United We Stand

by Christian Messe

  “How are you missing?!” Karalus screamed, losing his temper, “It’s over a thousand to one!! Scramble the fighters! Don’t let that scum live!”

  “We got company!” Samung yelled. Over two hundred Jupitain fighters started to fly towards their ship.

  Lewis cursed. He didn’t fire any weapons, but instead sped up. He kept maneuvering between warship after warship, trying to stay close enough so that they weren’t too easy of a shot.

  “We have to get out of here!” Reverend yelled, “Can we make an I-Hypotonic jump!?”

  “No, we’ve taken too much damage…” Lewis started. Booom! An Ion burst hit the last of the shield, causing it to disperse and break.

  “That was the last of our shields!” Abigail yelled.

  “We need to deploy every kinetic surge missile towards the back of the ship!” Reverend yelled.

  “I have no idea what the hell those are, but do it!” Lewis screamed.

  Smoke was starting to emit from the back of the ship from constant Jupitain fire. Most shots were missing, but the few that weren’t was enough. To make things worse, Jupitain fighters were starting to reach the warship and were raining down fire.

  Samung and Abigail released every Kinetic surge missile on the ship. They were meant to clear asteroids from an area to clear transportation routes. Twenty of the rockets left the ship but weren’t turned on. Once they left their torpedo tubes, they drifted aimlessly, while the ship sped past them. Once the warship’s engine booster passed them, Abigail set the missiles to blow. They all exploded at the same time.

  Pa-phoooom! They released a colorless surge of energy in every direction, so powerful that it propelled every Jupitain fighter and warship backward, including the one Lewis was piloting.

  The surge blew the warship through space at an incredibly fast speed since the engines were also at full power. They flew past the asteroid belt, and out of range of the Jupitain fleet. Because of the lack of gravity, they kept moving away at the same speed, until they could barely see the fleet anymore. The missiles had also made a giant hole in the Jupitain fleet. The ships had banged into each other, and fighters had slammed into anything nearby, blowing up. Other than a few fighters, Karalus’s fleet was unscathed.

  “Clever,” Karalus said simply to himself, “Keep moving forward. There’s nothing they can do, but ah, just in case. Send five warships after them. I don’t want them coming in from behind to shock us.”

  The Jupitains complied and started to send messages from their visors from the bridge of the mothership.

  “Nothing will get in my way,” Karalus mumbled.

  CHAPTER 18

  “You know how to fly this thing?” James asked Douglas. They were inside the bridge of a docked Jupitain warship. The base had been abandoned since all the Jupitains in it had tried to massacre the village.

  “Yeah, I know how,” He replied, “One of my successful missions with the rebellion, can count all those with my fingers,” He chuckled. “Me and a buddy had to hijack one o’ these buckets to get into a heavily guarded Demon weapons vault. Made it out, barely. Still didn’t make a difference in our odds though, probably just delayed our inevitable destruction.”

  He tapped a few buttons on the control board, and the ship hummed to life. The engine roared, then stabilized, quietly. It was almost peaceful.

  “You two realize that what we’re going into’s gonna be pure hell, right?” Douglas asked.

  “Don’t care,” Mark said, “I just wanna save my home, no matter the cost.”

  “Yeah yeah, that’s what I said,” Douglas rolled his eyes, “But hey, long as there’s hope right?” He chuckled like it was a joke.

  “You don’t have to come with us,” James said.

  “And what kind of a man would I be if I didn’t go? I turned my back on my home, all of em, on my friend’s dying wishes… but I can’t turn my back on trillions. Not something a man can do. A human could do,” Douglas said. He turned to face James and Mark, “Enough with this sentimental shit, let’s get this bucket in the air.”

  Douglas was sitting in the control chair, while James and Mark had taken positions next to him, at different control boards.

  “Now I’ve got flight controls, but James, you’re my co-pilot, and Mark, you’ve got weapon systems. Anyone gets too close before we reach the mothership, give em’ hell.”

  “Yes, sir,” James said automatically. He was used to saying that when someone took charge. “This is for you dad.”

  Mark nodded at Douglas and took the controls. The laser turrets calibrated, and the Ion cannon whizzed to life.

  “Alright cadets,” Douglas joked, he’d been through this too many times to take it seriously, “We’re gonna make an I-Hypotonic jump, move faster than light, and end up somewhere in the fleet. Before they can blow us up, we’ll use an escape pod, and teleport into the mothership’s hangar. There should be some extra visors around here somewhere.”

  “What about our clothes?” James gestured at his rugged United World’s uniform.

  Douglas glanced at it, “That’s in such bad condition a Demon slave could be wearing’ something’ better, we’ll be fine.”

  “Why can’t we just teleport into the mothership from here?” Mark asked.

  “Kid if you want to try and get the coordinates right from this point in space you be my guest, but we’re half a Galaxy away, without any exact idea where the fleet’s ships are except for this very faint energy signal coming from them, so any teleportation from here to there would most likely result in a destabilization in the molecular travel, and our immediate deaths,” Douglas said.

  “You could’ve just said no,” Mark said.

  “I could’ve, but I had to put you in your place,” Douglas said, “Alright people, get ready.”

  The warship lifted from the dock, and into the air. It reached a few thousand feet into the sky, and stopped, hovering.

  He tapped a few buttons on the control board and pulled a few levers. “Coords in, buckle up if you wanna live.”

  James and Marked laughed.

  “No, I’m serious,” Douglas said, “You’ll be fine in the chair, but you’ll probably disintegrate into atoms standing up.”

  James and Mark buckled up abruptly, stunned.

  He pushed the last lever, “Just kidding.”

  The engine roared ear-piercingly loud, and the warship zoomed into space faster than the speed of light.

  “One of you find three visors. We’ll be arriving at the fleet in… about a minute.”

  “A minute?” James said, shocked.

  “Better find those visors quick,” Douglas said calmly.

  James looked through every compartment he could find on the bridge. There weren’t any.

  “I can’t find any!” James yelled.

  “Check the barracks. There’s usually some extras in there. Had to use em’ a few times,” Douglas said.

  James ran over to the barracks and searched around. It was dimly lit, not meant for sleep or comfort, more like, storage. It could house at least a hundred Jupitains, keeping them in individual pods. He found a storage compartment, but it only had two visors in it. He frantically searched the rest of the room, but couldn’t find anything.

  “Hurry up kid!” Douglas shouted from the bridge, “We’ve got twenty seconds!”

  “There’s only two!” James shouted back. He ran back towards the bridge. “What are we gonna do?”

  “Looks like we’re gonna need a prisoner,” Douglas said, like he’d done something like this before, “Now now, which one of us is the least hated by the Demons? I’ll go first. I was a rebel for forty years.”

  “Karalus knows me by name, he talked to me when he took us hostage,” James said.

  Mark sighed, “I guess I was knocked out when Karalus took us… he knows me the least.”

  Douglas took a visor from James, “Looks like we have ourselves a prisoner,” he said. “Here’s how the prisoner game works. Once we board, we
say we’re visor slaves escorting this special high level of importance prisoner to a cell block. When we get past security, we make our way down to the main engine room, and rig it to self-destruct, get out of there, and save the day,” Douglas said. “Cause that’s how it always goes,” He whispered to himself sarcastically.

  “How will we get out?” Mark asked.

  “We’ll set a count down, while everyone’s frantic and all hell’s breaking loose, we’ll sprint for a hangar and get out of there before the thing blows.”

  “We’re here,” James said. The ship whined to a halt next to the fleet, and without hesitation, the three of them ran for the nearest escape pod. Jupitain warships nearby were already aiming their laser turrets at the extremely late ship. Douglas lifted a compartment piece from the floor that turned out to be an escape pod entrance. They climbed in and closed the hatch above them.

  Douglas put in the mothership main hangar’s coordinates, “I calculated this earlier, the thing’s built just like any other Jupitain warship, only about a hundred times bigger. I estimated where the hanger would be based on data from regular Jupitain warships.”

  “What if it’s wrong?” Mark asked.

  Douglas put on a visor, “Then we’ll suffocate inside a thick metal wall,” he said simply.

  “Oh. Great,” Mark said, sarcastically.

  James gulped and put on his visor.

  “Darsakian Holo Warp Transportation sequence started… … please wait,” said the voice of a robotic woman.

  “Oh shut up you stupid thing.” Douglas hit the speaker with his fist. It buzzed, emitting a static sound. After three seconds, energy started to flow around the pod, and it teleported away from the Jupitain warship, just as the others stated to blow it into pieces.

  The pod landed smack in the middle of the mothership’s hangar, and smashed into the ground, dangerously close to another Jupitain fighter.

  “You think we’re in the right place?” James asked.

  “We’re in the right place,” Douglas said, confident in himself. He looked at James’s uniform and pulled off the patch that had the picture of Earth on it. He hadn’t looked at it close enough earlier, “You might’ve well had been wearing a shirt that said kill me now,” Douglas said.

  “Should I take my patch off?” Mark asked.

  “No, you’re a prisoner, remember,” Douglas said, “We don’t have any handcuffs, so just keep your hands behind your back, and we’ll hold your arms, it’ll have to do.”

  Douglas opened the escape pod hatch, and looked out, to see a hundred Jupitains surrounding them.

  Without hesitation, Douglas said, “Do not be alarmed, we are escorting this prisoner, to cell block, B5, for interrogation.”

  One of the Jupitain’s visor’s blinked and turned green. Symbols appeared on Douglas’s visor screen that only he and the Jupitain he was communicating with could see. Douglas could read the symbols fluently.

  The symbols read, “All prisoners were to be terminated, and prisons abandoned.”

  Douglas said back, “This is a special prisoner, one who has critical last minute information that Karalus can use for his campaign.”

  The Jupitains looked at each other, “The prisoner holds valuable information… must inform Alpha himself about valuable information. Come with. Will be escorted to see Alpha.”

  “I assure you, an escort won’t be necessary…”

  “You will be escorted to Alpha via E6 2.7 soldiers. Argument… … Denied.”

  “Damn it,” Douglas murmured.

  Twenty Jupitains waited at the exit of the escape pod to escort them to Karalus.

  “This is gonna, complicate things,” Douglas said to James and Mark.

  “How are we gonna lose them?” Mark asked.

  “Wait for my signal,” Douglas said, “I’ll get us out of this, trust me. Been through worse than this.”

  Douglas and James went out first. Douglas grabbed Mark viciously, trying to act like he hated him. He dragged Mark out of the escape pod and lifted him to his feet.

  “Move it scum!” Douglas yelled.

  The Jupitains smirked, liking Douglas’s brutality. They started to walk towards the exit. James looked up. The hangar was huge and incredibly high up; it was probably taller than the length of an entire Jupitain warship. What was taking up most of the space was, was something horrible. Most of the hangar was holding a massive container, filled to the brim, with Dark matter.

  “That’s enough Dark matter to make trillions of Demons,” Douglas whispered, for the first time, shocked. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”

  “What do you think it’s for?” James asked, whispering.

  “I dunno, but if even a spark hit that it would be enough to destroy this entire fleet…” He repeated himself, “A spark.”

  “No wonder there aren’t many fighters in here, the whole place’s empty,” James said.

  “Surprised they didn’t shoot us on sight,” Douglas whispered. He was talking so quietly, James could barely hear him from a few inches away. He was being precautious of the Jupitain visor’s enhanced hearing.

  The Jupitains marched into a dimly lit hallway, and Douglas slowly looked around. No cameras. No other Jupitains. Just pipes. There were pipes on the overhead, and on the walls, pumping Dark matter through the ship, towards the hangar.

  Douglas slowly reached into his military grade trousers and pulled out the same laser pistol he had used to defend the village.

  “What are you doing? There’re twenty of them,” James whispered frantically.

  “Bouta-be-ten,” Douglas replied. He aimed his laser pistol quickly, at the head of the last Jupitain in the formation. They were walking in a column of twos, ten in a row. Douglas fired, and the green burst of energy blew through ten visors in less than a second. The ten Jupitains in the row fell to the ground as a pile of Dark matter goo. Douglas aimed for the other row faster than the Jupitains could completely turn their heads. He fired, but could only hit three before the rest of the Jupitains savagely jumped out of formation, and charged him.

  Douglas punched another Jupitain in the face with his free hand, cracking the visor, and causing the Jupitain to malfunction, looking like it was having a seizure.

  Mark tried to punch a Jupitain too, but it grabbed his arm, and threw him into a wall, slamming his back against a Dark matter pipe. It didn’t even dent, but Mark winced painfully, holding his back.

  A Jupitain noticed him and tried to go for his stomach, but James tackled it. He tried to throw it on the ground, but the Jupitain grabbed him and slammed him on his back. It roared in his face, but before it could kill him, Douglas shot it through the center of its visor. It disintegrated into a puddle, the goo getting all over James.

  He looked at Douglas, who had taken care of the rest of the Jupitains. He hadn’t broken a sweat, “Don’t let any a’ that shit in your bloodstream,” He put his laser pistol back in his trousers, “It’ll kill you instantly.”

  James’s face turned to a frantic expression, as he hurriedly wiped Dark matter off his uniform.

  “Ugh, I think something’s broken…” Mark moaned.

  “Shut up you baby; it’s just a surface wound,” Douglas grabbed Mark’s arm and lifted him to his feet. “We’ve gotta find where that engine room is, James, tap your visor, see if it gives you any info based on our location.”

  James tapped his visor, “No, no engine room, at least I don’t think so. It’s not showing me the location of anything specific, but-ah, I see these red dots. Thousands of them, hundreds of thousands… they’re moving through the ship…”

  “It’s telling you where the Demons are,” Douglas concluded. “Keep watching that. We don’t wanna run into a patrol.”

  The mothership suddenly came to a stop, and Mark was pushed into James from the abrupt halt.

  “What the hell was that?” Douglas asked.

  “It’s time,” Karalus said. He smiled a broad, evil smile, “Look at them… it’s
pathetic.” He wasn’t speaking to anybody specific. He just liked to hear himself talk.

  The entire United Worlds fleet was waiting for them. For Karalus. There were over eight hundred, state of the art United Worlds warships, barely orbiting Mars. Each ship looked different but yet had the same design in some places. They all very closely resembled the smooth and modern shape of a United States' Navy warship but were much sleeker, and high tech, improved by Kelisian innovation.

  The top of the hulls looked like the bottom of a boat, with sleek command bridges sticking out above the bows. Every ship was painted white. There were mounted plasma turrets, and Ion cannons on top of the vessels as artillery, and smaller laser turrets surrounding the hulls. Some had missile silos or large torpedo tubes underneath their hulls.

  The warship that stood out was the U.W.S Titan. It was huge, more significant than any of the other United Worlds ships, and the bow resembled the look of a United States Air Force drone. The Head-Admiral of the vessel was none other than the only human Admiral in the entire United Worlds. Admiral Edward Smith.

  The Titan had three Ion cannons positioned on the top of its hull, with a variety of other weapons everywhere. It was a technological marvel. Against the fleet, was a force of over four thousand Jupitain warships, and a mothership ready to release hell onto Mars… Earth, and soon, the entire Galaxy. Maybe more.

  Behind the United World’s fleet, was the last Kelisian flying saucer, housing over nine hundred thousand Kelisians, and under it, below Mars’s atmosphere, was a gigantic city. A city with the sole intention of uniting humans and Kelisians. The first Martian colony, filled with diversity, and beauty. Karalus wanted to destroy it all. Slowly.

  “Hail the big one,” Karalus smirked, his voice sounding eerie. A Jupitain pressed a few buttons on a control pad, and a holo-screen appeared on the bridge, showing the face of Admiral Smith. He had a neatly trimmed white beard, and his face was toughened, and weathered. Deeply focused.

  “Well hello there,” Karalus said simply, “Know why I’m here?” He asked, jokingly.