High Admiral Siendir sat on his throne, watching as his fleet bombarded the shield.
“What’s the situation, lieutenant?”
A being of pure energy shot from one of the computer monitors, forming in front of him and bowing.
“No sign of the shield weakening, High Admiral! Worse, it seems to be draining energy from our attacks to sustain itself. We’ve identified the source of the shield, however, so a ground assault should be possible!”
High Admiral nodded.
“Get me Captain Sildeth!”
The Vophae captain who had defeated Earth’s strongest appeared on the screen.
“High Admiral.”
“Sildeth, these primitives set up a planetary shield somehow! Get over there and take it down!”
“Well you know me, I never turn down a fight. It’s a bad idea though.”
“Are you defying me?”
“Obeying your previous order, in fact.”
High Admiral Siendir narrowed his eyes.
“I thought you took care of it, already.”
Sildeth smiled.
“Oh I did. But this last one is something special. Even now I can feel her pushing against the dimensional boundaries. We’re reading subspace anomalies all over the place where we imprisoned her.”
“So what? No one can escape the Interdimensional Prison, no matter how strong.”
“Not alone, no. But this world is pretty big, and filled with all sorts of anomalies. Someone needs to stay here and guard the spot where the dimensional boundary is weakened. Were someone capable of spatial manipulation to interfere from this location…well this foe had me dead to rights, so good luck if you let her out.”
The High Admiral rubbed his chin.
Sildeth was extraordinarily annoying. Which is why he was a mere captain despite his vast psionic might. But the captain didn’t lie, and had more experience than practically anyone in the entire Vophae Imperium. If he was pushing back on this, then his judgment was likely correct.
“Fine, stay there then.”
“Well that’s boring.”
The High Admiral just hung up on him, turning to his lieutenant.
“Have one of the auxiliary ships probe the shield, we need to figure out how to get down there.”
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Londyn stood on the command deck of the ILS Mobile HQ. All eyes were either up on the sky, or on monitors pointed in that direction. The Vophae fleet had ceased their barrage.
Which meant they were planning something.
And there it was.
A single warship began to descend upon the shield, close to their position.
Londyn gave her command. Four Mass Suppressors hummed to life around the tree, encasing it in a gravity barrier save for the beam firing from its top. That should protect it from any stray fire.
Now for the moment of truth. The alien ship made contact with the shield around the planet…
Sparks flew all around the ship, a purple shield appearing around it as it collided with the planetary barrier.
Ultimately, the ship’s shield cracked first.
The ship made it through the shield…but surges of green lighting flickered all around it. It was smoking in different places, and seemed to be listing off course.
Most of all, it didn’t have any sort of shields left.
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Londyn narrowed her eyes.
“Fire.”
The Mobile HQ’s super Mass Suppressor hummed to life, and a massive purple beam shot straight at the ship.
The ship began to crack. Explosions rang out from various spots on it.
And then the ship imploded, its parts sinking into a singularity.
Then the Mass Suppressor ceased fire and the singularity vanished.
Admiral Faulkner came in over the comms.
“Director…if you can just squish those ships like a bug what do you need the rest of us for?”
“Because I only have one weapon that size and there are a lot more ships out there.”
“Ah…good point.”
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Vophae warships tended to rely on energy weapons. That was due to the realities of interstellar logistics. Simply, a weapon that could be charged on the main reactor didn’t need to have limited space and weight devoted to ammunition storage. As long as the ship had power, it also had ammo.
The planetary shield they faced seemed to drain those weapons, rendering them useless. Physical objects could make it through, however, albeit with damage.
They did have some physical projectiles and orbital bombs…but there’s no telling how many they would need to crack through the shield. It could end up a very expensive endeavor. And once they did…that barrage would destroy most of the planet.
The High Admiral DID want to get something out of all this, after all.
Fortunately for the High Admiral, the Vophae had an answer.
Massive assault ships that could carry entire armies. They were somewhat bare bones when it came to armament and protection, but that was fine. The auxiliaries inside were expendable. Lives were cheaper than fully kitted warships, after all. And they had confirmed a ship could make it through, albeit with damage and most of its systems disabled. But if all the ship needed to do was carry troops to the surface, then that was enough.
And all they needed to do was take out the shield generator, and the planet would be at his mercy.
And so it was that an entire fleet of assault ships began to approach the shield, close to its point of origin.
These primitives would soon learn what it meant to defy him.
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Admiral Faulker grimaced as he watched the screen.
“Here they come…”
They were detecting energy readings from several spots on the shield. Spaceships began to travel through the shield.
“Open fire!”
Missiles launched from countless naval ships. Fighter jets in the sky added their payloads to the barrage. Surface to Air missile launchers fired from the back of trucks.
The sky filled to the brim with missiles of every shape and size, each heading for the nearest spaceship.
And then sky exploded.
The ships, their shields disabled and their structural integrity compromised by the shield, were sitting ducks.
Several spaceships exploded, burning debris falling from the sky.
But there were more where they came from.
Spaceships continued to break through the shield, some moving further away from the area around the tree to avoid the barrage.
And those that survived began to act.
Hanger doors opened, the assault ships unleashing waves of fighter craft and gunships. They began to shoot down the missiles with laser beams and plasma cannons, opening a path for the assault ships behind them. These ships, protected by the assault ships that carried them, still had access to their shields and systems. Some of them spun out of the way of missiles at speeds and angles no human craft could match, others simply tanked projectiles head on, trusting in their shields to absorb the blows.
Some began to target the fighter jets as well, laser beams cutting across the sky. Human fighter jets scrambled to take evasive action as several of them burst into flames, falling from the sky.
The large gunships fired long range plasma cannons down towards the surface. A huge bolt struck into a naval destroyer, breaking it in two halves that began to sink. Soldiers cried out as a volley of plasma destroyed a battery of SAM launchers on the ground.
The ILS’s grav-drones moved into action, taking position over anti-air sites and naval vessels Their grav-projectors glowed and purple barriers appeared in the sky, absorbing some of the plasma.
But small drones could not match the energy output of the alien craft forever.
Barriers flickered and cracked as the aliens’ barrage intensified. Drones exploded and fell from the sky, only to be replaced by more.
The ILS Mobile HQ continued to fire, each shot taking down an entire assault ship at once. Smaller grav-cannons opened fire on the smaller alien craft, firing bolts that tore the craft apart by generating rapidly shifting gravity fields or small singularities. A large purple barrier surrounded the floating fortress, protecting it from the alien’s barrage.
And then…
The air began to crack and shake.
The governments of the world authorized their top-secret weapons.
American cruisers opened fire with powerful railguns, kinetic projectiles accelerated to incredible speeds that tore straight through entire assault ships.
Russian ships began to deploy massive Tesla coils, bolts of lightning surging into the approaching alien fighters.
A French nuclear powered aircraft carrier unfolded its deck, revealing a massive atomic ray redirecting the full power of the ship’s nuclear power into the enemy.
The Mexican Army had a freeze ray of all things, a weapon based on tests with Icy Falcon’s powers.
And the kicker…
A full squad of operational, flying mech suits from South Korea, carrying massive gatling cannons, countless missiles, and swords of all things. Were they any more effective than the standard fighter jet? Remains to be determined.
But they were very cool.
Every navy, army, and air force in the world pulled out all the stops, every contingency authorized for use. Every long range weapon they had lobbed at the spaceships descending from the sky.
But still they came.
The resources of a single planet cannot be compared to that of an interstellar empire. The entire arsenals of the world put together did not have enough missiles to shoot down every ship in the alien fleet, even with their shields disabled. And so the fighters and gunships inched ever closer to the airspace around the tree. Assault ships began to land far off in the distance and deploy their ground troops.
And so the Earth’s ground forces got to work.
A deafening roar sounded out as thousands of artillery guns opened fire. Fighter-bombers began to drop bombs, helicopters fired missiles, tanks opened up with their cannons.
And then they saw it.
Six legged walkers, appearing like giant mechanical spiders, crawled over the ground. Shields appeared around them to block missiles and artillery shells. No guns or cannons broke their sleek hulls. Rather, light shined and coalesced directly on their exteriors, forming into beams of light that set tanks ablaze and knocked helicopters out of the sky.
More conventional tanks appeared as well, save for the fact that they hovered over the ground, their cannons firing bolts of plasma rather than shells.
And then came the infantry.
A multitude of every shape and size. Some like humans, save for features like extra limbs or exceptional height, all wearing glowing mechanical armor. Smaller, human sized spider walkers acting much like their larger cousins. Ferocious beasts like six-legged tigers…and a whole swarm of ravenous giant insects that seemed to move as one.
Soon they entered range, and the infantry opened up. Machine guns, assault rifles, grenade launchers, sniper rifles. A veritable wall of lead and explosives.
And the enemy returned fire.
Bolts of plasma and laser beams set soldiers ablaze. Power armor and shields blocked simple bullets. And walls of flesh and chitin continued to advance, ignoring their fallen comrades as they continued to charge.
At which point, Londyn got a call.
“We’ve done all we can, Director! We need a tag in.”
Londyn nodded and gave the order.
The armies of Earth had given it their best.
Now it was time for the heroes to join the fray.