“3 seconds before impact!”

“Everybody on the ground!”

“2 seconds!”

“Be ready, it will shake!”

“1 second!”

“Hold still!”

“Impact!”

‘What happens is not what I was expecting. There is no sensation of violent shock, no projection toward the front of the ship, no clashing sounds, no screams of pain.

Instead, there is silence, deadly silence. I can’t even hear my breath, and I’m still panting. I can’t hear the blood that I feel rushing in my ears.

I can feel the acceleration, but it is fluid, without pressure or violence.

Everything shines around me. It shines so strongly that I need to close my eyes. Then I see a lot of strange, moving and colorful arabesque. There are all the colors of the rainbow, and even more. There are also new colors that I could never have dreamed of, this is so beautiful.

I have a feeling that eternity is passing, but everything happens at the time.

And suddenly everything stops. The lights and colors are gone, and the sounds are back. It would have been a soft and gentle return to the reality, if not for the screams and moans of pain of the men and women in the corridor with me.’

Looking at his men, Kyle finds them as surprised as him to still be alive. And happy to be of course.

The Captain Barnes then process to an evaluation of the local situation. Him, one man and two women from his original unit, and three men woken up for the fight are still in fighting condition. There is also three men and one woman too injured to fight, but not to be of use, counting the Lieutenant Paul. The last three men in the corridor are heavily injured. And there is also two dead body.

“Lieutenant, take care of the injured. The others, be ready to move at any moment.” The Captain starts to organize the men and then goes to contact the command center to gather more information on the situation. “Bridge? Here’s Captain Barnes. What happened?”

“Captain Barnes, here’s Private Jack. Nobody knows what happened. But for what we understand of the situation, the Mathilde as travel through space. The stars aren’t aligned with our previous positions, the scientists are on it. We have problems in the motors, due to the bugs and the passage through the thing. We lose the principal propulsion. Bugs’ ship there too, but it seems to have the same problems than us. We aren’t detecting any new boarding capsules. That’s the good news.”

“Where are we, you said?”

“I said we don’t know for sure. But I kept the most surprising stuff for the end. The sensors detect that we are at the edge of a solar system. There is a lot of planets in it, and one is more interesting than the others. It seems to be an E7. With our current propulsors, we could be there in four days. The Admiral decided to set course on it for the moment. The bugs are doing the same.”

“...”

“Captain Barnes? You’re still there?”

“Are you kidding me? An E7?”

“Yep, it looks like it. Will be in orbit there in no more than five days.”

“Well shit… But whatever, what are we supposed to do now?”

“Be ready, the doors will be unsealed soon. Your mission is to retake possession of the deck 3 to 1 and exterminate all the bugs you’ll fine. Priority is to rescuing survivors if you find any.”

“All good, thanks for the information.”

“Good luck Captain.”

Kyle hangs up and looks at his men.

“Alright, you all. We are to retake the upper deck. Lieutenant, you stay there with the injured, take care of them until reinforcement arrived and hold the position.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Captain? What’s an E7?” That’s coming from a young woman, she’s in good enough state to continue the fight with the Captain. She’s also one of the best fighters at his disposal, despite her original formation as a simple secretary.

“An E7. That’s a dream.” This once, it’s coming from an older man, a professor of mathematics. In a fight is barely able to keep himself alive and to not get in the way of the others. But he had shown himself a pretty good tactician for the unit. “In theory that would be a planet with the same atmosphere composition, temperature, gravity, daily and yearly time than Earth, that’s the E part. But the 7 means it supposed to be 7 times bigger. Except for the size, it’s like being on Earth. Theoretically, it’s impossible, a planet this big must have some different attributes at least the gravity. Originally we were heading to Keird, and it is an E1.5. But the most surprising part is that we are not at the location in space anymore. Instant displacement is a myth, even on paper. It is completely impossible for us to be here. There must be something messing with the sensor. That’s the only expl-”

“Attention everyone! The doors will now be unsealed.” The professor is interrupted by the loudspeaker, reminding them of the situation on the ship.

“Thanks, Bernard, but we are not at class. That’s a mystery for another time. Be ready to go and exterminate some bugs!”

“Yes, Captain!”

After the unsealing of the doors, Captain Barnes’ small unit went up to the 3rd deck. They only found dead bugs, and dead humans, sometimes a dead robot. Progressing through the corridors up till the first deck, they come to the conclusion that all the bugs died during the phenomenon that transported the spaceship.

They only crossed passed with other units, some in a worse state than them.

The Bugs had been pushed back out of the Mathilde.

Half the units were put to rest while the others had to stay on guard in case the Bugs resumed the assault.