The Floating City
[1]
"Rebel" Palomo fired with his plasma cannon. He targeted Destroyer 3. Four green bolts struck home, slamming into the craft with such force that Mars thought she saw shockwaves pass through the hull. Bright yellow flowers bloomed on it, furling and spreading open through the sky.
Destroyer 3 took all the shots in stride.
Mars flew in low, staying as close to the water as she dared.
She could hear the whispers of the psi-capable aliens on board. The Sectoids and Commanders. There were at least two Ethereals on the bridge as well.
(wipe them away destroy them protect the SHIP the CAPITAL SHIP)
Its broadside weapon ports (and there were at least ten) opened fire. The green plasma bolts did not come all at once, in a single wide line, but in short sporadic bursts. The ports at random intervals. The aim was also random. Most of them Mars didn't even have to dodge.
The ones she did have to dodge were real heat seekers. They started out as small green dots about the size of her first and swelled like cancer as they rushed towards her (she thought fleetingly of those old Time Crisis games).
She cut the Firestorm to the left, and a bolt passed her on the right; she could hear it hissing. Another plasma bolt smashed into the water in front of her. The effect was like a grenade had gone off underwater.
A plume of water came up and struck the faint energy shield surrounding the craft. It ran off the cockpit visor, traveling away from the center in shimmering ribbons that were fucking beautiful. For a second, the destroyers and the rest of the world was lost in that shimmering curtain.
"Jesus!" Mars said, thinking that she would die for certain. She rose slightly, taking a glancing blow. The craft rattled.
"Fuck!" she cried, yawing the Firestorm to the right, because she had to move it somewhere.
The water peeled away and she could see again. Destroyer 3 was well in firing range now. Mars fired the cannon, which sounded much like any of the other plasma weapons the aliens used: like a strong and sharp passing of extremely heavy gas. It sounded funny. Maybe it even was.
But then the green and elongated bolts of heated gas came out of the cannon and that dried any and all laughter up. Mars saw bolts of plasma and thought of the Killing Curse from the Harry Potter books. That green flash was always followed by a body dropping to the ground, the victim's face frozen in a soundless scream.
And up here in the skies it was followed by an explosion, a plane corkscrewing into down into mother rock or cold ocean. Another family getting no body, or even a small part of the body—only a letter of condolences from an organization doomed to send out many.
No, that heated gas shit wasn't funny. Not at all.
Explosions rocked Destroyer 3's hull on the portside. Some of the broadside cannons were either disabled or destroyed. Either way they stopped firing. Mars smiled, relaxing a little. More explosions flared up on the roof of Destroyer 3. That was Palomo again. He was coming in hot, as the saying went.
Bullseye! That's what Rebel would be thinking, the frigging dork.
To the left, Destroyer 2 was critically injured and started falling toward the sea.
Mars felt the alien commanders on that ship die as an internal explosion reached them before the waters of the Indian Ocean did
(protect the CAPITAL SHIP protect the)
Then the whole Eastern squadron brought their laser and plasma cannons to bear on Destroyer 3. This time the explosion visibly ruptured the alien craft, driving a large fissure from bow to stern.
A bridge image flashed through Mars' mind: she was on the bridge herself, not commanding it as an Ethereal but piloting it. She was a Sectoid Commander, her brain buzzing with activity. She was in front of one of the UFO flight computers. It was touched based…and then the computer system failed.
She banged on the monitor with her stubby little Sectoid fingers. The words "Critical Failure of Multiple Sytsems" flashed up in blue alien symbols. And then she was lost in a sea of rolling fire.
Mars snapped herself out of it, not only feeling dazed but feeling a great deal of pain. She opened a compartment beside the seat. It had a small med kit inside with painkillers. She swallowed one of them, and that did a world of good.
Mars thought: These things don't stand a chance.
No. Don't think that Maria. Pride before the fall and all that.
"Eastern squadron." Mars said. "How's your status."
She braced herself, waiting to hear the casualties. Of course, she hadn't seen any friendlies get taken down, but she been focusing on her own shit. Pride before the fall indeed.
Vegas spoke, and it took Mars a moment to process what was said next: "No casualties."
Mars' mouth opened, and then closed. She said, the words aloud herself, as though. What exactly did he mean "no casualties?" Was Vegas high?
"Repeat that Eastern squadron?"
Midland pipped up, after keeping his trap shut since the squadron had shown up. "He said 'We didn't lose anybody. I took quite a bit of damage though. The left wing is in the red. The right is in the yellow."
"You should head back to base Midland." Delaware said.
"Negative." was the short answer. Mars waited to hear something else, but that was it.
"All destroyers are eliminated." Mars said, as if any of them needed to be told. "All that's left is the battleship."
That's what they all thought. And that was when the portal appeared. It was about fifty feet to the south of the battleship. It was immense: beside it the battleship might have been a small branch. It glowed bright purple at the edges and dark blue at the center. The air rippled around it. Bolts of electricity jumped from the center to the edges.
A ship came out of that immense portal, seeming at first to be a sharp iceberg made out of shining metal. It came with a roar that eclipsed all sound. A supernova would not be heard over that sound. It seemed to crush Mars with its weight. Her hair was pressed down into her skin.
"My God." Mars whispered.
None of the other pilots said anything.
It could have been a small city. It was the size and relative shape of a sauce bowl, which actually struck Mars as pretty funny.
Engines and antigrav systems protruded from the bottom in jagged edges that made them look like metal splinters. They glow faintly blew and white.
Massive guns pointed out from the sides, plasma cannons that were each the size of small UFOs. They glowed green like noxious Tommyknocker light. Caverns were exposed on the sides and already there were small fighter UFOs coming out.
"I don't think the battleship was the main ship, the one getting escorted." Rebel said.
Mars knew what it was immediately. She could hear the whispers of numerous psi users aboard. They had many voices, and many accents even, but the words were the same.
And there were only two.
TEMPLE SHIP