United We Stand

by Christian Messe

  “Yeah, you’d think communication would be better!” The other soldier said, “And where the hell’s the Special Forces?!”

  Before the exo-suit soldier could reply, a Jupitain hover tank dropped in behind them, and fired in seconds, catching the battalion off guard. The shot blew up the U.W’s hover tank before it could turn its turret.

  “Get down, get down!!” The exo-suit soldier yelled.

  The others didn’t have to be told twice. The three of them scattered and dived for cover.

  The tank slowly moved towards one of the soldier’s positions. It stopped in front of it. The soldier behind it was the one who had started the argument. He was sweating and panting hard, trying not to completely lose it. The chunky one ran out of cover and began to wave his arms frantically.

  “Hey, you Jupitain jack-offs, you don’t want him, you want me!” He taunted. The turret to the Jupitain tank turned towards him, slowly, “Yeah that’s it, come on now!”

  The turret was aimed directly at him.

  “Michael no!” The exo-suit soldier yelled. He sprinted out of cover and tackled him, covering him from the tank’s fire. It shot at them, and the laser exploded on the back of the exo-suit soldier. He flew backwards, holding Michael the whole time. The suit was damaged, but he was alive.

  “Oh my God, oh my-you, you saved me!” Michael yelled.

  The exo-suit soldier didn’t say anything. He knew he had to get them out of the tank’s sight. He picked up Michael and limped for the entrance to a partially destroyed building. The tank shot again, hitting the soldier’s back. The suit was completely disabled now. He grunted painfully, hitting the ground as soon as the burst hit him. He dropped Michael, who started to sprint for a nearby building. The tank aimed at him, but the other soldier got in the tank’s way, trying to distract it.

  “Come on now, you know you don’t wanna kill him, you want me!” He yelled at it, in an almost sarcastic sounding voice. Before the tank could aim at him, a grenade exploded by its hover track, causing it to hover into a building next to it abruptly. Electricity zapped around, and circuits were showing from the damaged section of the vehicle. The tank was too damaged to function. A Jupitain jumped out of the turret hatch and roared. It was shot in the visor before it could start shooting. The goo spilled all over the tank’s ruins.

  “Need help?!” Another soldier shouted. He was Hispanic, and was holding a laser sniper rifle. He smiled broadly.

  The rescued soldier laughed, but stopped when he heard, an unfamiliar sound. The two of them looked up at the sky, where the sound came from. It, it looked like… a dragon.

  “What the hell is that!?” The sniper yelled.

  Skyframe, and it was headed for the city.

  The battle in space was getting worse and worse. Karalus had only lost less than two hundred warships, while the United Worlds lost over six hundred. The battle couldn’t last much longer. The U.W.S Titan couldn’t take much more. Every Ion cannon was shot off. Debris was everywhere, floating in all directions. Fighters couldn't maneuver through the battlefield anymore without crashing into wreckage, or being shot down by a group of Jupitain fighters.

  Karalus stood there, on the bridge of his mothership, watching everything. Smiling. The Tri-Tanks were only four miles away from destroying Insignia, and soon they would be deployed onto Earth. Meanwhile, his fleet was obliterating the only stand the United Worlds had, Kelisian tech or not, he was more advanced now, and everything… was going according to plan.

  CHAPTER 19

  “I realize that by asking all of you this, that it would mean leaving your home. It would mean taking a risk, and leaving our great empire undefended. Undefended, and susceptible to invasion. Again. However, that’s where I have to say, you either join this mission, or you stay here, and defend a lost city from its inevitable destruction.” The Queen was speaking to a crowd of people. Not only soldiers. No one noticed anybody’s status during this desperate time. The Jupitain invasion showed the Lore that they weren’t invincible. Not anymore.

  “A man named Karalus, a Neptunian, is planning to bring devastation to the entire Galaxy because he thinks it will avenge his people. He thinks that it’s right, to oppress trillions, for the dignity of his own civilization. I plan to show this bastard a taste of reality.”

  She looked at Claire, “And so does she,” She held her hand and raised it in the air, “We are the symbol, of all that is good in the Galaxy, we are the hope, of a better future, in peace, and prosperity, where all can be free from the slavery, and destruction that the Demons have brought onto every civilization in the Milky Way! However, we cannot become the shining beacon of good, that the Galaxy once recognized us as, until we destroy the evil, that seeks to obliterate us all!”

  The entire crowd ruptured into thunderous cheers and shouting. It was interrupted by someone in the crowd, “How will we amass such a force, strong enough to defeat the Demons that did well…” He gestured at the ruins around them, “We’re not equipped.”

  The Queen patted Claire’s shoulder, “That was before we had her!” She shouted, “And a small fleet of a dozen Ghourse battle craft, ready to take the fight to the Demons. We have enough firepower, and if we use it right, we can cripple Karalus’s forces!” She looked around, “You don’t have to volunteer, you don’t have to fight, but you won’t live if you don’t anyway. You can either die fighting, with honor, or watch as everything collapses, right on top of you.”

  That shut the person right up.

  “So,” The Queen said, “Whoever wants to avenge our city, our name. I suggest you step up. These ships aren’t hard to control, but we still need somewhat experienced pilots. The GT-67 can take out a hundred Demon craft, and come out barely scathed, even when piloted by an amateur.”

  Almost everyone in the crowd stepped forward.

  The Queen smirked, “Good.”

  They walked into the Temple hangar, and passed by Lore fighters that had been destroyed before they could take off. The Queen took twenty-four people, who were all highly skilled pilots. Each ship had room for a pilot and a gunner. When they approached the fighters, the Queen stopped them and made them stand into a formation.

  “I want each of you to pick a partner, this person is going to assist you in the heat of battle,” she said, “One of you will be the pilot, while the other takes the weaponry, and fires everything, from the laser turrets to the bombs below. I won’t lie, we’ll be under heavy fire, by hundreds of waves of Demon fighters, but not to worry, these modern craft were designed for all-out chaos. You’ll be able to resist the enemy’s firepower with the ship’s advanced shields.”

  A volunteer raised his hand. He was a Lore soldier survivor, “Your Highness, what is our primary objective, if you don’t mind me asking… besides destroying Karalus’s fleet.”

  The Queen squinted, and smirked at the same time, “That’s simple. While all of you are bombing the Demon warships, Claire and I will go for the one Karalus is in. We’ll storm the bridge, and kill that monster. Once and for all. Hopefully, with him dead, the Jupitains will go haywire, and stop pressing the attack. Maybe even shutoff.”

  Claire looked at her, “Are you sure they work that way?”

  “I don’t know if they’ll all shut off, but I do know that if we kill him, and destroy whatever he was controlling them with, the Demons will probably frenzy, and go savage, aimless. They won’t focus on what Karalus wants anymore.”

  “And that’s all a theory?” Claire asked.

  “Yes,” The Queen growled, “But it’s better anyway to aim for the leader than his endless hoard of monsters,” The Queen looked at the volunteers, “Pick your partners? Good. Get ready for takeoff.”

  The volunteers all said, “Yes your highness,” and ran for their ships. They strapped in, fired up the craft, and awaited further instructions. The Queen got into her own fighter with Claire. She used the last true Lore fighter left. They sat down in the cockpit, and the Queen took the controls.

&
nbsp; “You ready?” She asked.

  “Definitely,” Claire said, “I’ve seen that monster close up. He’s the one who killed my sister, and he’s going to die. Today.”

  The Queen nodded but didn’t say anything. She started to flick switches above them, “This isn’t just for revenge. This decides that fate of the Galaxy. Let’s not let our people down.” Claire nodded. The Queen tapped into a communication frequency, connected to all of the ships.

  “Prepare to take off on my command,” She ordered. She took a deep breath. “In three. Two,” She exhaled, “One.” The engines on every ship roared, and the Queen went first. She flew out of the hangar, followed by the dozen behind her. They flew out of the Temple hangar in a V formation. The crowd of people under them all cheered and roared, flailing their arms and jumping.

  They flew past skyscrapers, and the ruins of buildings. Trails of air showed at the tips of the ship’s wings. They flew gracefully past the city, over the once beautiful land.

  “Take a look people,” The Queen said, “This, this is your motivation.” A thunderous agreement from the pilots of the GT-67s blared through the microphone. The Queen smiled, “Time to go. Time to go to war,” she said to herself.

  They flew through the gates of the Lore, the Meta-Core worm still inside it, torn in half, but stuck in the wall. Electricity zapped and whizzed from the punctured gate. They flew out of the Lore, past the debris left by the five hundred destroyed Jupitain warships.

  “Get ready people… beginning portal activation sequence,” The Queen said, “Claire, where would Karalus be right now?”

  Claire tried to think. She knew that the Kelisian mothership would be orbiting Mars, and it would be a hard fight to destroy that.

  “Mars,” she said confidently, “He’ll be by Mars… there’s no way he could’ve broken through yet.”

  “Unless he hit them with the same tech he did my fleet,” The Queen said, angry from remembering that moment, “He has fleet killing weaponry. He probably destroyed the Kelisian’s mothership with the flick of a switch.”

  “No. He’s still there. He has to be. The Mar- Kelisians wouldn’t go down that easily.”

  “If you’re so sure,” The Queen said. She pressed a few buttons on her control board, and two teleportation cubes shot out from her ship.

  “This is a one-way trip,” The Queen said, while watching the cubes fly into formation, and make a giant portal, “If we fail, we don’t come home.”

  “I’m already going home,” Claire said.

  The Queen nodded. Their V formation converted into a double column, and the Queen’s fighter, along with the twelve GT-67s, flew through the portal.

  The United World’s fleet was almost completely destroyed. There were only fifty warships left, fifty and a half if you counted the one that had been blown in half, but the bridge was still functional. The thousands of Jupitain warships rained down fire on the crippled United Fleet, constantly.

  Edwards looked out the bridge. His ship was on fire on the outside. Hundreds of compartments had been blown up. Thousands of his own crew had been thrown into the vacuum of space by Jupitain fire. Some had even deserted. The battle seemed lost. On the surface of Mars, the Tri-Tanks were approaching the trenches. They were so close that the troops could see their towering command centers in full detail.

  Edwards stared at Karalus’s mothership, and without letting one eye off of it, he said, “I once lost a thousand lives due to a lack of lifeboats,” He sighed, “I was cocky because I was Captain of the ‘unsinkable’ ship.” He put his head down and looked at the floor. “The Kelisians made me Head-Admiral of this ship because they knew from my past, and old Martian psychological data, that no matter what, I would never make the same mistake ever again. I still won’t, because we’re not going down in vain.”

  “But sir, wha-what can we do?” A Kelisian officer asked, not caring that he had just revealed two highly classified, Kelisian national secrets.

  “We can ram that ship,” Edwards pointed at Karalus’s mothership, “We can ram it, destabilize it… and slow that bloody bastard down, giving the rest of the fleet cover to escape.”

  The bridge was silent, but there weren’t any objections. The Admiral was about to order a full speed collision until a giant explosion stopped him. He looked out the bridge, stunned. Thirteen unidentified flying objects had just flown out of a portal, above Karalus’s fleet, and were diving towards the mothership, firing weapons that were getting past the shield.

  “Holy shi… battle stations, battle stations immediately! Concentrate fire on that mothership with every gun we have left!” Admiral Smith ordered.

  The Titan fired everything it had left. The shields on Karalus’s mothership were destabilizing. Some spots were even broken.

  “Who’s breaking my ship?!?!” Karalus screamed. He tripped slightly, due to the dozens of bombs that were crashing into the ship constantly. High powered laser bursts were slamming into the mothership as well.

  “These things really work!” A pilot yelled.

  “Stay focused,” Another pilot said, “We’ve got company!” A thousand Jupitain fighters started to swarm their formation.

  “Oh, here’s the fun part,” The Queen grinned. She did a backflip with her fighter and shot into the swarm of Jupitain fighters following them. Claire button mashed the gun controls, shooting everything with a volley of lasers. Golden streaks of light collided with Jupitain fighters, piercing their shields with ease, and blowing them up quickly.

  “No no no no!!” Karalus screamed, “You’re supposed to be dead!!” He looked down on the Jupitains controlling the ship, under him, “Focus everything on those ships!!” Their visor’s blinked green. They gave orders to all the other Jupitains across the fleet.

  “Alpha,” One said.

  “If you need to talk to me, then finish your sentence!” Karalus roared.

  “Yes, Alpha.”

  Karalus waited, impatiently, “Well?!?!”

  “There are three unauthorized E6’s trying to gain access to hallway G-2,” It screeched.

  “Wha- G-2? That’s the main engine room… why would they…” A hit of realization, and for the first time, real fear, hit Karalus. “Show me a camera view of that access port.”

  A volley of missiles hit the mothership’s side. Karalus stumbled, then growled. “Now!!” The Jupitain obeyed and pulled up the holo-screen. It tuned into the hallway’s access terminal camera, and showed the face of visored Douglas, trying to get past the firewall.

  “Oh… oh no, no, no you don’t. No, you don’t, no no no you don’t!!” Karalus yelled, “Send in every Jupitain we have to intercept them! Kill them!!” He looked at the Queen’s fighter, while it was shooting down more of his forces. “And obliterate those ships,” He growled.

  The Jupitain warships stopped firing on the U.W’s fleet; instead, they started to focus fire on the Lore’s ships. The laser fire began to overwhelm the formation.

  “Evasive action!” The Queen ordered, “Take out their heavy artillery!” The other pilots obeyed and spread out. They started to dive towards the Jupitain fleet.

  “Guns hot, let’s get in there boys!” A pilot shouted.

  “Watch out for those turrets,” Another said, “Take out the heavy cannons first!”

  The GT-67s swooped in and started to cause immense damage to the Jupitain fleet. One ship could disable an entire Jupitain warship, and fly away unscathed. A ship swooped in above one of the warship’s hulls and destroyed every surface turret on it. Then the pilot fired a Gen-87UI missile at its Ion cannon. The tiny rockets spiraled into the gun, blowing it off its foundation. The primary missile finished the job, completely destroying it.

  The Lore’s forces kept repeating this method, destabilizing over fifty warships, before they lost their first craft.

  “There’s too many on us, I-I can’t shake em!” A pilot yelled. His gunner was sweating, working hard trying to destroy every Jupitain fighter on their tail, but it
was impossible to get them all. Thirty Jupitain fighters were trailing one of the GTs. They blew its engine, and the ship abruptly smashed into the Jupitain warship under it.

  “We lost one!” A pilot yelled.

  “Keep the strategy going!” The Queen ordered, “Don’t let them get the upper hand on you!”

  While shooting down a Jupitain fighter, Claire saw a dozen Jupitain frigates flying towards the city of Insignia on Mars. They were invading.

  “That monster,” Claire said to herself. “Karalus, he-he’s sending Jupitains to Mars!”

  “There’s nothing we can do about that right now…” The Queen said. She jerked the ship to the right and destroyed five Jupitain fighters that were flying in a line, “We’re too busy trying to destroy that… mothership.” She looked at it. The ginormous ship was going to take more than twelve fighters to destroy; she knew that. “We have to defend your fleet so that they can take out that atrocity before it causes any more damage.”

  Claire looked at it too, “That ship’s not killing millions of innocent people right now.” She gestured towards Mars, “But I know what is.”

  The Queen looked conflicted but didn’t say anything.

  “I can help them down there. You don’t need me…” Claire said.

  “Claire… this, this is our only chance of killing Karalus,” The Queen looked at the mothership, then back at Claire, “I need your help to take him on.”

  “Do you really? He’s one person, and you have a Meta-Core, just like me.”

  “It’s not the same…”

  “Remember what you said about that tribute of glory thing? Well I’m about to earn mine, for my own people. You need to do the same for yourself. The United Worlds needs me down there, and the fight against Karalus, that’s yours. Take him out, for the both of us.”

  The Queen paused, and looked away for a second, “How’ll you get down there?” She asked, bitterly.

  Claire smirked, “I can breathe in space… remember?”

  “But the rays from your star…” The Queen started.

  “I can live through that too, somehow,” Claire smirked, “Open the exit bay.”