Thayla's eyes shot open, just in time to see Darson and Mel furiously scrambling moving their hands across the control panel.
"It's all wrong. It's all wrong," the captain whispered, flipping the same switches and turning the same dials two or three times as the ship swerved closer and closer to the black objects hurtling across the sky.
The Jedi closed her eyes once again, and upon reaching out could feel the venomous tendrils of the Sith Lord worming into the minds of the crew.
Their vision suddenly cleared as Thayla put every ounce of her energy into trying to soothe them, fighting the fear and paranoia being artificially implanted into their heads.
All the while Jon and the two other fighter escorts did their best to clear a path through the debris. Their laser cannons blasted through the flaming meteors like paper, if the objects weren't already vaporized by Shilrakaen's guns.
However, she was taken aback when an object even larger than their ship suddenly came rushing through the atmosphere, directly toward them.
"Evasive!" called the captain, jerking the ship to the left just in time to avoid a collision, but not fast enough to keep it from scraping the hull.
"What in blazes was that?"
"It's the Bloods stepping up their game," he replied to Mel. "Keep on target. That will have to be Shilrakaen's problem."
The captain got back to work and D0-1T was already sending repair drones out to patch the ship, but Mel seemed unconvinced.
"But we can't-"
"Six more of those things just popped up on our scanners. The only way to stop them is to destroy that space station and end this."
The girl looked back at the Jedi for support, but Thayla simply responded, "He's right."
With great effort, she reluctantly turned back to her console. "I'm running approach vector calculations. We'll be in open vacuum soon."
Thayla closed her eyes and got back to work.
Lenoir had never seen combat. In fact, it was only her first day on Shilrakaen's police force.
When the call had gone out for brave souls to defend the city, she and her friends had signed up in droves, but two weeks of training had barely been enough time to learn how to use a gun, not to mention fight.
"Secondaries, we have contact!" screamed her superior. Early that morning she had arisen from her cot, one of dozens that now filled the lobby of every police station and government building, and had her 800-UT rifle thrown at her before sprinting to a position at the building's perimeter.
For the initial part of the invasion, she had taken cover behind the sandbags stacked outside the building, right at the bottom of the steps. The lights passing overhead were actually quite pretty, until the first one collided with the city.
Everything shook. The few personnel they had with real military experience were frantically barking orders over the comlinks, trying to hold everything together, but it was only a matter of time.
Eventually, the order came. Once the last civilians were down in their shelters, the remaining fighting forces would either go into the shelters with them or retreat to within a one block radius of the chambers of the Supreme Council.
Again and again the city shook to its foundations, as the guns either became overwhelmed or ran out of ammo, and it was right then that the real invasion began.
The massive object landed two blocks away from her, but Lenoir was still convinced she was dead.
When her body finally stopped shaking and her joints unlocked, she rose up out of the dust and saw the massive ball off in the distance.
It was almost perfectly spherical and had destroyed every building within a hundred yards when it crashed into the city. Even the ones further out just barely managed to stay in one piece, their durasteel frames warped and melting.
The surface of the black object seemed to ripple, like living metal, and exuded an energy that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
Without warning, the surface of the sphere began to melt away, crumbling into dust and revealing the horror underneath.
Blood Battalion troopers were laid end to end inside the sphere, tightly packed like dolls in plastic. They dropped to the ground as soon as the metal around them had finished melting away, and it only took a few seconds for them to get back onto their feet.
"Kid, get down!" some screamed at her. Before she knew it, Lenoir was seized by her collar and pulled into an alley, as blaster fire erupted in the streets.
Explosions continued. The orbs were simply too big or too tough for the anti-air guns to blast apart, and they continued to land in the streets with impunity.
As she and the rest of the officers rushed to get back to the council chambers, they watched the streets of Shilrakaen become awash in a sea of red armor, as the troopers in red crystal took the city, block by block.
