United We Stand

by Christian Messe

  “You know, you’re not like the usual kind of people we tend to pick up,” Ullen gave a stiff smirk, “Maybe it’s just the less understanding of the situation but, you’re willing to risk your life for a cause you just heard about.”

  “Any other options?” Douglas asked.

  “Heh,” Ullen chuckled, “Nope.”

  The pod had reached its destination the second it disappeared. They were hovering towards a new fleet of ships, all of them looked different, each had things that made them unique. The largest ship, in the center, had a huge Tempest cannon at the bottom of its hull. The Tempest cannon was a type of laser weapon that charged up into a ball at the tip of the barrel, until it had amassed so much energy that it would burst into the target as a stream of energy, obliterating most types of shields and armors with ease, the only problem was the long charge up time.

  Ullen sighed, “Time for our new mission.”

  Douglas stared at the fleet, which was soon going to be his new life. He wasn’t just fighting for America anymore. He was fighting for the Galaxy.

  CHAPTER 16

  “All the people out here, and the only ones who can help us are drug dealers? What kind of drugs are even sold in space? That must be a huge industry out here…”

  “You’re getting off topic Claire,” The Queen said. She sat on the left side of the cockpit, flying the Royal Fighter out of the Lore’s gate. Claire sat on the right, officially holding a temporary title as the Queen’s bodyguard, “These people are yes, criminals, but they make deals, and stick with them. If we trade something valuable, then they’ll give us their services, in this case. Fighters.”

  There were four other Lore ships following the Queen’s, and they were in a diamond formation, “These are all of the ships your bringing?” Claire asked.

  “Those are all the ships we have left,” The Queen grimaced.

  “Oh… great. So you're hoping that they think you guys are still the all-powerful Lore, and not completely crippled.”

  “Yes, that’s the plan,” The Queen replied.

  She activated the ship’s communication panel and spoke in its direction, “We’re in position Commander Holft, launch the portal generators.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” A deep voice replied. The Commander’s ship, and the three others the Lore had left, each had their own sets of portal generators. The Queen decided to bring them all, just in case. The Commander’s ship launched the cubes into space, and they fired their own engines, one going up, the other down. They stopped a few meters above each other, and fired a laser beam at each other, the energy colliding in the middle. It amassed into a giant portal.

  “That’s gonna keep amazing me,” Claire said, with awe.

  The Queen smirked. The two cubes deactivated, then flew back into their cannon’s barrels. The four ships flew through the portal, and into deep space, leaving the Milky Way. They reached the other side of the portal in an instant. Claire saw their destination, and it wasn’t like what she had imagined. It was beautiful. A giant space station, with a massive, curved shaped, citadel looking tower in the middle, with a ship dock in front of it, and a giant holding deck behind it, roughly the width of ten aircraft carriers. A big duel barreled Ion cannon was positioned there as well, to keep guard of the ships.

  “Those are the ships we need,” The Queen pointed at the ship bay. It was lined with advanced spaceships, but the difference between them, and a regular fighter was that these spacecraft had the mechanics of a bomber, and a fighter, rolled into one. They were large, technological monstrosities, called GT-67s.

  Each wing, one on each side, were fifty feet long and were shaped like any other plane’s wings. Each of these ships had high-powered laser turrets mounted on the top of their hulls, above the cockpit, with a gunner position in the middle of the hull, armed with dual laser Gatling guns.

  On the bottoms of the ships were large holding compartments, filled to the brim with rapid-chain reaction explosives, that could cripple almost any warship they came into contact with, shields and all. The ships were all painted dark grey, with a little half circle decal on the left side of their cockpits — the Ghourses’s symbol.

  The ship bay also had dozens of other fighters, owned by the drug dealers as their official spacecraft. They looked like United States F-22 Raptors, but they were much sleeker and more advanced looking. They were painted white and there was a streak of light that glowed blue on the bottom of the fighter. The streak went from the bottom tip of the cockpit to the bottom of the ship’s two engines.

  “Shouldn’t the outpost of a drug dealer be… I dunno, a little more shady, run down?” Claire asked, “Not in the middle of space, completely unhidden.”

  “They have… many, many friends in this system, who protect them in inter-systemary policies, and, there isn’t a supreme constituted authority ruling this part of their galaxy, which means he has free rein. Trust me; he’s indestructible.”

  “And how do you know this guy?” Claire asked.

  “He helped us retreat from this system, during the colonization attempt. In exchange for Gold matter.”

  As the Lore ships got closer to the docking bay, the duel Ion cannon kept aim at the approaching ships, but the Citadel recognized who they were.

  The Queen’s ship landed in the center of the docking bay, held from the void of space by an energy shield that blocked it out. Two Lore fighters positioned themselves on both sides of the Queen’s ship.

  The Queen stared blankly outside of the cockpit window.

  “What is it?” Claire asked.

  She sighed, “I’m putting the legacy of the Lore, into the hands of drug dealers, that I can’t even trust… It’s a disgrace to what we are, what we stand for.”

  Claire put her hand on the Queen’s shoulder. She had no idea how to comfort that, “Hey, it’s okay, nobody could’ve held against an attack like that, not even the United Worlds. Besides, I have the strongest weapon in; I guess the universe, attached to my arm right now, there’s no way this goes south.”

  “Don’t tell them you have it; say it’s a prosthetic,” The Queen said quietly.

  “Why?”

  “They’ll kill you on sight…”

  “They can’t kill me; I’m too…” Claire couldn’t finish her sentence.

  There was a woman on the opposite side of the hangar, walking towards them. She was in heels, and had white skin… a human. She was wearing a red, high tech, advanced looking top, skintight, a black line running through the middle. She had a red skirt also, it was long, and showed every curve. She stopped in front of the ships, and waited there, patiently, holding an advanced holo-pad device. No one was there with her. The hangar looked empty.

  “If they ask you about yourself, just say that you're my bodyguard and that your hand can only turn into that laser cannon you were using. If they figure out that you’re a Meta-Gene, this whole plan will be ruined.”

  “Well, then why don’t I go marching in there with my freakin’ minigun, or tank that I can literally think into existence?”

  “Because the last thing anyone in the universe wants is for another Meta-Gene to go rogue, to kill innocents without reason. I know you don’t know about the Fallen Empire, but I’ll just tell you that a Meta-Gene like you went rogue, and killed hundreds of billions, something remotely close to that ever happens again, and the forces of the universe will attempt to hunt you down into obliteration.”

  Claire sat there, stunned, “Guess that’s a good reason then.”

  The Queen and Claire stepped onto the boarding ramp. It lowered itself and hit the ground with a subtle clunk. A few Lore soldiers and pilots followed. Commander Holft and a few others stayed in their fighters, to watch the ships.

  The woman looked at them, expressionless. She tapped a few buttons on her tablet and looked up to address them, giving an obviously fake, and weak smile, “The Imistice has been expecting you.”

  The Queen’s blood ran cold, “What do you mean, expecting? We
came without any alert to you.”

  “The Imistice knows when all shall arrive,” She gave another weak smile, like that was something she was forced to say.

  The Queen gave a subtle sigh of relief. It was just an ego thing, they didn’t know that the Lore had been attacked.

  “Please, right this way…” The woman gestured for them to follow her. She led them out of the hangar and through a wide hallway. People passed by, all of them were species Claire had never seen before. Most of them looked like scientists. They wore techno looking lab coats, with a patch over the left pocket that read in small letters; Infinity.

  Some were pushing hover tables, with strange plants that looked like they had mutated from a nuclear winter for a couple of centuries. Some were glowing. Other scientist carried vials of chemicals or more tablets.

  They came to the end of the hallway, to a large doorway. The woman put her hand on a DNA scanner, and the sleek white doors opened, quietly and majestically. In the center of the room, was a long and smooth looking desk, and a humanoid looking figure sitting in a chair behind the middle of it. He had his feet on his desk and was slouching in the chair.

  “I present to you, the Imistice... legend of the Universe,” The secretary woman said, a little dramatic.

  His skin was blue, and he had black hair, cut into a short Mohawk. He was also wearing patrolman cop-type sunglasses, and his face had the details of... stars. Bright specks of dust and light, like a picture of the constellations, only it was all on his face.

  There were two guards, carrying laser rifles, and had advanced looking battle armor on, with flight helmets and pitch black deflector glass where their eyes would be. The armor was black and dark blue, unusual for such a pure looking place.

  He gave them a broad smile and said, “Welcome! Welcome! Please, have a seat I insist, don’t want to keep the ruler of the Lore standing up like that, no. No, no, no,” he said it fast, like a businessman going door to door, trying to say everything before he got denied.

  The Queen sat on the opposite side of the desk. Claire awkwardly did the same in the other seat.

  “So, what brings her majesty all this way, to see me?” He asked.

  “I’m willing to make a deal. I have something you would find most valuable.”

  “I’m listening,” The man sat up and put his hand on his chin.

  “I know you have a brand-new fleet of GT-67s, from the Ghourse, advanced, and highly maneuverable… I want to buy them, for study purposes only, to advance my fleet.”

  “Why? So you can try to take over the system again?” He asked in a severe tone.

  The Queen went silent.

  The man smirked, then suddenly started to burst out laughing, “Aye… I’m just messing with you, little joke that’s all… however, um, why do you need all of them?”

  The Queen answered calmly, “So that we can study different parts of the ship intensely, at the same time.”

  “Interesting, so you're telling me that you don’t have a type of scanner that can say… look at every part of the ship at the same time? Because if you can afford all of my new ships, then you can definitely afford a piece of junk like that.”

  Before the Queen could answer, he asked another question, “Who’s she? I’ve never seen her before.”

  “I’m her bodyguard,” Claire said automatically.

  The man blinked, “Bodyguard? You look like you just went through the Avens orientation process.”

  The Lore body armor that the Queen had given Claire didn’t cover her face. She had dried blood on her forehead, and bruises everywhere. Her clean, and smooth blond hair was a mess.

  “What do you take me for? I have eyes… she’s no Lore special ops or soldier. She’s just some girl,” He looked down at her Meta-Core hand, “What? Lose your hand in the process too?” He sighed, “You know, I have a lie detector right here,” He pointed at his eye, “I can sense when someone isn’t telling me the truth. How do you think I got all of this?” He gestured at the room they were in with both hands, “So tell me everything you're leaving out, or I’ll find the truth… myself.”

  The Queen looked at him in the eyes, “We are telling you the truth. All of it.”

  The man didn’t look calm anymore; he looked angry, frowning menacingly. He pulled a bulky, and clunky laser revolver out from his pants holster, and aimed it at the Queen’s head.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  The Lore soldiers aimed their rifles at the man, and the man’s guards pointed their guns at the soldiers.

  “I’m telling you the truth Infinity,” she said, in angry desperation, she knew that she wasn’t, but it was for the right reasons.

  “I saw the faint zap from here, a speck, but I saw it! We all saw it! You have nothing. No fleet, no power…” He cocked his revolver with his thumb, “And no escape.”

  He fired, and in the microseconds of the energy leaving the barrel, Claire’s Meta-Core acted on its own, faster than she could even think. It launched the tiniest piece of metal, at a speed so quick that it intercepted the laser bolt just at the right microsecond, and dissipated the energy, flying into the wall, and staying engraved in it from the force of the launch, just like what had happened on the operation table on Karalus’s ship.

  Infinity sat there, stunned. Everyone was too shocked to be firing, “Meta-Gene!!” Infinity shouted, ear-piercingly loud. At that, the Lore soldiers fired, and Infinity dove under his desk to avoid the shots. The woman behind them pulled out a small dagger from her skirt and stabbed one of the soldiers in the neck. He went down, and Claire saw her before the woman could kill her too.

  Claire turned her hand into her regular laser cannon and fired a few shots at her. She dove to the ground, did a front flip and kicked Claire in the face with the side of her heel, causing her to bleed. Claire wiped the blood angrily and punched the woman in the face with her Meta-Core fist. The punch sent the woman flying backwards into the wall.

  The two guards fired at them, but the Queen made a shield with her Meta-Core staff. She made a hole in the middle and transformed the gap to be a laser cannon. She hit both the guards in the stomach and then sprinted for the exit. Claire and the other soldier followed after her.

  Emergency exit doors started to slam into the ground, blocking the hallway. Claire transformed her Meta-Core and blasted away a hole in one of the doors, but another one closed behind it.

  “This way!” The Queen shouted. She went through a door on the side of the hallway, leading to a laboratory. The Queen and the guard followed her. They ran past hover tables, all with strange vials and exotic plants on them. Scientists and workers shouted, and jumped out of the way as they ran. Two of Infinity’s henchmen followed behind them. One stopped and started to fire his laser rifle at them. Streaks of energy whizzed by Claire, hitting close by. She grabbed one of the hover tables with her Meta-Core hand and threw it down sideways to block the bullets.

  The vials filled with seemingly hundreds of different chemicals fell and spilled onto the floor. The Queen jumped over the table, and the guard went around. The one henchmen that didn’t stop leaped over the table, barely reacting to the spilled chemicals. He sprinted and grabbed the guard by the back of his collar, and slammed him into the ground.

  The Queen turned around, grunted, and fired a burst of energy at the henchman with her staff, sending him flying backward into the table. The guard stumbled up and started to inch a little further before he was shot in the back. He fell to the floor, dead. One of the workers screamed.

  The Queen was about to fight some more to avenge her guard, but two more workers, armed with laser rifles, and outfitted with heavy high tech battle gear came through the labs after them, forcing her to turn around. Claire and the Queen ran out through one of the side doors and were back in the main hallway.

  “Your Highness, what’s going on over there?” The voice of Commander Holft buzzed from a transmitter on the Queen’s arm.

  “Commander get out of here!
It’s a trap; I repeat it’s a…”

  Commander Holft’s fighter exploded, hurling debris everywhere, hitting other ships. A laser cannon attached to the top of the hangar was raining down fire on the docked ships. It fired at the Queen’s, destroying it. The wings flew from the ruined hull. Before the cannon could destroy the last ship, Claire shot through one of the cannon’s barrels and blew it up. The other was destabilized from the blast, and forced in a locked position, sparks of energy whizzing from its turret.

  “Commander? Commander Holft can you hear me?!” The Queen yelled, frantically.

  Suddenly, a large locking mechanism clinked and snapped, and a huge metal gate started to cover the exit to the hangar. The Queen and Claire watched as it closed, while the woman that they met when they had first landed strolled slowly towards them, twenty fully armored soldiers behind her, all carrying laser rifles.

  She smirked, an evil, menacing smirk, “You thought it would be easy? Just take what you want, and everything would be fine. You should have learned the first time that that never works. Now… your legacy comes to an end.”

  The Queen didn’t even flinch when the soldiers aimed their rifles, “I’m going to make a run for that fighter… you, distract them,” She whispered.

  Claire was about to ask a question, but the Queen broke into a full sprint towards the fighter.

  “Kill them!!” The woman screamed. The soldiers started firing non-stop at Claire since she didn’t run. She reacted quickly, forming a shield into the ground, big enough to cover her entire body. She grunted as the shots zigzagged, and rippled off her shield, or dissipated on it. She didn’t know how strong her Meta-Core hand was, but so far she was able to lift anything with one hand and keep the shield stable. One of the soldiers made a gesture for them to move up. They continued firing, but five of them started to advance slowly towards Claire.

  The Queen took off, and sped out of the hangar before the door could close, leaving Claire alone.

  The soldiers advanced slowly, firing as they took careful steps to try and flank her. She wasn’t going to let that happen. Two soldiers, one on each side of her almost had a clear shot. She transformed the sides of her shield into small laser cannons. They fired one shot simultaneously, sending each guard flying backward from the blasts. Another stopped advancing slowly and got dangerously close. The two cannons slid to the middle of the shield, and slammed into each other, combining to form into one large laser cannon. It fired a surge of energy at the guard, sending him flying backwards.