Curtain Call
A nice, twelve-hour-long nap later and Fate and Tom were once again in Maya and Autumn's room with them and Nikolas. The first one was telling the other four about what he saw on the Octoloss, all of them wearing grim expressions.
"So, they're still kicking, huh?" Nikolas's eyes blazed with an intensity that rarely showed on his typically sleepy-looking face. "What's worse, they're still doing their little experiments."
"No doubt they are the puppet masters behind the Cragost. The only way I can imagine them adapting to laser fire with no evident source of such on their worlds." Tom paused, seemingly thinking of something. "They probably did to them what they did to the Octoloss. I wouldn't be surprised if the Cragoloss are the results of their experiments as well."
"We should tell the Shyv about this," Autumn said. "Those assholes are probably working on new abominations as we speak. The sooner we start preparing for them, the less they'll be able to hurt us."
"I agree." Fate pressed his Ex Ear, dialing the number of the Shyv.
The phone rang, and the Shyv picked it up. "Shyv Palar speaking. What do you need, Null?"
The Shyv grimaced. "I see. I'll have the labs focus more on weapon and defense development, but it will be impossible to prepare for every strange creature they'll throw at us in the future until we encounter them. I'll send a team of scientists down to Bulgar VI to study the corpse and see if we can glean anything useful from it."
The Shyv ended the call, steepling his fingers and resting his chin on them. 'This is quite a predicament.'
The Atlas made it safely back to Mystar. The members of Styx were dismissed, and Maya took Tom to commission a new Shadow Jumper. Fate, Autumn, and Nikolas all carpooled in Autumn's ship, as the other two had left their ships back at Narro.
A few days later, the three were back at their hideout in the Mar mountains. They changed into casual clothes, threw their armor into the washing machines, and turned on the TV, kicking back and relaxing.
Their downtime lasted for over three months. Then the Shyv called them, telling them he had important information to share with them, as well as a job. By now Maya and Tom were back, and they all suited up and headed for Mystar, Maya, and Fate in Fate's ship and Tom, Autumn, and Nikolas in Nikolas's ship.
When they were standing in the Shyv's office, he gave them some startling information.
"We've located what we believe to be the homeworld of the Cragost. Scanning via scouting robots indicates signs of what we believe to be four Queens, nested far underground on a planet we are calling Cragalan. Further investigation using our microscopic Cell Bots show that these four large Cragost are reproducing constantly. I am confident that killing these will cripple the Cragost, at least for a short time."
"But how will we kill them if they are underground? Even we can't fight through what has to be millions of Cragost," Maya said.
"That isn't your job. Over these past few months, ever since you first reported the Octoloss, we've been working on a way to hit the Cragost hard. Once we got the science down, I redirected as many resources as I could to the manufacturing of Atlases. Now we have a little over a hundred, and these hundred will focus their full attention on Cragalan.
"Their railguns are more than powerful enough to destroy cities with a single shot, and a hundred working together, providing constant bombardment, is sure to utterly destroy the planet. No, your jobs are to find these 'Advanced' and wipe them out. I don't appreciate it when humans believe they can play God without consequences."
"Do you have a lead?" asked Fate.
"I do. We have found traces of human habitation on one of the planets in Cragost Cove. I'll send you the coordinates. I want your team to track these bastards down and put an end to them. Dismissed."
The members of Styx nodded, heading back to their Shadow Jumpers. Once there, they found the coordinates in their emails and entered them into their navigation systems. The estimated time with their Kozmos Drive was three weeks.
"We're gonna need to pick up a loooot of food for this," Nik told them over their Ex Ears. The other members agreed, and they stopped by a grocery store on the other side of the planet.
Fate was sure it painted a strange picture, seeing fully armored men and women with intimidating masks and guns on their belts strolling through a grocery store, shopping like they were normal. But Fate knew no one thought they were normal; they hadn't been for years. The Advanced had taken that from them, along with their families and their futures.
They grabbed everything of interest that could be cooked in the stoves and microwaves of their Shadow Jumpers, stocking up for the six weeks to get there and back, plus another month and a half of food in case this took longer than they thought it would. They paid for everything, put the food in the fridges and deep freezers they had, and took off, activating their Kozmos Drive.
From the planets of Myst I and Myst II rose dozens of ships, hundreds of miles long and armed to the teeth with the best weaponry produced by the Shyviate Collective. The Atlases were so large they cast shadows on the planets below which could be seen from space. Surrounding them were thousands of Phoenixes, nearly identical scaled-down copies only missing the railgun at the front.
As one, they turned in a certain direction, before they all glowed a bright white and sped away at a speed just shy of light speed. The men and women manning the ships wore serious expressions, but inside they were positively giddy to finally have a way to end this war. The Cragost would die at their hands as recompense for their transgressions against humanity.