CHAPTER 9: THE BLACK STAR COMETH
Everyone on board the Nirvana was either yelling, screaming, praying to any god they could think of or howling in pain. The ship looked dangerously off-balance as it was pulled towards the gigantic green planet. Bart struggled to even think about moving away as he was literally pulled to one side, his spine creaking. BC and Magno hung by the comm rings as minor items skidded across the bridge. Ezra just narrowly avoided being hit with a loose circuit board as the mayhem spread to the rest of the ship. Duerro fought to keep his instruments from falling on Pai while Parfait struggled to lock down everything down below.
"Bart! Do something!" BC screamed.
"I wish I could!! The gravity is ripping me apart!" he yelled back.
Outside, the Vandreads were kept busy by the pod ships, who were willing to let the Nirvana be destroyed by physics rather than themselves. For every burst of blue lightning, there were three bursts of pod fire. The pilots found themselves hard pressed as the mothership advanced slowly on their lines, ready to strike.
"Damn! We can't break through!" Hibiki barked.
"We have to get to the ship!" said Meia.
"I'd like some ideas, please!" Ed gritted his teeth.
The Red Guardian and Blue Victory were doing their best to break through the enemy barrier, but even the shield-blast techniques they had just practiced earlier became ineffective with the hundreds of drones the mothership released filling every void. The DD had already disposed of its double with a little help from the Red and Blue, but the egg carriers simply replaced it with a swarm of red fighter drones. The pilots patience was as depleted as their shield energy, but the Vandreads fought on with increasing ferocity as their home faced total destruction.
The Nirvana's thrusters vainly attempted to pull it out of orbit, but Bart's efforts were proving only to delay the Nirvana's plunge into the gaseous atmosphere, where it would be crushed by the intense gravity. Magno demanded that if anyone had any ideas, they should come forward now. Bart sweated hard trying to pull away, eager to hear any ideas. BC looked around and none were forthcoming. The Nirvana's anti-gravity generators clicked as the ship was fully turned upside down by the gas giant's pull. Then, out of the blue , Parfait's face came up on screen.
"Fly into the gas giant!" she screamed.
"What?" Bart was dumbfounded, as was Magno.
"Yeah, fly into it! And put shields up to maximum! Tell the Vandreads to do the same! We might just get through it!"
"Vice-commander…?" Bart looked at BC. She had nothing to say. "Right! Here we go!"
Bart went with the momentum instead of against it, immediately feeling the plunge as he felt his inner organs pulled out of his chest. He increased the retro boosters while following Parfait's suggestion to put maximum power to the shields.
"Bart!?" BC had a look of horror on her face.
"Someone….told…me…to…to just do!" he managed, the strain telling in his voice.
"Bart…"
The Nirvana plunged headfirst into the gas giant, to the horror of the Vandread pilots, who followed its sudden course hoping to save it somehow as it dipped into the green ,soup-like texture of the surface. Meia and Barnett had broken through the blockade and were first, till Magno' s face appeared on the comm.
"Wait for the Red Guardian! Your shields alone can't get there!"
"Boss!" Meia was aghast.
"We're here!" Hibiki and Dita said in unison.
The Red Guardian finally broke through to the planet's surface, slashing its way through.
"I think I know what to do!" Jura announced, pressing her hands to the orb. The orb slid down, prompting the machinery to shift around her and Ed. Outside, the Red Guardian quickly transformed into a Vandread similar to Hibiki and Jura' s combination, a gigantic red-black claw ship The Pegasus field encompassed all three of the combinations, which flew closely in formation as Gascgone' s recovery ship pulled in the last remaining Dread, activating its own shields.
One of the egg carriers broke off from the battlefield, moving towards the submerged Nirvana and the Pegasus globe carrying the trio of Vandreads. It hesitated for a while, but went in guns blazing. The result was massive crumpling of its metallic structure, organic goo bursting like a squashed orange. The drones it carried were also crushed, though some managed to escape the surface with some effort. The mothership immediately changed tack and moved towards the planet, sending the other egg carrier in to investigate. Then suddenly, a gigantic blue beam wiped the carrier and its support out.
"Alright!!" Everyone high fived each other. The Nirvana was fine, its Pegasus field sustaining the pressure. The Vandreads were surrounded by a Pegasus field generated by the Hibiki- Jura combination while Gascgone' s ship surrounded itself in its own shields. Dita and Ed pumped their fists in the air, the Dread Wind knocking down yet another target. Bart simply stood in his helm field again, rubbing his sore back. Everyone was picking themselves up off the floor. Pyoro shook off his dizziness and went to Parfait's side.
"So you see, inside this giant the pressure is stable enough to maintain our shields. The Pegasus is more powerful than I thought!" Parfait rounded off the explanation with an adjustment of her round glasses. "I can even modify the field to repel the gravity effect. And Doc says he has some lotion for your back, Bart."
Magno nodded," Indeed it is. But we still have to get rid of the Mothership!"
BC looked up at the monitors , noticing the mothership hovering above the planet.
"Parfait, put that brain of yours to work again!" she commanded.
The three Vandreads nervously eyed their opposition, circling over their heads like vultures in the desert. The Jura Vandread remained still in the center, the cornerstone of the shield effort. The Dread Wind stood in the front flanked by the separated Black and White Dreads.
"Here's what we can do…." Pyoro' s screen activated some displays.
The mothership outside waited, a behemoth armed to the teeth with its drones ready to pounce. Even the Nirvana had its limits, the Harvesters reasoned. Sure enough, the ships emerged from the green planet all at once, at different angles. The drones came out in full force, repelled by the enormous blue beam. The beam brushed the side of the mothership, blowing away artificial structure and armor. The combination split after a second beam, the humanoid component standing on the turning blue fighter. The red combination was also turning round to the planet while the black and white fighters were streaking off in some unknown direction, moving out of their range.
The Jura Vandread fired off a massive, continious beam straight into the core of the green planet. The Blue Dread fired on it as well while the Black Vanguard covered it from the back. The White Dread fired off its own beam, protected by the Black Dread. Each was protected by its own Pegasus field, firing from a predetermined angle into the core while the Nirvana moved away from the battle zone. The beams were intense as was the attacks on their origins, but all held firm. The idea was risky; Parfait figured that the planet was in fact a dormant proto-star and feeding the core energy would lead to the triggering of the solar reactor inside, firing off solar flares. The Nirvana would pick up the Dreads and jump out of range before the star fully birthed itself, destroying the mothership.
Sounds simple. Like knitting. Like mushroom farming. Or maybe like giving birth to a billion kilowatt star!
Ed grunted as Dita' s Dread took another direct hit, before he eliminated the attacker. To his horror, her Dread was going off target.
"Dita! Get back to the target!" Meia yelled, grimacing at another hit.
Dita shook with fear, knowing that she was the least experienced of the Magno Vidan pirates and the least battle-savvy. And she had to think of poor Ed out there, fighting off Harvesters by himself. She screamed as her beam went even more off-center, panic written all over her face. Hibiki was yelling out her name and this made her heart sink even more.
"Shit! I can't handle this anymore!! Hibiki! Barnett! Help me out!" Ed fired hopelessly at the tens of pods that threatened to eat him alive. The Jura Vandread split, the gold Vanguard rushing to Ed and Dita 's aid. Meia wished she could help, but her own beam couldn't be cut off yet and neither could Jura' s. While their strategy was to divide the enemies, the Harvesters seemed to target Dita' s Dread, the one closest to them. Gascgone was near to the Nirvana, hopelessly out of reach under the circumstances.
"Ed! Get out of here!" Hibiki raised his voice.
The gold Vanguard pushed at the Blue Dread, its thrusters blazing forth. Slowly, the beam met the others again in the center, triggering a white hot-reaction inside. The Black Vanguard hid behind the Blue Dread, its right arm damaged by pod fire. Out of the distant sky came the Black Dread, streaking towards the trio of pinned down mecha.
"Time to see what we've got under the hood!" Barnett called out to Ed.
Ed nodded and the Black Vanguard sprang towards the onrushing Dread, twisting and turning through corridors of enemy fire before slamming into its partner in a brilliant flash of white light. The result was a heavily-armored fighter with two gigantic cannons and two extra thrusters which were the BV's legs. It transformed, the nose sliding over the back to reveal two robotic arms and a yellow chest plate . A head protruded from the border , a Y-shaped visor shining underneath a samurai-like helmet. The wings folded back and out popped the two large cannons, which attached themselves under the wrists. Two legs emerged from the bottom, thrusters already blaring. The transformation was complete when the wings thinned out to make a symbol on the back and the nose armor diverted to the legs. As for the pilots, Ed was facing Barnett in a sort of rotating spherical cockpit, screens giving them a panoramic view. She had the twin throttles and movement control, while he retained weapons and shields with a rounded control pad. Barnett saw that she also had full-on instructions in front of her simply by thinking about the subject, a fact that made her more amazed than ever.
"Let 'er rip, Ed!" she yelled as Ed moved a targeting cursor around the field.
He duly complied, with a dark purple beam emerging from the cannons, transversing the entire battlefield and littering the sky with little explosions. The mothership saw more of its frontal structure damaged by the beam, which left burn marks and holes the size of a sports stadium on its hull. The pods were almost decimated now, and with the two carriers lost the mothership began a new program. It began activating its main cannon.
"Almost there!" Jura saw the readings on her screen.
"It's coming! Get out of there!" BC called out over the net.
The green giant's core began to quake, its reactor overflowing with energy. Waves of energy began rippling all over the planet , shooting off sparks of light that soon became enormous pillars of flame. The Dreads broke off, with Hibiki joining Meia and the new Vandread transforming to join the escape. One Dread, however was missing.
"Dita!!" Hibiki cried out.
"I'm...I'm stuck!!!" she cried. The Blue Dread was caught in the gravity well of the birth, its shields knocked out by an EM pulse the star had generated. Hibiki looked at Meia as he ran his finger over the disassembly button.
"Don't die on me," she smiled.
With that, the gold Vanguard split off from the others and headed back to Dita' s stranded Dread as the green giant began to change color to bright white. The mothership was still priming its weapon, determined to blow away at least one of the pests. Its own structure was breaking up, panels and entire sections breaking off. Yet its cannon was still charging. The gold Vanguard came in low, swooping below the Blue Dread and combining with it. Hibiki was once again sitting behind Dita, both their hands on the rounded controllers.
"Get out of there, now!" Meia yelled as the Nirvana came in with Gascgone 's recovery ship.
"Commander! The radar…the signal!" Ezra gasped. "Vandread Dita...is gone!"
The blips showing them had disappeared. Everyone was screaming out names and last-minute suggestions. The solar flare approaching Dita had completely blanked out their signal and now even their Vandread was impossible to spot. Suddenly, Hibiki' s voice came out over the net for all to hear.
"I …we… do not give up!!!" he screamed as a fully Pegasus fielded Blue Victory roared out of the blaze. But it wasn't headed for the Nirvana, it was headed to the mothership! The solar flare followed Dita and Hibiki' s kamikaze trail into the path of the enemy cannon. Everyone saw that they were actually pulling the flare towards the enemy ship. Hibiki and Dita held each other's hands tightly as the Blue Victory pulsed towards the enemy ship. No one could say a word when the resulting explosion slammed through the mothership, snapping it in two. The green flares tore through the ship, spitting fire and belching flames all over the interior. Pieces of wreckage were thrown as far as the Nirvana, metal chunks slamming on the hull in a symphony of junk. Out of all that came the Blue Victory, a blue phoenix rising out of a green blaze. Its back was burned badly, but the rest of the ship hobbled back to the Nirvana, helped by the other Vandreads.
"Bart, get us out of here!" Magno ordered. He was only too happy to comply, the flares licking away at him. The Nirvana jumped immediately to a set of pre-determined coordinates BC had calculated earlier. The new star now glowed brightly, a silver globe of gas and heat joining the cosmos. At the jump exit, everyone looked at the new born star in awe.
"I'm glad for this long life," Magno reflected, "I actually get to see a star being born. Who else can claim that?"
"Not me, Chief, "Parfait's mouth stood open. " Now we got something to tell the folks at home about."
"Interesting," Duerro added, witnessing the event on his screens.
"Yo, Ed! We haven't named this baby yet!" Barnett tapped him on the shoulder as they disembarked from the new Vandread, which had now separated into its component mecha.
"Why Barnett…you're touching me, a man?" She pulled her finger, blowing on it to move all the "male germs" away. He wrapped one arm around her back and pulled her to his side. "I think our Leader should name it, what do you think?" She nervously agreed.
Meia came out running from the White Dread, straight into Ed's waiting arms. To everyone's surprise, he turned her around, slipped his arm around her waist from behind and pointed to the two Black units. "What do you think, blue-eyes?"
"Star…we should call it the Black Star, after the star we all saw just now."
"Perfect! The Black Star it is!" he gestured, moving his arm across the view of the Black units, before embracing Meia and playfully pecking her on the ear.
"Hey you two, what do you think you're doing?" Gascgone walked into the hangar with her techs.
Meia and Ed looked at everyone and then at each other. To everyone's shock, she put her arm back round his head and affectionately ruffled his hair, looking him in the eye.
"Leader...what are you doing?"
"So what? We're not the only ones, you know…" Ed pointed to the Blue Victory. Hibiki and Dita screamed in shock horror as everyone looked at them in the cockpit. His hands were still gripping hers tightly, shaking with embarrassment. She could only smile nervously as she slowly let go of his hands.
"So, those rumors are true?" Bart tuned in.
"What, you and the vice-commander? Up to you two, bud. Didn't she dump you or something? Do tell us, Mr. Genius Helmsman," Ed grinned.
"What the- hey! I'm in control here!" Bart growled.
"Control? Man, you're naked in there! With five women up there! Don't tell me you're the boss!"
"Because I have to be! I'm not the one out there using every excuse to sit next to a woman!"
" You know why BC wears pants? So you won't stare up there, you pervert!"
"Me, pervert? Who's chasing after women 30 years younger than he is!?"
"Those 30 years don't COUNT!" he shook his head, "I was dead, damnit!"
The girls didn't know what the hell to do about the two, and Hibiki simply shrugged. They stood motionless as Ed and the on-screen Bart yelled and swore at each other for what seemed like hours. Then Magno' s voice came over the intercom.
" Stop it this instant! We have bigger problems now! Everyone to the main assembly room!"
The pilots ran to the room, leaving the techs behind to repair the damaged war machines.
"Look at this…" BC opened up the screen, "The ship we destroyed sent a distress signal. The other five mother ships have changed course…and are headed for Mejale!"
Everyone's eyes lit up in horror. The computer display showed the course changes, five blue arrows headed to the women's home world. The men's homeworld of Talark was also nearby, sparking looks of concern that the war between the two might lead to a state of confusion , which the Harvesters would use to their full advantage. The euphoria of today's victory was erased from the room as gloom returned to the crew.
"I'm not giving up, I said!" Hibiki raised his fist, "We may be the only hope our worlds have of survival! I'm not going to go down as the guy who didn't try!"
"Neither am I! " Meia rallied.
"Me neither!" Barnett pumped her fist.
"Mr. Alien's right! We can all do it!" Dita stood up.
"I'm not going to let go like that!" Ed made a fist, "We'll mail 'em back home in pieces!" he shouted, slamming his fist on the table.
Everyone cheered as Magno looked on, noticing the fire in everyone's eyes.
" These kids…" she said to BC, " these kids might be just what the universe needs. Especially you six…" she pointed to the pairings of Meia and Ed , Hibiki and Dita.
"Six…?" BC counted only four, "But Boss…."
"I said you six , Bosom." She grinned as her chair slid back to the bridge.