Katy and Andy had gotten our army mobile again after the Precursors' bio-EMP, but it still didn't guarantee us the win. The Precursor army was a strong one, and once the Precursors themselves joined the fight, it became an uphill battle for us. Their mysterious, energy-based abilities made them formidable opponents that were not to be underestimated. They were able to warp more often than Warpers, and their energy spheres took less time to fire. Their were 7 that we could see, and every one of them refused to go down. They used their portals to redirect our projectiles back at us, and opened up portals in front of our bots, waiting until one was halfway inside the portal before closing it, cutting the bot in half. Our forces continued to dwindle, while the Precursors took heavy losses and merely replaced each fallen minion with two more. Every time a Precursor was about to go down,
they'd teleport away, then summon a bunch of energy that healed their wounds rapidly. What we needed was a turning point. A turn-around. We needed to tilt the scales in our favor. "Concentrate our attacks on one of the Precursors. Keep him stunned." I said. "Which one?" Katy inquired. "This one." I said as I shot one with a tracking dart from my propulsion cannon. The Precursor sensed the pressure change as the dart approached, but his portal narrowly missed catching the dart, and it stuck into the Precursor's forehead, giving off a beacon that pinged constantly on our HUDs."Let him have it." I commanded. "Heal from this, bitch." Katy muttered as she launched all the USS Explorer's sonic torpedoes towards the Precursor. I blasted him with a full-intensity sonic wave from my sonic cannon, stunning him so that the torpedoes could find their marks without interference, and the resonating
sundwaves from all 4 torpedoes literally ripped him apart. All the Precursors turned to the site of impact, and,seeing their fallen brother, were horrified when they realized that they were outmatched.
Just like that, the Precursors disappeared in the blink of an eye, and their energy signature indicated that they were headed for the Lost River biome, where our forward operating base was located. "They're trying to attack our base!" John exclaimed. "C'mon, guys! Fall back!" I ordered. We returned at full speed to our base, hoping to fight the remaining Precursors on our own turf, but there was no sign of them near our base. Instead, they were over near the massive skeleton of the extinct leviathan that made up the centerpiece of the biome. "Matt... You're not going to like these readings." Andy said with a wince. "That's... That's impossible!" I cried, bewildered. "They're calling forth another one!" "Another what?!" Katy asked, exasperated. "I... I don't know." I said, mortified. The ground began to shake as the skeleton of the mysterious creature fell into a massive crevice that
was torn open beneath it, and a guttural growl poured forth from the mighty void, growing into roar that rivalled that of Godzilla, just like the size of the creature it came from, as we soon found out. The creature was absolutely huge, being an estimated six THOUSAND feet long, and our Cyclops was about as big around as its eye. We were screwed. "I have good news, and bad news." I said somberly over the comms. "The good news is, it's so big, it doesn't notice us yet. The bad news is, IT'S SO BIG IT DOESN'T EVEN NOTICE US YET!" I screamed as I totally lost my cool. "Calm down! Get a hold of yourself!" Katy commanded. "Think with that big brain of yours. How can we take this thing down?" "We... We'd need, uh, a-a-a w-w-weapon of mass destruction. Some sort of nuke might do it. W-w-we could contain the blast if we walled in the area with terraformers. The walls would have to be really
thick though, and Karen's auto-pilot systems were damaged, so the only source of nuclear power sufficient to take down this monster would have to be piloted manually." "Wait, one of our vehicles has a
nuclear reactor?" Katy asked. "Yes... The Peacemaker does. It's expirimental, not meant for field use, but I have the necessary nuclear rods to power it. The colission with that... thing... should be enough to set it off. It's quite unstable as it is." "Alright... Well... Who's gonna drive it?" John asked as he addressed the elephant in the room. "We'll draw straws." I said. "We have straws?" Andy asked. I pulled out 4 random straws out of the few dozen that I had recovered from the cafeteria of the Aurora, and jumbled them all up. They were all different lengths, and I let John go first. He drew a fairly long one, and Andy drew next. He got the longest of the four. Katy was next, and I didn't know how long the remaining two were. She pulled it out and got one that was shorter than John's. I was pouring buckets of sweat as I opened up my hands to compare my straw to Katelyn's. We held
them up next to each other, and Katy began sobbing. I had drawn the shortest straw. It was my time. After all I had done, after all I had endured, it was finally time to atone for my actions, to rest one last time. I kissed Katy one last time, apassionate and long kiss that I would treasure until my final moments, then shook hands with John and Andy, both of them trying hard not to cry. As I said my fairwells and climbed into the Peacemaker's cockpit, Karen came online to say goodbye to her captain one last time. "It's been an honor, sir. You're the bravest human I've ever known in my 7 years of service." "The pleasure's all mine, Karen." I said with a weak smile. I shed no tears, knowing that what I did, I did to insure that my friends would survive to escape this planet and go home. I recalled an excerpt from a classic Charles Dickens novel as I charged forwards to my end; "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way..." I turned on the comms one last time. 10 seconds to impact. 9. 8. 7. 6. "I love you, Katelyn." 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. 0.
EPILOGUE: My name is Matthew Britton. If you're reading this, that means I'm probably dead. This is the truth behind the Alterra Science Corporation." That was the opening line to the prologue of his journal. As his lover, it's my responsibility to make sure his voice is heard. "John, please pull up the auto-pilot's last known status aboard the USS Peacemaker. I wanna know what I could have done." "Sure thing, Katy. Listen, I'm sorry. I miss him too, but we have to move on eventually. Hopefully this'll help you move on." John said. The funny thing is, the system registered something peculiar right at the end, a few seconds before impact. It detected that the throttle had been locked into place at full speed ahead, and that the escape pod had launched. There was still hope. The onboard black box recorded Matt saying something prior to impact. "Wait a minute..." he muttered to himself. "What if I- YES!" Then the computer registered the life pod launching. I had to know. I took the USS Explorer, Matt's old Seamoth, down to the barrier we had created to contain the Peacemaker's nuclear blast, and saw that a small hole had been dug in the wall. Perhaps I wouldn't need to tell Matt's story for him after all...
THE END... FOR NOW!
