Bethany Anne reached over for the Coke that was waiting for her and slowly turned the top to remove it. “Remember, I didn’t write the rules, folks.” She raised her drink, “But I’ll abide by them.” she winked and took a drink as the group cheered.
She finished her drink and put the lid back on, “Let’s Cross that Fucking Gate, I’m getting impatient!”
The Human’s ships, dedicated Puck Destroyers, multiple Sphaea class attack vessels, Puck containers for setting traps, shipping containers and Black Eagles hit the Annex Gate in a synchronized dance that had the G’laxix Sphaea hit the gate last, disappearing behind the green, yellow and blue-orange waves as ships would hit the colored screen.
Then, the gate exploded on the human side, throwing parts to the four corners of the solar system.
It was completely destroyed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Planet Yoll - King’s Palace - Throne Room
The Yollin King turned his massive head, looking down at his Minister of Defense in annoyance, “What do you mean, we have an attack force arriving through Annex Gate Three One Four?”
The four-legged Yollin looked up to his king, “Your Majesty, Gate Three One Four was opened almost two solar years ago, and we have been receiving updated reports confirming the survey was proceeding as planned and continued to show promise. Two hours ago, a fleet of foreign military vessels and an ...,” Minister of Defense E’Kolorn looked down at this tablet and then back to the King, “asteroid came through the Annex Gate. In addition to these new ships, the modified survey vessel G’laxix Sphaea arrived last and the amount of ships overwhelmed the gate, destroying it.”
“And you say they are issuing requests?” the King continued to stare down at the Defense Minister.
“Yes, they claim they are merely running through our space in an effort to fight the Kurtherians.”
At this pronouncement, the Yollin King continued to stare at his highest ranking military commander and then started slapping his couch cushion loudly as his Chittering laughter could be heard throughout the throne room. “Did you,” he tried to stop laughing, but failed. Finally, some time later, the King got himself under control. “Did you say they are seeking a fight with the Kurtherians?” he finally rasped out.
“Yes, your Majesty.” E’Kolorn confirmed, “That is what they are saying, in our language I might add.”
“So, they have taken our people as slaves?” The King sought confirmation.
“And our ship, yes.”
The King’s eye’s narrowed, “What are we going to do about this, E’Kolorn?”
“We are going to confirm they have our permission to seek out the Kurtherians by passing through our space, your Highness.” E’Kolorn answered.
“And then, Minister of Defense?” he pressed.
“Then we are going to ambush their ships, destroy their pitiful space fleet, rebuild a gate in three years once we figure out the location where the G’laxix Sphaea went, unfortunately, the information was lost with the gate, and then raid their system for resources and workers.”
“Very good, E’Kolorn. Make sure I have the head of their leader for my wall of honor,” he told the Chancellor as his hand swept towards a hallway some fifty feet away, multiple heads preserved with a plaque underneath stating the race, their solar system coordinates and the method of their death.
E’Kolorn bowed his head, “As you wish, my King.”
QBBS Merideth Reynolds Military Operations Room
Bethany Anne put down her empty drink container, “So, Admiral Thomas.”
The Admiral was flipping screens and spoke without looking over at his Queen, “Yes, my ever patient and loving Queen?” He replied, trying to help control the anxiety, both inside this Operations Room, and across the fleet. Something he knew would be happening as people considered their own mortality.
Bethany Anne stared at the man, then smiled, then started laughing, “Am I that bad?”
“YES!” both ranking Military men on each side of her responded, in stereo.
Bethany Anne leaned back in her chair and looked around the room, “God, I’m bored!”
“It’s just a game at the moment, Bethany Anne,” Admiral Thomas told her. He hit a couple of buttons and pulled up the vast hologram that showed her fleet, the location of the now destroyed Annex Gate, the Yollin planet with its two moons, three different base stations around the planet and incredible amount of space traffic going between the moons, the base stations and the planet.
Plus, little bitty purple dots in their wake.
“You are really expecting them to come up behind us?” Bethany Anne leaned forward. “Is this because Kael-ven told us about it?”
“Yes, and no,” Admiral Thomas agreed, “Yes, to the part that Kael-ven led us to study this, but the ‘no’ part is we studied Kael-ven and his substantial weakness to physical attacks from the rear due to his body structure. So, we are assuming the strategist on their side might have attributed a natural weakness they suffer, to us as well.”
“Attacking Kael-ven that way became too easy in the beginning, although he is much better now,” Bethany Anne remarked. “I attack him from the rear during sparring sessions.”
“Good teaching,” Admiral Thomas agreed before he looked at the radar and smirked, “Gotcha!”
Bethany Anne slid forward in her seat when the new dots appeared. “They really are coming from the rear, pretty quickly for them, too.”
“Hard to accomplish a sneak attack if the other side sees you coming.” The Admiral was sending commands to his ships, and Bethany Anne watched as the Purple dots started following behind the ships glowing orange that were designated Yollin 01 through Yollin 39.
“Hmmm,” Admiral Thomas picked up his tablet, “Send in Coach’s Revenge, target designation Yollin 21.”
On the screen, the ship labeled Yollin 21 grew in size.
Yollin Ship 21
“Pay attention to where the G’laxix Sphaea is at all times!” Captain G’yrlen called to his seek and destroy team, “that is the only ship we fear. What we can see, we can kill!”
Captain G’yrlen viewed his screen, trying to gauge the best time to help the fleet by cloaking it. His ship alone had the power to accomplish the feat, and that power wasn’t infinite. Between the time to catch up to the enemies, slow down to match speed and attack, it was a dance to figure out the proper distance. Cloak too early? Risk coming out of cloak when power dies too far away. Too late and his people would be seen before they cloaked.
Coach’s Revenge
Captain Max Wagner smiled. “Revenge, tell our support that Coach has a fight he would like to pick with those Yollin piece of shits back behind us. Cloak us all, we are going in.”
Four Sphaea class ships which had hugged the Merideth Reynolds slowly faded from view, and dropped back from the main group as they lost momentum, braking just a bit.
Revenge allowed the E.I.s on the other ships to help keep the four ships in proximity to each other as it worked on figuring out how to best track Yollin 21 should it cloak. Soon, the human fleet was far in front, and the Yollin fleet was fast approaching. Their formation started picking up speed so that the Yollins wouldn’t pass them by.
The Revenge’s group had twenty-one more seconds to final match of speed and direction when the Yollin Fleet disappeared off their radar systems.
“Well, crap.” Captain Wagner stated. “Tell me you got them, Revenge.”
“Captain Wagner, I know exactly where Yollin 21 is located and it will take approximately an extra two minutes and twenty-one seconds using visual clues before we are ready to board.”
Max touched a button on his tablet, “Marines? Get ready, you arrive in three minutes.”
—
Shun heard the Captain of the ship declare they had three minutes before they would be attacking an alien ship, while hurtling through space, in a solar system so far away from where he was born that he had a hard time comprehending the distan
ce.
All because of some stupid ass, species interfering, alien, know-it-alls. He needed something to ground him in this chaotic mess.
He smirked, glancing over at Zhu.
“Heeeyyyyy, SEXY lady.” Shun started singing, a maniacal smile starting to grow on his face.
Zhu looked over at his friend. “That’s Korean.” He stated.
Jian grinned, “Shut up, you like it too.” Then Jian bumped Shun’s shoulder and the two nodded.
Seconds later, the two men started dancing, “HEYYYY SEXY LADY!” they called out.
Three more of the Guardian Marines jumped up and started mimicking the moves from the two Chinese men. Soon, Zhu cursed and joined his team, “I really hate you guys,” he yelled at them as he faked riding a horse and twirling a lasso.
Up on the ship's bridge, five crew members stared at the video feed from the Marines area, “Holy shit,” Max smiled, “Send that video to the Engine Room. Fuck it,” he said, “Revenge, send that video to the whole Gott Verdammt Fleet!”
QBBS Merideth Reynolds Military Operations Room
One of the screens on the massive wall changed and Bethany Anne’s eyes flicked up to it, down, then back up as Captain Wagner’s text came across the bottom, “This is how we take it to the Yollins!”
Bethany Anne stared at the screen, “Are they dancing Gangnam Style?” She asked, before she burst out laughing and joined in singing, “Heeyyyy Sexy Lady!”
Yollin Ship 21
Captain G’yrlen received the reports on his screen that his fleet was now cloaked. His four legs grasped his couch as the fingers on his right hand clicked through different commands he sent out to the rest of the fleet. As Over-Captain of this operation, as simple as it would be, he would receive a boost of his own status.
“We will start attacking in …” He started to say before he was knocked violently sideways when his ship was hit from four directions, the cloak dropping from his own ship as the energy was pulled and placed into the shields.
“What hit us!” He demanded as people scrambled back into their seats, most of them clicking their belts to keep them in place. None had expected to be in any danger and failed to belt in properly.
“Sir, we have one ship we can see, but calculate three more we cannot,” ship defense called out.
“WHERE is the G’laxix Sphaea?” G’yrlen demanded.
“Still where we show her, sir,” the response came back.
He slammed his fist on the seat’s arm. “These people have figured out cloaking,” he spit out before they were rocked a second time.
“Sir!” Defense turned around, “They are getting through our shields!”
Coach’s Revenge
“That’s right,” Captain Wagner spoke to himself, “welcome to the species that learns new technology, deconstructs it, and figures how to fuck it up.”
“Sir,” Revenge interrupted Wagner’s thoughts. “We have attained a large enough disturbance in their shield, we may send the Marines at your command.”
Wagner hit his button, “Alright you dancing sons-a-bitches, time to get our own back!”
QBBS Merideth Reynolds Military Operations Room
“Our first attacks are starting,” Admiral Thomas announced, “Everyone brace, it might get a little ugly from here.” He looked over to his comm’s area, “Tell Commander Paul Jameson to release the Queen’s Ace’s, we got tiny ships coming! It’s time they earn their wings.”
“Yes sir!” Comms called back and then started subvocalizing the Admirals commands.
Admiral Thomas looked over to Bethany Anne, who was busy studying the three dimensional hologram of the fight. He could see her eyes flicking too fast for him to keep up, so she was probably studying the whole thing in real time.
He wished he could do that.
“Did Paul give you any grief for taking over the fighter squadrons?” he asked her.
She shook her head, “No,” she turned to look at the Admiral, “he was pretty damned excited to get back to fighters. Once Bobcat made sure he agreed with Paul on the safety stuff, he gave Paul the blessing and went back to some of their other challenges. Paul has been bugging Team BMW for upgrades. I imagine after this battle, Paul will have more information on how to upgrade the ships.”
Admiral Thomas nodded. There was only so much you could do in mocked up fights.
It was always the real fights that uncovered your deficiencies.
Coach’s Revenge
The Marines stopped dancing and dropped into positions. Their front line became Werewolves, and one Werecat. Behind them, the Queen’s Guardian Marines, armored in ship metal grey. Everyone started wrapping their Weres in armor to protect them, with a final specially fitted mask built for each form’s face.
A video popped up with both leaders of the Guardian Marines on screen. Todd had his helmet in his hand, Peter was staring at them, his yellow eyes piecing them as he growled, “Weee are thee Queeen’s Guarrrdians, We NEVERrrr SUBMITTttt, WEEeee NEEVERRrr SURRrennDeerr!”
Todd added from beside his taller friend in a voice any drill sergeant would be proud to own. “But we do bring the universe’s biggest can of whoop-ass! Now, do your job, kill that ship’s power. We will attack the front, you got the rear. See you in the center, first group to attain their goal gets their beer paid for.”
Peter looked into the video camera, “IIiii cannn driinnkk a loottt off beeerr inn thiss formmm, he he heh.”
One last violent slam rocked the ship as they connected to the Yollin target. Max grabbed the microphone, “This is the Captain speaking, I hope you enjoyed your flight. Now please get the fuck off my ship and do what we came to do.”
The Guardian Marines smiled. They were aliens, sure, but the group with Peter and Todd attacking the bridge were going to surprise the shit out of that captain over there.
Yollin Ship 21
“We’ve been breached!” Defense yelled out.
Captain G’yrlen clicked his mandibles in frustration. This was not going according to plan. He stabbed the alarm override so he could speak, “All ship, prepare to kill boarders, all ship, kill boarders!”
He had already properly cowed the Marine leader for his ship, there wasn’t a need to threaten that low caste member one more time.
—
N-thahn slapped the last of the locks on his armor and grabbed his sword. The servo’s activated and he pointed to two of his team. There were two breaches in the ship, but the one closest to the bridge needed to be tackled first.
He doubted they would get to the breach to set up a proper defense before the outer hull was taken out, thank god this species didn’t just ram and jam, or they would have been caught with their armored pants down. The two he pointed at followed him down the passageway and up the ladders to the upper deck and after turning the corner went towards the front of the ship. The three Yollin military were almost to the passageway which cut across the ship, when an explosion blasted through the intersection of the passageway they were using,
The team pulled up their weapons. No one wanted to use weapons that could vent atmosphere to space.
Decompression could be a bitch.
The roar that greeted them caused the two with N-thahn to look over at him. He saw their heads out of the corners of his helmet, but ignored them. So it yelled? Punch it where it breathed and the yelling would stop.
That was when he saw the first of the enemies come round the corner and N-thahn’s mandibles opened in surprise.
The enemies were Yollins.
—
“We need to go first!” Kiel argued with Peter, “Our people, our revolution.” He stated emphatically.
Peter looked down at the little Yollin. Or, little in this present state. His Pricolici form wanted to be the first through, but enough times working with Stephen, or rather being corrected by Stephen, allowed Peter to keep some of his own control in this state, “Then doonn’tt beee sloowww.”
Kiel nodded and called over Bo�
�cha’tien. She had her new weapon, a quarterstaff with energized ends and her mercenary’s armor.
She also had a new attitude, it was called ‘humbled’ and Kiel thought it worked much better for her than the last one that had gotten her arm blown off. She would tire quickly, but he allowed her this position to be up front, then she would step back and Peter would take her place.
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