33 Hawking Elementary Cannon (1/2)

Ivan, Mazur, Iris and Valeria flew back to Major Harold's destroyer once the gravitational fluctuations in space had begun to stabilize.

Aboard the destroyer, Major Harold watched Ivan and the others reappear on the bridge and let out a sigh, ”I assume you four were behind the destruction of the mothership?”

Iris gave the Major a smile that made everyone on the bridge become charmed by her momentarily, so mesmerised they forgot to breath. Ivan and the others chuckled lightly at this, becoming a four-dimensional being had changed them greatly. In one sense of it, they could be considered as being 'more perfect', hence a beauty like Iris emerged with a natural charm that was impossible for a three-dimensional being.

”Ahem, not that it matters,” Major Harold cleared his throat with a cough, inadvertently waking everyone up from their stupors.

Ivan looked at the battlefield from the perspective of the warship and couldn't help but ask, ”Can you guy survive the final three minutes until reinforcements arrive?”

”We can as long as we keep focusing on evasion,” Major Harold paused before continuing. ”Once the reinforcements arrive, I need you four to immediately head over to Colonel Regiere's flagship. The Colonel will be expecting you, although I think she would be expecting a transport shuttle. She couldn't quite understand the you'll be flying over is you will literally be 'flying' over.”

Ivan understood the reason for moving to the flagship, he chuckled to himself before saying, ”If that is your resolution, I won't try to stop you. You know, if you fired photon beams onto the planet's surface, you can easily annihilate the Scalians assaulting the natives.”

”We cannot, our laws prevent us from creating unnecessary casualties, and to cruelly annihilate so many innocent victims of would be morally inhuman.”

”Major, you don't understand the method of killing the few to save the many. It is because there are people like you that these battles are dragged out and, in the end, more people die than if you were to have done the former.”

”It is still morally wrong. They also have lives, loved ones. To heartlessly tear that away from them, it is not something I can do.”

Ivan laughed derisively. ”You are a soldier, Major, you have to make the best choice. What does it matter, anyway? You know you're going to die even if reinforcements come, why be so faint hearted now.”

”I will die with honor, not shame,” Major Harold was steadfast and said with a stern glare. ”I am a soldier, but it is a good thing that you are not my superior.”

Ivan clicked his tongue and didn't bother pressing the issue, but he suddenly coughed, a little blue blood spattering onto the floor of the bridge. There was more blood that was actually coughed up, but it was all in subspace and couldn't be seen by the crewmembers of the destroyer.

”You're injured?” Major Harold asked the four of them in surprise, secretly thinking to himself at the same time, 'Blue blood? He's, no, they're not human?'

”What did you expect, we were in the caught up in that antimatter explosion after all,” Ivan explained, not pointing out that they were technically in subspace.

”Antimatter? Caught in the explosion?” Major Harold and the rest of the officers in the bridge had aghast expressions on their faces.

The battle concluded for the Galactic Fleet rapidly, their 72 surviving ships rapidly plummeted to 20. The Scalian wardolls had completely defeated the Galactic Fleet mechanoids and were rapidly closing in on the surviving several destroyers and battleships. They rapidly fired anti-mechanoid rounds at the incoming mass, wiping out swarms at a time, but there were simply too many.

Alarms from within Major Harold's destroyer rang one after another as the wardolls' antiparticle rifles punctured holes through the ship and compromised regions of it. It's energy shield simply couldn't keep up with the damage and seal off the breaches in time.

”Major! Radars are picking up a fleet about to arrive in hyperspace! It's Colonel Regiere's fleet!” One of the officers on the bridge hurriedly shouted in a nervous panic.

Major Harold closed his eyes in relief and a weight appeared to have been lifted from his shoulders. ”Understood. Inform the crew, everyone is to evacuate to the nearest escape pod point. You all fought bravely, but in order to survive, you must escape immediately.”

The orders were relayed throughout the ship and every crew member rapidly rushed to the nearest escape pod point.

”You're not going to leave, Major?” Ivan asked.

”My responsibility lies in the evacuation of the crew, I cannot leave until they do. You four should leave t-” Major Harold was cut off as an antiparticle beam compromised on of the Sol Reactors, causing it to explode and blow apart a large portion of the ship and causing the rest to violently shake.

Ivan lead Mazur, Iris and Valeria to fly out of the destroyer. He looked at the terrible state of the ship, one potion near the rear ship had disintegrate into fragments in space, some of which were falling toward the planet's surface.

Not far away from the Scalian fleet, well above the battlefield, a massive flagship, bigger than the previous Scalian mothership, appeared from hyperspace with a shimmer of light. After that, destroyers and battleships dropped out of hyperspace one after another in a seemingly endless number. The number of ships continued to grow until the fleet reached a staggering 50,000 ships.

”I understand now why they don't name their ships,” Ivan said to Mazur insightfully. ”There are simply too many, there is no way they could name them all.”

Iris also nodded her head, but she noted the writing on the side of the massive flagship and commented, ”But why does that ship have a name? The Moriarty?”

”This Colonel Regiere should have a high authority, naming a flagship shouldn't be too surprising,” Mazur spoke of it as a negligible matter.

The four Celestials flew toward the Moriarty. Behind them, the remainder of the Galactic Fleet that began the encounter rapidly crumbled apart into fragments. Hundreds of thousands of escape pods were drifting in space, many of them falling toward the planet's surface along with a large portion of ship fragments. The atmosphere of the planet appeared to almost turn red from all the debris and pods falling through it, each burning red from the intense friction. Most would burn up before reaching the ground and avoid an apocalypse scenario, but the escape pods and larger fragments would still fall like small meteors.