Chapter 14 - Day One: It Begins
Ben tried to pull himself back into a precarious sitting position after the abrupt rush of acceleration had subsided. He quickly glanced around, checking that both himself and his craft were still in one piece. It could have been a lot worse if he had taken any longer to get out of there. On the other hand, he now had no means of propulsion whatsoever.
It was only as he looked up at the front window for a split second that he took notice of a large sphere of flaring green energy moving slowly toward the mark seven, which was completely powerless to defend. There was no point in kidding himself. This was one hit which he would not be able to avoid. He abandoned his futile attempts at controlling the dead craft, instead resorting to gripping the sides of the seat tightly and holding his breath, waiting for the impact.
The flare seemed to take an hour to reach him. Its strange pulsing aura grew steadily brighter as it approached, soon to bathe the interior of the mark seven in an eerie though quite blinding shade of yellow and green. Then, without warning, it was as though several rifles had gone off at once inside the craft. The energy flare intensified, accelerated dramatically, and smashed head-on into the mark seven with an exponential explosive force. Ben could feel the hull of the small ship buckle and tear under the strain. The sheer energy of the impact meant that if he hadn't been hanging onto the seat for dear life, he would instantly have been thrown hard against the ceiling. The ship itself also had been knocked off course, now headed on a perilous route to the planet's upper atmosphere. He watched as the nebula-like flare of ionizing gas pieced the inner hull and began bleeding the atmosphere into space, but even there it did not die out. The solar flare in-miniature continued to intensify, almost as though it had somehow attached itself to the skin of the vehicle. If this how much damage a single shot could do to a powerful fighter-craft like Exceeder, he couldn't bare to think what several hundred like it would do to an entire world. Ben was now feeling the extreme levels of heat and radiation leaking into the ship like venom. He lurched forward, micro-sealer in hand, frantically attempting to close the inner hull breach before it reached the cockpit.
"Never… Again…" Ben muttered incoherently under his breath, which was becoming progressively louder as the cabin temperature began to reach oven-like conditions. He clicked the power switch on the tool, but a brief blue burst was all that happened. "Don't have time for this!" He shouted, shaking it vigorously. A small blue flame sputtered into life at the end of the tube. Not willing to wait for it to settle, he lowered it to a panel on the floor which was white hot, and looked seconds away from blowing out. About a minute later, he had sealed the breach, and the flare was only now beginning to die away.
When the vibration of the inner hull panels receded to a dull rumble, he raised his head slightly to stare back out at the bio-missile which had so ruthlessly attacked. His vision swam slightly with the after image of the deadly flare. In that moment, he froze on the spot, in absolute horror of what he had just seen. From the very same bio-missile, emanated three more flaring orbs. His moment of hesitation was interrupted, however, by a crackling and indistinct voice over the communication channel. Abandoning all conscious thought, he dived into the front of the mark seven and shuffled recklessly though mountains of shattered equipment to find the transmitter. After eventually picking up the small device, he held to his mouth, pressed the control, and yelled into it at the top of his voice.
"Kevin, can you hear me!" Ben called desperately "Three energy flares are headed right for me, and I'm dead in the water as it is! The mark seven can't take another of these hits! Come on guys, help me out!"
Ben clutched the small microphone even harder, hoping that by some miracle his old enemy might get at least enough of the message to understand, though also fearful that he might not want to listen. Ben was, after all, the reason why he had spent years in the void. Mere seconds remained by the time he got a reply. The most he could understand over the damaged com assembly was "Stay put. Turn seven away missiles."
Half considering how laughable this would be as the last thing he ever did, Ben grabbed the flight stick and tried to shift the angle of the tumbling ship just enough for his own inertia to do the rest. The chaotic motion of the stars beyond the cracked and melted glass caused an unpleasant sensation of nausea. The next word he heard over the com was "Omnitrix", but what good would that do when none of his choices could survive in a vacuum? Still confused, he made the best defensive choice which came to mind and engaged the "Omnitrix" with a bright flash of light.
Meanwhile, on the surface, Gwen and Kevin manned the outposts charge cannon. With the constant movement of the mark seven, it was turning out to be somewhat of a guessing game as to whether the charge meant for the three flares would hit on target, or convert the mark seven, along with its pilot to a mass of lifeless rubble.
"That's about the best I can do." Gwen finally announced, stepping back from the viewfinder to address Kevin. She hurried down the stairway to a lower platform and engaged a few controls.
"You'd better hope so." Kevin taunted in the background. "Just imagine what would happen if the aim was off by even one degree."
He drew a crude imitation in mid-air with his hands, showing a fist-shaped EP charge missing the flares by a ludicrously massive distance and ploughing into a palm-sized mark seven. Gwen merely rolled her eyes and turned her attention to the matter at hand, tapping the "Fire" button.
"Grow up." She deadpanned.
The real EP charge was immediately launched from the tip of the cannon, and disappeared into the cloudless early morning sky.
From inside the mark seven, Upgrade saw the EP charge soar past the small ship and encompass the three flares just in time. They were instantly shorted-out, no longer posing any serious threat. It was with a certain cautiousness that he watched the dark, objects drift harmlessly past the ship.
"N-Nice job, Gwen." Ben stammered weakly. "Now, do you think that'll work on those missiles?"
"All it does is fires electro-plasma bolts." Said Gwen. "Wouldn't do any real damage…… But it might knock out their sensors long enough for us all to get aboard unnoticed. Just wait right there, we're on the way."
"Don't worry," He thought half-heartedly to himself "I'm going nowhere with this wreck."
Little over ten minutes later, Gwen and Devoras arrived with Concorde and Defiant to salvage the unfortunate mark seven, which was now in a rapidly decaying orbit. The desperate escape attempt from the bio-missile had done more damage to his ship than one of the Sentinels ever could. By this time, however, a certain Mechnomorph had already conducted most of the major repairs. The impact of the first flare had not only shredded the outer hull to pieces, but also completely emptied the liquid oxygen stores, resulting in an atmosphere of which any major polluting corporation would be proud, and that only a Mechnomorph could breathe.
"You might want to hurry up down there." Ben suggested over the com. "I get the distinct impression that a timeout is just waiting to happen, and the air in here really doesn't make for an ideal holiday getaway if you catch my drift." He shifted his gaze to the rear window, which was now aimed in the direction of the two incoming vehicles.
"We're doing our best." Gwen snapped back. "You're the idiot who went and got himself trapped inside the missile in the first place. Just relax, shut up, and wait. I don't know how on earth you manage to pilot these things. They're insanely awkward to handle."
"Yes, of course!" Ben argued cynically. "It's the kind of acquired skill you pick up after slamming into the ground a few dozen times, isn't it?"
Gwen ignored this, though with the shadow of a smile on her face which she was thankful Ben could not see.
"We're coming up behind the mark seven now." She said. "Dev says we've only got a thirty minute window before the first missile is within firing range. If we're stopping it, we're stopping it now. I've got the cannon set for remote firing. I couldn't test it before I left, so we'll just have to hope it works. Hold on a minute..."
The two AG's glided gracefully up alongside the mark seven, each attaching a resource transfer arm to the brutally wounded Exceeder.