I apologize for the slight info dump later on in the chapter.

This was not a very soft mat. Oh yeah, it wasn’t a mat. Jett spit the sand out of his mouth and stood up and leaned back against the ropes. This ring wasn’t the softest place to be fighting in.

His opponent was a lot bigger, more built for bareknuckle boxing and street fights than Jett. But then again Jett never really gave a care.

He started laughing.

“What’s so funny shrimp dick?” his opponent laughed.

“Oh, nothing, just a joke I remembered.”

COMBAT ANALYSIS PROGRAM VERSION ALPHA ACTIVATED.

“And just what is it?”

SYSTEM ANALYZING.

“You!” Jett laughed insanely just as a punch smacked him across the face. He fell to the ground again on his face.

“I’m getting real tired of you asshole. Just give up already so I can collect my winnings.”

“No! Wait a minute!” Jett laughed even harder, his blue eyes were wide and his eyelid twitched, “You haven’t even seen the best part yet!”

The man crossed his arms, “And what’s that?”

“Oh?! You haven’t guessed already?! Well here,” Jett swiftly stood up sent a haymaker right into the man’s unprotected jaw.

ANALYZING>>> DISLOCATION OF JAW.

“That’s the punch line asshole.”

***

Several Days Earlier.

Jett pulled the welding mask up off his head and stared at his work.

“Alright,” he smiled, “I think we’re almost finished here.”

He hopped down from the fuselage of a newly built craft. Instead of upgrading the old planes he had just torn them apart and recycled all the materials to build more advanced models. Of course these were still nothing compared to the Space Planes that could pull up to 50 Gs without suffering damage. As long as inertial dampeners held out. Still, the Mark IIs were still good even by his standards.

Unlike the other planes these were controlled in a prone position lying down on the stomach. Natural flying position for these guys. Fiberglass cockpit, 360 degrees of view, duel control sticks, all intuitive and powered by two jet engines with 20,000 pounds of thrust per engine with thrust vectoring for enhance maneuverability.

Unfortunately it took an entire week with no sleep just to design one of these things, another day to test the aeronautics of it, another day to smash out the bugs and imperfections until finally it took another two days just to print the parts and build it.

But it was worth it. Plus it would be easier to fly. Almost like in a dream.

“Alright, just one last thing to do,” he grabbed a stamp and some spray paint and walked up to the tail.

CyberFire Industries Prototype.

“Should probably trademark this or something before someone steals it,” he laughed.

He hopped down from the plane satisfied with his work. Of course it still wasn’t painted over yet but it wouldn’t matter. This was just a prototype after all.

He walked over into the workshop and dropped the mask and the plasma welder before walking over to the aircraft and climbing in.

“Alright, start-up procedures.”

He activated the control board. It was an advanced kind of touch screen so no accidents could occur. The screen was equipped with an interactive display that helped indicate flight path, wind speed, aircraft diagnostics, lift and altitude, velocity and location of nearby objects including teammates.

Once strapped in he closed the cockpit and taxied the plane onto the runway.

“Alright, let’s see what these jet engines can doooo!”

The plane shot down the runway and out of the hanger.

***

“It’s been almost a week Dane,” Spitfire grumbled, “What do you have?”

Dane sighed, “Nothing. I’ve been at this almost every day since then as you asked and I still don’t have a plan in mind-well that’s a lie actually. I do have one idea but I haven’t any luck finding an excuse to implement it.”

“Well what is it?”

“We need the point Jett in the right direction. He just needs to walk in on them and discover things for himself. Only problem is I haven’t the faintest idea where he goes to when he walks off. And it has to be somewhere he frequents just as much as she does.”

“Which we know nothing about,” Spitfire sighed.

…

“Well… uh… I may have something…” Dane blinked.

“Really?”

“Yeah, I still have the old matchbox Jett made me and so I used it.”

“Well?”

“Well I found out that there’s a park that Jett and Skies first met that they both frequent. If Jett were to walk in there and catch her cheating on him…”

“Then all our problems are solved.”

“Or we create another one.”

“What do you mean?” Spitfire asked, “What other problems could we create?”

“You’ve seen him when he’s angry. Due to that shard embedded in his head he’s developed psychopathic and sociopathic tendencies when he loses control. You already know this so why am I repeating it?”

“Sorry. So is that the plan? Just do an info drop and point him the right way?”

“Yeah well we’ll need to figure out when they’ll be next be there so we can send Jett there at that time.”

“Just what do you mean by ‘send’?”

“I don’t know. We just need to find some reason to send him there… Do you even know where this place is?”

“I thought you did!”

“Well shit.”

…

Dane blinked, “I guess I can use the box to spy on him and find out where it is…”

“What? Are you sure about that? Spying on Jett?”

“Good point. Maybe Skies then? From what I’ve heard she frequents the place as much as Jett does.”

“Well then spy on her. Like you’ve been doing before.”

“What I’ve been doing before was bad enough. Spying like THIS just doesn’t feel very moral.”

“You know I think I remember a quote about morals from my stay in Sol. Who was it who said it? Oh that’s right, a man by the name of Isaac Asimov. ‘Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what’s right.’ Does that 450 year old piece of wisdom ring any bells?”

“Yes I remember it. But I need to ask you something. Do you want me to do this because it it’s in Jett’s best interests or because it’s in yours?”

“Wha?”

“Come on. I honestly think it’s time for their relationship to end in fire as much as the next person but I’m not too sure how far I would go to do that.”

“I… I would like to see them break up but… I don’t know okay? It’s really confusing. Please Dane? You have to do this, for Jett. If we wait he may never trust anyone again.”

Dane raised hand to his head, thinking. After several moments he lowered it.

“I’ll help you one condition.”

“Name it.”

“Help me convince the bastard to undergo a treatment I’m developing. It would be an implant in the back of his skull that would prevent any further memory loss.”

“Don’t you want to work on getting his old stuff back first?”

“We don’t even know if any of his old memories are even intact. The engrams could be destroyed for all we know. He only recovered last time because we were somewhere that had adequate technology to handle him. Here? I can’t even run a precise enough diagnostic on his net to even determine what the hell is wrong with him. So unless you want to sit there with a baseball bat smashing him in the head until he remembers something, be my guest. But I would take what we have and run with it.”

Spitfire sighed, “Alright. Prep whatever you got and then get out there and find that park. We’ll work something out later.”

“Alright. In the mean time you go find him and keep him occupied until I get back,” Dane said tossing a small box into the air and catching it before vanishing into the air.

A heavy rumbling got Spitfire’s attention as a single seat jet aircraft sped off towards the horizon. She would have little trouble keeping him occupied.

***

Interstellar Space. USS PEGASUS.

“Are you sure you can do this?” Ajax asked.

“I have to do this,” Kana responded.

“Repeat the mission to me.”

“At 0900 all ships launch fighters and park them behind the fleet’s engines. All fighters activate heat and radiation shields and the engineers fire off a 30 minute burst from mains. All fighters are rocketed over to the IPA ships at fifty percent the speed of light. At 0930 when the first squadron arrives they will drop off the packages, turn tail and head home while the main strike force comes in for the kill.”

“Their fleet blows up, we go on our ways repairing ourselves and establishing a new civilization among the stars. Exciting shit,” Ajax finished.

“Yes, yes it is. Do you have any plans for after this whole mess is over?”

“Well, I suppose I was planning on becoming the administrative A.I. for whatever colony we establish when we arrive. What were you planning on doing?”

“Well… I honestly don’t know. I had originally planned on going into journalism but you know the apocalypse kind of canceled that plan. At this point though? Maybe a computer programmer or something. Maybe I could get into the A.I. field or some android development project.”

Ajax’s avatar flickered, “Android development?”

“Come on Ajax, you have to have heard the rumors,” Kana smiled.

“What rumors?” Ajax, being an A.I. could be an excellent liar when needed.

“The ones that have been floating around the fleet since we left. Rumor has it that the Admiral was developing something big just before all this shit went down. Supposedly he was working on developing these robots that looked, acted, felt, and even BELIEVED that they were human. Supposedly there are a few of them somewhere in this fleet.”

“A few of them?”

“Well if you believe the shit that the snipes all talk about apparently two of them are apparently unaccounted for.”

“And the others?”

“Dead to the point where any hopes of reverse engineering the technology are about as hopeless as Adolf Hitler trying to invade Russia in the middle of January. The rest are somewhere in the fleet.”

“This is beginning to sound a lot less like rumor and more like a leaked file than anything else,” Ajax frowned.

“Well that is where all this came from. But again, that’s if you believe anything those Snipes below deck say,” Kana said with a wink.

“Yes well, uh, I think we should leave rumors be and focus on the task at hand. Now, the Admiral has asked me to inform you that there will be last minute change of plans.”

“Yeah? And what’s that.”

“You’ll be on the command shuttle to keep track of everyone and everything and to make sure everyone and everything is doing its fucking job. Some of these flyboys and girls are getting high off of enough testosterone to kill a herd of fucking elephants. Just keep the program working and flag whenever someone deviates and I’ll do the rest.”

“Why can’t you do this? You’re the A.I. here.”

“Excuse me but do you control reactor temperatures up to a thousandth of a degree in accuracy every day all day? Do you make sure that the air on this ship is recycled properly so you’re not sucking down carbon dioxide and smoke? Do you monitor the Ram scoops that help fuel this whole operation? Do you keep track of what everyone and everything is doing in this ship on a daily basis? Do you do all of that but on nearly a thousand other ships every single day? Come on now, least you could do is give me some help in some areas.”

“Alright, alright. So I’m on the shuttle now. Great. What are my chances of survival?”

“Well the mission itself, at best estimates, averaged together, and assuming some retarded Deus Ex Machina type event doesn’t give them the advantage our chances are… 72.3453334404948594, repeating on and on of course, percent chance of success. That is of course assuming that first squad does their jobs correctly and doesn’t fuck us over because it will take an incredibly long time to build torpedoes like those again.”

“Let’s not talk about those torpedoes for the moment. So, I’m the shuttle, you’ll be helping me out a little, and as long as we do our jobs, those nasty fucks following us around like a group of bipolar drunks attracted to a sixteen year old will take the hint and go the fuck away. Or hopefully die in space.”

“Amen to that. So, tomorrow you’ll get picked up and taken to a briefing about just what the fuck you’ll be doing only in more detail. All formality really. ”

“I see. Alright. Tomorrow everything will be finalized. The day after is when shit seriously hits the fan.”

“You have no idea,” the A.I. grinned deviously.

***

“I found it,” Dane said.

“What?” Spitfire asked.

“I found it. The park he visits all the time. It’s located on a terrace near the outskirts of the city overlooking the valley below. It is heavily decorated with trees and other foliage making it difficult to see from the floor below and its proximity to the entertainment district make it an almost novelty to be ignored but it is there. I also learned that the day after tomorrow, the bitch and her dog will be having a picnic there. And when she does, Jett will conveniently stroll in.”

Spitfire stood up from her desk, “Just how are we going to do that?”

“I have a few plans in mind. One is that you and he go for a walk together and you wind up there somehow. The only other idea I have in mind is you somehow know about it already and do something stupid like leave something there for him to go retrieve. Considering you’re back on friendly terms and he knows the place I’m sure he’d be happy to retrieve whatever you leave behind for you.”

“I think the second one sounds better,” Spitfire shrugged.

“Yeah that’s what I thought too.”

“So now we just need to finalize the details?”

“I guess we do.”

***

Jett rubbed his head, “Note to self, muffle the engines.”

He climbed out of the cockpit and walked past another certain project of his and on to the machine shop. He sat down at one of the work stations, tapped the smart glass and pulled up a holographic design program and began working on a muffler.

He’d gotten the base of it down when a beeping got his attention. He turned left. His wall mounted communicator had received a message.

He rolled his chair over and tapped the screen only to get a mild shock from the surface.

“Ow,” he said involuntarily looking down at his hand. His right index finger had a small black scorch mark on it.

He stared back at the screen and then at his hand. He quickly retrieved a driver and removed the device from the wall.

An exposed power conduit. It sparked electricity occasionally. Jett stared at it and back at his right hand and frowned. He quickly repaired the device and replaced the communicator. Still something occupied his mind as he returned to his desk.

It was something he remembered from a while back. Something he had discovered but never had the opportunity to hack it any further.

Suddenly he remembered and he smiled and glanced down at his hand. He dug into a drawer and retrieved a probe and stabbed himself in the back of the neck with it.

He grimaced slightly as a feeling of cold mercury filled his mind.

“Alright, now let’s try this again,” he smiled as a virtual representation of his body appeared before him, “Acc! Get out here; I want to do an experiment.”

***

USS MIDNIGHT ETERNITY.

Kana sighed. This briefing was something she’d already read over 13 times and she was already well versed in her part. Ajax was right. This was all formality. Soon the meeting was over and Kana was headed back to the shuttle but still, something was on her mind that she didn’t feel like she had the clearance to ask.

Just what the hell were those fighters even going to be shooting?

Still this whole thing was need to know only and the civilian fleet knew less than nothing about this. Still, it would help to know just what was going on if she was going to have to be the architect of this swarm like attack.

She sighed. Whatever, fuck it, shit happens, move on.

0800 Hours

“All hands, report to crash couches! All hands, report to crash couches! Prepare for high G accelerations.”

Kana ran towards the hanger deck. Today was game day, the Superbowl, the Olympics or whatever else you wanted to fucking call it. To say she was stressed was to put it at an understatement.

“All pilots report to your ships and prepare your packages for immediate departure. Radiation kits need to be picked up by 0830. Sentinels report to your gunship and prepare for turbulence. Standard procedures will apply.”

Hopefully no one would die in the initial burn off. She entered the ship’s hanger and looked around for her gunship.

Ajax materialized next to her, “That one.”

She pointed at a medium sized craft. Aerodynamically designed, capable of atmospheric flight. Drag fins for fast maneuvering in an atmosphere as well as high energy output maneuvering thrusters for space combat. Windows equipped with blast shields.

However most of this would be unconventional and most of the calculations done were all theoretical so there was no absolute guarantee that the ship would withstand the heat or thrust. Seventy nine percent chance the ship didn’t burn up. Still twenty one percent too high.

“Are you sure this will work?” Kana asked the A.I.

“Fairly sure,” she smiled uneasily, “We’re dead either way so this either goes sixty six percent as planned at least or we’re done. Now get on your ship.”

“Wait!” she yelled just at the door of the ship.

“Hmm?”

“Just what are we shooting at these guys?”

Ajax grinned, “Not a level five.”

“What the hell is that supposed to me-” a crew man pulled her into the ship and sealed the hatch.

Ajax smiled and turned to the chaos of the hanger. The cruiser did have fighters but a limited number. Over the past year the Admiral had commissioned a group of scientists and engineers working in conjunction with the A.I. to develop unconventional weapons and tactics to win. And one of the things this think tank came up with was a project called Level Six. EMP technology had been developed and improved upon over the four hundred years since its early conception but as the tech advanced so did countermeasures. And one of them was EMP hardened ships. All military vessels were equipped with the armor.

And Level Six got passed it.

The A.I. quickly scanned the room before vanishing and reappearing on the bridge of the Midnight Eternity.

“Arm and load all nuclear weapons,” The Admiral said before turning to a small pad in his hand, “Doctor, are the Level Six’s ready?”

“As they’ll ever be Admiral. Though I must say you’re basing a lot of this on a gamble.”

“I wouldn’t say a gamble Doctor,” he smiled, “I’ve just been counting cards is all. And odds are in my favor.”

“If you say so Admiral. All teams are prepped and ready for launch. Fleet engines ready to execute high G burn at your command. Inertial dampeners to maximum, all crew in crash couches.”

“Alright then,” he turned to Ajax, “You ready for this?”

“Of course,” she smiled.

“Alright then. Okay people let’s clear out! Get to your crash couches and prepare for high G acceleration. Careful with the Fleet Ajax. She’s the only one we got.”

“I’ll do my best sir.”

“I know you will. Good luck,” He said walking towards the doors.

“Mon Capitan, I don’t need luck. Just a few variables and a computer to calculate them.”

“Of course. See you on the other side.”

“Yes sir,” she smiled and then glanced back at him, “Good luck.”

The Admiral smiled as the doors closed behind him. Ajax turned and scanned the bridge.

“Alright,” she said nervously, “I have the con…”

Slowly she set her avatar down in the captain’s chair.

“…All of them,” said every Ajax avatar currently being projected into the bridge of every ship in the fleet.

***

Jett grinned. Duel weapon ability unlocked. Or at least that’s what he liked to think. Still wasn’t sure if this whole thing would work or not but from the simulations he ran he was ninety nine point nine nine repeating ad infinitum percent sure that this would work.

Still, wasn’t every day you figured out you had some new skill or in this case could program one.

He walked out of his hanger area looking back at the new plane he built. He’d fix it up later before moving to final production of them.

He smiled; the team would be pleased.

He ran up the stairs up to ground level again. The grounds were empty. Most likely because it was an off day and everyone was off doing their own thing from seeing the latest Daring Doo movie to visiting family. Hopefully the rest of the team got along with their family a little better than Spitfire did with hers.

Well, he could always get some lunch here before deciding what to do for the rest of the day.

Spitfire and Dane strolled onto the compound talking.

“… Anyway so for his party we got the restaurant people to do this really funny prank,” Spitfire laughed.

“What was it?” Dane asked.

“Well, you know how some restaurants do that singing thing on your birthday? Well he was on edge all day so we paid them to make a pie and then to sneak up behind him and just plaster his face with it!”

“Oh no…” Dane laughed.

“Hold on, I think I still have a picture of it on my old phone. I-” she reached into her pocket and blinked.

“Something wrong?” Jett asked walking over.

“Nah, it’s nothing. Just can’t find my phone is all,” she frowned, “Jeez, where the hell did I put it? Last place I remember it being was at… Eden Park.”

“Eden Park?” Dane asked.

She sighed, “Stopped by there earlier to enjoy a coffee before meeting up with you. Great…”

“Well I was just heading out to lunch,” Jett smiled, “I can stop and look for it if you want.”

“Really? You’re sure?”

“Yeah it’s no problem. I needed to get out of the cave anyway.”

“Oh thank you so much,” she leapt on him in a bear hug, “I promise I’ll treat you lunch when you get back. We’ll all find some nice place to go out to eat.”

“Alright, sounds good. Kick boxing later?”

“You know it,” she grinned.

“Alright then. See you in half an hour.”

He turned and started casually walking out of the compound humming to himself.

***

Kana could hear her heart beating. Every breath she took sounded like a hurricane force gale. She and her crew and the rest of the sentinels and fighter pilots were not in crash couches and instead wore crash suits. Not the best substitute. She still felt the G’s weighing down on her, making her one hundred and ten pound frame feel like she had an elephant crushing her body.

She turned her eyes ever so slightly to get a look at the screens. Velocity was so high she didn’t want to think about how terrifyingly fast they were going. Even with the inertial dampeners as maximum it would not be enough at these speeds. While under normal circumstances the G’s the ship itself was experiencing would splatter everyone across the wall like bugs to a fly swatter, the dampeners kept them at bay. Just enough to keep a person alive and conscious with help from technology and heavy doses of drugs.

She just wanted this to be over. If she could she would probably vomit only the contents of her stomach didn’t look like they would be going anywhere any time soon.

Hopefully everything would go according to plan. Please let just one thing go right.

***

IPA VENGEANCE.

Captain Marcus frowned, “What the fuck are they doing?”

The Vengeance as well as every other ship in the IPA fleet had detected a massive burst of continuous energy coming from the fleet. It had been going on for minutes now with no sign of slowing down. The engine burst had blocked all sensors from adequately detecting what the fleet was doing. It did make a perfect mask.

“Maybe they’re trying to high tail it, sir,” his first officer smiled with the same bitchy look he’d come to expect from her, “Fuckin’ cowards.”

“Hang on sir,” the sensor officer said, “Massive particle burst heading straight for us. Estimate three minutes to impact.”

“Particle burst? From them?”

“Maybe. Normally engines don’t do that unless they dumped something into the reactors or if they’re trying to run fast from something.”

“How fast?”

“I’d say a fraction of the speed of light. Hard to say for sure. Either way that burst will fry anything without armor on our outer hull. I suggest we retract the communications and solar arrays as well as locking down our weapons.”

“Alright. Proceed with storm shelter protocols. Lock it all down.”

“Yes sir.”

Meanwhile far away hidden in the cloud, monsters in the mist flew silently towards them.

Two minutes later everything was locked down.

“All locked up sir. Point defense guns as well as small batteries locked inside the hull.”

“The mains?” Marcus asked.

“No ship in the fleet has retractable mains. They’re too big sir. They’ll be fine. They can stand the heat.”

“Alright then. Order all c-”

“Hang on! I think I got something!” the sensor officer said.

“What is it?” First officer Phaedra asked.

“I… Wait. No it’s gone. No wait! It’s back again. Gone… back,” the man blinked, “What the hell?”

“What do you see?”

“It looks like a sensor echo. A bunch of small objects keep appearing and disappearing like ghosts.”

The computer’s voice spoke. This computer was not anything like Ajax or any other A.I. the Terrans had and was little more than a glorified smart phone. Its synthesized voice echoed through the bridge.

“Ten seconds until particle wave front impact. Brace. Brace. Brace. Brace. Bra-”

A jarring impact shook the ship. Sparks flew as the lights fell to the dull red of the battle alert alarms. Marcus fell to the floor.

“Report!”

“The front’s hit us dead on! We’re being blasted by the wake from the Terran Fleet!”

The ship began to groan.

“Hull polarization at twenty three percent! Structural integrity at eighty one percent!”

“Divert auxiliary power from ventral engines to the structural integrity field! Reroute auxiliary power from the weapons array to the polarization field!”

“Working!” the lieutenant replied, “Jesus Christ, we’re getting cooked out there!”

“Life support is fluctuating!” An officer yelled.

The ship continued to groan and then shook in a forceful jar.

“Hull breach on decks forty one through thirty five, sections one through fifteen!”

“Divert main power from weapons to life support and damage control!”

“Yes sir!”

The ship continued to groan and the just as soon as it began… it stopped. The groaning ceased with it.

“What happened?” Marcus asked.

“Working. I… I think they stopped their burn sir. Or at least they did a few minutes ago.”

“Damage report.”

“Hull breach- already know that. Some of the hull armor has buckled along our horizontal axis. Structural integrity at fifty four percent. Hull polarization has collapsed. The deflector and bussard ram scopes are damaged and offline. Minor internal things, a few injuries but nothing else too serious.”

“Restore normal power.”

“Aye sir. Restoring normal pow-”

BEEP BEEP BEEP.

“Hang on sir! I have some… thing…” the lieutenant paled.

“What? What is it?” Phaedra asked.

“I, uh, massive strike force heading towards us. Several hundred squadrons of fighters and a few hundred support craft.”

“What?! How?!”

“They must have hidden inside the particle cloud. The first wave will be right on top of us in less than a minute!”

“Activate weapons. Arm point defense lasers and destroy them.”

Silence.

“Well? Get to it!”

“Sir, weapons were completely shut down during the particle storm. It will take several minutes to rekey the systems…”

He turned to the holographic projection in the center of the bridge. A swarm of angry ships was converging on the fleet.

“My god…”

***

“Blackjack this is Sentinel one,” an unnamed officer said. Kana didn’t take the time to learn his name. She herself was busy monitoring and directing this whole thing as were several others on other sentinel craft scattered though out the swarm.

“Go ahead Sentinel.”

“Permission to fire has been granted. Release of Level Six is authorized. Fire at will.”

“Yes sir.”

One thing all ships counted on, particularly the IPA fleet, was EMP armor. Inside the hardened shell no electromagnetic pulse could ever get through and knock out a ship. It was just harmlessly deflected by the armor. The most damage done would be a few fried laser batteries if they weren’t stored properly. Level Six however was different beast all together. A more intense EMP, it produced a pulse that was stronger and thicker than all others seen before and likely after it for a very long time for less energy than conventional weapons.

Best of all it took advantage of the one kink in the armor. The guns. Most captains didn’t consider weapons a vulnerability and if they did it was a minor one. Level Six took out ships by going in right down the enemy’s throat. It got under the armor through the unshielded gun batteries, cutting through all the firing tech and ammo it burst through ships as it emerged inside the magazines. This was more than leveled the playing field. It turned it into a slaughter house.

The first wave let loose. The large missiles streaking into the fleet, into every corner to cover every square millimeter of it. No ship would be left untouched.

The defenseless ships could only watch in horror as the missiles streaked into their ranks and detonated with a creepy silent blue light.

Farther out, Sentinel teams watched as the enemy fleet was lit up like a Christmas tree, electromagnetic shockwaves hitting every single ship. Electrical arcs flew across the rail gun batteries, in some cases overloading the capacitors and in more extreme cases causing them to explode.

Several ships were gone right off the bat as the heavy rail gun batteries exploded all over. Those that were still standing were helpless as their lights flickered and went off as every single system on them simultaneously failed.

Kana simply blinked and redirected her squad of Peace makers as they were called back behind the second wave. Suddenly, and quite oddly too, she remembered a song her mother used to lull her to sleep with. Almost involuntarily she began to sing it. Even though they were the enemy, they were still humans and they at least deserved this, even if they would never hear it.

“There are loved ones in the glory,

Whose dear forms you often miss.”

Outside the window, ship after ship streaked by in silent anger towards the crippled fleet.

“Titan one two zero. The word is given and you are cleared to engage!”

“Rodger that. All ships, open fire at your discretion but keep your distance and be mindful of your fellow pilots. Other than that, happy turkey shoot.”

“When you close your earthly story,

Will you join them in their bliss?”

Jett walked along the sidewalk heading towards Eden Park, quietly singing to himself,

“Will the circle be unbroken?

By and by, by and by?”

Kana watched in a horrified awe as nuclear tipped missiles leapt from the fighters they were carried on and sailed towards their targets, detonating against the hull in bright flashes of light.

“All right!” someone shouted over the open channel.

“Is a better home awaiting

In the stars, in the stars?”

The tree leaves fluttered nicely in the summer breeze as Jett continued down the road. A little girl skipped down the street past him with a gleeful smile on her face.

“Come on daddy! We’re going to be late!”

“In the joyous days of childhood

Oft they told of wondrous love.”

Heavier ships that weren’t immediately destroyed by the nuclear weapons died slower more painful deaths as terrific wounds torn in their flanks spilled out their atmosphere. Collections of bodies went out into the cold vacuum with the air they breathed only to die in the cold of space or to be incinerated as their ships burned and exploded.

“Pointed to the dying Saviour;

Now they dwell with Him above.”

Jett smiled and waved. The coffee shop girl smiled and waved back at her, her grin as bright as the sun and as wide as the horizon itself. She soon turned and jumped with glee as she embraced one of her friends before escorting her to a table and beginning a conversation.

“It’s wonderful to see you!”

“You remember songs of heaven

Which you sang with childish voice.”

“X-ray one two starboard fifty degrees,” a pilot’s voice came into the cabin, “Super Carrier.”

“Rodger Racecar, target the hanger deck, I got the engines. Going in hot!”

Kana blinked and turned to face her console. Her hands danced across it in an artistic movement of dictation. Ships that spent their weapons were ordered back in a majestic organized fashion, regrouped and then sent to catch up with the Terran Fleet. Meanwhile large red dots representing the IPA ships continued to go out.

“Do you love the hymns they taught you,

Or are songs of earth your choice?”

Jett soon began to approach the park. He knew due to the increase in beautiful foliage all over the area. Flowers of all colors bloomed and flooded the streets with their wondrous scents. Happy couples walked by and occasionally stopped to relish in the moment.

“One by one their seats were emptied.

One by one they went away.”

Almost all the red lights were gone now. The flashes were beginning to die down. A once majestic if malevolent fleet of starships was now nothing more than a cloud of expanding gases, metallic debris, and the bodies of those who dared follow the children of the stars back into heaven.

“Now the family is parted.

Will it be complete one day?”

Eden Park was visible. The dilapidated sign just barely visible. It was mostly empty except for a few voices. One was familiar and most welcome. Jett smiled and hurried to meet it.

The fleet of fighters and gunships, after completing their survey of the area turned and executed their burn and accelerated back towards the only remaining fleet left. A collective cheer went up through the fleet on all channels. It would take several days to catch back up but at least no one was chasing them anymore Kana pulled herself out of her seat.

“Misaki! Come celebrate with us!” an officer said with a wide grin.

“Thanks but I’m fine,” she smiled back before turning and heading to the bathroom, closing the door behind her and violently retching and vomiting into the toilet. She continued for several minutes, crying all the time before she pulled herself up and looked at herself in the mirror, utterly disgusted with herself.

“Will the circle be unbroken?

By and by, by and by?

Is a better home awaiting

In the stars, in the stars?”

She fell to the floor and began to weep again.

***

Jett strolled through the park, smiling happily but still keeping an eye/ ear out for the phone. He turned and went deeper into the garden, following a certain voice he’d grown incredibly fond of.

“Really? Right here?” Skies asked.

“Why not?” another voice replied, “You said no one ever comes here.”

“Yes but-”

“Then what’s the worry?”

“It’s just that-”

“Oh it’s just nothing. Come here.”

“Hey wait-”

A moaning got his attention. He hurried down the path towards the cliff side observation area.

“Starry Skies? Is that you?”

He rounded the path and came upon the bench…

Hello.

This not something I usually do but I figured all authors do them at some point in time so I might as well here since I know a lot of you have stuff you want to know. I will be opening up a Q&A here that will be answered in the next chapter of the story. Ask all the questions you want about the story and I will do my best to answer them.

Until next time, JC6.