the energy into the robot’s metal body. It didn’t have any effect; the machine’s shield was just too strong. The spider-like robot charged its right quad cannon, and it created a ball of energy, then released it, making it hit the soldier’s shield faster than a bullet, completely disintegrating it.

  The soldier shrieked, his arm broken as well. He tried to shoot the mechanical beast with his right hand, but it slammed into him, then shot him in the head with its quad cannons, spewing blood everywhere. Another soldier tried to stop the robot’s approach but was blown into the wall, leaving a giant crater in it. The rest of the soldiers were merely massacred one by one.

  Karalus looked back, trying not to gag. Ranoah was sobbing, letting out painfully devastating shrieks.

  “I won’t let it get you!” Karalus told her, “I won’t.” A tear rolled down his cheek while he was sprinting. The robot was after the energy signal that was coming from the facility, but it wanted to kill every life form first. That was its primary objective.

  The Jupitains were crippling Neptune’s defenses because unlike the future invasion of Earth, the Jupitains were being controlled, by a crueler, more sinister master. They used overwhelming forces to trample key Neptunian defense points. Ion cannon towers were blown through the middle, making them collapse and land on civilians. The Jupitains weren’t planning on taking any prisoners under their original command, so destroying an entire skyscraper filled with innocent people was never even considered immoral.

  Fire engulfed the capital city, and the lead Jupitain warship, which was more heavily armored than the rest, slowly smashed through the capital building. It emerged only with a few scrapes but demolished the Neptunian icon. Statues of past leaders and heroes collapsed. The Jupitain horn of death blared across the entire planet.

  Karalus managed to reach a heavily armored, bunker-type room. There were people in there, hiding too. They varied from scientists to engineers, and to a few coward soldiers.

  “It’s your job to fight; what are you doing?” A scientist whispered angrily.

  “If you wanna go fight that thing go ahead!” The soldier replied angrily.

  “You coward, you’re a disgrace!”

  The soldier didn’t reply. He just looked down.

  “Minister… w-what’s happening?!” An engineer asked Karalus.

  Karalus just looked at him, looking distraught. “I… I don’t know…” Ranoah had stopped crying, but she still looked utterly terrified.

  “Sir, I… I saw the back of that thing, b… before it started killing people…” Another engineer started.

  “And?” Karalus asked, concerned.

  “It… it looked like a transmitter… or maybe some kind of receiver…” Before he could finish the sentence, the robot smashed through the bunker door, making the door fly inside the room and hit the set of doors in the back of the room. It started killing people immediately, shooting volleys of lasers at anyone it saw.

  Karalus groaned, frightened for his daughter, and picked her up, running to a nearby column. There were two, side by side a few feet apart from each other. They were wide enough to hide the two of them. Then, the robot turned abruptly, detecting sudden movement, and shot at Karalus, hitting him in the leg.

  “Gaah!” He groaned, falling to the floor, and dropping his daughter in the process. The expression on her face was pure panic. She ran away behind one of the columns and started to breathe heavily. One of the engineers tried to punch the machine, but it just cut him down.

  Karalus gasped and ran over to the other column, limping the whole way. He stood behind it, feet away from his daughter. Then, the robot turned around and started to look for them. It didn’t have any type of thermal sensor, so it couldn’t detect heat, just electromagnetic energy.

  It slowly stepped closer and closer towards the columns, being cautious not to be ambushed. Karalus was on the left, while his daughter on the right. The robot kept stomping the cold metal floor with each step. Ching… tsch… tsch… ching… tsch… tsch… ching. Then, it got close enough… that Ranoah started to cry… and a tear, rolled down Karalus’s face, as the robot turned towards his only daughter and remnant of his wife… and shot her to the floor.

  Before Karalus could completely process what had happened, the guard that had been called a coward got up from the ground, still alive. He was clutching his chest. He spat out blood. The robot shot at him as soon as it saw he was alive, but the guard had a holo-shield. He activated it before the laser blasts could hit him.

  “Comm'n get me.” He taunted.

  The robot churred menacingly, like it accepted the challenge, and chased after the guard. He led it away from Karalus on purpose. Karalus looked over at his daughter, shaking, tears rolling down his cheeks, nonstop. He kneeled next to her, holding her, looking for any sign of life, but she was dead… shot down. For nothing. Karalus looked at her, and in the fraction of a second…

  “Nooooooo!” He went into a full uncontrollable sob, his face drenched with tears. He gasped for air while sobbing at the same time… emotions were rushing in overwhelmingly. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t… couldn’t except it.

  “W-why… why!?!?” He looked at his daughter’s closed, lifeless eyes. He gazed into them, his sparkling from tears. His mouth was dry. He stood up, gasping for air, and panting uncontrollably. Whimpering, he looked at the closed double doors that led back to the control room. Then he remembered. Transmitter… receiver... it was on the back of the machine, and whatever it was, it had to be able to be hacked.

  He yelled loudly, opened the doors, and ran through the hallway at a full sprint, his willpower overcoming the pain from his leg, barely. He reached the control center; bodies toppled over computers, broken terminals everywhere. He accessed the main one… his ‘secret weapon.’

  It couldn’t hack the Jupitain's tech because it was always shielded… too advanced, if he could just get something, anything, that was connected to the Jupitain mainframe… he could either take the entire system… or nothing at all. It was his only option. The ground above was shaking, and his republic was crumbling above him. He had to save it. He had to avenge his daughter.

  Then, he heard the clanking footsteps of the robot. The murderer. He could hear the energy of the laser blasts forming inside the barrels of the quad cannons, about to fire and kill him in half a second, but he pressed the button. Unlike all the other tries by the Neptunian officers, the console was near a source, that was actually hackable, and the hacking software from the console didn’t jus
t take control over the spider-like machine, but the entire Jupitain system… locking whoever had initially been controlling them… completely out.

  A visible E.M.P wave, swooped through the whole control room, passing through the robot that was about to kill him, and freezing its programming completely. It just stood there; red light now turned green.

  Karalus breathed out, not knowing what he had really done. He walked over to the robot, slowly, not knowing if it was still dangerous. He looked at it’s now green ‘eye,’ and waved his hand in front of it. He gaped, then sprinted for the emergency exit. It had been inaccessible because of the machine, but now, everything was unguarded.

  He passed dozens of dead bodies, soldiers, scientists. Everyone who was in the facility. It was scarring. He climbed up the ladder, some of the handles stained in blood. He opened the hatch, and what he saw next. Broke him.

  Death, on an unimaginable scale. Smoke covered the sky, and blazing fires covered every building in sight. He saw hovering Jupitain warships in the air, just sitting there, not moving or doing anything, waiting for orders. He couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t comprehend it.

  He looked at the capitol building, but it wasn’t there anymore. Just a pile of rubble, with a heavily armored Jupitain warship hovering where it should have been. He covered his mouth with his hand and started to cry again. To bawl. He wanted to die.

  He couldn’t hear anyone. He couldn’t hear, anything. No life. Just fire, and the faint humming sound of the Jupitain warship's gigantic engines. He looked in the sky, where the Kelisian saucers were. They were gone. Gone. No wreckage, except for one.

  “There should be three…” He whispered. Then he said it louder. “There should be three!!” He started to cry again. He ran for the hatch and went for the hacking console. He could terminate the software, which would corrupt the Jupitain’s system, and kill them. All of them… with the push of a button. He extended his arm and had his finger on the small button. He looked at it, tears rolling down his face, fading his vision.

  He was crying, and then… just as he was touching the button, just barely rubbing it. He lifted his hand, and let go. He looked at the button, stared at it, for seconds… then, did nothing. He didn’t press it. He couldn’t. He couldn’t let the Kelisians get away when his entire species was most likely extinct. They saved them. The strangers. Sacrificed, and it. Was. In. Vain. He turned away from the console, picked up a laser rifle from off the ground, and shot it till it blew up. It burnt, crackling from all the circuits and wires.

  The hack was already in place, and with the console gone, nothing could stop him. He walked over to his daughter’s corpse and kissed her cold forehead.

  “This is for you.” He whispered.

  He climbed back up to the surface, and walked over to a Jupitain, frozen still, just standing there, emotionless. Karalus squinted at it, then snatched its visor from its face. He didn’t even pay attention when it dissolved into a pile of goo. He put on the visor, and an automated deep Cyrisian voice started to talk.

  “Organic being detected, Class: Intelligent… software offline… beginning adjustment. Command… accepted, welcome back… Alpha.”

  CHAPTER 7

  “I think we’re lost.”

  “Shut up Lewis,” James said.

  “I really think we’re lost.”

  “Lewis.” James said, getting a little aggravated.

  “Huh, I wonder how you get lost in space, oh right. It’s huge!”

  “Lewis!” James shouted.

  Mark elbowed Lewis to make him be quiet.

  “Ok seriously where are we, the ship is going, well, who knows how fast, and anyway, we don’t even know where we’re going either!” Lewis argued.

  “I’m still working on trying to find a way back to Earth, but I have no idea what these controls mean,” James said.

  The Jupitain fighter was speeding through space, a blue trail of fire fuming from the engine booster, which meant that they were going as fast as the speed of light; the slowest level of I-Hypotonic travel.

  “This really sucks, all those aliens we left behind. They don’t stand a chance.” Lewis sighed.

  “Don’t think about that right now,” James said. “Just stay focused on our situation. The fact that a Jupitain warship got that close to the middle belt… its frightening.”

  “I wonder how Imp and Claire are doing,” Mark said.

  “If they’re even still alive,” Lewis replied dreadfully.

  “Mark punch Lewis in the face for me,” James said from the control chair.

  “Wait, guys, w-what’s that dot over there?” Lewis asked.

  James was starting to get the hang of the Jupitain ship; he pressed two fingers against the view window and zoomed in. Jupiter.

  “Um guys, we’ve got a problem,” James said.

  Lewis saw what he was talking about before he said it. “Aw no, no no no! Why that, out of all the places in the solar system, this stupid rust bucket-chooses Jupiter?!”

  “It has a huge hangar in the middle of it, or at least that’s what it looks like.” James squinted at it.

  “Wait so this thing is taking us to Jupiter, and we can’t do anything about it?” Mark asked.

  “Guys, what’s that in the hangar?” James asked.

  “Um, ships?” Lewis answered sarcastically.

  “No, that giant one in particular…” James pointed at it.

  Lewis and Mark looked out of the view window. A single mothership, which looked like all the other Jupitain frigates, but was half the size of Earth. Gigantium-class.

  “Something big is going on,” Mark whispered.

  Lewis didn’t have any jokes to say about that. He was too stunned.

  “That thing is big enough to crack Earth by tapping it.” James gasped.

  “I can’t believe a hangar this size was just made inside of this gas giant; the atmosphere should have crushed it,” Mark said.

  “Well it didn’t, and we’re headed straight for it,” James said, getting nervous.

  “It must be shielded…” Lewis concluded.

  “Guys,” Mark said, “It’s not just a hangar, it’s a fortress.”

  James looked closer. Dozens of Jupitain warships were orbiting Jupiter, enough to tear through the middle asteroid belt’s defenses.

  “This is… this is really really bad,” James said, dread in his voice.

  “Really? I didn’t notice,” Lewis remarked.

  “Hide, hide!” Mark yelled.

  “Where!? I don’t even have leg room!” Lewis shouted.

  “Not you, I mean the ship!” Mark butted back, “James… do something!”

  “Like what?! It’s on auto-pilot, remember?” James snapped.

  “Then get it out of auto-pilot then,” Lewis mumbled grumpily, still squished.

  The ship was approaching its destination, and it was right next to the ginormous half-shark tooth bow of the Jupitain mothership. The fighter landed, and didn’t attract much attention, Jupitain soldiers just walked right by it, it was one of theirs.

  “So, what do you guys think, should we go out there and surrender?” Mark asked, not giving any hopeful options.

  “No, last time the Jupitains would have killed us if it wasn’t for that blue guy, we’re stuck,” James replied.

  “Could we fly out?” Lewis asked.

  Tap, tap.

  “Open!” A Jupitain growled from outside of the ship.

  “Crap,” Lewis whispered.

  “I know how to deal with this; I’ll be right back.” James grabbed a small laser pistol from the fighter’s safety equipment compartment on his way out.

  “I said…”

  Pzzcch! James tore the visor off the Jupitain with both hands. It was hard to do because the visor was attached to the Dark matter like super glue, but he managed to rip it off and scramble back inside the fighter before anyone noticed.

  “I got the visor!” James whispered loudly.

  “Ok, so what
do we need it for exactly?” Mark asked.

  “Well my theory is that since the visors are on all the Jupitains, maybe if I wear one, they’ll think I’m one of them,” James said.

  Lewis blinked. “That’s stupid,” he said, loudly.

  “Call it what you want, but this is our only option, it could work…” James said.

  “But what if you put it on and it starts to control you?” Mark asked.

  “It won’t cause I’m not made of that goo… well, probably won’t. Face it, we need to get out of here, and by doing this, I can get us a new ship.”

  He tapped the Jupitain control pad one last time to see if it would work, but it just continued to glow blue.

  “Well, see you guys soon. I hope.” James put on the visor and walked outside. When he put it on, everywhere he looked was red, and even though the mind control feature seemed to be off, the targeting systems still worked.

  There he was, wearing a white uniform with a black rag on top of it. He had scratched out the Earth symbol before leaving the fighter. James was walking through the hangar, his plan working perfectly, looking for an empty ship to get back to Earth until he saw something he couldn’t believe at first.

  A human.

  This is where they took them? James thought to himself.

  The man was white; he looked calm and was wearing a black and red uniform, and the same red glowing visor. He was armed with a sleek, Cyrisian-grade laser rifle, standing his post by a hallway.

  “Attention all organic personnel, a matter leak has occurred in the Modular-Replicator, all organic personnel need to proceed to the hatchery for matter clean up!” the intercom roared from above.

  “Well, guess that’s us,” He smiled, “Wanna walk to the objective with me?”

  James looked at him like he had just exploded. Was he… happy? The man started to walk into the nearby hallway, and James jogged after him, trying to act casual.

  “Wait, what’s the Modular… thing?”

  “Excuse me?”

  James remembered that all the humans here had been imprisoned for nine years.

  “I mean-w-oh no, not another matter leak… oh uh.”