Chapter 21: Sacrifice to the angels.

Areana was asleep when it happened. The explosion set off every alarm that there was on board. Radiation bombarded the shielding, making it light up like a Christmas tree. No use in trying to hider herself now. If they can see that, then they know that someone is here. She climbed into the pilot's seat and brought up the main propulsion system on the monitor. In front of her materialized a set of throttles and a joystick. This was the fun part. All of the controls were actually holograms. Items that felt real but were only forcefields and tricks of light. But as the saying went "If it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck. Then it must be a duck."

She pushed the throttles to half normal power. This kicked the Phoenix forward and the master alarm for the shielding went off. "Radiation's a tad too strong. Better go slower. Besides, I don't even know what is there. One second, I am seeing Jedi off to the battle with the lead ship. The next, I am woken up by radiation alarms." Areana scanned the monitor, looking for any signs of what was going on. There was a message waiting for her. "Must be a prank call." She punched it up on the loudspeaker.

"Areana, this is Jedi. By the time you receive this, it is most likely that I will be dead." Jedi's face appeared in front of hers as a hologram. "This is your signal that you should launch the missiles. I also want to say that you made me feel like a person again. When I woke up, and told that I had been turned into a cyborg, and then an android, I felt my humanity slip away. Part of me died. Maybe it was the soul of the person that I used to be, I don't know. But let me tell you that I even forgot my birthday. Did an android really need to remember that sort of thing? Then you came along with that cupcake. Everyone had treated me nicely, but it was easy to tell that they were uneasy around me. But not you. I think that you are a really nice person, and that you will go far after this war is over. Well, you need to launch those missiles now, so I had better let you go. I don't imagine that I will ever see you again, so just be good and live."

Areana was in tears. Jedi had made himself a sacrifice. The radiation from the blast was disrupting the shield matrix, and if it was doing that to the Phoenix, then she could only imagine what was going on with the Dortde vessels. Now was obviously the right time to launch, but what if Jedi had survived whatever blast had made this radiation cloud? The missiles would destroy him for sure. The scanners had matched the blast pattern. Areana was now sure that he was dead. She punched up the command console for the missile launchers. The radiation was blocking the transmissions, both the radio and the lascom. That meant that she would have to go closer to the moon in order to send the launch command. But that wasn't the only thing that they were picking up.

"Computer identify the android signature approaching from the planet's surface."

"Processing....... Identity confirmed. Android signature is 002. Do you wish to arm weapons?"

"Better go ahead. Set course for the moon. I want to be within radio range of the missiles in less than five minutes."

"Unable to comply. Radio transmitters are offline."

"Fine! Get me within range of the lascom."

"Unable to comply. An antimatter radiation cloud has formed all the way to the surface of the moon."

"THIS IS STARTING TO GET ANNOYING! JUST GET ME TO THE MOON, NOW!"

"Complying."

What was 002 doing? She was coming straight for the Phoenix. Did Black Ghost find out about the Phoenix? Could she be meaning to destroy her and any hope there was left?