3.22.

The armadas arrived in their destination systems simultaneously. They were detected at the exact same moment by both of the defense forces, and this time neither of the defenders were caught off their guards. They had received word of the coming attack from a source that they had very deep inside enemy territory.

While the Tumbaruno Toko had been operating independently, they had been providing a constant stream of intelligence to their government about their guerrilla activities. The buildup they had noticed had been reported promptly. Though the Toko had been unable to do more than issue warning, that warning was enough to change the tide of battle.

On planet Totola, the sky abruptly changed. On the side of the planet that was day, the blue sky changed to a kaleidoscope of orange, red, green, violet and blue. On the dark side, the stars began shifting from location to location as the prismatic effects of the orbital shields took place.

A thousand vessels force their way out of the hyperatomic plane and were immediately fired upon by the defenders. There was no attempts at diplomacy, no posturing or ultimatums. Just immediate action by the defenders, who destroyed a third of the enemy fleet while the Rosanteans were still in the process of orienting themselves back into normal space.

The battle lasted for six hours.

The children of planet Totola did not hide. They danced about under the multi-hued sky, laughing and singing and playing in joy to see the defensive measures activated. Their parents were more sedate, but even when a ripple of an orbital strike impacted against the shields, they barely flinched.

Planet Totola was a fortress. They were as safe as they could be in this time of strife.

When the last Rosantean ship fled, the defenders allowed it to retreat. Only the Rosantean cowards and deserters remained from the initial force.

The defenders reviewed the wreckage that had been delivered to their system by the Rosanteans and sighed. This would take some time to clean up.

Without further discussion, half of the defenders of planet Totola abruptly jumped into the hyperatomic plane. One of their new allies was still under attack, and they would not sit idly by now that the threat to their own planet was resolved.

Their arrival would come at a pivotal moment in the third battle for Earth.

~~~~~~

The sirens came halfway through the movie, interrupting the private moment that the tweens were sharing. They had been holding hands throughout the rom-com, and John was still blushing over Emily’s decision to give him a kiss on the cheek. Abruptly the projectors stopped and the lights came on. The audience realized what was happening in unison.

Earth was under attack once more.

Despite the seriousness of the situation, they did not panic. They calmly filed their way out of the movie theater to where the security guards were issuing orders. They were encouraged not to return home, but to shelter in place in the regions of the mall that were rated for extreme weather.

Emily noticed that John’s reaction differed from hers. She was terrified. He had gone quiet. Calm. Collected. He pulled what looked like a pen from his pocket and stared at the silver object.

“John, are you okay?”

“He gave me strange matter when he came to visit,” John said. “Trewali. He said ‘just in case’ and gave me enough strange matter to fight for weeks. I didn’t tell anyone.”

“What are you talking about?”

The change happened so swiftly that Emily could barely process what she saw. The nearby trash can, the floor, and parts of the wall abruptly swirled and enveloped John. He was suddenly wearing that same armor that she had seen him wearing in the film of him fighting against the authorities in.

Except that he was glowing blue.

A second later, another blur of dust, and a vest of some strange device wrapped itself around her chest.

“Don’t take that off,” he told her. “It will keep you safe. Stay here. I’ll secure the area. If they come for us here, I’ll make them regret it.”

He leapt into the air and vanished through a skylight, the glass bursting outward, with only a few shards falling to the ground beneath. People had turned and were recording the scene on their camera phones.

She swallowed.

She had almost forgotten that her new friend was a superhero.

~~~~~

Enidi twitched as her wetware abruptly gave her a situation-report. The sit-rep detailed all that the scouts of Taskforce Ragnarok had on the incoming attack.

Overwhelming numbers. Dropships and troop carriers. Orbital bombardment possible, perhaps likely.

She cursed in Mokoari, surprising the children in her charge. She chewed her lip as she began planning her response.

Her grasp of the tribe’s language was better, but not the best. She quickly brought the children whom she was keeping an eye on to one of the other village women and begged her help, explaining that she had to deal with an emergency. The other woman, happy to help, simply smiled and took the toddler from Enidi’s arms.

Enidi vanished into the jungle surrounding the village, rushing towards the crash site.

Towari, seeing his wife suddenly abandon the village, followed with concern. He began growing nervous as he followed her to the sacred site where the god had come to earth, but continued to observe using his stealth and guile.

Enidi stepped into the pod, and the god emerged. Towari gasped and she looked straight at him.

“Towari,” she said. “Evil spirits come from sky. Will you fight?”

He was married to a god? He was married to a god! She was asking him to fight evil spirits? She was asking him to fight evil spirits!

“How?” he asked.

She waved her arms, and the stone nearby abruptly changed shape by magic.

“Stand in there. Is fire arrow shooter. Stand inside and point at the spirits as they come. Shoot at spirits in the sky,” she instructed.

He nodded, stepping inside the cover of the turret. He stepped inside, and magic turned the walls transparent. More, he could see lights and symbols. The symbols tracked his motions, with the turret outside aiming where he was looking. He closed his hand, and the turret shot, blowing a fiery hole through the atmosphere.

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He gasped. The God – his wife – had entrusted him with a sliver of her power.

He would make any evil spirit that came near her sacred hut regret it.

“I fight for you, wife,” he promised.

“It will help guide your aim,” she promised. “And you will be safest if you stay inside. I go to secure the village next.”

He nodded. He would fight here, using this strange magic that his wife-god had given him. He would stop the evil spirits from coming to the valley of the Mokoari.

He swallowed.

He hoped that he would not die in the effort.

~~~~~

Olivia was guiding the children under her care into the basement of the hospital when the call came in. She didn’t recognize the number, but she answered immediately.

“Olivia, are you safe?” John asked.

Despite the urgency of his words, there was a calm in his voice. Like he finally understood his place in the world.

“Yes, John. As safe as we can be. We’re moving all of the patients into secure locations until the battle is over,” she told him. “Stay at the mall with Emily, John. It’s best to shelter in place during this, so don’t try to go home.”

“I’ve already secured the mall,” John answered. “I’ve put up thirty-six anti-aircraft weapons on its roof and in its parking lots. They should be able to tell the difference between earth aircraft and Rosanteans, but I have volunteers who are guiding them anyway. I’m on my way to the hospital now.”

Olivia swallowed as she understood his words.

This wasn’t like the last battle for Earth, where John had been decommissioned and as helpless as a normal child. He had his abilities back. And no matter what she said, he was going to try to use them to defend the city.

“John, have you spoken with the authorities since the attack launched?”

“I--” John stopped. “Understood. I will contact the police and volunteer my services.”

“That’s not what I meant. Do they know that you’re going to be fighting? Will they be able to tell the difference between you and the enemy if they make it to the planet’s surface?”

He frowned. “Understood. I will contact the authorities and establish that I am a friendly unit.”

“You’re not a unit, John,” she reminded him.

“Yes, I know Olivia. I need to go. Send anyone who wants to fight to the roofs or the parking lots and I will give them the weapons to defend their homes,” John said.

The line clicked and went dead.

She swallowed again and dialed Agent Morrison. Perhaps he would know what to say to John in this situation, because she definitely did not.

~~~~~~~

Lisa Desmond read the report as the computer blared at her. All civilian forces capable of faster than light travel were ordered to leave the system for the duration of the battle. This was for a number of reasons, including their protection, the avoidance of friendly fire, and simply to reduce the load on the system’s defenders.

She nodded. The Defiant , despite its name, had no weapons. She would be useless unless she chose to ram one of the enemies with her ship, and that would be suicide.

So she set course for Triumverant space and launched her ship at its maximum speed. The thrum of its engines and the slight tang she tasted in her mouth from the stress of the FTL drive made her smile.

She wished that she had left days ago, but she had delayed. She reflected on her plans.

She would hire as many privateers as she could, but she would not send them into sol-space to help the defense.

The Rosanteans had sent military forces to invade her home and kill her husband.

She would return the favor.

Her grin was a malicious rictus as she contemplated her revenge.

~~~~~~~

Sergeant Luca Moretti casually drew one of the toothpicks that the lieutenant was holding. It was unbroken. He shrugged and stepped back, allowing the next man in line to step up and draw a toothpick.

They were all pilots. All trained on the experimental Stingray. Luca couldn’t understand the name of the damn thing; it looked nothing like a stingray. More like a ball with every weapon that the R and D boys could strap onto it strapped on to it.

It was the premier space superiority fighter that the ESF had spent billions of dollars researching. It operated with a capaciter that was able to store gigawatts of energy. Its ion engines were sleek and swift, capable of twelve-Gs of acceleration. It had missiles and miniguns aplenty, and was designed for carnage and mayhem galore.

And it was completely obsolete in the days post-contact with the aliens.

Well, that wasn’t exactly true, Luca reflected to himself. They were a fair sight better than the Winnebago class starships that Captain Kirk had died in, and those were a legitimate part of the order of battle. Granted, the Earth had strapped a bunch of missiles and other weapons to the ones that they were using, but nobody was defying orders when those pilots took to the stars.

But the Lieutenant, by giving his men the keys to the sixteen Stingrays, was lining himself up for a court martial.

The Stingray had one fatal design flaw that made it obsolete. It was all death and mayhem strapped around a Tunnel Drive, and since the Seeker had returned, the Tunnel Drive was being officially retired. Nobody had ever gone through the Tunnel Drive conscious, which is what was required to pilot the Stingray at FTL speeds.

But in this battle, with thousands of ship and billions of lives at stake, the Earth was throwing everything they had at the enemy. Including the Stingrays.

The sixteen pilots drew their short sticks and began getting into line. Luca floated up beside Sergeant Trang. Together, they began going through the pre-flight checklist. They were warming up the engines and testing the weapons systems together, knowing that one of them was possibly about to do something very stupid, and the other one would be safe in Mars Station, all snug as a bug.

It wasn’t until Luca drove his fist into Trang’s guts, broke his nose and knocked him unconscious that Trang realized that, short stick or not, he wasn’t about to go out into the wild black yonder on this particular deathtrap. Not today.

Nobody realized what Luca had done until they were pulling out of the station and radioing in to the command their official disobedience to the orders to return and power down their spacecraft. After repeating the order to return to the station three times, the admiral on duty relented.

“We’re loading you crazy bastards into our firing plan. Since you’re intent on killing yourselves, you might as well do it in an organized fashion.”

“Confirmed, Sir,” the lieutenant said. “Moretti, what the fuck are you doing? Where’s Trang?”

“Trang’s wife is pregnant, sir,” Luca said simply.

There was silence over the radio for a moment, then an “Acknowledged. Get in formation.”

Luca got in formation. The crazy bastards operating the literal death traps known as Stingrays fired up their Tunnel Drives and shot into position to take the fight to the enemy.

Of the sixteen stingrays that launched, only eight survived the battle. Sometimes, Luca wished that he had been one of the lucky ones to get blown into his constituent atoms.

It would be better than the nightmares, and the visions, and the knowledge that was inside his head but which he just couldn’t quite touch.

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