Titan Fleet: The Invictus Part 14

Chapter Seventy-Four.

Eve and Stern get out of the rover and now that the turret guns were activated, and a skeleton crew was overseeing the operation of the destruction outside, they had only to strap themselves into the fighter and open a hanger door and blast off.

Eve had one last plan before she left. "General, I need you to do me a favour before we leave." Stern was unlocking the fighters front landing gear for take-off, as he had done the others.

"What is that?"

The engine powers up, so Eve has to shout. "Get to that console and set our little pets free. They will leave no trace behind us. It seems unfair that they have lived underground all these years and we have not used them much since the mines were closed." The general likes her thinking.

The Kalgoray were designed and bio-engineered by Eves scientists, using human and alien genetics, to be elite soldiers against the blues should the blues go back on the deals they had agreed with Eve, and as the blues were coming, they could monitor their effectiveness from out in s.p.a.ce and that would buy them more time to get away.

The general runs over to the console and taps in a few things and from another location four large missiles were reading to launch. They would impact the ground, opening it up for the Kalgoray to be set free. They would then wreak havoc on the forces and give the blues a run for their money. Stern turns around and signals Eve that the deed was done and no sooner than this was done, the fighters guns were locked onto him, and a steady hand holding on to the controls presses down hard with an iron thumb, to let loose thousands of knife-sharp laser beams, to stab at the general. In his disbelief, he raises his arms to s.h.i.+eld himself, but his blood leaves his body in trails of red streamers, splas.h.i.+ng the walls and floor behind him. The c.o.c.kpit canopy closes and the fighter lifts up on a giant lifter ready for launch. Eve does not even look back. She is still smiling having won the day.

Chapter Seventy-Five.

The cloaked Invictus is looking directly at the top of the mountain and opens fire on the white snowy top. It explodes and thousands of tons of rock drop down, bouncing and spitting more and more as it picks up speed. Tons of ice and rock rain down on the t.i.tan and the troops below, like hail stones. Men dodge for their lives, most of them running for cover under the t.i.tan, only to be cut down by turret fire in the process.

The Invictus has a birds eye view. It felt good to purge the evil from this place. As the dust and snow settles, the sound of turret fire fades away. About a quarter of Eves men have survived, which was a miracle in itself, but Eves escape was now not possible, due to the large chunk of rock holding the hanger doors closed. Some of the falling mountain had pierced the t.i.tan and closed off access to many corridors.

Chapter Seventy-Six.

Eve clambers down from the fighter and the engine falls silent. She then walks over to the door, her footsteps making a splas.h.i.+ng noise as she walks through the remains of the general. Emergency power activates, bringing life support online again, and the dusty air slowly begins to be filtered out by the giant air scrubbers on the s.h.i.+p. Eve activates a hatch door to the outside and looks out, breathing in fresh air, closing her eyes and savouring the moment, until her nose is suddenly broken by a soldiers fist. She falls back onto the b.l.o.o.d.y mess that was once the general, and begins to claw for grip to get back up, but all she finds in her fingers is blood and bone. She has tears rolling down her face and her nose is pumping out blood like a broken tap.

The angered soldier dives in through the hatch and grabs Eve by the hair, tearing some out in the process, and drags her back to the hatch, and without any concern smashes her head once or twice on the way outside. The man flings her down onto some rocks face first, and she gets a mouthful of grit in the process. She is now disorientated. Another man puts his foot on the back of her neck, holding her face down in the grit. She turns her head to breath and cough out the rock in her mouth.

"Look! What do we have here? Is it a Prime Lady or a dog that turned on her men, a dog who shot us in the back, a dog who promised us freedom?" A small pool of blood gathers in the dirt around Eves face and she can hardly breathe. She is then lifted up once more by her hair and stood upright, gasping for much needed air.

"Im sorry! The general made me do it," cries Eve in a last minute lie. Out pops a knife and it is waved in Eves face.

"Thats bull, and this here knife is going to find out the truth, slice by slice." The man draws closer with the knife and he takes hold of her ear, readying to cut it off slowly.

Eve struggles with the now two men on each arm. "Please, please no, I am sorry, please." The man laughs, and just as he is about to slice the ear he is. .h.i.t in the back by a blaster shot, which melts his stomach like ice cream on a sunny day, and he falls to the ground. In all the mayhem and destruction and fighting that had been going on, no one had noticed the blue s.h.i.+p turn up in orbit. No one had noticed the thousands of ground troops heading their way and no one had noticed the swarms of ball s.h.i.+ps either.

"Kill them not me, you fools!" shouts Eve breaking free and heading back into the t.i.tan, as fast as her feet could carry her. She closes the hatch and heads inside the s.h.i.+p. She climbs over rocks and twisted s.h.i.+p, before sealing herself on the bridge. The consoles are blinking on and off, but she discovers that there is some power to the s.h.i.+p. Even now that she knew this attack would be too much and death was inevitable, she manages to restore some power to some of the auto-turrets and they begin to fire on the approaching blues. If she could get the engines to run and use full hyper-speed, she may be able to use the t.i.tan as a giant rocket car. Her forces were now engaged in fighting the blues, and all they had to do was fight and not die for a few moments more, because now the four missiles had launched and were making their way to break the ground open around them. The sandy coloured plane was now a blue plane, covered in thousands of monstrous creatures making their way to feed and destroy; it was like a never ending tide.

Chapter Seventy-Seven.

Pace was sat in the Invictus watching the whole thing unfold. His s.h.i.+p was cloaked and no one noticed him at all. Many things were running through his mind; should he rescue some of the men below him? Checking his scanners, it appeared Eve was on the bridge alone, with no s.h.i.+elds on the s.h.i.+p to soak up fire. It was not worth saving her men, they were all ex-prisoners who would kill first and ask questions later, he thought, but maybe saving Eve could be used to their advantage. She was bound to know where more PD1 missiles were stored, and that could turn the tide in their favour. Standing up, his mind was made up.

"Im going down to rescue Eve. Before you say anything, hear me out. I scanned the t.i.tan and there are a few fighters on board. Im going to grab one and Eve, blast my way out of the s.h.i.+p and get to her palace, and pick up some PD1 missiles or better, and destroy this menace once and for all."

Nova is not happy with this idea at all. "What are you, stupid? We are sitting pretty, with the best seats in the house for once, and you want to go rescue an enemy. You need your mind reading or something. Why dont we get the Fahrenheit to turn around and blast those suckers instead? Why do you have to be the hero?" Pace can see Novas concerns, but it is all set in his mind and he will not be deterred from it.

"I wont call back thousands of people to be killed when I can do the job myself, and Im not stupid, Im far from that, but if I dont go and see if Eve will reason with me, then I have lost my humanity. I must give her a chance. She has just been beaten by her own men, if that dont get her to think about her evil doings what will? Everyone deserves a second chance."

Nova shakes her head. "Yeah true, but not a third or fourth chance, Cap."

Pace walks over to Nova and turns her in her chair to face him, and leaning down towards her whispers softly, "Listen, you have always been like a sister to me, and I know you are looking out for me, but sometimes you just got to stop wrapping me up in cotton wool. Look at me. I have been through a lot, but I will go through a lot more before I live my last day. Ill be back, I promise."

Nova reaches up and hugs Pace and kisses him on the cheek. "You better keep that promise brother. Stay safe, I love you." Pace stands up tall once more with the much needed love in his heart.

"Nova will take command. You are to rendezvous with the t.i.tan s.h.i.+p and stay safe. I will be along soon. Watch out for ball s.h.i.+ps, dont let them track you." Pace looks at the worried faces around him. Maybe what he is doing is stupid, but it was the right thing to do. Pace puts on his s.p.a.cesuit and arms his weapon systems. Sam had been modifying things again, to make his suit better, but he had no time to test these new items, he had work to do. The loading bay ramp lowers and Nova flies close to the top of the t.i.tan s.h.i.+p, still cloaked.

"Sir, you do have a cloaking system built into your suit. I was messing around with things, but it should serve you well." Sam is pleased with that modification as it will keep Pace alive for longer.

"Thanks, Sam." Pace activates the cloak and becomes invisible, and then jumps out of the Invictus, using his jet pack to lower himself slowly onto the hull of the broken t.i.tan. The Invictus shoots off up in to the blackness of s.p.a.ce, unseen. After searching for a few minutes, Pace notices a hatch, opens it and climbs down a ladder to an airlock, where he opens the inner hatch to a room. Explosions are heard outside and the sound of the auto-turrets boom every now and then, shaking debris around him. Pace uses his spotlights to light the way in the darkened corridors that were powerless now.

Chapter Seventy-Eight.

Outside, only a few of Eves original forces remain alive, still fighting hard against these terrible odds. A large green gas cloud precedes the blues, generated by two giant machines, and protected by giant four-legged creatures with dark blue skin with black stripes and two ma.s.sive arms that could punch through armour in no time. They also had what appeared to be tendrils coming out of their backs. Smaller blues dashed around leaping in the air at Eves men. They could launch an attack from quite a distance away; a hard lesson learned at the beginning of the fight, losing a great number of men.

Then there were the medium sized blues. They were like little tanks once on the rampage. They had four arms, horns and thick scales and were dark blue with lava coloured veins all over them, but their evil red eyes made every man shudder, if he had the misfortune to get up close. It seemed they could jump a fair distance too, and fired parasites at the men. If Pace had been stood with them, he could have warned them of all of this and maybe saved some lives in the process, but what goes around comes around, he thinks. These men were used to fighting other men, not aliens. They were out-matched, and finally the blues started to break through their line.

One man, who was on his back being attacked by a smaller blue who was carving at him with metal claws, shouts out loud, "In coming!" He notices two and then two more missiles flying over him and smiling he draws his last breath, as the missiles. .h.i.t the ground near him. Four large explosions cause soil and rock to erupt into the air, along with a pungent smell.

Many blues are slain in the blast and many are sent in bits through the air. The whole ground shakes and ripples shake the ground for miles. Nothing can stand up for long in this blast; even the giant blues are shocked, looking up from the floor. Every creature and every man lie still for a moment, then remembering what is going on around them, jump back to their feet to try to gain an advantage on the battlefield. No person or creature pays any attention to the four large holes in the ground.

Pace regains his footing and tries to open the bridge door, but its locked from the inside. Eve hears a beeping sound on the door and looks at Pace from the camera and opens a channel to him.

"Youre still alive then. Well, well, well. Oh, you poor thing, youre a blue too I see. Thats such bad luck."

Pace, looking at Eves mangled face replies. "I see you have had a face lift, such a much better look for you, I think. Now cut the c.r.a.p. Do you want to work against me or with me, the choice is yours. Ill give you five minutes to decide, and then Im leaving your sorry a.s.s to the blues." Eve decides in an instant to work with Pace, after all he is still alive, and if he can get her out and die along the way, then thats a better option than none.

"Whats the plan?" replies Eve, opening the door.

Pace has his blaster gauntlet raised pointing at her head. "We need PD1 missiles. Where are they kept?"

Wanting to work with Pace and get out of the t.i.tan, Eve wipes blood from her nose. "A stockpile I have stored at my palace, but how are we going to get there?"

Pace grabs her arm and tugs her down the dark corridors back to the fighter. "Get in, now!" Pace shoves Eve into the front seat of the fighter and climbs in the rear seat. He locks out the controls in the front, so Eve cannot try to pull a fast surprise on him, and he takes the controls. He arms two melta-missiles and closes the canopy. The engines roar and the missiles are soon traveling towards the hull wall. Two blinding lights flash and an orange glow appears around a large hole in the hull. It is just big enough for the s.h.i.+p to fit through, so they sc.r.a.pe through just in time. The last of Eves troops have fallen and they have just moments to escape.

The fighter is. .h.i.t by blaster fire, which has no effect on the s.h.i.+elds, but they have now caught the attention of the wave of ball s.h.i.+ps, and with no cloaking ability they are sitting ducks, unless they do something soon. Pace flies the s.h.i.+p low over the thousands of ground troops ma.s.sing near the t.i.tan. They leap up trying to jump on the s.h.i.+p as it pa.s.ses them. Pace notices the blues gas making machines and realises that they all are breathing it to survive. He also notices, from one of the holes in the ground, some Kalgoray emerging, who pounce on some of the blues and drag them underground for a quick meal.

"Those things will eat anything, eh?" Pace is looking in amazement out of the window, in awe of their killing skills.

"They were engineered for that reason. Once we began to run out of ore in the mines, we stored them underground, and fed them every now and then with a few homeless people, prisoners and other rejects. Good job we did, they may just save us yet." Pace, looking at the back of Eves head wonders, how evil could she get?

"So they were once human then. Why would you do that to someone?"

Eve chuckles, "Because we can, and we will continue for ever more if it benefits us."

Pace notices hundreds of Kalgoray pouring out of the ground, to what must be a feast to them. The blues have found a hard fight here and the battle is intense it seems from above. The fighter hurries away, heading for the palace. It can be seen in the distance, so it will not take them long to reach it, but they are, however, being pursued by eleven ball s.h.i.+ps, thirsty for blood.

Pace gives the fighter full burn and he and Eve are jolted back into their seats, hanging on for dear life. The ball s.h.i.+ps hang back as the desert plains turn into canyons. They fly through a maze of tunnels and only sc.r.a.pe through a few gaps. Pace is trying to lose his pursuers, but to no avail. The sun has gone from here and it is dark and cold. It is even cold in the c.o.c.kpit, not just in temperature, but cold in someones heart. The smell of Eve wafts back up into Paces nose. Its a smell of cigarettes and dampness; a smell of death. Not like Megans smell, she smelled like fresh flowers, cinnamon and love.

"Watch out!" Shouts Eve as Pace gets too close to an outcrop of jagged stone spikes. Pace veers left to avoid certain destruction and snaps out of his trance. He thinks perhaps he should have hit the rocks after all and ended Eve to be sure, but then again he wanted to see his niece. A few more twists and turns and it seems they have lost the b.a.l.l.s following them, and they shoot out of the last tunnel towards a s.h.i.+ny mansion house, which was used as Eves palace. It was a large base with tall walls built around and a moat, just like the days of old when knights ruled the old realms. The area seemed quiet and so they land on the landing platform on the top of the mansion. Pace opens the canopy and Eve and Pace both step down onto solid ground.

"Does this place have any defence at all? If it does, turn it on, we will need it." The sand was blowing and the weather was turning bad again, so Eve and Pace walk together from the flight platform down some steps to a door leading inside, to warmth and shelter, which was great as it was very cold outside. A large metallic door was sealing the entrance. It had many locks on it and it took a while for Eve to enter the code to release the giant piston holding it closed. Stepping inside to a well lit room that smelt of lavender, Eve sighs in relief. She is home again and walks over to a console on a desk in the corner of the room. The room is purple and has some chairs and a table, probably a waiting room, thought Pace. Eve turns to Pace, who is still holding a blaster to her back.

"I take it you want me to turn the guns on and what nots?" Eve has her hands up, still fearing to lower them.

"Turn them on, and no tricks." Pace is being very watchful and any false move will be her last. Eve enters a code into her computer and activates the defence system. This was the state of the art technology and Eve again has a trick up her sleeve.

"So you want missiles, well they are downstairs, but the good news is that we can launch them from here if we target the blue vessel up in orbit, because not being funny, we would never be able to carry enough needed to do the job and escape with any haste." Eve points down onto the screen. It flickers yellow and after pressing a few more b.u.t.tons, charts and pictures appear with an inventory of everything in the house, which was not a lot now, due to most of it being on the Fahrenheit, somewhere in s.p.a.ce.

"Ok, target the alien vessel and put a timer on it. We want to be able to blast past them as we escape." Eve types in a few inscription codes and a timer for launch appears on the screen.

A deep robotic voice bellows as the blues begin to attack the mansion. "Danger close. Defence systems activated. Engaging enemies. Initialising lock down protocol. PD1 missiles armed and ready for launch."

What Pace did not notice was that Eve had also targeted the Invictus that was cloaked just outside orbit, about to pa.s.s the giant alien s.h.i.+p and it still was carrying a homing beacon on it. She had also activated personal defence robots to come to her aid.

"Youve done the right thing in the end, Eve. The blues are just pure evil and now humanity has a chance again." As Pace lowers his weapon, a black robot enters the room via a sliding door in the wall behind him. It is quiet and deadly, and stands around seven feet tall with no face and no eyes, just a dark head shape on its tall body, featureless and cold and ready to attack and take no prisoners. When a second door opens to the right of Pace, and he catches a glimpse of a dark shape entering the room, he knows it is a trap once more, and as he turns to face the second robot, the first robot lashes out at him from behind, delivering a devastating blow to the back of Paces head, sending him face first onto the cream coloured tiles on the floor.

Seeing her chance, Eve makes a run for the fighter and frantically begins to push b.u.t.tons on the s.h.i.+p to get the engine started, but Pace also has trust issues and has rigged the s.h.i.+p to not start without a code, and quickly figuring this out, Eve takes no time to jump back out of the c.o.c.kpit and heads back to the door, but the whole mansion was now locked down; you could leave but not enter. Eve was now stranded outside with the fighter, and Pace was inside.

Getting up off the floor, a second swing finds its mark and Pace is punched backwards onto the desk. He looks down and in a seconds glance he notices that the missiles were about to launch, and that one was aiming at the Invictus, so he quickly turns, and while the two robots approach him, he tries to redirect the missile to save his crew, but he is seconds too late and the missiles begin to launch from the mansion. This infuriates Pace and standing up strong, he activates his sword and blaster, and his jet pack is ready and he blasts off into the air, towards one of the robots, his jets burning bright blue and scorching the desk behind him.

The deafening sound of missiles in his ears launching from the mansion makes him feel a little sick, knowing that one of them will hit his friends and it was out of his control. Pace slams into the first robot, man verses machine, with a cracking thunder behind his first punch, and then a slash of his sword destroys the robots right shoulder in an instant. The robot begins to crackle and buzz as hydraulic oil mixes with power circuits. The robot swings back hitting Pace in the chest, but Pace is not feeling a thing, the adrenaline rus.h.i.+ng through his system, he brushes off the blow without a fear. Pace pounds upon the robot like a mad man out of control, smas.h.i.+ng and crus.h.i.+ng the robots outer metal armour, every punch with his metal arm causing major damage, until he gains a grip on the robots head and tears it off, flinging it across the room at the door.

The second robot slices Pace with a bladed hand, but Paces armoured suit holds the blow at bay and it glances off, sparks flying off the armour, but not causing any harm. He turns and impales the second robot with his sword and then fires his jet pack once again and pushes the robot from the centre of the room, over to the wall and lifts him up, pinning him to the wall and punching parts of the robot through the wall. It was a fatal move and the robot stood no chance. Pace withdraws his blade, and the robot hangs half in the wall and half out, sparking like a childs sparkler.

The alien blues are ma.s.sing outside now, attacking the mansions walls and defences. Pace gains access to the computer once again, now that he has a few moments to spare. He looks at Eve on the security camera. She is on the platform, stranded with no way off but if Pace stays, he will be toast, he thinks to himself, so he will have to take her with him, but first he must set the mansions melt-down timer, if it had one. He scrolls through the files and finds a few eye openers. There were files on human/alien hybrids and human experiments, so he uses a link to download the files to the computer on his suit, for later inspection along with medical files, which may help him to return back to human again. He notices the mansion has more robots that he can activate to defend his escape, a total of forty-eight more personal robots that he now activates to fight the blues that have now entered the complex. He gains a comms link to the Invictus. The screen is a little bit grey but at least he can warn them of the PD1 heading their way.

"Nova, you have a PD1 missile locked on you, its on its way to you along with about ten more heading to the alien mothers.h.i.+p. Youve got to get out of there fast or shoot it down, or something." Nova, who is controlling the s.h.i.+p from Paces chair, was about to answer but watching her screen, she can see the thousands of blues at Paces location.

She pauses for a moment. "I should come and get you; youre in big trouble yourself."

Pace moves closer to the screen and smiles. "Im always in big trouble, Sis, but Ill get by. Ive got to go." The door is being hammered by something large the other side that wants in and the door is seconds from buckling. Novas screen goes black.

She turns to Rusty. "Weve got to find a transponder on our s.h.i.+p and fast if we are going to shake this missile. Get to work everyone. I will get us close to that mothers.h.i.+p and we will dump it off on her, and then get out of there like a bullet." Nova pilots the s.h.i.+p closer to the alien blue s.h.i.+p. Still cloaked they go unnoticed, but what she does notice is the missiles on her screen breaking the planets...o...b..t and heading their way. She hopes they find the homing beacon or it will be a sticky mess for everyone.

The grey metal door buckles in the top right hand corner revealing a large blue, crazed and h.e.l.l-bent on getting in at Pace. Pace finishes his computer work and then blasts at the creature through the gap. It yells and gets more angry; it is infuriated and going mental. The door was doing its job well; it was after all two feet thick. However, the wall next to it was not faring so well, with large chunks falling on the floor like a landslide. Pace is about to go outside when he notices on the screen that a few ball s.h.i.+ps are now circling outside, and Eve is hiding under the fighter.

It seems Eve has been busy fighting against being captured but now the tendrils las.h.i.+ng around her finally find their mark. A tendril grips her leg and she is whisked up into the air, upside down and screaming and fighting but to no avail. The rus.h.i.+ng air is making it hard to breathe or see, as now tears are streaming from her eyes, like a flowing river. The tendril retracts slowly up into the ball s.h.i.+p and inside is a blue waiting for Eve. He grips her head and slams her down onto a small table in a single movement and the tendril disappears into the floor. Eves eyes rush around the room in fear. A tube is shoved into her mouth and she begins to choke on it as it is pushed deeper inside her. A blue liquid is pumped down it and then she loses the control to stay awake. The room begins to spin and all hope of escape is lost.

The door finally gives way and storming into the room is a large blue creature with four legs and two arms. It has tendrils coming out of its dark blue skin. Its black stripes are scaly and its red eyes look down on Pace with no feeling but hate. Even with Paces jet pack at full power pus.h.i.+ng against the creature, the monster pushes Pace to the outer door, ramming him with an armour crus.h.i.+ng blow that knocks the air out of Paces chest and catching his breath he stabs at the creatures chest. A green cloud envelopes him and he can hardly see at all, but those red eyes pierce the green like laser pointers. A tendril impales Pace in the side. It cuts through his armour like a hot knife through b.u.t.ter and back out again, ready for a second stab.

Pace feels no pain, surprisingly, and his alien blue skin begins to heal the wound and to his surprise, the green gas that has got into his suit has not affected him at all. Perhaps he was too alien now, not feeling pain and being half blue, he thought he would just wait until the melt down and all would be right in the universe again. As the tendril flies in for a second attack, Pace grabs it with his metal arm and tears it from the back of the creature and tosses it to the floor, before tearing out his own oxygen canister and shoving it into the face of the giant crus.h.i.+ng him. The canister ruptures and the vapour begins the fill the room.

Paces second attack was to slice the green gas tank on the side of the Oakthian, so that it could not breathe. The monster began to choke, along with the other blues now entering the room. Their skin began to bubble and burn. The oxygen was top dog this day, an unseen a.s.sa.s.sin in the air. For once the blues looked scared and began to back away from the room. Pace could see hundreds of them now, all screeching and melting. The giant blue moves backwards away from him. Paces suit was buckled and torn but he was still alive at least and it felt good. Holding his side, he walks over to the computer and programs the few remaining robots to target the blues green tanks, so that he could set the mansions oxygen levels at full to kill them.

Instead of leaving through the door to the fighter and freedom, Pace decides to take off his suit, as it was stopping him from breathing. The giant dark blue monster had fell and was now a mound of goo on the floor, and surrounding it lay many other blues, some still writhing in pain and some just liquid on the floor. The mansions count down timer display on the wall reads just ten minutes left. Pace can breathe oxygen and green gas, it appears, but part of him feels sad for the blues that had died or were dying. He had a weird connection of family, but shaking this off, he decides to take a look down the corridor and the room beyond that, where the door was taken off its hinges and two defence robots were stripped down in a fight. Parts and debris lay everywhere, along with dead blues. The robots had been doing a great job at targeting the green gas it seemed.

Pace walks unhindered around the mansion, but outside was a different story. Thousands upon thousands of blues waited to get revenge, and Pace thought he had won the fight, maybe so but not the war. He raised a window shutter to get a better look outside. There was a sea of blue in front of him, an area just outside the mansion, where some blues lay dead from the oxygen leaking out. Pace was on the third floor, but could hear a few robots shooting from the doors at the bottom of the mansion. There were some giant blues and a giant gas generator pumping out green gas all around. The turret guns were all quiet and most were ablaze and smouldering.

Near the centre of the army stood two tall slender figures stood on a floating platform. The platform began to move forward through the blues. It was obvious that they were in charge, as the blues cheered them like they were heroes. The platform floated towards the mansion and then stopped. The defence robots were still firing on it, but they had no effect. One of the alien figures floated down two steps to the ground and then went out of view. Blaster fire was heard and then all was silent.

It was so quiet that Pace could hear only the oxygen moving in and out of his lungs, and as Pace ran to the top of the stairs to see if the blue had made it in the building, he could see a tall figure, about seven foot tall floating up the stairs on green gas. It had some sort of force-field around it and it was on its own, and no doubt was looking for Pace. Pace retreated out of the room, back through the mansion to the escape door, and then leaving the door open, to see when the creature arrived. He starts the fighter ready for a quick exit and stands back just in the doorway, ready to press the close b.u.t.ton if he needed to stop it. Pace was feeling fearful. This thing was not afraid and wanted something. Could it even be stopped? Pace was not going to wait to find out.

The creature came into view and Pace stood there, not raising weapons, just standing strong and still until the creature got close enough.

"Stop right there, pal." The creature stopped. It had large metal clawed hands and a waft of rotting flesh preceded it. It gazed at Pace with burning orange eyes that looked like embers in a fire. It stood motionless for a few moments, which was very unnerving for Pace, before it pointed at him with a single finger.

"You are us and them, how is this?" The creatures voice was deep and gritty.

"Im a freak of nature, something Im going to rectify. Trust me, if my evolution is to smell like you do, then Im going to end it now. Do you guys even bath?"

The creature lets out a scream so powerful it knocks Pace back, and holding his ear so that it does not pop his ear drum, he cowers in pain. The screech stops and the creature points again.

"You jest when you should answer me. You humans are weak, nothing but cattle to us, nothing but food in our bellies. You are one of a thousand species we have destroyed. We have your leader and you will do as we say. We have decided that we will spare some of you to work in the mines, to gather resources to power our s.h.i.+ps, and that is all, nothing more."

Pace stands up tall once again and laughs. "Thats what you have decided, eh? Well for one thing, I dont care if you have our leader, we all live our lives and decide our own way, and two, you have just two minutes to walk away or to kneel before me as your master, or you will feel pain like you have never felt before. Decide now." Pace has realised that the mansions meltdown was about to blow and what a better way to go out, it would be fast and painless. The alien stood before Pace begins to chant and a weird purple and red aura appears around it, spinning faster and faster. The aura begins to pa.s.s through the alien like a spirit possessing someone. Ten seconds to go and Pace pushes the b.u.t.ton and the door slams shut and Pace makes a run for the s.h.i.+p. He quickly finds his seat and fires the engines and raises the front of the s.h.i.+p, just as the mansions self-destruct system reaches zero. It was worth a go at getting away, but it was too late now. The alien leader realises Pace has trapped him and screams as the floor and all around him explodes. Its s.h.i.+elds are no match for the blast and he disintegrates in an instant.

Paces fighter, with s.h.i.+elds and thrusters at full, is blown backwards at such a speed he loses consciousness. The s.h.i.+elds fail in a second and the heat from the blast melts the bottom of the fighter to a molten metal ma.s.s of red lava. The s.h.i.+p spins like a windmill, smas.h.i.+ng along the ground, being pushed along by the blasts energy wave, until the fighter comes to a grinding halt on its side against an outcrop of rocks, setting the shrubs there alight. The thousands of blues around the mansion have been destroyed for a mile radius, but more are on their way, especially now that two of their leaders were slain in the blast.