Fighting a planet
The show playing out In front of me somewhat reminded me of the aurora borealis. I'd never seen it of course, but I'd heard the legends. Lights dancing through the sky in seemingly random but ultimately pre-determined patterns. It was beautiful. Or it was supposed to be.
Instead in front of me are large bursts of orange light each followed by an explosion as I watch the lives in those ships be snuffed out one after another. A green laser bolt flew out from the side of our ship and it was within a blink of my eyes that I saw yet another ship become scrap metal in front of me.
"Impressive." Says Marianne offhandedly as she admires the carnage in front of us. While she's right, this is an impressive sight it's not one I can find myself admiring innocently. Perhaps because my jobs have always been more clean, I don't see the sight as impressive just sad.
The ship darts to the left and another laser whizzes by us. One that could've been the end of our lives if we weren't careful but Lumi's expression stays the same. She isn't worried, scared or even proud. She simply watches all the ships in front of us impassively as though this was an expected outcome.
She continues to dart around and make the army in front of us look like a gaggle of fools for quite a while. Eventually we make it to near the end of the enemy formation and I shout out "What's that!?" in surprise. My teammates also seem surprised. Marianne and Lumi still seem calmER but the fact that they of all people are showing surprise makes it clear how strange the situation is.
In front of us is an incredibly large ship. It's about the size of a small planet… and looks like one. A massive metal ball with so many contraptions on it's 'surface' that It looked more like a porcupine or pufferfish than planet. All the spires shooting out from the 'surface' makes the image rather vivid in our minds.
Even worse the middle of the planet has the biggest spire and it's so wide I could mistake it for a cannon muzzle. Which is apparently not a terribly incorrect assumption as I see what I now know to be a cannon muzzle light up in an array of beautiful colours. All aimed in our direction.
"Shit." Mumbles Lumi under her breath and the whole room tenses. Even under the fire of an entire army Lumi had never once looked agitated. Not once did she look like things had deviated from her calculations. Now though.
Her lips were downturned, and her face was set into a rather tense expression. Immediately Lumi tapped on the wheel in front of her and we were all subjected to the result. A massive burst of g-force made us hold onto whatever we were using to stabilise ourselves.
I put as much strength into my core as I could to resist the ridiculous force that pressed against my upper half. My feet were magnetised so they were fine but I had to keep my upper half in place with nothing to anchor to.
By the time I realized the force on my body had stopped I looked at the window and saw what would've been in store for us had Lumi not taken such immediate action. All the wreckage Lumi had caused to the ships around us was originally floating in space.
Yet now I looked at our previous location and found absolutely nothing there. Not a single spec of machine or man that should've been part of those ships. Instead there was simply the empty vacuum of space.
This caused me to gape open mouthed at the screen and I wasn't the only one surprised. "Sure it was debris but that's quite a lot of it. It's not like the materials are particularly weak either." I hear Tommy whisper softly to himself likely so he isn't overheard and have his realisation affect morale.
"What is that?" I ask not quite believing my eyes or ears. The salvage of a good few hundred ships were floating out there. They were military vessels. Some of the rarest and hardest metals in the known universe were tempered, hardened and solidified to a degree we would've thought divine several centuries ago.
Yet it wasn't crushed, bashed or battered into a smaller version of itself. It was completely obliterated. As though the universe told us that anything standing before the beam was simply pointless. Like our attempt to escape was futile.
No one appears to have a ready answer for my question. Lumi is just as grim and perhaps more so. The look on her face is one of not quite desperation or panic. Yet there is significant annoyance on her face.
Marianne's eyes have become cold. The eyes of a warrior looking at an opponent. A judging, analytical and perhaps… respectful gaze. She directs this towards the beam weapon and doesn't move her eyes from that spot.
Lumi touches the controls once more and while still significant the force on our bodies is not enough to sway all of our gazes from the massive weapon that seems to deny the existence of anything that stands before it.
"We can't destroy that. We just have to escape. I will have to keep our ship out of the range of that beam. Please keep yourselves in a comfortable position there is likely to be significant turbulence." Says Lumi.
I ready my body for more force to hit it and watch the screen. My heart pounds in my chest and my throat dries. A feeling wells up in my chest that I can't quite place and my fists start to clench themselves while holding on to part of my clothing.
A soft drumming is the only sound in my ears for quite some time after that as we quickly approach the weapon in question and I keep my eyes trained on the muzzle. Every second I think I see a flash and my mind revs up. Then the next second I realise nothing happened and I relax only for the cycle to repeat itself over and over and over.
Finally The light in my eyes stays far longer than a second and I swallow my saliva. "Now." Whispers Lumi under her breath and the pressure on my body changes directions. I was now being forced towards the left wall and the view in front of me changes. No longer is the weapon in my sight.
Strangely that makes the world slow down and my mind ready itself for action once more. I see an afterglow appear on the right of the screen in front of me and I see the metal planet approaching at a rapid speed.
"Why are we heading towards it?" I ask my voice coming out slightly higher pitched than I'd intended.
"Because we have to." Answers Marianne. Her voice is steady, reliable and almost soothing. My heart rate calms slightly and I realise how tightly wound I'm being. I take a deep breath. Hold it for 10 seconds. Then I breath it out. Once I did that my racing heart calms completely, my eyes become cold and my world slows down once more. This time though I'm paying attention.
The moment I do so a number of lights fly from the 'surface' and straight towards us. I only see them whiz by our ship and I barely even recognise the fact that they missed us. I do however notice that the muzzle is not the only weapon to watch out for.
My muscles tense instinctively and my hand twitches. But I stop my hand and I relax my muscles. I can't do anything in this situation and I should know that. All I can do is watch and hope that Lumi knows what she's doing.
Perhaps because of my newfound hope I notice something I likely should have before. Not one of the light beams has so much as grazed the shield. Confused I look at Lumi and realise that though we can't feel it she is making minute adjustments on the controls in front of her. Every time she does I see another light shoot past the screen.
"This is insane and all but… HOW ARE WE GETTING OUT OF HERE!" Shouts Delilah. I look closer at her face and in my heightened concentration I notice her pupils are dilated, her breathing is heavy and her eyeline is constantly trained on the ever approaching planet sized weapon.
"Be quiet." Growls Marianne and her eyes finally turn towards her. Her honey coloured eyes are dripping with intensity and it shuts Delilah right up. Turning back around with no interest in any further reactions from Delilah Marianne explains to the rest of us quietly.
"We need to get behind the ship." Says Marianne and I could see Delilah's eye twitch but it was ignored as Marianne continues.
"It MIGHT have sensors on it's back but it most certainly will not have another of that weapon." Explains Marianne and I realise what we're going for. The lasers are clearly nothing to Lumi so without that big weapon in our way the escape will be easy.
"How will that actually help?" Asks Delilah her voice trembling and her eyes still focussed on the large weapon.
"Lumi is clearly skilled enough to deal with the lasers. Past this ship is the road to freedom. It will not have the manoeuvrability to turn around." Stated Marianne with certainty and I had to agree. As she was explaining lasers were dancing through the air and avoiding us like they had a will of their own.
"Oh" Says Delilah sounding rather empty and her eyes lacking light for a moment. Finally however her eyes light up and she speaks up again.
"Oh!" This exclamation was a lot louder. I look at her and my muscles relax a little seeing her attitude.
"So all we have to do is get behind that thing. Seems like we're already halfway there." Says Delilah now practically bouncing on her feet. She certainly rebounds fast. Of course her positive attitude doesn't do anything to help us as I watch the planet approaching.
Wait the planet's approaching? That was the plan but this seems a little fast? I carefully watch the screen with a bad feeling. I feel as though some small part of my brain is telling me that this isn't right. A small feeling of wrongness I can't quite place.
Then I realise it. "Isn't the planet approaching a little fast?!" I ask my voice trembling slightly not unlike Delilah's a moment ago. Looking closely the planet isn't just getting closer. It's approaching us. We aren't going towards it.
Marianne seems to realise as well. I can't see her face as her back is to me but I see the side of her eyes and the wrinkles that form from squinting them. "You're right. We're not approaching the planet. It's approaching us." Marianne's voice doesn't tremble, her posture is perfect but one of her arms tenses for just a moment and with my training I spot it.
The planet is approaching us. Which means that if we get too close it's going to squash us. My fists clench and I stare at the approaching planet not blinking even once. Lumi obviously realising the same problem as myself and Marianne after we told her, quickly sends the craft in another direction.
I see the screen light up blue for a moment and see Lumi's face pull slightly more taught. A ping sound resounds through the room despite being soundproofed from the outside air of space and we all gain the same expression as Lumi. "That was the shield wasn't it?" Asks Tommy his voice also trembling by now. Lumi just nods.
She tries to manoeuvre the ship in such a manner that we can avoid as many light projectiles as she could but I see the shield appear a few more times during her attempt at escape. I say attempt because this is going seriously poorly.
The planet perhaps reacting to our change in direction, also changes it's trajectory so that it matches our own. 'Oh this is bad isn't it?' My mind only now catches up to the fact that we are essentially about to have a planet dropped on us.
I look at the planet, looking for a weakness or some sort of hole we can exploit. If we can just get into the planet itself… Of course that wouldn't work. There are probably people inside the planet as well. Could we get around it? We're faster.
My mind runs through a number of options to try and get around the ship. Not to mention the laser fire. Sure we can avoid it for now. But that means Lumi's busy. We have to come up with something. Stop the planet? No. So we have to get around it.
How though? Upwards? It would take us quite a while to travel the whole planet's surface in any direction. No matter which way we go we'd have a hard time escaping. While I'm thinking this the large, metal mass continues to creep ever closer and I feel as though the weight of a world is pressing down on me.
'Because it is.' I think to myself bitterly The weight can I do anything with that? No I don't think I can. The planet now takes up the entirety of our screen and my heart starts racing again. Come on think. Not weight. Not around. Not through. Not backing aw- wait.
"Back up into the fleet of ships we were just in!" I shout my voice shrill. I don't care if people think I'm nuts. This could work and I'm gonna make sure it does.
"You want us to charge into an army. Again!" Shrieks Delilah back at me as though I'd just told her to jump off a cliff.
"It could work. Do it" Says Marianne quickly and Lumi complies we turn left and run straight into the rest of the army that have been keeping their distance since the planet showed up. I figured they were going to figure out our plan fairly quickly and sure enough they realised almost immediately and the ships scattered like frightened squirrels.
"Get as close as you can to an area densely packed with ships." I say and Lumi does as instructed almost immediately. She finds a group that were fleeing with each other and attaches onto their group like a parasite. Of course they fire on us but I've already seen Lumi's ability to dodge their fire.
Seeing our position and likely our tactic the planet continues to come forwards. "Come on. Come on." I mutter trying to keep my worry from reaching the rest of the team. They're your teammates right? Don't just give up on them.
The planet however continues to charge unerringly. Come on you just need to think about it. You can't take out your own troops like this. It's such a waste. As if responding to my internal commentary eventually after a moment of what appeared to be reluctant skidding the planet stopped dead in it's tracks and I let out a mental hoorah.