by Jaime Mera
Estabon looked on at the smoking buildings and demolished hundreds of acres with a sense of loss. They hadn’t encountered any civilian population, but that didn’t mean they weren’t somewhere in or under the city. If anything, the city was constructed strictly for war and all of the resources used for the city could have been used elsewhere for needy people. ‘You are assuming everyone should have done what was right.’ Eduardo spoke into his mind.
‘I’m just wondering for how long will peace and prosperity last after we succeed?’ Estabon replied as the APC made it to the edge of the secondary layer of buildings and cleared zone.
Before Eduardo could answer, the tank formation in front of the advance lifted up into the air as two underground explosives boomed an echo of ferocity to the contact. A large crater became visible as the dust settled; one tank was thrown to the side with both tracks missing. “Get the crew out and attended to. Hold the line.” Estabon commanded over his helmet comms.
Particle beams automatically strafed the street and edges running all the way down the supposedly cleared path. Hundreds of IED explosions marked the would be kill zones, leaving craters and particle beam trench damage on the bits of what used to be a smooth six lane stretch of street. “General Lopez, get all of your forces into the city and destroy everything outward, I want a three mile wide strip of rubble towards the center.”
Without having to turn back to see dismounted Soldiers start downing building by firing bunker buster grenades at the base of structures, he ordered a company of tanks to maneuver over the rough terrain and conserve ammo, letting the Soldiers take care of the side buildings as the heavy armor focused on moving forward.
Center of Apex
Lee and Ghost flew to the edge of the main energy beam shooting into the sky. Lee’s optics indicated a very high level of ultraviolet and gamma ray emissions, but he was more concerned about the unidentified particles in the beam. He floated a few feet from the energy field, twenty meters in diameter, as Ghost grabbed his armored arm. Lee disappeared from the naked eye, but Ghost’s contact also triggered an alert in Lee’s optics. “Oh, sorry I was looking at the energy beam. My optics say it has some plasma type of composition along with extreme heat.”
“Is that bad?” Ghost asked looking at the bright green energy.
“I’ll let you know in a second.” Lee floated next to the beam and stuck his hand into the moving pulse of alternating shades of bright green. The black energy armor around his hand fought against the heat and pounding different energy waves. His optics displayed a relative amount of restructuring actions within his armor matrix to counter the effects of the beam. Lee casually withdrew his hand. “Well, it’s trying to disintegrate anything not in the same energy wavelengths and all matter. I guess we should avoid it if possible.”
“Yeah, that’s bad. Okay we’ll go my way, and go through the ground.” Ghost pulled Lee with him as they both materialized through the concrete and ground flying deep into the complex parallel to the central beam.
“Can you hear me?” Lee spoke not sure if they could communicate.
“Yes, I can read your surface thoughts too.”
“Cool. Alright, we will need to go a mile deep. Is that a problem?”
“There’s no off switch somewhere closer?” Ghost said gauging how much effort it was taking him to go through the reinforced levels of the complex.
“Honestly, I don’t know. The last time I was in one of these things, there were levels dedicated to amplify or regulate the energy, so I’m assuming we can mess with the first level a mile down.” Lee’s optics zoomed through the earth and structures finding the conduit.
“I can get you three quarters of the way there before I have to rest.” Ghost said as they hit half a mile.
“That’s good enough for me.” Lee said as he scanned deeper, seeing that this generator was moderately different than the other two complexes he destroyed weeks ago.
Ghost flew as far as he could go without endangering them both materializing in the middle of solid matter. There were no rooms near the beam or nearby levels, but there were large tubes angled away from the beam several meters in diameter. They materialized in the hollow green lit tube. “I hope it’s okay to be in this thing while I rest a moment?”
“It should be fine. I think this tube is a drainage measure if magma rises to this level.” Lee looked up the inline towards the beam.
Ghost floated inches from the tube surface with a concerned stare. “You think?”
Lee let go of Ghost and eased away from him up towards the beam, turning his head towards him. “You know everything we’ve been doing lately is guess work and making stuff up.”
“Hurry up and go before I make something up.” Ghost replied as he became visible in his gray business suit.
Lee smiled. “That’s the spirit.” He turned towards the beam and flew into the energy. Once he entered the beam, he darted straight down.
His optics almost locked into darkness, as the energy was overwhelming his alert screens. He focused on the target and within a few seconds he made it to the one mile mark. The small gap between the beam and the shaft called out to him as he flew out of the beam. Lee hugged the metallic wall next to the service portal, four-by-four feet in size. His armor suffered ten percent damage, but was regenerating as expected. He reached out with one hand and grabbed the very hot door handle. He applied enough pressure with his flight ability to bend the metal, but it was locked firmly from the inside.
His laser canon materialized on the side of his wrist, lasing the door area in a circular pattern. The laser melted through the material in seconds. The weight of the door caused it to come out of the wall and fall into the beam, with Lee giving it a helping pull.
Without delay, Lee flew through the gangway and lased another door before entering a ten meter long rectangular maintenance room. The lack of people or androids indicated the room was evacuated for a safety reason, but more likely was probably not needed anymore.
The digital readouts and metric dials on the opposite walls indicated the consoles were active or at least monitoring a section of the complex. He stared at the setup seeing familiar terminology and patterns. The data he retrieved in Antarctica helped him see what was happening with the energy generator below the current sublevel.
“Damn.” Lee cursed under his breath. He scanned through the level and below, seeing the circular conduits around the beam shaft which were simply keeping the energy from expanding to the outside of the directed beam path. He thought quickly and scanned as deep as he could through the sublevels.
He breathed in deep as if about to high dive into a watery ring of fire. He thought the commands and his energy suit diverted power and functions towards defensive measures and microwave optics. The suit turned absolute white as he flew through the entry way back into the green energy beam. The influx of damage was minimized to one percent, with his suit regenerating the overall damage.
He could see the six mile sublevel and flew towards it at several hundred miles per hour. The plasma and heat energy became stronger the faster he flew and the deeper he got, so he took it slower than his normal hypersonic speeds.
Lee reached the depth without major damage. “Of course it couldn’t have been that easy.” Lee spoke to himself in annoyance.
The green beam was slightly larger, the mutilated shaft surface was inches from the energy’s edge, and there were no doors or thin layers of material to any area he could occupy in the sublevel.
He thought the commands and the suit instantly diverted power to his laser canons on his forearms. A display of thirty blue junctions were targeted by his optics as he unleashed a mini-gun version of laser blasts through the metal alloys and machinery. The spike of damage to his armor increased to thirty percent as the lasers vaporized what he thought were the key spots on the sublevel’s workings. Several explosions occurred tens of meters away from Lee as the sublevel shook and the green energy beam spread in diameter to almost double.
Lee shot straight up not wanting to stick around to see what exactly occurred and picked his next target back to where the door entrance was at the three mile sublevel.
The beam’s width grew enough so the gangway was now being disintegrated. His energy armor was likewise disintegrating at an exponential rate. Lee watched his armor integrity display in his visor decrease to forty-two percent before he made it back into the room he last occupied.
“What the hell?” Lee tensed his body focusing on his superhuman innate powers.
His suit received a jolt of life as the armor regenerated back up to eighty percent in a few seconds.
“What did you do?” Ghost appeared in front of Lee, Ghost’s body was clearly translucent, almost transparent, but his alarmed face was notable.
“I pissed it off, I think.” Lee looked back with concern at the green beam eating at any matter it made contact with, a few feet away from the room; the instruments on the walls all showing critically dangerous levels.
Chapter 22
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Cyer is Here
UFS Tarsus Bridge, Earth Orbit
Overlays on the main battle screen showed a digital 3D representation of Apex from above and all of the buildings targeted and destroyed on both legion’s advancements. Eduardo’s fingers glided above the Captain’s arm consoles with great dexterity, as he gave the lead starships the go ahead to destroy the last stretch of buildings surrounding the center perimeter of the field generator beams.
The fleet was in a state of mutual harmony as all of the starships on a geostationary orbit maintained a very wide berth from each other, making sure there was no possible way any of the ships could collide or fire into one another in the vastness of space. But there were others who were not so fortunate, as Quatris materialized into the bridge from outside.
Eduardo turned his head slightly towards Quatris. “How are the survivors?”
“They’re safe. I left the astronauts with Mrs. Weatherly and company.” Quatris stated as he looked at the main screen.
“So you’re here, because of me?”
“Well you have eyes on the surface, so yeah.” Quatris replied and stood next to Eduardo’s chair.
“They’re almost at the center, and as it turns out, some of your superhumans are already there.”
“Creator?”
“No, Ghost, Io, Rat Bastard, Spot and some guy in a full body suit made of some kind of weird energy.” Stargazer said at the targeting station, as he kept his focus, guiding Rick to destroy the remaining hundred buildings.
“Really? So your guys?” Quatris stood with crossed arms.
“Yeah, my guys.” Stargazer grinned knowing his friends were still in the game.
Spot and Rat Bastard floated a few feet above the building rubbish they had created. The five meter force generator beam shooting through the structure, back up into the atmosphere. Fifty plus androids ran, flew or teleported towards them as expected.
Rat Bastard screeched as loud as he could in a wide circular arch. Spot let out a stream of laser beams from his hands and eyes covering his front and Rat’s back. The androids teleporting on top of them or within spitting distance encountered their deadly attacks. Unprepared for the intensity of the attacks the androids near Rat were blown backwards; however, three androids on Spot’s side continued their momentum as one exploded center mass in front of Spot. Rat Bastard felt the intense energy current and heat through his fur, but it was the sudden change in temperature which alerted him to the proximity of the self-destruct blast effects. “You okay back there?” Rat yelled after the initial booms ebbed.
“Do you really have to ask?” Spot grunted as a new android tried to kick him in the gut and head. “Enough of this!” Spot flew up above Rat Bastard and spun like a high speed top. He unleashed a barrage of laser blasts in all directions putting a disco ball to shame.
A four hundred meter radius area was riddled with inch sized burnt edged holes of various depths. Several superhumans fell on the hard concrete, while most of the androids exploded.
Rat Bastard turned around surveying the damage. “You got most of them.”
Spot stopped twirling, looking at the standing androids, holes sustained by them were filling in with Tantalized metal. “I guess they don’t explode anymore.”
“That guy seems to be a bad ass.” Ra Bastard commented as he stared at a very large brute of a man in a gun-metal exoskeleton.
The man flew horizontally at them stopping within a hundred meters and pointed his fist at them. “Now you die.” He said as a beam of light trailed two black softball size projectiles at them.
The speed was uncanny for being missiles, as both Rat Bastard and Spot felt the pain when the accelerated pellets hit their bodies.
The knockback was tremendous as they soared backwards fifty meters gracefully scraping along the concrete floor on their feet. “Damn, that actually hurt.” Spot said, as the intense pain and bruise on his gut caused him concern.
Rat Bastard fell on the floor with a paw on his chest, gasping for air. “Yeah, that must be one of the ga…ga...”
“Gamma entities?” Spot ended his sentence.
Before anyone could react, a bright white light in the sky shone all around, along with the sudden appearance of a six foot tall slender man standing in the middle of a clearing fifty meters from the heroes and the brute, diverting everyone’s attention. The man’s shiny yellowish and silver like skin was deceiving as to whether he was wearing a skin tight suit or was his natural physical naked state.
“I’m looking for Quatris!” His mouth moved slightly, but his voice boomed out a mile like a megaphone.
“Well, shit. That’s the last thing we need now” Spot stood up straight and gave Rat Bastard a helping hand.
The hundreds of androids in plain sight vanished, reminding Spot what had happened when Lee showed off his powers. But he knew the young man, Cyer, was far more dangerous than anyone he knew for the moment. However, the brute shot two projectiles at the newcomer.
The projectiles hit Cyer only to meet an immoveable body. There was no knockback and it seemed as if the attack only caused Cyer to turn his head towards the brute. Cyer raised his hand and a beam of yellow light mixed with a reddish aura burst out, spreading out in a cone fifty meters high and ten miles deep. The splitting of air caused a thunder clap as the intense light overcame the green lit atmosphere for a few seconds. Gushing wind blew hot air into Spot and Rat Bastard’s faces as everything the beam touched vaporized in a millisecond. The brute superhuman and buildings for ten miles vanished into a mist of death and destruction.
“Yeah, he messed up.” Rat Bastard said, as he sat, waiting for the end to occur.
“Holy crap.” Was all Creator could say as his group approaching the center witnessed the destruction Cyer produced in a split second.
“Shit.” Stargazer exclaimed as he turned towards Eduardo and Quatris. “We have a major problem. There is this genowraith that was created in the Andromeda galaxy with powers similar to yours, and somehow he is down there.”
Quatris said nothing, but it was clear his gaze was in the direction of Apex.
“Is he fighting for or against us?” Eduardo asked not being able to see deep memories from Stargazer.
“I can’t see him through the energy field, but I can sense his power. Hmm, it didn’t register until a few seconds ago.”
“You need to do something, he can destroy Earth in seconds, and I don’t know why he’s here, but I’m guessing it has something to do with you.” Stargazer walked up in front of Quatris.
Quatris turned his gaze on Stargazer’s sincere eyes. “You don’t need to explain more. I got this.” Quatris turned into a black phantom and flew out of the bridge so fast it seemed he had teleported.
Cyer floated a foot above the battered concrete, slowly scanning the city, stopping at Rat Bastard and Spot. The men just stood in defeat, as Cyer looked up. In like fashion, Quatris landed meters from Cyer, except ther
e was no light around Quatris, nor sonic booms of any kind. His eyes were glowing white as were Cyer’s.
“Quatris I presume.” Cyer’s young male voice was strong as if artificially created to project clear sound to perfection.
“And you must be Cyer.” Quatris floated up a foot to match Cyer’s eye level.
“So you’ve heard of me?” Cyer’s eyes glanced at Spot and Rat.
“Stargazer told me your name, but I doubt you’re like me.” Quatris looked at Cyer’s complex DNA matrix.
“You are correct, I’m unique, but it doesn’t matter. I’m here to challenge you to a fight.” Cyer spoke with his arms by his sides.
“I’m sort of waiting for an invading alien armada to come into the solar system at the moment, but I’m assuming if I don’t accept your challenge you’ll take it out on the humans."
Cyer turned his head to his back and forth as if looking for something he dropped. “This planet is a legend in my time. I don’t see how it would have survived without Alexmarks. No matter, I won’t waste my time destroying the planet… however, I also don’t want you to hold back, so if threatening your planet is what will motivate you to accept, then yes, you assume correctly.”
“Since you put it that way, I’ll fight you in space. Follow me.”
The two superhumans vanished into the green sky and out of sight as quickly as they arrived.
