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** CHAPTER 54** The Third Offense Part IV

The fierce battle could be seen from millions of kilometers away. A beautiful spectacle of lights and sparks hid the deadly reality behind it.

Zonda's team fought fiercely against the machine forces. The spheres consumed most of their efforts, but now they were facing an even worst threat. Minutes after the spheres swarmed the battlefield and landed in both Canis Major and R105, the Retcans encountered something they hardly expected.

"I have something else on screen, General!" Newt, the female Retcan fighter pilot adverted Zonda. It took a while for Zonda to respond. All of them had their hands full, trying to destroy as many spheres as possible.

"What is it?" Zonda managed to respond.

"General, I think we have a greater problem to worry about. I see something big approaching us. I'm sending you the details."

Zonda received the data and he could hardly believe what he saw. It was a massive fleet consisting of three ships as big as R105. But even worse was the huge number of what appeared as fighter ships. That was the only way to interpret it due to how they moved.

"Be alert team! We have more hostile ships approaching!" It was frustrating. Zonda and his team were completely outnumbered by those spheres. Even though they were not attacking their ships, they had to be stopped from reaching R105 and Canis Major; task that was proving to be next to impossible and that was already a failure since many managed to go through their defenses, including the larger breaching ships.

It didn't take long before they had a visual. It was not like with the spheres. These objects were larger and darker, though equal in numbers.

"Commander, this is General Zonda speaking. We have hostile fighter ships approaching!" Zonda informed after he managed to identify the approaching objects. "We have to withdraw the attack on the spheres and focus our attack on the fleet."

"This is Titan. We can't... we have been... Please take care of the situation, Zonda!" Titan barely managed to respond.

"I need Team Epsilon out on space now!" Zonda demanded, interrupting Titan.

"Zonda, they have breached R105..." Behind the static, the nervous Retcan responded.

These words chilled Zonda to the bone; a feeling of despair as he had never felt since he went through the incident in that dreadful rock of dirt know as Harena Sanguis. The situation was graver than he could even realize.

"Darn it! How did they manage to breach one of the ships so fast?"

The machines were not the same of thirteen years ago. These monsters had a brutal strategy based in numbers. R105 had underestimated the capabilities of these machines to evolve after so many years. Now they were facing one of the most serious and deadly battles any R Series cruiser had ever encountered.

"Alright everyone, R105 has its own problems to deal with right now so we are no getting any help. I expect from all of you to do your best in this battle. We will divide in two for now. I want half of you to take care of the incoming spheres. The rest of us will take care of the machine fighter ships. Let's move it!"

As if destroying the spheres wasn't already a failure with their current number, the team now split in half. But Zonda knew that fighter ships were a greater threat. He tried not to think about the machines already breaching R105 and hoped that Team Epsilon was managing to hold on in the hangar. Besides, there should be a point were the machines stopped sending spheres.

It didn't take long until the machine fleet finally reached the battlefield. It was frightening to see that for every S Series fighter there were at least ten or twenty machine fighter ships.

By Lusceonis... this is bad... Zonda thought. Judging by the numbers even though not knowing what the machines were capable of, or how strong those ships were, he knew their chances might be very slim.

"Brothers, this is it. The real fight has begun." Zonda spoke to his team more calmly. "Divert the maximum amount of energy permitted to the shields. And my brothers, fight strong and fearless."

As soon as the S Series Retcan fighters were engulfed by a blue glare, they furiously charged at the machine fleet.

As they approached the enemy, Zonda and his team noticed something disconcerting. The fighter ships of the machines were morbidly identical to their own S Series and the Evocanis version, the Wolf500. However, the machine's fighter ships were distant from the perfect and smooth finish of both space mammals' version and rather rough in design; almost as if they were built from scraps.

"What is this?! They copied our technology?" Various Retcans were heard in the open channel, confused by what they saw.

"Forget about he ship's appearance. Destroy them!" Zonda barked at his team.

Retcans were low in numbers, but they were strong and relied heavily in their ability and their ship's defenses. It would take quite a few direct hits before the S Series really felt the damage.

Zonda was already engaging in a fight with three machine fighters. These ships were as agile as their own.

Zonda tried to acquire his target, but bursts of enemy fire from other sides kept him from doing so. The machines fought at their same level, even anticipating their movements. It was if they knew Retcan strategies.

"You are not getting the best of me, automaton!" Zonda yelled furiously. In an outstanding maneuver, he was able to dodge two of the three fighter ships that already had managed to position themselves behind him.

Zeroing in other machine fighter ships around him, he used them as a shield, flying erratically between them to confuse the ones behind and managed to regain his offensive position behind these.

"I will not go easy on you, scrap monsters! Plasma canons, activated!" Zonda went all out with the strongest weapon on board an S Series. A cluster of compressed plasma material encased in a special warhead was shot from his ship, heading at lightning-fast speed and directly to his enemy. It was a direct hit.

The strong explosion was even felt inside Zonda's ship, even through the vacuum of space. The hit was strong enough to affect two other machine fighter ships close by. He saw something loosing control, but couldn't confirm if they were pieces of the destroyed ship or what.

As he passed by the area of the impact, he had a glance of the very ship he had hit. It wobbled all around in a complete loss of control. But shocked, Zonda confirmed that the ship was intact. All around the machine fighter ship, a green glare flickered for a moment and then it disappeared again. The ship regained control and continued on its rampage.

"No!" Zonda yelled furiously inside his ship; so much that his wounds reminded him of his condition. This certainly was a very bad situation.

"They have shielding systems!" One of the Retcans yelled. This was confirmed by many others that had failed to do any damage when managing to hit their enemy.

And their shielding systems were very strong if they were capable of withstanding a direct hit from a plasma canon. The machine fighter ship did receive some damage, but it would take a couple of hits to make its shielding system fail. And the Plasma Clusters were limited in each S Series.

"Use the E.M.P cannons to disrupt their shields and then hit them with the laser guns!" Zonda ordered his team. It was a risky move. The E.M.P used a lot of energy from the ship's main source and that meant that there was so much they could use it before the emergency lock would kick in to prevent the ship from draining its Blue Crystal.

"Engaging E.M.P canon... Target acquired... Fire!" A blue sphere of pure electro-magnetic energy fired from Zonda's ship and slowly homed in toward an enemy ship. The enemy fighter ship did all it could to avoid it, but there was no way to escape Zonda's impeccable aim. As soon as the electro-magnetic pulse made contact, a bright white light surrounded the ship.

Shield Undetected Could be read in Zonda's H.U.D.

"Let's see how well you have copied our ships!" Zonda pushed on the accelerator lever and the twin exhausts of his ship roared, leaving a trail of glittering blue particles. He was heading directly to the enemy ship he had just disrupted the shields of. With a quick three round burst from his laser canons aimed directly to the ship's exhaust ports, the ship's back end exploded into thousands of metallic shards and pieces. The enemy ship then precipitated out of control and hit many others that flew around the area. Without its shields engaged, hitting the other shielded ships was like hitting a solid wall. The ship separated in half and all its pieces dispersed in the area, floating lifeless in the vacuum of space.

Zonda briefly smirked due to his achievement, but he knew this probably meant nothing. But seeing one of the enemy ships destroyed after that simple attack sure raised his morale.

Most Retcans managed to take down various enemy ships, but it wasn't long until something very wrong started to happen.

"It's a miss!" Some Retcans reported.

"Something's wrong, I can't hit it!" Others added.

Zonda didn't want to believe it until he once again aimed for another enemy ship. Following the same tactic, his aim was flawless and hit dead center on his target. But something unbelievable happened.

"What? No, this can't be possible!" He yelled furiously. The E.M.P had hit its target; there was no doubt about it. The shot couldn't be better executed. But the pulse had simply bounced off the enemy's shield.

One try after another, the powerful shield-disrupting E.M.P bounced off its target as if it was a harmless and intangible ball of light.

"Titan, we need your help! Our attacks with the E.M.P are completely ineffective!" Zonda asked for help. He knew the situation in R105, but there was no choice other than asking for assistance of an Engineering Scientist.

"Zonda, what is the problem?" A very worried Titan replied. The interference in the communications was worst than before and Zonda could notice a greater fear invading his brother Retcan. All sorts of alerts and alarms could be seen and heard in the background.

"Our E.M.P canon is not working. The pulse is bouncing off the enemy shields!"

"What? No!" It took time for Titan to think of the possible cause of why the E.M.P was not working, but soon he thought of a theory. "Cobalt, analyze the polarity of the enemy's shields!"

Cobalt body shook in fear due to the chaos in R105. But she kept as strong as she could. Every now and then, an intense tremor and even more alarms going off made them loose their footing. But they needed to stay as calm as possible to keep control of the situation.

"Cobalt!" Titan demanded. A large explosion startled everyone at the bridge. They tried not to think what was going on down at the hangar.

"Titan, I got it!" The blue furred Retcan replied. "The polarity has been shifted! They probably found a way to adjust their shields on demand to match the polarity of our E.M.P. That's why it's repelling it."

"I heard that!" Zonda replied. His image flickered for a bit after his ship was being fired at. But he kept on talking with R105. "Do you have an idea of how we can deal with this, Titan?"

"We would have to shift the polarity of the E.M.P. But unfortunately that's impossible onboard the S Series." Titan replied. His voice was trembling in disappointment not only because this lowered the expectancies for his brothers fighting in space, but because he couldn't take off his mind the thought that his friends and his sister were giving their lives for the ship at that moment.

"You are telling me that we can't fight these monsters that already outnumber us?" Zonda yelled back. The little hope that he had was now replaced by dismay.

"I can try and do something, Zonda. But it will take time due to our systems not even working at half of their full capacity. I can access the S Series computers from here and change the polarity in the E.M.P."

"Do it then!"

"Zonda, I will have to ask you to please hold as much as you can. Try to keep the energy reserves leveled. Avoid as much hits as possible."

"I trust you, brother. Please do what you can." Zonda placed all his confidence in his best friend. The lives of all the Retcans that fought in space depended on Titan's efficiency.

"Alright everyone, change of plans." Zonda ordered his team. "Commander Titan will take care of the problem, but it will take some time. I want all of you to distract the enemy for as long as you can. I repeat, distract the enemy for as long as you can. We can't afford to waste our ships' energy or ammo."

The situation was critical. Every time the shields received a hit, the shield hardened its strength to protect from the attack. This hardening, even though just for a fraction of a second, took a huge amount of energy from the Blue Crystal. That was the reason why the shield had its limit. Using special weapons such as the E.M.P also puts a huge strain on the Crystal, diminishing the effectiveness of the shield.

Zonda's team did nothing but dodge the enemy attacks and occasionally attacked back to keep pressure on the machines. But avoiding to get hit when their enemy outnumbered them almost ten-fold was an impossible task.

"My shield is at 56% and decreasing!" A Retcan informed after he was hit by the enemy. Others were in the lower 40's. After fighting for almost twenty minutes Zonda started to fear for his team. The idea of loosing someone was unbearable. They weren't only his team mates, they were his friends; his Retcan brothers.

"What is taking so long, Titan!?"

Minutes passed and the situation didn't get any better. Titan did what he could to invert the polarity in the E.M.P cannons which it was by itself a very complicated task through the agonizing computer of R105.

But just when they thought things couldn't get worse, something else added to the already critical situation. It was a confusing image in the radar of those who could manage to pay attention to it. Another two large objects seemed to be approaching from their flanks. Their speed was very low, but they weren't stopping.

"What s that?!" Many Retcans started to have a visual on at least one of the objects.

"General, we have a problem." Newt, the female Retcan who was temporarily assigned second in command of Zonda's team advised him. "Two more ships approaching at 3 and 9 'o clock from my position. They are big, General!"

Zonda had already noticed it too. And by the time most of his team had devised it, those objects were already flying across the battlefield.

"General, those massive ships are above us now!" Another Retcan yelled afraid.

Zonda didn't have any words anymore. He watched how these strange and massive cylindrical unidentified objects flew slowly from their flanks until they finally flew past by below and above them.

Those ships never stopped.

Oh no...

Horrible things came to Zonda's mind when he watched these ships fly all the way to where Canis Major and R105 were, finally taking a resting place above the two ships. The ships flew horizontally and parallel to both R105 and Canis Major, but later they adopted a vertical position, perpendicular to the two ships.

What were these things? Their size was maybe just a hundred of a fraction of Canis Major, but almost half the size of R105. Zonda's reaction was to advise R105 immediately, so he did.

"I just confirmed what you said, Zonda." Titan replied confused. The objects could be seen static above both ships, as if waiting for something.

"Running a scan, Commander." Cobalt diligently assessed the situation. "It will take a few more seconds."

True to her word, less than a minute she had some information on these strange objects.

"What is it, Cobalt?" Titan demanded. Seeing Cobalt step back noticeably scared and also directing her sight to the ceiling of the ship, told Titan that it was unfortunately something really bad.

"Cobalt!"

"Commander... I can't tell what they are. I just know they are starting to accumulate a massive amount of energy."

Titan's eyes were wide opened. An immense pressure in his chest made it impossible for him to breathe freely. He knew that this could only mean one thing.

"Their intentions are to end this war fast and clean as possible." Titan uttered, not really speaking to anyone despite he looked at Cobalt right in her eyes.

"What do we do, Titan?" Cobalt had lost the very little strength she had. She stared at Titan, fearing for the uncertain fate that Evocanis and Retcans might suffer that day.

"Those objects are weapons. They will attempt to destroy us in one shot." Titan turned his sight to the screen, facing a desperate Zonda.

"What are you saying, Titan!?"

"Those things are accumulating energy at a steady rate. It's like if they are preparing to release it all at once."

"Can't you shoot them? Use R105 primary weapon!" Zonda yelled. He was doing all he could to split his attention to both Titan and the battle around him.

"I'm afraid we don't have control over our defense systems..." Titan had lost all his strength. He was leaning in a panel, face down. This could be the end for R105 and Canis Major. Who could've though it would come from those same machines they defeated so easily a decade go?

"Arg! Darn it!" A furious Zonda ended communications. He had nothing else to do with R105 right now. His job was finding a way to solve this situation no matter what happened.

"This is General Zonda speaking! Group B, forget about the spheres and follow me to where those objects are. We will destroy them no matter what! Group A do your best to keep the enemy fighter ships controlled. Move it team!"

Retcans were very brave to try and handle that situation with their noticeably inferior numbers. Half of Zonda's team headed their way thousands of kilometers where those objects were above Canis Major and R105. The priority was to save the majority, so they flew as fast as their ships could towards the Evocani's ship. Zonda didn't care anymore about the shields or how the machines outnumbered them. He was going to do whatever he could to destroy those objects and avoid the total extermination of a race.

"They have been in control all these years..." a defeated Titan said while still leaning in a control panel.

"No, wait!" Cobalt tried the best she could to keep her friend's morale high. She was afraid; she knew she wasn't strong to deal with such a situation. But she knew she had to do something to keep the hopes high. "There must be something else we can do! Let's not give up!" The blue furred Retcan yelled with tears on her eyes.

Titan just looked at her. He wanted nothing more than to tell her that everything would be okay. But he knew they had no chances of winning. The machines had outsmarted them. Underestimating them was a grave mistake.

"Wait..." Doko, who was probably as smart as or even smarter than Titan, suddenly thought of something. Titan's casual statement about the machines being in control all those years made so much sense.

"You are probably right, Titan. The machines have been in control all these years. They have been spying on us. Think of it; that's the only way they could've known about Zonda and Alpha, how they copied our ships, our defense systems, even how they know about our strategies."

"What's your point, Doko? We know this already. It's the most logical explanation." Titan responded harshly.

"What I'm saying is that if they knew all this, it's obvious that they are connected to our systems somehow. And if that's true, we could use it on our advantage."

Titan's eyes opened wide after that little hope that was given by his friend Doko.

As soon as this battle started, they immediately fell in disadvantage. Now that they were close to loosing it so fast, a tiny amount of hope filled again their spirit...