In the late 21st century, once again, humanity or rather, NanoTec escaped from Einstein's cage. The ring shaped engine of the Alcubierre Drive gave them the power to leap to the nearest star at many, many times the speed of light.

After years and years of dreaming, they were finally ready to leave the cradle of their homeworld. It was eleven years later that the first human interstellar colony ship was built.

The NNT TeraNova was a symbol of mankind’s innovation and honor. It was to be loaded with humanity's best and brightest, ready to inherit a galaxy they long ago decided was devoid of life. The universe was all out there for their taking.

That...was until the Spores arrived. They came in silence. No statement of intention. No declaration of war. Not even a demand for their surrender. They struck humanity so hard and fast, that within seconds all the precious hopes and dreams they clung so tightly to were all but burning meteors falling to Earth...

The NNT TeraNova was well on its way to completion. Its aluminum scaffolding was laid down on November 2096 and after four years of construction, the whole ship was finally complete apart from a few sub-systems that had yet to be installed.

It was lucky that the years of construction were smooth sailing with little to no complications or the process would have taken much longer.

The ship was unique in its own sense, besides the fact that it looked exactly like an upsized EarthGov cruiser with boxes attached to its sides.

The 700 meter long colony ship ran on a Shangri-La Fusion Reactor and was fueled by a deuterium-deuterium fusion reaction, unlike the fission powered EarthGov ships which ran on Thorium-232.

Its main thrusters were also powerful fusion reactors of inline design, running on helium exhaust from the internal reactors.

Having little to no armor at all, the TeraNova could not take too much damage before the pressure hull fails entirely. It was not a warship after all.

What really made this ship special however, was that it was the first human built starship to ever equip a form of FTL engine.

The Alcubierre Drive that resided in and on its stern was the specially built ring shaped warp field distributor. As NanoTec’s warp field technology was still in its inkling stages and was not at all advanced enough, the power consumption of the drive was calculated to be astronomical and also needed an extremely large, and very obvious ring.

Claev was conducting structural checks on the interior of the ship and TKE was examining the outer whipple shielding.

The hull had a professional, silver shine on it, much to the extent that one could say that the job done was flawless. At least that was what TKE would have said about it.

"Alright. Now all we have to do is get the last batch hydrogen fuel and we’re done..." TKE mumbled to himself. “Such a shame. Earth’s climate had just been restored and we now have to depart in such an uncouth manner… Well screw EarthGov anyways.”

Using the RIG gyroscopic assistance, he gently eased himself away from the TeraNova and towards SkyLab2's airlock.

Today was pretty busy. He began thinking to himself. I had thought we were supposed to finish the ship by next month, but Saegen-sir had been driving for its completion in the next 48 hours. Some sort of slave driver he is!

TKE’s thoughts were interrupted when something struck the side of his EVA suit hard.

At first TKE thought it was a random screw or bolt flying about at high speeds. He would have reprimanded his engineers for being careless if what struck him really was a piece of metal debris.

TKE turned and identified what hit him. It was a piece of metal debris, but not quite what the Head Engineer had expected. Not a bolt, nor a screw but a metal capsule with an airtight lid that had already partially failed.

"Strange... What would this be doing here?" TKE thought to himself as he opened the capsule.

Inside was a roll of bundled up sheets of paper tied rather sloppily with a red string. TKE undid the string and unfolded the stack of paper. The first thing that greeted his eyes were the large bold letters of 'THE ICY TIMES' printed on the front page of what presumably was ICY Product’s own private newspaper.

For some odd reason, the word 'ICY' was cancelled out partially by a black marker and the words 'Watery' was scribbled messily above it.

The untidy edit made the front page read 'THE Watery TIMES' but at least the actual content of the newspaper was unaltered… Or as far as TKE could tell on first glance.

Headlines such as ‘MegaCannon test today!’ and ‘InterCon gone into hiding?’ caught TKE’s eyes as he skimmed through the paper.

TKE continued to read it. One article seemed particularly interesting and the Head Engineer took a closer look.

On that page, there was a picture of a dead person in a suit covered with bullet holes, crusted by the deep maroon color of dried blood, lying face down on a wooden floor, in a relatively large pool of his own blood. The first impression TKE got from the picture was that that poor man found himself on the wrong end of a Vulcan minigun.

Its headline read ‘EarthGov chairman of North America shot three times by InterCon assassin!’ Below the first picture was a high resolution captured image from a security camera of the suspect shooting the EarthGov officer.

The assassin wore a ninja cosplaying outfit with the logo of an ice cube plastered on the very front of the suit.

TKE frowned. "Yeah, this guy was definitely only shot three times by a vicious InterCon agent..." He sarcastically remarked out loud. “On that topic, I heard from somewhere illegal that all of InterCon’s agents were lizards… Oh well.”

TKE’s eyes soon gazed over the sub heading of the article.

"We totally, most certainly, definitely did not shoot this guy. Like, at all!” - ICY Product's Head, EOH. He stared at the article blankly before closing his eyes and sighing.

TKE looked up, prepared to throw the newspaper away, when he saw the gigantic ICY Product's space station pass by.

There was now no doubt behind the origin of the paper. As TKE attempted to prevent a wry smile from annexing his face, he maneuvered himself to one of the station mounted MAG cannons. After stuffing the bundle of papers with a couple of screws and then stuffing the bundle of papers down the barrel of the MAG cannon, TKE stood back, yelled ‘screw you!’ to the bundle of papers before firing it back down into the Earth's atmosphere.

Now a smug grin sat proudly on TKE’s face as he had just made a rather daft pun and got away with it.

Clanedd sat alone in the pilot cockpit of the only spaceplane in the hanger. Her papers and reports were strewn all over her lap and a holographic textbook, "Flying Spaceplanes for Dummies" was open on her RIG.

Saegen, despite the abundance of more qualified personnel on SkyLab2, had ordered her to fly down to a deuterium rich location in the middle of the Mediterranean just off the coast of Malta, probably to get another haul of deuterium for the TeraNova.

There were two problems. One, Clanedd had no clue on how to even get the plane airborne and two, she had never ever heard of Malta before. At least prior to the designation.

Clanedd scratched her head. She may have been a highly skilled and experienced engineer but she was no pilot, not withstanding the fact that she could simply program a computer to fly it for her but that would take too long and who even trusts computers anyways.

Letting out a sigh of exasperation, she let her shoulders droop. It was at this moment Sir-Caller entered the hanger bay, walked over to the spaceplane and extended the flight of foldable stairs to find Clanedd sitting in the seat he intended to sit in.

"Do you need help sir?"

Sir-Caller said, facial expression a plain as usual and voice nonchalant.

Clanedd nodded. “Great timing. Fly this plane.”

“That was abrupt and rather rude don’t you think sir?”

Sir-Caller said, shaking his head.

"No... not really.” Clanedd said. “I was supposed to go down to the planet to look for deuterium deposits. I cannot fly. So you my friend, will fly it for me seeing as you are so free to be away from your sector… Sir.” With great emphasis on that last ‘sir’.

Sir-Caller replied monotonously.

"I am not free. In fact, I am trying to get my job done right now.”

Clanedd rolled her eyes and nodded. "Right… Which is?"

“Helping you fly… Sir.”

“Oh.” Clanedd said in embarrassment.

“Now if you don’t mind sir, I will be sitting in your seat. Please vacate before I sit on your lap.”

Clanedd got up from the pilot seat without a word and hastily sat down at the co-pilot's seat.

"Lets get this over and done with." Sir-Caller said as he sat down at the pilot seat. “I have a really cool anime I want to finish watching.”

Sir-Caller flicked a few switches and the flight of steps folded up. He pressed a few other buttons by his side and two empty, red external fuel tanks noiselessly attached themselves along the fuselage of the plane. After doing through vacuum checks, Sir-Caller put his left hand on the throttle.

“What is it?” Clanedd asked.

“What is what?” Sir-Caller replied, seemingly as confused as Clanedd was.

“The anime you were talking about.”

“Oh, that sir?”

“Yes.”

“NanoTec: Distant Stars.”

“About us?”

“No. About NanoTec.”

“That’s what I meant… Who made it?”

“Sir did.”

“Who?”

“Saegen.”

“He draws? Never took him as an artsy guy. What’s the genre? Sci-Fi? Slice of Life? It better not be slice of life. I hold a particular disfavor towards them.”

“None of the above.”

Before Clanedd could open her mouth to reply, Sir Caller opened the comms to flight control.

"This is Trans-Orbital Shuttle-01, requesting permission for takeoff sir."

The reply came shortly after. "This is FC, you are clear for takeoff. Disconnecting all station based power... Alright, ignite your engine. Copy?"

Sir-Caller pressed the blue button above his head. The engine hummed to life.

"Copy that. Engines online. All systems green and initiating take off sequence. Don’t miss us too much, we’ll (probably) bring the plane back in one piece."

Silence filled the comms for a moment. “Err… Yeah, roger that. Good luck out there.”

Sir-Caller nudged Clanedd's shoulder.

"By the way sir, I highly recommend you do not touch anything. I really don't trust you with this."

Clanedd nodded. Of course she was not going to touch anything. The thought never even crossed her mind. As the plane eased out into space, she nudged Sir-Caller.

“So what genre is it? You never answered me.”

“Of the anime?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“Propaganda.”

“That explains a lot…”

Claev went through all the reports and data collected regarding the 'Spores' that have trespassed into the ‘Human territories’. Unofficial space borders, yes but it’s the thought that counts.

Of all the information present, one question remained unanswered. Of all the aliens out there, if at all, why would they want to attack the humans.

He stared out of the window and into the stars. A brief glint of light reflecting off the hull of departing spaceplane and the flare of its ion engines could be seen from where Claev was.

He turned away from the window and sat back down on his office chair. Perhaps, some questions best remain unanswered.

Conveniently at that moment, Saegen burst into Claev's office.

"Hey doc, you’d better come see this! Quickly!"

Claev followed got up from his seat. After a large yawn, he began following Saegen down the long corridors and hallways until they arrived at the CNC sector.

The Head Scientist/Manager, (Saegen really never got to confirm his true role in the NanoTec hierarchy), shoved the radar man off his chair and sat in his place.

"Look." Saegen pressed a few buttons on his RIG and had the radar display a 3D image of the local star cluster. He zoomed in onto Sol. On the holographic projection of Sol, there were countless red dots approaching from the apogee of Pluto's highly eccentric orbit.

Every single red dot represented an unknown/hostile contact. The screen was blanketed with them. It was like a red wall of death, or termites, threatening to swallow everything in its path.

And this wall of death, was heading right for them. Earth. Claev looked at the projection wide eyed. He had no words. Simply speechless.

Saegen continued, tinge of anxiety in his voice.

"As you can see, there seems to be as many as… I dunno, thousands of ships approaching. As we can tell, they are Spore ships. Radio signature gives them away. There is also one contact that is much larger than the rest and a couple that are slightly larger than the average destroyer. We can only assume that its their command and heavy vessels respectively. They are approaching at about 0.3c. (324000000km/h) and will be upon us in 23 hours."

Claev clenched his fists.

“Damn it! Who made the mistake in their calculations?! I thought they are not destined to arrive in another four years??”

Saegen tried his best to control his laughter. “Pfft… Err, sorry. You did.”

“Oh right, I forgot.”

The situation was bleak once again. Before it was just a forward fleet of destroyers. Now it was an entire armada. A war fleet. There was only so much they could do against them. Everyone was at a loss.

Not the radar man though. He had already lost his consciousness.

Clanedd could thank her luck stars that Sir-Caller was not in the mood for stunt flying that day. He brought the plane down at a reasonable velocity, without any sudden change in vectors or epic stunts.

The spaceplane glided downwards and pierced through the clouds. As they descended, the blue waters of the Dead Sea came into view.

“Looks like someone was not a geography student back in the days.” Clanedd muttered to herself.

“Speak for yourself sir. You knew nothing of Malta prior to this mission.”

Sir-Caller pressed a few buttons on the flight board and flicked a few switches on the ceiling of the cockpit. The ion engines suddenly began humming even louder.

“And this slight miscalculation… That can be easily fixed sir.” Sir-Caller said as he began pushing the throttle up to its maximum.

“Shoot.” Clanedd swore to herself for opening her mouth.

A couple of minutes of turns and boosts, Sir-Caller finally brought the plane to the desired location off the coast of Malta and set the spaceplane down on the calm waters within visual range of the people playing on the beaches.

Sir-Caller put the fusion reactors to standby mode, unfolded the stairs, opened cargo bays, turned on 80s Synthwave and began pushing even more buttons.

Clanedd pressed a button on her side and depressurized the window adjacent to her. After it opened, she cleared her throat and began throwing up.

"Alright sir, I assume this is a deuterium rich zone?" Sir-Caller asked.

It is really unladylike… Clanedd thought to herself. But…

She put up her middle finger to Sir-Caller, while still throwing up.

“I take that as a yes, sir.” Sir-Caller said with a slight laugh as he stepped out of the plane began preparing the electrolysis equipment.

"Putting the reactor to 89% output, and put these two carbon rods down into the water as so..." Sir-Caller mumbled to himself.

Clanedd meanwhile, continued to throw up.

"I see. So sir, you are throwing up into the water to create free ions to ease the electrolysis of the heavy water. Interesting sir.”

“Shut up, please.” Clanedd coughed. Sir-Caller’s stunt flying was really uncalled for in her opinion. Sir-Caller on the other hand thought it was harmless fun.

“Perhaps, ICY could freeze water this way..." Sir-Caller said again, putting his finger on his chin.

“Shut up!”

“As you wish… Sir.”

Sir-Caller climbed back into the cockpit and flicked more switches. The reactor hummed back to life and massive frothing of bubbles appeared at the carbon rods entry point.

The gases collected in ducts and began filling the two external tanks slowly. As Clanedd climbed or rather dragged herself out of the plane’s cockpit, she muttered something inaudible but very likely insulting to Sir-Caller before sitting on the plane’s right wing.

Sir-Caller remained in the cockpit, crossed both his arms across his chest and closed his eyes. Suddenly, he scowled, folded the stairs back up before Clanedd heard the radiators hum a tad bit louder, signifying the activation of the air-conditioners.

Perhaps he was trying to sleep? Clanedd thought to herself. She lay down on her back and looked up into the sky. There was nothing much for her to do but to wait for the tanks to fill up.

Her mind drifted, finally to settle down on the times she spent with the Head Engineer, TKE. Why? She thought to herself. Maybe it was because of his sense of humor. Maybe because he had worked with her for so many years that there is nothing else to think about. Or maybe…

Clanedd chuckled to herself. Or maybe not, she thought to herself. Smiling at her own thoughts, Clanedd did the cliché thing of closing her eyes and letting herself drift off under the partially cloudy skies of South Italy, or Malta. Whatever. Same thing.

Clanned opened her eyes. She did not know how long she was asleep. One hour? Maybe two? She was not so sure. What she was absolutely certain of however, was that someone was shaking her quite violently.

"You awake sir?” called a voice.

Clanedd opened her eyes to see Sir-Caller standing directly over her.

“Yes you are. Good.” Sir-Caller said again. “We have received new orders from SkyLab2. We are to return immediately. And, oh, coincidentally the tanks are full.”

“Wha-?” Clanedd mumbled, still half asleep.

“Come on what are you waiting for?!" Sir-Caller suddenly shouted. Shocking Clanedd to her feet.

Sir-Caller had already climbed back into the spaceplane and was in the process of starting the engines.

“Come on, let’s go, let’s go!” Sir-Caller shouted again.

Clanedd, silent and still half asleep, climbed into the plane and toggled the foldable steps close.

"What is going on?" Clanedd groggily asked Sir-Caller.

He remained silent as he carried out the pre-launch checks, re-ignited the ion engines and took the plane out of the water, spraying steam everywhere and startling the sunbathers on the Malta beach.

Clanedd repeated her question. This time in a little louder.

"Well, why don't you wait a little and find out sir." Clanedd’s left eye twitched slightly in annoyance.

The spaceplane cleared the stratosphere in a matter of minutes and the stars and the black voids of space were soon all that could be seen from the spaceplane windows. Sir-Caller then pointed at the shuttle's RIG uplink.

"Look." Was all he said.

Displayed on the screen, was data coming directly from SkyLab2. It showed the image of hundreds, if not thousands of approaching objects from the general direction of Pluto. The Spore Armada.

“I thought the Spores were a couple of years out?” Clanned asked seemingly in shock.

"Who ever told you that?” Sir-Caller replied with another question.

“Huh?” Clanedd said in confusion.

“As far as I know sir, this is the first I’ve heard of the armada. Pretty last-minute now isn’t he sir?”

“Never mind.” Clanedd deadpanned. “Carry on.”

“Right sir. So, they’re now they are about 22 hours and 30 minutes off according to CNC. So much for ‘at least two days notice to a change in schedule.’"

Carefully, Sir-Caller maneuvered the spaceplane towards the hanger airlock. He opened up the communication link with his RIG and spoke through it nonchalantly.

"This is Trans-Orbital Shuttle-01, requesting permission to dock sir."

The reply came almost immediately.

"This is FC, glad to see the plane is still in one piece…OK, you are clear to dock."

The hanger airlock opened silently. Sir-Caller flew the plane into the airlock chamber and waited for it to cycle. The docking assists then clamped down on the spaceplane and slowly eased it towards Pad 01. Sir-Caller jumped off the plane before it even docked and began running toward the CNC section, leaving Clanedd behind.

"Oh bother…” She mumbled to herself. “There goes my Christmas break.”

Back in CNC, Saegen was tapping into EarthGov communications with the codes TKE and Clanedd retrieved from a bunker back during the Second Spore Assault in 2096.

TKE and Claev were standing behind him with the former looking a little worried and the latter digging his nose. While a radio officer sat cross legged on the floor next to them having been pushed off his chair again.

Adjusting the frequency of the radio broadband, Saegen twisted the holographic dials and soon managed to sharpen the incoming intercepted communications.

He sat at the radio operator's desk listening for a while. TKE looked over Saegen's shoulders to try to listen in on the communications, apparently having forgotten that he could not see sounds while Claev began scratching his beard.

Saegen suddenly turned around and TKE jumped away surprised.

"You guys should hear this..." Saegen said as he switched the sound output to loudspeaker mode. The radio was full of static, and barely comprehensible.

"...fleet... 0342, prep... "CU" IXS To...dai and ... S Phrombus...." Before finally ending with more static.

Saegen turned the dials again, in an attempt to sharpen the radio interception.

"Intercept...lunar orbi... 0320 INC... members, report... fleet bay immediately..." The transmission was cut. Radio static was the only thing that could be heard.

Typical shoddy EarthGov radio transmission, TKE thought to himself.

Saegen got up from his seated position and stretched his back.

"From the looks of things..." He began. "It looks like EarthGov has got themselves new toys and plan to shoot the Spores down at the moon with those things."

Saegen cleared his throat before speaking again.

“And knowing EarthGov sluggish, dirty combustion engines, they’re getting nowhere near the moon in a day. The battle will happen just off the outer Van-Allen belt, and SkyLab2 will be well in targeting range.”

Claev looked down towards the floor while scratching his beard.

"Well… Good luck for them, but what about the TeraNova? It is only half complete and its cooling and gyroscopic functions have not yet been properly integrated into the subsystem network. It can be done, albeit hish-hashly in about 15 hours, give or take. And also…”

Before he could complete his sentence, Sir-Caller burst into the CNC room with the slowly trailing Clanedd.

"Sir, I have gone through your most recent calculations and they appear correct on one thing.”

The entire CNC fell silent.

“That your math bloody sucks!” Sir-Caller exclaimed.

“You mean you calculated everything while running here?!” Clanedd exclaimed in between pants. Sir-Caller ignored her. He continued.

“The Spores appear to be using Neptune's gravitational field to slingshot their way over here. Their course pass near Jupiter and Saturn, so I am assuming that they are going to be here even faster than you have calculated, perhaps they may even be here in four hours! And just enough time for tea too!"

The whole CNC burst into uncontrolled murmurs. The radio man who was sitting on the floor flopped down, back first. He fainted.

If that were true then, NanoTec was in even deeper trouble than before. Saegen spoke up.

"Are you sure Joe? We have calculated their course with NanoTec’s best computers and with the assumption that such a course would endanger most if not all of their ships during transit. I ask again Joe, are you sure?"

Sir-Caller replied with an answer almost as though he was expecting such a question.

"You underestimate our enemy or shall I say, you simply are making mindless assumptions sir. That is what the Spores want you to think. With all due respect, you have not analyzed the Spores well enough.”

Saegen raised an eyebrow. Sir-Caller continued.

“If you had, well actually nobody has so how would you know their bodies are as fragile as us humans? Furthermore, you should have also realized that the Spore ships are armored with a cobalt-osmium based alloy sir. My analysis of said material, also coincidentally with NanoTec’s best computers, that that is built specifically to be highly kinetically stress resilient. Need I say more sir?”

Saegen fell silent and his face nearly went pale. Cleav nearly fainted but he barely kept himself conscious by listening to the static from the radio station.

Sir-Caller finally ended his speech.

"Conclusion, they will be here in four hours, with an uncertainty of half an hour. I’d say you should have done something earlier but I do realize, work is busy and all but hey, basic courtesy you know." With that he turned and left.

Clanedd broke the silence.

"Right. That gives us four hours to get ready. We will have to make do with what we have now. I suggest everyone drop everything and board the ship immediately. I just came back with the fuel so that’s a start."

TKE nodded in agreement.

“Indeed. I am sure everyone agrees with that.” TKE turned and shouted to the entire CNC. “Any violent objections?”

A resounding ‘no sir’ was received in return.

“Great! Now, you heard the lady. Let’s go!”

TKE turned to Saegen. “I’ve got the logs. I will take care of my things and so should you. Excuse me… Come Clanedd, we’ve got work to do.”

TKE dashed off, out of the CNC with Clanedd in tow.

Saegen, still slightly dazed by Sir-Caller’s once in a lifetime, influential speech, went over to the communications equipment, flicked the high alert alarms on and began a voice broadcast across the station.

"All hands on station, this is your… Err, Head of Staff, Saegen. Please observe protocol. This is code ALEPH. This is not a drill and you know it. It’s an emergency. Everyone is to board the NNT TeraNova now. I repeat, everyone is to board the NNT TeraNova now. Abandon everything unnecessary and proceed to your designated chamber immediately. Said information will be uploaded to your RIG in 30 seconds. I repeat…”

Saegen repeated his announcement again before putting the microphone down. He turned to Claev.

“That means you too. Go on first. I have some things to take care of before I go.”

Claev nodded as he watched Saegen dash off out of the CNC and to wherever he needed to go.

TKE rushed down towards airlock 01, the one closest to the TeraNova. The whole of engineering team 1C was already there gearing up and preparing for EVA.

"Everyone here?” TKE shouted above the sound of SkyLab2’s ALEPH sirens. Nobody said anything. Instead, a manpower checklist was sent to TKE’s RIG by one of the engineers.

“Hmm… Full strength. Good.”

TKE cleared his voice. “Our job is to ensure that what has already been installed on the TeraNova is in full working order. Zero defects. The heavy water fuel also needs to be loaded from the shuttle bay and remember to ensure that the blast shields deploy properly. Most importantly, do not forget ‘Sector 5’. I assume that it is already on board but you cannot be too sure. Clear?”

A perfectly synchronized nod was observed throughout the ranks of fully geared up engineers.

“Fantastic. Once done, board the vessel... OK, you all should be in the ship by that time, but you get the idea. There will be cryo chambers in the ship for each and every single one of you with each respective person’s names on them. Any questions?”

The IC of engineer battalion 1C sent a text message to TKE indicating that there were no questions to be asked.

TKE nodded. “Good. We need to work fast or none of us are getting out of this alive. Let’s go. And do a good job, just as you always have. Dismissed!”

There was a resounding thud as all the engineers came to attention and saluted. They turned and somehow squeezed everyone into a single airlock using quantum physics and a little bit of perseverance.

TKE nodded his head in preparation for what was to come. The airlock closed and began to cycle. TKE took this time to put on his EVA suit. Clanedd, after catching up with TKE, did likewise. Albeit panting throughout the entire procedure.

The airlock finished cycling after a couple of minutes and engineering team 1C tumbled out of the airlock. Once they got their bearings, they began maneuvering towards the TeraNova.

There was extremely heavy traffic between the airlocks of SkyLab2 and TeraNova. The sight of 120 thousand people trying to get on board one ship, was simply staggering. They were loading in valuables, necessities and the engineers even spotted a cargo container, labeled ‘Jet Ski’ that was overflowing with rubber ducks.

It soon became evident that there was simply no space for the engineers to get in normally. Perhaps they could try the same trick again with airlock 01 but the IC had already decided that with a five minute cycle time, that was not going to happen.

By the time that the engineers remembered that they were engineers and that they could simply enter via the maintenance vents, TKE and Clanedd were already out in space and floating towards them.

The ICY Product's space station so happened to be in visual range from SkyLab2 at that point of time, passing slowly in a highly eccentric orbit, while adjusting its course with cartoon-huge rockets.

TKE would have ignored it unless for the fact that it had an absurdly gigantic gun mounted on the very top of the structure.

Thinking back, he remembered reading or at least seeing an article in that ICY newspaper about a MegaCannon test. He shook his head. He was not going to let that distract him. Right now, he had a job to do.

Clanedd called out to him through the private broadband. She was already in the maintenance vent and was waving her hands, urging TKE to hurry up. He nodded his head, gave her the thumbs up and followed her.

TKE pulled on the handles by the sides of the vent and finally, was able to enter the ship. It was a slow crawl through the dimly lit, tight little vents. It made TKE feel like a certain engineer in a horror game.

Finally after about a minute, TKE floated himself into a currently depressurized engine section of the TeraNova.

Internally, the NNT TeraNova looked very much like an EarthGov military ship. Silver, metallic walls, narrow hallways lit by florescent lighting, minus the exposed cabling and open maintenance vents.

Deciding that the reactor was the most important part of the vessel, TKE decided to personally inspect it first. He tugged Clanedd's shoulder and she followed him. The ship had no artificial gravity as it was too small to house a centrifuge. Using his EVA jet packs on compressed air mode, TKE slowly eased himself through the long cooling arrays of the Tandem Mirror Fusion Engines and to the magnetic monorail system mounted at the starboard side of the vessel.

As the ship was about 700 meters in length, nearly as long as the new EarthGov dreadnought classes, it required a monorail system as TKE had checked, nobody likes to run to work every morning.

He and Clanedd boarded it and zipped quickly towards the engineering sector of the ship, which coincidentally was a short 30-40 meter walk from the engine room.

Why don't we have this kind of things on board SkyLab2, TKE thought to himself. Nobody likes to run to work every morning. Yes, he did think of that to himself twice. Not because he liked to repeat things but because he very well knew it was true.

Not long after, the monorail slowed down and ground to a halt, reaching only a fraction of its top speed during the ten second long journey. Despite that, TKE still marked the monorail off his checklist as working and fully operational.

TKE motioned once again to Clanedd to follow him as he entered the reactor room. Where head room was lacking, the room made up for it by its sheer breadth to encompass all the necessary equipment, fuel storage and coolant to run a technological marvel.

The Shangri-La Fusion reactor was most certainly ahead of its time and very expensive. It was a toroidal reactor, whose designs originated from the old Tokamak arrangements in the early 21st century. Its fusion ring spun around a central solenoid where deuterium-deuterium fusion took place, powering the ship with the very process that kept the sun alive for the last five million years.

It was about 60 meters in diameter and 10 meters in height. The upper portion was located on a upper deck. Its deuterium fuel was already being loaded into the reactor by the engineers and after seeing the head engineer, gave him a thumbs up. Everything was going as planned… Or at least as far as TKE could tell.

TKE distinctively remembered that he was indeed the one who built the first operating fusion reactor in 2084, but he could not really remember how he even came up with the design to begin with. He ought to remember though he thought, especially with its initial plasma leaking design flaws. It must have been that electrical shock incident he recalled.

After circling the reactor twice, for both the upper and lower deck, TKE was then able to confirm that there were no cracks or damage to the magnetic housing.

"Good... Reactor down... Touch wood." TKE mumbled to himself with a smile as he ticked another check box on his RIG notebook.

He turned and began to make his way to the blast shield operating sector.

"Hey Clanned, could you go to the cryosleep sectors and ensure that the build is flawless? Meaning no cracks and all?"

Clanedd nodded. She pat TKE on the shoulder, gave him a thumbs up and left the room. TKE stood there for a while, wondering why so many people were giving him thumbs up and why Clanedd would do such a thing when she usually did not.

His heart rate increased a little before violently shaking his head. Shouldn't be letting things distract me, he thought to himself. Plenty of time after they make it away from Earth.

Saegen, still in the CNC sector on the pretext of deleting all data from SkyLab2’s computers was not actually deleting data from SkyLab2’s computers but instead was being useless looking out of the windows through a pair of binoculars, observing the departing EarthGov fleet.

EarthGov had already reinforced their ranks to thousands of new ships over the past four years. They as a communist new world order having had managed to put so many ships so quickly up into space, even Stalin would have been proud.

Of course, knowing communism, the ships were visibly of poor quality; complete with frayed wiring, missing ceramic plating and to top it all off, some of the ships even had no bridge. However fortunately for EarthGov, all the ships were in operational service nonetheless.

"Cruiser, IXS Tokidai and Dreadnought, IXS Phrombus." Saegen mumbled to himself. “They look like Chinese consumer goods gone wrong.”

The ships were indeed formidable for ships built in their time but as intimidating as a fly in a summer afternoon to the Spores… Probably.

In accordance to NanoTec’s unofficial prejudice towards EarthGov engineering, they had, unsurprisingly made yet another critical error.

All the visible mounted weaponry were either ballistic or missile based. Saegen saw a 30 inch gun mounted rather sloppily on one of the few 800 meter long dreadnoughts, a SuperConductor Gauss Battery on a 200 meter long cruiser but not a single laser or plasma array on any one of them.

The biggest consolation factor was that the dreadnoughts also carried two or more 50 MT fusion boosted nuclear payloads along the sides of the hull but how many exactly, Saegen did not know. And what kind of effect would they even have against the Spores? And who is to say that they cannot shoot them down?

Twelve years after the EarthGov fleet had been decimated by the Spore scouting fleet, they were able to pump out nearly as much as 3000 vessels. Granted that they are cruisers and dreadnoughts, the Spore destroyers still outclassed them by quite a margin… Or at least that was what NanoTec’s simulations said.

If two were able to take down an entire EarthGov fleet of 50, what would 200 do? Not to mention that single extremely large contact that nobody was able to explain nor rationalize.

Saegen made some brief calculations in his head.

"EarthGov definitely stands a chance this time and has a small but respectable probability for victory, but we do not know much about our enemy and their ships fly like moldy blocks of cheese…"

He turned towards the window again. The Armada CNC Super Dreadnaught of EarthGov, Negarima, had just risen above the atmosphere and was beginning to join up with the rest of the fleet.

It was easily identifiable even amongst the dotted skies by the giant glass fiber, disk like structure mounted on the top of the backbone of the ship. Saegen sighed, cleared his throat and muttered the cliché monologue to himself again.

"EarthGov... you may think that this is going to be a battle of victory, to bring humankind back great glory and triumph. But however, little do your men know, that they are being sent to their graves…"

Claev burst into the office.

“Saegen! Where the *expletive * were you? Everyone is getting on board already!”

“Err… Nothing, I mean I was here all this while.”

“Doing what? Messaging your nonexistent girlfriend?”

“That hurt and you know it Claev, although you’re probably right in everyway.” Saegen said as he locked Claev’s neck in a death grip.

“Agh! Fine! Fine!” Claev yelped. Saegen complied and let him go. “So, what were you doing? People are worried you know.”

“Deleting crucial information from SkyLab2’s central databanks, transferring as much useful data and programs as I can to the TeraNova. It’ll be a shame to waste them.”

“Fair enough.” Claev said with a sigh. “Get it done quickly. NanoTec cannot afford to lose you… Friend.”

Saegen smiled. “Will do… Retard.”

Claev laughed lightly, gave Saegen the finger while smiling innocently and left briskly.

Three hours and a half plus a bit passed. TKE, Clanedd and the rest of engineering team 1C met at the cryosleep sector.

Every single one of the systems and sub-systems had been thoroughly checked and were ready for operation… At least the ones that were already built were. TKE was still slightly disappointed that the Mr. Coffee subsystem and the disco ballroom were cut off schedule due to time constraints.

Acknowledging their progress, TKE ordered everyone to get into their cryo chambers. About then, Claev had just boarded and entered the cryosleep sector.

"Head engineer! Is everything done?”

“Yes sir. Did your forget your Kakadu?”

“Crap, I did…” Claev words trailed off.

“Anything else?”

“Yeah… Err, everything checked and operational right? Good. The Spore fleet is upon us. We need to go. Now."

TKE reassured him. "Relax, everything is done. (Except the coffee brewers.) Now we just have to fire up the reactors and get out of here… Oi! You there in the engine room, fire up the reactors!”

The response came in as the ship shuddered slightly and the dull chime of the solenoids spinning up resounded throughout the cryosleep sector.

“Great. Where are we going?" TKE inquired, tuning back to Claev.

Maneuvering himself into his own cryo chamber, Claev replied.

"Vega. There is a planet within the goldilocks zone there, at least according to Saegen. Water, oxygen maybe flora, fauna and maybe nubile women on the beaches. Who knows. We will land there and set up base. There, we will decide what to do next from there."

TKE nodded. As he was about to move himself to his own cryo chamber, a plasma bolt streaked meters above the freshly painted upper deck. The Spores have arrived and first thing they did was vandalize sovereign human property.

About 300 000 kilometers away from the Earth is Luna, Earth's only moon. The EarthGov fleet, having begun their maneuvers early, managed to intercept the Spore fleet there, forcing them to slow down with a suppressive hail of metal slugs beginning a fierce battle in the orbit between the moon and Earth, in a final desperate attempt to delay the inevitable.

The EarthGov fleet had the element of surprise and thus had the jump on the Spores. The aliens were not prepared for such a resistive force and had their weapons stowed away for sub-light travel.

Facing the impending danger, the Spores turned their ships around and violently burnt retrograde to face their enemies.

From the Armada CNC, Negarima Commander Lydia of EarthGov observed the opening phase of the battle with great detail.

To NanoTec, Commander Lydia was not exactly a significant figure worthy of recognition. Her personal data was highly classified for unknown reasons, with one of the only things known about her was that her father personally wet himself during the battle of Capital Bay during the InterCon/CMT war and having seen little to no actual combat, her medals of honor were rather limited. The only reason foreseeable as to why she was put in charge of such an influential battle was one, she was the youngest and two, all her superiors were already dead.

"All ships! Engage at close range!" Lydia’s deputy gave the order with her approval.

The EarthGov ships’ engines began firing, closing the distance rapidly into the ranks of the Spore destroyers. The Phrombus class dreadnaughts were brought to face broadside, angling slightly towards the enemy while still managing to bring all their guns to bear.

The Tokidai class cruisers began to break formation and flank the Spore formations, firing at the same time with the aim to encircle and crush. They mounted even larger caliber Gauss Batteries than their destroyer counterparts, resulting in a significantly higher muzzle velocity, shell mass and even had the ability dent Spore armor enough to count as ‘damage’.

The shells flung forth at supersonic velocities struck their mark on the Spore hull, beating down on the jet black plating like water from Atlantic ocean through a sieve. Comparatively, NanoTec MAG technology was far superior to the EarthGov Gauss version, packing a much greater punch in a smaller package but they made up for that with sheer volume of attack, having many, many ships firing at the same target at the same time.

The shells bounced off the armor of the ships like a foam dart would a wooden floor. The bow of a Spore destroyer was armored with what one could describe as a turtleback layout. No matter what angle it was shot at from, it would provide a sufficient angle to bounce even the most powerful shell producible in theory by EarthGov. That was exactly what was happening.

"Keep shooting! Keep shooting!". The deputy commanded yet again in the hopes that the ships would fire their guns faster.

Commander Lydia stood in front of her analogue, paper planned battle plan. Dumbfounded, she found that the current EarthGov space doctrine was being rendered ineffective by the massive difference in quality of vessels. She was not about to lose to a bunch of aliens. She couldn't.

Cruiser Tokidai-0922 then fired its coilgun again, this time the spherical slug managed to lodge itself into the aft hull of a Spore destroyer, knocking its stern into the flight path of another one of the destroyers. Both of the ships smashed into each other, hull plating flying all over. Backbones broken, both ships crippled.

"Good shot!" Lydia could not help but exclaim to herself. “Give me the data on that weapon discharge CA-0922.”

The reply came in shortly, although muddled slightly by EarthGov’s passive ECM.

“Yes ma’am! Data transfer complete!”

Lydia brought the information on screen. Quickly she wrote all relevant data down on a rough piece of paper in front of her. The potential conclusions that could be derived from that piece of calculations were very obvious.

“Deputy.” Lydia began. “Tell the fleets to level off. We need to sacrifice our 3D envelopment to even deal damage to the enemy.”

“But ma’am…” The deputy began. “That would make our ranks even more vulnerable! Our advantage lies in the Spores inability to fire in so many directions. We cannot just…”

“I did not ask for your opinions Commodore.” Lydia snapped. “Do as I say.”

The deputy swallowed his saliva with an audible gulp. Clenching his fists and looking down slightly, he replied.

“Yes ma’am.”

The Deadnought Phrombus-03's report came in just as Lydia’s deputy finished relaying the order to the fleet. Her captain was on the emergency bandwidth.

"Ma'am! The large unidentified object is coming into visual range!... Oh my god. It…Its huge!"

Commander Lydia instinctively turned to the dusty view port.

"What is it? Put it on the screen now!"

And so it was. What met the commander's eyes probably could not even be classified as a ship by EarthGov’s standards. It was a giant sphere or according to Phrombus-03, a mobile battle platform, nearly 8 to 13 kilometers in radius.

Its visible hull was vantablack in color except for a few glowing orange neon streaks vertically across the ship. It was ominous, like a giant black hole waiting to suck everything it sees into oblivion.

One could only imagine what sort of weapons were mounted on that thing and no, that did not include ice-cream dispensers. The Spores hated ice-cream.

Commander Lydia was undoubtedly shocked. Regaining her composure quickly, she grabbed her deputy by the collar and yelled into his face.

"Get the Dreadnoughts 01 to 22, to f-fire their nukes! Do it!"

The sharp yelp of the deputy came immediately.

"Yes… Yes ma’am!"

22 Fusion boosted warheads were out of their silos and in hypersonic flight. They began crossing the one megameter gap with their solid rocket boosters.

So much for combustion rockets. Lydia thought to herself. As far as she could tell, the Spores packed no point defense whatsoever as nothing was stopping the missiles in flight. But by that time, EarthGov’s surprise ambush had exhausted their element of, well, surprise. Coincidentally, that was also when the Spore fleet retaliated. All of their guns had deployed out of each and every respective hardpoint, missile bays were open and the EarthGov ships were already painted bright red by the Spores’ targeting computers.

Clanedd watched the battle unfold from the command section of the ship. Flashes of orange, green and the occasional purple could be seen like a movie with the silvery grey surface of the moon acting as the canvas of which the blood of humans and Spores alike were being painted on.

One could even say it looked beautiful, like a muted orchestral performance, despite the notion that thousands of lives may be passing on for every minute she had been watching for.

The fusion reactors on board the TeraNova were still heating up and the deuterium critical point had not been reached yet. The whining of the massive solenoids and the buzzing of the coolant pumps echoed throughout the empty hallways of the massive ship as the magnetic confinement chambers became even more and more saturated with hot, energetic plasma.

"Core temperature, 1000 kilo kelvins… Magnetic field at 20 %...” Saegen read off his RIG. The bridge was soundproofed and isolated from the rest of the working sections of the ship. Nobody said a word and that made the silence even more so deafening.

“Our sensors are coming online... Reactor is almost ready, 40 %..." Saegen continued, his voice disappearing off into the soundproofing in the rather small and compact bridge.

TKE, along with Clanedd who was standing next to him, were also in the command section, monitored the engines and life support systems.

"Our engines are ready to accept the helium exhaust.” TKE reported.

“Life support is all green. Photo-oxidizers and reverse osmosis systems are all running well sir!"

More stray bolts and laser pulses from the site of battle glanced off the hull of the TeraNova, dealing superficial damage. At such astronomical ranges between the weapons’ sources and the ship’s hull, the energy weapons were rendered near ineffective.

"Sir!" TKE shouted in apprehension. "Everything is online and system checks are complete! Permission to ignite the engines?"

Saegen, who was just as excited replied loudly over the deathly silence.

"Go ahead! Quickly!"

TKE nodded and smiled.

“Don’t need to tell me twice! Ignition is ready, injectors are ready. Activating the Tandem Mirror in three… two… one!”

The TeraNova shook and shuddered, as the fusion plasma jolted the ship to life. All non essential systems onboard the ship began flickering to life. The bathroom lights, floor heating and the music player on the bridge activated as quickly as Saegen shut the music player off as it began playing ‘Baaby’ composed by Bustin Jieber, an infamous pop musician of the early 21st century. Someone had a sense of humor. TKE thought to himself while Clanedd, stifled down a snicker despite the dire circumstances.

“Sir, permission to report to my cryo chamber?”

“Go! We need you alive.” Saegen said after some hesitation. TKE not noticing this slight delay, saluted and departed immediately.

Clanedd, surprisingly remained on the bridge.

“What’s going to happen to him?” Clanedd suddenly asked Saegen. This time, instead of sounding cheerful, she sounded gloomy and even frightened. Apparently she took notice of Saegen’s different tone of speech.

“You noticed?” Saegen said with an expressionless face and a sad monotone.

“What?”

“TKE… How should I put this…” Saegen began. “He isn’t human.”

Clanedd remained silent.

“He wasn’t conceived like you and I. You knew from the start that he was special. I mean for example, nobody else would have been able to invent a fusion reactor on his own despite the world’s best scientists trying and failing for more than a hundred years right?”

“Then…” Clanedd stammered, her eyes and nose turning slightly red. “What is he? And where does this come into the greater scheme of things?”

Clanedd nearly lost her footing and grabbed onto the captain’s chair for support. She continued.

“This is so sudden… I can’t take this…”

Saegen began walking over to Clanedd.

“I am sorry I did not tell you any earlier. But I had to keep it a secret. EarthGov protocol.”

Clanedd swatted away Saegen’s had as he was about to place it on her shoulder.

“That’s not what I am unhappy about.” Clanedd said. “I am more concerned about his safety… Can he make the journey?”

Saegen stood there and remained silent. Finally, he shook his head.

“I’m afraid both you and I know the answer.”

A single drop of tears flowed from Clanedd’s right eye.

“You see, the EarthGov medical science and development program on eugenics and genetic engineering was flawed and still is. TKE was the second successful subject. The problem with it was that the gene for superior intellect had undesirable side effects. One of which was a highly eccentric personality and an intolerance to sub-zero temperatures.”

Saegen coughed before continuing. “And you know how our cryo chambers operate… I am sorry Clanedd. But I and the team were trying our very best to…”

“Permission… Permission to report to my cryo chamber… Sir.” Clanedd mumbled, interrupting Saegen.

“Y-Yes… Permission granted.” Saegen relented. “Go ahead.”

Clanedd, with her head hanging, saluted and left the bridge without another word.

The Battle for Luna was well underway and the EarthGov fleet was in complete panic and disarray. Ships were on fire and exploding left and right, ships launching nuclear weapons without warning and without the permission to do so.

It was most certainly an unfair fight in both strategic organization and technological superiority in the Spore’s favor. The EarthGov defenders were being beaten back by thousands of kilometers with every attack to its ranks.

"Ma'am! This is Cruiser-0009! Our ring drives are broken! We cannot...” An explosion was heard in the background and contact was lost.

“Ah... shit! The ship’s ablaze! What are you doing? Put that damn fire out…Ma'am! No!!" That channel too was filled with static.

The Crusier Tokidai-0009 drifted past the starboard viewing port of the Negarima. It’s outer hull was burnt to a crisp and its coilgun hardpoints were spewing fire and sparks. Suddenly, many chained explosions erupted from the cracks in its hull which eventually split the whole ship into countless pieces.

Commander Lydia tried to consolidate her losses. Mentally she counted.

"We’ve lost nearly 50 ships, they have lost no more that 13 ships. If we are to win..."

Her thoughts were interrupted by a plasma bolt striking the port side armor of her Armada CNC, Negaima.

The lights flickered on and off. Fluorescent tubes shattered and countless electronic consoles fired and erupted into a shower of sparks and flames, killing or mortally wounding whomever were operating them. Globules of blood, shards of glass and smoke hung in the air, floating in the gravity-less ship environment.

That bolt must have torn through the cabling. Commander Lydia thought to herself.

"Re-route all emergency power! Watch out for any cyanide leaks!”

Her engineers were screaming in the background. Commander Lydia looked out of his window and saw the source of the attack.

Two destroyers were flanking her ship. Not the best position to be in. That ceramic armor should have blocked or if not, dampened the attack, but the plasma burned straight through. Lydia recounted. Not good either.

One of the Spore destroyer turned broadside and fired a volley of lasers into the port side of the ship. They tore through the already scorched sections like butter and burned the ceramic armor to a blackened slag.

"*Warning! Sections 32, 16 and 2 have been compromised! Closing blast doors now!*"

The computer programs yelled out in a monotonous tone. One of the massive 30 inch cannons on the flagship took a port shot in return fire towards the broadside destroyer.

The shell, surprisingly with the cannon’s analogue target acquisition systems, nailed the destroyer dead center. The massive shell exploded upon contact and sent the still intact hull of the destroyer flying off into the depths of space and into the bow section of a friendly cruiser, destroying both ships in the process.

The second Spore destroyer continued on with the assault, shaking the ship violently with every impact the ship took.

Another transmission came in.

"Dreadnought 67 here! Our nuclear payloads are jammed! We are under attack by five destroyers here! Our reactors are overheating! We require backup! I repeat we...”

Silence filled the comms. A gigantic explosion was seen off the bow of the Negaima, 10 degrees to the left. Two Tokidai Cruisers were caught too close to the blast and both ships were annihilated.

Commander Lydia swore to herself. The attacking destroyer dodged another shell fired at it before letting loose yet another bolt of plasma and volleys of lasers that were all pinpoint accurate.

The highly energized blasts struck the hull fiercely, tearing apart cabling and disabling gyroscopes, causing critical instability issues on board the ship which in turn, threw the commander across the bridge.

The Spore’s targeting computers were way more advanced than the analogue ones used commonly by EarthGov. So, it really should not have come as a surprise when a carefully calculated plasma shot on the part of the Spores elegantly blasted the command disk spinning on the axis of the ship into a thousand beads of burning sludge.

Fragments of the bronze plated black fiber glass alloys could be seen flung off in all directions by its centrifugal force. The Negarima was not going to be communicating with the rest of the fleet now.

All the compromised sections were sealed off by the blast doors as programmed, unfortunately trapping the unfortunate few who were sucked out into the inky blackness.

"Ma'am! Our targeting computers have gone haywire! We cannot target the enemy! Switching to optical range finding!"

That instigated another round of silent swearing from the commander as she grabbed the closest chair to rotate herself back upright.

The command deck's plexglass windows were fractured, with countless networks of cracks running all across the panel.

"Turn our ship around! Starboard 80 degrees! Deputy!"

Her deputy did as instructed and the Negaima began firing its RCS thrusters and the whole dreadnought turned began spinning. It was painfully slow, but just in time for the ship to meet the new barrages of attacks.

The energy bolts and beams struck hard against the fresh layers of ceramic plating. The ship shook and shuddered, this time not as violently and with the power grids still barely functioning.

“Deputy! I said 80 degrees! Why are we spinning??”

“No good ma’am! The RCS on the opposite end are shot. We cannot…”

“Do as I say! I don’t care how you do it!”

“Y-Yes… Yes ma’am!”

The order to begin stopping the ship was issued and the pressure in the port RCS thrusters began increasing. Having been struck multiple times by highly potent thermal weaponry, the nozzles of said thrusters had been sealed shut. A great pressure of monopropellant was going to be necessary to unclog them.

Suddenly, Commander Lydia found herself bouncing off the walls of the room as a massive explosion in the monopropellant fuel storage threw the gyroscopes into disarray and the ship into a terrible vertical roll.

The scorched port side armor belt of the Negarima was propelled away at an extremely high speed from the resulting explosion, leaving large swaths of vital internal compartments and their crew exposed to hard vacuum.

Pieces of the shrapnel were blasted into the firing path of the attacking Spore destroyer. It fired its plasma cannon again, not expecting a sizable aluminum structural beam to be right in front of the barrel. The bolt exploded point blank from the destroyer, literally vaporizing the cannon from its hardpoint and sending a chain of catastrophic explosions down the length of the destroyer, successfully crippling it and rendering it unable to fight.

The twisted wreck of the destroyer then proceeded to drift off into the distance, fading away with the blackness of space. That was another destroyer but yet, another destroyer too few. There were hundreds more in the fight.

“Damage report!” Commander Lydia demanded, holding in the blood from a serious abrasion across her left temple.

Silence hung over the command deck.

“Damage report!!” Commander Lydia shouted this time.

“Ugh… Serious damage ma’am…” The chief engineer on the bridge moaned.

“What?”

The chief engineer held a steel strut that had impaled him through the stomach and groaned in pain. He attempted to pull it out, shrieked in pain before giving up and continuing his report.

“N-No good ma’am. Our life support tanks have been blown out. Our RCS fuel has detonated and all the crew in the bow and aft sections have been killed by our rotation…”

The chief engineer coughed out a bucketful of blood before continuing.

“Our radiators have sublimated… We are about to come into full view of the sun soon and… The guns are still functional, if that’s what you want to know.”

The chief yelled again. The red patch on his uniform grew larger.

“Engines?” The commander asked.

But she did not get a reply. The chief engineer slumped back to the ground, unconscious.

“Damn it all!” The commander exclaimed, resisting the urge to slam her fist into the already cracked viewing ports. “Bloody useless crew.”

The site of the battle continued its orbit around Earth. Soon the sun rose over the horizon and all the ships on site were bathed with Sol’s daily dose of light, heat and radiation.

The Negarima, having had most of her vital functions blown into stardust, could not cope with this sudden change in environment. The internal temperatures within the vessel began rising uncontrollably and Lydia soon found her uniform drenched with sweat and her forehead wetter than a person in a sauna.

Picking up a mouth piece, Lydia almost literally shouted into it.

"All hands on deck, environment suits! Now!"

The commander then did as she ordered. Under her captain’s chair was a simple EVA gel suit that came in two parts. Wasting no time, she put on the first half and called for her subordinates.

“Deputy!”

“R-Right here ma’am!” The deputy saluted with one hand. His other arm was twisted badly out of shape and was bleeding profusely from a bone that was pushed out of his skin.

"Issue the order to get a makeshift radio array up. And check on the engines… And also, get your suit on. Now!"

“Yes m-ma’am.” The deputy said, wincing with every word.

“Get the engineers to stop our rotation. I don’t care how they do it.”

“Yes…”

The deputy picked up the mouth piece and began issuing the orders through it. With every sentence he spoke, he coughed out significant amounts of blood.

“Is anyone else alive on this bridge?”

Commander Lydia shouted above the blaring alarms.

At this moment, an entire platoon of engineers in EVA suits tumbled through the blast doors that connected the rest of the ship to the bridge.

“Yes commander! I am alive! Immortalized!...”

That engineer was knocked about his head by a clipboard.

“Indeed.” Said the second engineer. “We are all and well. The radio is up and ready for use ma’am… Also, the bridge bulkhead was welded shut, so we cut our way through.”

“Noted.” Commander Lydia said. “Establish the comms link with the next ship in line.”

“Ma’am?” Said the second engineer. “The next in line ship, The Unsinkable has been destroyed.”

“Wha…?” Said the first engineer after being slapped and awoken rudely.

“Whatever! Just establish the connection with any ship… You there. Go!”

“Huh?” Mumbled the first engineer.

“Yes you.”

“Err… Roger that!”

Commander Lydia turned to her deputy.

“Has our rotation stopped?”

“Yes ma’am. Engines one to three are leaking fuel and engine four is fully operational. However, they cannot fire for too long or we will burn up.”

“Noted… Comms link?”

“No good ma’am.” Sighed the first engineer. “The console is trashed!”

“That’s the wrong console idiot!” A third engineer exclaimed. “The comms console is covered with dried blood. I can’t read a damn thing!”

“Then wipe the blood off damn it! I don’t have to tell you how to…” Commander Lydia began yelling before she was interrupted by the second engineer.

“Yes ma’am. Roger that… Done. I am establishing the connection… And… Done!”

“Good.” Commander Lydia said. “Patch me in.”

TKE climbed into his cryo chamber. Clanedd, coming into the room shortly after maneuvered herself towards him. TKE imputed the codes to begin the cryo sleep.

“Teeke…” Clanedd began. “Have… You remembered everything?”

“Yep.” TKE said. “Everything from my underwear to my non existent Kakadu… Oh, and I’ve brought you along too, so that’s everything I guess.”

“I see.” Clanedd said with a bitter smile.

“Mmhm…” TKE acknowledged without actually noticing Clanedd’s distress. “Oi! The engines are online. Can we go yet??” TKE yelled through the RIG to Saegen.

The only reply was a sudden impact that shook the whole of SkyLab2 and the TeraNova. A stray missile from the battle near the moon had gone wild and struck the outer rings of SkyLab2, causing some damage to the station’s artificial gravity system.

The voice of Saegen could be heard over the loudspeaker.

"Ah, damn it! The docking clamps! They have lost power! I cannot disengage! Is anyone still there?"

TKE clicked his tongue. "Welp. I’m not sure if that could have been helped. We are stuck. From the looks of it, the clamps have to be released manually using SkyLab2's analog motors, but that will be time consuming. However, cutting it would do too…”

Clanedd gasped.

"That means...”

TKE's reply came immediately.

"Yeah, yeah. No need to state the obvious. Someone has to fix it and I am going to."

Clanedd shook her head. "No, Teeke. Stay put! I shall do it."

“Huh? Err… Are you sure?”

TKE opened his mouth to say something but closed it again having nothing intelligent or helpful to craft into words. Thus, he remained silent, half bewildered and half dismayed.

"Don’t worry. I can do this, just as I always have.” Clanedd said softly. Then she leaned forward kissed his forehead.

“For luck.” Clanedd said with teary eyes and a smile. “I will be back, I promise.”

"That sounded so cliché.” TKE closed his eyes and chuckled. “Not that I mind though.” TKE leaned back on the gel backing of the cryo chamber.

“Freeze me… Oh boy, this is going to suck so bad…” TKE mumbled.

Clanedd nodded and typed in the remaining codes into the cryo chamber. With that, the chamber's door closed and little shards of frost and ice crystals formed over the Head Engineer’s body. His vital functions and breathing slowed before stopping entirely.

TKE's consciousness ebbed away. Never come back again for thousands of years to come. The head engineer was now asleep. Deep sleep. The cold and harsh cryo chamber he was housed in is now his home. Etched into the metal of the chamber below was TKE's title.

"Head Engineer of EarthGov Aerospace, Founder of NanoTec."

The Head Engineer would never be the same again… Or would he? Time will tell, but that would be another story, for another time.

Wiping a tear from her eyes, Clanedd took a step back and watched as TKE surrendered to the cold. That was it, she though to herself. Nothing more she could have done for him... A sandwich was not going to be of any use anyways.

She saluted, mumbled a short prayer and ran off to complete her final order.

“EarthGov fleet? Do you read?” Commander Lydia said through the reestablished comms line.

Static.

“EarthGov fleet, respond!”

There was another few seconds of static. The commander was about to shout through the mouth piece again before the reply came through.

“Commander! Thank god, we thought you were dead!”

“What’s the status of the fleet?”

“Not good to say the least.” The voice came through above the noise of fire alarms in the background. “We have lost an effective 20% of our fleet. Hundreds of destroyers sunk and critically damaged. Four of our dreadnaughts have suffered major damage but are still operational… What are you doing?? Put out that fire! No, don’t roast marshmallows there… Sorry, will call back ma’am.”

The link was cut.

Slamming a nearby panel for good measure, Commander Lydia walked over to the engineers who had just fixed the comms.

“Get back to your stations. Go!”

“Yes ma’am. Right away!”

The engineers headed out of the bridge.

The call from the rest of the fleet came back.

“Sorry ma’am. Damage control.”

“No problem.” Lydia lied. She was furious. “What now?”

“20% of our effective fleet power has been taken out.”

“I know that already. What else?”

“Err… Our captain has taken command after your ship was knocked out and has successfully established a defensive line against the Spores. We are holding out… Somewhat with a dense flak and reverse ion field but I am not sure how long it will last.”

“Good.” Commander Lydia said while bottling up the anger she felt for being unable to command the fleets properly to stabilize the battle as her subordinates had.

“Anything else?” The commander asked.

“Yes ma’am. Your ship is drifting and spinning. Do you need assistance?”

“No. Have all the ships retain formation. This ship is no longer battle worthy. RTB.”

“Roger that. Good luck out there.”

She turned to the deputy and grabbed him by the rim of his EVA helmet. He screamed in pain as the suit began tearing his broken arm even further apart.

“You! Look what you have done. If you were more efficient in relaying my orders… We’ll…”

“I…I’m sorry ma’am!” He yelled, unable to control his voice. “I will have the ship moved back to the planet ma’am!”

“Do so!” The commander huffed. “You have plenty of explanation to do.”

Commander Lydia threw him off, letting him bounce around the zero-g environment of the ship, letting it take him where it saw fit.

The ship was still in the sun’s full view and now consoles and metal hand rails were glowing a dull red. The commander could feel the heat seeping through the thick insulating layers of her suit. It was a surprise that the ship’s primary functions had not failed yet.

“Damage report!” The Commander Lydia yelled. “I want a full list of malfunctions on board this ship now!”

Her deputy, whom was barely conscious and drifting around the room in cloud of his own blood began speaking.

“Everything on board this ship is broken except for our main cannons, engine four and the ‘Fubuki’… Ma’am.” He gasped.

“Noted. You have the controls.”

“Y-Yes ma’am.”

Clanedd put on her EVA suit just as she was about to step out of the airlock. She did not wait for the airlock to cycle. There was simply no time. The sheer force of the air rushing out of the airlock carried her out of the ship with a significant jolt of acceleration.

EVA maneuvering jets began firing as Clanedd leaned herself forwards and boosted herself towards SkyLab2, covering the couple hundred meters of distance in mere seconds.

She reached her hand out and grabbed the bars attached to the sides of the station airlock. The sudden change in velocity threatened to rip Clanedd's arm right out of its sockets, but she did not have the time to think about it.

Climbing into the airlock, she opened up her RIG and pressed a few buttons. The airlock closed its door and after a minute of cycling, it opened up the bulkhead that led into the white hallways of SkyLab2.

By that time, Clanedd had already torn off her suit and began running down the hallway towards the engineering sector. As she ran down the hallways, she could see the brief flashes of light at lunar orbit and the glints of light from the reflective sliver hull plating of the NNT TeraNova.

120 000 lives depended on if she succeeded or failed. Clanedd knew the latter was not an option. Otherwise the stories of those on board the ship and of their offspring would be rendered forfeit.

Strangely enough, that was a single spot in through the flashing glimpses Clanedd had through SkyLab2’s corridor windows that blocked out the flashes of light and the rising sun above the horizon.

Clanedd gulped. The shadow grew larger and larger steadily, until it nearly obscured the moon itself. An unknown Spore ship? I seriously hope not! Clanedd thought to herself as she arrived and forcefully opened the door leading to the engineering sector. As she stepped in, a violent explosion resounded throughout the station.

The lights flickered and fluorescent tubes burst, scattering shards of glass and mercury powder all over the floors of engineering.

By the sheer force of whatever hit the station, Clanedd was lifted off her feet and slammed into the nearest wall by inertia before tumbling to the ground. Dazed by the sudden shock, Clanedd attempted to stand up only to fall down again. Her head was spinning and she briefly lost consciousness.

“Deputy!” Commander Lydia yelled. “What’s the meaning of this?? What has happened to the ship??”

There was no answer above the wailing alarms.

“Deputy!!”

Commander Lydia righted herself in the zero-g environment and turned to face her deputy, only to find that he had drowned in his own blood and mucus within his EVA suit.

Commander Lydia was about to pound yet another panel in rage before she calmed herself down. No point in getting angry anymore. What happened?

The commander looked out of the front windows of the bridge only to see pitch blackness staring back at her. Then, she walked over to her captain’s chair and pulled out a tablet from under the seat. She then began tapping the cracked screen and managed to bring up live footage from the camera mounted on the scorched starboard aft deck of the Negarima.

The only thing that could be seen by the camera was the white surface of an unknown structure with the inky black space bordering it to the right. On the surface of the structure was the etched name of it. SkyLab2.

“Damn it, damn it, damn it!”

The commander yelled before calming down yet again. What were the chances anyways? Commander Lydia thought to herself. Never mind that.

One problem led to another. What happened to the rest of the crew on board the Negarima? Commander Lydia thought to herself before dismissing the thought entirely. Their lives did not matter to her.

What she was concerned about however, was actually getting back to Earth. There were not that many options but perhaps there may be a shuttle somewhere on board the station. I can use that to return to Earth. Commander Lydia thought to herself.

Clanedd’s eyes regained focus and when it did, the scene of structural beams, lights and other miscellaneous articles were strewn all over the dusty floor of engineering which after having most of its main lights blown, was shrouded in an eerie shadow with a single red light flickering above an exit bulkhead.

Clanedd dragged herself to her feet only to find that her right hand that was supposed to be supporting her up was entirely numb. She fell onto the ground again.

Turning her head, Clanedd was horrified to see a rather large, twisted piece of aluminum sheet metal embedded in her shoulder. Every time she touched that piece of metal sent sensations akin to having molten lead poured down her arm all over her body. Clanedd decided it would be the most healthy option not to touch it from then on.

This time, using her left hand, Clanedd pulled herself to her feet and after doing so, opened her RIG. Checking the damage control panel on her RIG, Clanedd found that the whole station was displayed in a bright shade of yellow, signifying minor damage, except for two areas.

The docking clamps area was flashing dark red, inoperable and the entire upper wing of the station to be shaded black as though something rammed the station and went straight through. That meant that weapons and long range communications were gone.

Numbed by the pain, Clanedd began acting based on instinct and figuring that the best thing to do for everyone was to simply break the clamps right off their hinges… But the question was… How?

“Self-destruct…” Clanedd mumbled to her self. “Wait, that’s it!”

Stumbling to the nearest bulkhead which coincidentally had the flashing red light above it, Clanedd used her authorization to simply override the damage induced lockdown and sprinted down the plain white corridors. Her body was being pumped so full with adrenaline, having a very specific goal in mind. She was so focused, nothing would break it. Not even a suspicious gel suit marked with the EarthGov insignia standing in an adjacent corridor broke it.

What the… Commander Lydia thought to herself as she saw a shadow dash past her from an adjacent corridor. At first, the commander was confused as to why SkyLab2 was so empty. Maybe everyone had evacuated into that weird, seemingly stolen EarthGov ship parked suspiciously by the side of the station she eventually concluded. Now with what seemed to be a person with an injured shoulder running past her, Commander Lydia was now not so sure anymore. Maybe she was seeing things and thus, she left it as that.

Now, if I were this rogue terrorist organization, where would I put my shuttle bay? Commander Lydia thought to herself as she found a convenient control panel to hack into.

“What kind of software is this?” Lydia mumbled to herself. “I can’t even access it without… What’s this? A RIG? Oh, that invention. Too bad EarthGov would not give such a valuable piece of equipment to a low rank like me…”

Commander Lydia took a step back from the panel and sighed. That was not going to work, and even if it did, she could not read Latin.

Thinking back, the commander did recall seeing that shadow coming from a particular direction. Perhaps that might be the way to the shuttle bay.

“Yup. Probably is.” Lydia reaffirmed herself before turning to go down the corridor.

As she turned, she caught a glimpse of a Spore destroyer just a couple hundred meters away from SkyLab2. Or was it? The commander looked again. It was too large to be a destroyer and the external mounts were unlike whatever she had seen before. It was comparable to a heavy cruiser class by EarthGov definitions, although it was much, much bigger. And EarthGov cruisers could not deploy two absurdly huge wing mounted cannons like what that ship was doing.

Commander Lydia began running down the corridors instead of walking like she did before. That thing, whatever it was, did not seem like it was just there to say hi.

Clanedd continued running through the empty corridors of SkyLab2 until a loud alarm began going off on her RIG. While still running, she opened up the RIG’s notice. Discarding all the text messages from Saegen asking how bloody long was she going to take, Clanedd opened up the big red notice that had popped up on her screen.

Warning. Enemy weapon lock detected. It read.

“Painted?” Clanedd mumbled to herself, stopping before bending over, resting her hands on her knees and gasping for breath.

“By what?”

Her question was immediately answered as the corridor in front was blasted away by a hot green plasma bolt, leaving molten metal, burning plastic and a giant hole in its wake.

Clanedd immediately jumped into an adjacent hallway and curled up into a fetal position until the emergency shutters came down, stopping the escape of air.

More attacks were going to come soon. There was no doubt about that. Clanedd picked herself up again and after catching her breath, she bolted down the hallways again.

Having ended up in the first office block, Clanedd knew that she was going to pass by the armory soon. After all, NanoTec’s futile battles against Ancient Legends were fought in those very corridors.

Another plasma bolt hit the station, causing mild rumbling and all the electronic panels that Clanedd could see blow a cloud of thick white smoke into the air. Clanedd winced at the smell produced. Every breath she took caused violent burning sensations to course down her throat.

Instinctively, she ripped off her applets and part of her sleeves, fell to the ground and put said applets and sleeves over her mouth and nose. There was no water to be found so a dry filter would have to do.

With that, Clanedd began crawling below the billowing clouds of toxic gas. It still stung her eyes and irritated her skin but that was still, after all, the fastest way to the button.

Commander Lydia tripped over a metal scaffolding in the darkened engineering sector and fell on her face. She groaned as she pushed herself up again with her hands.

“Wherever this is, it seems poorly maintained.” The commander mumbled to herself as she pulled off the emergency lights mounted on the EVA suit and began shining them around the room.

Suddenly, the whole station shook like thunder, throwing Commander Lydia across the room and having her back take the brunt of the impact on a solid bulkhead. Luckily for her, the EVA suit took most of the shock but it broke its on board oxygen tanks in the process.

“Ah shit…” Lydia swore to herself as she looked upwards in exasperation. Above her was the sign that read shuttle bay 03.

The commander sighed to herself in relief. How lucky she thought to herself as she smashed the door control panel right next to the bulkhead, causing it to open in a shower of sparks and a piercing screech.

Commander Lydia then ran down the dimly lit walkway that led right to the third shuttle bay of SkyLab2. That was a little anti-climatic if I may say so myself. Commander Lydia thought to herself. I’d thought I would have had to go through aliens and more exploding hallways.

Clanedd cleared the corridor and sealed the door to the armory right behind her. Another hit rocked the station and what remaining guns that were on their shelves were thrown off before clattering on the ground and landing on Clanedd.

Jolts of pain shot through Clanedd as one of the rifles slammed the piece of shrapnel even further into her arm. Tears filled her eyes and she nearly blacked out.

The only thing that stopped her from losing consciousness all together was the constant buzzing of her RIG, telling her that Saegen was sending about ten messages per minute asking her to hurry up.

She tried to flip herself over but the pain was so immense that she could not even move without feeling as though her arm was about to fall off.

Another bolt of plasma hit the station tearing holes through the power grids and coolant pumps of reactor four. The impact threw everything in the armory to the right and Clanedd along with it. This time, from her laid down position, the force allowed her to push all the weapons off her back and land flat on her back with assault rifles and grenades as a cushion.

Clanedd got up again. As she was about to leave the armory, a stray missile from the battle in the general direction of the moon scored a nice hit in the area where Clanedd was currently in.

The missile breached the hull in multiple sectors, including a small gash to the armory. The atmosphere began rushing out of the tiny crack, whose resultant push outwards was forcing the crack to pry open even larger.

Clanedd felt as though she was standing in a vacuum cleaner and to be honest, she was right in retrospect. The door leading out of the armory was just a few meters in front of Clanedd by that point.

She reached her hand out and tapped the required buttons on her RIG only to find out that the door had locked the entire room down.

“Open damn it!” Clanedd screamed at the door with futility. Atmospheric pressure was dropping rapidly within the room and soon, Clanedd could not even hear herself scream.

She felt as though her eyes were trying to squeeze out of their sockets and her skin stretched to the limit. Her blood literally started to boil. All the air was forced out of her lungs making her feel as though she was imploding and yet exploding at the same time.

Clanedd reached out to the door control panel. Little streams of blood flowed out of her nose, mouth, ears and eye sockets. Override… She mumbled to herself inaudibly. There was no air left for her to hear anything or say anything for that matter.

The bulkhead opened and with that, Clanedd was met with the most powerful draft ever created on board a space station. She would have submitted that as a world record but EarthGov was a communist society and thus recorded no such childish things and not to mention, Clanedd had people to save.

With all her might, Clanedd pulled on the edges of the bulkhead and against the force of the draft, somehow managed to get herself back into the other corridor.

The override time span elapsed and the bulkhead slammed shut. Something pulled or rather, tugged violently at her completely numb right arm. She did not feel anything or worry for that matter… At least until Clanedd turned and saw that her right hand had become a bloody stump that ended right at where the bulkhead had shut. She had just lost her right hand but that was a problem to worry about later.

Standing up, Clanedd trudged towards the self-destruct button she so clearly remembered seeing on the way to the armory back in 2095. The blood in her eyes, nose and other extremities played with her bodily sensors but after being completely doused in a world of pain, she did not care anymore.

A bloody red line led from the armory’s bulkhead right up to the self-destruct button, neatly tucked away at an obscure corner of SkyLab2. It still was even covered by the piece of scrap paper that read ‘Out of Order’ in the messy handwriting that Clanedd remembered writing with.

A smile crept onto her face, although it looked more like a smirk as muscles across her body were numb and unresponsive. This sure brings back memories. Clanedd thought to herself. And I… Clanedd prepared an epic monologue.

Shall be the one to preserve those memories, and push them into the stars… That sounded cringy now didn’t it?

Clanedd laughed to herself as tears displaced the blood in her eyes. Lifting away her supporting left hand from her right arm, Clanedd ripped the piece of scrap paper off and hesitated.

It has to be this way. Clanedd began another monologue to herself. The rest of humanity is counting on me… Or at least the part that would survive this war but still counts right?

Clanedd, despite her injuries, breathed in deeply, held her breath and then let it out slowly. Now, she was ready and Clanedd, with all her strength, slammed the big red button right down into its pedestal, breaking her left wrist with a sickening snap and initiating a warning from the central computer.

“*Warning. Reactor coolant ejected from core. Uncontrolled nuclear reaction detected. Wildcat failure imminent in 90 seconds. All personnel to evacuate immediately!*”

SkyLab2’s all too familiar computer voice blared out throughout the entire station. Clanedd, despite her new injury, looked upwards and sighed.

“You hear that sir?” Clanedd whispered through her now open RIG communication uplink to TeraNova.

There was no reply. Of course there would not be. It was a one-way link after all. Clanedd collapsed into the pool of blood from where her right hand used to be and sighed.

“Now listen carefully.” Clanedd began. “Fire the engines towards the station as though you are dragging it. When the reactor explodes, the ship is likely to suffer damage from the blast but you would be well on your way to the stars.”

Clanedd coughed violently, spraying blood all over her uniform.

“And do correct the spin resulting from the blast. I trust you know how to do that. And also, you might want to be wary of the giant Spore ship outside the station. Nothing any smaller has the capacity to cause so much damage within such a short period of time.”

The hallway Clanedd was in suddenly began exploding in multiple areas. Pipes burst, lights popped, plexglass cracked and fires sprung up all around Clanedd.

“*Core temperatures over safety levels by 200%. Reactor failure in…*” The computer’s voice stopped abruptly. Even the central computer was not invulnerable to fire.

“Oh and one more thing.” Clanedd wheezed as she breathed in one last breath of air. “Tell T…Teeke for me. Tell him I love him… That was too cliché and cringe now wasn’t it...”

Clanedd smiled and leaned her head back on the pedestal of the self-destruct button and closed her eyes.

“I might need to work on my one liners… But that might be a bit too late. Save humanity for me… sir. And one last thing… About the snacks, screw you.”

Nobody heard the RIG flatline that resounded like a chime throughout the empty hallways of SkyLab2. Like a swansong, it rang loud and clear even in the midst of the explosions before dying away as though nothing had even happened. Clanedd now with her eyes closed and with a smile on her face, the RIG comms link was served and she did not say another word.

“What?? You can’t be serious.” Commander Lydia swore to herself as she began activating the combustion engines of a mothballed shuttle in the corner of the empty shuttle bay.

The alert of imminent reactor failure rang crisp and clear even in the cockpit of the shuttle. That gave her a minute? Two minutes?

Flicking switches almost at random, Commander Lydia frantically searched for the ignition key before finding it in the area that separated the pilot from the co-pilot.

She turned the red knob and flicked the two switches next to it before the roar of the rockets could be heard. It was music to the commander’s ears.

As surprising as it may sound, the ship was not ID locked by the RIG functions. That, Commander Lydia could thank her creator for. Now the other problem was to actually leave the station.

Initiate launch sequence. Read the text in big bold, orange letters on the HUD of the shuttle. As the shuttle was designed with a RIG interface in mind, the commander was unable to manipulate the screen as conveniently as a NanoTec pilot could.

The commander pushed the lever to her left to its maximum on impulse. The combustion engines behind her blazed fiercely, exhaust torching the plastic walls of the shuttle bay, burning straight through it like a flamethrower against a block of butter.

The little magnetic clamps that held the shuttle down began to audibly crack. The engine noise grew louder and louder and the engine port began glowing even brighter.

Tiny cracks began appearing in the walls of the shuttle bay as the heat from the engines ablated layer after layer of protective shielding.

“Come on… Come on…” Commander Lydia began mumbling to herself as the shuttle shook violently.

Suddenly, the commander felt a sudden force yank her backwards as the white of the shuttle bay walls began receding and spinning, with the black of space displacing the light from SkyLab2.

Commander Lydia immediately slid the lever on her left that she now knew was the throttle back to its original position and began pressing buttons at random yet again.

Whether it was pure luck or simple intuition, Commander Lydia found the auto stabilize or SAS toggle and pressed it. The engines were now deactivated and the spinning had come to a halt.

The commander, now in full view of SkyLab2, simply gazed at the once was magnificent, pinnacle of human scientific advancement. It was glowing red and orange in multiple sections. Bits and pieces of hull were cut off and floating around the station or had simply been vaporized. Air could be seen leaking from multiple areas and the black… thing was still circling the structure pounding it into a hulk of molten metal and burnt plastic.

Commander Lydia sighed. Was the battle over yet? She thought to herself. No, can’t be. She could still see brilliant flashes of lasers and sparks lighting up the Luna eclipse.

She closed her eyes and despite EarthGov’s atheistic agenda, muttered a prayer. For the deceased and those still gallantly fighting for their home. It was not much, but at least it made the commander feel somewhat at ease. And then, SkyLab2’s reactor exploded, enshrouding everything Commander Lydia could see in a dazzling white flare.

The ion stream from the blast slammed into the shuttle, taking out all of its electronic equipment. Flight control, communications, life support. The little craft then tumbled helplessly into the atmosphere of Earth. From space, it was a little meteor and then, it disappeared beyond the clouds below.

Saegen, at the helm of the ship was sweating profusely. He had sent more than a dozen messages to Clanedd but had gotten no reply. Not to mention that there was a hideous monstrosity that was most certainly not a Spore destroyer circling SkyLab2 blasting it to bits. He could already thank his lucky stars that it had not yet registered the TeraNova as a threat… Yet. Whatever was going on, he felt extremely anxious and nervous.

Saegen looked up from his RIG and out into the outer reaches of the moon, Luna. The battle still raged on. From what Saegen could see, the EarthGov fleet had just managed to set up a defensive line and was holding it reasonably well against the Spores but they were being pushed back slightly every time a Spore plasma barrage came in.

Their command ship was regrettably, taken out almost immediately after the battle began and after a period of drifting, slammed nose first into the upper decks of SkyLab2, somewhere near the engineering sectors.

It would have been more impressive to watch on television. Saegen contemplated to himself. Because since now he had to worry about getting thousands of people away from Earth alive, the keyword being ‘alive’, he could not sit tight and watch a once in a lifetime spectacle of a massive capital ship ramming a space station.

A few more minutes passed and Saegen got more and more restless with each passing minute. He was about to bulk send another hundred messages to Clanedd, his RIG communicators started to buzz.

“*Warning. Reactor coolant ejected from core. Uncontrolled nuclear reaction detected. Wildcat failure imminent in 90 seconds. All personnel to evacuate immediately!*”

Saegen heard loud and clear through his RIG. He opened his mouth to reply, but the next set of words came through shortly after.

“You hear that sir?” Came Clanedd’s soft and raspy voice.

“Clanedd? Deputy Head Engineer, do you read me?” Saegen half shouted through his RIG before realizing that the TeraNova was not even built with a communication array. Why would they need one anyways? Saegen kept his mouth shut subsequently.

“Now listen carefully.” Clanedd could be heard again. “Fire the engines towards the station as though you are dragging it. When the reactor explodes, the ship is likely to suffer damage from the blast but you would be well on your way to the stars.”

The sound of violent coughing and the tell tale sounds of splattering blood could be heard through the RIG.

“And do correct the spin resulting from the blast. I trust you know how to do that. And also, you might want to be wary of the giant Spore ship outside the station. Nothing any smaller has the capacity to cause so much damage within such a short period of time.”

“*Core temperatures over safety levels by 200%. Reactor failure in…*” The central computer’s voice resonated through the RIG before stopping abruptly. No surprise there, really.

“Oh and one more thing.” A deep wheezing sound could be heard. “Tell T…Teeke for me. Tell him I…”

A plasma bolt from that Spore cruiser thingy hit a communication dish, cutting the transmission abruptly and without warning.

Saegen lowered his head and sighed deeply before raising his head once again and saluting. There was no doubt in what Clanedd was going to say. Saegen thought to himself. Therefore…

With that, Saegen swung his saluting arm forwards and like a firecracker, the Tandem Mirror engines lit up as bright as the sun just as the ‘Fubuki’ fission reactors of SkyLab2 went super critical and annihilated itself like Trinity.

Saegen was bathed in a sea of light before being plunged into darkness as most if not all the electronic equipment on board the ship was disabled temporarily by the resulting ion stream.

Grabbing onto the captain’s chair for dear life, the TeraNova engaged into a mild flat spin as the navigation systems, life support and reactor control all began flickering back to life.

SkyLab2 was no more but Saegen could not afford to look back. His objective was right in front of him, past the raging battle at Luna.

Vega was the star he was aiming for stood out of the many flashes of plasma and nuclear discharge before it. It was the brightest star in the constellation of Lyra after all.

With a precisely calculated maneuver, Saegen translated all his rotational velocity into that of transitional, swinging the ship into a mad charge to swing out of the gravitational sphere of influence of Earth. Only then could an accurate jump be plotted.

"*Warning!*” The on board ship computer, a copy of the original program from SkyLab2 said. “*Entering a high risk zone. Please make course corr..."

Saegen turned the speaker off. Even on board the NNT TeraNova, he still found that voice just as annoying.

“There it is. Voice command… Punch it!”

There was no reply because Saegen had turned the speakers off. The fusion engines began screaming figuratively as it was geared into a full overdrive, kicking the ship forwards in a huge burst of speed, nearly throwing Saegen against the bulkhead that led out of the bridge.

"*Orbital velocity, 0.01 c... Drive charge, 10%*"

The TeraNova began shaking, as it slowly eased itself into sub-light, relativistic conditions which caused it to straining terribly under the stress.

The fact that the starboard whipple shielding and aerogel layers had been evaporated by the nuclear blast did not help matters at all.

"*Drive charge, 40%..." The inaudible sound of the whining Alcubierre Drive slowly became audible and more distinct.

Saegen gritted his teeth. The Spore Armada had not already noticed him yet and even if they did, probably did not even consider him a threat. However, he was caught in the crossfire between them and the EarthGov ships.

The TeraNova was literally stuck between a wall of lead and a wall of highly energized light and ions. Laser and plasma fire glanced off the starboard sides of the ship while cannon slugs bounced off the other side.

The TeraNova shook under the numerous impacts and Saegen, whom was well aware of the fact that the TeraNova was armored like a fishing boat, almost felt that his ship was resembling a block of Swiss cheese more and more with each passing second.

Thankfully for him, even if any shell had already hit the ship, it was still operating just fine and had probably not hit any vital citadel compartments of the ship.

Suddenly the proximity scanners beeped. Not a simple beep but a loud rapid-fire chain of alarm beeps.

Saegen, just by hearing the sound and pattern of the beeping already knew what it was trying to tell him.

His eyes widened. A projectile? Shell?? He immediately put the impending danger on the main screen. It was the ICY Products station. The giant cannon mounted on the very top of it was pointing right at the TeraNova.

"Shit! Evade!”

Saegen unconsciously yelled to himself as he swung his left hand so hard, it felt as though he almost dislocated it. The ship lunged towards the port side, and somewhat successfully dodged the massive shell.

Although the shell would have hit the TeraNova dead on had Saegen not reacted fast enough, it unfortunately scored a glancing hit on the ship, crushing all the starboard external gyroscopes by the sheer mass of the projectile.

The shell then proceeded to burrow itself into the giant Spore sphere that had sat idle out of the battle from the moment it entered Earth’s gravitational field to now. The shell caused a massive eruption of green and purple flames from the sphere. How much damage it actually caused, Saegen was not sure.

But what Saegen did know however, was that the shell hit the ship with loud bang on its starboard side, causing it to list towards port and causing its warp navigation consoles to fail entirely.

Saegen swore to himself. The navigation computer was showing a terrifying blue screen and was beeping like crazy. There was no doubt that the TeraNova was thrown completely off course but there was no time to think about it.

"I don't care!” Saegen shouted. “Do it! Warp! Warp now! Go!"

The computer stopped beeping instantly and produced a satisfying ding noise. The capacitor grids were instantaneously hooked up to that of the Alcubierre Drive and its ring began glowing bright yellow, and then bright white. Electrical arcs jumped between sections on the ring as the space behind the ring began converging and the space in front of the ship began dilating.

The TeraNova then, from an observer’s stand point, was crushed by the fabrics of space and time itself before it finally disappeared from the night sky.

The NNT TeraNova, with her 120 000 people on board was now in interstellar space, traveling even faster than any human could have ever dreamed of in the past, to an entire galaxy whose inhabitants would be waiting just for them to shake their hands or perhaps, to finish the Spore’s job, annihilate them and the human race all together. Only time will tell what happens to the young pioneers but that is a story for another day.

The ICY Products station came around back to the side of the Earth facing the moon. A week and a bit had passed and there was finally, no more weapon exchange. The battle was over. The Spores had backed off from Earth temporarily and the EarthGov fleets, although crippled in many lances, still existed and retreated back to the surface to fight another day.

Looking around, a massive debris field existed in the inter-space between the moon and Earth and the area where SkyLab2 should have been. It seemed like it had just vanished completely, even though everyone who was looking up into the sky that very day would have known very well that that was not the case.

EOH, the ICY Products' head looked at the field and sighed.

"So NanoTec has escaped too huh? I guess I could not have expected much more. I never saw them as much of fighters anyways..."

A knock was heard on his office door and Robert kicked the door down before EOH had even given him the permission to enter.

"Sir, err… The interns have done as you asked. They have gone to look through the field for anything useful."

EOH looked at him suspiciously.

"But I never asked them to..."

Robert interrupted him.

"We have concluded that the station was destroyed by a reactor overheating. They must have…"

“You don’t say.” EOH cut Robert’s sentence in half.

“Err… Right, of course… So what now?” EOH turned around and faced the window.

"Forget it Robert."

“Huh?”

“Go take a break. New Guinea, west coast at 1 pm tomorrow afternoon. I totally am not trying to assassinate you.”

“Really?? Sweet! Thanks sir!” Robert said with glee, conveniently ignoring the last part of EOH’s sentence before galloping out of his office.

EOH sighed again and mumbled to himself in a rather spiteful tone.

"And thus, the pieces have fallen... No that didn’t sound right… Ahem, now the pieces are in place. What will happen in the future has yet to be determined and I shall watch it unfold before my eyes. Whatever shall be, was. Whatever was, shall be."

Feeling rather smug about himself, EOH put the script he was reading off down on his office table, yawned and went to bed.

Story Arc 1: Flight to a Distant Star

The End.