Welcome to Gaia! ::

One day I was bored and started writing this, some sections are uncorrected so there may be some typos and grammar problems.

When its all finished and corrected, I am planing to publish and sell this book, so here it is in the raw form before anything is done. This is all happening from Thomas's point of view.

I finished chapter 7 and fixed some grammer errors, if anyone finds anything, PM me.

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Chapter 1 Polaris

The Polaris, one of the proudest ships of the intergalactic fleet. It could punch through a blockade with its experimental EMP pulse cannon, shutting down their computers and allowing our ships to open fire. When they discovered we had such a weapon, the Atlantian hive fleet decided it would take it for themselves. They made a blockade just seven thousand miles ahead. The Polaris, although not going nearly as fast as it could, was readying itself for assault. Even though we could easily bypass the blockade and head to a different location first, I decided the EMP cannon needed a test run and I was ready to test it.

"AU, how long ‘til we hit enemy engagement?" I said, as our ship moved into position.

"Uh, could be ten... yeah, ten minutes ‘til enemies are within firing distance," answered the ship’s computer directly to my implanted com link.

"That will be long enough-- I want three generators powering the front gun batteries."

"Yeah we’re on it. But, it could take about three minutes to divert that much power."

"Don’t worry, as long as the main cannon batteries are online when we are in range, we will be fine." I replied confident. The main cannons should punch a hole in their blockade.

"Sir! The Antarctica is moving into position, per your request." the AU said out loud.

"Good. With the Antarctica in place we can begin the assault."

"Sir!" the communications expert came up to me.

"Yes, what is it Kyle?"

"The Antarctica is aborting mission!" he said, urgently.

"What, why!?"

"We just received this." He clicked on the message box on his PDA. A little hologram of the Antarctica captain appeared. "We are aborting mission, I repeat aborting mission, we have come under heavy enemy fire, we.... cant.... their..... breaking.... transmission.... codes.... being.... cut off.... repeat..... cut...." The message ends. "That’s all of it. Sir."

"No!" I swat the PDA out of his hands. "We can’t win this without their guns to aid us!" I said in frustration.

The AU came online, "Uh, sir, if I may interject, the Antarctica is just a barge ship. It has two cannons, but it doesn’t have heavy armor, deflective shield plating, or a large enough crew to maintain battle stations."

"I know that! But we need all the help we can get and the Antarctica was only a light day away." I said in anger.

"Just calm down, sir. We will find another way," said the weapons expert as he manned his station.

"How long ‘til enemy engagement?"

"Five minutes."

"Okay. I want all engine turbines working at one hundred and ten percent. Were not going to lose to these bastards," I said, as I regained my composure and got my mind back into the bridge.

"Yes sir."

"Are the fireflies ready?"

"Yes sir. All pilots are reporting green light to launch..." he said crisply.

"What about the MSC?"

"Uh sir, I didn’t know we were using the mobile support craft for this mission."

"We are now. The Antarctica has gone down and I want to have my firefly operational with an escort of three MSC to check out the wreckage, also we need some field doctors and Havoc soldiers in case of wounded or enemy engagements."

"Uh... yes... yes sir they will be ready" he said, caught very surprised by my choice. None of the crew had ever seen me make a decision to go after a downed ship.

"Sir. Two minutes ‘til the enemies are within range of the Polaris's main guns."

"Okay. I’m heading down into the launch deck. AU, you’re in charge!"

"Yes sir!" He said with computer generated pride.

As the elevator took me down into the lower decks, I could feel this would be no ordinary mission. When the elevator doors opened everyone saluted me, but I asked what they sitting around for-- we got a war to win!

All the pilots got into their respective fireflies. I looked at mine, the firefly SG-P, the swept back wings allowed it to go through space as well as air, its twin PPGs could power it for four months alone, raised cockpit for maximum sight, ATC for space battles, magnetic and plasma combustors give it a quick acceleration of one hundred to one thousand MPH when the system is gunned, power couplers provide anti-gravity stability for space combat, twin plasma reactors that can push the border of fifty thousand miles per second dual plasma disintegrator cannons, five air-air rocket pods, thirty eight lass-MG, chrome anti-laser plating, energy shields and cloaking devices installed, and to top it all off the cockpit was padded and custom made for me.

I got in, getting comfortable in the plush yet bullet proof seat. I looked around at my assortment of systems and performed all the checks that had to be done. Ignition clutch was in order, fuel rods were working, weapon and radar systems online, life support in order, all systems were green for launch. The MSCs around me were set up also. We were diverting from our main attack route down to the Antarctica, which wasn’t sending any more radio signals. I put on my helmet and asked the AU for time until launch. He gave me an estimate of 30 seconds.

I always hate the launch.

The launch bay doors below us opened and the pole that holds us in dropped to the point where we were outside the ship. It was a beautiful sight. The sun of this solar system was gleaming and the planet we were floating over seemed to shimmer in its light. The stars beyond us sparkled and a comet could be seen far off. I activated my glare protection on my firefly so no light would get in my eyes, I flipped the cut-off switch and shut off the flow of electricity from the pole. I swiped my recognition card into the computer and unlocked the controls giving me power over the firefly. I pushed the green, blue, and white button to the left of my cockpit which removed the stabilizers and locks from my craft leaving only the 8 inch thick pole keeping me on the ship. I performed last minute checks, bringing up my holoscreen and looking at the ship’s conditions. All systems looked green. Just before the launch I turned on the power generators and magnetic couplers so that my engines had power. I radioed the ships online computer and the AU said we’re clear for take off and have a pleasant flight.

The poles that held us to the ship let go and I clipped the engine fuel tube. The systems all went from green....to red...and then soon to white signaling full pressure to engines. The ship dropped a bit farther into space and then the power couplers ignited and the fireflies and MSCs sprung to life in a blue light. The engines seem to explode with power as we shot off into space.

Some of us went to the fight, while others peeled off for recon. Each pilot looked back as we all flew off from the battle cruiser Polaris, knowing we may not come back alive. I, along with three MSCs, closed in on the wreckage of the Antarctica just as the Polaris came into engaged combat with the Antlantian hive fleet.

Our convoy was almost there when one of our fighters flew right past me with three enemies on his tail. I rolled my FF to the side and took off in his direction.

"Hey, is anyone out there? I need help!" said a voice over the radio.

"This is admiral Thomas. Closing in on your position, hang tight!"

"Don't have to tell me twice!"

I told the MSCs to hold course, as long as I didn't send out a distress signal, I should be fine and they didn't have to worry.

I moved my FF into position. Just a little closer. My hand started to sweat as I held the joystick, just tapping the trigger to the plasma turrets in my impatience. The two red dots were almost aligned. In an instant I clicked the trigger and the duel plasma cannon turrets unleashed their energy. The little orange dots shot off into the darkness ahead of me, but shortly after I saw a large explosion ahead and it ripped apart the Atlantian craft.

"Admiral, that was a good shot, now could you get these guys off of me!?" He sounded very impatient.

"Hold on. I’m working on it."

I turned and fired a couple shots down at the second craft, but narrowly missed. The first craft, closest to him, suddenly disappeared, and then sprung an attack from behind me. He must have used a cloaking matrix.

"Crap!" I barrel rolled my craft to get out of his line of fire, and as he passed me I opened up all my cannons on him. I was going the whole 9 yards with this one.

He made a sharp turn to the left and then gunned his engines, creating a ripple of force in space. I flew after him and kept unloading my cannons until finally his engines burned out and he exploded.

The last one ducked out of his engagement with the other pilot and started firing at me. I spun my ship to the side and kept firing. He hit me a few times, but my shields deflected most of the damage and allowed me to easily dispatch him for his lack of shield and armor plating.

"Okay, I’m heading back to regroup with the MCSs, see you back on the Polaris pilot."

"Going back to blue wing and restarting attack run, thanks."

We split paths and I headed for the MSCs, who were still in route to the wreckage. We would be there soon, I hoped that I would be ready for what lay ahead.

We passed over the wreckage of the ship a few times ‘til a landing place was chosen. It wasn’t as great as a proper hanger, but we tied down our ships and the MSCs cut open some hatches. They diverted life support systems to inside the Antarctica because all of its air was gone.

Once I stepped inside I wasn’t very pleased with the sight that I saw. The Havoc soldiers said most of the ship was secured and they were nearly sure everyone was dead. When I said we should check out the bridge in the hope of finding out what happened, the leader of the Havocs whistled in surprise "Wow who ever attacked this place made sure everyone died." He was holding his gun tightly. "A lot of these sailors are showing signs of blaster fire though, so someone could still be in here." His eyes darted around the hallway as we walked up to the command deck.

"Could it be mutiny?" said Corporal Ron.

"Nah, this commander was a kind man. No one would defy his orders, even like this." He looked up and saw blood covering the ceilings. "Ugh yeah it wasn’t mutiny. No self-respecting person would cover the ceilings with the blood of his own kind." He looked around in disgust.

"Quiet down everyone, let’s just get what we came for," I said, in an attempt to keep everyone from freaking out. We made it to the bridge only to find much of it destroyed, everyone killed in what must of been very painful ways.

"Yeah, this was not mutiny" said Havoc lead, whose name was Jose. Everyone took a good look around and took defensive positions. If anyone was still here they were not going to give them a chance to get a shot in.

I found the captain’s dead body and used his hand print to open up the security measures on the ships hull. It looks like most of the laser fire hit the engine room. This wasn’t any ordinary hit and run job these people knew what they were doing. They came by and hit them fast and hard, not even any POWs, everyone is here, just.....dead.

"You think the Atlantians?"

"No, even they are not this bad." Everyone looked about. "Well men, it looks like we will be heading to the engine room. That appears to be where the source of the problem happened."

"Yes sir." Everyone started down the stairs to the lower decks and from there to the engine room. One of the Havocs fired a full clip of ammo into the dark, spooked by a noise.

"Don’t worry nothing is there..."

"There better not be," he said quivering. We walked down into the lower decks. More people were dead here. More and more and more. We walked through the lower decks and three of the five Havocs that were with me stayed back to watch the exit while we went to go check out the engine room.

When I got there, I found it heavily damaged, but not from laser fire as I thought. I felt the wires. No, these were chewed through. Some thing is in here that destroyed it from the inside.

I kept checking and looking for some kind of data disk on what happened.

"Guys, we need to find the data on what this ship was carrying." I yelled out to the other two who had wandered off.

"Uh yes sir, let me just reload here." Jose kept fumbling with his ammo, he was scared.

We walked around the engines, looking for the head engineer.

"Uh sir....I think....I think I found him." Ron pointed me over to a dead body.

"Yep, that’s him." I searched his body and found his PDA. I hooked it up to the engine room main computer hub and managed to get some data on how fast this thing was going and how its engines broke.

Ron whistled in amazement "Wow. That captain really gunned it. Not a surprise they kicked out on him."

"Jesus, that guy went all out," Jose just kept staring at the holoscreen.

"Yeah, well let’s just get this data back to the Polaris." I took the PDA out and turned to look at them.

"Uh yes sir!"

"What about the cargo?" Ron said.

"We’ll get that." I loaded and cocked my pistol. "Come on. Let’s regroup with the rest of the team."

There was a loud scream, and six red eyes glared at us from the darkness.

"Unknown hostile!" I yelled as Jose and Ron were firing.

I fired a couple shots, but it was moving fast. It jumped onto the generators. "Don’t let it destroy the generators!" We were all shooting.

It made a loud screech, making us drop our guns and hold our hands to our heads. "Stop the noise...stop the noise!"

We all fell to the ground, on our knees. "Agh....." Ron fell unconscious and the screeching stopped.

I looked back to where it was screeching from, but it was gone. I got up with a headache. "Is everyone ok?" I asked feeling a bit stupid as to the answer.

"No, I’m not okay." Jose was shaking his head still holding it in pain.

"Ron you okay?" Ron was still out cold.

I shocked him with a stun gun and he woke up. "What happened?" He asked holding his head.

"A screecher. It got us bad."

"Yeah. You’re telling me." Jose got up and picked up his gun. "Let’s go guys. The other people are probably looking for us."

"Okay." Ryan picked up his gun, as I got mine.

"Let’s get rolling, people." We started down the hallways and back to checkpoint two.

Just then, the emergency power failed and the dim lights went out. Screams and blaster fire were heard. And when we turned on our gun mounted flashlights and went to go check on the other three, they were dead.

"Oh man were screwed man, were screwed!" Ron was losing it.

"Calm down! Don’t worry we will be fine. Let’s just get out of here."

I received a radio signal from AU. "Sir, we have broken the blockade and are jumping to hyperspace now, you’re going to have to find your own way out."

"Confirmed, AU. We will. Thomas out." I looked around.

"So what he say? Are we getting out of this hell hole?" asked Jose.

"No were going to have to get to our ships and make a hyperspace jump for the OSS"

"What!? The Onar Space Station, why not take the Polaris?"

"The Polaris is gone. They made a jump for hyperspace and they’re on their way back home."

"Ah crap man. That isn’t good." Ron started to get a little hysterical.

"Just hold on, were getting out of here lets just make it back to our ships."

"Yeah, okay,” said Jose. “That’s our best bet." He started back up the ladder to the lower deck.

When we made it back to the check point near our ships, we discovered that the twenty men we had left behind were now five.

"Aww man, I can’t believe I missed the party!" Jose kept looking around.

"Soldier! What happened here?" I said to a man who was bleeding on the ground.

"Ugh, I don’t know. it just happened so fast. We heard some noises, our patrol didn’t return. Then these monsters came, they walked on all fours and they were fast. It wasn’t long before we were shooting, but they were very resistant to our guns. We had a hard time killing them, but they seemed to have stopped now." The man kept coughing up blood.

Jose walked over. "Don’t worry soldier, we will make it out of here alive."

Ron came up to me. "Sir, there are too many wounded. It’s best we just leave and ignore the cargo, from their description our normal guns have little effect."

"I agree, lets just get in our ships, but before that...." I looked to the medical officers. "Randy can you give me a medical autopsy on one of these things?"

The medical officer stood up and look to me. "Yes I can. A lot of wounded though. Could take awhile."

"We have time. Just load one into the MSC and do it on the way to the OSS."

"Yes sir." He started looking at one.

"Okay, people. Let’s load up. We’re going home!"

We all got back in our ships, and I think we were all happy when we unlocked from the Antarctica and opened up the engines for a short hyperspace jump to the OSS.

We thought we had left them all behind us, but the darkness that enveloped the Antarctica would soon take over the universe.

Chapter 3 Home Comings

We closed in on Krilla. I shut down all systems and we drifted into the solar system, going roughly 80 percent light speed. I activated the retro rockets and slowed us down to an orbit over the planet. I closed the engines and we fell into Krilla. Activating the main hover jets we glided effortlessly over the barren planet. The lava flowed fast like a river of death over much of Krilla’s surface. We closed the engines as we came into port at one of the only livable places on the planet. Military installation 3-9. I opened up the landing gear and we clashed to the ground on the landing pad. We were quickly surrounded by a large group of soldiers. This could get ugly fast.

I took the sword I had used and sheathed it in a casing I found on the ground by its resting place. As I hooked it up to my belt, I thought I might need it in the days to come. The door on the side of the ship opened and Ron, Jose, and I walk lightly outside, a young man greeted me with pleasure.

"Sir, Chief of the Navy reporting!"

"Wow, I must have been gone so long I don't remember my own staff. At ease, what is your name?"

"I am Alo. Sir, it is a great pleasure to meet you in person!" He saluted as everyone behind him did the same.

"At ease everyone. Yeah it’s a great pleasure for everyone to see me. Now how did you know I was coming?"

"The AU tipped us off when he detected a ship coming within the range of our sensors."

"That AU, always looking out for me...” I stared off out at the sky

"Uh, the board members and other generals are waiting for you in the meeting room."

"Huh? Oh...yeah let’s go." He led me off into the building behind us. Ron and Jose had to stay behind; this was a top secret meeting for the higher brass only.

We went down the long halls. Dim lights led our path.

"This place has changed..." I looked around at broken lights and destroyed sections of the complex.

"A lot can happen in three years sir."

"That’s true, but how could it destroy most of Krilla. This is supposed to be a military installation for god’s sake."

"The Atlantians made a number of powerful lance attacks. Most of the Krilla installation lies in ruin. This is one of the last operational hubs."

I walked into the red board room. It felt very surreal as I sat down. Everyone was staring at me. Someone came around and passed out small cups of water and a cookie. Alo took a spot next to me as the lights dimmed and the project was turned on. The presenter too his position on the stand and everything fell into a deathly silence.

The presenter said aloud to all the people in the room "Welcome, gentlemen. A week ago the Antarctica, which was carrying the Serio Phisciaz, was disabled during routine runs through the Omeda quadrant."

He started to flip through some slides and it showed a picture of a furry creature that attacked us. "This beast broke loose from where it was being kept in the cargo of the ship. We are unsure how this creature attacked the crew because it is only small and furry."

I looked closely at him as he spoke. "This right here is the Antarctica...it is currently in orbit of Jupiter and..."

I rudely interrupted "Do you, sir, expect me to believe these lies?" I slammed my hands to the table and looked sternly at him.

"What!? These are not lies. If you think they are, then you tell me what happened."

I step up out of my seat "Gladly!" I walked up to him and snatched the laser pointer out of his hand. I stepped up to the pedestal.

"People, I suppose that the army has been trying to cover this whole thing up. The truth is...”

Ron radioed me. "Sir they are trying to kill you!" I glanced quickly around and saw one of the generals holding a gun and his finger was on the trigger.

I kept talking as if I had never heard him. "The enemy we face is a powerful one. It has the ability to deflect most weapons and can multiply at remarkable speeds."

I saw the general move. And in an instant I dove to the side just as he pulled out his gun and shot at me. I radioed Ron "Thanks for the tip."

Alo flipped out his own pistol and shot the general dead.

All other board members rushed out of the room, leaving me and Alo to clean up the mess. Alo looked at him closely and said "The general knows something we don't." He searched his body and found some orders. "It says to kill you if you try and speak about the creature. Yeah, the military is trying to cover it up" The sirens outside started to go off.

We both ran outside of the building to see thousands of Atlantian fleet ships exiting hyperspace; it was an all-out assault. Their fleet started to come into engagement with our ships. We saw the cannons and laser slamming against each other in a battle of the titans. Ron and Jose came up to me shortly after the main battle started.

"Ron what the hell is going on!?"

Ron looked at me "The Atlantians cracked our defense. We don't know how, but they have shutdown all the orbital cannons. We have nothing left to hold them from attacking Krilla!"

Jose stepped up "Sir, there are...." A large plasma ejection from an Atlantian craft fell from the sky and crushed a building near us. "...numerous enemy crafts closing in on this position."

I glanced at Jose. "How many are we talking about?"

"Maybe...thirty to forty. The radar couldn't hold them all."

"Okay troops. We can NOT, let Krilla fall to the enemies. Fight until you can fight no longer. For, if we lose this day, then we lose the universe."

"Sir yes sir!" Ron and Jose yelled at the same time.

"Troops dismissed." They both ran off to their MSC.

I turned to look at Alo who was still shocked that after years of building, his defense would be helpless.

I put my hand on his shoulder "Don't worry, we will drive them back. But to have any hope of doing that, I need to get on the Polaris."

He looked at me "We didn't refuel your ship. So, Sam will have to take you."

"Sam?"

"Yes, Sam you’re clear for landing!" Alo yelled off into a com link.

Sam responded on the link. "Roger I am making my approach."

A firefly bearing the golden marking of the Krilla air and space force appeared in the distance.

"Who is Sam?" I looked at Alo, puzzled.

"She is the lead pilot of the air and space force of the defense of Krilla. Also, she is my sister."

"She?"

The firefly flew close to the ground and straight over our heads. A large dust cloud followed it and I covered my eyes from the sand. She picked up and turned to the right. A long contrail followed. With a crash of thunder she kicked the engines into overdrive and broke the speed of sound. Turning, she grasped the controls and preformed a number of barrel rolls before cutting the engines and landing in front of us.

"Show off..." I mumbled as she opened her cockpit.

She stepped out of her firefly. "Gold leader Samantha reporting, sir."

"Well..." I glared at her. "You are pretty good with a firefly."

She looked at me. "Yeah I practice and I..."

Alo interrupted. "Sir, we are fighting a war." He turned his attention to Sam. "Sam, can you take the admiral back to the Polaris?"

"Sure I will take him up there...."

"Ok good luck."

"You know me, I don't need it." She snickered.

I got into the back seat of the firefly. And she got into the front.

She looked back at me. "Okay admiral, hang tight!"

She turned on the hover jets and the ship picked up. With a clip sound reminiscent of my firefly, the ship flew off into orbit.

“I hope you’re ready for this…” I stared out the cockpit window at the ships.

“I was born ready.”

“Well then let’s get going.”

“Okay, if you’re sure you’re ready to get this party started!”

She turned off the engines and flipped on the retro rockets. The ship turned and we were pointed like a javelin to the center of the battlefield.

“Here we go!” She clipped the engine ignition and the rockets ignited. We blasted straight off into the battle.

“Wait. We are supposed to be going to the Polaris!”

“Change of plans.”

We were almost within range of the enemy guns.

“You’re mad, we can’t take that many!”

“Funny, if this was mad I wouldn’t be the defense lead.”

She increased speed and opened up all cannons on the enemy carriers main fuel injectors. It’s not common knowledge to know that this is the weak point of the massive carrier ship.

The lasers hit the exposed tanks and tubes riddling them with holes.

The ship started to roll on its side, and it started coming to block our flight path.

“We’re not going to make it!”

“That’s fools talk!”

She cut the engines and made a sharp thrust on the wing tips retro rockets. One powerful thrust on the right wing and the ship made a complete flip allowing us a narrow opening of space to escape collision and we slipped right into one of its hangars as the ship fell into Krilla’s orbit.

With excellent timing, she shot five missiles into the remainder of the ships internal fuel tubes. But the firefly was accelerating so fast that it kept pace with the missiles. I saw them right above the cockpit.

Right as we passed the main tube over head of us. They slammed into the tube jolting a massive explosion through that long hangar. The large fire ball followed right behind us.

“It’s time to find out why these things are called fireflies.” She had that nasty grin on her face, just like the time I looked at the Polaris’s bridge room for the first time.

The fire was close. I started to sweat as I felt its heat. But she had a plan. She flooded the engines with our emergency fuel. When the fire got close enough, the emergency fuel ignited in a big bang. Launching the firefly far ahead of any danger and putting us into the atmosphere of Krilla just as the ship was burning up on its way down. She clipped the engine and we thrust back to space.

We were now on our original route back to the Polaris.

I looked at her “OKAY WE ARE NEVER DOING THAT AGAIN!”

“Heh, heh. We came out alright didn’t we?” She kept smiling.

“Errr” I looked out the window. “Why did we bother to attack that carrier anyway?” I said, still furious.

“Because, we can. And I will do everything I can to protect this planet….it’s my only home....” Her smile went away.

A grim look fell upon my face. “You still remember…huh?”

“Yeah… I do. And I don’t blame you for what happened. It wasn’t your fault.”

“I still take responsibility for it.”

“You didn’t make the order. It was your duty to do it.”

The craft turned to dock in the Polaris.

“I could have done something though….”

“Yes. But then I wouldn’t be the pilot I am today.”

The firefly came into contact with the docking pole and it lifted us up into the hangar’s main docking section. The cockpit opened when the ship stopped and sat in the now re-pressurized hangar.

“Sir, what took you so long!?” I hopped out of the cockpit to be greeted by Ron and Jose.

“We took a detour….” I glared at Sam who was handling some pilot’s questions on how she took out the carrier.

“Yeah we saw that. It’s kind of hard to see a massive ship falling out of orbit.” Ron said very sarcastically.

“Well we better head to the bridge. Let’s get going.”

“Yes sir….”

We walked down the halls to the main elevator shaft. But on our way there, the massive Atlantian capital ship “Cornelo” had locked its cannons onto the Polaris, just as the elevator started going up. The cannons fired and the Polaris shook greatly as its hull was breached by the ten ton explosive shells. The vibrations were so powerful that the Polaris was nearly flipped over. I fell over and gashed my head on the elevator door. I was out cold.

I woke up inside the elevator. A red emergency light glowed dimly over my head. I struggled to stand, for I was still half dead. I reached for the emergency button, but I was shaking too much to open the hatch covering it. I wondered why it was so cold in here. I had hoped for the best, for there was a great chance the Polaris was out of commission, permanently.

“Jose,” I said weakly as I struggled to wake him up…

He didn’t move.

”Wake up soldier!” I kicked him hard in the side.

He started to come to. “Sir, was that really necessary?” He held his side where I had kicked him.

“Yes it was.” I looked over at Ron and did the same thing. He started to wake up as well.

Ron opened his eyes and got up. “What happened? I remember going up the elevator and….boom…all went black.”

“Well it looks like the power is out. I don’t know what happened. But we should get out of this elevator first.” I reached for the escape hatch.

Jose got up. “Okay, let’s get moving.” He picked up his gun.

Ron sat up and started making some adjustments to his gun.

As I slowly opened the outside hatch a massive gust of snow rushed in. I was blown down to the now snow-covered floor of the elevator.

“What the hell….” Jose looked at the white stuff. “How did snow get in here!?”

I looked up at him. “My worst fear. If snow is in here, it means that the automatic heating system has been destroyed. It also means…There is a breach in the ships hull. The cold void of space is freezing the ship. We don’t have thermal suits…. If we cannot get out of the ship fast enough, we will freeze to death.”

“Great! Just great! We finally come to our ship, only to be in it when it is destroyed!” He slammed his fist to the side of the elevator.

“Calm down!” Ron yelled out.

“Let’s get our heads in the game.” I climbed up the drop ladder and onto the roof of the elevator. Ron and Jose followed me up. Most of the shaft was ice. I decided we should head to the bridge room. We could see the remainder of the battle from up there.

We climbed up the shaft ladder. It was a long way up. As we climbed we passed by floor after floor until we came to floor “3-0-0”. I jumped off the ladder and onto the small ledge in front of the door. I took out my plasma sword and sliced right through the magnetic lock. With steady hands I gripped both doors and pulled them apart. I walked into the bridge. Everyone was unconscious. Ron and Jose climbed up and into the bridge like I did and gazed at the bridge.

“Looks like we are not leaving in this ship” Ron said as he pulled out his bio scanner.

“Yeah were going to have to take another lift….” Jose looked at the ships shield energy.

I sat down in my chair. “Can we get power back online?”

“No sir, the generators are shot.” Jose started scanning the ship for hull breaches.

Ron looked at the bio signs across the ship. “Sir…. Everyone across the ship from bow to stern is…dead. We are the only survivors.”

I walked up to the ships large reinforced bridge window. I wiped off some of the frost.

“Oh my god.” I gazed out at a grave yard of ships.

A destroyed firefly passed close by the bridge room. I starred blankly as it turned slightly. It revealed a crushed and ripped apart cockpit. I could see a corpse inside as the lights flickered on and off inside it.

“How long…?” I looked at Ron.

“What do you mean sir?” He looked back at me confused.

I slammed my hands to the control consol. “How long have we been unconscious!?”

“Well sir……. We have been down for a week at least.” Ron reluctantly said.

“What!? How have we stayed alive!?”

“The AU transferred all of the ships power to keep us alive….”

A dark shadow overtook my face. “His primary objective was to keep me alive… But not at the cost of killing everyone else!”

Jose looked crossly at me. “Sir, you should be happy we are alive. The AU took our safety above all else. And you should be happy! What would happen if everyone was still alive right now!? They would just be killed! But we can do something. You have the capabilities, the experience, the rank and power! You can do something to fix this! The AU did the right thing in keeping us alive. No one else could do something. We can end the war. It is time to do this!” Jose got up in my face. “Either you are in or out.”

Ron stepped up to us. “I am in. Let’s take the fight to them. I have had enough of hiding.”

Jose looked at Ron. He stepped away from me and asked me one last time. “Sir…. Are you in, or are you out?”

“I can’t do this.” I stepped down from the bridge and walked back to the elevator.

Jose yelled out at me. “Why are you hiding!?”

I scowl grew on my face and I spun around. “You know what happened on Praven III! Do you remember as well as I do? Do you remember how many people died? Do you remember how many people fell in the name of their cause? Well I remember! I remember how many people died. I remember that massacre. And you know what I remember the most? I remember a moment like this. I remember joining a cause, thinking what I was doing was right. But I was so wrong.”

“Sir that was a long time ago!” Ron yelled at me.

“It was not long enough for me to forget.”

Jose stepped up. “Sir…. Go now. Go if you think you can run. Do you think you can hide from this? Like the rest of the army, are you going to pretend none of this is happening!? You are one of the few leaders that know that this is happening. We must act before it is too late.”

“It already is to late you fool!” I barked out at Jose.

“No it is not. There is no where you can hide, admiral. We are a cornered animal. We have no choice. We die or we fight!”

I looked at both of them.

Ron spoke up again. “This could be Praven III again. But damn it…. We got no choice. You’re not the kind to back down.”

I looked at both of them. “I don’t want to fight. I don’t want to relive Praven III…. But we have no choice...So, who is up for showing these Atlantian bastards what we can do!?”

Smiles crossed both their faces.

“Ron I want you to power up the generators. Get enough power to get the AU online so we can retrieve some data on what has been happening since we went down. Jose, I want you to get working on finding a ship to take us out of here.”

Jose and Ron simultaneously said “Yes sir!” And left off to their duties.

I walked back over to the icy window. I could see the destroyed ships floating effortlessly in space. Some of the vessels were carrying large amounts of water. And when they were destroyed they exploded in a vast expansion of ice. Now much of the space around the battle field is covered in it.

I looked down at a blinking and beeping, button. It was signaling that the ship was breached. I pressed down on the button. The blinking stopped. The Polaris is a true ghost ship.

Jose was behind me checking the ships docking logs. He was looking for any ship that might still be on board. Ron was looking at the generator conditions and powering up a cluster of small turbines to power a much bigger one.

I kept looking out at that window when suddenly I spotted an Atlantian drone.

“Get down!” I yelled as it hovered close by the bridge.

We all hit the ground and got under the consoles. I shut of the main power and the lights went off. It turned and looked straight into the bridge. I could see its light looking inside for any survivors. Its claws scratched on the windows. It used every probe it had to look for anyone living inside. But the electronics we were hiding amongst scrambled its devices and it could not see us. It finished probing and the small search craft span around and flew off to another ship.

I tried to flip on the power again, but it would not activate. This could be a problem.

Chapter 5 Conspiracy

I woke up pulled to the side of the road next to Jose and Ron. It looked like we had been out cold for awhile. I felt someone sifting through my coat and as I looked around I saw a young boy. He was so poor that he was looting me for anything at all. Unlucky enough for me he found my STP. He saw how official it was and ran off. I tried to get up, but there was a sharp pain in my neck. I felt around there and found a dart lodged inside. I plucked it out and it looked like it was loaded with poison. That must of what induced the visions of my past here. Poison can’t kill me, but this one was strong enough to have an effect. I looked at Ron and Jose and noticed they had darts as well. I plucked them out; they should be okay and wake up soon.

I stumbled up and ran off in the direction of the kid that stole my pass. I don’t care how much he needs it. I ran down the road. The building seemed to get more destroyed as I went on. This is the heart of the peasant district. It is probably the most dilapidated. I stopped running. The crowds were spars here, but I had lost the kids trail. I noticed a man walk up to me.

“Hey you!” He said in a very cocky voice.

I turned around to face him. “What do you want?”

He looked around me and noticed the hilt of my sword. “Pretty nice sword you have there. Give it to me.”

“I don’t have time for this….” I start to walk away.

“Perhaps you didn’t hear me, I said... give it to me!” He pulled out a pistol.

I turned around. “I bet you can’t even use a pistol right.”

He got angry. “Yes I can. I am a veteran of the Detia rebellion.”

I looked at him puzzled. “How did you survive that? I thought my orbital cannons whipped that army out….”

“You did that!?” He started shooting.

I didn’t bother to move I could tell from the way he held his gun that he couldn’t aim well, his bullets scattered around me.

“You’re too scared to even aim properly….” I pulled out my own pistol shot him three times in the right shoulder.

He ran away as fast as he could. He was far too weak to cut me.

I walked to the center and sat on a bench. People were looking at me. They saw what just happened. They had a good idea about who I was.

I saw the kid trying to get special service because of his STP. He didn’t even know who Admiral Thomas was or what his name meant.

“You can’t possibly be the admiral. He is supposed to be twenty feet tall!” A voice said from the crowd that had gathered around a small stall where the kid was.

The child was flustered “I am telling you, I am Admiral Thomas!”

“And I am telling you, you are not!” The man hit him with a broom.

I pulled out my pistol and shot it into the air.

They all looked at me and a voice called out. “Who do you think you are shooting a pistol like that!?”

“No one important, but I will be taking my STP back now.”

The people knew who I was. One man grabbed the boy and tried to flee. Without even looking I shot three bullets in his general direction. He fell to the ground dead with all shots hitting him.

The other people brought out weapons. It seemed they were going to shoot me. I gripped the hilt of my sword. The blade started to glow.

No one moved. The tension in the air was so thick it felt like you couldn’t see. A split second before I drew my sword a grenade dropped right on the crowd and before anyone could run the grenade detonated releasing goo that immobilized them completely.

“We thought you might need help.” Jose and Ron stepped out from the shadows.

“How long have you guys been standing their?”

Ron walked over. “We have been following you ever since you took out the darts.”

“I could have avoided all this with your help….”

“Yes, you could have, but it is interesting for you to wonder about on your own sometimes.” Jose said.

“Well let’s clean up this mess. Ron go retrieve my card please.” I nodded at the kid who was paralyzed in fear.

“Yes sir!” Ron walked over to him and picked up the card.

A loud noise was heard over head and three security crafts appear from behind some tall buildings.

“Sir we got trouble” Ron said as he ran out of the peasant square.

“Yeah we better get out of here.” Jose followed Ron.

Before I could make my escape and run out of the square. One of the crafts turrets locked onto me and unloaded as much ammo as it could.

“Damn it!” The crystal attached to my necklace started to glow and it created a barrier of defensive energy which deflected the bullets.

Guards surrounded me and one shot a dart that made me fall to the ground unconscious.

I woke up in jail. A terrible headache still afflicted me. It was dark with a dim light hanging above. Who knows how long I have been out.

A guard looked into my cell. “Well you are finally awake.”

I didn’t respond.

“We got your weapons and crystal also. You can’t do a thing.”

I looked up at him.

“And you have been sentenced to execution on the grounds of destroying the planet.”

I got up and sat in a chair.

The man laughed and walked away.

Later else where in the city Ron and Jose were discussing about what happened.

“Damn I can’t believe we lost the admiral…” Jose said as he ate an apple.

“As long as he has his emergency defense crystal he should be able to break out on his own.” Ron said.

“Don’t take these people for fools; they know all about what our weaponry is. They have probably confiscated the crystal and his weapons.”

“So we will have to break him out huh?”

“Yep.” Jose said as he picked up his gun.

“How are we going to do it then?”

Jose laid out the blue prints for the jail house. “Well he is currently housed here, in a minimal security cell.”

“Are they really stupid enough to hold an enemy war hero in minimal security?”

“Well I don’t think they can do much better, this is peasant district after all….”

“I see, so how are we going to get him out?” Ron said as he looked at the map.

“Well, there is a duct on the top of the building.”

“That leads to a boiler….” Ron interrupted.

“Then why don’t we just kill everyone, you have a problem with that?”

“Wouldn’t we die…?”

“Okay if you have a problem with every one of my plans then why don’t you make one!?”

“Sure, I will make one.” Ron looked at the map. “There is a back way into the building that is less guarded. If we can crack the lock on the back door and enter the cafeteria we should be able to make it into the cell block C where he is believed to be held.”

“That sounds all right, but can we actually do it?”

“Yeah, if we are careful and avoid the barracks.”

“Well then what are we waiting for!?”

“Morning just after they finish breakfast…”

“Okay then let’s get some sleep, we will need it.” Jose said laying back.

“Yeah, night.”

Back at the cells, Thomas is still sitting in the chair as a guard watches over him.

The guard stands up. “So are you going to bother moving Thomas?”

I don’t reply and just keep sitting there in the chair.

“Hey Thomas, move.”

I don’t move.

“Hey, Thomas I said move!” The guard starts to get angry.

I ignore him.

“Hey move!” He shoots his rifle at me but to his surprise the bullet passes right through me.

“Damn what is going on!?” The guard starts to freak out and opens the cell door.

“Looks like you are not trained to spot illusions…” I say, my voice echoing through the hall way.

“Who is there!?” The guard turns around but sees no one.

“I am right here.” He turns around again, but still no one.

I drop from the ceilings and jab his weak points and let him drop to the ground, dead.

“That was too easy, what are these people thinking with security like this?”

I walk out into the cellblock; there are a couple guards on the floor below, but other then that I will have an easy escape.

There were no signs to lead me to where my crystal and weapons were being held. I crouched behind the balconies low wall as an emergency response squad attempted to re-contain me in the cell.

I was in a bad spot. The way the cell block was constructed left me pined down on the second floor. I took a mental note. A stair case to the left of me and a stair case to the right, the left path was closest to my location. But I might not make it there without getting shot.

The wall started to crack and fall apart. I can’t hold this position for much longer, I can guess the wall to break in about five minutes. I had that much time to think over this situation. One small mistake and I could easily be killed.

No matter how much I thought I kept coming to one conclusion. I must use the Tactical War Implant (TWI) so I could maybe buy sometime for my escape. I mentally activated it and a small menu appeared in front of one of my eyes. I picked the heat detector option and four red circles appeared in front of my eyes. They scanned what I saw, sending the information to a list of data to the side of my head. I looked through the wall for the squad on the floor below me. But nothing was found. The data retrieved showed no abnormalities.

I quickly realized what had happened. I had failed to notice that the gun fire had stopped. I didn’t want to look behind me, but I turned my head to see the guard squad standing next to me. I can’t believe I failed to notice them sneaking up the stairs. One of the guards took an EMP patch and placed it on my forehead. My TWI short circuited and shut down. I had lost all my advantages. I could feel one of them holding a blade to my neck. It looked like the fight was over.

An explosion ripped through a room down one of the hallways. I could feel its vibration in the ground. It was big.

The captain was a little shaken from the blast. “01 and 02 go check out the explosion.”

“Yes mam!”

The two guards ran down the stairs and down on of the hallways. I thought I might run, but when I tried I could not move. Why can’t I move no matter how much effort I put into it? It was like the EMP patch was affecting more then my hearing.

Two people walked out of the hallway and into the cell block. A guard that was next to me fell to the ground with a bullet wound in his chest. I couldn’t hear anything; the implant in my brain controls most of my body’s functions and with it disabled I can no longer hear well. It was like I was watching a silent movie.

I had no idea what was going on, but after a few minutes of no one moving. The sword chopped through my shoulder blade. Removing the arm from my body, I couldn’t bear the intense pain of the plasma scar and blacked out.

Everything was black and it was cold here. I couldn’t feel my hands or my legs, was I dead or alive? I didn’t know the difference between the two anymore.

A dim holoscreen appeared in front of what seemed to be my field of vision. It was showing a stream of data that looked like random gibberish. It looked to be just a random screen; soon another one appeared next to it. Revealing more random data, I couldn’t tell what it read. More started to surround me. All showing meaningless gibberish that I couldn’t read. I took a step back and looked at them all. They looked meaningless alone. I started sliding them next to each other.

I looked at them all together. “What is this..?” I said as the gibberish started to turn into words.

“It’s not possible…” I started to tremble.

The words formed sentences, which formed paragraphs, which formed columns. Which showed a journal of a scientist named “Shio”.
It was hard to understand what I read. But I wasn’t sure if it was true or false.

One entry confused me. I could no longer tell. If I was man or machine, it read….

Entry 22.

“It is late august. We have completed our work on its body. We will start booting up systems through out it soon. If this test is a success then it will lead the way for thousands cyborgs to come. It was a lot of work to complete him. We had to work nearly from scratch. A man named Thomas was found barely alive inside a crashed MSC during the Praven wars. He was missing three of his limbs and had lost some of his brain power. He was considered medically dead after a three second examination. It’s been a year since then. We have replaced his limbs with nearly life like mechanical ones. His dead brain parts have been replaced with an implanted super computer. It should match the power of a brain. But if it does not, it could cause some major malfunctions. The damage to the brain harmed his memory cells. It has been decided as of today that we will implant a false memory into him. It’s totally random what he will think happened for the past year. I will be personally overseeing his awakening. This is a great moment in history.”

The entry ended.

“What is this?” I looked closely at the date which this was written. “I remember that crash, but everything two years after that is all blank to me. Two whole years.” I suddenly realized it. “I was activated a year after the crash. What the hell happened during the second year!? They said they implanted a false memory, then why are all my memories gone!? What the hell has been happening!?”

I fell to the floor of the dark place. “Why can’t I remember after the war? Why was I saved instead of someone else on the crash? Why do I have so many questions, but no answers?” I tried looking for more entries, but it all ended at entry 22. Maybe my re-activation led to no more entries being submitted. Or maybe someone didn’t want me to find it and it was erased. Whatever the case may be, I must find out what happened in that one year of darkness.

I awoke on the balcony where I had been chopped. The EMP patch had worn off causing my brain and computer controlled systems to automatically reboot. It was lucky that the arm that got chopped off was mechanical and can be repaired.

I picked up the arm and held it to my shoulder. The primary hydraulic tube extended and fit into the socket, quickly followed by seven smaller tubes connecting into their sockets around the main tube. A rush of steam flowed through my arm, revitalizing it. The cut wires slowly moved and reconnected with each other. As its final repair protocol, the arm was pulled up into position next my shoulder by the hydraulic tubes and connected into the joint. To protect the small exposed area until proper repairs could be made, metal plates slide into place to act as temporary skin. This is the first time I have had seen nano technology in action. It was definitely a good choice in science and in medicine.

With my repairs completed I noticed my surroundings. Everything was destroyed. What I sat on was the last piece of balcony that was not smoldering rubble. It looked like all hell had broken loose. Anyone could see from one side to the other of the building. Most of it was totally leveled. I could see many corpses, but no survivors.

It was going to be dark soon. I tried to move my recently repaired arm, but it wouldn’t budge. The EMP patch must have some temporary effects. I staggered up and jumped off the balcony to the rubble below. I thought that I should find a place to stay for the night.

As I walked and climbed around the rubble back to the streets, I found a man laying face down in the carnage. He looked like a bounty hunter. There was another one close by. Come to think of it, there are a lot of guards surrounding both of them. They must have caused the explosion that destroyed this place.

I continued walking through the rubble. I found dozens more corpses. But no leads other then the bounty hunters on what destroyed this place.

It was starting to get dark and time was running out. As I took my last step out of the rubble I found three Landed MSCs they looked abandoned. But these meant there was Lemurian interference. I looked at the side of the ship and I noticed the Letters LEMRS (Lemurian Emergency Medical Response Squad). They must have come to get me out of the building. I opened the door and walked into the cockpit. The controls were locked to prevent someone from taking the ship. But since the squad is dead, I might as well take it for myself. It is easy to hot wire a MSC, but with my left arm in its current state. I should go with the simplest approach. I sat in a chair in front of the console and slammed my fist into the main control panel. Because of my mechanical arms the panel buckled and the security system was damaged, sending the ship into default mode. I took control of it and set it for auto-return to its last place of take off.

The engines powered up and the ship took off into the atmosphere. It seemed calm. The engines hummed and the sound of the steam flowing through the pipes fit the sci-fi feel of the ship. There was peace here, even if you could only feel it for a moment. In a time of war, you only feel these things every so often. And in an age of violence, blood shed, and death. You must cherish every moment, for they could be your last.

The ship was starting to enter orbit. I switched on the oxygen supplier and shut down the forward engines. Everything was running smoothly as the ship passed into orbit. Then suddenly the ship shook violently. I fell out of my chair and hit my head hard on the controls. The engines stopped moving and the faint smell of fuel drifted into the cockpit. Everything looked very blurry and blood dripped from my head. Some how I managed to get on my feet and look at the main screen. Warning signs dazzled it, hull strength had dropped below twenty percent and the energy shielding had been completely blown away.

I reached out my shaking hand and grabbed the handle that started the main engine. The lights above me flickered and went off. It was getting colder in the ship. I tried pulling down on the handle and activating the main engine. But it wouldn’t budge; the automatic security system must have activated to keep the engine from turning on while the fuel fumes were in open air.

More blood started to flow from my head. Everything grew fuzzier and darker. I lost my grip and fell onto the controls. I looked up and I could see the view screen. The planet was shown ahead of the craft, a small frigate sized ship passed out of the dark side of the planet. I couldn’t see very well, but it was either a Lemurian vessel or a pirate ship. If it was one of ours, then I might have a chance of survival. It was time to use my trump card. The time I saw the red screens, I learned more then I realized. Because most of my body is robotic, I can do various things that robots can do and I learned about some of those abilities during those screens. I carefully touched parts of my palm in a sequence. The clips that held together my hand to my arm unclipped and I pulled off my hand revealing all the wires and machinery underneath. I crawled to a port used by maintenance robots to fix any bugs in the ships computers. I didn’t have much time before this body will fail me. It was now or never. I plugged the exposed section of my arm into the port. All the wires connected into their areas. Everything went black and then I felt a little warmth. Ahead of me I saw a large blue bar, it was downloading me into the computer matrix. It didn’t take long for the bar to fill and I was sent down a green tube to another room.

This room was a lot like the first and it was a little eerie, but without hesitating I took a seat on a small chair in front of me. A small green screen appeared in front of me. It was asking for a password, but not ever seeing or operating this ship before I wouldn’t know what it was. I put in a likely password and the screen turned red. Suddenly I was being surrounded by red “access denied” signs. I was being tied to the floor by some form of security code. I saw some fire coming from a long hallway to my left. It was a firewall, I was about to be obliterated!

Chapter 7 between a rock, gun, and psychopath

The black hole opened and released Cyborg 01 and I into space above the planet, next to a ship in combat with multiple Atlantian battleships. Since we are robots we don’t require air, so we were okay in space, but next time I have to be more specific about where to teleport to.

Cyborg 01 grabbed onto the nearby ship and used his clamp on his right arm to tear into the ships hull. To great surprise, hundreds of tennis balls flew off into space after he made the hole. It seemed we had cut into the recreational store room. Cyborg 01 pulled apart the slice in the hull and made a large gash to float through. I ignited my foot rockets and slowly entered the ship. Cyborg 01 hacked into the doors lock, once open even more stuff was sucked out into space. Security measures were taken by the bridge and they closed the gash.

We walked into the hallways, blaster fire noise echoed everywhere.

“So what’s the plan from here? It seems the Atlantians have already boarded the ship” Cyborg 01 took off his left hand and stowed it in his back pack.

“This is all happening two days ago; this means that this ship is going to be destroyed. I think it would be wise to get some good pilots off the ship that can help us.” I took off my right hand and gave it to Cyborg 01 to store.

“A good choice, but we have to get through a battle field before we start recruiting.” A machine gun barrel extended from his open arm.

I felt metal moving in my right arm and a rifle slide out. “Then I suppose this is our only course of action for now.”

Two men ran out of the door to the right in front of us followed by ship crippling explosion. They turned their attention to us. “Enemies!” He whipped out his pistol and let off a few rounds.

The bullets harmlessly ricocheted off my armor as I pulled up and loaded my gun. An instant before I pulled the trigger, an explosion ripped through the ships side and it made a three complete spins. Everyone onboard was tossed around and the gravity engine was destroyed.

I shook off the disorientation. “What was that?”

“Just an HDR, this ship won’t hold up any longer.” He gave me my hand.

“We need pilots.”

“It won’t be worth anything if your dead!”

On the bridge of the frigate, things were getting out of hand. “Shields down to fifty percent and dropping. Engine deck not responding. We lost contact with hangars one through ten!” Yelled First mate Jack.

Captain Carlson gripped the front controls. “Damn, we’re done for.”

Riss the radar operator gazed at his screen. “Unknown on radar, its coming around the left side of the ship!”

“Does it have an identification number?”

“No sir.”

“Then it’s an enemy, lock on all left sided weapons and fire!”

“Yes sir.” Jam the weapons man complied.

Sweat ran down Riss’s neck. “Sir there are large heat signatures coming from the ship, it’s off the scales!”

“Wha-” Captain Carlson sharply turned his head.

“It’s firing!”

“Brace for impact!”

The beam of energy spiked through the center of the ship, sending infernos down the halls. More then half the crew was instantly killed before they could see the flames.

“Is everyone okay!?” Carlson yelled out.

Many of the computers had been fried from the shield overload. Riss got out from under the panel. “I’m okay. The ship won’t last much longer.”

Jack looked at an analysis of the hull. “A massive hole running through the center of the ship, it’s amazing we didn’t split in half.”

“All weapons are either destroyed or in areas that have been locked down.” Jam lit a cigarette.

Carlson looked out the main view screen “How many escape pods are left?”

“None, it seems everyone abandoned ship.” Jack pulled out his pistol.

Carlson shattered the emergency case glass and slammed the button. “Send off a distress signal, and prepare to go down with the ship.”

Red lights flickered on and off in the ship. Air lock and seal doors were closing. Thomas and cyborg 01 were running down the halls as the sections closed.

“We have to get out of here!” I yelled as we ran down the corridors, our own gravity engines kept us on the deck.

“There is no way to get out of here, the hangars are probably wrecked.”

“We could jump, but we don’t have a propulsion system……do we?”

“No, were robots not space ships.”

“Then figure a way out.”

The mysterious ship started to heat up for another blast. Seconds were on the clock.

Cyborg 01 blinked his eyes once, revealing an array of sensor equipment. “I know a way out.”

“You lead!”

He turned left past some flaming rubble and ripped a hole in an air lock. “Get in!”

“What!?”

“Just do it!” He grabbed my arm and threw me through the door.

I tumbled to the other side to find myself in an escape pod that had lost its connection to the main computer so it could not properly launch nor be detected. He smashed the outside control box and the pod went into default launch mode. I couldn’t override the command, the pod jettisoned from the ship and headed for a safe distance from the ship. My body responded on impulse, I spun around and activated the rear camera. The ship stood their silently and then the clock struck zero. A blinding beam light struck the ship, combusting everyone inside, but it protected them from the true horror of dieing in the explosion which followed nearly a second after. The shock wave reached the pod, all the systems crashed, I struggle to keep it under control, but it was no use. The pod quickly fell into a nearby planets atmosphere and crashed into a grassy hill.


From the steaming wreck I kicked off the back door and walked upon the planets surface. A woman walking back to her village spotted me and ran away in terror. I hadn’t noticed that half my face skin had burned away, revealing the seared robot behind it.

I walked to the village, but they closed their gates and even the guards started shooting arrows from the safety of the walls. My body still disoriented from the crash, went into default attack mode after recognizing the people shooting me a threat. I unconsciously raised my arm and shot four large bullet holes in both of them. They fell off the walls and people were yelling something in the town. It was bad English, but I could make some of it out. It ran along the lines of “ANOTHER, ANOTHER, ANOTHER HAS APPEARED!” It’s possible that someone else was here. Maybe cyborg 01 survived!

The town seemed unwilling to help me on my quest to find allies, so I continued past the village and down the road. The land here was very clean and beautiful, unlike what Praven has become. The mountains rose into the clouds and the birds chirped peacefully, truly this was a land untouched by the hate and corruption that has befallen all living things. It was getting dark so I ducked into a nearby forest. Animals scurried about as they tried to find their nests. I sat under a tree and shut down for the night, tomorrow is a new day I suppose.

I awoke from under the tree. A heard no animals or birds, everything was quiet. I went to the edge of the forest to find a pillar of smoke coming from the village I had attacked. The sounds of gun shots rang echoed through the land. People were running in every direction, someone must have escaped the ship. I rushed over to the village, everything was on fire. In the midst of the chaos a lone figure stood above the corpses. I took a close look; it was one of those creatures! My body moved without any thought, I instantly shot it in the shoulder. The monster recoiled, but quickly got angry. It charged at me, 200 pounds of teeth and claw. I was scared, not thinking I kept shooting blindly at it, there was no hope though. Before I could move my left arm was not only ripped off, but ripped apart. My mind stopped thinking completely. I went into a berserk mode. My eyes turned blood red, out of the gaping socket in my arm a beastly new arm suddenly grew. I turned around grabbed the monsters head; it struggled and then became submissive. Without control over my body I crushed his head into mush. The body went limp and I tossed it into a near by house.

The power cells inside me ran out of power and I fell over, the beast that had become my left arm shrunk into a normal form. It was over.

I woke up on a bed somewhere. Light glistened from through the open window as a calm breeze went through the room. I looked at my left arm, it was human again. To my knowledge I am almost complete cyborg. If that was true then where did this arm come from. The mystery of the cyborg series seemed to grow thicker as I stared at that arm.

“Ah I see you have awoken…” An old man walked into the room.

“Who might you be?” I said, rubbing my left arm.

“I am the village elder, on behalf of everyone; I would like to thank you for slaying that beast.”

“It was nothing, but why can I understand you and no one else?”

“As you may have guessed, this planet doesn’t get many visitors. I myself and from another planet so understand me is easier then anyone else.”

“I see”

The village leader got serious. “Now…. You are not the first here. I can tell from your face. You’re one of THEM.”

“Who are “them”?”

“One who no longer lives by natural means, some people here believe immortality can be attained by hard work or praying to the gods, but I believe you know how foolish that is. Immortality has been attained before, but only by the 5 demons. The first is said to be an advisor to kingdoms and lands, the second was more monster then the others and is said to have lost his mind, the third and fourth were the copiers originally built for stealth and infiltration, but later refitted to kill number 05, the fifth was said to be the most powerful in existence and the last of their kind. No one knows what number 05 was fitted with or what he can do, but it inspires great fear even stories. Of course I am speaking of the cyborg series. So, which one are you?”

“Number 05”

He looked shocked for a moment and then smiled. “Number 05 was supposed to be the most powerful weapon ever, you may know now…it wasn’t a cyborg. There is a secret to the technology used inside the last of the cyborgs, though the information above that is classified.”

“Well any information helps; I know that I went berserk when I was activated.”

“It may interest you to know, 04 and 03 are here on this planet.”

“Really!?”

“Yes, they have taken a kingdom using their copy tactics.”

“Those bastards.”

“You are supposedly the peak of the cyborg race; all cyborgs should follow your orders without fail. These ones are different; they want nothing more then your death. You must eliminate them.”

“But how? I don’t command an army to take a kingdom.”

“No, but you have one powerful weapon at your disposal.”

He led me out of the room and through the town. Everyone starred at me; I was one of the five demons, it was only natural. He took me to a large barn, locked up and heavily guarded.

“This should help you storm the castle and escape the planet.” The village leader unlocked the barn and swung open its doors.

“Wow, you actually have one of these.”

“Yes, it’s an EXEVEOR MARK II. One fell into a pond near our village not to long ago from an overhead battle in space; we fixed it up and have left it in here until it’s needed.”

“These robots are very effective. As tall as thirty grown men, it surely towers above most things.”

“Cyborg 03 and 04 came for it a few days ago, we said we didn’t have it, but they vowed to return.”

I climbed up the ladder that sat in front of it and looked inside. The robot was built for advanced control and maneuverability, so the weapons were limited. The controls were fairly simple; there were some leg patches and a helmet inside all connecting to the robots leg movement and sight, after that there is a consol in front of a pad. You stand on the pad so that the robot can receive the signals from your movement and match them, just ahead of the pad; under the console were two pedals. One made the left retro rockets fire and one made the right retro rockets fire. The console was easy to understand as well. It corresponded to the arm movements, although other models can be fitted with different arm controls and to the extent of finger controls in models more suited to industrial purposes, this model controlled its arms by two hand guns connected to the controls. You pick the guns up and point them at whatever you want to kill, the robot will move to your command. Primary weapons are fired with the triggers, secondary weapons fired with the button on their left side and right side; this would normally include rockets or lasers. The nubs on the top of them control your jet pack; push them up for up and down to bring you down again. If you tap your right or left hand while the robot is active, the phase sword will come out from your wrist for close combat. All of this was contained on top of a small platform in the middle of the robots front and it was connected to the robot by a large neck of gears and wires. The neck is used to get you inside and out. It will move outside the robot if ordered and back to its original position for piloting. Around the control deck there is a very large open space. This is used so that the pilots not harmed very much every time the robot is hit and tossed about. The pilots are always secured by a miniature gravity system inside.

“It looks like it’s in good condition.” I climbed inside and slid down the hull.

The old man climbed the ladder looked at me. “The villagers think it’s a fallen god.”

“Maybe it is considering the power it has.”

“We don’t have any power for it.”

“Well that’s to be expected, one of my power cells should be sufficient for now though.” I grabbed the rope ladder to the platform and climbed up to it. It was covered with dust, but it shouldn’t affect its piloting.

“Be careful with that.”

I whipped the dust off the console and opened a hatch beneath it; there lay a small depleted power cell. “Here you go…” I opened a small hatch in my back and removed one of my one hundred power cells. The small two inch long and one inch wide power cell held as much power as a dieing star, though you would never guess it from its looks. I took the old power cell out and replaced it with the new cell. The moment the connections clicked together hundreds of blue wires lit up, all systems activated in a flash. The large hatch closed, blowing away the ladder and the village leader. The helmet and leg pads clipped onto me as soon as I stood on the control pad. The guns lifted themselves up and dropped into my hands. The comlink opened and I could communicate with the outside world, while the forty square inch main screen appeared in front of me. All of the other screens started to surround me. This mech was in top condition.

“Hey can you here me!?” The village leader started to tap his old staff on the robots foot.

“Yeah, I hear you loud and clear.”

“Good, this robot is equipped with an AU, if you haven’t noticed all of the equipment attaching to you like a ghost.”

“What kind of AU is attached?”

“It’s a basic combat AU, I recommend upgrading when you get to another planet.”

“Does that mean I can keep the robot?”

“Of course, it’s not like we have any use for it here.”

“Thank you” I made a step forward. The large hoof of the mech crushed the ground beneath me.

“Don’t destroy the barn.”

“I won’t.” My thumbs slipped up and pushed the rocket nubs. The mech crashed through the ceiling and hovered above the barn.

“It can’t be helped I guess. It’s about time for you to head to the eastern kingdom; it’s where the cyborgs have taken control”

“Before that, what’s your name?”

“My name is Shio.”

“That’s an odd name, well thank you for all your help. Bye.” I lent forward and the mech darted off to the eastern kingdom.

I arrived at the cities walls at around midnight. Guards patrolled the walls, lit up by little torches. I kept my distance at a mile away and because it was night time, they couldn’t see me well. On the contrary the torches made them little targets. I took careful aim; the red crosshairs appeared on the main screen. I set them a little ahead of the person, taking into account the distance at which the bullet had to travel. I lightly tapped the hair trigger and a volley of bullets spewed from both guns. Seconds passed by as I saw the hot bullets fly away and near instantly the wall exploded in a plum of smoke and debris. I ran to the kingdom. People in the towns heard the explosions and were fleeing in terror. A fight was on!

As I came closer the surviving guards started shoot arrows, but all resistance was futile. To my surprise upon breaching the walls I met with another mech of the same class. A comlink opened up between us and a view screen appeared.

“I am surprised to see another chosen one, but I will be the one to save the world!” The pilot said overconfidently

“What are you talking about?”

“Didn’t your kingdoms evil leader give you that robot to crush our peaceful kingdom?”

“No….”

“Don’t lie!” He opened up his main cannons. I strafed to left and bolted forward, pinning him to the ground.

“You better not get over confident weakling.”

“You can’t defeat me, the hero is always victorious!” He opened up his rocket pods and unlocked their failsafe.

“Are you mad!? We will both be blown to pieces!”

“Mad like a fox!”

I reversed my boosters and shot high into the air. “Got you” He said smiling and fired all eight rockets.

“Damn, I might not make it!” The rockets hit my mech and exploded their small nuclear warheads. A large object covered in smoke fell from the sky.

“You have been defeated evil beast.”

“Not yet….” I fired my only rocket left unclogged. It made a direct hit blowing away his arms and crushing in the cockpit.

“Ho…How are you alive!?” He said barely breathing.

“I strafed to the side just before the rockets exploded. Half of my mech was ripped to shreds, but the other half kept me alive.”

“I…thought I was the hero.”

“I’m afraid this is my story.”

“Oh…I see…good night….” He stopped breathing and died just before the delayed explosion kicked in, destroying the remains of the robot.

Blood dripped from my head, arms, and legs. The last thing I thought was “Why am I bleeding?” before blacking out.

I awoke still on the platform. Even though the mech had fallen on its side, the gravity engine had survived the crash, keeping me tied to the pad and thankfully out of the dark pit of shrapnel and rubble that the other half has become. I climbed to the surface to find lots of metal shrapnel on the hull, the opponent’s reactor over heated and caused a meltdown, resulting in a massive explosion.

The neighboring towns had been bombarded with debris from the explosion. Houses crushed and roads blocked, with this looting would soon begin. Not only in the towns, but on the fallen mech as well, there obviously wasn’t anything to take in the empty husk of the other.

I could hear some people on horse back coming, they were either looters or military. It wasn’t particularly good if I was found by either.

“Hey you, get down from there!” A captain said holding his sword

I kept looking at the husk of my opponent. “No….”

“Under order of the imperial palace, all people are to leave this area.”

“So you are acting like all militaries and covering up the truth?”

“Of course not!”

“Then die….!” I turned around and unleashed a volley of bullets killing the captain and his horse. The other guard quickly loaded his bow and fired, but my cybernetic eye was two hundred moves ahead of him. I grabbed the arrow, crushed it, and killed him.

A steady trail of steam flowed from my guns over heated barrel. Five more horse back infantry appeared and started shooting.

“You want some of this!?” I tried to shoot, but I was out of ammo. For a moment this made me distracted and arrow pierced my weak point. Raw particle energy spewed from the leak, why does this always happen to me? I fell off of the mech and slammed into the ground unconscious.


“Bravo team, all systems green!” The bravo team leader said aloud as their MCS (Mobile Combat Suits) entered the atmosphere of Praven III.

”Delta support squad, all systems green!” The MSC team leader said aloud as they followed the MCS into combat.

“Raptor squad alpha, all systems green!” Said the SAA raptor squad leader as they followed the rim of the two squads.

“Everybody lets give these Lemurian idiots hell!” The bravo team lead said as he cooled his MCS before overheating from the friction.

“They won’t know what hit them!” The MSC lead said as he cooled the craft.

“Cooling systems…. Systems nominal were ready rock!” Said the raptor squad leader.

The sand blew across the dunes as team 11 returned from a scavenging trip along the northern dunes.

“Thomas team 11 has returned.” Ron said as he looked at a camera view screen.

“Jose, open the gates and let them into the fortress walls.” I said as I sat in the command chair.

“Yes sir.” Jose opened the gates.

The radar man quickly turned his head. “Sir, enemy vessels and mobile suits incoming!”

“How many!?”

“Twenty…no…thirty…. Forty… there are too many to count!”

“What are they?”

“Raptor squads, MSC squads, and MCS squads. The MCS squads are equipped with BDWs (Base Destroyer Weapons).”

“Why would they dispatch such a large force for such a small fortress? What ever the case, their here now…load all cannons and divert main power to the shields, they want a fight? We’ll give them a war.” I opened up the main comlink to the base grounds. “All hands to battle stations this is a level ten alert I repeat this is a level ten alert!”

“Sir, we need your authorization to sortie.” Jose looked up at me from his seat.

“Launch all fighters and MCSs.”

“Yes sir….”

Jose got on the pilot comlink. “Pilots you’re all clear to launch, these Atlantians better not hope they caught us off guard.”

The Delta MCS squad leader opened up the squad comlink. “You hear that boys!? We got a blank check for killing, no survivors!”

“Good luck teams, opening up launch ramps and unlocking launch blast doors. May Lemuria protect you on your mission.” Jose said as he unlocked the fail safe abort systems.

“Roger that command, this is Delta squad heading out!” “Beta squad heading out!” “Charlie squad heading out!” All the team leaders said as they launched off the ramps. A couple sparks flickered from their engines to be followed by a roaring flame.

“All systems green...lets go team!” Said beta squad leader said as he opened up all his missiles on the enemy MCSs.

“They’ve locked on……GAAA!” The missiles struck the enemy bravo leader and killed him.

“They got Bravo leader! The bastards!” The Atlantian MCS fired all its weapons at the approaching squads destroying two Lemurian MCSs.

I turned on the view screen. “Get two rescue crews on those MCSs!”

“Yes sir!” Jose complied.

“Kill all the non believers!” An Atlantian raptor pilot yelled as he opened up his lasers and fired at a firefly pilot.

“Damn, I can’t shake him…AAAHH!” The lasers scored a direct hit on his left wing, the plane spontaneously combusted and exploded.

“Their all over us!” The Lemurian MSC said as he activated his phase sword and engaged another pilot.

“Sir the MSCs are ignoring the battle and heading strait for us!” Ron said franticly

“Lock on primary laser batteries and fire!”

“Yes sir!”

The lasers glowed and then fired, tearing through the air towards the targets. One MSC didn’t dodge and took a direct laser hit to its cockpit, splitting it right down the middle and causing a core rupture, resulting in an explosion.

“Die!” The Atlantian MSC yelled as it opened up its front cannons on the base.

Ron looked up at me “Shields taking damage sir.”

“A couple MSCs can’t do much damage, proceed with firing.”

“Roger.”

“This is firefly squad Alpha, moving in to intercept raptors.” The fireflies opened up their twin forward lasers landing some hits on the raptor squad, but damage was minimal due to range.

“Sir, this is Charlie and Beta squad, we are rounding up the last of the enemy MCSs” A Lemurian MCS locked on its lasers and shot down another enemy mech.

“The last raptor has been taken down by the firefly squads…. Just receiving confirmed kill on the last MSC.” Ron said aloud.

“Right, order all squads to return to base. How many did we lose?”

“Ten out of forty fireflies and twenty out of thirty MCSs, quiet troublesome if I say so myself.”

“Well, I guess it could have been worse….”

I awoke in a courtyard of a palace, chained to two large metal polls. Cyborg 04 and 03 stood before me in fancy robes. Behind me stood a large crowd, I couldn’t hear well, but I think they said.

“People! I give you the monster, cyborg 05 shall be destroyed on this day!”

I saw the content smile of both of them as they stabbed me repeatedly with a sword. I was covered in my own blood…. My…own…blood.

“BLOOD!” I went berserk again, but this time it was far more serious. All my limbs were torn off and replaced with my beastly limbs. The chest casing was ripped apart as well. Only the cybernetic implants in my head were kept on.

I tore apart the chains and jumped high into the air, the MCSs followed my movements and opened fire, but I was too quick. Before they knew it one mech exploded and then the other exploded.

“Bleed!” Thousands of spines grew from my arms and I released them in a deadly volley of needles at the watching crowd. Cyborg 04 and 03 opened fire. The bullets penetrated my skin, but then were pushed out by my almost immediate healing process. I landed on the ground again, rushing in a berserk fury at the two cyborgs. The skin on my hands melted away revealing two laser cannons in the palm. They dove to the side as I unleashed their explosive power, obliterating the palace behind them.

They got their bearings and started firing again, whatever they did had no effect on me. I grabbed cyborg 03 and consumed him.

“You.... You ate him, MONSTER!” He started blind firing. I grabbed his arm, crushed it, and consumed him. The red from my eyes disappeared and I grew back to normal proportions. I fell to the ground, blood dripped from my mouth, and scares covered my body. I struggled to stay awake. The power cells had run out of energy and my systems dimmed. I saw a black energy glow around me. The black hole generator was activating. Something in my old memory clicked and suddenly remembered something about the generator. Every time it activates, it doesn’t just teleport me…. It will teleport everything near by within a one mile radius to a random place or just kills everything in a twenty mile radius. This would explain how 03 and 04 were here already; they must have gotten caught in the last blast.

“Damn it…. Don’t activate! I held my chest in pain, holding in the energy that so desperately wanted freedom.”

A man ran up to me holding a gun. “You monster, die!” He pulled the trigger and shot me a few times in the chest.

“Fool….” I released my hands and a devastating blast of dark energy took out the entire kingdom by storm, shredding buildings and absorbing people, but that was just the start. Everything started to be absorbed into the now created black hole. I was lifted up into the sky and sucked into the black hole; I hope I get lucky again.

wow! eek
looks like you really worked on it!

i agree. i am also writing something but haven't finished it yet.it's more for me and my memories.but if it does get published,it'll be for little kids and the characters names are changed due to the fact that they're all property of nintendo.

and can't forget about x-men.