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Chapter 8 â€" Worth Fighting For

"Men have no right to interfere with the plans with God's... and vice versa" - Ancient Philosophical Phrase.

Location: Tigris â€" Core Shaft

Diamond watched Eclypse out of the corner of his eye as they entered the long tube to climb up towards the Core Shaft. He had been very careful to not give away any signals of his identity. But somehow, he felt that Eclypse did not fully trust him and might be expecting an ambush.

When they reached the top of the ladder and opened the heavy metal hatch the led into the core they were greeted by an amazing sight. They were on the left side of a huge metal bridge that swept through radius of the massive and seemingly endless core shaft. At the end of the bridge was a large metallic cylinder that seemed to glow like a plasma reactor. It seemed to have been built up from the bottom of the shaft and work its way up to infinity.

"Amazing" exclaimed Eclypse as he climbed up from the ladder with Diamond behind him climbing up. "Is this actually the main reactor of this vessel? It looks far too huge and advanced to be Terran?"

Diamond glanced up at the reactor as well. He had seen many schematics of this vessel and had good understanding of what this ship was capable of but at the same time he had never actually seen it, or touched it for that matter.

Eclypse did not get or anticipate a response from Diamond as he walked along the causeway of the bridge to main core. Marvelling in its beautiful iridescent glow that it was putting out. To him it was like a star, a beautiful part of the heavens. He glanced at the control panel in from of the huge reactor that continued to pulse, unaware of his tampering.

"This is interesting..." started Eclypse as he read, without looking back at Diamond. "I can access whole computer records from here. This console seems to control most of the ship's automatic functions as well..."

He heard that click of a weapon behind him. He closed his eyes, expecting this as he read the file that he had just opened in front of him. Diamond's file with an included photograph.

"I would stay where you are." commanded Diamond, his voice all cynical and dark. "Now!

Put your hands up and toss your gun into the shaft!"

Eclypse slowly turned round, taking his gun from his holster and tossing it over the side and into oblivion. He knew somehow that this was going to happen, that he would be betrayed but he was glad that the others were all safe and waiting for him.

"President or Prophet?" asked Eclypse, turning to stare at Diamond.

"What?" snarled Diamond, his rifle firmly aimed at Eclypse's torso.

"What is your title... Diamond?" he asked again with the same firm determination as before.

"I guess I can be both..." he said smiling. He had no idea why Eclypse wanted to know this but it was fairly obvious that he had blown his cover. "Now... if you surrender the Terra Nova, your crew will not be harmed. You however have been specifically scheduled for execution."

Eclypse still stared at Diamond with complete indifference but he could feel the rage begin to burn inside of him. The urge to fight cancelling out his conscious thought but he decided against it for the moment.

"Look... Diamond don't be an idiot... the Asgard are evil, did you find out why they wanted me dead specifically?" he said at Diamond, trying hard to keep his calm.

"It is not my, or any mortals place to question a God" chanted Diamond, almost in a robotic manner. At that point, Eclypse began to feel it, a strange presence emanating from Diamond. It was similar to the shadow of a puppet master controlling a mannequin doll.

"They wanted me dead because I represent a threat to them... they built me... they thought they could control me. Diamond... YOU ARE TERRAN... How can you turn yourself against them so easily?" Eclypse started to rapidly lose his temper as the message was simply not getting through to him and he was trying to make Diamond understand that it was worth fighting for both Terra and Silmeria.

Diamond fired a volley at Eclypse. Eclypse was quick to duck as the bullets came rushing past his head and impacted into the core. This caused the whole ship to shake as the core blew out thousands of isograms of toxic plasma out into the shaft away from Diamond and Eclypse.

Eclypse still felt the presence of something inside Diamond, something that was directing him. Even possibly manipulating him against his own people. He remembered that same feeling with Odin had brought Eclypse to the mighty ship Asgard. He thought back of Freya... how he had abandoned her to Ada. How the Gods were manipulating him all along so that he would weaken Silmeria, leaving it for invasion again.

Perhaps he could save this one...

Eclypse rushed in, before Diamond had a chance to react and smacked him round the face. The core shaft was begin to shake wildly as more and more explosions made toxic gas leak out around the shaft. Main power began to fail as sparks flew around them and the lighting in the shaft was becoming weaker.

He took out a knife that he had kept hidden in his boot. Freya had given it to him "just in case" however that seemed like an understatement now. Eclypse had spent a year immersed in ancient texts about possession to find some way to heal Freya and separate her from Ada. Diamond was going to be his test subject.

He made two cuts into Diamond's white furry arms which allowed blood to trickle from them onto the floor. He got up and made similar incisions into his own wrists. He tried to remember the ancient words for the Sovereign's Rite, a powerful containment spell that was capable of separating the soul of an ethereal from a physical body.

"I call the name of the True Goddesses of Terra, Urd the watcher, Skuld the destroy and Verdandy the creator. Come forth and show me the seal of your righteousness."

As Eclypse chanted and pushed his hands up after cutting into the flesh with the knife, a large and complex seal formed around both him and Diamond. It shown a green light as it slowly picked up the unconscious Diamond as is by an invisible force.

"Cleanse this body, return his soul and..."

Diamond's body began to shake as he awoken, flicking his hair back and forth as if in considerable pain. He looked at Eclypse and shouted. "HEATHEN! YOU INVOKE ALL THAT IS EVIL AND CURSED!"

Eclypse ignored it and continued chanting as Diamond tried to escape the seal and thrashed about in the air.

"Shine your divine light upon the wretched soul that has taken his place!"

The bridge cracked under the pressure of the collapsing core, Eclypse had to work fast if he was to remove this unknown soul from Diamond's body.

"I'LL KILL YOU!"

"WRAITH BEGONE!" chanted Eclypse at the top of his voice as Diamond began to scream.

"YOU'LL DIE HERE!"

"WRAITH BEGONE!"

"YOU WON'T LAST..."

"WRAITH BEEGGOOONNNEEE!" He shouted at last as a glowing purple orb seemed to rip from Diamond's body, causing him to collapse on a heap on the floor. The seal around both of them began to fade as the purple orb transmuted into an female with a long, bent nose and repulsive features.

"Who are you?" asked Eclypse.

"Loki... Odin will hunt you down!"

The whole core began to collapse, heavy beams began to fall on the bridge. Eclypse realised that his time had ran out, he had to leave. He flipped out his communicator.

"Anna... can you do an emergency evac... with the teleporter?"

"Sure thing" said Anna over the end of the communicator which came through distorted and crackly. The image of Loki faded from view in the time Eclypse took to call for help but she had left Eclypse wondering how long Diamond had been influenced by her. It might have saved him from being responsible of the whole invasion.

The bridge started to collapse as a white light began to surround both Eclypse and Diamond, pulling Diamond away but Eclypse left standing on the bridge as the ship began to collapse around him.

Location: Terra Nova â€" Teleporter Room

"Have you tried boosting the signal" asked Anna. She gazed casually over the control console while staring at both Blackfire and Hy. They were attempting to get a lock on both Diamond and Eclypse so they could pull them away from danger. However the radiation leaking from the core had made it very hard to get a positive lock.

"What are you doing!?" shouted Hy as he watch Blackfire manipulating the teleporter control panel. Blackfire ignored him and kept working on the console, making it beep and chirp with every button that he pressed. He looked up, almost angrily at Hy as the Nova started shaking.

"By realigning the emittors, might boost the signal lock... we've gotta lock onto the guys in the core. Cutting through that much radiation would be a problem." he said without even looking up at Hy again.

"And...?" said Anna impatiently.

"I've almost done it!" said Blackfire, annoyed at everyone's impatience. "Gimme a sec... sheeze!"

"We can't stay here for much long" said Silver, coming through the communication speakers in the room. "The ship is beginning to go critical...Wait!?"

The Nova shook harder then previously that knocked both Anna and Hy off their feet. The teleporter chamber was only a very small room with two human-sized test tubes and a control panel in front of it.

"WHAT WAS THAT?" shouted Anna, climbing up to her feet.

"We have inbound hostile in the docking bay, baby"

Anna immediately grabbed her rifle and walked out the room. She would attempt to hold off the troops long enough for Blackfire and Hy to finish their engineering work.

"DONE!" shouted Blackfire. "Let's give it a try! Um... Fox! Power up the engines and get us out of here... I'll do it as we move!"

"The odds of that are extremely low!" shouted Hy back at Blackfire who turned round, a little smoke oozing from his jaw.

"Don't tell me the odds... DO IT! The ship is about to go critical!"

The next few seconds were critical. Silver punched the activation for the engines and the Nova shot straight through the docking bay doors. The Nova headed away from the Tigris at full speed, the sight of the ship breaking up with explosions all over the ship was breathtaking.

The Tigris seemed for a moment to implode in on itself as the core collapse, sucking the ship into the miniature black hole that it used for power before sending out a massive shock wave of debris that hit the Nova causing massive damage to the vessel.

Silver was rendered unconscious by a falling support beam. Consoles exploded as the ship was spinning in a random direction, causing Blackfire to be flung backwards, knocking him cold.

There was only one person on the teleporter as the ship began to get pulled down into Terra's atmosphere.

Diamond...

Eclypse was dead.