Chapter 27: Quaking Aspen
Ishigami walked between giant white blocks, down a long emptied road in the city of ash. Mausoleums of the unnamed. Tombs of the forgotten passed him on either side. All featureless. Windowless. The sky black above him. A lone patch of green twinkled in the glow of artificial lights near the Khanian arm's docking port.
His footsteps echoed eternally inside the dome.
Soothing whispers in his ear called to him, that's it. Now take what's yours. The catalyst's duty is to initiate, to seed, to nucleate.
He touched the bark of the gnarled oak tree. Unlike the Nimbus, this one had no wooden stakes to keep its branches aloft. Its weeping boughs bent under their own massive weight until they touched the ground. Like a giant spider.
"Quaking Aspen, I am ready," he whispered.
"Who disturbs the unsleeping?" Came an agitated ethereal voice from below the ground.
"It is I, the catalyst of the invaders," he said with confidence.
"Filth. You dare disturb me?"
"You will accept me to the core chamber," he squeezed his hand into the elder bark of the tree and saw glowing purple roots spring from his hand, burrowing into the trunk like veins.
"You wouldn't!" The female voice howled. "I'll never let you!" The growth from his hand slowed, but continued to pulsate, the purple roots digging deeper into the tree with each breath. Like a boa constrictor digs into its prey. Like a parasite attaches itself to a host.
"It's only a matter of time - until we take what is owed us." He smirked.
Just then he felt a lurch. A sound like an explosion then a violent WOOOOSH like a jet engine that echoed through the ground beneath him. It traveled from right to left.
Then he saw it. A tiny red and yellow speck blasted from the bottom corner of the dome toward the end of the Serilonan arm, there it clung, like a remora to a shark. Even the stars in the sky teetered on their axis.
Suddenly he heard screams in his earpiece, "AAAAAAHHHH!"
"Report! Report I say!" He yelled.
"HULL BREACH! WE LOST OAKHEART, I REPEAT, WE LOST-"
Oakheart. The Tracers. My army. No. It can't be. My army- is gone.
"Damnit!" He tapped his free hand to his ear, "Balman! Balman are you there?"
My right hand- no! My loyal right hand. No response! Bastard!
"Captain Sobu! Ishigami to Captain Sobu, come in!"
"Ishigami! What's happened?"
"No time to explain. Is there-" he thought hard for a minute. "Do you still have control of Stylet," he asked desperately.
"No sir, Stylet's gone offline. Remote override."
"Damn them! What about base defenses?"
"Let me call Cadet Toji."
"No," he shouted. "You do it. There's no time! Can you lock onto Ash Cloud?"
"Sure, maybe. It's outside standard range, but the missiles might reach."
"There's a Khanian space asset that's latched onto the Serilonan arm. It's already caused substantial damage to the station. You need to take it out."
"I should really alert the Cadets- they've been trained on this piece of equip-"
"THERE'S NO TIME SOBU, DO IT NOW!"
"What's the matter, even your brainwashed servants won't listen to you anymore," said the voice from below.
"Quiet!" he gripped the trunk harder and felt his powerful roots dig in deeper to the old tree.
The feminine voice let out a quick yelp, then went quiet.
"Tracer control!"
"Yes sir, we saw it."
"How many are left."
"None sir, we lost them all. Even the ones that were welded down. That thing ripped the hull right open. Scaffolds and all- all gone."
"Can you divert power to the long range transmitter?"
"Yes sir- but- are you sure?"
"Yes. Do it. We're out of time."
"Transmitting the long range signal now."
He turned back to the tree trunk with purple threads spreading out like a web into the folds of its bark and branches. "It's over for you. It's time for us to return home. To the eventual state of all matter."
"Diana! Grab my hand," he held out a hand to her. Slowly she clambered over and took it.
The dome was growing closer now with each step. Their mech grabbed fistfuls of metal in each hand, climbing the spear-like protrusion like a cat digging its claws into soft fabric.
He hauled her back into the front seat and she hung on for dear life. His feet touched down again. Gravity started to take hold of him as they approached the massive dome, still venting white mist and little bits of confetti-like debris from its soft underbelly.
How do we to get inside?
"Aaaaah!" came a scream from below him, "voices. I hear them."
"Who's voice?"
"Screams. It's all screams. Hate. So much hate. Like the cries before a battle."
"Don't listen to them. Just listen to my voice. You've got to ignore whatever it is on the other side."
"I'm trying. I'm scared Royce."
Bang. Another hand grasped metal and heaved the mech forward.
"We're almost there."
Bang. Scraaaape. The belly of the mech scraped along the station, leaving a great red paint streak on the crinkled white metal behind them.
"You'll take me to the beach when this is over, right?"
"Of course. I'll take you to the beach and we'll-"
Something twinkled above them. A large purple cloud was growing in size and intensity.
"Oh no. It's them." He gasped as the cloud overtook them and wisps of glowing plasma drifted past. In the distance a single bright red speck started to grow brighter. "Please no-" he whispered. "I wish I could have spent more time- with her- I wish-"
"KKKKKSsssssshhhhh" a rush of static exploded over the intercom, "that's right, Royce. And you owe me a feast at the Pine too! Don't think I've forgot!"
"Victor!"
The red glowing speck exploded and a second mech flashed before his eyes then crashed like a meteor through one of the other spear-like arms of the station.
He stuck his head out and peered below him. The mech slammed all the way through and was now spinning against the backdrop of the Earth.
"Are you guys okay?!"
"Just a little miscalculation. Mr. Rocket Scientist over here was off by nearly a thousand kilometers. Took nearly all the fuel in our plasma torch to correct."
He looked down at the fuel gauge on his own console.
"We're running on fumes, but I think I can go out and get you."
"No- stay put. We can still make it."
A small white cloud appeared on the Earth and grew larger as the red mech spun end over end below them.
"What the hell's that?" Royce peered closer.
There was a bright flash and then a shockwave that nearly thrust them off the station entirely.
Cho rammed through the doors of the Genista control tower. Kimi staggered inside behind him.
She ran for a console and grabbed the mic, then collapsed into a wheelie chair, wrapping the slim black cable around her as she spun and let out a giggle.
Cho attacked the buttons on the console, punching in the numbers he'd memorized from the shrike's computer, then he snatched the mic from her.
"Guys- this is Cho. Can you hear me?"
"I'm here too," Kimi chimed in.
"THEY'RE SHOOTING AT US FROM EARTH! DO SOMETHING!"
He scrambled backward as Kimi looked up at him wide-eyed.
"Stay there, I'll take care of this idiot." He reached in his pocket and flipped out the small square screen. "Toji?"
"Yeah?"
"Someone's shooting base defense missiles into space! Is it you? "
"What are you talking about?"
"Has Captain Sobu contacted you?"
"Uh- no."
He hung up and turned back to Kimi, "Keep talkin' to them. I'll be back."
Cho ran down a brown padded hallway and slammed through another set of double doors to find Sobu hunched over a radar scope with his finger on a keypad.
He walked swiftly toward him.
"Major Cho- what-"
Crack. THWOMP.
Sobu slid sideways and smacked into the floor. Cho shoved the heap of a body away from the console and pulled up a chair.
"No…" he whispered, then he peered down at the body. "Sobu, you idiot."
"There's a second one!" Royce shouted.
Another grey cloud was forming below. Gathering steam as it spiraled upward toward Victor and Morisato's mech.
"I see it!"
Bang- SCRAPEEE. He continued to pull himself closer to the dome. Almost within reach.
He peered down again toward the second mech and saw it grab hold of the missile, ride it upward for a few feet before releasing it. It smacked into the side of Ash Cloud and bounced off. It tumbled there, spinning freely like a soda can in a swimming pool.
"It didn't go off!"
He heard the heavy breathing of a familiar voice, "I got ya- managed to remote disarm that one. But you got bigger problems."
"Cho? What's going on down there?"
"Just some idiot lobbing missiles from Genista's base defenses-" He felt another loud crash as Victor's mech slid inside the ruptured Oakheart cavity and grabbed hold inside.
"You get things under control?" Royce asked.
"Yeah. It was Sobu. But you got dozens of large scale contacts incoming in from L-2."
"L-2? The Lagrange point?"
"Yeah- some kind of slipspace anomaly behind the moon. It just opened up."
"Shit- the invasion fleet." He looked down at Diana who nodded at him.
He released the station's metal shell and grabbed the joystick, burning the mech's last remaining fuel to fly down below the ruptured belly of the station, and follow Victor inside.