The Ghost of Time - Chapter 9

Chapter 9
Onslaught


The Invisible Judgement glided towards the nuclear destroyer with full speed. We weren’t far from Takeda, the computer estimated twenty minutes between our arrival and the start of the nuclear bombardment. Mr. Wrong’s plan for stopping it was already in place, and he most likely vacated the area in order to avoid the enemy. His actions seemed noble in a way, but we had to make sure that the rockets would fly, obliterating the largest human colony ever created.

It wasn’t a great plan, but that was the only plan we had.

I took a glance at the cruiser from the cockpit, then I turned back to the others, standing at the back of the room.

“Make sure everything is ready, we don’t know what awaits us on the other side,” I warned them, although I was sure they already knew that. Synthia said there would be no one on the ship when we get there, but I had a feeling that her predictions would prove to be far from reality.

“Ready for everything, boss,” Rush nodded, then he glanced at Sylvana. “You?”

The deylonian didn’t react. She stood with her back to the grey wall, looking at her right arm with a fascinated smile on her face. She slowly caressed the blue skin on her forearm, her fascination increased with every touch.

“Sylvana, are you alright?” I asked with confusion in my voice.

The deylonian jumped a bit, then she nodded, like nothing had happened.

“This will be a difficult task,” she answered.

“Yeah, it will be,” Rush commented. “I’m glad I’m the only one who has a problem with it.”

“Don’t start it again, we have to do this,” I told him, while I was steering the ship towards the cruiser’s long, thick hull.

“There are billions of innocent people down there, and we are about to slaughter every single one of them. For what? Because the ship said so?” he snapped, looking at me with anger in his eyes.

“If we don’t do this, everyone dies, including them,” I answered.

“We can’t know that. And even if that’s the case, hundreds of years would pass before those other guys attack. All those people could lead a full life if we were to…”

“Cut the shit!” Sylvana raised her voice. I turned around immediately, looking at her gun gripped firmly in her hand. She didn’t point it at Rush, but she was ready to use it.

“What? I thought you were on my side in this!”

“I want your species to survive, looks like a lot more than you do,” she answered, holding the gun tight to her leg. “We are doing this, regardless if you want to help us or not. Got it?”

“So it’s back to normal, huh?” he shook his head, looking back at me. “You two against all the others. Beyond reason and sanity. Should have seem it from a mile away.”

“That’s enough, Rush!” I raised my voice. “You can stay on the ship, if you want.”

“No need, I want to see this through.”

I nodded before turning back to the window. Finally, we reached the cruiser. The brand new Annihilator class nuclear destroyer seemed to be in perfect condition – however it lost all power. The sensors made no indication of its shields, the weapons were offline, and even the engines stopped moving the ship. It wasn’t going towards Takeda, it was merely drifting towards it.

“Life support seems online,” I commented. Even Mr. Wrong had to breathe somehow. “But the hangars are closed.”

“Great. Then how do we get in?” Rush scratched his head.

“We shoot,” Sylvana answered. “Our guns are strong enough to breach the metal.”

“Then there will be no pressure in the hangar. We could go in the suits, but they won’t do well in combat,” I shook my head.

“We have a boarding drill, don’t we?” she tilted her head, massaging her soft neck.

“It can’t get through the armor. It’s for buildings and smaller space stations,” I explained, although I was surprised she knew that about the ship. She often forgot about it back when we were together, and that was supposed to be her future self.

“But it can get through the hangar’s floor to the lower level,” she said, unable to let go of her neck. It seemed like she was fascinated because it’s touch. But why would she be glad to touch her own skin? Maybe it was some deylonian thing that eluded me over the years.

“That could work,” I nodded, not showing how much that impressed me.

“Then what are you waiting for? Shoot!”

She didn’t have to tell me twice. I activated the weapons as soon I was able, then pushed both fire buttons embedded in the steering stick. The Invisible Judgement’s twin cannons started firing at once, breaking the ship’s camouflage, shooting extremely hot plasma rounds on the thick wall sealing the hangar.

At first the titanium seemed to hold, bot the third salvo burned through it with a fiery sight, while the fourth and the fifth completely melted the metal, sending the extremely hot liquid to the darkness of space. They burnt an almost perfect hole for us to get through.

As soon as we glided in the empty hangar, I took the ship down on the cold, grey floor. There was no air and no pressure around us, which made it certain that the ship will be here when we get back. I activated the drill built on the belly of the ship, and waited until the Coalition’s most advanced plasma cutter went through the hangar’s floor, making us a way into the floor beneath us.

A thick, circular ring protected the drill from all possible directions. It covered everything from the belly of the ship to the hangar’s floor, creating a tunnel for us behind the plasma cutter. We could go through it after a few seconds.
After the drill’s mechanic sound came to a halt, we had the green light to go. We only needed some ropes to climb down to the lower levels.
At least the most of us required it.

“I will scout ahead,” Sylvana said, and jumped down to the abyss with her weapons in her hand.

“At least it will be an easy descent,” Rush said as soon as she disappeared, dropping two black ropes down the passage, with their other end secured firmly to the grey metal wall.

I was the first one to climb to the lower level, where it soon became evident how dark it was. The main lights were out, and even most of the secondary lights ceased to function. The faint, yellow lights only showed me the shape of the corridors and a pale image of the dead bodies lying on the floor. We should have brought the googles with us, but I guess it was too late for that.

“They were slaughtered,” Rush said as soon as he finished his descent.

“Should have guessed so,” I nodded, stepping over one the dead coalition soldiers, who He was shot from behind. It was a smart move from Mr. Wrong to kill everyone on board, that way no one could interrupt his plans once he was gone.

But was he gone? We already knew that he could come back from the dead, just like we could. I had to admit, hoping that he would simply abandon his most important mission was a daring idea. Yet it happened before on Earth, thus it deserved some more thought.

We advanced forward through the dark corridors. Most of time only our flashlights could guide us forward, other times we could find a half-broken lamp that illuminated the way ahead. The more steps we took towards the bridge, the more dead bodies highlighted the way ahead.

The deylonian’s absence made matters even more nerving.

“Sylvana, where the hell are you?” I asked in the communicator.

“Scouting ahead. Found no resistance so far. Still, you should be careful,” she answered immediately, calming me down a little.

“Okay, don’t stray too far away. We don’t know if he’s here or not.”

“Agreed,” she answered.

“Don’t worry, she can handle herself,” Rush said after the channel was closed, walking near me in the dark corridor.

“Let’s hope so,” I nodded.

We walked in silence through at least corridors, but the third one left us breathless. A dozen dead soldiers lay before us; all of them were slaughtered at the same spot. Most of them were shot, but the others weren’t so fortunate. They had cuts and bruises all over them, as if something was kicking and slicing them for sport.

Something moved on the bright light of the flashlight, I was shocked to realize it was a dying soldier. The man could barely breath, long cuts went through both his chest and face. The attacker must have thought he was finished, and left him here.

“What happened?” I asked, crunching down near the soldier.

“The demon… the blue demon…” he said, I could barely understand his pale voice.

“What demon?” I frowned.

“She slaughtered us all… she seemed like a girl… a lost girl… but she was more than that…”

“What? What was she?” I asked, trying to make sense of what I heard.

“A cyborg…” the soldier said before he would stop to breathe.

I checked his vitals, but he was gone. I closed the poor bastard’s eyes, and I looked back to Rush.

“She’s not a cyborg,” he shook his head.

“Not yet,” I answered, straightening up from the dead body.

“What are you thinking?” he asked with wide eyes.

“In the real timeline, Sylvana was abducted four years ago. But she will only look like a human two years from now.”

“But we saved her. There is no way Takeda could…” Rush explained, but then he froze. He looked back to me like he had seen a ghost. “But Mr. Wrong could.”

“We have to warn her,” I snapped, trying to reach Sylvana through the communicator.

*Transmission closed* – the blue screen stated. Either her device broke or she was in the middle of a firefight, unable to receive the call.

“We gotta hurry,” I looked back to him, and started to Rush towards the bridge.

It wasn’t as far away as I thought it would. I rushed through another three corridors, filled with dead bodies, and I could finally see the command centers thick, black door. The door itself lay on the floor, ripped out of its place by brute force. There was no way our Sylvana was capable of doing that – however the new one could.

I rushed through the entrance, ready to fire at any second. I stopped, seeing two figures in the middle of the bridge, illuminated by only a half-broken secondary light. It was Mr. Wrong all along. My nemesis held Sylvana close to himself, pointing his gun towards her head.

“Ah, Michael, I knew you would come along,” he said with a bright smile on his face.

“Don’t shoot…” Sylvana gasped.

“What did you do?!” I raised my voice, quickly glancing towards Rush. He was just as nervous as I was.

“I could tell you, but I would rather show. It’s more exciting that way,” he answered, taking small steps from the center of the bridge.

Now I could see Takeda through the window, and through it, another dreadful sight stuck me. The Demetreus was orbiting the planet. Its hull was broken, filled with holes and broken sections. Some of them the holes were so enormous that I could see the planet on the other side of them.

He stole it. It took a lot to take the ship, but he did it regardless, cutting us off from resurrection. If he shoot Sylvana right now, she was good as dead. Hell, if he killed all three of us, then the journey was over once and for all.

“You wanted to kill a planet, so I thought I would do the job for you,” he explained, and glanced to the window.

The Demetreus opened fire on the planet’s surface. A hail of blue darts reached the lush cities, obliterating them with the power of a thousand nuclear warheads. The enormous fire killed millions within an instant, but that was only the beginning of the destruction. New shots came from the ship’s mighty cannons long before the end of previous waves’ destructing salvo.

By the next shots would hit, the tremendous storm erased half a continent from existence. The second salvo expanded the inferno to half the planet’s surface, while the third melted through the planet’s surface, sending everything into a fiery that was ever contained by it.

Only a few ships and stations dared to oppose the aggressor, but the planet’s destruction quickly made short work of them all. Molten rocks emerged from the broken surface by the millions, shattering everything except a Demetreus that could easily withstand the force of the impact – even at this state.

Better combat capabilities than most sentient species. Sylvana’s words echoed in my head.

“Why?” I asked, still shocked from the unimaginable destruction.

“You wanted to end the war. Now it’s over,” he answered, holding Sylvana close to him.

“I thought you wanted them to win,” I answered.

“I never wanted the Coalition to lose the war. I just wanted you to fail. Over and over again, making you as desperate as possible by the time we get to this moment.”

“Then you failed,” I stated. “You couldn’t break me old man, it’s about time to give up. Give me back the ship, and let go of her. If you do that, I might let you resurrect wherever the fuck you do that from.”

“Is that so?” asked.

“Michael...” Sylvana gasped.

I wanted to make him let her go, but then I saw something from the distance. The Demetreus pointed its guns towards us, and launched dozens of blue darts from its mighty guns.