“Why the hell not?”
“The closer we are to the surface, the harder it’s going to be for us to escape now that we’re having issues repelling the pull from the gravity well. We get lower, it’s just going to be that many more kilometers for us to travel to a safe distance, and that much more work to pull away from the gravity. We need to get out of here soon; we don’t have much time left.”
“We pull out now with him close enough to see, there ain’t gonna be anything that will stop him from catching up with us.”
“We stay any longer, and we die.”
The bridge began to rumble violently as if there was a small earthquake in progress, signs that their protection was coming to an end. Foster looked behind at Tolukei and Nereid, their faces full of stress and agony, like someone was forcing them into experiencing a nightmare, beads of sweat floated away from them.
If they left, Marduk would capture them in their weakened state, Earth would fall quickly, and then the rest of the galaxy. Staying meant they’d be tossing their lives in the garbage, but at the same time make Marduk’s invasion of Earth harder to achieve. Foster began to think about the people of Earth, how they’d suffered enough during the Hashmedai invasion. She thought about her mother, what she would have to endure should Marduk arrive. Mike . . . oh god how she missed him and his charming attitude.
Earth needed a fighting chance, even if it would cost more lives. If there was a chance that even one person might deal that finishing blow to Marduk, they needed to create that platform for it to happen. The Carl Sagan could not fall into Marduk’s hands, the Carl Sagan still had one last opportunity to prevent an all-out invasion in the first place.
“Chang, get ready to take us closer and launch as many missiles as you can,” Foster said.
“Seriously, ma’am?” Chang said.
Foster grinned. “Yes, Siriusly.” She faced the psionic duo and hoped that what she was going to ask wasn’t going to cause them to have an aneurysm due to all the work their brains were going through. “Tolukei and Nereid if you can hear me, do not protect or guide the missiles let them orbit us until I give you the signal.” Foster’s gaze returned to the front. “Pierce, direct Chang to the most volatile area below us.”
Marduk began to step up his effort in triggering more solar flares. His ship circled around discharging its weapons, creating a flaming circle of hell around the two ships as the Carl Sagan descended closer toward the surface. Dozens of plasma missiles orbited around the Carl Sagan like tiny satellites within the quickly failing protection of their shields and overshield. The now unstable surface began to erupt constantly like a volcano, waves of heat and flames shot up toward them as they neared. Marduk’s ship pulled in closer behind them and tried to aim its weapons at the unstable surface directly below the Carl Sagan.
He was right where Foster wanted him.
“Now!”
Tolukei and Nereid quickly irised the shields as they allowed the missiles to fall naturally due to Sirius’s gravity. The missiles quickly fell and exploded over the top of the surface of the star one by one as the Carl Sagan continued to move forward, carpet-bombing the surface in their wake. The missiles blossomed brightly and ignited pillar after pillar of solar flares, each one rising upward seconds after the Carl Sagan flew past.
Marduk’s ship was directly behind when the carpet-bombing began, a single solar flare rose up and consumed his ship, shattering his overshields, turning it into a hulk of melted metal that instantly vaporized.
Too bad Marduk managed to get one last unfocused shot off seconds before his ship was engulfed.
The Carl Sagan moved upward away from the surface, away from the flaming catastrophe growing behind them and toward the stars of space. Sirius gravitational pull was stronger than ever, the psionic duo had all but exhausted their minds. Despite the sub light speed engines engaged, the Carl Sagan was not moving fast enough from the newly created solar flare, one that was four times larger than the area they had been battling in.
Must have used too many missiles . . . Foster thought amongst the rumbling of the ship and computer terminals overloading.
They continued to push onward, the blinding light that enveloped them for so long, slowly fading away into the darkness. Space and cooler temperatures were near, they just needed to break free.
It wasn’t happening.
The massive solar flare caught up, crashing into the rear overshields. Electronics started to melt, the hull began to melt and buckle as exterior temperatures reached critical levels. The heat within the ship began to rise, as the red hellish hue of flames began to appear outside of the windshield, blocking out the darkness of space that was so close, yet so far away.
Tolukei collapsed, his head smashing against his terminal while Nereid remained standing, and chanted another prayer into her elegantly crafted psionic staff weapon.
41 CHEVALLIER
Lyonria Travel Hub, Tropical Rain forest
SA-139, Sirius A system
May 23, 2050, 01:49 SST (Sol Standard Time)
Chevallier, along with the rest of her alliance of Hammerhead and Poniga fighters were one room away from clearing the Lyonria hub of all hostile forces. Casualties on their side were acceptable, as room-to-room gun battles raged while they fought their way back to the top spire and the wormhole still feeding them enemy forces.
New overlords had arrived and began to mind-control their dead, only adding to their misery. Should a Hammerhead or Poniga fall in combat, their alliance had to push on without them, Chevallier long gave up hope that reinforcements from the colony would arrive.
The bridge was their only saving grace, a choke point where Marduk’s forces had a difficult time crossing due to its narrow size and lack of railing. The bulk of his fighters remained inside of the room where the wormhole had resided, while Chevallier and her team hunkered down next to the teleportation alcove. Their fighting grew to a stalemate, one that they couldn’t rely on forever. Every minute that passed, more of Marduk’s soldiers arrived, bolstering their numbers, it was only a matter of time before they made an all-or-nothing push across the bridge, forcing them to retreat while the overlords resurrected their fallen grunts.
Chevallier noticed that the gate had changed to a new location. It had connected directly to Marduk’s ship. Most likely because it was faster to send his soldiers directly to the planet rather than Tiamat’s tomb first, given the unexpected resistance and losses they now faced.
“This is pointless, they just keep coming,” Hudson said while his rifle blazed.
“We hold the line here until backup arrives!” Chevallier countered. “This bridge is our choke point, they make it back to this teleporter and they can control this whole hub again.”
“It’s been five hours and we haven’t heard from them!”
“And five hours of fighting and progress I don’t want to give up due to a retreat! We hold the line here, no further will we allow them to cross!” She covered behind a wall to evade streaks of red laser fire. Looking back, she examined the wormhole again and the brightly lit interior of Marduk’s ship. She was surprised how much light was beaming in front of its windows. It was almost as if it was flying inside Sirius. “If we can push pass them, we might be able to take the fight to them.”
Chevallier peered through the scope of her rifle, searching for overlords that may have left themselves exposed. She saw the wormhole flicker suddenly while flames began to burst out from all corners of the interior of Marduk’s ship. The sudden explosions that followed were loud enough to send a thunderous blast throughout the area, while Marduk’s soldiers stopped their attacks and faced the wormhole. Something wasn’t going according to their plan.