37 – IT BEGINS

Bradley Patton stared out into space through the great curved window of the bridge on Yellow Command. It had been a long afternoon. He and the Grand General of the Green Army had spent a good long while discussing and planning Yellow Command's relocation in orbit to defend Centerpoint City. As impressive as Yellow Command was, it was not a starship. It had not been designed for travel, having been built with only small engines used for powering the station. So in place of ion drives, the station had had to rely on the emergency thrusters. The emergency thrusters were only intended to be used to propel the station a short distance, should a large asteroid be heading towards it or something like that. But with no other means of propulsion, Yellow Command had used these to slowly push the station into the proper place in orbit. The ordeal had taken many hours of constant monitoring. Inertial dampening had prevented the inhabitants of the station from feeling the surge whenever the thrusters were fired. Instead, it had been the laborious procedures and calculations that the bridge staff had had to perform which had caused the station's journey to be so stressful. But now, everything was in place. Just an hour ago, the station had made it into geosynchronous orbit above Centerpoint City.

Bradley was tired. The operation had taken the bridge staff till the wee hours of the morning and beyond. Looking briefly at the time in his heads-up display, Bradley noted that it was now just after 0800 hours. It was time for some rest. He turned from the window. The bridge was two levels of control consoles with soldiers at them, which circled around the edge of the room in an arc. The center of the room contained a holographic console which currently showed a three dimensional wire-frame schematic of the station. Bradley looked at his second in command, the soldier who was currently working on the console nearest him. "Avery, how are things?"

Johnson Avery looked up at Bradley. "Still fine, sir. The city is still there, and all operations on the station are proceeding normally."

Bradley nodded. "Good, good. I um, I think I might retire for a few hours. You might want to do so yourself."

"Perhaps, in a few moments," Avery said.

Bradley walked into the center of the bridge, towards the door leading to the rest of the station. But then a surprised gasp from Avery, as well as some navigation officers at the same instant, stopped him in his tracks. He whirled around, instinct kicking in. Gasping navigation officers were never a good sign. "What is it?"

"We've just picked something up outside…but it doesn't make any sense," said one of the navigation officers.

"Explain," Bradley ordered.

"We've picked up subtle heat signatures that are coming towards the station at a speed of one megameter per minute. Problem is, our radar isn't picking up anything except the heat. Both are a stream of ions, but we can't tell where they're coming from."

"Are there any icy asteroids within our vicinity?" Bradley asked.

"That's a negative, sir," said Avery. "We blasted away all space debris anywhere near us when we settled into this place in orbit. Furthermore, if they were asteroids, then we'd have visual confirmation. But we are picking up nothing, repeat nothing, from these things. The ion trails are appearing out of nowhere, as far as we can tell."

"Both signatures are still heading towards the station," said a second navigation officer. "Two point five megameters from us and closing." Then he tensed. "Sir! Both signatures have just changed speed. Two megameters per minute. No, three. Four! Sir, the signatures are accelerating right at us!"

"Asteroids don't have a sudden change in speed," Bradley shouted. "Red alert! Everyone, battle stations!"

The lighting in the room changed to red, casting the chamber in a bloody hue. Soldiers got up and began sprinting to and fro all over the room hurriedly. At the same time, subtle vibrations could be felt as the station opened up its weapon ports. In the midst of the chaos, Bradley strode diligently over to the holographic console and hit a button on it, which caused his command chair to rise out of the floor. No battle was complete for Bradley without his command chair. He sat down, comfy and ready. "Fire at the signatures as soon as the weapons are fully charged."

"The signatures are right next to us, sir!" shouted Avery. "We don't have time to fire!"

A tingle of panic began to creep down Bradley's spine. The station was defenseless if it could not attack its enemy at range.

An image began to appear outside the bridge window. The panorama of space was shimmering, as though a heat wave were in front of the station. But outside was space, and heat waves required the presence of air. The image began to take coherence, and Bradley's worst fears were confirmed. A great metal hull, painted all in dark purple, materialized outside the window. This new object stretched half the length of the station, a titanium behemoth. All along its sides were rows upon rows of some kind of turret, which were popping out of the hull of the ship as it moved across the window. Bradley could visibly see that all of the turrets, every single member of the thousands of them, were powering up. The words EDGE OF DOOM passed by the window, and Bradley had just enough time to shout "Everyone get down!" at the top of his lungs before all hell broke loose.

The windows shattered. Air began to rush out, taking all manner of loose items with it, but something else was rushing in. The bridge was filled with metallic balls, each about the size of a tennis ball, which stuck to every metallic surface they landed upon with an electronic hum. The emergency blast doors began to close over the windows. The main problem, however, was already inside. No sooner had the blast doors finished closing, and the rush of air stopped, when the many dozens of balls in the bridge suddenly began to glow brighter than anything Bradley had ever seen. Their surfaces burned brilliantly, and the entire bridge became so bright that Bradley could hardly see, even with the adaptive tinting of his visor. His shields died, and all around him, he could hear the horrible crackling and fizzing of circuits. At the same time, his armor's mobility gave out, and he fell to the floor on his back, unable to move except for the groggiest of motions. It's an electromagnetic pulse, he realized. Vorennius is trying to paralyze this station.

Off in the distance, he could hear similar sounds, meaning that the two enemy ships were indeed peppering the entire station with the goddamned balls. The tremendous brightness lasted for another few seconds, and then finally stopped. Bradley took a breath, grasping for a nearby console counter to hoist himself from the ground as he did so. All over the room, soldiers were getting up from the floor, and looked as though they had been hit as hard as he had. The lights were all out, and so were the monitors. With the blast doors now closed over the windows, the bridge was cast into near complete darkness, save for the shield indicator lights of the soldiers, as well as the glowing of their tacpads. The air was filled with smoke, and everywhere he could see flashes of sparks from the consoles. Bradley looked around for his second in command. "Avery, status report!" he called out.

Bradley's second in command got up and walked over to his designated console. He tapped buttons on it for a few seconds, before throwing up his gauntlets in dismay. He then opened his tacpad and stared at it for some time. "I'm patching into the feeds of the station from all the readouts I can find," he stated.

"And?" Bradley asked apprehensively.

"Oh dear God," Avery cursed. "It seems that the two enemy cruisers have moved on, but while they were here they shot the station through and through with those pulse emitters. Nearly all the systems are fried: engines, weapons, communications, lighting. Life support is on backup generators. But that does little good, because with the thrusters gone we're sitting ducks. The station has been effectively incapacitated by this attack."

Bradley stood still, listening. A short moment after Avery had finished speaking, Bradley then walked over to a fallen swivel chair, picked it up, and threw it across the room. "GOD DAMMIT!" He walked over to another chair and threw that one as well. A few very deep breaths followed, at which point he was able to compose himself. He didn't need to look to know that everyone on the bridge was staring at him. "I've had a very bad day," he offered as an explanation. "Haven't we all?"

"What should we do, sir?" Avery asked.

Bradley walked back to his command chair and sat down in it. His timeout lasted for perhaps two minutes, at which point he ordered: "First, we need to get life support off of backup. Get some mainline power going, and set life support on that." Then he suddenly shot up. "The city! Oh fuck, the city!"

"Sir?" Avery asked.

"We have to warn Centerpoint City!" Bradley shouted. "Don't you see? That's why those Purple ships just up and left us. Because they're not after us. We were just in the way. They're after the fucking city!" He began pacing madly in a tense circle. "I don't care how you do it, Avery, but get me the Grand General, ASAP. Centerpoint City is in mortal danger!"

Skope's tacpad alarm system woke him up at exactly 0800 hours. He groggily got out of bed, put the rest of his armor on, and headed down to the commons of the hotel to join the rest of Lime and Lemon Squadrons for breakfast. The events of last evening were still playing out in his mind. He couldn't believe that what had happened had actually happened. He had been completely unaware of the chemistry between him and Amber until that moment. The part of it all that kept returning to him was how alive he had felt during their embrace. Only part of it had been sexual. Some of those emotions, though, had been conjured by something else. Did that mean he loved Amber? Was that what love felt like? He shook his helmet as he walked. Whatever he and Amber had between them, it was only a one-time thing. It had to be, because relationships like this were not allowed under the Code of Green Army Regulations, even more so for relationships between soldiers of different Armies. He and Amber would just behave like nothing had ever happened, and that would be that. He finally came to the common room.

Everyone was staring at him.

Plates of food were sitting out across a wide table, where both Lime and Lemon Squadrons were sitting. From the orientation of everyone's seats, everyone seemed to be centered around Amber, who had her hands upon her visor in embarrassment. It was at this moment when Skope remembered his failure to prevent that bastard Yellow named Ryan Hobar from telling everyone. This was another one of those moments in life where there was no sound, but the absence of any sound spoke far louder than anything Skope had heard before.

Flittingly, he raised his right gauntlet and waved at everyone meekly. "Hi…guys…"

"Well well well," boomed Hearts. "The guest of honor has finally arrived. We've all been waiting for you."

"Go ahead, take a seat," said Patton. "We have a nice little place picked out just for you." He motioned over to the one empty chair at the table. "Then put some breakfast on your plate and eat up, because all of us are gonna have a little bit of a talk."

Skope shot a sharp look at Ryan, who turned his gaze away. The Green then walked over to his chair and slowly sat down, looking around at everyone as he did so. Doing his best to seem inconspicuous, he reached out to some of the foods on the table and plopped servings of them on his plate. He tried not to acknowledge the fact that everyone was staring at him and watching every single move that he made. But eventually, he came to realize that this meal was really going to be an interrogation about his supposed relationship. The Yellows, certainly, would want to extract everything from him about what had happened last evening.

The first question did not come from a Yellow, however. It came from Kenny: "So Skope, did you and Amber have butt sex or something? I've only heard bits and pieces of this, and I'm still not quite sure exactly what's going on."

Skope chocked for a second on a mouthful of eggs when he heard the words "butt sex". After breathing again, he then rose up violently from the table. "My God, Hobar, what the fuck did you tell everyone?"

Ryan put his hands in front on himself defensively. "I didn't say anything about butt sex, I swear!"

Now it was Kenny's turn to wave his hands. "Never mind. I just heard wrong. Oral sex, was that it?"

Ryan nodded. "Yup, that's what I saw."

"Shut up, you!" Skope shouted at the Yellow.

"Everyone, calm down," said Hester sternly. "I need to get all the facts straight, and I don't want that interfered with from arguing. I need everyone to sit down."

As he was the only one currently standing up, Skope sat down.

"Now then, Specialist Hobar," Hester continued. "Tell us: what did you witness?"

Ryan cleared his throat. "Well, I had just finished my dinner at the buffet last night," he began. He paused when he saw that both Skope and Amber were staring lasers at him. Yet despite this, he persisted in his tale. "I drove back to the hotel and went into the common room…and saw Amber and Skope snogging each other, helmets off, going full tongue on each other. They saw me, I ran, then I used my tacpad to call all of you. And I think that's about that."

Hester turned and looked both at Skope and then at Amber. "Now, I need one or both of you to tell me: is this true?"

Skope looked at Amber. He didn't want to say anything, but he also knew that he had to. And it couldn't be a lie either, because he was sure that Hester could detect a lie, for she had not risen to the position of leader for Lemon Squadron by being easy to fool. What, then, should he do?

Amber spared Skope the task of having to explain. "Yes," she said slowly, sounding somewhat withdrawn. "What Ryan says is true. But it's not like what he makes it sound like. We were just sitting next to each other on the couch…and then…it just happened."

"You both just up and went for it?" Hearts asked. "I've never heard of spontaneous snogging before."

"We talked a bit, before we…went for it," Amber explained.

"What were you talking about?"

"I dunno. Stuff."

"What kind of stuff?"

"Just…things that we both had been through in the recent past."

Hester's gaze now turned to Skope. "Christopher Skope, now it is your turn. I need you to tell me…are you and Amber Stone in a relationship?"

The bluntness of the question hit Skope so hard that he was flabbergasted for a moment. "I-uh…" Everyone was staring at him

"It's a yes or no question," said Hester.

The pressure everyone's stares were putting upon him made him feel suddenly very small. Amber's gaze seemed most forceful. But Skope didn't know what to say. His mouth would not work. The silence in the room became unbearable.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Everyone in the room jolted at the sounds of alarm sirens from outside. Some of the group quickly got up from the table and strode to the windows to look outside. The alarm was still going, repeating its long loud cry over and over again. Down on ground level, people were coming out of their homes and buildings, probably wondering exactly what Lemon and Lime were.

"Oh no," Skope heard Nome say from his side. "Those are red alert warning alarms."

"Red alert?" Kenny asked apprehensively.

"They are supposed to sound in the event that the city is under attack," Nome replied.

"Under attack?" Jess exclaimed. "But that's not possible. Whoever is attacking would have had to go through Yellow Command already. The city can't possibly be under attack!"

"Up there!" Clair said loudly. "I see something."

The rest of the group followed her gaze. High above the tallest structures in the city, small in thy sky but quickly growing larger, were two purple spots situated right next to each other. As the seconds passed, the dots enlarged, and the group could make out the bulky rectangular shapes of cruisers. "This is bad," Ryan analyzed.

Almost as if the situation was agreeing with Ryan, something happened to further his point. All of the video postboards in the city suddenly turned off, all at the same instant. The flashiness of the city streets went completely dead. The people on the street were stumbling around, wondering what was going on. Their questions were answered only a moment later.

The postboards reactivated. Except this time, instead of some entertainment clip, every single postboard in the entire city now showed the exact same image. A solider stood tall and lean, with a dark backdrop behind him. His primary armor color was purple, but his shoulder and knee pads were green colored. His visor, long and curving, stretched around the front of his helmet. The figure was unmistakable, especially to those in the Green Army, who had all learned to fear this soldier like the black of night.

Admiral Hathrow Vorennius, the leader of the Purple Army.

Vorennius spoke, his words slow and deep, yet deliberate and somewhat menacing at the same time. "Greetings, citizens of Centerpoint City. I trust that you all remember me, though it has been a long time, has it not? Three years is a long time, certainly. You all must have thought that the Purple Army was defeated. Yet it is your victory that has defeated you. I see that you have become clumsy and careless in your tactics and strategies. You thought that Yellow Command would help keep you safe, when instead it has allowed me to find your precious capitol city. The Yellow's station now lies behind my main attack force, paralyzed and helpless. This city is open for the taking."

Panicked gasps began to sound off throughout the streets, from the masses that now had their visors glued to the video postboards.

The Admiral continued his speech. "For three years, I have planned this day. This day, when the Purple Army shall exact justice against its old enemies. This day, when the fall of the Green and Yellow Armies begins. This day, the day that those of future history will say is the day that the powers of the war began to shift. Vengeance is at hand, and through it shall rise the dawn of the glory era of the Purple Army…and the beginning of the end for your Army, as well as your pathetic alliance with the Yellows. For with every new beginning must come endings."

A small flash of light originated from one of the cruisers. It traveled like a streak of lightening, nearly too fast for the group to see, and landed somewhere in the city. At that same instant, one of the largest office buildings suddenly shattered into a cloud of dust, like a tall sand castle that had just been fired at with a magnum. Pieces of debris rained down upon the nearby streets, causing explosions everywhere the largest pieces fell. At the same moment, a sonic boom thundered across the city.

"This…is your end," said the Admiral. All of the video postboards shut off simultaneously.

The masses on the streets stood in a stunned, terrified silence for the next moment, most still not believing that this was actually happening. Then a second building disappeared into a glittering cloud of glass and stone and metal and dust. After that, it was as though a switch had been flipped, and complete pandemonium overtook the crowds. Everyone began screaming and running in random directions. Whole mobs trampled over each other to get out of the district. Cars began to pile up in accidents as drivers, desperate to escape the city, failed to make it past the many other drivers who were trying to do the same.

All the while, the two Purple cruisers descended upon the city like terrible phantoms of nightmare. Their shadows began to take shape on the ground, as the sun was blocked out from various perspectives, and certain districts were plunged into an unnatural darkness. Then another barrage came: A third building disappeared, then a fourth. The dust clouds swirled in the wind and began to create a haze of fog.

Lemon Squadron and Lime Squadron stared out at the city in terror. The worst possible situation had become reality. Centerpoint City, the center of command for the entire Green Army, was now under siege by its oldest and most cunning adversary.