Chapter 33: Haven Under Attack

Date: April 22, 3658

Location: Space

In the early morning hours, large black oval comet-like things began to fall from the sky, undetected by Precursorean satellites until it was too late. Major Eagan cursed as he watched the holo screens show him where the ships were going to land. Two were warrior drop ships with the capacity of holding two hundred foot soldiers. The larger third ship looked to be a war factory; a ship that produced machines of wars, including the weapons that foot soldiers used.

Activating the moon base's comm. systems to connect with Mar, he suddenly noticed a fourth ship, the daystar was coming to a full stop near the moon. With the shielding system activated, Errol wouldn't see the base; but he would if Eagan activated a direct comm link. Cracking his knuckles the red haired man began to run his fingers across the holographic computer screens until he had the comms bouncing across all of the active satellites in orbit around the planet below.

"Major, this better be important." Mar's voice sounded as if he'd been awakened from a deep sleep.

Eagan narrowed his eyes at the general. "Errol has begun his attack," he stated. "A war ship has appeared over your Haven City, with two drop ships having come to land near the city."

"They've gotten this close so quickly?" Mar asked with surprise. "Annalina is awake, but she hasn't made contact yet."

"That's because I've been negotiating with the dessert king, your descendant I believe Mar," her voice interrupted the two warriors. Her pale face coming up onto Eagan's screens.

"Beautiful as always Anna," Eagan flirted.

"As silly as always, Eagan dear," she replied with a roll of her eyes. "I believe I've met your descendant down here too. A multi-colored hair young man named Daxter."

"Multi-colored?" Eagan inquired. "A bit of a rebel?" he asked with a grin.

"He is so related to you," she told him. "Orange, yellow and red hair. Very unique young man. Seems to be connected to the hip to Mar's other descendant, Jak. Quite the girl, by the way."

Mar smiled under his helmet. "She is," he agreed. "The dark eco in her has taken on a sentient mind. I haven't had time to see how well the creature is integrated into her mentality."

"As long as they're on our side, I could care less," Anna stated. "Now, what's going on?"

"Errol has begun his attack," Mar told her as he allowed Eagan to take over the conversation.

After listening to the major, Anna touched her chin in deep thought. "Errol hasn't noticed you are using the satellites yet?" she inquired.

"No ma'am," he said crossing his large arms over his chest.

"Good," she nodded. "You're to keep us up to date on what the daystar is doing. Have Kella continue to make VI versions of herself and continue doing probe attacks on the daystar's systems. This should buy us some time."

"Unless they've created an AI smart enough to hack the VI systems," Eagan stated under his breath.

"Then have the VI's have a hard virus in them that can destroy anything should they be attacked," she responded to his off-handed comment.

"Yes ma'am," he saluted before cutting off the comm.

Anna looked towards Mar. "Do you have a plan?" she inquired skeptically.

A deep sigh was her reply.

"Is it that bad?" she inquired.

"I've sent five probes through slip space to the systems where our people were to go," he told her. "Three have shown destroyed systems, one showed a system without colonization and the last one has yet to give me any feedback."

"We could be the last then?" she inquired, gaining a nod from him. "What about the kit?"

"I do not know," Mar said sincerely. "I last placed him in the tomb, but it was raided before I could return."

"So he's either dead or-"

"-lost," Mar finished for her. Upon seeing the pained expression upon her face, he regretted in telling her.

"He's alive. We just have to have faith in that," she assured him. She could sense he was doubtful.

"Let's just hope the boy can keep his trap closed," Mar said softly. "We don't need the elves not trusting us right yet." He sighed. "One war is enough."

Annalina nodded in agreement before closing the comms with the general.

Location: Haven City - Palace

Inside the palace structure in Haven City, the tiny ottsel known as Prince was running around on all four of his legs. He'd been looking for Jak and her boyfriend Daxter for the last day and just couldn't find them. It had taken him a few days to notice that they'd vanished. He thought they had gone on their usual mission, but would return. He liked snuggling with them. Ever since they'd busted him out of the pod he'd been with them and now that they were gone, he was worried.

Suddenly he froze when he saw that aqua haired lady that he'd seen with Jak and Daxter so many times. Making a squeak at her, he saw the lady stop and look at him. A blonde woman was with her. "Oh! Lookie, a mini Daxie!" she squealed.

Prince's eyes widened as he suddenly reconsidered this idea, but it was too late as she picked him up. "I think that's the ottsel that Jak and Daxter found in Mar's tomb," Keira spoke as she scratched behind the critters ears. "Those two were always finding strays as kids." She giggled as the ottsel seemed to purr at being scratched.

"I wander what its name is?" Tess asked her friend as they walked into the governess' meeting room. "Guess we're early," she mumbled.

"Torn did say here, right?" Keira asked as she noticed the collar on the kit's neck. "Prince?" The ottsel squeaked at her. "Just like Jak to write it in Precurorean," she chuckled. "After learning to write it, Jak always wrote in it."

"Jak understands Precursor writings?" Tess inquired with wide expressive eyes.

"Daddy taught him," Keira explained as the kit jumped onto the table and ran over to the jug of water and drank from it. "It's just like those two to forget about their pet."

Prince perked his head up at that before frowning. He did not like being called a pet, but he supposed that's what he was to these people. 'If only they knew,' he thought as he ran back over to Keira and sat in her arms just as the red haired woman and brunette male walked in.

"Good to see you two made it," Ashelin said as she began showing them why they had been called this early. A holographic panel was placed in the center of the table before being turned on. An image of the late scientist Dr. Vincent appeared on it.

The two women looked at each other before looking at the two leaders. "What's going on?" Keira inquired.

"What's going on is that we're being invaded and nobody knows where the demolition duo are!" the image yelled at the two women.

Prince's jaw dropped. 'No freakin' way,' he thought in shock.

"Vin!" both girls yelled.

"You're alive!" Keira yelled happily, her face beaming with joy.

"Sort of," the scientist answered. "You see, during the metal head attack months back, I dumped all my knowledge and basically everything in my brain into the grid. By doing so, it was picked up by the remnants of an ancient and dying artificial intelligence. My knowledge and brain power gave the AI the energy it needed in order to produce one last burst of energy. That energy picked up everything I dumped into the grid and created what you see before you. So technically I am, but I am not at the same time, Dr. Vincent; but for all sake of argument, please call me Vin." The AI gave them a friendly smile.

Prince really wanted to laugh. In other words the old AI had taken the data that was Vin combined it with itself to create a whole new AI entity. It was really interesting, but he supposed that all life wanted to survive, AI's included.

"That's really amazing Vin," Keira said with a grin, the gears in her mind wanting to ask so many questions.

"Now, who are we being invaded by?" Ashelin asked. "You contacted us, now tell us what's going on."

"Scary as always Goveness," Vin stated cheekily. "I've been sending probes through the system for months when I noticed several spy probes. They were old, as in ancient," he said worriedly. "So I began to follow where they came from and found old spy satellites. We don't have satellites in orbit of our own because we've used the old precursor one's ever since we discovered them. So I was surprised to find one we didn't know about. This one sent messages through deep space, past our solar system. That's when I found it. A ship called the daystar. Now I recall reading about this ship in my mythology days and it was said to have been the ship of the dark ones and that Mar had fought them several hundred years ago, but they had escaped on their last ship; the daystar."

"Now they're back," Torn said with a groan in his voice.

Just then an explosion in the air rocked the palace. Looking outside they saw a huge ship take position above the city. Large laser canons began to fire upon the city shield in an attempt to weaken it.

"Fools!" Vin yelled. "The make-up of the shield has changed. I no longer draw power from the fusion reactors, nor the generators for the shielding system," he grinned. "This city is sitting on top of a huge volcanic crater that's been steadily growing and about to destroy the city in a huge explosion, something I warned your father about. Thankfully my tendril tubes have been able to convert the energy of the lava below our feet into pure energy that can be converted to be used in the shield wall. Not only am I drawing power from that but the dark eco lakes in both Haven Forest and in the nearby mountains is being pulled into the shield wall through ancient mines that have ancient precursor facilities in them that is converting the dark eco into another energy source!"

"You've been busy Vin," Keira assessed. The AI beamed at this.

Torn saw two more ships crash in the nearby Haven Forest. Frowning he looked towards Ashelin. "Looks like we have ships crashing now," he told her.

The palace support beams suddenly began shaking causing the palace to shutter. "What was that!?" she demanded.

Torn took his comm out. "Report!" he yelled into it. . "Who's attacking the palace!?"

"Unknown!" came Dicken's voice over the comm.

"I've found plasmite bombs attached to three of the four support beams!" Jinx yelled through the comms.

"We have metal heads coming in from the gardens!" Taryn's frantic voice came over the comms.

"On it!" Vin yelled. "Get people out of there. They have thirty seconds before I activate the barriers!"

The group of four quickly ran out of the room. Ashelin pulled the evacuation button on the wall causing a loud klaxon to begin blaring. They ran to the elevator and began to ascend to the roof. Once there the four quickly climbed into the Freedom Fighter elite cruiser. Torn grasped the steering stick as the others got into the seat next to him. The cruiser took off just as the fourth support beam exploded. The cables began snapping instantly. Steering the cruiser out of danger, Torn brought it to hover mode as they suddenly saw a light fill the area. Down below were the ancient catacombs that had been built over a millennia ago.

Prince peered down over the cruiser's side from Keira's shoulder. It had been a long time since he'd seen those. He swallowed thickly and hoped that they wouldn't need to reveal the secrets that were hidden within those dark ancient halls.

M-Angel: Yay, another wonderful chapter. Sorry it took a month to update, but February was a very stressful month for me and my family. Hope everyone understands.