Part 14 (1/2)

Chapter Seventy-Four.

Eve and Stern get out of the rover and now that the turret guns were activated, and a skeleton crew was overseeing the operation of the destruction outside, they had only to strap themselves into the fighter and open a hanger door and blast off.

Eve had one last plan before she left. ”General, I need you to do me a favour before we leave.” Stern was unlocking the fighters front landing gear for take-off, as he had done the others.

”What is that?”

The engine powers up, so Eve has to shout. ”Get to that console and set our little pets free. They will leave no trace behind us. It seems unfair that they have lived underground all these years and we have not used them much since the mines were closed.” The general likes her thinking.

The Kalgoray were designed and bio-engineered by Eves scientists, using human and alien genetics, to be elite soldiers against the blues should the blues go back on the deals they had agreed with Eve, and as the blues were coming, they could monitor their effectiveness from out in s.p.a.ce and that would buy them more time to get away.

The general runs over to the console and taps in a few things and from another location four large missiles were reading to launch. They would impact the ground, opening it up for the Kalgoray to be set free. They would then wreak havoc on the forces and give the blues a run for their money. Stern turns around and signals Eve that the deed was done and no sooner than this was done, the fighters guns were locked onto him, and a steady hand holding on to the controls presses down hard with an iron thumb, to let loose thousands of knife-sharp laser beams, to stab at the general. In his disbelief, he raises his arms to s.h.i.+eld himself, but his blood leaves his body in trails of red streamers, splas.h.i.+ng the walls and floor behind him. The c.o.c.kpit canopy closes and the fighter lifts up on a giant lifter ready for launch. Eve does not even look back. She is still smiling having won the day.

Chapter Seventy-Five.

The cloaked Invictus is looking directly at the top of the mountain and opens fire on the white snowy top. It explodes and thousands of tons of rock drop down, bouncing and spitting more and more as it picks up speed. Tons of ice and rock rain down on the t.i.tan and the troops below, like hail stones. Men dodge for their lives, most of them running for cover under the t.i.tan, only to be cut down by turret fire in the process.

The Invictus has a birds eye view. It felt good to purge the evil from this place. As the dust and snow settles, the sound of turret fire fades away. About a quarter of Eves men have survived, which was a miracle in itself, but Eves escape was now not possible, due to the large chunk of rock holding the hanger doors closed. Some of the falling mountain had pierced the t.i.tan and closed off access to many corridors.

Chapter Seventy-Six.

Eve clambers down from the fighter and the engine falls silent. She then walks over to the door, her footsteps making a splas.h.i.+ng noise as she walks through the remains of the general. Emergency power activates, bringing life support online again, and the dusty air slowly begins to be filtered out by the giant air scrubbers on the s.h.i.+p. Eve activates a hatch door to the outside and looks out, breathing in fresh air, closing her eyes and savouring the moment, until her nose is suddenly broken by a soldiers fist. She falls back onto the b.l.o.o.d.y mess that was once the general, and begins to claw for grip to get back up, but all she finds in her fingers is blood and bone. She has tears rolling down her face and her nose is pumping out blood like a broken tap.

The angered soldier dives in through the hatch and grabs Eve by the hair, tearing some out in the process, and drags her back to the hatch, and without any concern smashes her head once or twice on the way outside. The man flings her down onto some rocks face first, and she gets a mouthful of grit in the process. She is now disorientated. Another man puts his foot on the back of her neck, holding her face down in the grit. She turns her head to breath and cough out the rock in her mouth.

”Look! What do we have here? Is it a Prime Lady or a dog that turned on her men, a dog who shot us in the back, a dog who promised us freedom?” A small pool of blood gathers in the dirt around Eves face and she can hardly breathe. She is then lifted up once more by her hair and stood upright, gasping for much needed air.

”Im sorry! The general made me do it,” cries Eve in a last minute lie. Out pops a knife and it is waved in Eves face.

”Thats bull, and this here knife is going to find out the truth, slice by slice.” The man draws closer with the knife and he takes hold of her ear, readying to cut it off slowly.

Eve struggles with the now two men on each arm. ”Please, please no, I am sorry, please.” The man laughs, and just as he is about to slice the ear he is. .h.i.t in the back by a blaster shot, which melts his stomach like ice cream on a sunny day, and he falls to the ground. In all the mayhem and destruction and fighting that had been going on, no one had noticed the blue s.h.i.+p turn up in orbit. No one had noticed the thousands of ground troops heading their way and no one had noticed the swarms of ball s.h.i.+ps either.

”Kill them not me, you fools!” shouts Eve breaking free and heading back into the t.i.tan, as fast as her feet could carry her. She closes the hatch and heads inside the s.h.i.+p. She climbs over rocks and twisted s.h.i.+p, before sealing herself on the bridge. The consoles are blinking on and off, but she discovers that there is some power to the s.h.i.+p. Even now that she knew this attack would be too much and death was inevitable, she manages to restore some power to some of the auto-turrets and they begin to fire on the approaching blues. If she could get the engines to run and use full hyper-speed, she may be able to use the t.i.tan as a giant rocket car. Her forces were now engaged in fighting the blues, and all they had to do was fight and not die for a few moments more, because now the four missiles had launched and were making their way to break the ground open around them. The sandy coloured plane was now a blue plane, covered in thousands of monstrous creatures making their way to feed and destroy; it was like a never ending tide.

Chapter Seventy-Seven.

Pace was sat in the Invictus watching the whole thing unfold. His s.h.i.+p was cloaked and no one noticed him at all. Many things were running through his mind; should he rescue some of the men below him? Checking his scanners, it appeared Eve was on the bridge alone, with no s.h.i.+elds on the s.h.i.+p to soak up fire. It was not worth saving her men, they were all ex-prisoners who would kill first and ask questions later, he thought, but maybe saving Eve could be used to their advantage. She was bound to know where more PD1 missiles were stored, and that could turn the tide in their favour. Standing up, his mind was made up.

”Im going down to rescue Eve. Before you say anything, hear me out. I scanned the t.i.tan and there are a few fighters on board. Im going to grab one and Eve, blast my way out of the s.h.i.+p and get to her palace, and pick up some PD1 missiles or better, and destroy this menace once and for all.”

Nova is not happy with this idea at all. ”What are you, stupid? We are sitting pretty, with the best seats in the house for once, and you want to go rescue an enemy. You need your mind reading or something. Why dont we get the Fahrenheit to turn around and blast those suckers instead? Why do you have to be the hero?” Pace can see Novas concerns, but it is all set in his mind and he will not be deterred from it.

”I wont call back thousands of people to be killed when I can do the job myself, and Im not stupid, Im far from that, but if I dont go and see if Eve will reason with me, then I have lost my humanity. I must give her a chance. She has just been beaten by her own men, if that dont get her to think about her evil doings what will? Everyone deserves a second chance.”

Nova shakes her head. ”Yeah true, but not a third or fourth chance, Cap.”

Pace walks over to Nova and turns her in her chair to face him, and leaning down towards her whispers softly, ”Listen, you have always been like a sister to me, and I know you are looking out for me, but sometimes you just got to stop wrapping me up in cotton wool. Look at me. I have been through a lot, but I will go through a lot more before I live my last day. Ill be back, I promise.”

Nova reaches up and hugs Pace and kisses him on the cheek. ”You better keep that promise brother. Stay safe, I love you.” Pace stands up tall once more with the much needed love in his heart.

”Nova will take command. You are to rendezvous with the t.i.tan s.h.i.+p and stay safe. I will be along soon. Watch out for ball s.h.i.+ps, dont let them track you.” Pace looks at the worried faces around him. Maybe what he is doing is stupid, but it was the right thing to do. Pace puts on his s.p.a.cesuit and arms his weapon systems. Sam had been modifying things again, to make his suit better, but he had no time to test these new items, he had work to do. The loading bay ramp lowers and Nova flies close to the top of the t.i.tan s.h.i.+p, still cloaked.

”Sir, you do have a cloaking system built into your suit. I was messing around with things, but it should serve you well.” Sam is pleased with that modification as it will keep Pace alive for longer.

”Thanks, Sam.” Pace activates the cloak and becomes invisible, and then jumps out of the Invictus, using his jet pack to lower himself slowly onto the hull of the broken t.i.tan. The Invictus shoots off up in to the blackness of s.p.a.ce, unseen. After searching for a few minutes, Pace notices a hatch, opens it and climbs down a ladder to an airlock, where he opens the inner hatch to a room. Explosions are heard outside and the sound of the auto-turrets boom every now and then, shaking debris around him. Pace uses his spotlights to light the way in the darkened corridors that were powerless now.

Chapter Seventy-Eight.

Outside, only a few of Eves original forces remain alive, still fighting hard against these terrible odds. A large green gas cloud precedes the blues, generated by two giant machines, and protected by giant four-legged creatures with dark blue skin with black stripes and two ma.s.sive arms that could punch through armour in no time. They also had what appeared to be tendrils coming out of their backs. Smaller blues dashed around leaping in the air at Eves men. They could launch an attack from quite a distance away; a hard lesson learned at the beginning of the fight, losing a great number of men.

Then there were the medium sized blues. They were like little tanks once on the rampage. They had four arms, horns and thick scales and were dark blue with lava coloured veins all over them, but their evil red eyes made every man shudder, if he had the misfortune to get up close. It seemed they could jump a fair distance too, and fired parasites at the men. If Pace had been stood with them, he could have warned them of all of this and maybe saved some lives in the process, but what goes around comes around, he thinks. These men were used to fighting other men, not aliens. They were out-matched, and finally the blues started to break through their line.

One man, who was on his back being attacked by a smaller blue who was carving at him with metal claws, shouts out loud, ”In coming!” He notices two and then two more missiles flying over him and smiling he draws his last breath, as the missiles. .h.i.t the ground near him. Four large explosions cause soil and rock to erupt into the air, along with a pungent smell.

Many blues are slain in the blast and many are sent in bits through the air. The whole ground shakes and ripples shake the ground for miles. Nothing can stand up for long in this blast; even the giant blues are shocked, looking up from the floor. Every creature and every man lie still for a moment, then remembering what is going on around them, jump back to their feet to try to gain an advantage on the battlefield. No person or creature pays any attention to the four large holes in the ground.

Pace regains his footing and tries to open the bridge door, but its locked from the inside. Eve hears a beeping sound on the door and looks at Pace from the camera and opens a channel to him.

”Youre still alive then. Well, well, well. Oh, you poor thing, youre a blue too I see. Thats such bad luck.”

Pace, looking at Eves mangled face replies. ”I see you have had a face lift, such a much better look for you, I think. Now cut the c.r.a.p. Do you want to work against me or with me, the choice is yours. Ill give you five minutes to decide, and then Im leaving your sorry a.s.s to the blues.” Eve decides in an instant to work with Pace, after all he is still alive, and if he can get her out and die along the way, then thats a better option than none.

”Whats the plan?” replies Eve, opening the door.

Pace has his blaster gauntlet raised pointing at her head. ”We need PD1 missiles. Where are they kept?”

Wanting to work with Pace and get out of the t.i.tan, Eve wipes blood from her nose. ”A stockpile I have stored at my palace, but how are we going to get there?”

Pace grabs her arm and tugs her down the dark corridors back to the fighter. ”Get in, now!” Pace shoves Eve into the front seat of the fighter and climbs in the rear seat. He locks out the controls in the front, so Eve cannot try to pull a fast surprise on him, and he takes the controls. He arms two melta-missiles and closes the canopy. The engines roar and the missiles are soon traveling towards the hull wall. Two blinding lights flash and an orange glow appears around a large hole in the hull. It is just big enough for the s.h.i.+p to fit through, so they sc.r.a.pe through just in time. The last of Eves troops have fallen and they have just moments to escape.

The fighter is. .h.i.t by blaster fire, which has no effect on the s.h.i.+elds, but they have now caught the attention of the wave of ball s.h.i.+ps, and with no cloaking ability they are sitting ducks, unless they do something soon. Pace flies the s.h.i.+p low over the thousands of ground troops ma.s.sing near the t.i.tan. They leap up trying to jump on the s.h.i.+p as it pa.s.ses them. Pace notices the blues gas making machines and realises that they all are breathing it to survive. He also notices, from one of the holes in the ground, some Kalgoray emerging, who pounce on some of the blues and drag them underground for a quick meal.