Chapter 65: The Wonders of Space

There were more places to hide than was expected: Imperialdramon had no trouble finding another, intact nuclear power plant. It was a wonder that they had missed it, but there were people inside, still running the place. These people were starving, and, provided that the heroes would provide lunch, they allowed the refugees to come inside.

"You're giving us the storage garage as an orphanage?" Tina asked. "This isn't a playground; there's dangerous equipment, here!"

Yolei shook her head. "It was the best we could do, given the circumstances."

Tina sighed. "It'll take forever to get all this stuff out of the children's reach. I'll need help moving it."

"Kari and Brock are on it. I'll scare up some other volunteers."

******

Nobody could say it, but it was clear from the looks on their faces that none of them was particularly comfortable with what was going on. Even though Omegamon and four mega digimon were nothing to sneer at, it was entirely possible that they would shortly find themselves outmatched. They were in the asteroid belt. All the asteroids were pretty much moving in the same direction at the same speed, so they weren't difficult to dodge. What was curious were the little robots that seemed to be flitting about the asteroids. They would grab onto the asteroids, pull them to huge tanker spaceships, and then slowly melt and drain the asteroids into nothing.

Gallantmon tapped Megagargomon. He motioned towards the robots, wielding his lance, as if to ask, "Do we destroy them?"

Megagargomon had an interesting answer: "Mega Barrage!" Missiles flew out and destroyed a good number of mosquitows, but Omegamon, Kerpymon, and Sablemon didn't even know that Megagargomon had done this, since they couldn't hear at all.

One of the huge tanker starships turned towards them. A pair of rings on its tanks glowed, and red-hot beams of energy flew out at the digimon.

"Lightning Spear!"

"Mega Barrage!"

"Omega Barrage!"

"Laser Discus!"

"Lightning Joust!" The five attacks blew the tanker to bits, but the rings lived on after the tanker had bought it. They continued to fire.

"Gallantmon, mode-change to…Crimson Mode!" Gallantmon began reflecting the beams right back at the ringleaders, and the ringleaders were destroyed after about two hits.

After a little while longer, they saw it: there was a huge complex right in front of them, floating in space, adrift with the asteroids. It had airlocks and docking ports, not to mention cannons and torpedoes galore. But what was the most interesting were the two, huge, tube-like apparatus that were on either side of the complex that seemed to be moving. What they could be for was anyone's guess. The complex fired on them for a moment, but with no immediate success. Even stranger, it cut off its firing after a minute. The digimon did fire at the base, but it had a shield around it that even Omegamon's cannon couldn't penetrate. Why it would stop was anybody's guess, but, even stranger, it fired a huge, guided missile in the opposite direction.

Megagargomon gestured for them to follow the missile, and they flew after it, not knowing what they'd find. The missile soon exploded at a target off in the distance, but it was hard to make out what that target was... They barely had a chance to see it, but en even bigger missile was flying from the direction that the base had fired: it was a cruise missile, and---if they remembered the directions of other objects in the solar system correctly---it was on a course for Earth. Even stranger, Omicronmon and Kamnadramon were attacking the missile, firing away at its armor with no success.

If that's their missile, then why are they attacking it? Omegamon wondered. That missile has the Linonian insignia on it…and… This was all to puzzling. But one thing was for certain: if that missile was going to destroy Earth, then the digimon had to help the digi-clones stop it. "Omega Cannon!" Omegamon's green shot smacked the missile's warhead, and it didn't seem to do much damage at all.

The other megas followed Omegamon's lead as they flew after the missile. The missile was huge and fast-moving, and considering the technology that these aliens might have had at their disposal, this might be a missile powerful enough to destroy Earth. Omegamon kept firing, and his shots were being returned: more red beams of light came flying up at him from the ring-like device that lined the warhead.

Sablemon used her hoverboard as a shield as she flew in close for a better look at the missile. It was huge: probably bigger than any rocket that Earth had ever made. No doubt it was built in space, since raising a missile this huge out of a planet's atmosphere would have to take more energy than was worthwhile.

A beam from the ringleader smacked her board and sent her hurtling backwards. She bumped into Gallantmon on the way. Gallantmon grabbed her to stop her from spinning out of control, and pointed to about the middle of the ballistack. Sablemon couldn't guess what he was up to. She began to get a clue when Gallantmon began firing at the middle of the missile, as if there were some weakness there. Eventually, a huge, cylinder-like piece of the missile fell off, and it looked like this cylinder might have been half the missile. Unfortunately, this was nothing more than an engine stage: the missile was still alive and well.

Omicronmon seemed to stop in its attacks on the missile. He suddenly turned back and sped towards the engine stage. He grabbed the stage and began towing it back towards the missile, but he was having trouble keeping up with the missile.

Megagargomon looked at Kerpymon as if to ask, "Should I help him?" Kerpymon pointed to Omicronmon as if to say, "Go help him." Megagargomon swallowed hard, not knowing whether he could trust Omicronmon. He flew backwards, grabbed the other end of the engine stage, and began hammering his thruster jets to get the stage to speed up. Little by little, they made it past the missile and even in front of it. Omicronmon let go of the stage, and Megagargomon followed his lead. The stage neatly fell on top of the missile's warhead, thus blinding most of its sensors and stopping the ringleader cold.

Omegamon thought, Perfect! Now, all we need to do is get it to go flying into the sun… He flew alongside the missile and began pushing it to go in a different direction. As soon as he was done pushing, the maneuvering thrusters on the missile's other stage began to fire: it was steering itself back towards Earth.

Must not be as blind as we thought, now, Omegamon thought to himself. "Omega Barrage!" The missiles flew into the thruster exhausts, but didn't seem to do much damage. There's got to be a way to get rid of this missile! Omegamon thought. Then, he looked at what Omicronmon was doing: it was digging its sword under the warhead, as if to pry the warhead off the thruster stage. Omegamon flew in and used his sword to ram the clamps that held the warhead to the thruster stage. One-by-one, the clamps came off. The thruster stage was loose. Kamnadramon hurled it aside, and it went flying towards the moon. The explosion it made built a new crater on the moon's face, but at least there weren't any people on the moon for that explosion to harm.

Now, the warhead was flying along with nothing to steer it. All seven fighters grabbed the warhead and redirected it. It went flying towards the sun, and even if their aim hadn't been good enough, the sun's gravity would probably do the rest of the aiming for them.

Just as Omegamon was smiling at a job-well-done, one of Omicronmon's torpedoes went flying past him. Silly me for forgetting…although, they are outmatched…

"Kamnadramon, mode-change to…Nemesis mode!"

Okay…maybe they aren't outmatched…