Chapter 19 - Showdown
The Drej fighter swept through the pillars in the large Drej craft. All around it was encompassed by blue. The stinger slowed and began to hover over a sort of landing field for slijah. It slowly lowered and set it's four, pointed landing struts down on the surface. The energy from the fighter seemed to empty into the floor that it stood on. It stopped its screaming engines as it settled.
Cale's body sank through the bottom of the fighter, sending him to land on the floor beneath it. His feet hit the energized floor with a humming sound. Korso fell through after Cale did and landed beside him. Cale watched the hull of the fighter eagerly waiting for his wife to slip through. After a while, she came crashing down and landed on her bottom. "I can't quite get the hang of it." she said as Cale helped her up. Cale didn't just grab her arm and pull her up, he bent down beside her and almost lifted her.
Korso pulled his pistol from its holster and held it up. He had the EMP nuke still strapped on his back. He looked around, there weren't any Drej around. It almost seemed too easy. "Come on!" he yelled as he began to run out from underneath the stinger. Cale and Akima followed him as he ran. The hanger was a great expanse: it was about the size of a football field and the ceiling seemed too high to see.
Suddenly, Drej popped up everywhere. Several grew up out of the floor around them and immediately began firing. There were about four on a ledge that tried to snipe them as well. It seemed as though they'd planned to surprise them when they didn't have any cover. "Move!" Korso yelled as he ran for a nearby wall. Cale took Akima under his arm, trying to protect her from any blasts. Korso held his gun out behind him and shot several times. He hit one drone, causing it to fall back and disappear.
They each took cover behind the wall. Korso hung out from the corner and fired off some shots at anything he could hit. The Drej continued to walk forward, shooting whenever Korso leaned out. Cale and Akima stayed behind the wall for most of the time. Korso threw down his weapon and unstrung the large machine gun. He charged it up and it began to make a high-pitched beeping noise. Korso gave a barbaric yell as he jumped out from behind his cover and squeezed hard on the trigger. The machine gun shot forth such a great light and it sputtered out several blasts a second.
The Drej were mowed over when he sent wave after wave of blasts at them. One drone was pierced several times before he fell to the floor and disappeared. The snipers on the ledge Korso took out with ease. He simply swept the gun across the top of it and dissolved them one-by-one.
Then, a blast erupted just above Cale's head and he dove for the floor with a startled expression on his face. There were three Drej on the other side of the wall. Akima dove with him and landed over top of him as like some sort of human shield. She got up in a crouching position and pulled out her pistol. She quickly aimed for the one on the far left and hit it in the mid-chest area. It fell forward as it held its wound and diffused into the blue air.
Cale jumped up and spun his magnum around his index finger. He stopped and aimed for the drone standing in the middle of the two, the one on the left now gone. He snapped his finger back and shot a green blast at it. The drone's head flew back which left its body standing there. The separated into tiny sparks and eventually disappeared. A shot whizzed by Cale and nicked him in the right arm, just above his tattoo. Red blood began to seep from his arm as the blue plasma ripped the skin open. Cale groaned and held his cut with his other hand.
"Cale!" Akima gasped. She aimed her pointed pistol and shot the last Drej. He diffused into the air with a blood curdling scream. "Are you all right?!" she asked as she touched his left shoulder. Akima said, 'all right,' but it sounded like, 'oh right'. Cale always thought it was just her accent.
"Yeah, I'm just a little cut's all." Cale said as he let go of his arm and just let it bleed. "Get Korso. I know where the throne room is!" Cale told to Akima. She immediately jumped up and grabbed a hold of Korso. Korso bent down and picked up the pistol he'd dropped earlier. He turned and they followed Cale out of the hanger.
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Outside, the battle for earth raged on. The humans were slowly losing their ships. It seemed like the humans were outnumbered ten to one. Alpha squadron, the squadron which Cale's team was a part of and the most important squadron in the fleet, had only two ships left. The Valkyrie and Alpha two were left in the squadron. The other squadrons had suffered losses as well and some were completely destroyed. The capital ships stayed back as a last defense and were the object of most of the slijah's attention. "Sigma squadron, this is Alpha one, how many are left of you?" Porter called on the communications system. A Caucasian man who spoke broad Yorkshire replied.
"There're four 'o us left, sir." he said.
"Join up with us! We're limping over here!" Porter ordered.
"Copy, Alpha 'n." he replied. The Sigma squadron flew toward the Valkyrie and helped return Drej fire. Sigma's ships were all identical: they had four wings which made them in the shape of a vertical cross with a small, cylindrical cockpit in the center a laser cannon at the tip of each wing. Their four engines were located in the rear center of the craft.
The Valkyrie, with its entourage, flew in toward the Gehenna and Stith fired off four shots. Cale, Akima, and Korso could feel the vibration of each plasma pellet from with the ship. Immediately after, four slijah began firing on them in defense for the mothership. One such blast hit a Sigma ship on the right wing and it lost control.
"I took 'n!" the pilot who'd been hit yelled. He was an American; this battle involved all people of earth. "Engines aren't stabilized!" he yelled. The ship spun end-over-end toward the Gehenna. "Aaagghh!" he screamed as his fighter crashed into the side of the blue terra of a craft. Flames billowed up and died down on the side of the mothership.
Stith fired the four laser cannons at the slijah twice. She'd hit a ship with each blast. Two slijah remained. They tailed the six human crafts and continued to harry them with shots. The Valkyrie was the only one that had rotating laser cannons so it was the only one capable of returning fire.
Stith grunted and jumped about, frantically trying to shoot any Drej that landed in her sights. On her targeting screens, she saw a blip coming from one of the Sigma squadron ships disappear, meaning that it had been destroyed. "Ugh! They're dropping all around us!" Stith yelled. Enraged, she aimed at a green Drej fighter's blip and fired. It disappeared as well.
Porter peered back in the bridge. He saw Gune on the main floor holding Ruth gently within the sling. She laughed and giggled as Gune tickled her with one thick, stubby finger. Gune made silly faces at her which continued her smiling. Porter saw their innocence: Gune and Ruth's. He finally realized when the ships around him were falling that he had a great responsibility on his hands. He turned back to the cockpit window and continued to fly the Valkyrie. "Come on, guys. Everybody's counting on you." he whispered.
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Cale, his wife, and Korso ran down the blue hallway. There were strange looking pillars on either side of it. They were uneven square-shaped pillars that wrapped over their heads. It seemed an endless row of them, each exactly alike. They huffed and puffed as they ran in an all-out sprint down this long course. Suddenly, they stopped in their tracks as a blue beam of plasma screamed by them.
Cale and Akima jumped behind a pillar on the left while Korso took cover behind one on the right. Cale peeked out from behind the pillar and visually searched for the gunner. He leaned back behind it when another blast came whizzing by. "There's three drones down there!" Cale announced.
"That's it! Only three?" Akima said while crouching on the floor beneath Cale with her pistol pointed out. She saw the drones Cale spoke of. They were walking toward them, shooting their blue guns that were seemingly melded to their arms. Akima fired two blasts, each one hitting a drone. The first drone evaporated as the plasma ripped through his body. The second hit took off the right leg of another drone. He staggered to the floor, trying to keep his balance.
Cale leaned out and shot his Magnum at the drone on the floor, finishing him off. The third drone fired upon Cale as he leaned, but missed him. Cale ducked back behind the pillar and put his back to the wall. Akima, too, crouched back behind the pillar as the drone continued to pace down the hallway. He moved like his entire body was cumbersome to him. Drej were about seven feet tall and larger than humans, but they always seemed to walk strangely.
Korso jumped out and ran toward the drone with an raging holler and both hands holding his pistol. It was startled as he came rushing toward him. Korso shot his pistol three times as he ran toward the blue creature. He walked straight through the drone as it disappeared before him. "Come on!" Korso said, waving his hand at the two.
Cale and Akima looked at each other for they had never expected for Korso to pull a stunt like that. They shrugged and followed him down the hallway. "I have a bad feeling about this." Cale exclaimed. They continued running until they came to a large room.
"What are you talking about?" Korso asked as they continued to run into the center of the large room.
"It seems too easy," Cale said as they stopped over a floor that had a design of millions of purple triangles and a few large circles on it. "It's like-" Cale stuttered. Suddenly, Drej came up from the floor in a ring all around them. They all had their weapons ready and aimed to fire on them. Cale, Akima, and Korso raised their pistols, only to realize that if they fired, there was no way they were escaping. "It's like they were expecting us." Cale finished.
They all turned to face what was behind them. It was the Drej throne room! A slanted pedestal was before them and it reached up about two hundred feet to the large portal where the Queen rested. There were eight lights that surrounded the ring in which energy swirled.
The Queen, Hexajava, emerged out of the ring. Her body only seemed visible when it passed through the swirling mass of energy. She stepped out all the way and stood where her subjects normally would. She peered down at the three with her blue, oval-shaped eyes. "I have been expecting you." she said as she began walking down the ramp. "I knew you would return to me, Cale. I actually drew you near to me. How could you surrender all that that the Drej have to offer? Power? Authority? Dictatorship? Does that not mean anything to you humans?"
"To some, but not to me!" Cale yelled, "My family means more to me than anything else!" Akima glanced at Cale and she smiled. He was sticking up to a Drej Queen! She could have easily ground him into a pulp. The Queen walked into the center of the ring the drones had made. The drones stepped back in order to give her ample room.
"Very well then," the Queen screeched as she began to reach the foot of the ramp. When she grew close and stood the same ground as they, she looked even taller. "I will destroy you for lack of loyalty to me and then take the entire human civilization under my rule." she said. Cale began walking back due to her immense size. She must have stood somewhere between fifty and seventy-five feet tall! "Hold those two," she commanded by pointing to Korso and Akima. Two drones stepped forward and held their arms, restricting them from moving. "If they try to escape, shoot them. Leave Cale to me."
Akima and Korso tried to writhe and wriggle out of the Drej's warm hands in order to help Cale, but they were stronger. They Queen created, as if from the energy in the air, two weapons which she held in each hand. The one in her left was like a large, blue battle ax and in her right was some sort of large, blue dagger. The ax was double sided and the dagger had ridges on the sides.
The Queen spread her arms gave a loud, high-pitched sort of battle cry. Cale reached for his pistol as she screamed. Hexajava sent the battle ax down toward Cale. He dove to the left as it came crashing on the floor with a loud clang. The Queen watched Cale as he stood up and ran around to her side. He fired his pistol at her, but she blocked it with the huge dagger. Cale gasped as she gave an evil look with her eyes when she blocked his blast.
Hexajava swung her dagger at Cale's head from left to right. "Whoa!" He exclaimed. He ducked underneath the sword as it swished over his head. Cale's blonde hair flew around as rush of wind from the dagger came over him. Cale crawled on all fours toward Hexajava's right leg. She watched with amusement as he ran around like a small bug.
She lifted her foot and placed it over Cale's body. Cale screamed as he saw the stilted leg shadow over him. "Cale!" Akima exclaimed as she jolted forward, trying with all her might to help him. The Drej restrained her even stronger than before. The leg came crashing down as Cale rolled from underneath it. She lifted her foot again in order to find Cale.
He stood behind Hexajava and aimed his pistol for her upper back. She turned as he fired and the green blast hit her on her right shoulder. The Queen had a heavy shoulder in which it came up over her head like some sort of thick wing. She held her the small hole that was in her upper arm. It seemed to lessen until it was gone. "Oh, no." Cale muttered to himself. The Queen let go of her shoulder and swung her dagger at him.
Cale held up his gun in defense of it because he was against a wall of drones. The dagger struck the gun and it flew out of Cale's hand. He watched it spin end-over-end in the air. He looked back to get a surprised expression on his face. The Queen had thrown the large blade at him. He dove for the floor in front of him as it swooshed overhead. It killed about five Drej as it hit the ground and stuck into it with the haft high in the air.
Cale looked at the stiletto protruding out of the ground behind him. A blade that big could have easily cut him in half. He glanced back up at the Queen again who had her right hand rushing toward him. She swung the large, three-fingered hand and knocked Cale across the floor. Cale groaned as he soared through the air and landed on the hard, purple floor. He lay on his chest with his arms forward. He began to get up. Blood trickled out of his mouth as he stood. Cale wiped it away with his forearm and stood boldly in front of the Queen.
"This is a mismatch." Korso whispered to Akima. She had quit writhing to talk to Korso.
"That's the idea. The Queen knows that all three of us could take her down, but she's ensuring her victory." Akima whispered in reply. Korso glanced from her to the Queen and Cale. She rushed toward him with all four of her legs and raised her fist at Cale. Cale stood there with the Queen's fist flying toward him. His entire body came limp as the backhand of the Drej Queen hit him once more. Blood from Cale's mouth sprayed out as he came crashing to the floor. "My God, she's killing him!" Akima gasped.
Cale held his upper body off of the floor with both hands propped up underneath him. He was panting as he drew each breath and looked upon the Queen. She approached him and threw her battle ax from her left to her right hand. "This ends now. The human race is mine." she malevolently said. Cale shook his head as he lay there on the floor. She raised her ax in her right hand, preparing to cut Cale like a butcher.
"Cale!" Akima screamed as she jolted forward as Cale lay in front of her. The Drej did all within their energy to restrain her, but somehow her desperateness escaped them. Cale watched as she stepped forward in what seemed to him slow motion. He saw her rip one of her wakazashi blades from the sheath on her back. She flung it with everything she had toward the Queen. Hexajava flinched as the sword came spinning toward her. Cale turned his head to see the two Drej that were holding Akima draw their guns. Akima didn't see them behind her, and everything seemed to move slower and the sound became muffled as Cale watched.
"Akima!" Cale yelled. The sword continued to fly toward the Queen. She stood there ignorant of the peril that was behind her. Then, one of the drones fired and the plasma ripped through her right shoulder. Akima winced as she saw blood spill from her open wound. "No!" Cale screamed as he watched her standing there with a fainted expression on her face. The second Drej fired upon her and it pierced her upper, left leg. Blood poured from it as she began to stumble and fall. Cale began crawling for her as she lost her balance. The first drone fired again and the blast tore through the side of her chest cavity. She was thrown forward from each blast to her back. "No!" Cale yelled again, rushing toward her.
Korso's face grew large as he watched Akima fall, Cale rushing toward her, and the sword. It stuck into the Queen's chest as she began to stagger as well. The Queen fell over like a tree that had been cut down. Korso looked around to realize that she was going to land on him! He tried to free himself from the hands of the drones who stood there and kept him confined. The Queen came crashing down as Korso dove dragging a few of the Drej with him. Hexajava crushed all the drones she landed on as well as his lower body leaving his hips and up left. Korso was still connected to his legs, it was just that he could feel each bone in them breaking as she came down. He gave out a large cry of pain as his blood began to seep out from under the Queen.
Akima fell to the floor, but Cale was there to soften her fall. She laid on the floor and Cale held her back up. He sat on the floor next to her, and was consoling her. "Akima?" he worriedly asked. Her eyes were faint; that was the part of her that scared Cale the most. He let her blood run into his clothing. "Akima?" he said again.
"Cale?" she replied as she held his hand. Her eyes gazed into his deeply. They seemed afraid and darting about. It was so painful to him to see her like this.
"I'm here." he said, holding the back of her head in one hand and let her hold the other.
"Did I get her?" Akima asked. Cale smiled, even though the situation seemed grim. He wanted her to see a smile on his face. Cale could hear Akima take each breath as it whizzed out of the hole on the side of her chest. All of the Drej, seeing their Queen lying there, sank and were absorbed into the floor.
"Yeah," Cale said, trying to hold in tears. Akima's eyes closed and she nodded back. Cale jumped when she did this. "Akima, don't die on me! Think of Ruth! Akima!" he yelled. He held her close to his chest and embraced her for what seemed to be the last time. He felt a faint heartbeat coming out of her. He laid her on the floor and sat up, his eyes rained out tears.
Korso reached for the EMP nuke on his back and set it in front of him. Cale looked over at him and noticed he was still alive. Korso pulled out his pistol and had the nuke in the other hand. "Korso! I need you to help me get Akima out-" Cale frantically called.
"Sorry, kid, I-, ah, I- I can't move. You'll have to take her." Korso said, groaning from underneath the Queen. "You'd better get out of here. I'll give you some time and then I'll detonate this thing!"
"You can't stay here!" Cale exclaimed.
"Just go! I'll be seeing you around." Korso yelled back, holding the nuke closer to him. Cale, still full of tears, stood up and ran to Akima. He slipped his arms underneath her flimsy body. He had one arm under her legs and the other around her back. Her head and right arm hung loosely as Cale tried to run while carrying her. She weighed one hundred and thirty-five pounds, but when she was like this, she seemed heavier. "Good luck, kid." Korso said as he watched Cale run with his wife.
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Cale hopped in the Drej fighter he had come in. He laid Akima down on the floor beside him and had ripped off pieces of his black shirt and tied them tight around her wounds in an attempt to stop the bleeding. Cale steered the blue craft out of the hanger of the Gehenna. He kept glancing down at her in a desperate hope. The battle was still going on outside, but everybody took notice of him leaving the mothership.
"They've done it!" Porter whooped, "They're on their way back! Now everybody pull away from the Drej mothership." All of the ships started flying away, but Alpha two, the oriental woman, noticed the Valkyrie was headed for the Gehenna.
"Alpha one, what are you doing?" she asked, slightly puzzled.
"They need a pick up. I've gotta go back!" Porter replied.
"Copy that." Alpha two responded. She began flying back toward new earth and the Valkyrie went toward the large, blue craft.
"Stith, open the cargo bay. We need to get these people out of here!" Porter commanded. Stith nodded and ran with her kangaroo-like legs out of the bridge. Porter went back to the controls. The Valkyrie slowed once it grew near to Cale's slijah. The cargo bay doors opened and the Drej fighter came in. Cale fell out, holding Akima. Stith was there in the cargo bay to greet him, only to find Akima the way she was.
"Oh my God! What happened?!" Stith hastily asked as she ran up to Cale and helped him carry her up the steps. Once they were up, Cale began running down the hall with Akima in his arms and Stith following him.
"We need to get her to medical... fast!" Cale exclaimed, running frantically down the hallway. Akima's head bobbed about as his every step took them closer to the facility. "Come on, Akima." Cale muttered while carrying her. When they did reach medical, they quickly laid Akima on the table and began turning various systems on. Stith grabbed one of the famous probes and pressed a few buttons.
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Korso sat stuck underneath the Queen. He could feel her move, telling him she was still alive. It was either now or never. Korso held the nuke close to him. He looked at the small red button that was encased in glass for fail-safe reasons. He tore the glass from it and paused. Korso took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and pressed the button. A white light shone from it. It grew and took out the floor from underneath him. The Queen fizzled with a scream out due to the pulse. Soon, the entire room was consumed with the light. It tore apart the ship and Korso was killed as space sunk in.
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The Gehenna shook violently in space as the white light erupted from it. It was a large, hollow sphere of EMP. It quickly grew outside of the Gehenna and continued through space. The slijah that flew around the mothership were completely torn apart as it swept over them. Since electricity was a form of energy, nothing was left of the fighters. Porter looked at the targeting computer. There was a large blue blob growing and heading for them. "Oh great! Just how big did you build that thing?" he exclaimed as he turned to Gune. Gune only shrugged.
A rumbling could be heard coming from outside the Valkyrie. Cale and Stith were in medical tending to Akima. She was starting to come around which made Cale feel better. She was busy looking around, searching for where the rumbling was come. They'd already sealed the wound in the side of her chest. The computer alarm on the Valkyrie buzzed. Cale gasped; he realized that this EMP wave was coming for the ship. "Turn everything off!" he yelled.