Whisper shed a tear. 'Damn,' she said with sorrow in her vocie. 'And I was just getting to know her, too.' She looked back out the doorway where Zoe had ran back out. 'I guess it's my job as usual to keep an eye on her, though I'm not sure my company will be enough for this time. She's lost a mother, essentially.'
'So did you,' Raiven said, his voice burdened.
Whisper looked away from him. 'This isn't the same thing... I... I guess it might be. Oh, I don't know,' she said frustratedly. 'Can't we have some good luck just for once? For just one god damned time?'
With that, she turned and left the room.
Raiven sniffed, turning to the others. 'We still have a mission to complete. There will be enough time for grieving when we're done.'
He hoped the others could realize this. Raiven walked up to the console to contact Omega. 'Omega, any sign of that ion cannon Zarcon was in possession of? His death probably made it useless, but there's no knowing that until we know exactly what it does.'
Isodor just sat in a seat in silence, whimpering to himself. 'Oh, what a crappy day.'
It couldn't get any worse, he thought to himself.
Not shortly after, the communicator beeped. An incoming signal. 'Athos, this is sergeant Barbary of the space police force, do you read? I repeat, this is sergeant Barbary contacting the Athos.'
Raiven's head could have fallen right off. 'Barbary?!'
- - -
'Where the hell is our back-up?' Cried one of the soldiers to his comrade. Clad in a suit of dark blue, the defenders of the dwarf planet turned outpost Pluto were fighting a vicious fight against a Kre'Iax warship. They had been the first victim of the Kre'Iax, in their attempt to cut off communication with Earth... which had guaranteed a stealthy and precise attack on the humans home planet.
With that task a success, all that was left was to eradicate the pesky human pests that tried desperately to hold onto this tiny worthless rock. Massive beams of light struck the surface from a massive warship just above Pluto, sending chunks of rock and soldiers flying through the air.
The soldiers sergeant threw him another clip. 'There's no back-up, damn it. Keep shooting and pray to whatever god you worship!'
'Oh man, we're all going to die. I knew I shouldn't have applied for this position!' Cried another soldier, hiding behind a small piece of rocky cover as Kre'Iax approached the main base station.
'Deal with it soldier!' The sergeant was getting fed up with these men. Though they fought well, all they could think about was defeat... that was not the human way! They would fight these invaders to the death, and pray for the safety of Earth. 'We still have a chance, so long as we live... and I intend to-'
KA-POW! The sergeant was thrown into the air as a missile struck his possition. He fell to the ground, lifeless.
'Sergeant!' Cried one of the soldier, running to his side as he dodged incoming laser shots.
'He's dead!' The cowering soldier shouted. 'We might as well surrender, we have no hope now.'
The other soldier closed the eyes of his fallen sergeant, and closed his eyes too. They needed a miracle if they were to all survive.
And then he opened his eyes, and saw it...
It was like a massive space station, beyond anything in this world... a collection of spires and platforms and architecture that shaped it like a small planet. A horrifying sight, a massive spiked machine that flew through space, and yet seemed so close to them.
Several smaller vessels flew all around it in a formation. By small, these ships would have been individually fifty times the size of the biggest battleships in the known galaxy.
...And there were hundreds of them. One of these behemoths... shaped like a long battle-cruisers with a Gothic design, and what seemed to be some sort of temple as its bridge... struck the Kre'Iax vessel like it was a small bug hitting a windscreen. The Kre'Iax warship slid across the side in several broken pieces, many of which struck Pluto shortly after like meteorites.
'Holy sh--' the soldier said to himself as the gathering passed them.
The Kre'Iax fighters on the ground had seen it, too... and took it as a bad omen, for they began to retreat. The soldier gestured to the other men. 'Now is our chance to strike back!'
The others were weary and reluctant, but still this one man continued. 'The enemy run for their lives, are we not men as to strike under the miracle of god himself?'
Some of the men cheered. 'Let us take back this barren soil, for mother Earth!'
'For mother Earth!'
- - -
'Hmm, I wonder what that was,' a tall, cloaked figure said to another as he sat in a large throne like chair.
'Probably just another asteroid, my lord,' a small hunched rat like creature said, also clad in robes in a similar matter to a priest. He carried a short staff with a double barred cross upon its tip.
The chair in which the cloaked figure sat rotated around a massive glowing orb, connected to an axis that allowed him full rotation around the crystal. 'A warship, I believe. How petty, our Overlord would be most displeased if one of the Behemoths were to be damaged by a piece of scrap metal.
'Shall I contact one of the other Behemoths to inspect ours?'
'No, it will not be necessary, Saint Tirinius. I will speak with her myself.'
'As you wish, my lord.' The rat creature bowed, and left the massive spherical room.
The cloaked figure focused into his crystal. 'Mother Suffering, are you well?'
'Of course, my lord,' replied the vessels spirit, a echoed female voice that sounded cold and hollow. 'I have fought through asteroid storms, battled against thunderous nebulae, and survived the civil war... a small piece of scrap is of no worry to me.'
'Very good then.' The figure leaned back in his seat and rotated a little.
'You need not worry, Lord Kain,' the female voice said gently, yet still in a hollow voice. 'I am quite fine.'
The figure in the chair simply nodded.
'Is all well, Lord Kain?' Mother Suffering asked.
The figure nodded slowly. 'All is well, Mother. It is only that... well... I have not been in the Sol system for a long time...'
'Indeed, Kain. It had been so long since I was first gifted to you as a child, to serve as my captain... and I as your eternal vessel... and you gone far, Lord.'
Kain nodded solemnly. 'Nearly two thousand years since I was taken from Earth,' he replied, gazing through the crystal as if it were far in the distance. 'It has changed much since I was last here, it seems. Sad that it still seems to toil with war, pain and suffering... but such is the human way.'
'You need not worry yourself, Lord Kain. We have merely come here to collect what we left behind all those years ago, and then we shall be gone.'
The figure nodded, removing his hood to reveal a pale horrid skinned human face, with gleaming red eyes that stared outwards coldly. 'Earth will not be missed.'