"The suspense is terrible. I hope it lasts..." -William Wonka Wonka Wonka, Ursine Lord of Candy Land, Bongistan, Resource Wars Era

As impossible at it was, the Jurakak System Defense and Olipnat Concordiant Navy were losing. The pride of the Olipat Navy was burning in space, their hulls shattered, their engines dead, their crews dead or dying.

They did not die alone.

The enemy ships were twisted things, hulls appearing to be coated with smouldering charcoal with ember filled cracks. Their black guns fired spiralling beams of purple around a reddish orange sooty fiery core. Their drives glowed with a sullen, malevolent life. Their dropships and droppods were shed by the thousands onto the planets even as the ship's guns hammered the continents and seas.

But the enemy ships could still die.

The March of History broke up, the rear third vanishing in an eye watering flash, but she took a half dozen of the enemy with her. The Six Ways of Dominance exploded with all hands, but her guns had taken nearly a score of the enemy with her.

Except the enemy seemed to have endless reserves.

They were losing, despite the impossibility of such a thing.

Then came the terrible roar that echoed from every flat surface, that reverberated through space itself as if it was atmosphere.

LET THIS WORLD SHAKE IN THE WRATH OF LOST TERRASOL! boomed out across the system.

A handful of small ships, barely the size of Olipnat Concordiant Naval destroyers, streaked into existence over one of the main megalopolises, opening fire on the enemy ships.

At first, a few of the naval commanders screamed it was more enemies.

They were overriden as the guns of that small task force opened up on the enemy, even as two of the ships streaked away and vanished. The guns hit much harder than the ship's small size would suggest, most of the enemy's ships breaking up or exploding after one or two hits from those massive guns the hulls were wrapped around.

Still the Olipnat Concordiant Navy and the Jurakak System Defense ships fought on grimly, desperate to save the people of the capital worlds.

The leaders didn't care where the ships had come from.

They were here.

And they were fighting those twisted black ships.

And that was all that mattered.

Captain Decken knew none of it as he stood on the bridge of the CSFNV Little Nell Columbia, clad in heavy armor, staring at the holotank that displayed the stellar system, the world below his ship, and the city he was protecting.

His crew, from the Marines to the pilot to the gunners, were all Olipnat Concordiant robots, taken from the Star of Jarakak, reprogrammed to work not only their station but the stations around them.

The robots weren't programed to care about the thin tendrils of reddish electricity that kept arcing around the edges of Captain Decken's boots, so they didn't care.

Decken watched as the C++ Cannon fired a split second before the heavy iron slug bypassed the battlescreens and Hellshields that would normally protect a warship. It materialized inside one of the enemy capital ships, the ship breaking in half as the nearly infinite mass hit at nearly infinite speed.

"New target acquired!" Mister Goofy called out.

"GUNS FREE, MISTER FUMBLES!" Decken called out.

you cannot save them just like you could not save us whispered in his ear.

He pushed the grave cold sibilant whisper away as he stared at the holotank.

The little red dot representing his First Officer, a little Pagrik named Hetmwit, entered the burning hab and started moving in small circles.

Decken knew it meant Hetmwit was running up stairs.

"Engaging aerospace assets lining up for a bombing run on metropolis," Mister Hefty stated.

"Use missile pod Ninety-Two," Decken ordered. It had been wet printed in a hurry and the nCv cannon convertor had failed self-tests.

But it still had nearly fifty missiles.

you can't save them... whispered in his ear.

He shoved it away.

Hetmwit shoved himself off the wall, panting hard as he spun and thundered up the stairs. He stopped dead on the middle of the stairs, staring up.

On the midway landing stood four figures.

They looked like they were made of half-burnt charcoal. Cracks in their pebbly black surface that shone with red light deep inside. Burning red eyes, mouths of molten fire that made the black saw teeth stand out. One had four arms, the other two only two, but one of the bipeds had two heads. They were wreathed in gauzy, almost transparent reddish flames.

His brain locked up, gibbering in fear.

Training, endless training beneath Captain Decken's watchful gaze, kicked in even as his conscious mind screaming in terror.

He drew the pistol smoothly, the weapon going live in his hand, a little window opening up in the upper right of his vision even a tiny crosshair appeared in his sight.

The crosshair lined up as he lifted the pistol, going red.

He tapped the trigger even as he dropped down to one knee, bracing his fist on the step in front of him.

The four armed one's head exploded as the high-vee APERS dart sliced through it, punched through the crysteel window behind it, and sailed off into the air.

His arm was still moving, training doing the work. He tapped the button three more times.

All three collapsed into chunks that crumbled as he lunged to his feet, running up the stairs. He rounded another landing, his hand automatically holstering the pistol just like he had been trained over and over and over during the long weeks he had worked on the DJ's Ice Cream Locker.

All he could think of was his mother.

He hit the door with his shoulder, the entire door and frame exploding out of the ferrocrete wall to slam against the far cinderblocks. He bounced off the hall, crushing the door, spinning in place and running down the hallway.

Holograms hanging down from the ceiling declared that everyone should remain calm, should shelter in place, that this was a temporary emergency situation.

Outside something exploded with enough force to make dust fall from the ceiling tiles.

"MOM! MOM!" he didn't know he was yelling as his armored boots cracked tile, leaving a trail of cracks and small craters behind him.

He slid to a stop in front of the door, shards of shattered tile flying up from his boots. He hammered on the door, the power assist leaving deep dents in the endosteel door.

"MOM! MOM!" he shouted.

The door opened and his mother stood there, her arms crossed over her chest, holding herself tight.

"Who is..." she started to ask.

"Mom, it's me, Hetmwit," he said. He reached for her. "Come on, we have to go now!"

"Hetmwit? Hemmie?" His mother suddenly burst into tears. "Oh, Hemmie, what's happening?"

"We have to go!" Hetmwit said, trying to grab his mother's arm, but she stepped back.

"Your sisters are here, with your nephews and nieces," she said. She moved aside.

He could see his three sisters, each of them holding a child, with one or two around their legs.

An explosion made the pictures fall from the walls and dust raise up from the floor and start to fall gently from the ceiling.

Hetmwit felt himself go cold.

"GUNS FREE, MISTER FUMBLES!" Captain Decken yelled out. The atmosphere had been pumped out of the ship, the bridge in the stark clarity that vacuum brings.

The robot no longer had a T shaped head with a large round eye on each side. Instead, it now had a visage modeled after a Terran skull with a white brush-stroke across the eyes and another from the bridge of the nose to the chin, crossing the white enameled teeth in the jawbone.

"Guns free, sir!" Mister Fumbles called out. "Firing main gun! Direct hit!"

"Target is breaking up," Mister Goofy called out, then chattered his jaws, the white enameled teeth clashing silently in the vacuum. "Acquiring new target."

Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

The robots weren't programed to care that red runes were slowly carving themselves into Captain Decken's armor.

So they didn't.

Decken looked at the holotank, checking the timer and the status of Corvette-Six.

72%.

His eyes sought out the little red dot.

It wasn't moving.

Hetmwit moved into the apartment, ignoring everything but his sisters, his nieces and nephews, and his mother.

"Hemmie? Where did you get that armor? Why are you dressed like that? What are you doing here? Mommy, who's that? Mommy, I'm scared. Hemmie, why are you here?" all echoed around him as he dug in his satchel and pulled out a rescue cloak.

"We have to go! Now!" Hetmwit said, draping the cloak over his older sister's shoulders. He turned to his mother. "Mom, where's dad?"

"He's sheltering at work," his mother said. "What is that?" she asked at Hetmwit draped another cloak over his younger sister.

"It's a rescue cloak. You have to wear it, we have to leave now," Hetmwit said, moving to his baby sister.

His oldest sister had wrapped the cloak around her, flinching when another explosion rocked the hab complex.

Hetmwit could hear screaming outside the door as he moved to his mother and wrapped the cloak around her.

He was out.

"Keep the kids close, under the cloaks, and follow me," he said. He thought fast. "I'm taking you somewhere safe. I'm in the Navy."

His mother nodded. His sisters, glancing at his mother, followed suit.

"Follow me," Hetmwit said, trying to emulate Captain Decken's no-nonesense tone and aura of authority.

"But your father," his mother started to say.

"Will be fine. This place isn't safe, where he is is safe," Hetmwit lied.

"OK," his mother said.

"Stay behind me, stay together, don't let the kids run off," Hetmwit said. Me moved to the door, drawing his pistol. He glanced out and saw nothing but empty hallway and flickering lights.

"Let's go," he said.

He led the way.

Captain Decken stood immovable as the Nell banked hard, narrowly avoiding the lances of burning hellspace infused x-ray lasers clawing at the ship as enemy missiles that had gotten through the point defense detonated. There was a hard impact against the hull.

"Negative damage. Armor holding," Mister Hefty stated, then chattered his gleaming jaws silently.

"Get Corvette-Seven in there. Keep that big bastard from dropping pods," Decken ordered.

He glanced at the little red dot that represented Number One.

It was moving in tight little circles again. Slower than before, but still moving.

The Nell banked hard with the crack of sails filling with wind and the groan of wooden beams as a phased particle beam phalanx narrowly missed the ship. Mister Smiley chattered his amusement as the rest of the enemy's fire missed the Nell and kept going to slam into the hull of another enemy vessel.

The ships of the Concordiant and the System Defense were dying around the planet, but they were taking the enemy with them as they threw everything they had into stopping the burning invaders.

Decken glanced at the numbers.

82%.

T-38.13.15 minutes

"Order Corvette-One to move in on that big battlewagon, give it a full barrage, then move over it, get it between Corvette-One and the planet and fire the main gun," Decken snapped.

"Aye aye, sir," Mister Hefty said, punching in the orders with long skeletal fingers of black metal.

The lights on the Nell flashed as the battlescreens took another barrage, holding, and Mister Smiley rolled the ship hard, spreading the impacts across three different emitters.

All held.

Decken could see the enemy was starting to abandon their attacks on other cities, on other planets, all streaming toward his own little flotilla.

"Tell Corvette-Five to run sensor sweeps on the drones and its own sensors every ninety seconds," Decken snapped. "Watch for any vessels matching Bogey-37."

84%

T - 33.75.62 seconds

Two more Concordiant vessels broke up, one exploding as it fragmented, and Decken ordered one of the Corvettes to cover its firing angles.

They had him pinned against the planet.

Surrounded on all sides.

Overwhelming firepower with reinforcements streaming toward him from all points of the stellar system.

He smiled.

They couldn't get away now.

He saw the Concordiant and System Defense vessels sweep out of the way, letting the enemy ships move by them, then attacking the invader's rear. The tactic showed immediate effect as the enemy ships started taking casualties almost immediately.

"Dump the slush, open the creation engines to vacuum, emergency coolant venting," Decken ordered.

He watched the heat and slush drop to almost nothing in minutes, then warm back up as warm coolant was pumped back into them and a hot nanite seed bed was dropped into them.

91%

T-19.65.21 minutes

Hetmwit paused at the doorway he had crashed through, staring at the quad.

It was full of shrieking energy beams, crashing explosions that threw up clouds of dust and dirt, burning vehicles, and crumbling charcoal.

His sister gave a low moan of fear.

"Stay close to me," he said. He pointed at a burning tank. "See that? We're running for this side of it."

He dug in the medical kit and pulled out a hypo-injector. "This will help," he told them.

He could tell that their brains had shut down from the explosions, the screaming

and the three creatures he'd shot to pieces on the fifteenth floor landing.

He gave each of them, even the children, a light sedative, then looked out again.

It was still fast and furious.

"Pull up your hoods," he said absently.

He could see the dropship, still sitting in the parking lot, its guns holding back the enemy, the Marines all firing.

"We're on our way," Hetmwit said through the static filled radio.

"Roger," the pilot said.

He saw one of the Marine robots lift up a grenade launcher and fire grenades into the quad. They puffed out into thick white smoke.

"GO!" Hetmwit yelled, shoving his mother.

His family stumbled out into the open, and he ran ahead, pausing to wave them on.

An explosion knocked his baby sister down and he helped her up, the ballistic and kinetic shock padding layer of the cloak holding. He could faintly hear the baby wailing in fear and shock as she stumbled on.

"Go, go, go!" he yelled.

He saw it, somehow. He was never able to explain how, but he saw it.

He stepped in front of the missile, crossing his arms, ducking his chin against his chest.

It detonated on his armor, too short for the standoff distance, but the burning rocket fuel exploding.

He went cartwheeling through the air, his ears ringings, alarms wailing in his armor, to slam down on his back on the ground.

He stared at the sky, where burning clouds had gathered, raining ash down on the slow murder of the entire city.

His armor hit him in the middle of the chest with a jolt of electricity and he whooped in a breath. He sat up and saw his mother and siblings crouched down behind the burning tank. Looking left and right he could see more power armor, more armored vehicles, and more of the cracked and smouldering enemy gathering.

He scrambled to his feet, spraying dirt behind him as he lunged up, running for the tank. He ducked down, checking his family.

His sister had a notch missing from her ear that was bleeding heavily. He dug out the meditape and pinched the wound between a fold of tape.

He looked around and realized with horror that it was now or never.

"GO GO GO!" he shouted, shoving his older sister.

Crying, the kids wailing but still running, his family ran for it.

Again, he had that feeling. He held his arm out, stopping his family.

ATOMIC ATOMIC ATOMIC

"Get down!" he ordered, taking a knee, one hand diving into his satchel.

Everything went white.

He barely got the emitter out in time, barely managed to slam it into the ground so it could spin up.

The hexagons appeared around them.

The hab complex exploded toward them.

His mother and sisters screamed.

His armor flashed warnings. The rescue cloaks went silver.

The emitter howled as it shunted full power.

The debris cloud covered them.

The emitter screamed louder than his infant nephew.

The dust and dirt crackled on the battlescreen, which was looking pale and wan.

"Skippy, you there?" he asked the dropship pilot.

"Still here, sir. We lost about half of the Marines," the robot said.

"Patch me through to the Captain," Hetmwit said. He looked around, through the kaleidoscope of energy hexagons.

He could see flashes in the dust and knew that both forces were still fighting.

"Decken here. Status report, Number One," the Captain's voice was calm and even.

But Hetmwit could hear something in it.

"I'm pinned down. We got hit with an atomic," he said.

"Family?" the Captain asked.

"With me," Hetmwit said.

His sister screamed.

He looked up and gasped.

A twisted creature of burning charcoal embers was scrabbling at the battlescreen, trying to rip its way in with talons even as sharp teeth in a burning mouth gnawed at the energy field.

"And the enemy is physically on my shield," Hetmwit said.

"Hold position," Decken said.

The channel was closed.

His sisters were sobbing.

He looked at his mother, knowing all she could see was the closed faceplate of his armor. All she could see was a skull.

"I'm sorry," he said.

His mother put her hand on his. "You came. That's all that matters," she said.

More creatures had joined the first, clawing at the battlescreen. One managed to push a fingertip through it, the finger burning away as the battlescreen projector severed it.

All Hetmwit could see was gnashing jaws, raking talons, and burning red eyes.

VICTORY OR DEATH! EITHER IS FINE! roared out.

There was a rumbling impact. The dust swept away as the ground rumbled.

Hetmwit could see between two creatures.

A figure in heavy black armor, engraved with burning runes, was standing up from the middle of a crater where the burning charcoal tanks had been.

The creatures looked up.

Hetmwit saw heads explode, spraying burning coals over the battlescreen dome. Tracers smashed the creatures aside.

The creatures screamed and launched themselves at the figure that was walking forward.

"Run. Now," Captain Decken's voice was a thing of snarling caged wrath.

Hetmwit snatched up the fading emitter, the dome winking out.

"RUN!" he yelled out.

His siblings ran the direction he was pointing, toward the dropship. Hetmwit followed them, pistol in his hand. Twice creatures lunged out from behind twisted wreckage and twice his reflexes shot them before he could even register they were there.

He looked back and saw Captain Decken surrounded by the creatures, which were climbing on one another to get at the armored Naval officer. Decken was swinging that roaring sword with one hand, firing his SMG with the other, keeping around him clear through sheer fury.

He saw one of the robotic Marines grab his sister's arm, helping her aboard the dropship.

Hetmwit took his baby sister's arm, handed her off to one of the Marines, then looked around.

His nephew, four at the most, stood in the middle of the street, looking around in confusion, unaware of the three burning creatures rushing toward him.

Hetmwit took off running toward his nephew.

Two of the Marines passed him at robotic speed, almost blurred as they crossed the parkinglot, hurtled over the barrier, and reached Hetmwit's nephew. One fired at the oncoming creature, the other grabbed Hetmwit's nephew and spun in place, running back.

"Sir, we have to go!" one of the robotic Marines yelled, grabbing the shoulder of Hetmwit's armor and pulling him along.

Hetmwit noticed, crazily, that it didn't sound as roboty as it had.

Hetmwit stumbled onto the dropship, almost falling as he moved up the ramp.

The dropship howled as it clawed for air.

"Wait, the Captain," Hetmwit said.

He looked down.

The Captain was almost completely covered by the charcoal demonic creatures, only the sheer fury of his assault keeping them at bay.

"Skippy, low and slow pass over the Captain, twenty meters," Hetmwit said.

A missile detonated off to the side of the dropship, making it lurch.

The dropship turned, dropping slightly, and sped up.

"Captain, we're coming in on your five-thirty, twenty meters!" Hetmwit yelled over the com and his speakers.

One of the robots was running the door gun, hosing the creatures on the ground.

The dropship suddenly slowed.

Hetmwit leaned out, holding a strap with one hand, his pistol in the other.

The creatures exploded away from the Captain as he launched himself upwards, one hand reaching out, his chainsword snapping to his waist thanks to the magtac system.

"Rapid fire, high-vee APERS," Hetmwit snapped.

His pistol repeated it.

He hosed the creatures holding onto the Captain's legs.

The Captain got one hand onto the lowered back deck, his fingers digging into the battlesteel. Hetmwit heard the Captain fire his SMG and could see the remaining creatures holding onto the Captain's feet and legs fall away.

"Captain on board! Punch it!" Hetmwit yelled over the commo.

"Five by five," Skippy answered.

The Captain pulled himself in as the dropship's engines roared, his armor's enhanced strength making it look easy. He moved into the dropship, joining Hetmwit as the back deck started to raise.

The door gunner stowed the gun as the side door closed.

"You made it," Hetmwit said, staring up at the Captain.

"I knew you wouldn't leave me behind, Number One," the Captain said.

The dropship arced up, the engines roaring as Skippy leaned on the gas, heading for the Nell.