I immediately run to the doors and open them.
"Stay here" I say as I lock the doors. "I need to see what's going on." As I walk away from the gym, I press the intercom button on my wrist pad. "What's the news" I ask to no one in particular, a man replies:
"We're under attack" he says, frantic.
"Well I know that, but what exactly is happening?" I ask impatiently "is it the norm?"
"Standby, who is this?" The man replies.
"I'm General Will Hardstriker"
"Oh god! Sorry general, um.. We have reports of a fleet of exiled ships." He says. I am immediately worried, they've never sent a whole fleet before, we need to stop this.
"What are the numbers?" I ask
"Roughly seventy five" he replies. I swear under my breath.
"Roger that" I leave the intercom and head for my suit. I make it to the bridge, my suit is stored below deck.
"Captain" I say to the captain "order the fleet to be dispersed, protect the colony ships at all costs."
"Yes sir" the captain replies. I head below deck and suit up. I press the button on the wall, creating a hole in the floor. I drop out through a long tube, eventually out the bottom of the ship. I quickly survey the scene. Our fleet is forming a blockade, with all the colony ships behind it. Dads picture pops up on the screen to my bottom left. He's in the massive bridge of the Spirit of Fire.
"I've sent all Sabres and frigates out, draw their fire" Dad orders. I fly in the direction of their ships. I'm immediately being targeted by most of the ships. They send multiple fighters out of the command ships. I look behind my to see our whole fleet backing me up. I use my energy cannons to take out a few ships, but I'm outnumbered at least 1000-1. I pull up and start looping around, I have an idea.
I fly at one of the ketches, and smash through the hull. At least 4 dozen fighters pursuing me don't pull up in time and crash into the ship. Causing a massive fireball. Soon the once peaceful zone turns into a hail of gunfire, the fleets here. I watch as exiled and friendly ships blow up. I see the macs on the frigates open fire, the charged rounds wreaking havoc on the Exiled fleet. For every ship of ours they take, we take 10 of theirs, I watch as silent explosions fill space. I take out as many ships as I can. I smash through one and blow up four more in the process with my energy cannons and machine guns. I fly at a larger ship and fly clean through like a meteor. I see a group of Sabres being overpowered by exiled ships. I fly to the scene, turning the 40 something ships into balls of fire. I spin and twist and shoot, picking as many off as I can. I turn around to see an enemy ship about to slam into me. I get hit, hard. But the ship blows up on impact, I don't budge. Nice try bitch. I think to myself.
"Dad, order all ships to open fire, I'm going to go defend the colony ships." I explain.
"Roger that" dad replies. I fly up and around our blockade and activate my radar. I get a warning behind me and see a small ship with a dozen fighters fly around the blockade. I take two fighters out with my energy cannons, then another few with my machine guns. I fly up to the small ship, it's about 100 feet long, I ram into it with my shoulder, when I come out the other side, I open fire on the remaining ships. I see few more squads appear over the line of ships, with Sabres pursuing them. I destroy some with my guns, then the Sabres take the rest out.
"Dad, put an active number of ships they have" I ask
"Ok" he says, at the bottom of my vision, a small picture of their small fighters appear, then a picture of their large cruisers, and same with our fleet. Our numbers drop about every few seconds. Theirs drop a few every second, but they have 4 times as many ships as we do.
"Do you need backup?" I ask, hoping they don't.
"No, but the, Eisenhower is taking heavy fire, we can hold them off." Shit, the Eisenhower is a crucial part in our fleet. If we lose it, there will be a problem.
"Are the Macs charged up?" I hear dad ask, I know he's not talking to me. Mac stands for magnetic accelerator cannon, energy cannons that are more powerful than nukes.
"Yes" someone replies.
"Fire!" Dad commands. I look at the bottom of my vision, their cruisers drop from 77 to 56, then 36. Our first wave of fires halves their numbers. A bright flash comes from the left side of our fleet. A ketch smashes through a frigate.That was a mistake. I think. I shoot over to the scene, dodging and twisting. I slam into the tip of the ship, causing it to peel open from the front like a banana. I come out the back, looking back at what used to be a spaceship. I loop back around, ripping whatever ships that come through to shreds. As I fly away from all of the debris, I see a squadron of 7 exiled ships flying towards the colony ships. I manage to pick off 6 with my energy cannons, but it's to late. I watch in horror as A ship crashes into the Mayflower. But it doesn't hit the surface, I see a faint blue ripple move away from the impact site.
Electromagnetic shields, sweet.
"Dad, do all of the colony ships have shields?" I ask he presses a few buttons and without looking at me he replies.
"All of them but one" wait, one doesn't have a shield?
"Which one doesn't have a shield?"
"I'll mark it on your screen" he types something on his control board. Every ship turns blue except one, which turns red. Common sense tells me that the red one doesn't have a shield, so I fly through the swarm of colony ships and behind the un-shielded one. Switching my vision to radar, I can see all of the enemy ships as red silhouettes, and ours blue. I spot a few squadrons coming, I fly over the top of the ship and rain hell on them.
"Will, I need you to cover the evac ships coming from the fleet. These ships hold all of the non battle important civilians. You have a group of Sabres to help you." A group of ships turns green, the evac ships. I pass over the top of the colony ship, I see a large group of Emergency Evacuation boats (not really boats but you get my drift) otherwise known as E boats surrounded by Sabres. The rear is the most vulnerable point in the group, so it makes sense to cover up there. Not many enemy ships attack us, the ones that do are blown to bits by the Sabres missiles. The group makes it to the Mayflower hangar section. The Sabres and I peel off as the E boats board the massive colony ship. I glance at the numbers of ships, victory is close. Only about 400 enemy fighters and 17 command ships. An idea pops up in my head, if the command ships are gone, the fighters don't have any strategy.
"Dad, tell everyone to focus fire on the command ships" although he's probably already thought of it, I recommend it anyway. Suddenly, as I'm flying back to the I shielded colony ship, an extremely bright flash covers my field of view. A few seconds later, an extremely powerful force hits me and sends me flipping back into space. I regain control and notice something is missing, the Eisenhower. Chunks of debris fly in all directions. Once I finally realize what happened, it's too late. The enemy ships are turning around, they weren't trying to take us out, they were trying to get rid of our command. The exiled, as they turn around, are ripped apart. None of them make it out, but the damage has been done.