Chapter 14 – This is the Way the World Ends
#10 of Genesis
Chapter 14 â€" This is the Way the World Ends
The skies over Serion blazed a bright red as its largest sun-set, just below the horizon, casting a bright pink aura across the clouds over the lake along the mountain side.
Sitting side by side was Ryan and Skye, bonding, they had missed so much of each other's lives, and they had to catch up.
The two boys were sitting on the out crop of a large rock face, which was sitting just on the shores of the massive lake; the lack of shadows behind them indicated the sun had technically set. Skye had his right arm draped around his brother's neck, the soft rhythmic beating of his heart and rising chest calming him.
"It's been an amazing couple of days," Ryan remarked, "well, except for... you know." He frowned, thinking of how he acted and the emotions which had taken control of him, allowing the crater, which used to be Joey's facility to have been created.
"There is a master plan for us all, we have a time to live and a time to die," Skye sighed, "It clearly wasn't our time and for that I'm thankful."
"How are we going to determine when Joey's going to attack next?" Ryan asked.
"Way to kill the mood!" Skye laughed, shoving Ryan.
"Sorry!" Ryan grinned, "I didn't know we had moods, I thought you were just a dick all of the time!" He said grinning.
"Oh yeah?" Skye laughed, shooting a tiny flame at his brother.
Ryan swiped his hand through the air, causing the flames to flicker and follow the wind he had created around in long wisps.
"Good thing two can play this game!" Ryan giggled, his laugh intoxicating Skye.
"What would I have done if I had never met you?" Skye sighed.
"Probably would ‘a become a soft little weakling," Ryan laughed once more.
"I'll show you soft!" Skye replied, lunging at his brother, knocking him backwards onto the rock face, Skye lying on top.
Ryan grinned; the most beautiful boy alive had just tackled him, his perfect golden locks framed by the sun's last dying rays.
"This is soft!" Skye laughed, leaning in kissing his brother passionately, and then breaking the kiss.
"Well, in that case, maybe I should have never come and been found!" Ryan smiled.
"But then again, maybe I like the soft Skye!" Ryan whispered.
"You should, cause there's only one of me!" Skye smiled, leaning over once more, kissing his brother.
They continued this until something finally did break the mood; Becka appeared on a holo pad on the rock, her arms crossed.
"Skye, what are you doing?" she asked with a smirk.
"Catching up with Ryan," Skye said with a grin.
"Well I truly am sorry for interrupting you're catching up, but we need you, both of you, now!" Becka stated.
"What's wrong?" Skye asked.
"Just get in here, NOW!" her voice echoed off the calm lake.
"Okay, we're on the way!" Skye sighed.
The two boys faded into their orbs of their element, drifting through the rocks and matter itself and appearing within the base, to a rather urgent looking Serina on the main Holo pad.
"What's wrong, why the rush?" Skye asked.
"Well we figured out where Joey is and why he disappeared, he wasn't even on the planet's surface when the Lab blew sky high, he was in a station." Spencer reported.
"What do you mean?" Skye asked.
"Well, it seems that Joey's built himself a rather large space weapon, it's main capacitors alone can level any Earth-like planet in a matter of minutes, it shoots a laser through the planet to the core, once it hits that, it will spread through plates and fissures and then blow the planet." Serina explained, showing this information in a 3D image on the screen.
"What's the plan?" Becka asked.
"I'd say, we go destroy that station! Skye suggested.
"It's not that easy I'm afraid!" Serina explained, "There is something more urgent here on the planet that needs to be taken care of!"
"What else is there?" Ryan asked.
"This base you made, it was me who instructed you to make it, I tuned into your neural frequencies when you first got here. Your conscious minds and powers re-awoken my systems, and I had to get you guys ready to stop this new threat." Serina started.
"What about it?" Skye asked.
"It's a ship, the nanites you started to have build things, I re-programmed to bring this old base back to standards, it's fully functional, even our slip space drive, we just need to get this base up as well as destroying Joey's planetary weapon." Serina explained.
"So we need to break up into two teams?" Spencer replied.
"Yes, and I need Skye and Ryan to stay here, I'll use their powers to get our shields up and running as well as getting the power to the slip space power we need.
"I'm staying with Skye!" Alex replied, his intentions clear.
"You need to be with Spencer and Evan, since Lucas is still out of commission." Serina countered.
"But..." Alex started, but was cut off by a glare from Serina.
Skye walked over to Alex kissing him lightly, before speaking in a low voice, "No matter what happens, you've gotta be ready to fight, this is it! We're going to kill Joey once and for all, and I need you to be ready for anything... even, if one of us dies, we have to move on with our lives, right?"
"Yeah, I understand, but don't worry nothing's going to happen!" Alex held Skye briefly before turning to the others, "Let's do it!"
Three days later the boys were suited up in their newly improved infiltration equipment, compliments of Serina.
Skye and Ryan were in the core room, each sitting in a chair ready to use their powers, their young bodies prepped for the worst.
Meanwhile, Spencer, Alex and Evan were in the shuttle bay â€"what additions had been built in the last few weeks were amazing, the ships themselves, hadn't been built until mere days ago, the nanites still building the interiors.
Serina had made many preparations in the last few hours alone; she had built the rest of the control systems that would allow them to fly and the programming for the computers and their new AI data bank, which now housed Becka and Serina.
Becka was responsible for team monitoring while Serina was 100% dedicated to the running of the base at the moment.
"Commence operation Star shot in 30 seconds," Serina's voice sounded through the com systems.
"Orbit team, status green," Spencer reported.
"Base ops, Green," Skye confirmed.
"Commence operations orbit team good luck..." Serina replied.
Orbit Team â€" Mission time 00:10
The doors to the shuttle bay in the mountain opened, the bright sunlight glancing off the sharp edges of the frigateprowler hybrid, it runs mainly un-detectable, and can fire ten times more effectively than a prowler.
"This ship is sweet!"| Evan exclaimed, as the control schematics was beamed into his neural interface, teaching him thousands of commands in seconds.
"Yeah, well let's keep our heads in the game," Spencer suggested, sitting in the captain's chair, the only other chair was built for Alex who was manning weapons.
"You ready to go?" Spencer asked.
"Aye sir," Alex replied.
"Take us into low orbit, as much stealth as possible," Spencer ordered.
"Aye, we're at thirty-seven percent burn and entering upper atmosphere," Alex confirmed.
"Evan, you ready with point defence lasers?" Spencer asked.
"Aye, fully charged, ready to go!" Evan answered.
"They're charging weapons, but have no locks on us," Becka appeared on the holo pad.
"You're sure they don't have a lock?" Spencer asked his AI.
"Positive, they're just charging defensive weapons, paranoid?" Becka asked.
"We'll see, get us into firing position Evan, Alex get our shields ready to rise when we switch to weapons hot." Spencer ordered.
"Aye, we're ready," Alex and Evan both confirmed their systems and prepped for weapons hot.
"We're now within weapons range," Becka warned.
"Begin fire sequence, weapons hot, fire tubes 1-24," Spencer ordered.
"Aye," Evan shouted, "Firing."
"Shields are up and holding, camo fading out," Alex reacted.
"They're launching counter measures," Becka warned, "Countering now,"
"Fire point defence lasers!" Spencer ordered.
"Firing, targeting their main defence projectors," Alex shouted.
"They're charging another weapon," Becka warned.
"Not their main one!" Spencer gawked.
"No, but it's defiantly something," Becka warned.
A few seconds later the bow of the space weapon began to glow a bright white... a few seconds later a massive pulse of energy shot forward on a planned path.
"Where's it going?" Alex asked, as it flew past them.
Spencer heard it across the com, "They've fired secondary weapons, projected course, alpha base!" Serina warned.
"Are their shields up?" Spencer asked nervously.
"Not readying them," Alex said his heart racing.
"Shields aren't deploying, manual power being drawn." Serina told Becka.
The blast of white energy turned a pale tint of red as it passed through the atmosphere, and like a graceful blast of destruction, impacted the mountain containing alpha.
"Reading direct hit sir!" Evan shouted.
"Send a com message, anything!" Alex panicked.
"Reading nothing, not even Becka," Evan reported.
"Show me!" Spencer ordered.
On the main screens of the ship, the planet's surface where the mountain had once stood now a massive crater remained and a massive cloud of dust, which was reaching the lower atmosphere.
There was a click on the radio, and then it died, just static.
"They can't be gone!" Alex almost broke down.
"Reading a new contact, emerging from upper-atmosphere." Evan exclaimed.
On the main screen, the clouds of dust parted as a massive streamlined ship sliced through the atmosphere, a bright light as the sun's light hit the alloy armour.
"Sorry we lost you there, no signal in that dust, too much lead!" Skye's voice washed across the control room, where Alex sighed.
"Now, let's take this to them!" Skye commanded.
"Yes sir, happy to!" Spencer turned to Evan and Alex who nodded, firing everything they had.
The space around the newly created and freed ship began to glow a dull blue, then a bolt of highly charged matter erupted from the bow projector, slipping through space and washing across the shields of Joey's weapon.
"You think your new toy can stop me?" Joey's voice seemed cocky on the video feed.
"We will see," Ryan smirked, as they fired another plasma bolt, the energy washing over the shields, causing them to shimmer gold and collapse, allowing the missiles from the smaller vesicle to impact across the hull.
"We anticipated this, which is why I designed this weapon!" Joey laughed.
The weapon glowed red, its tip already hot, it was about to fire.
"How'd they charge it so fast?" Spencer wondered.
"Pre-charged and hidden?" Becka suggested.
"Target?" Spencer asked.
"Not us, the base, it looks," Becka replied.
The weapon fired at the base, the flamey-red plasma lurched into space and raced towards the base.
"Charging additional shields," Sarina warned, drawing extra power from Ryan who was pulsing electricity into the ships core from his dragon form's hands.
The plasma washed across the main shields of the base, the fire dissolving atoms from the layer of energy.
Skye closed his eyes, envisioning the area around the ship; he focused and hardened the atoms of the shield making it less vulnerable.
The plasma eventually cooled and dispersed, the matter returning to the vacuum of space.
"Nice work," Joey complimented, try this one!" he laughed as another blast of power, larger this time burst from the weapon, only this time it had a new target.
"It's targeted the Planet's surface, old Alpha base location." Becka alerted.
"Why there?" Alex asked.
"It's a deep place in the crust of the planet, easy access to the fissures caused by the plate tectonics; he's going for the core!" Skye realized.
"Fire on his ship, damage the controls or something!" Alex suggested.
The ships continued their attacks on one another as they slow moving planet destroying blob of plasma passed into the upper atmosphere.
"Why take out the planet?" Spencer wondered.
"What's the core contain here Serina?" Skye asked.
"It's almost the same as Earth, just higher uranium levels than usual," Serina reported.
"He's making a nuke!" Skye warned.
"We'll lose power, the EMP will wipe our equipment, and we don't have time to power off!" Alex shouted.
"Take out a section of his hull here!" Skye sent a target solution to Spencer, "we're going to make a hole in his EMP dampener."
The two ships fired point lasers and their own main batteries of plasma, the energy lurching into the wounded weapon.
"Reading hull breaches," Spencer reported.
"Good, let's see him escape that blast!" Skye exclaimed, "Becka, Serina, shut down his system controls, detonate his escape pods."
"Aye, hacking system now!" both AI's spoke softly.
A few seconds later there were a few clouds of flame on the screen as Joey was trapped aboard his own ship.
"I'll be honest, I didn't see that coming!" Joey sounded panicked.
"Planet detonation in thirty seconds, powering off computers, nanites and core!" Serina reported.
"That's not enough time!" Ryan replied.
The entire Alpha base suddenly went dark, systems cold, in an instant.
"How did you do that?" Skye asked.
"Part of the technology I improved, powering off can be important." Serina boasted.
"Our controls aren't responding," Spencer warned, "Alex is investigating!"
There was a loud bang, for sound to be made in space, there was a lot of particles in the vacuum to carry the waves; the surface of Serion emitted a bright golden light.
"Brace for impact!" Becka warned.
Joey navigated his weapon station so that the remaining EMP dampeners were between the planet and him, positioning him right between Spencer and the planet.
"I hate being in space," Skye slammed a table, which shattered beneath him, "you can't fight, you have to watch, science takes over for skill!"
Several rounds of fire erupted off Spencer's ship; he was firing; the missiles and cannons spluttering into the vacuum, the charges igniting the stations hull.
The station quaked and a section detached, the power core, the container exploding, the waves of energy washing across the shields of Spencer's ship, the waves of energy and mass pushed the ship away from the station, just far enough.
When the eruption of Serion, occurred, everything went white, screens for display sparked to static, losing all images.
The space station glowed red hot, the second and third hidden reactors detonating, enhancing the blast. The additional Plutonium and Uranium caused the explosion to collapse upon itself. The blast imploding, compacting into a black hole.
"A black hole!" Becka warned from her shielded AI holo pad data bank.
Spencer, Evan and Alex were just far enough, the blast from Joey's first core explosion had pushed them to a safe distance, the Alpha base was not so lucky; they were trapped in the gravity well.
The space station along with Joey dissolved into nothing, the particles being sucked into the advent horizon.
"We can't escape this one!" Becka sighed, "It's been an honour sir!" she saluted Skye and Ryan in the dimly lit room.
Skye pulled Ryan close; embracing his brother, they knew this was going to work out; luck was on their side, that's all they had.
"No matter what happens, I'll always love you!" Skye whispered to his brother, who had started sobbing.
Ryan weakly smiled, and they quickly kissed, before the ship entered the advent horizon, the energy ripping into the hull, exotic particles washing over the boys.
Everything went dark, the black hole collapsing in upon itself, and disappearing leaving Spencer and his crew in the dark... alone.
Skye and Ryan along with the rest of the ship... gone.
"I'll setup the beacons," Spencer said almost robotically, "Could be months until we get rescued."
"Years even," Alex corrected, quietly.
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That's it guys, or is it??? It's been like three years of writing this series, think I've got one more sequel to go? I might, never know... let's hear your thoughts!!!
[email protected].. Hope its been a great ride!!!
Tristan