Three months has passed since Ancient Legends inc had bombed the planet. Once again for the elderly and for the first time for TKE and Clanedd, Earth was green a ball of life. Trees were growing, and the wildlife was returning to the places where they belong.
TKE sat down in observatory Deck 12, cup of coffee in his hand. As he stared down to the planet before him, he could not help but think, is this what my youth have been deprived of? My human ancestors, my family if at all, all had the privilege of Earth and I did not… Life is never fair.
As of 2096, TKE was reaching a chronological age of 38. But due to the use of the Bio-RIG and exposure to various forms of space radiation, his body still functioned as well as when he was biologically 20 years old.
The little voice next to him spoke.
"Earth has really changed. Don't you think? After all those years..." Her voice trailed off.
Clanedd held a cup of tea and sat cross legged next to the head engineer. Ripe and cheerful as a 19 year old. Her face flushed slightly, not much but noticeable.
TKE remained silent, but nodded in agreement.
Clanedd immediately changed the subject, "Anyways, how is that going on?"
She pointed through the window, into the distance about 100 meters from the station. From the observatory deck, the new science or rather, engineering project, the TeraNova was already underway.
The 900m long steel frame had already been assembled and the command deck was already being put together. A new endeavor Saegen had called it. The first manned starship, capable of faster than light transit. It certainly was not something heard of until 2085, the invention of the Alcubierre ive.
"Say..." Clanedd began speaking slowly, emphasizing every word. "Remember that time when you brought me down to Earth to ICY?"
TKE nodded. Clanedd continued.
"You do remember that you said one day, you were going to bring me down to Earth once the environment had been repaired. Just you and me?"
TKE nodded again. He put his now empty coffee cup back onto its saucer and replied.
"Yes, I have. By the way, you had been given medical leave due to some weird thing called ‘shock’ and I for my broken arm, poor me..."
His vision strayed and finally rested on Clanedd's face.
"Why don't we go down next week? It is our final week of leave and I do want to check out some of the after effects of the ANEB anyways.”
“What about EarthGov? Don’t they…”
“EarthGov wouldn’t give a single flying hiss about us.” TKE said, interrupting Clanedd. “And EarthGov has better things to do then to chase us, don’t they?"
Clanedd's eyes gleamed like a cat that had got the cream. She jumped up and put her arm around TKE's neck, almost comically. He could smell the perfume from her hair.
"Yay! Thanks! I really look forward to it!" Clanedd cheered.
TKE, lost balance and toppled over, ending up with Clanedd literally sitting on him.
“Err… Clanedd?” TKE stammered, his face turning red. “Could… You get off please? What if someone sees us like this?”
“Are you calling me fat?” Clanedd fumed, puffing out her cheeks. “You’re gonna pay of that.”
Grinning sheepishly, TKE had no words. He could only laugh in a futile attempt. Luckily for the two, nobody found their way into the observatory deck. TKE’s dignity was thus saved. However, that was also how TKE's entire day was spent. Doing absolutely nothing… But hey, that’s what people with recovering, broken arms should do right?
A new spaceplane was being built. As it was designed personally by TKE, it was very much similar to the one that took him and a few others to Earth in 2090, but this time with some minor tweaks.
The combustion engines were now replaced with high saturation xenon propulsion. The main uranium radioisotopic thermoelectric generator was replaced by a new, compact and not-quite-so-efficient-but-more-efficient-than-the-RTG Shangri-La Fusion Reactor which ran on H2, or deuterium. A hydrogen isotope.
The fuselage was now three layers thick. A ceramic outer hull plating, and titanium interior walls, separated by a two centimeter thick layer of graphite-aerogel.
98.8% of graphite-aerogel’s mass consists of air, thereby making it the second lightest solid ever produced, just behind actual aerogel.
It, like its original variant, is also extremely heat resistant, so much so that one can hold a thin film of it being heated by a blowtorch and still not get burnt. What was special about this version was that the little carbon strands within it’s amorphous structure was relatively heat conductive, allowing heat to be dissipated and/or radiated away efficiently before it even penetrated the aerogel layers.
However it was very brittle and rather expensive to manufacture. Saegen did wonder why was TKE using such an expensive material for a simple trans-orbital spaceplane where other cheaper alternatives could be used.
TKE only just smiled and replied simply with, "I'm not taking any more chances with that pilot again. Period."
On the pretext of ‘testing an exploration plane for the TeraNova project’ and gathering data regarding Ancient Legend’s ANEB, TKE had it put together in about 148 man hours, or about six days and a bit.
TKE thought it was beautiful, despite suspicious objections to the head engineer’s opinions. He told them to bugger off and in the hierarchy of the engineering sector, TKE’s opinions were final.
Its hull was painted white with a single navy blue stripe running down the length of the ten meter long plane. Its squarish engines had two black, amorphous carbon rings mounted around them, giving it a better cooling gradient and a more ‘high-tech’ look.
The plane was ready. As the doors of the hanger bay slid open, TKE stepped into the room, flight helmet locked under his right arm. Clanedd followed closely behind. He stepped up next to the plane and instinctively reached up to touch the plane's glossy body.
Amazing, he thought to himself. Impressive work by engineering. Hopefully they would be able to keep up this kind of standard even after the TeraNova has landed on another planet…
TKE accessed his RIG and pressed a few buttons. The foldable walkway of the plane slid open smoothly and soundlessly. TKE put his feet on the first step and began to climb. He felt like a father who was about to see his child for the first time.
"Hello again!" that infamous voice rang out. Kuro sat on the pilot seat with his feet up on the dashboard. Five years may have passed but he had not changed in appearance (or personality) by a bit.
“Oh, not you again.” TKE moaned.
“You weren’t assigned to this job again now were you? Our manager would have…”
“Ah, he didn’t.” Kuro said with a grin. “I volunteered.”
“Bugger.” TKE said. “And who’s that?”
Behind him, on the co-pilot seat, sat a man, of average build, about 168 cm tall and dark brown hair up to his neck. He wore a lab coat, along with the NanoTec ‘Scientist Bio-RIG.’
"This guy right here is Joe.” Said Kuro ‘as-a-matter-of-factly’. “I heard he is, or was, indirectly related to ICY Products, just like me. His dad was an employee at ICY before he died due to some accident or something."
Clanedd put forward a question, "Is Joe really his real name? Surely such a simple name doesn’t exist in this time and age?”
"Nope, they don’t!" Kuro immediately replied with utmost confidence.”
Clanedd sighed. I figured as much, she thought to herself.
TKE and Clanedd sat themselves at the back of the plane as the walkway folded back up. Joe finally spoke, almost in the same way as Kuro speaks.
"Nice to meet you two, sir-s."
Kuro laughed and spoke, "Ah, and here we come to one of his really bad habits. He calls everyone, including me, 'sir' and when referring to multiple people, 'sir-s'"
Kuro exaggerated the 's' behind the 'sir'.
"Am I right to say that Joe?"
His reply came swift and light-heartedly, "Yes sir. Also, you forgot the cryo chamber part."
“Yeah whatever.” Kuro dismissed his friend with a laugh.
By that time, the spaceplane was already being shifted into the hanger airlock by a pair of magnetic rails. The blast doors clanged shut and the atmospheric pressure within the airlock was slowly lowered to match that in space.
Kuro continued, "While I call him Joe, everyone else also calls him Joe. But you may call him Joe. That's fine by you guys right?"
“I think that was rather redundant…” Clanedd deadpanned.
“It was.” Kuro said. “Oh, and I have dubbed him the name ‘Sir-Caller’ as well. After all, his real last name is Koller, a native German… Ex-German!”
Sir-Caller spoke, "Yes sir, that is correct. I am German and so are my parents. But I certainly am not a Nazi… Well, even if I was, you all would Nazi that coming."
TKE opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by Kuro.
"Oh yes, I completely forgot.” He said quickly and excitedly. “*Ahem* Welcome to the FasterThanLight Express! Buckle up and enjoy the ride!"
The blast door opened up and Kuro maneuvered the spaceplane out into the vacuums of space.
“Ann Frankly, I found that rather insulting, Joe.” Kuro laughed, throwing yet another Nazi pun into the fray.
With that he flicked multiple switches on the ceiling of the plane, pushed the rudder towards the left and pulled the joystick to the right and towards himself. Kuro pulled out a pair of shades from his shirt pocket and put them on.
"Oh, its on now!"
Then the plane rotated rapidly and after pushing the throttle up to its maximum, the spaceplane dove downwards into the newly restored atmosphere of planet Earth.
The craft still shook violently under the control of pilot Kuro, despite it being built rugged and highly adapted for reentry.
Sir-Caller on the other hand did not even bat an eyelid at Kuro's dangerous but futile attempt at being 'awesome'. He reached into his lab coat pocket and pulled out another pair of sunglasses.
"Now this is what I call...” Sir-Caller put on the sunglasses. “A warm welcome!”
Clanedd, just as she did six years ago, clung onto TKE like a child would to his toys.
“What the *expletive * was that?!” Clanedd yelled over the factory like rattling within the craft.
“A pun, sir!” Sir-Caller replied calmly with a grin.
"Man, the controls feel really smooth on this one. Even Joe, would not have been able to achieve such perfection. Good job!" Kuro yelled out to the terrified engineers.
"Now, I wonder what would happen when I press this button..." Kuro said to himself as he lowered his hand onto a red button by the throttle.
"Ah… He found the overdrive button… Hold on, who put that there?!” TKE tried to object.
Kuro's finger was, unfortunately, faster and had already pressed it. The computer system resounded out, "*Overive enabled! All safety protocols disabled. Have fun!*"
Kuro's face lit up as brightly as the blazing ion engines. He said nothing. Just smiled as the spaceplane started accelerating faster, and faster. TKE and Clanedd were already finding it difficult to breath and could do nothing to object.
The stream of highly potent cations grew brighter and denser. The translucent blue trail stretched as far as 10 meters behind the spaceplane and the stream left the engine module glowing bright orange.
The plane jerked backwards in a jolt of deceleration just as it hit the upper stratosphere. A oblique sphere of glowing blue plasma enveloped the craft, indicating that atmospheric friction was heating the surrounding air to a temperature much higher than the boiling point of carbon.
Needless to say, the ceramic plating began melting or rather, ablating, scattering porcelain dust off into the wind. 30 kilometers up, the craft was thrown into a massive fit of turbulence as a white halo of air, the hypersonic shockwave, exploded out from the rear of the plane.
Again, TKE and Clanedd said nothing. They were busy trying to read the book, ‘How to Survive Extreme Velocity Plane Crashes for Dummies’, that was tucked neatly under their seats.
Kuro was coming down over the continent of Asia, more specifically, over what used to be China. The new rural agricultural lands were already coming to view and fast.
TKE was not confident in Kuro's abilities to get him down to the ground in one piece as evident by the last time Kuro attempted a high speed docking with SkyLab2.
He shut his eyes tight instinctively and grabbed the closest thing to him, which was Clanedd, and began yelling vulgarities at the top of his lungs.
The plane did a full 90 degrees turn, from racing straight down to running parallel to the ground. Now the craft was cruising at Mach 8 along the ground, across the continent.
"Hmm, 18658m/s and 121G. Nice! A new record!" Kuro shouted to himself and gave Joe a high-five.
“Sir, the swearing stopped.” Sir-Caller stated nonchalantly.
“Good job Sherlock.” Kuro said as he banked hard left to avoid the ice capped peaks of the Pamir Mountains. “I realize.”
“You think they are OK sir?”
“Probably… Maybe, who knows. Chances are, they probably are main characters in some weird story and can’t die due to plot armor.”
“Fair enough.” Sir-Caller said, leaning back onto his seat and stretching his arms behind his head.
Kuro made the plane do two front flips, three back, two barrel rolls and a round-the-world trip before extending out the sleigh landing gear and bringing the plane down to lithobreak onto a grassy hill at slightly less than the speed of sound.
Once landed, he accessed his RIG and with a graceful flick of his fingers, depressurized the cabin and extended the retractable walkway.
By that time, TKE had already regained consciousness and was attempting to stand like a factory worker with a hangover.
"Thank you for flying with..." Kuro spoke out like an air steward.
TKE did not want to hear it. He carried, or more accurately, dragged Clanedd out of the plane with a pair of shaking hands.
"Don't worry. We will take good care of this plane...sir." Sir-Caller yelled out after them. TKE walked, or rather stumbled over to a nearby tree and sat under its shade. He gave the finger to Sir-Caller who was eying the Head Engineer through the starboard viewing port.
“OK, fine sir.” Sir-Caller now said through the RIG short range communication functions. “We will take our leave now. Sir says he would like to run the shuttle through a pilot test. We will be back when you call sir.”
The shuttle began to hover a few meters above the ground. “And away we go!” Kuro could be heard in the background as the grass above the spaceplane was instantly obliterated by the ion wash.
TKE sighed as he tilted his head slightly and noticed a Chinese looking man wearing a straw hat, holding a pitchfork, approaching the head engineer.
He pointed behind him to a field of burning rice plants and proceeded to yell wildly in an alien language, also known as Mandarin.
The Chinese farmer, having finished his rant then turned around in a huff and stormed down the hill. TKE sighed to himself again. Apparently by flying at such speeds, all the super heated plasma the spaceplane brought down with it were all blasted onto the fields and evaporated everything in its path. No wonder the fire and that was all Kuro's fault.
I'm surprised that nobody got hurt from that. TKE thought to himself. It’s a wonder as to how that could have happened… Or maybe it was Kuro’s avid flying skills, as much as I would hate to admit that.
TKE lay back against the bark of the tree. Watching the burning fields, he contemplated his actions of the past... All the technology he had created, by accident or otherwise may well lead to destruction. Destruction of the planet or maybe even the entire universe. Only time would tell and even if that were the case, TKE’s former self could not possibly be alive to bear witness to it, even if his body may continue to live on into the neverending void he may inevitably create…
Clanedd stirred and blinked. Her head was throbbing, no surprise there, and her body ached painfully. Also no surprise. She opened her eyes slowly and stared up into TKE's face.
The leaves of the overshadowing tree, the blue sky and fluffy white clouds lay beyond his face.
"Finally awake?" he spoke gently and yet somehow distantly.
She remained silent. Clanedd was lying on TKE's lap. A strange sensation welled up in her being.
TKE continued. "We are on Earth now. Funny how we survived that ordeal, considering that guy's flying skills but that's besides the point.”
“Am I dead?” Clanedd asked softly.
“I don’t know. You tell me, however you seem pretty alive to me right now.”
TKE scratched the back of his head absentmindedly.
“Sorry. You’re lying on my laps. I had no energy to prop you up against the tree.”
“It’s… OK.” Clanedd stammered, her face turning slightly red with embarrassment.
“Oh? Well… OK then.”
TKE and Clanedd remained silent for a moment, taking in the scenery and breathing in the smoky air from the partially extinguished burning rice fields. TKE broke the silence.
“Have granted your wish?” He asked nervously.
Clanedd nodded. “You have… I’m glad.”
“Heh. I figured.” TKE said with a smile. “Now, time to do what we came here to do.”
“I thought you only came down to Earth for me?” Clanedd said with a grin.
“Ah, yes. That too.” TKE said, blushing slightly. “But it would shame us both if we came back with nothing now wouldn’t it?”
“That’s true… By the way, where is those two idiots?”
“Joe and Kuro?” TKE said. “They said they’d better ‘test fly’ the plane by having it fly around in loops as you can see by the vapor trails in the sky.”
“Of course they would… Can we stay here for a little while more? We have the whole day don’t we?”
“I suppose so… I never was a particularly hard working person either.”
Clanedd sat up right next to TKE. He did not move a bit, unlike what he would probably have done a decade ago. TKE then took another glance at the now fully extinguished but smoking rice fields.
“I hope we don’t get sued for this.” TKE said absentmindedly.
“On what grounds?” Clanedd asked.
“For vandalism and speeding.”
“That’s not what I meant…” Clanedd deadpanned. “What I mean is that, you know… Ah forget it.”
TKE laughed. Hearing Clanedd speak like that was almost like music to his ears. The key emphasis on the word ‘almost’. She wasn’t singing after all.
“We are in the Qinghai province of China at the current moment, atop a grassy hill.” TKE began. “Or at least that’s what EarthGov wants you to think. Below us is a secret EarthGov bunker. However, it was abandoned for the simple reason that the local farmers kept finding the bunker.”
“Enlighten me. Was it for…”
“Covert ops.” TKE instantly interpreted Clanedd’s question. “They used it to spy on InterCon and ICY Products. However it also makes good cover from aerial raids or air attacks like that thing in the sky that seems so inclined to conduct… Wait a minute.”
There, hanging in the sky was a black, rectangular shaped object that ended with a beak which looked extremely suspiciously like the same alien destroyer that attempted to invade Earth in 2084.
It was the same class of alien destroyer. TKE immediately concluded. His conclusion was made even clearer when it began cauterizing the local area with a full laser barrage fired into the ground and demolishing any standing man made structure with its missiles.
TKE would have starred blankly into the scene, being overwhelmed with grief if he had not just been yelled at by a local farmer.
“Quick! Let’s go!” TKE yelled as he grabbed Clanedd’s hand.
More and more of the Spore destroyers began sinking through the clouds, bidding their time amidst all the chaos taking place. Screams filled the air as more and more lasers began raking the scorched earth below.
“The bunker is just below us!” TKE yelled above the volume of the assault. “Follow me and don’t get lost!”
Clanedd would have replied but she could not. She was almost literally being dragged across the ground.
“Real convenient from a story telling perspective.” TKE yelled again, this time at nobody in particular. “Making a random alien invasion happen to interrupt an awkward ‘sitting under the tree’ scene!”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
The alarms were blaring red within SkyLab2 again. Saegen jumped out of his bed and ran down the hallways, only half changed and carrying his white coat under his arms.
The crew of NanoTec were scrambling. The engineers made their way to the MAG batteries and VLS, the security team members got their M24s out in preparation for a boarding attempt and the tacticians, together with Saegen, made their way up to the CNC deck.
"Radar report sir!" The radar man yelled out. "New contacts, two unknown warships within direct threat zone! T-Twenty eight more on the opposite side of the planet sir! They have entered our local airspace via sublight transit. They also seem to have passive cloaks on their ships… I can't get a lock on them from this distance!"
Saegen nodded quickly. At this moment, Claev burst into the room in his pajamas.
"Saegen, sir! We have identified the transgressors! According to these intercepted communications, EarthGov has dubbed these aliens as the 'Spores'.”
Saegen remained silent as he ushered Claev to continue.
“Their combat fleet is composed of... *ahem*... 30 destroyers. Each one uses unknown energy based weapons and anti-ship missiles. We suspected initially that they were conventional warheads but we have confirmed just a minute or two ago that they are micro-fusion warheads. Not to mention..."
Claev's report was interrupted by the high pitched blaring of SkyLab2’s alarm systems.
"*Warning! Incoming missile!*"
The system computer yelled out.
"Oh boy. Here we go aga…"
Sounds of explosions rocked through the station. The command deck shook and creaked as pretty much everyone present in CNC were thrown off their feet.
"D-Damage report!" Saegen yelled as he grabbed onto the nearest table for stability.
"Y-Yes sir!...Umm, we have multiple hull breaches across the station. No casualties."
A secondary explosion reverberated through the station. The crew grimaced at the sound.
"And a few ruptured oxygen tanks. Minor damage. We still have power!"
Saegen pulled himself to his feet and opened up his RIG communicators.
“Gunners! What the hell is going on there?! Open fire!”
“Guns are warming up sir! We cannot fire without risking cracking the…”
“I don’t care! Light em’ up!”
“Y-Yes… Yes sir!”
In front of the two engineers were the rusted steel bulkheads of a 30 year old bunker. Before Clanedd could place both of her hands on the bulkhead, TKE kicked it open with a sharp kick to its edge.
With a loud creak and a crack, the bulkhead snapped off its hinges and in a cloud of rust and dust, fell inwards with a bang, resonating with a ringing clatter.
“Was that really necessary?” Clanedd questioned. “You could’ve…”
Then, Clanedd was interrupted by TKE dragging her into the bunker before hoisting the broken bunker door back against its frame and supporting it with a conveniently nearby table.
“No, it wasn’t.” TKE said. “It was fun though.”
Clanedd pressed her palm against her forehead, sighed and said nothing else.
TKE began scanning his surroundings. The bunker had a cracking concrete interior and old, outdated electronic equipment.
Another one of the black space craft flew overhead, bringing a gust of wind with it and collapsing the makeshift barricade TKE made. The Head Engineer then put the bulkhead back onto its frame and this time supported it with a huge analog computer.
It was most certainly not safe outside… Kuro must be having a ball. Further inside the bunker on the other hand was dark, cramped and musty.
Dust and cobwebs lined the walls. It fit the description of a haunted house, except the bunker was not haunted and was definitely not a house.
TKE opened his RIG and toggled his engineering flashlight on. Upon closer inspection, the electronics were fragile and many of their components mimicked wire meshes and cable frames. It was surprising to note that some of them were still in operational condition.
Communication devices. Some were designed for decrypting and encrypting messages. Others, for sending and receiving said messages. The last machine that stood on its own by the rightmost corner of the bunker atop a wooden stool was an old ‘App-Le’ computer the bunker occupants used to watch cat videos on. That one was broken beyond repair.
While working similarly to their newer counterparts via radio, the transmitters did not work on a molecular level and that made communications easily intercepted. ICY Products used that to their advantage for the past 50 years or so.
The sound of the bombardment could still be heard from within the bunker and the ground shifted with each impact, dust sifting from the ceiling. Clanedd flinched at each sound, instinctively looking for something to grab onto each time dust fell from the ceiling. TKE sneezed each time that happened.
The Head Engineer knelt by the radio transmitter and pulled open a maintenance panel.
"Helps if you are an engineer, huh?" He mumbled to himself. “Always have to fix other people’s machines…”
Another explosion reverberated through the concrete structure. A close hit. Clanedd stumbled and nearly fell over if not for a nearby hand rail.
TKE spoke over his shoulder, "Hey, Clanned.”
“Yes Tee… Sir?”
“It’s fine. No need to call me sir. Could you go find, say, a backup generator or a power bank somewhere around?"
Her reply came immediately, "Yes ma’am! On my way." She finished with a snicker.
“That was on purpose now wasn’t it?” TKE deadpanned.
“No ma’am.” Clanedd said while doing the innocence whistle.
The sound of her footsteps echoed down the bunker. TKE sighed with a smile. That’s going to become a trend. He thought to himself. I guarantee it!
"I wonder what’s going on up there. If these aggressors are what I think they are, SkyLab2 will..."
TKE unconsciously mumbled to himself.
“Meh. I’m sure they would be fine.” TKE reassured himself. “The defenses are powerful enough to beat the penetration records of a British porn star anyways.”
“Did I hear what I think I just heard?!” Clanedd’s yell could be heard from the basement.
“No… Of course not.” TKE said calmly in reply.
The station mounted MAG cannons thundered away, slugs airborne. Missiles flew from their silos and quickly closed into their targets.
The targeted Spore destroyer spun about its nose in a targeted evasive maneuver. Two of the slugs flew harmlessly above the beak and by the destroyer’s port side respectively, producing minute amounts of sparks in the process.
A third slug sped into the target, providing no room for evasion. The solid metal slug struck the destroyer hard on its starboard, spilling black/purple armor shards from the impact point.
As the ship’s atmosphere was being vented out into the depths of high Earth orbit, the destroyer spun about, helplessly trying to regain inertia control.
The slug had embedded itself into the laser batteries of the destroyer, effectively rendering them inoperable for the rest of the day.
The ship shuddered as the interior lights spilling from the cracks in the hull flickered on and off but remained in operable service despite the damage taken.
In a seemingly desperate attempt, the Spore destroyer fired it’s engines to full throttle to escape. Saegen stared with his mouth agape at the scanner screen.
"I cannot believe it! All that power in a single shell and not a devastating strike as I would have expected… Hell, that’s alien technology for us…"
Saegen glanced at his RIG displaying the holographic counter at the upper right hand corner of the screen. It showed the charge percentage and cool down period of the MAG cannons.
Most of them were still in their reloading or recharge cycles. Those that were ready to fire were on the opposite side of the station.
"Now lets see what the missiles would do..." Saegen said to himself.
“Fire the missiles when ready… What are you waiting for?!”
Numerous thermobaric missile warheads emerged from their silos. They turned on a dime, locked onto the first Spore destroyer and boosted furiously towards it.
The salvo quickly closed in onto its prey, solid rocket boosters burning like a fire in the night. There was only so much a single ship could do against a homing missile, but one could not be too sure.
The missiles bombarded the destroyer, lighting it up like Christmas. The explosions faded away leaving behind a black, beak shaped husk with its starboard torn open.
Purplish, hunched and barely humanoid beings could be seen sucked into the vacuums of space. The ship's lighting flickered in a strobe like fashion and eventually, failed all together, never to light up again.
"So that's how our enemies look like..." Saegen mumbled to himself. He quickly issued another order, "Rearm and reload! Acquire our nex..."
His order was interrupted by a strafing attack conducted by the other destroyer skimming SkyLab2's flank. The station lighting flickered as the destroyer's laser broadside tore into the armor-less hull of SkyLab2.
The trails left scorching marks of burning polymers and molten metals across the surface.
"Dang. I forgot about that one. Reacquire target and shoot that damn thing down!” Saegen shouted.
"Ah! Got it!" Clanedd shouted.
The lights within the bunker began buzzing before finally, illuminating the place in a dim florescent glow.
The radio transmitter slowly crackled to life. The screen began showing an animated EarthGov logo and re-boot status. TKE congratulate himself silently and watched the screen closely.
The progress bar crept across the screen slowly and soon, it stopped at 99%.
"Huh? Did you touch something?” TKE asked Clanedd. She shook her head.
“Something seems oddly familiar about this…” And then the computer screen plunged into a deep blue.
"*Windows has crashed*" The computer program called out. "*Fatal error in Plugin-023. Please press "F1' to re-boot...*"
TKE shrugged his shoulders. "I kinda expected that, but didn’t. Sheesh."
Clanedd stood behind him with an equally blank face. She suddenly turned and began walking back to the basement.
“No, Clanedd. You are not allowed to bash the computer screen in with that mallet over there.”
“Ugh. Fine. Sorry.” Clanedd huffed back up the stairs, puffing out her cheeks.
About 20 seconds later the radio transmitter was reset and was booting up properly.
The EarthGov logo faded away and the transmission panel was put onto the screen. As expected, all radio connections and establishments relating to the bunker were terminated.
However, if an exact frequency was inputted in the transmitter, it would double as a receiver and allow the user to tap into any ongoing conversations.
TKE put his fingers onto the rotting plastic keyboard. Mumbling to himself, he imputed a frequency he was so familiar with.
"101.250.240.9... or was it .290.4?"
The radio apparatus suddenly began buzzing. And the buzzing soon condensed into sensible words and sounds.
"*boom* Our hull is beginning to fracture! Ah! Hull breach! Hull breach! *Static*" TKE took a step back. This was the SkyLab2 frequency. No doubt about what was going on up there. The station was being torn to pieces.
“We got to do something!” Clanedd yelled. “We can’t just sit here and watch our home get melted into a ball of space goop!”
“Sure. Perhaps you could find a way to fly back to SkyLab2 and take the enemy down while we’re at it. A fantastic idea!” TKE said sarcastically with a round of applause.
Clanedd was dumbfounded. “Point taken… Now what?!”
“Now, we hide here, stay alive and hope the aliens decide to stop their invasion for tea.”
The lasers continued tearing into the sides of the station. SkyLab2’s alarms blared as sparks flew from the ceiling and interior walls.
Circuits fried due to the extreme heat and overheating from the "Fubuki" Fission Reactors and the interior lights slipped into states of activated and deactivated.
Multiple sections of the station had to be sealed as hull breaches and fires were scattered throughout said sections. At that current moment, about a quarter of the station’s primary sectors had been lost.
The MAG cannon's automatic targeting system had gone down due to the electromagnetic influence from the Spore warship at point blank range and was placed under manual guidance. The gunners could not aim to save their lives.
"Come on! Shoot!" Saegen yelled through the communications mike.
"Missed!” Yelled the gunner through a static filled channel. “That destroyer is too fast! We can't seem to...Ahhh!"
The radio went silent as pieces of the MAG cannon and hull from under it was ripped off its turret mount and was left drifting in space. Saegen almost threw the mike down in frustration.
The Spore destroyer fired again, this time, a highly charged, potent plasma bolt. It struck the station in the artificial gravity sector and the whole station rocked with the impact.
The bolt erupted into a flash of blinding green fire, leaving a gaping hole, ringed by molten, receding metal. Oxygen and all the unlucky engineers present were pulled out to their deaths.
The whole station went dark, all lights and equipment powered down. The dim emergency lights and comm links were the only things that stayed operable.
"*Artificial gravity malfunction. System failure...Core temperature critical, initiating emergency shutdown...*"
The computer program spoke, void of emotion before shutting itself down.
“Override! Override damn it!” Saegen yelled into his RIG as he began floating upwards to the ceiling.
“*Acknowledged.*” The computer said, lighting up again.
The destroyer began charging its plasma cannon again. One more was going to overload the station's reactors. Saegen, amidst the zero gravity, hooked his RIG up directly to the computer mainframe.
Sparks flew from the connections and Saegen felt his hand burn as soon as he touched the surface of the computer. Ignoring the pain and the urge to throw up due to vertigo, he began flicking buttons on the RIG and acquired manual control of the MAG cannon closest to his target.
“*Target locked.*” The computer announced to Saegen. “*Initiating firing sequence. Ten. Nine. Eight…*”
“Fire!” Saegen yelled, interrupting the firing sequence. Who needed those anyways. The MAG gun fired, throwing the slug right at the destroyer’s nose.
The slug bounced anticlimactically off the nose of the destroyer. There was not even a dent, nor a scratch. The only consolation factor about the massive failure as that shell gave the aliens something to laugh about, halting the plasma charging cycle by about five seconds.
That five seconds was all SkyLab2 needed.
Something spectacular happened within that five seconds, like a miracle from the heavens. Call it Deus Ex Machina or whatever. It happened.
A glint of light could be seen climbing out from the atmosphere from directly below the station, engines ablaze. Claev righted himself in the microgravity environment, put his sleeping cap back onto his head and looked down through the glass window of SkyLab2. It could barely be seen by the naked eye.
The unknown craft's hull was entirely shiny, metallic silver and had four engines, plated with the same material, mounted on its large wings.
Claev opened his slightly malfunctioning RIG and zoomed into the craft. His field of view was filled with static but he was able to identify the craft as a plane... Obviously, but it was not just any kind of plane.
Claev looked closer. Its engines were burning bright orange, leaving a thin, white smoke trail. The dome shaped cockpit and ball turrets were awfully familiar. Not to mention the decals of oriental dragons on the side of the plane.
Claev's eyes widened. No doubt about it. It was a re-retrofitted B17 of the Pacific War 150 years ago.
This model was, and still are weapons of mass destruction. Big cannons, bigger lasers, could fly at Mach 4 and are capable of carrying four 50 MT nukes on its fuselage.
It was InterCon's pride and joy. The Overcast-DOI17 Bombers. Swooping in like a bird of prey, the bomber, or rather gunship, dived down onto its helpless prey. In this case, it was the last Spore destroyer.
The destroyer immediately responded to the new threat. It let loose a salvo of twelve missiles which headed for the InterCon bomber, leaving a cloud of even white smoke as exhaust.
Strangely, the gunship did not even attempt to dodge or even shoot the missiles down.
The missiles exploded like fireworks in the night sky, but the even stranger thing was that there was not even a single dent, much less a scratch on the frame of the bomber.
The bomber did not fire back, not even once as the gunship continued to close in onto the destroyer at maximum speed.
As a last ditch effort, the destroyer fired a plasma bolt at the InterCon bomber. The bolt connected with the nose of the gunship, exploding in a terrifying blast of cyan green.
The plane took it like a tank. Its predecessor was not called a ‘Flying Fortress’ for nothing. Its dome shaped cockpit was glowing a furious red but did not melt.
The bomber suddenly flipped and did a high yo-yo dive directly onto the helpless destroyer. The Spore ship desperately tried to move its hull out of the way but to no avail.
Its engines were not powerful enough. The bomber's thrusters fired up as it drove its 32 meter long fuselage directly into the black ship.
The InterCon bomber plunged through the supposedly extremely force resistant armor of the destroyer scattering black armor fragments into a wide field in space as the spine of the ship was bent awfully at a 80 degrees angle.
The Spore destroyer soon erupted into a ball of green fire, consuming every part of the ship in a glowing reactor plasma.
There was still not a single scratch on the InterCon bomber. Its nose was now cooling down to a dim red as it turned around and sped off into the distance, acquiring its next target.
All the commotion above was tapped by two engineers on the planet by a radio transmitter/receiver.
TKE was utterly speechless. He had the perfect description of surprise, relief and anxiety at the same time.
Clanedd broke the silence, "InterCon... I think I have read about something like this before..."
TKE instinctively lifted his head up and turned it towards her. Clanedd had her left arm resting horizontally along her breast and right hand resting on her chin. She had the image of a philosopher.
She continued, "From a bunch of secret documents and leaked information, I remember reading about the early history of InterCon. Apparently they got their hands on a Dual Nitrogen Radiator from a junkyard or something and used it to build a stargate from a 1950s Chevrolet Impala.”
Clanedd paused to make sure TKE was not spacing out before continuing.
“From what I heard, ICY Products originally owned the Radiator and used it to make ice-cream. Surprising, I know. Anyways, the stargate led to another earth like, habitable planet on the other side of the galaxy. On that planet a new element was discovered and was named, Titre (Tr-115).”
TKE nodded. The element name rang a bell. Clanedd, closing her eyes, continued.
“InterCon then combined them with elements such as titanium, lithium, ytterbium, and some other crazy stuff in unknown proportions and thus made a revolutionized armor material. They call it 'Titaniumite'. As it is able to withstand impressive amounts of kinetic damage and temperatures of up to about 6000 degrees Kelvin, it was never distributed to anyone else due to this very reason."
TKE put his hands up in partial confusion, interrupting Clanedd. "Wait, wait, wait. That's very interesting and all but how in the world did you get your hands on this?"
Clanedd tilted her head and with a poker face, answered nonchalantly as though it was really obvious.
"From the Internet of course." TKE sighed. "Figures. Tell me more when we get back, if at all. Now we have to contact those two idiots." She nodded in agreement.
The unnamed NanoTec spaceplane soared through the sky. Her two pilots chatted excitedly.
"I must say, one simple 'testing a spaceplane' mission became a lot more interesting!"
Kuro exclaimed. Sir-Caller, grinned and nodded in agreement.
"Sir..." Sir-Caller began. "We have destroyed two alien destroyers with friendly fire, and we now have three of their friends on our tail right now. Do you intend on getting us killed? Then again, don't answer that...Sir."
Sir-Caller said, maintaining a straight face.
“Yes detective. I realize.” Kuro said with a smirk as he pulled the joystick hard, rolling the plane hard towards the right, barely dodging a plasma bolt fired from a pursuing destroyer.
The bolt skimmed the canopy of the plane, leaving it glowing yellow before smashing into another rice field, enveloping everything within a hundred meter radius in inextinguishable green-red flames.
Kuro chuckled at the Spores' futile attempt in shooting them down. After all, they were coursing through the sky at nearly Mach 3, flying like a maniac and pulling two digit values of gee at every turn.
Another Spore destroyer dipped down from the clouds, firing a full broadside of lasers. The side of the destroyer lit up, lasers raking the fuselage of the plane, evaporating the outer hull plating and no more than a few cubic centimeters of aerogel with each hit.
Sir-Caller sighed as Kuro's grin grew even wider. He pressed a very red button placed not-so-discretely on the front of the dashboard.
The instruction manual told him never, ever press that button unless being crushed by an excessive gee force was one’s fetish.
Who needs instruction manuals anyways, am I right?
Kuro then pulled the rudder for a full starboard sidekick. The gee forces easily exceeded 30 gees but Kuro and Sir-Caller took the ordeal as though it were a roller coaster ride.
The Spore destroyers, the three pursuer and single interceptor discharged their primary weapons, only to see that the spaceplane had vanished into thin air.
The plasma bolts passed each other mid-flight and struck the opposite destroyer square on the beak.
In an instant, the ionic charges of the bolt overloaded the electronics of two Spore destroyers and the immense heat melted the reactors of both destroyers.
Their primary thrusters shut off and their hulking 90 meter body gracefully fell to the Earth before crashing into nearby farm houses.
A final explosion marked each of the downed destroyer’s fate as the melting reactor blew their ship and everything in a kilometer radius into oblivion, likely destroying yet another rice plantation in the process.
The final two remaining destroyers decided that there would be no point in pursuing a single civilian shuttle all around the globe, through ravines and across high mountains. Not to mention the several times they had to navigate through tight cave systems situated on the continent of Australia.
They broke off the pursuit to go have tea and biscuits… Or the Spore equivalent of those human food products.
Perhaps they were just frightened of the mad pilot in the plane, or so Kuro thought. Nobody had to further inflate his ego for him after all.
The spaceplane was now flying through a ice blizzard. They had covered the distance across the globe twice, flew over China again and now were in Russia.
The communications systems of the plane started ringing. Sir-Caller swiped his finger across his holographic RIG to accept the call. Out came out the voice of the Head Engineer.
He sounded calm but was clearly holding in some form of exasperation. Kind of like the felling one would get when his computer crashed the third time in a row.
"Umm, are you there? Come in! Hello? Anyone home? I…”
Sir-Caller spoke through the link, interrupting TKE in the process.
"Yes sir, I hear you loud and clear."
The voice on the other end sighed and continued.
"Good, freaking finally. Is it a habit of yours to keep your phones off when people need you the most? I mean come on!"
Sir-Caller answered nonchalantly, "Well sir, we were killing bad guys. And in any case, the static produced by..."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Explain to me later. But could you please come back here and pick us up? Thank you."
"Noted sir. Eta, 2 hours. Don’t run off while you’re waiting."
The comm link was cut and it went silent.
Artificial gravity was still out but the system cool down and reinitialize cycles in SkyLab2 were underway.
Claev was floating around vigorously tapping on his RIG.
Saegen was out of the command room, trying to restart the 'Fubuki' Fission Reactors. Based off tapped and hacked communications of EarthGov, they had in fact, not even sent out a single ship to defend the Earth.
Simply put it, they had almost no ships left after the first 'Spore Incursion' and as a result, when NanoTec blasted the remaining four out of the sky, EarthGov could not join the party.
Another thing was that the Spore attack was not the last one. Apparently EarthGov, using their deep space radars had detected yet another Spore attack fleet, this time larger but fleet makeup unknown.
They were approaching slowly at slower than light speeds and would probably arrive in 2103. That means that they were going to have to hurry up with their plans for the TeraNova, Claev thought to himself.
He closed his RIG and maneuvered himself over to the control panels.
"However, I still cannot believe what I had just seen." Claev mumbled to himself. “It’s as though I’m in some sort of novelty story…”
His mind raced back to the image of the InterCon bomber/gunship ramming into the Spore destroyer. InterCon had already developed such powerful machinery? When? And how far behind are we?
Claev kept contemplating what he saw. Soon, his thoughts were interrupted with the distinctive hum of power flowing through the station and the high pitched whine of capacitors and flywheels charging back up.
The florescent lights flickered back on and all the non-essential computers began their reboot sequence. Claev opened up his RIG again, the holographic display flickered with static once and showed the time in G.M.T.
Apparently, when consolidating all the data taken from the tapped EarthGov communications link, he was made unaware of the passage of time, letting nearly four hours slip by.
Saegen burst into the room. Black soot covered his face and lab coat.
"Welp. Its done. The reactor is fixed. Our hull integrity is at about 87% now. Could be repaired within a few days. Now, if I am not wrong the artificial gravity should kick in right about..."
Suddenly, the floating Saegan and Claev, along with many other NanoTec personnel were forcefully pulled to the ground with a thud.
"...Now" Saegen said, gasping for air.
A few moments later, the comm link in SkyLab2 kicked in. Saegen answered the calls of the Head Engineer and opened up the docking bay.
While Saegen did not give it much thought, he was a little worried about the safety of his engineers. Not about the alien attack but because of the pilot flying the plane.
As the thought crossed his mind, he turned and looked out of the window, immediately seeing a familiar white shuttle with navy blue stripe running across the length of the fuselage.
It was at full speed and flying directly into the shuttle bay.
Saegen put a palm to his face and sighed. "We should have fired him long ago…"
His thoughts were interrupted by the noticeable rumbling and shaking resonating through the station. The fire alarm in his office sounded, alerting him that there was a rather large fire in the shuttle bay.
I guess he did it again...I'm not surprised. Saegen thought to himself as he immediately rushed to the hanger again to dig a couple of engineers out of yet another spaceplane wreck.