Interstellar Defense League

Chapter One

Ben got up with a whine, climbing from his bed, smashing the alarm clock with his fist to no effect. It took three more punches to the poor clock to stop the thing from buzzing its alarm. Ben was your average eighteen year old, with short bowl shaped black hair, blue eyes, and a slightly overbuilt frame, although he wasn't fat... but he was plenty lethargic. He walked groggily downstairs from his attic bedroom, wanting to kill the person that had invented the horrible institution that people liked to call school. His mom waved him over to her, standing in front of the television, and looking borderline excited and frightened. She had the news on, and was staring intensely at it.

"Today, the Interstellar Defense League has met with President Kimberly Thomas, requesting that she join the United States into the IDL. The IDL also met with several other world leaders, who all had pretty much the same reaction as President Thomas; they had to give it some consideration, but doubted it. President Thomas said that she would put it before Congress for a vote though, and doubts that they will agree to join. When asked why, President Thomas said only this: ‘We only found out about the existence of other sentient life forms other than ourselves two months ago, and now we are expected to join in some defensive league? We need much more time to consider this.’ The President declined to comment further on the situation." Ben's mom flipped off the channel.

"Honestly," she declared as though exasperated with the situation, "why would we need to join some kind of defense league? I mean, its not like we are being attacked or anything. Does anyone know what the league is even about?"

Ben rolled his eyes at how narrow minded his mom had proved to be once again. "Mom, have you even been listening to all the other news besides just what the President has said on the matter? The Interstellar Defense League is a league of governments from about forty different systems, founded by the Ghalerans, which is waging war against the forces of the Liodammians, or some weird name like that; that's the shortened version of the name, as it’s supposedly unpronounceable by humans. Anyway, these Liodammians have a combined force of genetically engineered warriors and awesome machines, and is attempting to gain control of the galaxy. They breed so fast that they can expand without limits, and their natural instincts drive them to do so."

"You know," Ben's mom responded, "I think I might have been wrong to sign you up for that Interstellar Politics course... after all, the subject has only been around for a few weeks, and it’s already filling you with images of heroic wars between good guys and bad guys."

Ben rolled his eyes once again, and set about making breakfast, as he normally did. He had remembered how the world had seemed to change just two months ago, when the discovery had been made of other intelligent life out there. It seemed everything had become smaller since then... everyone realized just how tiny they were in the galactic scheme of things. Now, alien leagues were already petitioning for them to join up with them in a massive war.

He had been one of the few people that was disappointed that someone had found life out there though. He had always hoped that in a couple of years, he would have been the one there, an officer aboard one of the great cruisers in the International Exploration Forces, that he would have made the discovery. But he could still hope that he was involved in alien relations or something when he joined up with the fleet tomorrow; today was his last day at high school, and he wanted to go directly into the Exploration Forces from there.

Ben quickly ate his breakfast, got dressed, and ran out the door. Today was one day he didn't want to be late for, as he was going to be practicing for graduation, and he had to make one of the speeches. He might not have been the top student, but he knew more in engineering and piloting than any of his friends in the same subjects, so he had been selected to give a speech on the virtues of joining the Exploration Forces. While he almost couldn't wait, he could also at the same time feel butterflies rising up in his stomach. He had never been the greatest at public speaking.

He was nearly to school when it happened. The skies around the small suburban area Ben lived in went completely dark. Everyone looked up to see the most terrifying, the most impressive, and the largest ship they had ever seen. It was black all over its hull, and tiny protrusions stuck out from all over the side of it. It had to be more than two kilometers long, covering the entire town as it did. Then they were all jolted from their dazed amazement- the craft slammed into the ground, causing the earth to break apart for kilometers, homes to collapse, and shaking that threw anyone not caught in debris to the ground. The massive engines on the back of the craft, which had come into view when it landed, died out, but not before clearing a path longer then ten football fields behind the ship, in which everything was blackened.

The devastation was nothing like anybody had seen before; the entire two kilometer stretch underneath the massive craft was smashed, and the surrounding fifteen kilometers devastated by the earthquake that had happened as a result of the crash. Ben slowly got to his feet, pushing aside a slab of concrete that had fallen on him. Everywhere he could see, people were crying in fear, or were dead. Ben turned and ran towards his home, muttering all the way, "No... no... they can't have been hurt... there's no way..."

But he was wrong... in the area where his home once was, the spaceship rested, the area nearby looking like an entire half-mile section of ground had tilted upwards... and he saw no sign of his sister, dad, or mom... anywhere...

He fell to the ground, crying and crying for hours. He didn't even notice when Red Cross personnel placed him in an ambulance, and sent him away. He couldn't get the image of his entire family just being smashed underneath that craft... couldn't get over the fact that they had just died for no reason, just because some spacecraft had decided to fall on them. Finally, after eight hours of feeling nothing but grief, the feelings slowly transformed itself into rage. He would kill the bastards that did this to his family. They would suffer for what they had done to his life.

Chapter Two

Ben awoke about two weeks after the day that came to be known as The Arrival... an innocent enough name for an event that caused mass panic. Suicide rates quadrupled within a week of the landing, and the death toll in the crash site alone was devastating- forty-thousand people dead. Not since the Third World War, twenty years prior in 2018, had so many lives been lost in a single event, for it wasn't the crash alone that took lives. After a day of sitting there, not making a motion, the massive ship had finally dropped its cargo bay door, killing five hundred emergency workers in the site it fell on. From the massive hold had poured out an army of machines and genetically engineered Liodammians, bringing the Earth into the war it had utterly refused to help with. The machines had spread out first, some spider like in appearance, made for scouting, and some hundreds of feet tall, made for destruction only. They had occupied the surrounding hundred miles quite easily, and about half the state of Illinois afterwards. Three other landings had also occurred at the same time as the first: one in Britain, one in Australia, and one in Japan. The armies of many countries collided with the machines and Liodammians, but with little success. There was a gargantuan machine taken down by a cruise missile here and there, and a Liodammian that was taken out by anti-tank rounds from a sniper rifle, but it didn't do anything but slow the armies. Congress had no choice but to ally themselves with the Interstellar Defense League, and ask for their help.

It took a week for the Interstellar Defense League ships to arrive, and in that time the destruction had become worse. The death tolls were up to fifty million from around the world, with at least twelve major cities destroyed. The hardest hit so far had been Japan, which the Liodammians had completely taken over. An entire country subdued, in the space of a few days- no one had thought the Earth was so vulnerable before.

When the IDL ships arrived, they landed well away from the Liodammian occupied areas. They appeared on an emergency broadcast with the President the next day, Ben watching it from his hospital bed, where he was recovering from both physical and mental wounds.

"Ladies and Gentleman, I speak to you today not as the President, but as just another human being that is in the line of fire of an aggressive species with a hold on our lands," the President began, "and I also come to you with a request. The Interstellar Defense League says that they do not use their technology alone against the Liodammians, because their robotics and genetic engineering are much less advanced. However, they do possess one greater technology. They say they have the ability to first open every cell in a person's body to changes, to make them adaptive, and then to fill them with energy. The process uses a special energy which strengthens everything... senses, muscles, the brain... everything. However, this process is severely painful, according to the IDL. We are looking for healthy males and females between the ages of eighteen and thirty to go through this process, and fight for your country, and your world. Just realize this pain is not some quick come and go pain. Only apply to become an IDL Warrior if you think you have what it takes. If you don't, then simply join as a soldier; soldiers don't go through the process. If you can help in any way, I beg you to sign up. We are facing our most desperate time ever, our trial by fire as a species. We must do everything in our power to stop the scum that is invading us. Please, help your country."

Ben jumped out of bed, ripping the IV from his hand. He quickly threw on his clothes, walking out of the room and out of the hospital without anyone noticing- there were several hundred wounded in this hospital, so there wasn't anybody left to guard the doors. He noticed a congregation of what looked like soldiers at the edge of the parking lot, and ran to join them.

"Hey," he said as he reached them, "You guys heading to sign up with the IDL? Its just that you all look like you were military or something."

"Yeah," one of them responded, "Our unit just got beat to hell by a group of the GE’s, so were going to sign up with the IDL Warriors- hopefully this energy process or whatever will let us beat those dudes. Wanna come along?"

"Yeah. I'd like to payback those things- they killed my parents and my sister when they landed..." he took a second to steady himself before he continued speaking, "and what are GE’S?"

"Oh," the leader responded, "Of course you wouldn't know the military terms we're using to describe these guys. GE means genetically enhanced, the Liodammians. They stand about three meters tall, and have enough strength to lift a car over their head and throw it at you. Believe me, I know. I barely ducked in time to avoid getting hit by a Chevy to the face. These things are weird looking... they have no mouth, nose, or ears. They have three legs which pivot around in their hips... it’s freaky. So, you gonna come along?"

Ben jumped into the truck they were gathered around, not talking much through the ride to the main IDL landing vessel.

*****

Ben was amazed as he walked through the entrance to the vessel. The corridor was about four meters in height, and pearl in color, with completely smooth surfaces that looked as if a speck of dust never touched them.

The doors sealed behind them without making even a whisper of a sound, melding into the wall so you would have never known a door was there. The technology almost seemed organic in nature, which, if Ben had remembered his Interstellar Politics course, he would have realized that some of it was.

A tall alien, maybe standing a meter higher than Ben, came and made a gesture for them to follow him. Ben and the eight soldiers followed along obediently, without a word, still in a stunned silence. They quickly arrived in a sort of lobby, and Ben took the time to stop staring at the walls and see what his first real life view of an alien looked like.

The tall being seemed neither male nor female, and had an almost completely smooth face. It was sort of eerie, looking into a face that only had four tiny slits - two eyes, one nose, and one mouth - and that was it. Ben didn't think he'd ever get over how strange these aliens looked. From his courses in school, he knew this was one of the Ghalerans- an offshoot race of the Liodammians that are much less violent.

"Ah, new recruits I see!" A human came out from behind a doorway at the end of the room. "Okay, what division are you boys looking on going into?"

The leader of the eight soldiers that Ben had spoken to earlier spoke up. "All of us want to be Warriors."

"Very well," the recruiter said, a little darkly, "But I must warn you, it is very hard for humans to endure the process. The first stage is for us to scan your mind, to make sure you’re on our side. This isn't painful, but it will give us all your necessary information, and assure us of your loyalties. The second stage is to open all your cells to changes, through a form of genetic modification. This, I am told, leaves you feeling tiny pinpricks of pain all over your body. It takes about an hour after the second stage for you to be ready for the third. A massive amount of energy will pour into your body, filling every single cell. This entire process can be repeated at a later date as well, for further increased abilities, but we've never had a single case of someone returning to do it all over again. In fact, about thirty percent of all Warriors end up committing suicide in the first week after the procedure, because of the horrible pain as their body adjusts. We cannot use any sedatives on you, or any pain reducers. Because of the energy's affects on the senses, it simply won't help. We have had only six hundred or so Warriors manage to complete the process in its entirety. You may press the kill button you will be holding in your hand at any time during the second and third stages. If you do it in the second stage, your body will simply just be slightly more adaptive. If you do it during the third stage, which is where most people end up doing it, you'll be left with some energy, but not enough to be an effective Warrior, and you'll be what we call an Enhanced Soldier. So, still want to go through with this?"

While all nine of them looked somewhat nervous, they all nodded. There was no way Ben was going to let himself be a common soldier- he wanted to be on the front lines, dealing the real damage to the pieces of trash that had killed his family. He wouldn't be happy until he killed every single machine and GE that came off that ship.

They were led back to the room the recruiter had just come out of, which had ten comfortable looking reclining chairs in it. They were instructed to take a chair, and strap themselves in. They all did so, and were given a small little joystick shaped object, with a button at the end- the kill switch.

First up was the brain scan. That was no big deal- it took about five minutes and wasn't even mildly uncomfortable. One of the eight soldiers was let go though, as they said he had been taking drugs recently, and that would have interfered with the process. More likely, they didn't want a stoner in their army.

The second stage wasn't so fun. They hooked up little tubes all over his body, connected through tiny needles which did hurt somewhat going in. There were about fifty of those little needles and tubes connected all over his body. When the switch was flicked, a glowing blue liquid flowed from the tubes, through the needles, and into him at a rather fast rate... the process to remove all that extra liquid won't be mentioned. At first, it felt almost like a warm tickling all over his body, almost comfortable. Then it got progressively worse. He felt like he needed to scratch all over his body, and his hands were restrained by the straps! The sensation became even worse, and instead of being a torturing tickle, it was like sitting on a bed of needles, like he was being stabbed with them all over his body, everywhere, at once. He screamed out loud, just as he could hear the soldiers doing, but he never touched the kill switch... instead, he focused his thoughts solely on his parents and his sister, of the way the ship had just dropped out of the sky and killed them all....

Ben's screaming got worse, but this time not in pain, but in a rage that he had never felt before. He concentrated solely on that anger, the pain dying into the background. Finally, Ben blacked out as the tubes stopped pumping the cursed blue liquid into him.

When he awoke, they were getting ready to start the machines again... the third stage. He concentrated hard on his anger, not thinking about anything. He couldn't let himself think of the pain to come. Then, all he could think of was the pain as what felt like lava poured into his body through the needles.

"RAA!" He let out a scream that he was sure could've been heard for miles... his entire body had flames lapping at it, while being stabbed and beaten... every pain he could ever possibly feel was running through his body: injury, extreme heat and cold, a migraine that he was sure was actually a jackhammer in-between the two hemispheres of his brain... everything. If anybody could've developed a more perfect form of torture, he couldn't think of it. Of course, he couldn’t really think of much of anything as the pain became progressively worse. A liquid fire was traveling through every vein inside of him, the sensations changing so fast across the surface of his skin that he couldn’t keep track of them. He bucked and twisted against the straps that held him down, his screams turning into silent escapes of air as his throat had stopped functioning. He just wanted to die… was it so much to ask for, death? It would have been a pleasure, compared to this. His thumb reached out to press the little button… the button that would be his savior, the button that would end his suffering…

Again, he tried to concentrate solely on his anger. While it helped somewhat, to focus all of that pain into his anger, it didn't keep him from feeling it. He was still silently screaming, his throat becoming raw as the hoarse sound left it, adding just another pain to the list of them he was already experiencing. But as he regained a tiny bit of conscious thought, just a glimmer of sanity peaking from behind the wall of suffering, he managed to stop himself from pressing the kill switch. Whenever he felt the temptation to press it again, he thought to himself that hitting that kill switch would be like killing the memories of his sister and his parents... he endured the seemingly endless hours of torture, the merciless rape of his body by pain. Later, he was told that it had only lasted for five minutes. It was strange that when you wanted most for time to pass quickly, it had the annoying habit of slowing down to the speed of a paralyzed sloth.

He thought that he might have fallen asleep at some point, but there was no chance: the energy being pumped into him, enhancing his senses and brain so that they didn't shut anything out, kept him fully conscious. He would've given anything to press that red button, but an image of his family's house being destroyed unceremoniously by a massive ship kept him from doing it.

When it was finally over, he could feel an echo of the pain throughout his entire body… but the word ‘echo’ didn’t do it justice. It may have been just a fraction of the pain, but then again, dividing infinity still left you with infinity. Still, even through the pain, he felt the greatest sense of relief in his life- he made it! He was finally through it! He noticed belatedly that five of the soldiers had quit early, pressing the button... he wished he could have been them, he wished that he could have pressed that button… but it was the least he could do for his family. Finally realizing that he was already up and walking, being pulled along by a doctor, he opened his eyes from their strained wincing position to half-open, the world glaring in brightly at him. He watched as the five who had quit early were marched to a barrack that had the sign “Enhanced Soldiers 3-4” posted over the doorway.

The two soldiers and Ben were taken by human doctors and nurses through the door on the left, which lead to a complex of bunk rooms and training areas for the IDL Warriors. When Ben reached his bunk and laid down, he would have given anything to be able to sleep... but he couldn't. He just laid there for a full week, almost completely unmoving, willing himself not to crack and go insane from the constant pain. The nurses had to feed Ben and the other two, as well as do everything else for them. They couldn't even move during that entire week. After about one hundred and seventy hours of no sleep, a wave of drowsiness finally came over him, and he fell into a slumber at last. But if Ben thought that sleep would have helped him, he was dead wrong. Instead of the dull pain that had kept him awake and unthinking, he was now more conscious than he had been for all of the last seven days. The pain was preferable; he kept imagining in his dreams exactly what the broken, twisted, and smashed bodies of his mother, his father, and his sister must have looked like.

Chapter Three

Ben woke up, only feeling a very faint pain over his body, like a bad case of muscle stiffness. He could at least move, but found his muscles were very tense- they had constantly been contracting and relaxing very quickly, in spasms, during the power implanting procedure. He rested another day before finally going to meet with their squad leader with the other two new Warriors that he had come with.

"Well," their squad leader began, "Nice to meet you three. Let’s see... Benjamin Powell, James Gregory, and Ryan Hampton, correct?" All three of them nodded before she continued. "My name is Rebecca Morrison, but during any group training I will be Lieutenant Morrison to you, got it? Good. Now, each squadron is made up of six Warriors, about one hundred squads total now. The other two members are over there," she said, pointing to behind her where two Warriors sat in uniform, "Patricia Wood and Steven Evenson. Our squadron name is the Dragons. Any questions?"

Ben looked over the squad. Lieutenant Morrison was about six feet tall, had long brown hair, and brown eyes. He was surprised at how tall she was, but was even more impressed at Evenson's height, who had to have been at least six and a half feet tall. As he was only a little less than six feet himself, he felt a little small. Both Wood and Evenson had Private's insignias on, so he assumed that must have been his new rank as well.

Since there were no questions, the three new recruits, including him, were dismissed to collect their uniforms. They were then to go to the mess for breakfast, and report for training. Ben hurried off to get his new uniform.

The uniform didn't look as bad on him as he feared that it would. It was made of a black cloth similar to satin, with hard blue armor over it, the black cloth showing through in non-critical areas, where armor wasn't needed or wouldn't allow for movement. The blue armor, although it felt like it was made of steel, was surprisingly light. He could still move around in it without any impediment to his speed.

"Hey," he asked the tailor that had just fitted him for his uniform/armor, "How did you guys manage to make this armor so light? I mean, the armor itself looks like it should weigh a hundred pounds!"

The tailor gave a half-laugh before he responded. "Did you forget that you just had your strength modified? That armor weighs a good one hundred and twenty pounds. Titanium/steel alloy. Be glad you can wear that easily- it’ll stop most attacks cold.”

Ben looked stunned as he slowly made his way to breakfast. How could he be carrying an additional one hundred and twenty pounds on him without noticing it? That energy must have worked better than he could have ever imagined. He didn't even realize he wasn't even beginning to tap the depths of this new power.

Ben quickly finished his breakfast, actually eager to get to training- they were supposed to be teaching them to use their new abilities today. Even finishing as quickly as he did Patricia, Steven, James, and Ryan were all already there, inside the football dome used as a training area. Lieutenant Morrison was nowhere to be seen, but he didn't expect a squad commander to need training. They were the only unit there for training, and there were five instructors- one for each trainee. All of the trainees were quickly paired off with instructors.

"Hey, my name’s Jerry," Ben's instructor began, "Sorry if I start off fast, but we need to get this done quickly; we’ve been under constant attack for the last week, so I need to prepare you as fast as humanly possible. I want you to come at me with just any type of attack that you would normally use in a fight. Your goal is to land a punch on my chest. Begin." As Jerry finished speaking, he raised his arms in a defensive stance.

Ben quickly flashed out his fist towards the side of one of his instructor's arms, his other fist flying at his chest, hoping that while blocking the first shot he would let his guard down... but no such luck. In about a half of a blink's time, Jerry had both of Ben's wrists in his hands.

"Not bad," Jerry said, "but not all that great. When you attack me this time, focus all of your concentration into slowing down your motion in your mind. You'll understand once you do it. Most people at least get this part down pretty quickly. Okay, go."

Ben did as he said, and tried to concentrate so hard that he would slow down the images coming into his eyes- almost like when you stare at a single blade on a moving fan, you can slow it down to see its motion. When he punched out this time, it was in slow motion; the entire world seeming to move very slowly. But again, Jerry had his wrist in his hand in a blink of an eye, as if his arm had just magically materialized there.

"Sir," Ben said, "how do you do that? I mean, you’re moving faster than I can see! Last time I checked, it’s sort of hard to block against something you can’t see coming at you…"

Jerry laughed, and then responded, "Ben, its not just concentration. Once you have your mind mentally slowed down, you need to physically speed up your body. You can feel your energy flowing through you now, right? It should feel almost like a warm tickling in your veins.” Now that he mentioned it, Ben did sort of feel it, but it was almost unnoticeable. “Well, will it into your muscles. Will it to move for you. You can do it. Just feel the energy, and move it like you would any muscle or limb. Now, let’s try this again."

Ben again concentrated on slowing down his movements mentally, this time pushing forward the energy flowing within him into his muscles. His muscles instantly warmed, a peculiar lightness spreading over his body as if it was easier to carry his own weight now. Even with his senses on slow motion, when he lanced out with a punch this time, it looked like a blur. The instructor quickly blocked, so Ben, with a side-swiping motion of his leg, tripped his instructor, punching him in the chest while he was off balance. Ben was not prepared for what happened next- when the world sped back up as he loosened his concentration, his instructor went flying back a full twenty feet, tumbling end over end for another five feet when he landed.

"Oh shit!" Ben exclaimed, rushing to Jerry quickly, and attempting to pull him to his feet.

Jerry got up on his own, pushing Ben away tolerantly. "Ben, it’s okay. I just wasn't prepared for you to move so fast. Some people use the energy easier than others, and you, apparently, are quite good at using it. You had to be moving faster than the speed of sound back there- I heard a small sonic boom after you punched me."

"Speed of sound... but sir, that’s over seven hundred miles per hour! I can't possibly have been moving that fast!" Ben sounded just slightly disbelieving.

"You’re wearing a hundred pound armor suit, you just sent a person flying backwards twenty or so feet, and the part you can't believe is that you can move so fast? Most people are amazed at their strength, and completely ignore their increased speed."

Ben shook his head once more in disbelief, and then got back into position for additional training.

"Okay Ben, I think you've got the physical part down," said Jerry, "but that is, of course, the easy part. There are three main uses for the energy you can feel within you. The first is to aid you physically, as you just used it for. The second is to use it as a weapon itself, projecting it out of your body. Don’t worry; it regenerates itself once it’s infused into your cells. The third is to use it to establish an energy field that will allow you to manipulate objects, among many other things. We'll now be moving onto the second use. Now, try and remember how it felt when you pushed the energy into your muscles. This time I want you to push it to the edge of your hands, then out of your skin. Once you've done that, try and feel the connection you still have to your energy, and will it at your target. You see, even after the energy leaves your body, you should still have a sort of mental connection with it, allowing you to manipulate it just as if it were still in your body- this means that to some extent, you can guide your energy. Your target, in this case, will be that bull’s-eye about one hundred yards behind me. Go ahead."

When Jerry moved aside, a bull’s-eye was visible on the other side of the football field- and Ben thought Jerry must have been a little off his rocker. There was no way in hell he could hit that thing from here! Well, he thought, he had to give it a shot, but he just knew this was going to end in embarrassment- most likely for himself. He pushed his energy to the edge of his hands, feeling the same warmness that had filled his muscles. While concentrating on moving as much energy as possible to his hands, he could feel where all the energy was in his body. It seemed that most of it was kept in his chest, and simply flowed throughout his body to wherever he wanted it to go. He also noticed that a residue of energy had been left in his muscles when he had gathered energy there, keeping him sort of at a semi-charged up state. He stared at the target, gathering more and more energy behind his palms. Then, with a sudden blast of effort, he forced it to the outside of his palms. There the glowing red energy hovered, generating enough heat to make Ben sweat all over.

"Here goes nothing," he mumbled, as he mentally pushed the energy to hit the target. With a blast of speed, turning the ball into nothing more than a brief flash of light that Ben could feel, as if it was still a part of him, the target was completely destroyed... as well as everything within a yard of it. There was no debris, just a large crater about ten meters wide. He noticed a few other instructors and trainees turning towards the blast, their collective mouths agape.

"Whoa..." Ben nearly fainted in amazement. "I didn't actually do that, did I?"

"I dunno," Jerry sounding as disbelieving as him, "did you? How the hell... I've never seen any trainee manage to control his power that well. Kid, you’re going to be a good Warrior. Damn… anyway,” he said, clearing his throat loudly as if to finally snap everyone back to reality. “I guess you’re ready for the third use, then.

"You see, when you controlled your energy, you were already using a form of the third skill," Jerry began, "manipulating energy. Now, what I want you to do is to create a field without projecting your energy. This means you are spontaneously generating energy around any object. It will not only protect whatever object you are generating it around, but allow you to do pretty much whatever you want with the object. I want you to try it on the tree over here. Lift the tree out of the ground."

Ben looked at the tree that was about twenty yards to the left of his instructor. He didn't know how he was supposed to do this, but he figured he better go ahead and experiment. He imagined an energy field snapping over the tree, and víola. He could feel the energy contouring to the tree, tightening over every single leaf and branch.

The instructor looked stunned. "But... I didn't tell you how to do it yet. I was waiting for you to fail... no one ever gets it right the first time." It took him a few seconds before he could speak again. "Okay... let’s see how proficient you are in the use of this ability. Lift it on up."

Ben focused on the energy, using the same mental willpower to send a command to it as he did when firing the energy before... unfortunately, he used way too much mental power. The tree flew up at an awesome rate, and in surprise, he let go of his energy field. The massive oak tree came falling down towards Jerry. Before Ben had time to think, his energy had surged forth through his body, into his hands, and out at the tree. The oak exploded above Jerry's head with not so much left as a twig.

"Sorry sir!" Ben said apologetically to him, "I didn't expect it to shoot up a hundred feet into the air!"

"Neither did I," Jerry mumbled. He walked away, shouting back at Ben, "Kid, you’re gonna be powerful. You've already learned everything you need."

Besides, Jerry thought as he was walking away, If I stick around here any longer I’m likely to get my damn head blown off.

Ben heard clapping behind him, and turned around quickly. Morrison, along with the rest of the Dragon Squadron, had been behind him for several minutes. Morrison, smiling, walked over to him. "Congrats, Private. It’s not everyday that a rookie scares off an instructor with his power." Morrison walked off laughing, with the rest of Dragon squad. Just then, Ben could have sworn that someone would have been able to fry a carton of eggs on his face if they had tried.

Chapter Four

Ben did not have such a good time the next day, awoken at two o’clock in the morning by a bellowing klaxon that pounded its annoying sound into his ear. Red lights were flashing all around him, people scrambling into uniforms, and a general feel of chaos everywhere. He quickly jumped up from his bed, practically hopping into his uniform and armor. He ran at a full out sprint to reach the training area he was in yesterday, which also served as a gathering point for the base’s several thousand soldiers.

He hurried into his position in the line of warriors, waiting for whatever orders they were about to be given. While waiting, he satisfied his boredom by gazing at the massive Ghaleran vessel that stood behind the base, the very same one he had come aboard to receive his energy treatment. He still couldn’t believe the immensity of the thing; it seemed to form a horizon in and of itself, larger than life, so to speak. It was a little over half the size of the ship that hit Ben’s town… and suddenly noticing the similarities between it and this ship (Liodammian and Ghaleran design were very similar), he looked away from the offensive object. His eyes next focused on the Ghaleran that stepped up the podium at the front of the field.

The Ghalerans still frightened him somewhat, just from their height. The average Ghaleran height was about three meters tall, well over the height of any human male that Ben had even seen. Another thing that sort of frightened him about them was how they spoke- they used their minds to communicate in some sort of universal language. You could always understand what they meant when they said something, although you had no idea what language they were speaking... and everything was within your head. Having a voice bouncing around your cranium is not the most usual of experiences. It freaked Ben out a little bit.

The unusual bouncing cranium voice came to him, from the Ghaleran at the podium. He convulsed against his will, the voice sending a chill down his spine. What was truly amazing was that he sounded like he was speaking directly to him, even though he could see from everyone else's reactions that that was obviously not the case.

The Ghaleran began speaking. "Soldiers, Warriors, officers... our first major battle is about to begin. The Liodammian forces are closing in quickly. Within hours they will be at your city of Chicago, which is only thirty or so kilometers from this base. If they succeed in subduing that city, they will have won a major checkpoint on this continent. We cannot let that happen. We have no time to formulate grandiose strategies, so this battle will be a pretty simple, although deadly, event. We are going to deploy one hundred Warriors along with one thousand support soldiers in the transports. The transports will be the artillery, and there will be no backup forces. You must succeed. I wish you luck."

A roar of talk broke out among the soldiers and Warriors, all wondering who would be the ones to enter the battle, and who would remain behind to watch over the base. Ben sincerely hoped his squadron would be deployed, as he sorely wanted to get some payback for what the Liodammians took from him.

"Okay, ladies and gents, let's get a move on it!" Morrison shouted over the crowd, guiding the members of Dragon Squadron towards the "landing platforms" (abandoned highways) beside the Ghaleran landing ship. The landing platforms currently contained over fifty transports.

As they cleared the last pockets of the crowd, Ben caught up to Lieutenant Morrison, to ask her a question.

"Ma'am," he began, "I didn't get a chance to ask you previously if there were any openings for pilots that were Warriors. I have a lot of training- I wanted to join the Exploration Forces after High School. I'm fully rated to fly standard troop support transports, as my record will show."

"Good," she responded. "I was hoping one of you guys would be able to pilot a transport. The IDL wants its best pilots in HKs, so we get the bottom of the barrel pilots. You can fly Dragon Transport. There will be two other units flying with us, both Warrior units as well, but the transport is ours- we rated high enough in training that we earned a Commanding Squadron position. Largely because of you, I might add."

Ben nodded, blushing slightly, and ran up the ramp to the transport with a massive blue dragon emblazoned onto its hull. He loved the look of the transports; they were boxed shaped, with only slightly rounded off cockpits, with massive engines on its wings and tail end. The mid-section carried the supplies and troops, protected by a solid grey metal armor. To most people it looked like the ugliest thing in the world. To Ben, it was something with enough firepower to blast away a few of those damned machines and Liodammians.

He found the cockpit to be in much better order than the look of the transport itself. The control systems were state-of-the-art, glowing LCD screens and touch screen controls. He was also pleased to find that it used a flight stick instead of direct computer input- he preferred the feeling of the flight stick to that of pushing buttons. It let you make yourself one with the craft, to let yourself feel every vibration and jolt that passed through it. The engineers said that the direct computer inputs were more ergonomic, but Ben didn’t care- he’d take the feeling that he was physically moving the craft by pushing and struggling with the flight stick, over the feeling that he was operating a computer console with rockets strapped to it, any time the choice was offered to him.

Within minutes, they received the order to take-off, everyone else already onboard. He quickly punched the anti-gravs, the shuttle shooting towards the sky at fifty kilometers per hour instantly. The speed increased very rapidly, only the restraining webbing keeping them all from smashing against the ceiling.

Ben punched the thrusters, the transport sailing forward with fifty-four others, at nearly MACH 2. The speed was quite un-necessary, however, as Chicago was only a little under forty kilometers from their starting point.

*****

Ben landed the transport hard against the ground; there was no time for a soft landing, as missiles were coming in from all over, and six transports had already blossomed into flame. He set the transport to auto-defense mode, and scampered out with the rest of his squad, knowing that a vehicle full of various propellants and ammunition was no the best place to be in the middle of a firefight.

He caught his first view of one of the Liodammian war machines upon his departure from the transport. The machine was huge- over fifty meters tall. Massive amounts of plasma flew from cannons on its wrists, physically hurling transports twenty feet into the air. The transports quickly responded, the machine collapsing to the ground amidst a hail of missile fire.

Ben caught sight of the incoming Liodammians. Unlike the Ghalerans, these creatures were not majestic in appearance. The largest of them stood over four meters tall, and their pointed legs looked as if they could slice through anything without trouble… which they quickly made clear was the case when a soldier gut in their way. Ben had to restrain himself from retching as the unfortunate soldier was speared on the end of one of those legs.

He quickly focused his energy into the air in front of him, sending a wave of glowing red plasma through the air into the Liodammian. The wave split the Liodammian into two pieces, throwing both halves backwards fifteen feet. He quickly repeated the attack over and over, and soon tens of Liodammian parts were lying all around.

The other Warriors joined in promptly, and together they leveled the two hundred or so incoming Liodammians of the first wave. Unfortunately, no one saw the spider-machines until it was too late. Fifty spider-like machines, each six feet tall, were upon the soldiers before they realized it. Their little metal appendages plunged straight through some soldiers' chests and ripped out their hearts. They didn't manage to get any Warriors, but they had quickly taken down a good division of soldiers, including a few enhanced ones.

Ben focused his energy again, this time creating fifty separate energy fields. He picked up all the spiders at the same time, lifting them thirty feet into the air. With a tremendous crash, they came together, forming into a single metal scrap ball. He hadn’t realized he was able to do something like that until he had actually done it, and was frankly amazed.

WHAM! Ben was slammed into from behind, a Liodammian pinning him underneath one of his talon sharp legs. Lieutenant Morrison flew out of nowhere, her leg crashing into the alien's head at over a hundred kilometers per hour, instantly crushing his skull.

Ben quickly got up and brushed himself off, looking around quickly for any further Liodammians or machines.

"Thanks, Lieutenant. I thought he had me for a second," Ben said while calming his breathing.

"No problem," she responded. "And call me Rebecca. As long as we're out here, I don't really think rank and procedure matter all that much. Follow me, and the rest of the squad. We're going to penetrate into the heart of the city. We're recon for now- the orders just came in from H.Q."

Ben nodded, and the two waited for a second as Patricia, Steven, James, and Ryan caught up to them. They all began a quick jog- at about forty miles per hour- towards the center of the massive city.

Morrison continued talking while walking. "Okay, as we get closer to the core of these forces, I want us to take a higher position. Pull your power to your muscles, and we'll scale one of these buildings. Roof to roof travel. Move!"

They stopped in front of a thirty story tall building. Patricia went first, leaping five stories at a time, jumping from window to window. She had scaled the building in just a few seconds. Steven went next. He did even better. Six stories at a time. James and Ryan both leaped a full eight stories at a time, evidently trying to impress the very few spectators that were nearby.

Rebecca looked at him for a second. "Betcha I can beat you," she said with a wink.

With one powerful leap, Rebecca had leapt a full fifteen stories, and in another leap, she was on its roof.

"Here goes nothing..." Ben thought aloud.

He sent the energy surging into his legs, and leapt with all the power of a bull charging down a red flag. A few civilians who did not know the meaning of “evacuate,” gasped as he landed on the roof- a full thirty story jump- without any problem.

Rebecca raised her eyebrow, and looked at him appraisingly. "Not bad," she simply said, then leapt to the next roof.

They all followed her quickly, never staying on any roof for more than ten seconds; they would be too easy of targets to hit. They quickly approached the largest concentration of the war machines and Liodammians.

Ben heard them before he saw them. A loud piercing noise filled the air, followed by a massive sonic-boom. His mind automatically slowed down his rate of perception as the incoming missile neared at Mach 6. It appeared to slow to a crawl- and he realized that his team had also done the same. They weren't moving a tenth as fast as him.

He hurriedly hurled all five of them at hypersonic speeds to the next roof, jumping over himself only a quarter second before the missile impacted, the explosion tearing off the entire top four floors of the building. There was the sharp, echoing noise of thousands of windows breaking apart after that, the blast of noise from throwing his team so fast causing every window within a few hundred meters to shatter instantly.

His rate of perception sped up as his face impacted the ground, the other five falling beside him.

Morrison was the first to stand up. "What the hell just happened?"

Ben got up slowly, wiping his forehead clean of blood- he had hit pretty hard. "Sorry Rebecca. I had to throw us out of the explosion pretty quickly."

"You did that?" she inquired. "Amazing. I've never heard of someone moving so fast."

Patricia spoke up, "Hey, guys, lets keep moving. Not to insult your command ability Rebecca, but I'd rather not have another missile sneak up on us because you were sitting there chatting with your subordinate."

Rebecca rolled her eyes, and both she and Patricia began leaping from roof to roof. The rest of the team, including Ben, quickly followed.

It turned out that Patricia's little suggestion probably saved them all. It seemed that as soon as they jumped to the next roof, the one behind them would explode simultaneously. They began moving faster and faster, becoming blurs streaking across the city, explosions raging behind them with all the fury of Hell itself.

Not all of them were able to keep up the pace. Ryan, one of the soldiers Ben had joined with, lagged behind just a few milliseconds. Unfortunately for him, that was all the time the missile coming at him needed. It flew towards him, and was barely a second from impact... when Ben leapt, with only a split second to decide, instead of to the next roof, straight into the missile.

It seemed like the world went completely silent, after the deafening blast of the explosion. Ben found himself staring up at the rest of his squad, who were all glancing around nervously, looking for more missiles.

He saw Rebecca mouth "You'll be fine," right before he blacked out.

Chapter Five

Ben's first sensation as consciousness began seeping into his brain was the confusing noise around him. Then the pain struck. He felt a very familiar sensation; the sensation of lava pouring through his veins from needles implanted all over him. His brain faintly registered that they must be giving him another energy infusion, right before all of his thoughts were drowned out by an earsplitting scream. It took him a few seconds to even realize that the noise was coming from his mouth. He couldn't control his body. His muscles started jerking of their own accord. He felt his hand hit someone, and they went flying backwards. A metal table was smashed beside him. His bonds broke from the bed he was on, along with chunks of the bed. As his hand jerked out and sent a doctor flailing over his medical equipment, blackness crept into the edge of his eyes... and alas, the pain ended, and he fell into a world of darkness.

***********

Confusion. Madness. Whispers. Echoes. They circled around his head. Joy. Thought. Remorse. They permeated his being. He could feel the chill of fright nearby, and farther away an eagerness... or longing... they were all slipping... slipping away from his mind...

Ben sprang up, busting through the steel restraints that held him to his bed. He grabbed his head, which was aching as if someone had split it open. The confusing emotions... the presences... disappeared from his mind. He wiped sweat from his forehead, and looked around.

Doctors and nurses hovered around him, a concerned and surprised look etched on the majority of their faces. His mind began clearing slowly, and he came to realize that he must be in the infirmary of a Ghaleran base. The surfaces of the walls were way too smooth to be of Earth origin. He also realized that he was not in the same base that had he had been in before, from the coloration and markings on the ceiling. He had to be in one of permanent bases the Ghalerans had built on Earth.

"Where... where... am I?" Ben managed to choke out through an incredibly parched mouth.

A doctor stepped up, a tall Ghaleran. He began speaking in his psychic voice that for some reason sounded more distinct than ever to Ben, and less frightening. "Hello Ben. I am Doctor Vla'por. You are currently in the infirmary of Black Base, the forward base of the Missouri Defense Lines. You were brought here when the Chicago base fell to the Liodammians. You were in horrible shape. The missile that hit you was especially designed to home in on and kill Warriors. Not only did the shrapnel that launched from its explosion tear into your right leg, but it also broke straight through three of your ribs, and collapsed one of your lungs. That shrapnel was baked with radiation that existed in a spectrum that matched that of the energy in your body... so besides shredding your body, about half your strength disappeared. We knew you needed that energy to survive, now that your body had come to rely on it... so we had to give you another full energy infusion. But we also knew that you could not survive it consciously in your condition at the time. So we had to give you an injection of extremely powerful tranquilizers."

"But... “Ben said slightly groggily, "I thought tranquilizers didn't work during the energy infusions?"

"Well, normal tranquilizers don't," Doctor Vla'por responded, "but this one does. It was made to subdue bull elephants. Your chances of living after being injected with even a small amount of it were less than ten percent; and less than five percent of coming out of the coma it would induce. But those odds were still better than the odds of coming out of your condition then. So we took the chance. And in the process, we found something interesting. A month... yes, a month... after we injected you, we discovered you were developing an extremely unusual brainwave pattern. We then went back to some of your old medical documents, and found that you had always had slightly off-normal mental activity. So we did a full neurological scan. It seems that you were using parts of your brain... subconsciously, at least... that no human had ever used before. It seems that making your brain fight for its consciousness brought these differences to the surface, and made them dominant. We still don't fully understand it. But from all of our comparisons... you have a mental strength and power greater than any known human, Liodammian, or Ghaleran. It could explain why your energy- which is controlled by willpower- was so easy for you to manipulate."

Ben looked down at his leg and chest, and explored them for a minute with his hands. "If I was so critically injured," he asked skeptically, "then why the hell do I feel fine?"

"Ah, another reason we injected you with more energy," the doctor responded. "We've discovered in some cases the subconscious of the brain will use the energy we provide it with to form new cells of energy, which it then converts to matter. Extremely quick regeneration, in other words. With you, it worked especially well. So, anyway, after we discovered all this about you, we became understandably curious. Therefore, we ran a DNA scan on you. It may come as a shock to you Ben, but you’re not exactly human. Some alien race has to have landed on Earth recently- within the past few thousand years- and bred. It’s the only explanation. You’re only fifty percent human according to your genetic scans. The other fifty percent is completely... unidentifiable. We've encountered over three hundred and twelve alien races, and yet we don't know what you are."

"Well... that's just... peachy...” Ben stammered out drunkenly, his eyes beginning to roll back into his head. ”Not human... heh. How nice to know..."

"Don't worry Ben," the doctor replied, "We'll find out what species you are descended from... but it doesn't matter anyway. Your still an Earthling, born and raised, still a citizen of the United States, so nothing has changed. Not that that's a terribly great thing in my opinion... I mean, you humans are just plain strange! You’re in the middle of a world crisis, and you still won't come together! Shouldn't the entire world be uniting, as has happened to most other words... before they, erm, fell?"

"Doc, I don't really feel like answering philosophical questions right now if you know what I mean," Ben said warily. "Besides, humans did take a shot at unity. The best we could do was increase the power of the United Nations, get rid of war-based treaty organizations such as NATO, and add eight states to the U.S.A. Humans just don't get along unless they can fight against each other every once in a while. Don't ask me to explain it."

Ben rubbed his head, as the cacophonous noise of emotions and thoughts slammed into his skull again. "God damnit.... what the hell!" He fell off the table and curled into the fetal position on the floor.

The Ghaleran doctor bent down close to Ben. "Ben, what's wrong?"

"Thoughts... can't... get... them... out of my... head... “He gasped out every single world, as he could hardly think of anything besides the terrible pain that was separating the hemispheres of his brain.

"What are you talking about? Your thoughts? No one is telepathically transmitting to you, besides me, that I can pick up on... "

Ben caught onto the thoughts that were streaming around his head as if he was plucking a fish out of a waterfall. Distinct voices then formed inside of his mind.

"Prepare to attack... move squadron three into position for aerial bombardment... we have to close the hundred mile gap in less than an hour if we want to take the scum's base by surprise... launch the long range artillery, it will keep them distracted while the bombers move into position... thirty seconds..."

A look of terror swept across Ben's face as he realized what he was hearing. "Everybody... brace yourselves!"

Ben grabbed onto one of the supports of his hospital bed, as the first depleted uranium shell was detonated by A.A. fire a hundred meters over the base. Sparks leapt from a nearby energy conduit, and he could hear yells of surprise echo throughout the halls. He could only cringe as the full assault began, a biblical scene of fire and brimstone forming in the sky so close that if the base had a few more coats of paint, the artillery would actually be hitting it.

The ground invasion alarms went off, and Ben knew that the real nightmare would be marching through their front gates in less than an hour. In no more than twenty seconds he was in fresh armor, marching towards the lift, and touching the comm. unit built into a soldier's helmet that he had commandeered. "Dragon Squadron, Private Benjamin Powell reporting for duty. Where are you guys?"

Lieutenant Morrison's voice responded, "Ben! I can't believe it, they told me you probably weren't ever going to wake up! We're in front of the base, preparing the external defenses for an assault that will probably reach here within fifty minutes."

A few minutes later, Ben was standing beside Rebecca, surveying the scene. There were a few hundred soldiers, with Dragon Squadron being the only Warriors, scattered across a vast field that featured many turrets and rocket launchers of various caliber and design. They only had two full squadrons of Enhanced Soldiers, so their firepower in the personnel controlled energy department was pretty inadequate. While it looked like an effective defense against a conventional army, everyone here who had seen combat with the Liodammians before knew that it would not be enough.

Ben was just about to ask Rebecca about this when the first bombs from the enemy aerospace units struck just outside the defensive shielding of the base, throwing a wall of dirt fifty feet high into the air. He caught the whisper just before the next weapon was launched.

"They’re going to detonate a sub-nuke overhead! Shield your eyes!" He shouted it loud enough so that all the soldiers could hear, and everyone just barely managed to tightly seal their eyes when a thermonuclear flash swept across the shield, shaking the ground fiercely.

"You show me yours; I'll show you mine... “Ben whispered.

Ben reached out with his energy toward the enemy attack bombers. Surprisingly, he found that his energy could freely flow through the defensive shield, and even more surprisingly, he found that he could easily track them, even though they were moving at MACH 3. He gripped a hold of one bomber with a tight energy field, and gave it just enough of a push to slam it into the bomber flying beside it. Both of their fusion cores went critical at the same moment, a flash nearly equal to the nuke's explosion lighting the sky a mile above.

Lightning danced in-between Ben's fingers. "Now the fun begins...."

Chapter Six

The first ground unit of the Liodammian army came into view.

It was most definitely not an encouraging sight.

A massive three-legged machine was crushing the ground as it rumbled towards them. It stretched over a hundred and fifty meters into the air, and was escorted by four smaller one hundred meter tall machines. The squadron of assault drones all raised their arms in unison, a salvo of missiles flaming forth from their wrists, and racing at the I.D.L.’s defensive perimeter. The perimeter shields sizzled, then failed, as the micro-nuclear warheads irradiated the emitters built into the ground.

“Rebecca, is it my imagination, or is the outer defensive barrier down?” Ben asked.

Rebecca stared open mouthed as the five attacking machines fired another salvo towards the lines of troops.

“Lieutenant, get on the comm. to the base and order all air defensive turrets to target this sector’s incoming fire! I can’t hold it back forever!” As Ben said that, he let fly the lightning between his fingers, the energy branching off into ten tendrils of energy which lashed into the warheads of the incoming missiles, destroying all of them quickly and efficiently.

Rebecca began to rapidly speak into her wrist communicator, ordering the base’s guns to target anything that flew from the attack machines.

“Where the hell is our air cover, anyway?” Ben asked, as he reached out with an energy field, grasping a hold of one of the smaller attack machines’ heads from quite a distance. With a flick of his wrist, his energy field wavered, and the machine’s head went flying off.

Rebecca nearly had to scream to be heard over the sound of explosions as missiles were detonated by anti-aircraft fire in mid-air. “The exterior pilot’s barracks beside the hangar was hit as that area’s defensive field failed. There are maybe three pilots left, and over twenty combat aircraft.”

“If it’s okay with you, Lieutenant, I’d like to head over there and see what I can do to help out.”

“Well then get moving already!” Rebecca screamed over another explosion.

Ben took off, practically flying along the ground at more than a hundred kilometers per hour. He reached the hangar quickly, which was on the opposite side of the base. He transformed from a blur to a person in front of the nearest officer that looked to be in charge.

“Sir, are you in charge here?”

“Yeah,” the officer answered, “I’m Flight Coordinator Barclay. What do you need? I’m kind of busy right now, what with the hangar having nearly been hit, and us not having pilots and all.” The sarcasm was nearly tangible.

“I know sir,” Ben said quickly, “but that’s why I’m here. I’m a pilot.”

“Well why didn’t you say so sooner!” the officer exclaimed. “We have an HK-2 left, if you’re checked out on that type of unit.”

“I don’t exactly have my pilot’s license with me, but yeah, I am familiar with the HK series’ control configuration. Is the cockpit one of those new all-condition habitable types?”

“Yep,” Barclay responded, “so no flight suit necessary, so head up already.” He pointed to an HK-2 fighter. “Ignition sequence is Beta-Sigma-472.”

Ben, despite the seriousness of the situation, couldn’t help but be excited. He had flown sims of the HK-1s before, but the HK-2s were a whole different story. The HK-2 featured six hardpoints where plasma missiles were normally mounted, along with a forward firing micro-rail gun. They had extreme acceleration capabilities, sleek lines, and a maximum speed of just a little over MACH 3. Ben smiled as he climbed up the extended rungs to the open sliding cockpit door. He quickly punched in the ignition sequence, the small hatch sliding to cover the cockpit entrance, and the rungs retracting into the side of the craft for maximum aerodynamics.

He looked around, smirking as he studied the controls and the view. Their was only a small slit of transparent iron in front of him, and computer monitors forming a three hundred and sixty degree viewscreen all around him. He loved technology.

Ben activated the transceiver inside of the cockpit, tuning it to the local pilot’s frequencies. “This is Private Ben Powell, in craft HK2JF. Awaiting launch instructions, command.”

“Takeoff immediately,” command responded. “Proceed to combat zone twelve, approximate altitude of two thousand feet. Assist in combat operations there.”

Ben punched up the VTOL systems, the repulsion field on the ventral side of the craft activating. With a slight jolt, the fighter went airborne, rising a meter off the ground. He carefully applied the maneuvering thrusters, angling the craft towards the exit of the hangar. He punched the throttle, throwing the fighter out into the air at over three hundred miles an hour, before Ben could even bat an eyelash.

“Man, this thing definitely accelerates faster than the HK-1.” Ben commented to himself.

He quickly approached the combat zone, wincing as the first thing he saw was one of the three other fighters turning into a cloud of ionized gas.

“Soaring Eagle is splashed! We need some backup up here; I’m counting eight more incoming enemy fighters!” Distress calls blasted from the combat frequencies, as the two remaining fighters tried to keep the enemies at bay.

Ben opened the frequency, speaking quickly. “Private Ben Powell here. I’ll intercept the fighters on your guys’ tails; you just worry about the rest of ‘em.”

He received an acknowledgement, and increased his thrust, dropping behind the two enemy fighters that were chasing the other HKs. He immediately saw why everyone was having trouble shooting these things down; they had an incredibly slim profile, giving them a sensor cross-section that was nearly impossible to lock onto.

Ben applied the thrusters a little bit, angling the nose of the fighter down and dropping quickly. He then decelerated rapidly, angling the nose upward as he did so, the fighter’s micro-rail gun now pointing directly at the underbelly of one of the Liodammian craft, a much easier target hit. He let fly, the half millimeter sized metal beads shredding through the hull of the enemy fighter in under a second, destroying its engines, and removing it effectively from the fight.

“Splash one bogey.” Ben reported.

He brought the craft back up to its previous altitude quickly, coming in at a slight angle behind the other enemy fighter, but not seeing enough of its profile to get any good shots off with the rail gun. He switched the computer’s targeting mode to infrared, and locked onto the heat signature of the fighter’s engines.

Ben was just about to trigger a missile launch when a shrill alarm sounded in the cockpit, warning him of a laser lock on. He banked hard to the right, a missile streaking past the cockpit at incredible speed. He quickly looked down and glanced at his sensors, and the view didn’t look good. Two enemy units had come up behind him, and had him locked within their sights. They both lanced out with missile fire at the same time. Their was no way Ben could evade both missiles at the same time… so he went with the next best option.

He threw the thrusters to maximum, punching forward at speeds past MACH 2. He hurtled past the enemy fighter in front of him, and quickly reduced speed, matching speed with the enemy fighter that was now directly behind him. Normally, this would have been the perfect time for the enemy fighter to launch its plasma streams into the HK-2’s hull… but it didn’t exactly have time. The two missiles impacted the enemy fighter directly, taking the blows meant for Ben. He accelerated quickly, escaping the blast radius before the shockwaves could deliver any significant damage.

But Ben still had those two fighters to worry about, and now they were slightly pissed; blowing up a friendly doesn’t exactly look good on your report, even if you were a Liodammian.

The two enemies accelerated, drawing closer to Ben. Alarm after alarm went off inside of his cockpit, the fighters having locked him with radar, laser pinpointing, and radiation markers. They weren’t interested in strategic domination; they planned on just firing until their guns ran dry.

Ben didn’t give them the chance.

With one yank of the flight stick, the HK-2 went completely vertical, nose pointed towards the heavens. He slammed on the braking flaps, his speed dropping rapidly from MACH 2 to MACH 1 in less than two seconds. If it weren’t for the inertial force reducing anti-grav equipment in the fighter, and for the fact that he was slightly above the strength of a normal human, he would have been reduced to his constituting elements by the gravtic forces exerted during a braking like that. He evened out quickly, both enemy fighters now in plain sight in front of him.

He quickly dual-locked the fighters, two plasma missiles leaving behind oxidized atmosphere as they blazed a path towards the Liodammians. Two flashes of light later, and the previously powerful fighters were nothing more than globules of basic elements.

“I’ve taken down four bogeys, total.” Ben reported. “How did you guys do?”

The flight leader responded. “We took care of the other four. We’ve received orders to cover the ground troops. Follow us in; we’re going to take on some of those machines. Apparently, ten of them have a division of soldiers and a few Warriors pinned down near the primary barracks.”

Ben punched the throttle to its maximum thrust, following the two others in towards the barracks defensive line, where he knew Dragon Squadron still must have been. He saw flashes of energy streaking across the battlefield towards the machines as he drew closer, along with drive glows as missiles were returned towards the soldiers and Dragon Squadron.

Ben quickly locked onto the tallest war machine, which was larger than the one that had first appeared to the defensive line. It was over two hundred meters tall, looking like a skyscraper of destruction, waves of twenty to thirty missiles flying from batteries on its torso every ten seconds. He triggered all three of his remaining missiles simultaneously.

The other two I.D.L. fighters launched their deadly ordinance at the same time… but to no effect. All seven missiles that were launched towards the massive war machine never even neared it; point defensive fire flew out from the thing in massive quantities, incinerating the missiles before they could maneuver out of its firing arc.

“Damnit!” Ben exclaimed. “How the hell are we supposed to get through that thing’s defenses?”

Before the flight leader could respond to his somewhat rhetorical question, he turned into a blindingly white fireball, four missiles from the lead Liodammian machine having hit him all at the same time. As Ben banked hard out of the path of three more missiles which would have surely brought him to the same fate, he realized why none of the warnings had sounded; the war machine hadn’t locked onto them, it had simply fired off a hail of missiles in passive radar mode, knowing that some of the thirty weapons would have hit the fighters.

Ben almost turned into a ball of fire himself as a missile flew up into his view from his aft side, but at the last moment, he reminded himself; he wasn’t just a fighter pilot, he was a Warrior. He formed an energy field around the missile’s warhead, and crushed the pathetic weapon. He smirked as he realized that just because he was behind flight controls didn’t mean that the plane was his only weapon.

He sent the fighter into a dive towards the war machine, which was still firing wave after wave of missiles, solely concentrating on Ben’s fighter now. Ben immediately erected an energy field outside of his craft’s own minor defensive fields. The missiles detonated on the field without virtually any effect on Ben or his craft. He smirked again.

As he drew close, he dropped speed, heading straight at the machine’s torso. He began pulling up, firing his rail gun at the same time. He punched the throttle suddenly, flying past the machine’s head, ripping a path up its middle that toppled the mechanical beast.

“Command,” he requested, “does that thing look like its going to stay down, or do I need to do another run on it?”

“NO!” whoever was on the end of the command channel hollered back, “you took care of it, but its reactor is going critical! You have about fifteen seconds to bug out of there before you go the way of the dodo!”

Ben punched it, flying away from the blast zone as fast as his fighter could take him. He watched in his rear monitors as the machine went thermonuclear, the screens auto-dimming as a bright flash covered the area. He could see that, fortunately, the explosion did not reach the barracks defensive line.

The transceiver crackled as the command channel opened again. “The bulk of the enemy automated units were taken out. It looks like their forces are falling back. They lost their primary artillery in that maneuver. Good work, Private Powell.”

Ben almost smiled, but then grew sick inside as he looked down through his monitors at magnified images of the people below. Hundreds of corpses littered the ground like so much discarded trash.

He flew back to the hangar in silence. He remembered his family, and wondered when this would all just end.

Chapter Seven

Ben walked into the mess hall, taking a seat in-between James and Ryan, directly across from Rebecca, Patricia and Steven. Noticing as he arranged his tray of mush beside that of his teammates that Rebecca’s upper arm was heavily bandaged, he queried her as to what happened.

“Nothing much,” Rebecca said with a grimace, “just a G.E. that snuck up on me while I was blasting some missiles. The son of a bitch stabbed me through my bicep. Still hurts like hell, but that Ghaleran medical technology is pretty great. The docs say I’ll be able to use my arm properly within a day or so, so nothing major. Now, changing the topic, I’m supposed to give you guys all a bunch of good news, and a bunch of really bad news. So which do you want first?”

Ben piped up. “Let’s hear the bad news already. No need to delay the inevitable.” There were a few nods from the four others.

“Okay,” she said, “but you aren’t going to like it. Apparently, that attack was only a diversionary maneuver. The mainstay of their forces circled around the base at about one hundred kilometers out, breaking through many of the Missouri Defensive Line perimeters. We are now completely cut off and isolated. No backup, no supplies, no anything until we manage to take out the army that has us pinned in.”

The entire squadron looked horrified.

“But, ma’am,” Patricia began, “how could that happen? What about the other I.D.L. forces in this area? Why didn’t they stop them?”

“Well,” Rebecca responded, “that’s the other bit of bad news. Our forces in the surrounding areas have been hit hard. We’ve estimated about 10% total troop loss for all of North America. We only lost about 4%... about four hundred troops… from this base, but we were still affected by this new wave of attacks severely. It seems that the Liodammians, for the most part, were targeting our officers. We only lost three hundred normal troops, and one hundred officers. This is severely disproportionate compared to the number of officers to troops on this base, and it means most of the command structure is gone. This, in turn, leads us to our good news.”

“Where do you get good news out of that?” Ryan asked incredulously.

“Well, it’s quite simple. The Warriors are the strongest, most able, and most durable soldiers we have. Therefore, we were all short listed for promotions when they were looking to replace the officers lost. First of all,” Rebecca said, tossing a box to Ben, “that’s your purple heart- you were out for over a month due to injuries from that missile, so they decided to give you a medal. Congratulations. Sorry that there is no ceremony or anything, but we’re having to give them out far too often to make anything big of them. Second of all, every single member of this squadron has been promoted. Here’s the kick: all five of you were enlisted, but are now being promoted to Second Lieutenants. This means you are all officers now. This is highly unusual, but as this isn’t the U.S. military, the rules are a little bit different. I myself have been promoted to the rank of Captain. I should also inform you that owing to the fact that the Warriors are now being considered a new section of the I.D.L. with rules all their own, the ranks work slightly different for us. While our respective ranks apply perfectly normally to other Warriors, they do not function so normally to anyone of any other section than the Warriors. You are equivalently one rank higher than you would normally be to anyone outside of the Warrior Corps. In other words, to anyone except a Warrior, you are all First Lieutenants. Anyway, enough banter, let’s get to this slop that passes for food around here.”

They quickly ate their meals, which had become slightly more meager recently; the cooks evidently had begun rationing the food supply to last a little bit longer, in case no one managed to get supplies through the blockade of Liodammian forces.

Rebecca stopped them all before they got up to leave. “One moment guys. Our next mission begins tomorrow morning, 0600 hours. We… that is, the six of us and no one else, are going to take two tanks and try to blast through the Liodammian occupied Missouri area. Their most heavily reinforced lines are eastward, as they are expecting us to try and break through where the crossing is thinnest. So we are of course going to do exactly the opposite, and push through all the way from Jefferson City to Kansas City… only about two hundred sixty kilometers. Full packs; we don’t know if we are going to have to abandon the tanks at some point or not. The only reason we are even using the tanks is so that the Liodammians will end up thinking in the end that both the Warrior Corps and the mechanized divisions are attacking. Now, we’re not really wishing to accomplish much by this, except to draw away some of their forces. Six warriors can be quite a potent force when used correctly. We want them to think there is a major attack occurring on the Missouri-Kansas occupied areas. So, we do as much damage we can with the new Bradley Mk. IVs we’re being given, and then the rest of the way we use every bit of strength we can muster to wade through enemy group after enemy group. Sound like fun?”

All five members of the rest of the squadron were staring at Rebecca open-mouthed.

“I know, I know,” she said before any of them managed to vocalize their objections, “it sounds like a suicide mission, but it has to be done. If we don’t pull some of this army away from the base, we’d be crushed soon anyway, and the base can’t send out a larger force without leaving itself vulnerable. So this is the best chance we have. Tomorrow, 0600, report to the hangar. The tanks are going to be air dropped into Jefferson- everywhere beyond has A.A. defense- and we are on our own from there.”

She handed them all their new ID cards and rank badges as they were leaving, as well as giving them their room assignments; evidently, officers received their own rooms unlike the enlisted men. Ben quickly headed to his own room, which was about the size of a prison cell. Still, it was better than the bunk he had been assigned to before. He dropped onto the small bed that folded out from the wall, with the intention of sleeping for the fourteen hours until they had to go on what sounded a hell of a lot like a suicide mission to him.

Unfortunately, as soon as Ben’s head touched the rough, lumpy pillow that was tucked underneath the sheets, a massive explosion went off inside of his skull, sending him rolling off the edge of the mattress and crashing into the floor rather hard. He grabbed at the sides of his head, a scream escaping his lips.

“DAMNIT! NOT AGAIN!” he shouted loud enough to scare a deaf man.

Once again, a flurry of voices, echoes, and indeterminate sounds surrounded his thoughts. He had realized already that these voices he was hearing were people’s thoughts; that had been made clear when he overheard the Liodammian plans to attack the I.D.L. base. But now, the voices were not about battle. He tried plucking at the thoughts one after another, sampling them and then ignoring them. He was surprised by the various things he heard.

“Ah, well, Dragon Squadron will be an unfortunate loss… could he like me? ... Aw, man, why do I have to work the shift tonight? ... I’ll miss Commander Isaac… man, how can people trust these Ghalerans, they look exactly like the Liodammians!”

Ben could hear each thought as if it had been spoken with a person’s voice, each one distinguishable from the next, but he didn’t recognize any of these people’s voices. He did, however, recognize the next one that he latched onto.

“You know, Ben is kind of cute… not only that, but he may be the only thing that keeps us alive on tomorrow’s mission…”

He raised an eyebrow at that, not having realized that Rebecca had thought he was cute. He couldn’t help smirking just a little bit, at the thought that his commanding officer, and a woman that looked to be at least a decade older than Ben, was attracted to him. He quickly withdrew from her mind, however, as he realized that he was essentially eavesdropping, intentionally or not, on someone’s most private thoughts. He did notice that as he was brought back into the stream of thousands of thoughts that he was experiencing far less pain than he was at first. He was also starting to hear the voices more clearly, even though he realized he must have been listening to the thoughts of every single person on the base.

“Hmm,” he thought to himself, “No one mentioned this as being one of the abilities of the Warriors- this has to be related to that alien DNA they found inside of me…”

Ben nearly got sick, as finally the impact of what the Ghaleran doctor had told him hit him. One of his parents had to have been an alien… and considering both of his parents had been in his life for all eighteen years of it, that meant that extraterrestrials had to have been on Earth two decades before first contact with alien life. But why had that Ghaleran doctor commented that these aliens had probably been on Earth for thousands of years, when it was just as likely that they had shown up within the past couple of decades? Ben quickly walked over to a communications panel built into the wall, getting the Dr. Vla’por’s office location from the operator.

He hastily jogged to the doctor’s office, which was on the other side of the base. His fist pounded on the door when he reached the office, bringing the doctor to open it fairly quickly, thinking that their was some kind of medical emergency.

“Oh, you,” the doctor said in a surprised telepathic voice. “Come in, come in. You needn’t have been so violent with my door, by the way…”

Ben rushed past the door, sitting at one of the chairs (fortunately designed for humans) in front of the doctor’s desk. Dr. Vla’por took a seat on his Ghaleran stool, which had one hole in the back for one of their three legs to go in, the other two hanging off the front of the padded seat.

“So, Ben, what reason is there for your visit tonight?” Dr. Vla’por asked as politely as he could.

“Doctor,” Ben began, “I need to know why you said that the aliens that contributed to my genetic code landed on Earth thousands of years ago. I mean, if I am fifty percent extraterrestrial, then why couldn’t a non-hybrid alien just have shown up on Earth over twenty years ago and mated with a human and created me and my sister?”

As he mentioned his sister, he felt a pang of grief run through him. He hadn’t even seen his sister or his father before he had left in the morning. His sister had been twenty-one, and would have been heading off to the local community college just a few hours after Ben had left; she had been taking afternoon courses. She had been easily intelligent enough to have gone to Princeton or Harvard if she had wished it, but she wanted to be with her family for a few more years, while her business (a small fashion company) took off. She had possessed so much potential…

Ben fought back tears, as Dr. Vla’por looked at him in a most human resembling look of worry.

“Well,” Dr. Vla’por responded, “My thoughts on that are that thousands of years ago, advanced aliens landed on your planet, and mated sparingly with humans, but mostly amongst themselves. You see, they would have had to existed on Earth for quite a while in order to have gone unnoticed by the interstellar governments. For centuries now, various races have kept a close eye on Earth, making sure no one interfered with its natural progress. It was advancing much, much too quickly for most people’s liking- it took most races thousands of years from discovering electricity to discovering flight. Thousands more to spaceflight, and thousands more until deep space exploration. Earth has progressed in leaps and bounds, owing to… well, no one really knows. Humans are not the most intelligent species we have encountered by far, nor the most productive… nothing explains exactly how they have made so many advances. So, besides the fact that no one in all these years of observations has ever seen anyone land on Earth, there is the possible explanation for Earth’s advances within your question. If an advanced species co-habited Earth with you humans for centuries, they might have subtly influenced Earth’s technology, letting it gain ground faster than any other species.”

Ben sat back and thought about this. He noticed that he still could access the stream of thoughts that had burst into his mind earlier by concentrating on what the noise sounded like, but now he could ignore it completely when he wanted to… this meant that he could read minds at will, he realized.

“Doctor… you already know from when right before the attack happened and I shouted out a warning, that something has changed in me. You also said you noticed new brainwave patterns. Well, I have noticed I have gained the ability to read minds, which is an ability, if I recall, that even the Ghalerans and Liodammians do not possess. Is this something that is derived from my Warrior abilities, or from this alien DNA that we have learned about?”

“Hmm…” the doctor said thoughtfully, “I would imagine from the alien DNA. No other Warriors have ever reported any mental changes, and the Ghaleran Omni Energy is not meant to change the configuration of brain cells appreciably. Even Ghaleran Warriors… of which there are none on this planet to ask, unfortunately… have never exhibited signs of such a change to my knowledge. I really cannot explain what is happening to you, Ben. But, I do want you to report any additional changes. I have actually been analyzing your DNA configuration, because it astounds me. Look at this.”

The doctor flipped on a monitor, inputting a few commands to the computer, then swiveling the screen towards Ben.

The monitor displayed an image of what appeared to be a standard double-helix polynucleotide strand of deoxyribonucleic acid. Except their were a few major differences between it and what Ben had studied in his science classes before. Instead of the standard base pairs consisting of Adenine, Cytosine, Guanine, and Thymine, the computer identified two more bases- something similar to Uracil, and another the was completely unidentifiable.

“I don’t understand,” Ben stated, his brow furrowing as he stared at the screen, “I thought that Uracil only existed in RNA, not DNA, and what is this unknown here?”

“I don’t understand either,” the doctor responded, “It makes absolutely no sense. It is completely different than any DNA I have ever seen before. I should also mention that you have over forty pairs of homologous chromosomes- way off from human normal. How humans and this other species ever became genetically compatible is a complete mystery to me. They shouldn’t be. I don’t know what to tell you Ben. Your genetics may end up being one of the biggest mysteries to hit medical science in a century.”

Ben mumbled a few thanks to the doctor absentmindedly, and headed out of the office.

Nearly smacking straight into his sister in the corridor outside of the office.

He looked at her.

She looked at him.

Both of them flung themselves into each other’s arms at the same time, tears already falling freely down their cheeks.

“H… h-how did you survive?” Ben stammered out, seemingly choking with joy.

“I was about to ask you the same thing!” His sister took a step back, looked at his face as if to confirm it was really him, and hugged him again in an iron grip. “It’s impossible, and yet you’re standing there, as healthy as the last time I saw you!”

Ben took a couple of steps back, holding onto his sister’s hands in excitement, half-coughing out his laughter of pure joy. In that moment, there were no thoughts of violence, no thoughts of war, and no thoughts of anything but happiness. It was the best thing that had happened to him since that ship had crushed his home.

“I thought you were killed when the ship landed!” They both shouted to each other at the same time.

“I wasn’t home!” They both responded to each other in chorus.

They both broke down laughing and crying, sitting across from each other on the side of the hallway.

As Ben came somewhat to his senses, he took in the uniform his sister wore.

“You joined up with the I.D.L.?” He asked her.

“As you evidently did,” she responded, staring pointedly at his new Lieutenant’s insignia. “I had left early to meet a group of friends near the college campus, when I saw that horrible ship crash into our house. I barely survived. When I heard that a group called the I.D.L. could grant me the power to get some revenge, I took the opportunity eagerly.”

“So you’re a Warrior too?” Ben asked.

“Yeah,” she answered, still trying to blink tears out of her eyes, “it seemed like the best thing to do at the time, but God did it hurt. I see you had the same idea. I’m in Lightning squadron.”

“I’m in Dragon Squadron.”

Her eyes suddenly widened, and the laughter and joy died from her face.

“But… Ben…” she looked horrified as she continued, “Everyone is talking about how Dragon Squadron is being sent out on a suicide mission! No one expects you guys to come back alive! You can’t… you can’t go out and die on me… not after I have just got you back…”

Ben hugged his sister, and reassured her the best he could. “Listen, I don’t know if it’s the same with you, but I’m not exactly a normal Warrior. I’m more powerful than most. I promise you that I will come back alive. I swear it to you.”

She still didn’t look convinced, but she nodded supportively. “I know what you mean. Using these powers… it came so easily. But, it might have something to do with an ability I picked up on a couple of years ago… I should have told you Ben, but-“

Ben cut her off there. “You can read minds?”

Her eyes widened in surprise as she responded. “You can too?” she asked.

“Yeah, I just figured it out recently, but I also found out it’s because of the fact that our-“

The highly annoying sound of a klaxon cut Ben off mid-sentence. A voice blared over the intercom.

“Dragon squadron, report to hangar bay one immediately. Prepare for emergency deployment.”

The first salvo of missiles impacted the base.

Chapter Eight

Ben braced himself against the corridor wall as he stood up, the floor attempting to shake him back down to his knees. He helped his sister get up, just as another salvo exploded onto the base shielding, nearly throwing them back down.

“I’ve got to get to the hangar, Emily!” Ben hollered over the sound of explosions towards his sister.

“I know, but I’m coming with you; the regulations and commanders can go straight to Hell if they don’t like it!” she gripped onto his arm as they were talking, stumbling towards the lift. When they finally made it there, struggling to see where it was through the dust and debris that was beginning to fall in the corridors, they both cursed, the lift having crashed down to the bottom of the shaft.

Ben leapt out onto one of the electromagnetic propulsion rails built into the wall, holding onto it tightly. He let go for a few moments, falling, guided by the energy he was now streaming out from underneath him, into a horizontal shaft stretching towards the hangar bay five floors below. He dashed through the shaft as quickly as possible, his sister following right behind him, having copied his descent maneuver.

As they entered the hangar, they headed towards the only craft that looked like it might have been able to transport a group of people. It was a personnel shuttle with a ten passenger capacity… and unfortunately, it was about to become scrap as a girder fell from the ceiling towards it, jarred severely by another explosion. Ben focused his energy without thinking, snapping a field over the two ton beam. With an almighty wrench of his power, he flung it like a toothpick to land safely thirty meters away.

A group of ten people neared the shuttle. Ben recognized five of them as members of Dragon squadron. The other five consisted of what looked like a pilot and four high ranking officers, including a general. He ran up to the base of the ramp that descended from the shuttle to meet them, and saw the pilot look in confusion at Emily.

“Listen, this transport has room for Dragon squadron and the Command Staff only. I made that clear to the General here when I said I could evacuate ten people from the base.” The pilot looked disgruntled, as if someone had gone back on a deal with him.

“Evacuate?” Ben asked in confusion. “I thought Dragon squadron was being deployed on an offensive?”

Ben noticed that Rebecca’s eyes flashed with jealousy as she glanced towards Emily, turning to the General to cover her reaction.

Rebecca’s look changed to daggers as she stared menacingly towards the General. “Evidently, it was all just a cover Ben. They knew this base was doomed to fall, and they couldn’t call in enough emergency transports to save everyone, so they thought up a cover for us- the only Warriors on the base currently- and the Command Staff, and are getting us out of here while the rest of the people here will be captured.” She looked as if she wanted to claw the General’s eyes out.

“I’m sorry,” the General said in a grumpy tone, “but I had no damned choice! It was ten of us or none of us, and I’d prefer that some of us at least got out of here!”

Ben narrowed his eyes as he surveyed all the people gathered around him. “I see that you’re not evacuating any Ghalerans either… heh. And this just happens to be an Exploration Forces shuttle. The Ghalerans help us, but when some of them might be in trouble, we leave them behind… well, you’re not leaving my sister behind. Since I see only one pilot, I’ll take the co-pilot chair, and my sister can have mine. No arguments. I just found out she was alive when I thought she was dead, and I am not about to lose her again.” The look of jealousy faded from Rebecca’s face when Ben mentioned that Emily was his sister.

“Now look here son, I decide who goes and who stays,” the General began testily. He was quickly cut off however, his face turning a deep shade of purple. Having a Warrior punch you in the gut will do that to a person.

Ben practically hurled the old General up the ramp and into the shuttle, his expression one of pure and unrestrained revulsion. “You don’t have a choice in the matter, coward!”

He resisted the temptation to kick the man as he walked up the ramp and into the co-pilot’s seat. The others were quickly strapped down, none of them prepared to debate Ben’s decision further. He quickly performed a standard pre-flight, retracting the ramp and closing the hatch.

“Looks like we’re green.” he reported to the pilot.

With a nod, the pilot adjusted a few controls and pushed forward on the thruster control. The last thing Ben saw of the base as they rocketed away was the impact of at least fourteen missiles against its now unshielded barracks. He hoped against hope that the section that was destroyed had been evacuated at the time of the blast.

That didn’t hold his attention for long, however. As they rose through the atmosphere, another ship became visible, which was lobbing missile after missile toward the base far below. It was two kilometers long, black, possessing tiny protrusions that Ben now knew were laser turrets projecting from the sides of its hull. It was the same Liodammian vessel which had slammed into Ben’s hometown.

Ben’s blood turned into dry ice, his breath coming in deep rasps, as he struggled to keep control of himself. The problem was, he found it all too easy to do. His anger subsided, his emotions disappearing under a wave of calm. Without the slightest inflection in his voice, he ordered the pilot to stop and hold at their current position. When the pilot didn’t comply, Ben simply reached and shut down the main thrusters; it took three minutes for a cold start. The anti-gravs would hold them there until Ben came back.

Without the slightest inkling as to how he did it, Ben felt his body melt and become pure energy for just a moment. He sunk through the co-pilot’s chair, appearing back in his corporeal body, hovering ten feet below the shuttle. The anti-grav waves pulsed onto him without so much as ruffling his hair. He felt his energy extend out from him, forming an ethereal shape of his body. This shape floated forward with not so much as a whisper of a sound. It grew, and continued growing. It arced gracefully upwards, stretching over five hundred meters tall. Ben felt as if he was this ghostly creature for just a moment, his body nothing but sheer power.

His hand crackled as it balled into a fist, lancing into the side of the Liodammian cruiser with the force of a small nova igniting. His fingers plunged through meter thick walls of titanium, nothing slowing them down. He could feel tiny bags of liquid burst as he crushed them- Liodammian bodies being crushed. What felt like aluminum crumpling in-between his fingers were miles of wiring that his hand was pulling along as it ripped them from the decks and walls. Before three seconds had passed, he held within his palm a kindred spirit- a creature of pure energy. The power core of the cruiser. With one squeeze, the core’s containment fields failed, a massive explosion ripping out from ship, atomizing everyone and everything aboard. The flare nearly blinded Ben’s physical form. The blast wave would have consumed the shuttle, but instead the ethereal Ben absorbed the force if it, being dissipated into wisps of nothingness in the process. Ben, his consciousness fully restored to his physical body, floated up through the now open hatch of the shuttle, which was shaking with the force of decompression. The hatch slammed shut noisily behind him.

************

Ben awoke three hours later, strapped into the co-pilot’s seat. His eyes must have been messed up pretty bad, because when he looked out of the viewport, he saw a dark grey cloud surrounding the shuttle, and yet he could see Earth as small as a jewel as well. They weren’t in an atmosphere, so how could a cloud be near them? It was only when he focused on one of the tiny specs that formed the massive cloud that he noticed that they were ships. He quickly glanced at the sensors, confirming that about four hundred shuttles as the same type he was in were swarming nearby. He had never seen so many ships in one place before.

Looking forward, past the cloud, Ben couldn’t help smiling. The pride of the International Exploration Forces loomed in front of them, in orbit of the Moon. Ben had assumed that when the Liodammians attacked they would have destroyed Luna Yards. Evidently, he had assumed incorrectly. Six large vessels were suspended from various pylons and cables stretching down from the bottom of the shipyard. Five of them were standard I.E.F. cruisers, four hundred meter long slightly wedge shaped vessels, reminiscent of the destroyers and battleships of the twentieth century. The other ship Ben recognized even more quickly- in some ways, he had helped design it.

Three years ago, in 2035, he had been a sophomore at his high school. An international competition was being held at that time, to see which high school could make the best designs for a new ship class. Ben had been eager to help his school, and had submitted a sketch from an old science fiction series that he loved to watch. Engineering and architectural classes pitched in for the internal designs and workings, making them work to Ben’s hull design. Of course, it wasn’t really Ben’s design, so they made sure to credit the true creator. Seeing it in reality was an experience beyond any other. He hadn’t known it had actually been built. He knew that it was supposed to have been completed two weeks ago by the original deadlines of the project, but again, he had assumed Luna Yards was gone. He did remember the letter he had received, along with every other student at his high school, stating that they had won the competition- and a ten million dollar grant, so the school had been very happy. He also remembered the letter saying that the ship would be named in honor of the sci-fi ship it had been based on. Ben hadn’t even known at the time that history was repeating itself; the ship in question had been honored by an organization called NASA before.

Ben practically held his breath as they neared the vessel. Its saucer shaped hull, connected via a long pylon with a weapons pod in the middle of it into a cylindrical engineering hull was so recognizable from the old movies he had seem them in that it was like being inside of those movies himself. He noted that they had opted to go with the refit version nacelles. That had been a big engineering problem for the students; what to put in the nacelles. After all, there was no such thing as “warp drive.” Instead, they opted to place incredibly large plasmatic power generators inside of each nacelle, providing nearly unlimited power for the ship.

Ben couldn’t stop from himself from being overwhelmed by a feeling of pride as he gazed towards the huge black lettering emblazoned onto the ship’s primary hull, the characters stretching eight meters high. IEF ENTERPRISE.

Chapter Nine

The shuttle latched onto one of the docking ports of the Enterprise directly, other shuttles attaching themselves to other docking ports or to the shipyard. Ben and Emily were lost in the confusion as they exited the craft, at least two hundred people filling a hangar meant for maybe fifty. The entirety of Dragon squadron followed them as well, nobody having any idea of where they were supposed to go. They all stumbled through the bay, tripping over people, and occasionally being shoved out of others way, everyone moving at a maddeningly fast pace.

Their confusion was finally relieved, however, as a loud voice crackled over the intercom, blaring over two hundred voices. “Attention, I need your attention please. This is Lieutenant Commander Davis, of the I.E.F. Enterprise bridge crew. I want the personnel arriving in the hangar bay to please sort themselves into three groups: Naval officers, army officers, and Warriors. Naval to the far starboard, army to the center, and Warriors to the port.”

The three groups each arranged themselves according to the orders, a tiny bit of organization finally brought to the crowd. It looked like there were more than a hundred naval officers, about fifty army officers, and maybe fifty Warriors. Ben realized at that point that the evacuations by the Exploration Forces had worked all over the world exactly as they had at the Missouri Defense Line base; only the highest ranking officers and the Warriors had been taken. The situation must have been getting desperate, as he figured that four hundred shuttles would have brought more than four thousand people to the Luna Yards.

Lt. Commander Davis’ voice returned. “Okay, a few updates: the total population of the complete Luna Yards installation, including those onboard the ships, is up to approximately eight thousand individuals. The shuttles you all arrived in are being retrofitted for a long voyage, as each of these ships cannot be expected to hold more than a thousand people for a possibly long duration flight. We are bringing up all the civilian and military craft from the surface that we can, but we aren’t going to be able to take all that many people away from the solar system. The Ghalerans will not be going with us; they will be fleeing Earth as well, but will return to their own defensive lines. It looks like this will be the group that will be traveling from the solar system: five I.E.F. cruisers, the Enterprise, seven hundred nineteen passenger shuttlecraft, ninety-two long range HK-3 fighters, sixty-four civilian craft, and eighteen passenger liners, for a grand total of approximately twenty eight thousand humans. The fleet should be assembled within twenty hours. Now, we don’t want anyone overreacting, as this may come as a shock, but a treaty was signed by the U.N. over an hour ago with the Liodammians… a treaty that marks the surrender of Earth to the Liodammian forces.”

A massive burst of noise emitted from the crowd, most everyone seeming to voice their opinions about where the United Nations could stick their treaty at the same time. Ben was no exception.

Davis continued on, unable to hear the collective indignation in the hangar bay. “In a massive, unexpected sweep, the Liodammians, as of three hours ago, had wiped out more than half of our defense forces. So, it was agreed that they could have Earth, with two conditions: one, that all residents of Earth are to be allowed to live unharmed, under their current laws and societal structures. No changes in the way people live, in other words, except that they will be living with the Liodammians for now. The second is that this fleet be allowed to leave the Sol system, and to proceed to locate a habitable planet for human re-location, far outside the new boundaries of the Liodammian Empire. This fleet will then be used to ferry as many people as possible to this new planet. As for the current situation, most of you will have to temporarily go to Luna Yards to wait for a retrofitted ship to become available, as the Enterprise is the only ship designated for exclusive combat duty; their will be no civilians aboard, and very few non-naval personnel. Your I.D.L. comm. units will beep four times in rapid succession if you must leave the ship.”

In groups of ten or so, comm. units began beeping. It was obvious why they didn’t just trigger them all at once; it would have been hard to tell if your comm. unit was beeping or not if all of them were going off at once. After more than an hour of various beeping noises filling the hangar bay, almost all of the Warriors and the army officers had been sent off, but not Dragon squadron or Emily. Ben realized though that Emily had obviously not been on the evacuation listing, so they wouldn’t be paging her… but what about Dragon squadron? Why hadn’t they been sent off? Then Ben had another thought; exactly why the hell was Emily at the base in the first place? There were supposed to be no other Warrior squadrons there!

“Emily,” Ben began with a note of curiosity in his speech, “how were you in ‘Lightning’ squadron? From the info I got, the Dragon squadron was the only Warrior squadron at that particular base.”

“Huh?” she looked at him quizzically. “There were more than fifteen other Warriors at that base; we just weren’t finished training yet, so we weren’t listed as functional squadrons.”

He reacted to that with surprise, and had a wicked little thought. He knew that if there were still partially trained Warriors scattered across the globe, like the ones left at their base, the Liodammians were going to have one hell of a resistance on their hands. He smiled.

Before his thoughts could develop any further, the captain of the Enterprise came over to them, as they were the last people left in the now deserted hangar bay.

“Ah, then you would be Dragon squadron?” the captain began.

“Yes, sir,” Rebecca answered quickly, snapping a salute to the captain. “Erm, I think we’re a seven-member squadron now though, sir, if that’s okay with whatever orders we are being given.”

“I don’t think it will be a problem,” the captain answered with a smile, “I’ll inform Command; just send the new member’s name, and I’m sure they’ll accept. Things are so chaotic now that they would probably readily agree to anything. I’m Captain Matthews, the ringleader of this particular circus. Nice to meet you all.”

“Nice to meet you too sir,” Rebecca responded, “and I’m Captain Morrison. Exactly why is my squadron being kept here?”

“Ah, well,” Captain Matthews answered with a sigh, “quite simply, we have no Marines onboard; most of our guys were killed in battles on the ground, so you’re supplementing for our lack of ground deployable manpower. Also, our best helmsman was killed in a fleet engagement a week ago, when this ship and two others went head to head with the Liodammian flagship. We hear you’ve got quite the pilot in your squadron, fully rated on pretty much everything according to his dossier. He might be able to serve quite proficiently in a dual-role, if you would of course agree to lend him to us. I believe his name was Benjamin Powell.”

Ignoring the surprised look on his sister’s face, Ben stepped forward and saluted the captain.

“That would be me, sir.” Ben stood at full attention in front of the captain.

“At ease, Ben,” Captain Matthews said with a grin, “I hear you’re quite the pilot and soldier. Rumors have been going around about you; a pilot of a shuttlecraft claims to have seen you turn into some kind of God and destroy a Liodammian cruiser. Heh. I guess people mistake Warrior abilities for the supernatural, eh?”

Ben became slightly nervous at that, wondering exactly what effect his little bit of revenge would have on him. He quickly pushed that thought aside, asking the thing he had been wondering about since Luna Yards had come into view.

“Sir, exactly how did Luna Yards escape destruction during the invasion?”

Captain Matthews’ eyes sparkled as he responded, his voice sounding as if it was a particularly fond memory to him. “Well, that was actually one of the Fleet’s better moments. We completely shut down power on all of the docked vessels, and blacked out the base, making it dead to sensors. Nothing but minimal life support was maintained. We knew though that this wouldn’t hold forever; after the initial invasion they were likely to conduct a more thorough sweep for Earth space defenses. So we had to test something new that we had developed up here, right at Luna Yards. Using the new plasmatic power generators on the Enterprise and on Luna Yards, we generated enough power to create a field around the yard. I believe the engineers called it a Refraction field- it created a bubble of an artificial reality around Luna Yards and the ships moored to it, dividing it from this reality. Basically, we couldn’t see out, they couldn’t see in, and there was absolutely no way of penetrating it until we shut off the field. Of course, we only had the power to maintain this field for several hours at a time, so we would activate it, move the base, wait, and activate it again. The engines of the various moored ships were under quite a bit of strain as they basically had to pull the shipyard along. It was quite the game of cat and mouse for a while.”

A voice sounded over the intercom, announcing that the fleet would be ready to launch within eighteen hours.

“Well, Ben,” the captain said, “I think you should head to your quarters, along with the rest of the squadron here. I want you on the bridge in twelve hours, for your first shift. You’ll be able to familiarize yourself with the helm controls before we launch. We only have five rooms open in Officer Country; therefore two pairs of you will have to agree to share quarters. They are quite large compared to most quarters you’d find on a base.”

Ben indicated that he and his sister would share a room; normally, this would be against regulations, as the I.E.F. preferred to keep females and males in separate quarters, but as it was his relative, the captain felt that this one little breach of protocol could be ignored. James and Ryan both looked dismayed that they ended up having to share a room. With the arrangements made, and new privacy codes for the rooms issued, the captain stalked off towards the lift.

*** Twelve Hours Later ***

As he stepped off the lift onto the bridge, Ben was somewhat disappointed. It was nothing like it looked in Star Trek. Two chairs, for the captain and executive officer, sat atop a raised dais in the center of the room, overlooking eight crew pits. These crew pits were about seven feet deep, with ladders leading down to them. Most had a few chairs and computer consoles inside of them, specialized for whatever function that particular pit served. The only other thing on the actual floor of the bridge itself was a chair about four meters forward of the captain’s chair. It was surrounded by flat panel monitors displaying different camera angles that allowed whoever was sitting there to get a full view of the Enterprise’s surroundings. There was a large console beneath these monitors, along with two flight control sticks. It was the helmsman’s position.

Ben quickly hurried to the seat, checking out the controls. It was very similar to the HK fighters he had trained on. There were a few additional controls, but he had learned how to operate a capital vessel in flight school anyway; besides, he didn’t plan on using the computer controls that often, not when he had the control sticks. He played around with the controls for a few hours in simulation mode, making absolutely sure that he could use them expertly by the time the fleet was ready to launch.

“Okay,” Captain Matthews began as he took his seat on the dais. “We’re going to fly on plasma engine acceleration only until we get out of the solar system’s primary gravitic influence. The fleet, as one, will then engage their fold drives. Maximum distance navigators, just make sure we don’t plow into any stars if you don’t mind. Mr. Powell, if you please…”

“Aye sir.” Ben responded. “All moorings cleared… pre-flight confirms readiness… reactors are at maximum power. Engaging primary plasmatic drives. Speed is one thousand kilometers per hour… two thousand kilometers per hour… maximum dock-zone speed. Course set to clear the solar system. Following on manual control.”

Ben activated the primary flight stick, flying along a computer programmed path manually. This was one of the situations in which regulations actually demanded the use of manual controls, in case of the complicated artificial intelligence circuits getting fouled up by the massive electromagnetic emissions of the entire fleet of ships surrounding them.

“We’ve cleared the dock -zone, captain.” Ben stated, continuing his ongoing report. “Accelerating to one-half of maximum engine sustained power. We should arrive at the fold coordinates in approximately one hour.”

“Captain!” the leader of the tactical crew shouted, “Enemy forces dead ahead, two minutes out! Their weapons are fully powered. I count at least twenty-four cruisers!”

“Communications, contact Luna Yards for orders!” Captain Matthews shouted.

The communications officer looked stricken. “Sir… all contact with Luna Yards has been lost. The rear guard of the fleet is reporting that the shipyard was vaporized… and they are also reporting more than twenty more enemy cruisers behind them!”

“DAMNIT!” the captain shouted. “It was a trap! They just wanted all the human ships in one place, so they could get us all at once!”

Matthews slammed his fist so hard into the controls next to his chair that sparks and metal leapt out from the console. It took him a second to recover from his anger, but seemingly not noticing the wound on his fist, he began giving orders.

“Okay, tactical, full defensive screens, and I want those maximum-yield tactical nukes loaded in the tubes as of yesterday! Helm, prepare for evasive maneuvers!”

Ben nodded, programming a sequence of complex thruster firings into the computer, getting it ready to initialize as soon as it became necessary.

“Damnit…” Ben muttered, “Why does this stuff always happen to me?”

It was then that Ben’s mind finally got to work. He realized that in the last few months how many improbable things had happened: Earth had discovered aliens, he had seen his family die, he had been given god-like power, he had discovered he was an alien, he was evacuating Earth in a sci-fi ship that he had helped design… everything seemed to come back to him. It was not vanity on his part, just sheer observation, but he suddenly began questioning why he had been involved in everything major for the last few months. It was like some kind of superhero’s tale… but Ben knew that legends like that only existed in people’s minds. And that was the final clue Ben needed. True reality snapped before his eyes as plain as day. He smiled a true, genuine, knowing smile as he programmed new maneuvers into the helm.

“Good bye fantasy…” Ben mumbled, “And hello reality…”

He pressed the execute button. His new orders to the ship’s computer worked flawlessly. The Enterprise suddenly accelerated to its maximum speed, all of its maneuvering thrusters firing at the same time. The ship careened gracefully towards the nearest Liodammian cruiser. The harmonic overload that Ben had induced by drawing one hundred percent of the power from the reactors into the engines began with a whine. The lights and consoles winked out on the bridge, everything going dark. The whine of the overload grew louder and louder, until it was of such a pitch that the crew had to clamp their hands over their ears.

The saucer of the Enterprise met with the hull of the Liodammian cruiser. The overload’s whine reached a deafening crescendo, the plasma finally tearing out of the electromagnetic conduits. The explosion was over before anyone could have possibly reacted. A small nova had replaced both the Enterprise and the Liodammian cruiser it had impacted. Ben’s life was over, his legacy ended.

Chapter Ten

Preliator’s life and legacy had just begun anew. He awoke with a headache of an intensity matched only in pain by the experience of having Ghaleran Omni energy injected into him. He mentally corrected himself on that point however; he had never actually had the energy treatment. Nor had his true name ever been Benjamin Powell; it had always been Preliator Acer. Ben was just the name that his family had decided to call him in public, when they were around humans. Obviously the name Preliator was not the most common name for a natural-born United States citizen.

Preliator looked around, barely able to move his head without causing a burst of even more extreme pain. He immediately noticed the four electrode appearing devices attached to his forehead, along with the four wires trailing from them. He reached up and plucked the electrodes off, the pain disappearing at once. Much better.

He slid slowly off the metal table he had been laying on, surveying the various electronic devices around him. Obviously, he was in some type of laboratory. From the configurations of the computers nearest to him, he guessed that it was a Liodammian laboratory, which would explain the fake life he had just been through. Liodammians, unlike in the dream world they had conjured for him, were very intelligent conquerors. They probed the minds of the enemies they were about to attack, discovering military secrets, and putting them through artificially induced scenarios to see how they would react. Of course, they would have never expected any other intelligent species on Earth except for humans. Finding Preliator would have come as a shock to them. Probably why they had let slip to him in the dream world that he was an alien; they wanted him to explain it to them. Unfortunately for them, he had been conditioned upon birth to keep a part of his identity and memory sealed off; the part that would identify him as an extraterrestrial. Even under the most heinous forms of torture available, he would never reveal that he was a Quevian- a non-corporeal being that could assume basically any corporeal shape that it wished.

Preliator’s “locked” section of memory slowly returned to him, and he remembered that he had just gone to sleep one night like normal, and had woken up inside of the dream world. They must have tranquilized him before connecting him up to their machines. Too bad; if he had even had a split second of consciousness, he could have transformed and dealt some serious damage to these assholes. He was about to formulate a plan to get out of whatever the hell he was inside of when two Liodammians burst into the room.

He nearly laughed. Liodammians look exactly how they describe themselves in the dream world; three sharp legs and all. Except that they were barely a meter tall. Both of these tiny guards held plasma beam guns, and still managed to look entirely non-threatening.

And they looked even more non-threatening when they were suddenly faced with a massive brown bear. With one swing of his arm, Preliator had thrown the Liodammians into the wall, where they crumpled and did not rise again. He smiled as he shifted back into his human form, and headed out into the hallway. Maybe no alarms had been triggered. He might be able to just walk out of this place without further trouble.

A plasma beam chose that time to impact Preliator in his gut. He toppled backwards, a smoking hole in the black shirt he had morphed onto his body. It took him less than three seconds to repair the damage, a shimmer passing over the wound before it liquefied and re-solidified back into human tissue. He quickly rolled back into the laboratory, grabbing one of the unfortunate guards’ guns before he stood up. He pressed himself against the wall, firing four beams down the corridor without looking out of the doorway. From the high pitched scream he heard, he assumed he had hit his assailant.

Preliator slowly peaked out into the corridor, looking around. One dead Liodammian was lying on the ground, and no one else was in sight. It didn’t seem right though; he had figured out by the size and shape of the corridor that he was in a Liodammian ship. There should have been guards rushing to capture him the second they realized he was going to escape. It didn’t make any sense.

Well, if it was a trap, there was nothing he could do about it; he wasn’t about to just wait around here and do nothing. He briefly thought of just assuming his natural Quevian form and phasing through the hull of the ship, but he couldn’t move all that fast through space. Since he could have even been in an entirely different solar system than Earth, he didn’t want to take the chance of getting stranded out here. So, the best idea would be to steal a small craft from the hangar of this ship.

He flew down the corridor (quite literally as he had just turned into a pigeon), heading towards what he hoped was the aft of the ship, where the hangar might possibly be located. He didn’t get very far however.

There was a loud hiss in front of Preliator as a door slammed down. He quickly reverted to human form, looking around. Another door slammed down behind him. He was trapped… or at least his enemies thought he was trapped.

His entire body shimmered and dematerialized. He became nothing more than a small energy cloud; his natural form.

Preliator had forgotten how blind and deaf it felt to be in his natural form. He had basically no senses, making it a very eerie form… because you just knew what was around you. There really was no explanation for it. Quevians pulse little thought-waves against everything, like hyperactive sonar of some sort. It works faster than the speed of light, and allows for very quick reactions, since their minds did not have to process the information- the sense was thought itself! But when you spend the majority of your life as human, you expect to see, hear, smell, taste, and feel things. It just becomes something you take for granted.

With a burst of energy, Preliator attempted to fling himself through one of the doors, hoping to pass through without a problem. No such luck. A shield blazed into existence as he moved towards the door, causing him to smash into it painfully. Matter meant virtually nothing to a Quevian, but energy might as well have been a brick wall. He launched himself towards a few more surfaces, such as the floor and walls, but encountered energy fields beneath them as well.

He changed back to human, and sighed. He doubted he could find a way to break out of this impromptu cell of his. Preliator had learned how to change into many things, even things such as fire and water, but he didn’t know of anything big enough to crush several inches of titanium. A thought struck him like a thunderbolt. But I do know of something small enough to get out of here.

Preliator got down on his knees, running his hand along the floor, towards the source of the slowly moving air that he was breathing. He quickly found it; incredibly small holes jetted out air near the edge of the floor, where it met the wall.

Preparing himself for the experience of thought-sensing again, he changed into oxygen and forced himself through one of the jets. When he reached a junction, he was swept along with the rest of the air towards the front of the ship. For a while he just enjoyed the experience of being swept along in a river of oxygen, with no worries in the world. He was really starting to like this form.

Finally, he was launched out of a much larger opening than the one he had come through originally. A full-sized duct, he realized. He transformed into his human form, dropping to the deck rather painfully; evidently, this duct had been on the ceiling.

Preliator took in his surroundings with his renewed sight. His eyebrows shot up in surprise. He was on the bridge of the Liodammian ship… but the entire crew of fourteen Liodammians was unconscious at their posts. He was really confused now. Even with as much of a reputation as Liodammians had about lax security and procedure, he doubted severely that the crew would normally take a nap while on duty.

“What the hell…“ Preliator mumbled.

He had noticed the fact that the captain had been in the middle of writing a report on an electronic diction pad, and that he had been in the middle of a word when he had obviously fallen asleep. The only possible explanation was that very powerful sleeping gas had been used; the captain would not have been cut off so suddenly if he had just somehow fallen asleep naturally.

“Watch your mouth, Preliator.” A young human female smiled as she appeared out of thin air with two older humans.

“Auctorita! Mom! Dad!” Preliator smiled at the three of them. “Man am I glad to see you guys…”

His mom smiled back. “What, did you think that we wouldn’t have come looking for you? Your sister wanted to come too, but we wouldn’t let her. Of course, we couldn’t stop Auctorita from tagging along, since she’s not our daughter. It was easy enough to find you, as the Liodammians hadn’t been expecting anyone to check for cloaked vessels in Earth orbit. We’re sorry it took us a few months to get to you though; we had to figure out a way to penetrate the ship’s shields. Evidently, we needn’t have bothered.”

“What do you say we get off this leaky barge?” Preliator suggested.

“Not so fast son,” his father responded, “There are at least fifteen captured humans onboard, by our count. We need to get them off first. Besides, we’re not going to just leave this ship here. I think we should head over to the I.D.L. and report that the Liodammians’ next target is Earth, as well as leave this thing with them. Do you realize this could mean that Earth is going to be dragged into the war?”

Preliator merely smirked. “Dad, they hooked me up to their little dream machine. Showed me a situation in which humanity would abandon Earth. They have no idea exactly how resilient and stubborn humans are. They seem to think that everyone here would rather save themselves than stand and fight. The Liodammians have no understanding of this planet. After living here for a century, I think I do.”

Preliator walked up to a viewport, looking at Earth. “I almost feel sorry for the Liodammians. They have no clue as to how badly they are going to have their asses handed to them.”

Chapter Eleven

He stared in utter disbelief at the Council of Ten.

“Pardon me?” Preliator asked in a harsh tone. “Exactly what do you mean by, ‘we can’t spare the resources?’ We aren’t talking about a god damned business deal here! In case you have forgotten, the particular topic of discussion is the Earth- a planet with intelligent beings living on it that is about to be attacked! Humanity is a pre-interstellar flight civilization, do you expect them to have the technology to fight effectively by themselves? Humans are good warriors, but they’re not that good; they still depend on archaic technology. All I am asking for is for just maybe one damned ship, so that we can begin readying the Earth. I’m not asking for a fleet here; this is feasible! How can you just sit here and even think about letting over six billion sentient beings be condemned to death?”

A tired looking Taga stood up from his chair. All four of his arms were sagging slightly, revealing his old age.

“Young man,” the old Taga began, the translator on his throat changing the words to I.D.L. Standard, “we can think about letting humans die because if we attempt to help them, billions of our people will die. Sorry, but we cannot go running around and helping every innocent little civilization between us and the Liodammians. We do thank you however, for turning over that Liodammian light cruiser you captured. It may be a thirty year old relic, but every little advantage counts.”

Preliator barely kept himself from flying into a blind rage at the man’s arrogance. “First of all, don’t call me young man. Based on the normal Taga lifespan, I’m probably twenty years your senior. Second of all, we are no longer turning over that light cruiser. If you’re not going to help Earth, my family will. We’ll retrofit that ship for combat and fight them with their own weapons if we have to. I believe this meeting is over. I wish you all a good day.”

He marched out of the meeting room before a single member of the council could open their mouth. It was only a hundred meter or so walk to the airlock that led to the light cruiser they had captured, so he was in front of the door fairly quickly. Unfortunately, so was a massive Xhfing guard.

“The Council has had this ship sealed indefinitely to non-authorized personnel.” The guard stated simply.

“It’s my damned ship!” Preliator hollered. “Now get out of my way, before I take you out of my way.”

Normally, the Xhfing guard couldn’t be scared off. After all, he had arms the size and shape of clubs, he was two meters tall, and he had a tail with a thick stone-like ball on the end. Not many creatures could challenge him and live. However, their were always exceptions.

When Preliator turned into massive troll straight from human myth, standing over three meters tall, his head brushing against the ceiling, the guard discovered one of these exceptions. He took off so fast that Preliator wondered if he may have had a fold-drive installed in his ass.

Quickly reverting to human form, Preliator boarded the cruiser. He found his way to the bridge, taking a seat in front of the helm controls.

“So, what’s the prognosis, Preliator?” his father asked him.

“Heh.” He looked at his father with a smirk. “These guys think that even though they’re not going to help us, that they can keep the ship. They’re going to try and stop us from taking it.”

His father laughed. “Let’s see them try. Preliator, full power to the engines. Get us the hell back to Earth. I for one have had enough of this damned diplomacy. Auctorita, if you would kindly take the tactical console, I want you to very quickly familiarize yourself with the weapons systems of this ship. Hopefully you read Liodammian. Aurum, honey, I’d like you at the sensor station.”

Preliator’s fiancée moved to tactical, and his mother to the sensor board, just as he began applying power to the engines. The ship slowly began moving forward, slipping away from the headquarters of the I.D.L. which it had been moored to.

He began calling out reports to his father. “Primary engines are operational at ninety-eight percent of optimal efficiency. The fold drive is charging… it should be ready for us in about two minutes. Let’s hope the I.D.L. doesn’t pull together something to re-capture this ship within two minutes; I doubt this ship can take much abuse. Her plasmatic maneuvering strips are even older than the ship itself; she isn’t going to be evading fire, no matter how hard I steer her.”

“Veneratio!” Arum called out to Preliator’s father from the sensor board, “I have an incoming I.D.L. Cruiser, Mk. II model. Its weapons are charged, and it will be within firing range in… fifteen seconds!”

Auctorita didn’t wait for orders before acting, her fingers flying across her console. “Defensive fields activated, emergency bulkheads are prepared to close, and our weapons are fully powered. Just a side note here: we barely have a fourth the firepower they do.”

Veneratio nodded, pressing a button on his command seat that would open the communications channels.

“I.D.L. warship,” he began, “this is a civilian vessel, under the command of a civilian. You have no rights to take this ship in; we are not members of the Interstellar Defense League. If you continue in this action, you will be violating rule six of the standard rules of engagement of I.D.L. vessels: the I.D.L. may not interfere in the action of any civilian vessels not of Liodammian or I.D.L. member race origins. We are a non-combatant. Do you really wish to face an inquiry because of this?”

The speakers on the bridge crackled, no return transmission coming… but the cruiser had not opened fire, so it must have been conferring with the HQ.

Preliator’s hand hovered over the fold control. They were still a minute and a half from full charge, but he wanted to be ready to activate the drive the moment he could. Finally, they received a response from the cruiser.

“You are in a Liodammian vessel,” the captain of the I.D.L. cruiser said, “and therefore rule six does not apply in this situation. Shut down your drives and prepare to be boarded.”

“Bullshit.” Preliator muttered. “Let’s see if they’d like to risk blowing up their own damned ship just to get us. Deploying plasma reserves.”

As Preliator tapped a series of controls, a stream of plasma flowed from their engine exhaust vents into the space behind the ship, directly into the path of the I.D.L. cruiser. The cruiser was forced to swerve away on full power maneuvering thrusters to avoid the cloud of ionized gases… thus breaking their lock on the old Liodammian ship.

Preliator smirked. “Activating fold drive in eight…seven…six…five…four…three…”

Space around them turned into a assortment of geometric shapes, stars warping into trails of light. As the effect increased, a bright field surrounded the ship that was nearly blinding in intensity. The automatic shutters were deployed across the viewports, and when they were opened again, Earth could be seen.

Veneratio smile warmly. “Welcome home everyone.”

*******

It had been quite the challenge to get the leaders of Earth to understand exactly what was going on; when Preliator’s parents had explained everything to them, they had been entirely disbelieving… until they had the ancient Liodammian cruiser enter the atmosphere and show itself off to Washington D.C.

Earth’s pitiful technology was updated rapidly with whatever the Acer family could provide the governments with. Unfortunately, humanity was not even as advanced as they had been in the Liodammian’s dream world; that had been an extrapolation of how advanced they would be in 2038 or so. It was only 2007 in real life.

The Acer One, as the family had named the Liodammian vessel, was being serviced in a U.S. naval dry dock. The two hundred meter long ship was being retrofitted with new weapons, new defenses, and new technology. New fighters were also being built for it by the United States and various other countries. Preliator provided the design for the fighters; he utilized what he remembered of the HK-2’s layout from the dream world.

Preliator couldn’t help but smile when he thought of that; he had been providing the humans with design after design from the dream world. The knowledge the Liodammians granted him in that fictional world were going to be used against them in the real world- God Preliator loved ironies.

He was heading to the Acer One when the comm. unit he wore in a band around his upper right arm beeped. He tapped the accept control.

“Preliator?” Auctorita’s voice asked over the tiny speaker.

“Yeah, It’s me,” he responded, “what’s up?”

“We’ve got a problem,” she answered in a shaky voice, “over sixty Liodammian heavy cruisers just appeared in Earth’s orbit.”

For a moment, Preliator’s heart stopped. He was sure he heard wrong. When he had asked her to confirm what she just said, and she did, he immediately sprinted the remaining distance to the Acer One.

The bridge was the personification of chaos when Preliator walked onto it. The ten human crewman were all over the place, trying to silence the various alarms going off. Auctorita was throwing switches all over the tactical console, and Veneratio was trying to pull the crew into order.

Preliator quickly relieved the human pilot at the helm console, just as a visual transmission came in from the Liodammian fleet.

The live image of a particularly tall Liodammian appeared on the viewscreen, accompanied by words, somehow, from the speakers. Preliator couldn’t understand how their psychic transmissions were being turned into actual transmittable audio, but he figured they had adapted their comm. system somehow.

“To the governments of the Earth planet,” the Liodammian captain began, “this is the Liodammian Primary War Fleet. We understand that you might have a few prejudices of us already established, from misinformation fed to you by the Ghalerans and the I.D.L., but we ask you to please hear us out. We would like to request sanctuary from the I.D.L. forces by hiding in your system. Please help us, we beg you.”

Every single bridge crewman’s jaw dropped at the same time.

Chapter Twelve

Preliator sat down at the end of the conference table in the primary meeting room of the Acer One. About fifteen Liodammian delegates were already seated.

“Okay,” Preliator started, “no diplomatic niceties for now, if you don’t mind. I need the facts, as this is highly… unexpected.”

The tallest Liodammian there smiled, evidently their leader. “We will endeavor to answer any and all questions you may possess.”

“Okay, to start off with… why were you planning on invading Earth? I was captured by one of your little invasion study teams, and put through a dream world where Earth was placed under siege by Liodammian forces. You were also shown in a very bad light in this dream world; you looked a hell of a lot more like an invader than the I.D.L., and we didn’t give you any provocation to attack. Also, one other thing: why not take your fleet back to Liodammian space if you need refuge?”

“Ah,” the leader replied, frowning slightly. “I have to apologize for that. First, you should know that we were just worried about Earth joining the I.D.L. against us. Our resources are stretched incredibly thin as it is, and we don’t need any further enemies to deal with. Which is why we are here: what we really need is a place close to I.D.L. space to gather our forces for a decisive strike. Earth fits the bill. As to how we looked to you in the dream world, that is not our doing; your mind fills in the missing details that we don’t supply. We basically just tell the simulations to figure out what would happen if we were to engage in combat with a certain planet, and let it go from there. Would you happen to be the non-human that we received a transmission about?”

Preliator nodded. “I’m a Quevian- most likely you’ve never heard of us before. If you answer all of my questions satisfactorily, I’ll answer any questions you have about my species. Also, you’ll get the crew we captured from your ship back… but not the ship. Sorry, but we’ve put too much new experimental technology into it to turn it over.”

“No matter, the ship is of no import to us; it’s one of our oldest cruisers.” The Liodammian stopped for a moment, sighing mentally. “And I already know what your next question would most likely be. Why is the I.D.L. hunting the Liodammians if the Liodammians have done nothing wrong? To start, you need to know the true history of our people. The Liodammian Empire was formed when a group of three hundred Ghalerans were exiled from Ghalera for performing genetic experimentations on themselves; they had been trying to better themselves, to make the entire species superior to what it was. They only had the best interests of the Ghaleran people at heart. So, they formed their own species, after completely re-writing the Ghaleran gene code. All of that is in the textbooks, of course. But there is a lot more that isn’t.”

The Liodammian leader supported himself against the table, a couple of small tears running down his face. “The Ghalerans found our new home world. We were declared an aberration, a species that had no value and that was a public menace. The Ghalerans did not want us anywhere close to their world, they were so infuriated by our mere presence. So they ordered us to pack up all sixty-eight million Liodammians and move from our own world only a millennia after we had settled there. They wanted us to traverse the distance to another galaxy, and to never return. We, of course, refused. But we never thought that they would go to war just to rid themselves of us. They came in the middle of the night. Four thousand Ghaleran atmospheric fighters were dropped from a fleet of carriers. They bombed us for more than three days straight. When the attack was over, there were less than a million Liodammians left. So we turned up the cloning facilities to full production, and changed our factories over from producing innocent computers to destructive machines. Within a week, we had a small fleet. We’re quite efficient. The Ghalerans did not believe we had the capability for interstellar flight after their attack- that was their big mistake, underestimating us. We struck them as hard as they had struck us. We entered the solar system undetected, launching ten long range nuclear devices against major Ghaleran cities before we retreated. We killed at least as many of them as they had killed of us. They took the case to a few other species, claiming that we had launched an unprovoked attack! They circulated the video of the attack, and drew sympathy. No one would believe us after that. So we mobilized for war… and for the last fifty years we have been fighting the good fight. No doubt many of the species in the I.D.L. are completely innocent, including some of the ones we have destroyed during this conflict. But it is their own fault; we were merely defending ourselves. We do, however, regret that we are forced to take such drastic measures.”

Preliator nodded. “There is a reason I was selected to interrogate you. Quevians have a psychic ability somewhat beyond that of the Liodammians. If you don’t mind, I’d like to confirm your story.”

He had walked to the Liodammian’s side as he talked. He placed two fingers from each hand at key points along the Liodammian’s neck, directly over his spine. He remembered a little line from Star Trek. “My mind to your mind…”

A lifetime of memories flashed before Preliator’s eyes in seconds. He fell backwards, gasping for breath. He had become drenched in sweat in the blink of an eye, and his face had gone pale.

“My god… Senator Ris, I apologize for not believing you…” Preliator slowly stood up, wiping a tear from his eye. “I didn’t realize… I’m so sorry. Your wife… you miss her terribly.”

Senator Ris nodded slowly, tears now freely flowing down his cheeks. “There was no way you could have known.”

Preliator pulled himself together, sitting back down at the end of the table. “Your crew will be released immediately. It will be my recommendation to the United Nations that the Earth should officially ally itself with the Liodammian Empire as soon as possible. The Ghalerans will not get away with their crimes.”

Senator Ris nodded. “Thank you. I still am interested in you, you know. You haven’t told me your story yet.”

Preliator smiled. “It really isn’t all that interesting. Quevians are an ancient species that are, in their natural form, a non-corporeal energy based life-form. We can transform into anything within a certain mass limit. The larger you want to be, the more energy it requires to transform. We have pretty well developed psychic abilities, as you just discovered. In our early days of space travel, we had no technology. We would just launch ourselves off towards various solar systems, taking millennia if not more to arrive. Then other species began nearing the planets we had colonized, with massive ships that could cut our journey times drastically… so we pretended to be long last members of whatever species neared us, hitching rides to civilized areas of space. The Acer family arrived on Earth about five hundred years ago. I myself was born just a little over a century ago. The Fervens family is the only other family of Quevians on this planet. Auctorita Fervens, my fiancée, is native to Earth just as I am. We also live a lot like most humans; we have jobs and everything. Sort of. We have been responsible for setting up a few companies around the world, letting others take credit for founding them. Still wish I hadn’t turned over one of my damned software companies to that arrogant little shit, Gates; his little programmers screwed up everything… erm, anyway…”

Ris gave him a questioning look. “But our report on you said you were fifty percent human. Was one of your parents human?”

Preliator laughed. “No. Our genetic code when in any animal transformation is quite strange. I am one hundred percent Quevian though.”

He sighed in exasperation as his comm. unit beeped. He tapped the accept button, slightly annoyed. “I am in a meeting right now.”

“Captain Acer,” the comm. officer said, “I’m sorry to interrupt, but we’re receiving a sensor return from the Liodammian fleet- and it isn’t looking too good. I.D.L. ships are gathering on the outskirts of Sol.”

“Damnit!” Preliator shouted. “Senator, I would suggest you get to your fleet. I need to get to my bridge. Computer, cut recording of this meeting and send the transmission to all previously designated world leaders, with my recommendation that we aid the Liodammians.”

Preliator dashed out of the door before the senator could respond, stopping as he realized a faster way to get to the bridge. He quickly turned into air, flying through the life support system to the bridge. His crew was quite surprised when he just suddenly materialized in the captain’s chair. Veneratio had decided to turn command over to his son, as he had never liked combat, and Preliator had proved during the escape from the I.D.L. that he was quite proficient with tactics.

“Report!” Preliator bellowed.

“Sir,” a crewman called out from the sensor board, “the I.D.L. fleet is massive. I count thirty-two Ghaleran cruisers, twenty Taga destroyers, fourteen Yish carriers, and maybe twenty other ships of various origination and class.”

Auctorita turned to face him from the communications console. “The senator’s shuttle has departed, and the U.N. has granted us permission to engage the I.D.L. forces.”

“Signal to the Liodammians that the Acer One will take the Yish carriers.”

Auctorita sent it off and almost immediately received a reply. She nearly laughed. “Sir, they ask if you brought your sanity with you today. They seem to doubt our abilities to take on fourteen vessels four times our size.”

Preliator laughed. “Tell them their will be no argument about it. They have to hold off the rest of the fleet though. No more radio chatter after that; I don’t want the I.D.L. intercepting our transmissions. Helm, activate anti-gravs. Take us up to one mile, if you will.”

The light cruiser slowly began rising away from the dry dock. Within ten minutes, she was up to one mile of altitude.

“Okay, activate primary engines,” Preliator ordered, “maximum thrust. Get us past the critical gravity boundary.”

A massive jet of ionized gas shot out of the back of Acer One, and with a tremendous shake that nearly dislodged some of the crew from their chairs, she was streaking towards space at more than twenty thousand kilometers per hour, rapidly accelerating.

Preliator strapped himself into his command seat. “Set a course for those Yish carriers. I believe they are in a group by themselves, correct? I.D.L. forces may be united, but the individual species always like fighting by themselves.”

The crewman at the sensor board answered in the affirmative to his question about the grouping. The helmsman estimated their interception point with the carriers at four minutes; the new engines were powered by about a thousand energized crystals, each crystal holding several million megawatts of power. The ship could go quite fast.

“Good,” Preliator responded. “Now charge our new main weapon, and inform me when we are within firing range.”

Most of the crew were suddenly very excited. They couldn’t wait to see this weapon at work; it had been designed by the Acer family in less than an hour of intensive brainstorming. It was the most potent force that they had been able to imagine, and had been rushed to assembly within minutes of the design’s completion. It had taken less than six days to build and install into the ship. Quite a few employees of Lockheed Martin would be getting really big Christmas bonuses this year for their speedy job.

“Critical targeting range,” the sensor board operator reported, “we should be to get all of them in one blast if my calculations are correct.”

Their was a whine throughout the ship, the lights dimming; the generators were transferring power into the weapon.

The crewman at tactical turned towards her captain. “Sir, the weapon is fully charged. The carriers are preparing to fire their first volley; even our new shields won’t hold against the combined firepower of fourteen capital grade ships.”

He gave a simple order. “Fire.”

For a moment, the crew held their breath. There had been no time to test the weapon. A shudder was felt through the deck as a tiny metal sphere launched from the ship, lancing out into the ranks of Yish carriers.

The sphere came to a halt, guided by the small thrusters covering its surface. The metal broke away, revealing the terror within.

The girl at tactical smiled. “Detecting full gravitic effects, sir!”

On the screen, quite a stunning image was created. It seemed as if suddenly all of the massive carriers were reversing and heading towards the same spot. Their hulls began elongating, little pieces of titanium flaking off and disappearing into the invisible phenomenon behind them. All of them were overloading their engines, attempting to fight the almighty force of gravity. Finally, one of the ships was wrenched in two, its reactor going critical. An incredibly bright flash covered the area.

Preliator didn’t need the report that came from his sensor board operator to see what had happened. “Sir, all enemy carriers have been destroyed! The singularity generator worked!”

He smiled warmly at his crew. “Good job people. Let’s go help the Liodammians with the rest of the fleet.”

“No need,” his communications officer stated with a smile, “all enemy forces are in full retreat! The instant they detected the black hole launched by us, they turned and ran with their tail between their legs!”

“Good. Now contact New York, and the Liodammians. If the Ghaleran want to take the fight to our doorstep, we can play the same game with them. Inform the U.N. that I wish to strike at Ghalera. It’s time to show them that there is a price to pay for fucking around with Earth like it was their little political chew toy.”

Chapter Thirteen

“We’ve received approval from both the Liodammians and the U.N.,” Auctorita reported, “and the Liodammians have confirmed that they are going to bring all of their ships.”

Preliator nodded. “Very good. Coordinate with their fleet; the second we are ready, I want to initiate the fold drive. I don’t want them to have time to prepare for us. If we hit them hard enough, maybe we can get them to sign a treaty that will end this damned war.”

Auctorita looked up from her console. “Sir, the Liodammians report that they are ready for fold operations. Shall I signal them to engage?”

“Affirmative. Helm, begin our own fold operations, if you will.”

The automatic shutters slammed shut across the viewports on the bridge. The lights dimmed for a moment, then returned to full power. A few seconds later, the shutters opened, a greenish planet visible.

“Ghalera?” Preliator asked.

The girl at the sensor station nodded. “Sir, there is something weird though… I am not detecting a single Ghaleran ship within the solar system. I’ve got the sixty Liodammian vessels on my scopes, sir, so it can’t be that the sensors are offline… how could they not have a single defensive ship in their home system?”

A chill ran down Preliator’s spine. “This doesn’t sound good… they wouldn’t leave their planet open to attack. Increase power to sensors, and ask the Liodammians to do the same. I want high powered scans of any area in this system where a ship could possibly hide.”

“Sir,” the girl said in a confused voice, “I have the sensors up at 110% of normal power, and I’m not detecting any ships, but I am detecting a massive electromagnetic signature. It could be interfering with our computers sir; electromagnetism is known to do that. That’s the reason why you don’t have ships fly too close together; the EM radiation could reach a level that would burn out some of the ship systems.”

“Yes, ensign, I am well aware of the effects of…” Comprehension struck him like a thunderbolt. He reached out with his telepathic abilities and confirmed his fear.

“Full power to the defensive fields!” he bellowed, “emergency evasive maneuvers! Now damnit! Brace for impact!”

Eighty Ghaleran cruisers appeared from nowhere with a massive ripple effect, as if space itself was being pushed aside to make room for them. Some of the ships were less than fifteen kilometers away from the Acer One.

When the first torpedo struck the ship, it was pitched forward by the force of explosion. The second and third torpedoes impacted the underbelly of the vessel.

Preliator quickly removed his hand from the small console attached to his chair, right before it was vaporized by a power overload. The lights on the bridge winked out of existence, and half the crew was on the floor, having been thrown down by the first torpedo.

“Report!” he shouted over the cacophonous noise of various klaxons, alarms, and explosions.

Someone managed to claw their way over to the only partially functioning engineering console, and to call out a damage report. Preliator squinted through the smoke that was rapidly filling the bridge to see that it was Auctorita.

“Shields are completely offline!” she called out. “We’ve lost main power, and auxiliaries are barely functional. Engines are offline, weapons offline… hell, it would be quicker to name what’s functional, Preliator!”

He let out a stream of curses a mile long before calming down enough to think. “Casualty report?”

Auctorita checked quickly on the environmental console. “No clue as of yet. Inter-ship sensors and comm. lines are down.”

Preliator began to hear a loud whistling noise above the alarms. He looked all around the bridge, trying to locate the source of the sound. When he found it, he wished he hadn’t. There was a rupture in the bridge hull about two centimeters long, growing rapidly. The whistling was the sound of the bridge being depressurized. He quickly grabbed a metal plate that had broken away from the floor, chucking it at the breach. It was sucked into place and held there, temporarily sealing the hull. He ordered a nearby crewman to use one of the plasma rifles located on the bridge to weld the plate and hull together. Wiping the sweat off his forehead, he sat down in his command chair.

“Is the self destruct system online?” he asked Auctorita.

“Yeah,” she answered, “but only about half of the escape pods are operational. We can’t get the entire crew off the ship.”

“Sir!” an officer standing by the tactical console hollered, “a Ghaleran cruiser is latching onto us! We’re being boarded!”

Preliator forced down a lump that had risen in his throat. When he was finally able to speak, it was with a hoarse voice. “Computer, confirm audio input system integrity.”

The computer responded with a single beep; the audio inputs were functioning.

“Computer, re-route power to the plasma intermix chamber. Destruct sequence zero. Command authorization: Acer, Preliator. Match voiceprint and confirm.”

The computer answered verbally this time. “Voiceprint is matched and confirmed. Setting reactor for five minute destruction sequence. Awaiting final command code authorization.”

Auctorita took a deep breath. “Computer… I confirm destruct sequence zero. Command authorization: Fervens, Auctorita. Match voiceprint and confirm.”

“Final command authorization confirmed.” The computer stopped for a few seconds, processing diagnostic data. “Critical mass will be reached by the reactor in exactly four minutes and forty-two seconds.”

Just as the computer finished its statement, six Ghalerans in what looked like heavy battle armor poured onto the bridge, plasma rifles raised to their shoulders. The young ensign that had been manning the sensor board pulled her pistol from her belt.

She never got the chance to raise it. Three plasma beams scorched through her chest, leaving little left of her. The acrid smell of burning human flesh permeated the air.

Several other officers attempted to charge down the Ghalerans, but Preliator ordered them to stop. “It doesn’t matter. We’ll all be dead in less than four minutes anyway.”

The leader of the Ghaleran squadron smiled.

“Really, do you think so?” he asked in his gruff telepathic voice, “Because I don’t. Your plasma intermix chamber was the first thing our boarding parties were to deactivate when they came aboard. I’m afraid your ship won’t be exploding anytime soon.”

An alert sounded from the computer. “Plasma intermix chamber is offline. Critical mass cannot be achieved. Self-destruct systems are off-line.”

Preliator knew that to let them have this ship was to let them have the singularity generator technology, and the capability to conquer the galaxy if they wished. He couldn’t let that happen… and therefore it wouldn’t happen as long as he was still breathing.

“They are not to have this ship!” he hollered.

His crew reacted fluidly, drawing their pistols at the same time. The Ghalerans let off blast after blast from their plasma rifles, and more of them streamed onto the bridge. But none of them stood a chance, for they had made a fatal flaw; they had given both Auctorita and Preliator time to change form. They were now not only faced with humans, but with a crocodile and a small version of a prehistoric mammoth.

With a loud roar, Preliator charged into combat first. His tusks speared two Ghalerans with no problem. Evidently, their battle armor had not been made for anything except firefights. Auctorita lanced out with a speed that would have made an SR-71 Blackbird envious. Her massive, powerful jaws snapped shut on a Ghaleran’s leg. With a quick shake of her head, the leg was effectively severed.

The boarding party had come prepared though. Two tranquilizer darts sailed out into the two attacking beasts. They were unconscious before they had a chance to transform.

The rest of the crew was easily taken by the far superior Ghaleran forces. The Acer One now belonged to the enemies of the Earth.

**************

Preliator awoke in a cell of some sort. He attempted to look around, but his head hit the ceiling- he was still in his mammoth transformation. He quickly changed back to his human form.

The cell was completely unremarkable, visibly speaking- four bare titanium walls, and a single side-sliding door with a thick glass plate in the middle of it. In design, however, Preliator knew it had been made for high security prisoners; his telepathic probes could detect energy fields behind every surface. He wouldn’t be able to just change to his energy form and float through the cell.

He looked around for a vent of some kind, when he saw the portable air exchanger shoved into one of the corners. He groaned. They had evidently thought about that little detail before putting him in here.

There was a loud hiss of a door opening. Preliator turned towards the entrance to his cell, watching as two guards walked in, accompanied by a third Ghaleran in a uniform unrecognizable to him.

The third Ghaleran smiled at him. “Hello Preliator. My name is Niap. Dr. Niap. I need you to answer a few questions… and I want you to keep in mind while I’m asking them that we are also holding other members of your crew, including a young woman named Auctorita who we believe you are… shall we say, familiar with?”

Preliator held back a snort of laughter. “Whatever, doc, but you could at least be brave enough to tell me your real name. You could have chosen something a little less obvious, at least. Pain. Niap. How original.”

“First of all, we’d like to know if there are any other humans in the galaxy besides on Earth.”

Preliator raised an eyebrow. “Why do you care?”

“Because when we wipe out a species, we make sure to wipe them out thoroughly. We’ve already taken care of Earth. Now, answer my question!” The “doctor” was rapidly becoming aggravated.

“’Taken care’ of Earth?” Preliator asked with his horror evident in his voice, “no… you didn’t… you uncivilized monsters… I’LL KILL YOU ALL!”

“Now calm down…” Naip intoned in a condescending voice, “you’re still alive, child. Just answer my questions, and you can remain that way.”

Preliator laughed. “Like you would leave us alive after getting all the information you needed out of us…”

He looked directly into the doctor’s eyes. The Ghaleran knew what was coming before it happened, but he was powerless to stop it.

Preliator became massive, growing to nearly twice his normal size. He grabbed the guards by their heads, bashing them together in mid-air with the sickening sound of bone being crushed. Blood covered the walls of the cell. With one solid kick, he threw the doctor and the door into the corridor beyond the cell, both crushed beyond recognition.

He stepped out into the corridor, reducing his size only slightly so that he could maneuver around better. Six guards bearing heavy plasma rifles awaited him.

The lead guard hollered at Preliator in a loud, echoing telepathic voice. “Stop or we’ll have to kill you! Are you that desperate to die?”

Preliator laughed, malice dripping from the sound. “Death. You have no true conception of what the word actually means.”

He stepped towards them, the false grin fading from his face to be replaced with a look of sheer loathing. “Let me teach you.”

Chapter Fourteen

Preliator was on the six guards before they had time to react. His hand flashed outwards, yanking a plasma rifle out of one of their arms. The massive gun looked like a child’s toy compared to his enlarged body and hands, but it still worked just fine on the Ghalerans. He fired twice, two of the guards immediately crumpling to the floor. He pointed the gun at a third, their leader, but did not fire.

“Drop your weapons,” Preliator growled, “and the janitors in this place might not have to wipe you off the walls when I’m done.”

The four guards quickly complied, tossing their rifles aside. They were brave, not crazy.

“Now,” Preliator said smiling, “you’re going to answer my questions, or you’re going to die. There are only three of them, so this should be easy; sorry, but it isn’t multiple choice though. You might actually have to think for a second or two before answering. The first thing I want to know is how long I was in that cell before I woke up. Second, I want to know the status of my crew. Third, I want to know exactly when the Ghaleran attack on Earth was carried out.”

The leader, who still had a gun pointed towards his forehead, answered in a quavering telepathic voice. “I saw you brought in about two weeks ago. I don’t know exactly why they kept you in there for so long before letting you wake up, but I think that they wanted to interrogate the rest of your crew first. Your crew is being detained in the main brig of this station, one level directly up from here. As far as I know, the attack on Earth was carried out yesterday. I believe it took the form of a nuclear bombardment.”

Preliator quickly reached into the guard’s mind to make sure that he had not been lied to. Finding that the guard had been completely honest, he commanded the guards to lead him to the main brig. He was there in less than a minute, looking through shimmering blue energy fields at his crew, who had all been herded into cells not even close to large enough to be comfortable. With a few blasts of the heavy plasma rifle, the shield controls were shorted out, his crew spilling into the corridor.

Auctorita smiled as she walked over to him. “You look a little different than normal. New haircut?”

Realizing that he was still almost three meters tall, Preliator shrunk himself back down to his normal size.

“Okay guys,” he said to his crew, “put those four Ghalerans in one of the smaller, unused cells and activate the security field. I want a headcount from all heads of departments. If anybody is missing, I want to know about it.”

The department heads quickly did as ordered, relaying the information back to him that they had lost fourteen of their ninety-eight crewmen. Preliator suppressed his emotions for now; there would be time to grieve later. Now was the time for action.

“Auctorita,” he said in a calculating voice, “I have not encountered a single Ghaleran except for that squadron of guards. There were no guards anywhere near their prison… are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

She nodded. “Yeah, it’s definitely a trap- but there’s not much we can about it, is there?”

He nodded in agreement, leading the large group towards the lift.

“Guys, listen up,” he began, quieting them, “maybe sixteen of us can go up at a time, give or take. En route to the brig, I discovered from one of those Ghaleran guards that the Acer One is moored at level three, primary docking area. We’re going to retake the ship. I expect this to be a trap, so be on guard. Department heads, organize your men by rank; lowest rank will be going up first. Secure the corridor leading to the airlocks. The command staff will be the last up. Get to it.”

It was several minutes later when it was finally the command staff’s time to rejoin the crew. Preliator, Auctorita, Lieutenant Johnson (the helmsman), and Lieutenant J.G. Abesamis (chief engineer) stepped onto the lift. Preliator thumbed the control that would take them to level three, but nothing happened. He jammed his thumb against the control harder, but still managed to elicit no response.

He quickly realized that the trap had been sprung. He had been expecting it to occur when they were just about to take the ship, on level three, not here. That false assumption was driven from his mind at the sight of the Ghaleran that was walking towards them from the end of the long corridor. The lone fighter completely ignored the four hollering guards inside of one of the cells as he passed them, his eyes locked on Preliator. Preliator sensed the aura surrounding the Ghaleran, and placed the feeling from his memories; it was the power he had felt emanating from himself in the Liodammian dream world. This had to be a Ghaleran Warrior.

That was one of the things from the dream world that had been accurately described; the effects of Omni-energy on a physical body. But there was one major difference between the dream world Ghalerans and the real-world Ghalerans; never in their history had the Ghalerans ever given Omni-energy to a member of another species.

Preliator raised his heavy plasma rifle, carefully targeting the chest of the approaching Ghaleran. He fired blast after blast, twenty flashes of plasma impacting the Warrior with a one hundred percent accuracy rate. The blasts had been dissipated by the Warrior’s powers though, and did him no harm.

“Damn.” Preliator concluded.

He was about to attempt to attack the Warrior physically when his thoughts were dispelled by a wave of energy impacting him in his gut. He was flung backwards to impact with the titanium wall of the lift, denting it- and his back- severely. He was unconscious before he could even begin to transform.

“Big mistake. Now you have to deal with me.” Auctorita growled.

She leapt forward, transforming mid-lunge into a massive cat, over three meters long. Her ten centimeter long fangs sank into the Warrior’s right arm as she collided with him, sending them both sprawling on the floor. He was barely fazed however, and with one shake of his arm, she went flying, her head colliding with the corridor wall. He brought his hand back, charging it with energy. He would make sure that she did not interfere with his task again.

But before the Warrior had a chance to throw the energy he gathered, a strong arm gripped his wrist. He turned to look into the face of an incredibly furious Preliator.

“You picked the wrong man’s fiancée to mess with, bud.” Preliator snarled.

His hand phased partially out of existence, becoming Quevian energy. He reached through the Warrior’s chest, his hand re-solidifying around the Ghaleran’s heart. With one good squeeze, the heart stopped beating. For good measure, Preliator also reached into his victim’s brain, turning the wrinkly mass into insubstantial mush. With a jolt, like being shocked by a particularly powerful bolt of electricity, Preliator jumped backwards. His entire arm phased in and out of existence, the muscles in the rest of his body beginning to spasm powerfully. It was nothing like Preliator had ever experienced… it felt like he was being empowered and yet being destroyed at the same time.

He collapsed to the ground, writhing in agony. Auctorita, fully recovered, was at his side in moments, checking his vitals and attempting to calm him down.

“Honey, can you hear me?” she asked him.

He barely managed a quick nod, some of the pain starting to die away. His arm re-formed, becoming solid matter again. He slowly stood up, still shaking severely.

“I don’t understand it,” Preliator gasped, “it was like his brain tried to fry me with electricity or something… I think I’ll be fine, I just need a moment to catch my breath.”

He took a minute to recover, and then motioned to the lift. They both walked onto it, Abesamis having overridden the security lock-out while Preliator had been recovering from the battle. In just a few seconds, they joined their crew on level three, which had already been secured. Eight Ghaleran corpses could be seen outside of the lift. Preliator was happy to learn that only two of his crewmen were injured, with no fatalities. He quickly filled in his department heads, and ordered the boarding action to begin.

His crew was quick and efficient, to say the least. They had re-captured the ship in less than three minutes; not that it had been all that difficult. Only four armed guards and twelve technicians had been aboard the vessel. Two of the guards had been killed, but the other fourteen Ghalerans were being held in the brig. Preliator quickly made his way to the bridge, glad to be back in the command chair. In his command chair.

“Status report.” Preliator ordered to the chief engineer.

Lieutenant Abesamis looked down at his engineering console’s display, reading the damage report out loud. “Primary shield generators and power cores have been repaired, but it looks as if the singularity generators were completely removed. Judging from the sensor signatures, I’d say that the Ghalerans adapted the new technology fairly quickly; they are mining the outskirts of the system with small singularities. Once they’re finished, it will be impossible fold in or out of the system directly. It will give them quite the tactical advantage.”

Preliator nodded. “Clever bastards. We won’t just be able to drop in on their home world anytime we like now. Is there still a hole we can punch through to get the hell out of here?”

Abesamis nodded. “I’m relaying the coordinates the helm. They haven’t completed their mining, so there are still a few places where the gravitational effects are weak enough for the fold drive to transit through.”

Lieutenant Johnson looked up at his captain. “Sir, what will our end destination be?”

“For now,” he responded, “Earth. We have to take stock of the damage we have been dealt, and I doubt if the Ghaleran fleet hung around after they bombed the planet; they still have a war to fight with the Liodammians. Lieutenant, initiate fold operations; don’t worry about the shockwave damage to the Ghaleran station. I think we can ignore the safety protocols for once.”

His helmsman smiled at the idea of a little revenge, and quickly initiated fold operations. “Three… two… one…”

As the shutters began closing on the viewports, the Ghaleran station could be seen, flames tearing from its bulkheads as the incredibly close proximity to a fold-effect energy wave doomed it. Preliator refused to feel even a drop of sympathy for the thousands of unsuspecting Ghalerans that had been aboard it; if they didn’t care about Earth’s population, why should he care about their military personnel? For just a moment, he wondered if this made him as bad as them, but he refused to speculate further. This was war. You did what was necessary to win, nothing more, and nothing less. The rest could be decided by philosophers and historians later.

As the shutters opened, everyone who was looking towards the viewports suddenly gasped in surprise and horror. Preliator did not gasp, however, as his breath had caught in his throat. He barely managed to restrain the tears that were so desperate to escape him. He could feel the pain gathering up inside of him, forming itself into a monstrous beast of hate. He no longer had any thoughts of sympathy for dead Ghalerans. As far as he was concerned, the entirety of the Ghaleran race could collectively go to Hell, wiped from existence. For Earth could be seen from the bridge. Or what remained of Earth.

The planet was on fire. Its lush green forests were gone, nothing but the dull red glow of massive fires visible from space. The lights of cities that could normally be seen on the darker area of Earth were gone, replaced by the craters of massive thermonuclear explosions. A cloud was beginning to expand outwards from these obliterated areas, and soon it would block out the sun from Earth’s surface. The still beautiful oceans contrasted against the scarred land violently, but Preliator knew this beauty was only superficial. Radiation would be baking the creatures of the sea, killing off the last of the life on Earth.

The tears began falling freely from Preliator’s eyes. He was thinking about the millions of families that had just been destroyed. He could picture people having picnics, going on family outings, children doing their school work, and sisters and brothers annoying each other endlessly… then he could see all of this being vaporized as destruction rained from the skies, from an unknown assailant. There would have been no time to react. No warning. All life, just gone, at the whim of a species bent on destruction.

He corrected himself though. There would of course still be some life left. Life always found a way. Humans were plentiful creatures, and there was no way that nearly seven billion of them could have all been killed off. Even if only one in every million humans had found a way to survive, there still would have been thousands left on Earth. So, Preliator quickly ran his telepathic senses over the planet, searching for signs of sentient life.

He found absolutely none. But, unlike what most people would think at that revelation, Preliator was elated. He smiled widely, and began to laugh, his tears rapidly changing to tears of joy. He damn near broke down into hysterics, he was so happy. He actually fell out of his seat, and now his entire bridge crew was looking at him in pure shock. How could their commanding officer be cracking up at a time like this?

He laughed as he looked around at them. “Don’t you guys see? I can’t detect any humans on Earth! Even at this level of bombardment, there would have been survivors! The only way there could have been no survivors was if…”

Auctorita cut him off, smiling widely now too. “…was if there was nobody there to kill in the first place!”

The rest of the crew seemed skeptical, but they had no further time for debate as the klaxons sounded on the bridge.

The replacement sensor board operator called out a report from his console. “We have eighteen Ghaleran cruiser-type vessels entering the Sol solar system! They must have guessed our destination!”

A secondary alarm sounded, and the sensor operator called out another report over the noise. “We have more ships appearing every second, but they’re not Ghaleran! They are not familiar to the computers, but they are all pretty large, over one hundred meters at the smallest. I’m counting… good Lord… one thousand of the new ships, and still more transiting in!”

Preliator was quick in recovering from his laughter. “Re-route power to defensive systems. Power up whatever weapons we still have. All hands: battle stations!”

Chapter Fifteen

Preliator never had time to order the Acer One into combat. It was over before he and his crew could have blinked. The new ships, the massive fleet, had swarmed the Ghaleran cruisers, pouring thousands of lances of plasmatic energy into their hulls. The Ghalerans were overwhelmed by the sheer power of this assault, and were quickly incinerated, nothing left of their once mighty ships except a few specks of space dust.

Auctorita smiled at Preliator from the communications console. “Sir, our new friends are hailing us. On the United Nations standard combat frequency, augmented to accept video input, I should mention.”

Preliator raised an eyebrow. “Interesting. Put them on my con-“

He stopped short, remembering that his console was still blown out.

“Erm, put them on the overhead monitors.”

A row of screens hanging from the ceiling snapped to life at the front of the bridge. They all showed the live image of Admiral Dryson, the commander of the United Nations peacekeeping Navy. He was smiling widely at them.

“Surprise!” he said by way of introduction. “I am Admiral Dryson, as I am sure some of you have already figured out. I am aboard the Freedom, one of the four battleships the United Nations has agreed to contribute to the Great Alliance. I am sure you have quite a few questions, Captain Acer, so perhaps we could speak together on my ship?”

Several hours later, Preliator was sitting across a conference table in one of the many spacious diplomatic lounges inside of the Freedom. It was quite large, and from what Preliator had seen of it, quite advanced. But the fact that this ship even existed was pissing him off.

“Excuse me, admiral,” Preliator began, “but forgetting military secrets for a moment, why the hell wasn’t this ship and the others sent with me to attack Ghalera?”

Dryson quickly formed an apologetic look, attempting to pacify Preliator. “Sorry, but we had to leave a small force behind, near Earth, to defend it in case you failed. Not to mention that these ships were designed and built with technology we did not publicly announce possessing. About fifty years ago the United States discovered how to create a flux in space-time reality, a small anomaly that could be created through specific modifications to a nuclear reactor. So, we built an aircraft testing facility as a disguise for this Project Otherworld, as it was called, and proceeded to use what we discovered was a fold-space wormhole to communicate with very distance species. At the time, America was so afraid of the Soviet Union discovering this technology that we buried it with other secrets, so no one would discover the testing base’s real experiment. This facility was built in Nevada, about ninety miles from Las Vegas. Its most popular designation is Area…”

“51.” Preliator finished for him. “Damn, I’m an alien to Earth, and I never guessed that all those UFO-nuts were right. I can’t believe this… years and years of cover-ups, when the truth was always known…”

“Well,” Dryson continued, “it wasn’t like the Groom Lake testing facility’s real purpose was known. No one believed the UFO crap for good reason; no alien spaceships were ever captured. However, we did make quite a few advances through talking to other species. The Freedom and her sister ships are a culmination of these advances.”

“Now, what exactly is the Great Alliance?” Preliator asked.

“Ah,” Dryson said happily, evidently relieved to get off the topic of Area 51, “the Great Alliance is sort of a counterpart to the Interstellar Defense League. Years and years ago, the Quevians- your species, if I remember correctly- found out from shape-shifted agents inside the Ghaleran command structure exactly what they were up to. So, they gathered together people from the outer edges of the galaxy, where the Ghalerans had never bothered recruiting. While the Liodammians and the Ghalerans were dishing it out to each other, the Great Alliance prepared, expanding its borders to cover thousands of star systems. They now have over five thousand military ships, and are ready to take up arms against the I.D.L. It still seemed like a petty squabble to most of the members of Great Alliance, though, up until two weeks ago. Then, they learned of the Ghaleran plan to destroy Earth. So, they called together every civilian ship they could find- more than eighty thousand, I do believe- and evacuated every single human from Earth. The civilian ships didn’t have the firepower to protect Earth, as they were all either unarmed or lightly armed, and almost all of the Great Alliance capital vessels were deployed across the galaxy at the time. Currently, humanity constitutes of refugees spread across eighty worlds… but still, we’re alive. Anyway… that’s the story. The Great Alliance is currently working out the details of a treaty that will incorporate both humanity and the Liodammians into their ranks.”

Preliator just stared off into space for a moment, temporarily stunned. He felt as if he suddenly had been slapped in the face; all of this had gone on without his knowledge, even though he was a member of the very race that seemed to be orchestrating quite a few of these events.

“I guess the Acer One and I won’t be of much use to the Great Alliance then, if they already have five thousand ships. Will the ship be decommissioned?”

Dryson smiled. “Yes, that old clunker will be decommissioned; but you and your crew won’t be, of course. The President of Quevia himself has appointed you to the position of commanding officer of the vessel Pride of the Alliance. She’s the flagship of the Quevian home defense forces, and the largest ship in the Great Alliance. Your effective rank will be Commodore.”

Preliator, again, was stunned. He had no idea what he had done to warrant such a rank and posting, and he was sure that someone had made a mistake. His life seemed to be growing all the more complicated by the second.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, Commodore,” Dryson said as he stood up, “I have to return to my bridge, and I suggest you head over to your ship. We’ll be returning to G.A. space for a few days, before we prepare for the assault of Ghaleran space. I’ll see you on the battlefield.”

Preliator nodded and head off to the shuttle bay, completely unaware of his surroundings. He didn’t return to reality until his pilot announced to him that they were nearing the Pride of the Alliance. He practically pressed his face against the viewport, desperate to get a look at the ship.

When the ship came into view, he, for a moment, almost believed himself to be in another dream world. The graceful vessel was absolutely beautiful. She was perhaps four kilometers long, her gently flowing lines showing no blisters or turrets where the weapons should have been. Her hull appeared to almost be organic, fluidic, and solid at the same time. He couldn’t see any engines or any viewports on it either. It utterly confused him, and utterly fascinated him. This ship had been sculpted by an artist, not built by a shipwright.

He then watched as this beautiful ship, his beautiful ship, was bathed in flame as several Ghaleran cruisers rippled into existence, their plasmatic weapons tearing into her armor. The war had made his life a whole lot more complicated yet again.

Chapter Sixteen

Preliator had a communications channel open to the Pride of the Alliance before anyone could blink twice.

”This is Commodore Preliator Acer. Report your status!” He ordered.

“Sir,” Auctorita’s voice said over the comm., “most of the fleet had already folded out of here when these guys showed up. It’s just us and fourteen other Quevian cruisers. We are under attack by perhaps twelve Ghaleran vessels, but we have one problem; they seem to have singularity generators. One of our sister ships was already caught by a close range singularity, and ripped to shreds. If we let any of the ships targeting the Pride get off a shot, we’ll be dead before you can say ‘boom.’ We have nothing that can repel that kind of technology.”

Preliator sighed. He needed to be on the bridge of his ship- or any ship- during a time like this, and here he was in a small shuttle, having to passively observe everything. He had no more time to brood, however, as he saw a familiar metal sphere leave the torpedo tube of a Ghaleran ship, and head towards the Pride of the Alliance.

He stared in horror as time seemed to slow down. The sphere was slowly spinning towards the massive Quevian ship, all but invisible to sensors, and therefore impossible to target. He did it automatically without realizing it; he reached down deep inside of himself and drew out the energy he expected to be there. He snapped to reality in surprise when he found it, flowing through his veins, warming him as he drew it out. He had no time to wonder at exactly how he possessed Ghaleran Omni energy, but instead used what he had learned in the dream world to snap an energy field around the metal sphere. It immediately stopped all of its forward momentum, barely a kilometer from the Ghaleran cruiser that had launched it.

Preliator let a smirk overcome his facial features.

“It’s a whole new ball game now boys and girls,” he growled, “and guess which team has the home field advantage?”

He crushed the tiny sphere inside of his energy field, its singularity expanding outwards instantly. The Ghaleran cruiser was consumed by the weapon it had launched, without any time to react. Preliator quickly reached out and performed the same trick on three other cruisers that were attempting to fire singularity spheres. Within two minutes, half of the attacking enemy force was destroyed, and the rest were retreating. Preliator couldn’t help but smile at his amazing little turn of luck. Auctorita sent them a message a few seconds after the ships had cleared off to indicate that the shuttle bay was ready for them.

The shuttle’s pilot manipulated a few controls, bringing them closer to the aft section of the Pride of the Alliance. Preliator was about to ask how they were going to pass through solid hull when a section of the hull actually melted and bubbled over onto the areas that weren’t being disintegrated. A massive docking bay was revealed, hundreds of small craft filling it. Some, such as the shuttles, were resting on the deck. It was the fighters that were in a slightly awkward position. They were all hung from the seventy-five meter high ceiling, upside down. It looked like it would be impossible for any pilots to board the fighters.

The pilot gently set the shuttle down on the floor of the bay, ripples spreading out from the points of impact like a stone hitting water. Preliator’s mouth was hanging open at this; how could a floor, seemingly made out of solid metal, ripple? He thought over what he knew of physics, and assured himself that metal did not normally act like water. The pilot of the shuttle, who was Quevian, seemed entirely oblivious to the scene, as if it was something completely normal to him.

“Did you notice that?” Preliator asked him.

“Notice what?” The pilot responded. “That the shuttles haven’t been disintegrated yet? They must all have pilots waiting in them, on standby for some reason or another. Of course, the fighters are on standby all the time, so they are always formed, but no surprise there. I’m going to head back to operations now, to retrieve my orders, sir. Just follow the thought patterns to the bridge.”

Preliator restrained a gasp as he witnessed the pilot dissolving into energy, flowing out of the shuttle’s open door. He then actually did gasp as the shuttle disappeared around him, being absorbed by the floor of the shuttle bay, which Preliator was currently in the process of falling on. When his rear smacked painfully against the metal he found out that it was not the liquid it had appeared to be. It certainly felt real enough, at least.

As he looked around, he began to wonder how he was supposed to exit from the room. The bulkhead had re-formed, and he could see no other doors anywhere around him. It seemed that the shuttle bay had no entrances or exits. He was about to shout out loud for help when Auctorita shimmered into existence beside him.

“Shouldn’t you be on the bridge, Preliator?”

“I would be if I could figure out how to navigate through this damned ship.” He answered dryly.

Auctorita looked as if she was barely managing to stifle a laugh. “Haven’t you figured it out yet? The Quevian cruisers don’t even come close to working on the same rules that human designs do. The majority of this ship is made of Omesia, the energy that forms the Quevian life force. This means that in most areas of the ship, and on the hull, the energy can manipulate itself at the direction of the crew to change into openings. The entire ship can’t transform as such, but that’s just because of the Omesian Generator; the superstructure of the ship has to stay in a particular configuration to conduct its output properly.”

Preliator sighed in exasperation. “You still didn’t tell me how I am supposed to get through this ship. Do I just command it to start opening holes in the wall, or what?”

This time she actually did laugh. “I thought it would have been simple to put two and two together. The majority of this ship is made of energy. You are made of energy. Here, just follow me.”

Auctorita quickly reverted to her natural Quevian form, sinking into the deck of the docking bay. The floor gave off a slight ripple, just as it had when the shuttle had touched down on it.

“Here goes nothing.” Preliator muttered.

He followed Auctorita’s example precisely, first transforming, and then sinking into the floor. The moment he came in contact with the ship, it was as if his telepathic senses were on fire. He somehow had instant access to almost every point of the ship. Appearing somewhere would be just as easy as thinking of it… and he did. He was on the bridge, sitting in the glowing command seat before he could have blinked.

“Captain on the bridge!” Auctorita hollered as she appeared nearby.

The twelve officers on the bridge all rose in unison, placing both of their fists over their chests and bowing deeply. They quickly returned to their duty stations. Preliator managed to act as if he had not just now figured out how to get around the ship.

The bridge was –and there was no other word for it- cool. The floor and walls were matte white, but the rest of its features were not so dull. It featured a thirty inch (vertically measured) plasma viewscreen that stretched around the massive room, displaying something on every inch of its length. The ceiling was one massive monitor, gigantic reports and graphs displayed across it. Some of the crewmen floated along it in their Quevian forms, probing it with energy extensions here and there. It sort of reminded Preliator of the Freemont Street Experience in downtown Las Vegas. The rest of the crewmen were in various forms… some humanoid, some tripedal, some quadrapedal… each seemingly matched to their particular stations. The helmsman, for instance, had eight thin arms and six legs. All of the limbs were manipulating a control of some type, keeping the ship moving in a precise and controlled pattern that even the best computer could not match.

As he finished his visual inspection of the bridge, Preliator began calling out orders.

“Helm, set course for Galactic Alliance headquarters. Communications, signal fleet to move out. Coordinate and get us out of here simultaneously; I don’t want even a single ship left on its own for a moment anymore. We cannot leave the Ghalerans tactical holes to exploit.”

Two officers quickly confirmed their orders and got on them. Preliator could not help but admire the efficiency this crew seemed to work with.

“Sir,” Auctorita said to get his attention, “I am getting highly distorted communications signals from the fleet jump coordinates. The rest of the fleet seems to have had a problem. We’re not sure what; something seems to be severely affecting the signals at the source.”

He quickly went over the situation in his mind. Over a thousand Galactic Alliance vessels had transited at the same time into a set area within the G.A. capital system. Only fourteen or so ships were left behind, and were quickly attacked… after the Ghaleran vessels had decloaked. This meant that they had been waiting and watching for the fleet to transit. But they would have had no reason to expect for ships to be left behind to protect a dead system… so why observe the fleet? The only reason would be…

“They’ve been ambushed!” Preliator shouted as it clicked in his mind.

“But, sir, how?” Auctorita looked highly confused. “The Ghalerans do not have enough ships to assault the Galactic Alliance Alpha fleet.”

He grimaced as he responded. “They didn’t need enough ships. They just needed to know when and where the ships were going to appear… and with strong enough singularities…”

Auctorita went pale. “What can we do?”

Preliator abandoned common sense for a moment. He didn’t think about the fact that if the Ghalerans had the power to destroy a fleet, they had the power to destroy a few ships. It only mattered that a fleet of enemy vessels was currently in friendly territory, with virtually nothing between them and the civilians the G.A. fleet had been tasked with protecting.

“Engage drive systems. Order the other ships to follow us into Galactic Alliance space. Place us at least a hundred thousand kilometers from the initial jump coordinates, and make sure no ships arrive any closer than that.”

He barely felt the smooth transition as the helmsman expertly manipulated his controls, dropping the massive vessel into the seventh circle of Hell.

The monitors came alive with horrific pictures, the images of hundreds of destroyed vessels clustered together in the midst of more than thirty artificial singularities. Maybe twenty of the G.A. cruisers out of more than a thousand were still entirely intact… and even they didn’t look as if they would last for long. They were all caught in the event horizon, their powerful drives struggling just to keep their backwards movement at a minimum.

“Where are the Ghaleran vessels?” Preliator asked quickly.

One of the sensor operators came back with a report immediately. “From the drive signatures, I would estimate they left almost simultaneously with our arrival. Their course looks to be towards I.D.L. held territory. From the readings near that cluster of black holes, I would say that a few of their own ships probably got caught in their trap. They probably underestimated the strength of the singularity spheres.”

Preliator nodded. He couldn’t be worried about the enemy vessels if they were already gone. The only thing that mattered now was getting those twenty ships out of the great maw of the black hole cluster before they were lost forever.

“Have the other twelve ships maneuver themselves alongside the remainder of the fleet. They are to activate fully anti-gravity fields, and link magnetic coupling beams with the fleet. Together, they should be able to negate enough of the gravity and generate enough thrust to begin a slow ascent from the event horizon. While they are doing that, and buying us time, we will destroy those singularities.”

Preliator didn’t know if what he was planning was possible, but judging based on the looks he was getting from his crew, they didn’t think that it was.

While she was also sending the orders to the rest of the fleet, Auctorita questioned him. “Exactly how do we destroy singularities?”

“Just fly us towards the center of those black holes,” Preliator ordered the helmsman, “and keep us as close to the zero-gravity zones created by the conflicting gravity forces as possible.”

He then turned towards Auctorita. “I’ll be the one destroying the singularities… at least to some extent. I figure if I can generate a large enough Omni-energy field, I can collapse the spatial tears that the singularity spheres generated. Now, if everyone would just carry out their orders and not interrupt me, I would appreciate it. This is going to require a hell of a lot of concentration on my part.”

No one said a word as the ship flew headlong on what seemed like a suicide mission. It hurtled past the event horizons of several different black holes, only the pockets of neutral gravity created by the opposite pulls of the singularities letting it survive. Even with the protection of the null-gravity though, a few ‘bumps’ into high-pull areas could not be avoided. Armor was being ripped from the hull, the drives were straining and spewing fire from the massive emitter on the back of the ship, and consoles dimmed and brightened all over the vessel.

Preliator reached deep into his own life energy, his Omesia, and brought it out of him with some of his Omni energy. He melded it with the ship’s energy, his Omni energy spreading instantly throughout it as if it was replicating. It transformed pockets of the ship’s own energy here and there, calling upon the reactor’s massive reserves. Preliator had never felt such power flowing through him; he was actually controlling the flow of energy throughout the entirety of the Pride of the Alliance!

“Warning,” a monotone voice called out from the ship’s speakers, “Omesia energy reserves are being depleted rapidly. Source of energy drain is located on the bridge.”

Everyone turned to look at him as Preliator began to glow brighter and brighter. He felt as if he could wrestle a thousand bulls… he had an amount of power within him that no one had touched on before! It kept growing and growing, his connection to the ship increasing. Finally, he could feel it reach its critical point, and he released it. Thirty-six fields of energy snapped down on thirty-six singularities all at the same time.

Thirty-six explosions went off at the same time, filling the sector with a bright white light of a brilliance that could not be characterized by mere words.

The energy washed over the two thousand Quevians on the Pride of the Alliance from thirty-six different originating points. The ship was tossed about like a mouse being twirled by a gorilla.

Preliator could not let his ship and crew be destroyed… he called upon every ounce of power available to him. He drained every last speck of his life force into one last ditch attempt to create a protective energy field around the vessel. He immediately collapsed, his entire body going cold. He could only hope he had done enough.

Chapter Seventeen

In an all too familiar experience, Preliator awoke amidst the harsh rays of a medical facility’s lighting. It felt as if a dull toothache was encompassing his body… nothing intolerable, just painful enough to be a nuisance.

“What the hell happened to me?” He asked in a whisper, being careful not to provoke a horrible migraine he could feel building within his skull.