United We Stand

by Christian Messe

  Abigail cursed and shot off two Jupitains amidst the chaos. She was sweating, and getting overwhelmed, but then, she saw… him.

  Imp moved through the horde, armed with a laser pistol, and shooting one handed at the enemy, without any concern of being shot. He moved calm and smoothly, the visor perfecting his combat skills. He shot an alien through the forehead. The alien next to him screamed.

  “Nooo!” He knelt down next to him, “Damn it Neflim!” He saw his forehead wound and knew it would be hopeless to try and save him. The man shouted angrily and took position above the fighter. He sprayed bolts of energy into the crowd of Jupitains; anger fueling his fight. Jupitains fell in rows, visors exploding. The alien inspired others, and people started to shout simultaneously, and jump over the fighter wall, or rush through the hole made by the laser launcher.

  People started to cut through the Jupitains, and make some ground. The Jupitain with the laser launcher fired again and blew a crowd of people away, but they kept advancing.

  Abigail couldn’t tell for sure since there was a visor covering his eyes, but the rest of him, his face, his features. It was all him. It was all Imp. Through the sound of laser fire and explosions, Abigail shouted as loud as she could, “Imptanius!!”

  Imp paused, for a brief second, and lowered his gun. He kept his guard down, just for a second. He looked up at Abigail, and briefly, the visor lost control. He stood there, just looking at her, expressionless. It was long enough for someone to hurl an energy pulse grenade into the crowd of Jupitains. It surged, and exploded, sending sparks everywhere. Imp flew backwards, along with some of the Jupitains. Others were disintegrated.

  The alien that had thrown the grenade dived back into cover, Jupitains now targeting him. An alien next to him asked jokingly, “You couldn’t have found those five minutes ago?”

  The Jupitains started to gain the upper hand again and were beginning to advance towards the hole blown through the wall of fighters. Then, yelling echoed through the hangar entrance, and Lewis came in from behind the Jupitains, flying in on a hover speeder, shooting through the back of the Jupitain’s heads, trying to hit their visors. People from the bridge spilled in, shouting battle cries and tackling Jupitains from behind.

  The Jupitains had to fight on two fronts now, and they were being shot at without cover from two sides. They were overwhelmed almost immediately. The Jupitains had to stop their advance to protect themselves from behind, and then were shot in the back anyway. Imp sat up and looked around all the chaos that was surrounding him. He watched Jupitains fall to the ground and turn into puddles of goo. He heard the shouts of injured aliens, and battle cries. His visor was cracked and was emitting static sound. It wasn’t controlling him anymore; it was too damaged.

  He pulled it off, sweat pouring down his face. He looked at it, a giant crack down the middle from the impact of the grenade. He dropped it and tried to sit up, but everything around him was too overwhelming to take it. The explosions, the fighting. The colors. He got up, hands on his knees, panting. Then, Lewis hit him over the head with the butt of his laser rifle. Imp fell on his back, eyes closed, moaning. Lewis went from angry to surprised in less than a second.

  “Oh my God, Imp?!” He yelled. He jumped off of his speeder and held him, “I-I thought you were dead, what the hell are you doing here?!”

  Imp couldn’t speak. He tried to say something, but everything was just so… overwhelming. This was the first time he had his own conscience, in, he didn’t know how long.

  Lewis dragged him out of the hangar, passing the advancing aliens. They fought relentlessly, charging and shouting. The Jupitains became surrounded until the aliens started to pick them off one by one until there were none left. Dark matter covered the hangar floor, so did debris, and the blood of the aliens who had fought to protect the mission.

  They had won, but nobody was celebrating. They had lost too many people. Abigail wasn’t fazed by the battle though, all she cared about at the moment, was Imp. She jumped off the Jupitain fighter and ran towards where Lewis had dragged him. She stopped next to them, breathing heavily. Lewis was talking to Imp, trying to get information out of him. He turned his head slowly and looked at Abigail.

  He coughed, and whispered, “Abigail…” Then his head rolled, and he fell asleep. Lewis looked at him for a second, confused, then looked at Abigail.

  “You two know each other?” He asked.

  Abigail was quiet for a second, then said, “I-I don’t know. I, I just remember his face. His name. It’s so clear in my head but… I-I can’t remember who he is… or what he did, but I feel like I know him.”

  Lewis blinked, “Well, that’s… weird, but we have a problem. Karalus must’ve taken over his brain after he abducted me and the rest of my old crew, but I don’t know why he would’ve needed him, other than the fact that he’s Martian, or Kelisian or whatever,” Lewis stood up, “Anyway, since he’s not under Karalus’s control anymore… he’ll know that the attack failed and that something went wrong, then he’ll blow this ship up.”

  “What if… what if we put another visor on him, and had him check in with Karalus to tell him everything’s ok?”

  Lewis thought for a second, “That could work, but how do we know he’ll buy it? This guy hacked into the Jupitain’s control system and took the entire army for himself. The man’s not an idiot.”

  “Ok, but it’s the only option we have. We can hail him on the bridge to show he’s taken control, and that everything’s fine,” Abigail said.

  “Ok, but how are we gonna wake him up?” Lewis asked.

  Abigail shrugged, “A doctor? There’s gotta be some kind of medication that can wake him.”

  Lewis walked into the main hangar. Everyone was either hugging each other, attending an injured alien or laying against something, resting, “Listen up everybody, is anyone in here a doctor or something… or someone who’s familiar with medicine?”

  An alien slowly got to his feet. He was a little chubby around the waist, and had dark red skin, with a fat looking face. He had been talking to another alien, “I used to be a chem trader, best substicides in the Nefulide Quadrant… some of the stuff I sold were medicines,” He answered back.

  “Alright, that’ll do, follow me,” Lewis said, pretending like he knew what that meant. The alien nodded and followed behind.

  Lewis lifted Imp by his arms, while Abigail took his legs. They picked him up and started to take him to the med bay.

  “What’s going on here?” The alien asked. He looked at Imp, who was wearing clothes that visor controlled organisms wore. Black, high tech, sleek looking armaments, “You want me to fix this, this Demon sider? This traitor?” He asked.

  “Not a traitor, he was a friend of mine, ours,” He looked at Abigail, “He was kidnapped by Karalus, forced to do his dirty work, I guess. We were hoping you could find something that’ll wake him up, with a lot of energy too, so that he can talk. Basically, make him sober.”

  “Ok, ok,” The alien said, “I can do that, but you owe us all an explanation after this. My name’s Samung, by the way.”

  “Lewis,” Lewis said, “Over there’s Abigail.”

  Abigail didn’t acknowledge him; she just looked at Imp.

  They reached the med bay and set Imp on a hard metal table. It was meant for prisoners, not crew. Samung looked through medical compartments, most of what he found were poisons, or biological torture chemicals used in the early days for Jupitains to get important prisoners to spill critical information.

  “Found something!” Samung said excitedly, “This stuff is called Nexcieventum, it overloads the body’s blood cells and nervous system increasing awareness and energy, for a variety of uses, from faster brain activity to improved sexual performance.”

  “Ok, enough explaining, just put it in him,” Lewis said.

  Samung put the vial into a sleek, high tech looking needle, and put it into Imp’s arm. He winced, then breathed out loudly. It took two seconds for him to sit
up abruptly, and look around frantically, “No no no!! Don’t do, don’t- who… where… Lewis!?” The two of them were hardly close, but Lewis was the only one Imp had really talked to on the asteroid clearing ship.

  Imp jumped off the medical ‘bed,’ and hugged Lewis. Standing up straight, he was over a foot taller than him, “I-I thought he killed you. He said he did… he said you were dead…”

  “I… I thought you were too, how, why were you wearing a visor, why were you fighting alongside the Jupitains?”

  Imp’s smile faded quickly. Memories started to stream into his head. He let go of Lewis and sat back down. “I-I killed, I killed people… hundreds of people.” Innocent people. He shed a tear.

  “Whoa now, that’s not your fault!” Lewis said, “You were forced to, that visor, it took control of you; there’s nothing you could have done.”

  “I still did it though,” Imp said, “Nothing changes that.”

  “Imptanius…” Abigail said, “I, I feel like I know you… or, did, know you. I just… I just can’t remember exactly, who you are, or how I remember your name.”

  Imp was hit with a feeling of fear, and relief at the same time, like he was glad she didn’t remember him, “You… you were a refugee we picked up, from an old Martian facility. Not my kind but, the ones that inhabited Mars before us… They abducted you from Earth years ago, we found you in an abandoned facility, kept alive in a cryogenic pod. You left because you didn’t want to sit by and watch as the E6s ravaged the Galaxy. You were disgusted, so you left to, to help,” He lied. He only told her half the truth. The truth that they were once a couple, and had gone to Earth together to attempt to free it from the Jupitains themselves.

  He didn’t want her to know. He didn’t want to make her ashamed of him. He gazed at her, longingly, and noticed how it looked like she hadn’t aged since 2027.

  “Oh,” she said, like she was expecting something different.

  “Sorry to say that that doesn’t matter right now,” Lewis said, “Karalus is waiting for a report back from you, to see how the attack on our warship went, and if you don’t answer soon he’ll have no choice but to blow us into oblivion. That means we need to find you another visor and have you hail Karalus from the bridge, saying everything’s ok.”

  “What?! No, no no no I-I can’t put on another visor! Not again! Not after what it made me do!” Imp said frantically.

  “Imp I don’t have time to explain, but right now the fate of the entire Galaxy is at stake. Karalus is going to destroy everything just because of his hatred of your kind. This, this is the only way.”

  Imp was panting.

  “We’ll be there, we’ll take it off if anything goes wrong, I swear,” Lewis said. He looked Imp in the eyes.

  “Ok,” Imp said, his mouth dry. “Ok, I’ll do it.”

  “Samung, I’m gonna need you to find a perfect conditioned visor, they're littering the place, meet us at the bridge when you find one.”

  “You got it, boss,” he said. He left the room, walking quickly.

  “Boss,” Lewis repeated quietly. He grabbed his shirt collar, self-absorbed for a second. “I like the sound of that,” he looked at Imp and Abigail, “Alright people, let’s move.”

  “You couldn’t even play checkers last time I saw you, now you’ve taken charge of a crew of strangers,” Imp smirked.

  “Amazing what you can do when your life depends on it,” Lewis said. They started for the bridge. Imp watched Abigail, who was staring at the ground while she walked, arms crossed. She couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more than what Imp told her.

  When they reached the hangar, The Jupitain fleet was speeding up. They had destroyed the entire asteroid belt defense, that had been lined with over a hundred bases.

  “God…” Lewis said openmouthed. Debris floated aimlessly in every direction, banging against Jupitain warships.

  “Captain, the Demons are starting to speed up, I’ve kept up with them for this long without any complication, but they’re not going fast enough to reach the star in even twenty-four hours… they’re not going after it for some reason,” said Reverend.

  Karalus’s fleet was going really fast now, and they passed the asteroid belt completely, but they weren’t going fast enough to reach the sun anytime soon.

  “What’s your game Karalus?” Lewis asked himself, “Reverend.”

  Reverend turned around, “Yes sir?”

  “I’m gonna need you to hide, at least under the controls or something. We’re gonna hail Karalus.”

  “Hail Karalus?!?” Reverend repeated, stunned.

  “Don’t worry, it’s all part of the plan,” Lewis assured him, “Imp, while he’s talking, don’t act like anything’s out of the ordinary, talk calmly, you Mar- Kelisians are good at that, pretend you’re still under his control.”

  “How’d you know about Kelisian?! That’s a national secret…” Imp sighed, “Ok… whatever, let’s do this.”

  Samung rushed in with a visor, “Found one,” he said enthusiastically. He gave it to Imp, “Good luck buddy, we’re counting on you,” He hit his shoulder, friendly.

  “Ok everybody, hide somewhere,” Lewis said.

  Samung and Reverend hid under the bridge, in the control area. Lewis and Abigail hid behind two thick metal support beams. They were hidden from the hail camera.

  Imp took a deep breath and put the visor on while exhaling. He didn’t hail Karalus yet. He had to make sure it wouldn’t take control of him. He skipped the ‘new Jupitain presentation’ by willing it so with his mind, and the visor went to its regular function.

  His vision was enhanced, and he had a targeting system. It scanned for heat signatures and analyzed Samung and Reverend while they were under the bridge floor. It could scan through walls, he remembered. It did everything it was supposed to, but he wasn’t forced to do anything. He had free will.

  “All good,” he said, “Hailing in three… two…”

  Lewis gulped.

  “One.”

  Imp pressed a button on the control pad, and the screen went from clear glass, showing the Jupitain fleet, to pitch black. Then, it whizzed, and the broad smiling face of Karalus appeared.

  “My Kelisian killer…” He smiled, “You have no idea how thrilled I am, the entire belt destroyed without losing a single ship, and the entire United World’s fleet in one place, defending Mars… everything, is going according to plan,” he said it insanely, like the excitement from finally accomplishing his goal was overwhelming him, “Anyway, how’d the… inspection go? What was the problem?”

  Imp tried to talk in the deepest voice possible, “Sir, the ship was hijacked by a group of rebels before it’s departure from its base. They were overrun,” He paused, “They were trying to get into a position to sabotage the fleet, but we apprehended them before they could do any damage.”

  Karalus paused for a second, raising an eyebrow, then responded, “Rebels? Thought I took care of that scum a long time ago, but of course, there are always a few pockets showing up here and there,” Karalus’s smile faded. “They tried to mess with my fleet? I hope you killed every last one of them… even though death is too merciful of a punishment when it comes to plotting against me.”

  Lewis clenched his fists.

  “Kelisian I want you back to my ship immediately, I need you to be on the front lines for my invasion of Mars. They built a city. Can you believe it? A whole city, under their Mothership to celebrate the unification of humans and Kelisians, it’s kind of funny actually. Unification. Your scum of a species lies right through their teeth every word they say. I’m going to burn that city to the ground, and then every city on that other rock before I make my final move onto their star. The remaining Kelisians will watch, watch as I fly into their last controlled star, and blow the entire Galaxy into nothing with it. Watch, as I destroy everything they ever stood for, everything they ever were. I will clean the universe of their scum, their lies… their very existence.”

 
He laughed a little, “Oh, and tell ‘Red’ to say hello to that Heavy fellow for me, will you? Lewis Blake.”

  Imp gaped. Shocked. The screen went dark, and cleared, revealing the view of the fleet again. Every Jupitain warship nearby was aiming their laser cannons at the ship.

  Lewis leaped from cover, “Dammit!” He yelled. He took the controls, “How the hell did he know we were here?! Brace yourselves everybody!”

  “We’re gonna die, we’re gonna die, we’re gonna die!” Samung climbed out of the lower controls, “There’s no way we get out of this!” His cheery personality had disappeared.

  “Keep your shit together, I got this!” Lewis yelled, “I hope.” He strapped into the control chair and slammed the control panel, adjusting everything he could. “Buckle up everybody!” He tapped into the ship’s intercom, “Attention crew, our ship will be experiencing heavy firepower, everybody hold on to something, it’s gonna be a rough flight!” He let go of the intercom button and set the shields up to full power.

  The Jupitain warships unloaded their full wrath on the hijacked one, shooting every cannon in their arsenal. The sound of Ion cannon clicks echoed through space. Click click click… booom, sounded repeatedly. The constant drum of laser cannon fire was all anyone could hear, besides the roar of the warship’s engine. The shields went from ninety-eight percent to forty in less than two seconds.

  “Lewis you better have a plan!” Abigail shouted.

  He didn’t respond; he kept flying the warship. He made it turn towards the fleet, and fly directly towards it. He groaned angrily, each surge of energy from Jupitain canons making the ship shake. He turned the ship sideways at the last second before it could collide with the other Jupitain warship, and flew under it, while above another.

  He was flying between the middle of the fleet. The Jupitain warships couldn’t fire at them without hitting their own forces. They did anyway. They made a few hits, but most went past their target and hit another warship under or above it.

  Lewis kept moving the ship. If they stood still, they would be instantly obliterated. He maneuvered past dozens of warships, laser fire just barely missing them and hitting other ships.