Chapter 11
S117 smashed his fist into the armrest of his command chair aboard the Longsword.
“Have we been able to contact Earth yet?” He asked over his shoulder.
“Sorry Sir,” Came a voice from just behind him, “In fact, we haven’t had any contacts from outside Boötes for several days now.”
“Damn it!” S117 shouted, he already knew about the communications jammer, and the lack of communications with Sol, but he had not given up hope yet. “Keep trying, we need to warn them about this invasion.” He said, regaining his calm. “Now bring us around, its time to take down some more of these damn bugs.”

Greeny felt very awkward. He had never flown with an entirely non-Terran crew before, let alone gone to battle with one.
“Emperor.” Growled an Orfine. Greeny couldn’t tell the age of the being, but his fur was greying in several patched on his back and arms which Greeny took to be a sign of age. “There is none of the usual comm traffic coming from any of the Terran systems, in fact, it’s a communications black zone here, nothing…”
Greeny closed his eyes for a moment. ‘How can this be happening?’ he asked himself.
“What is the closest system to here?” He asked, his face an expressionless mask.
“Boötes.” Called a Slah’ke from the tactical console. Greeny hesitated.
“Take us in,” he ordered “And tell the fleet to follow.”

“All hail Emperor J0E0NE!” Shouted a chorus of voices. At any other time this would have been a joyous occasion, the appointment of a new Emperor usually came with weeks of celebration, but today even the smallest smiles were struggling to show themselves.
“The previous Emperor and Prime Minister are dead,” Said J0E flatly “Half the council are dead, or at least missing in action, including several people who should have been Emperor long before me. But there will be time for mourning and remembering after Earth is ours again.” The room shook and there was the muffed sound of an explosion. J0E ignored it. “My first act as Emperor is to appoint Elvis as Prime Minister.” He glanced at Elvis and the newly appointed Prime Minister stood forward. He bowed his head.
“Thank you Emperor. Our reports show the city to be almost completely destroyed now, its just rubble and wrecks everywhere. We don’t have an accurate death toll yet, but if the destruction spreads out beyond the Imperial City then it is likely that billions are dead. For those of you who don’t know it seems that this pirate bombarded the planet from low orbit, and somehow they are pushing us back at every turn. It also seems that the Hive may be in on this, they have been seen all over the city. So to sum up, we have no ships, no tanks, limited weapons of any kind, and even less power packs and clips to go with them, and very little in the way of hope. Any questions?”
“So what’s the plan then?” Said Speed Shot softly.
J0E sighed. “We don’t have one. By no means are we going to give up, our short term aims are going to be to cause as much devastation to the pirates as possible, bombing them where we can, ‘liberating’ supplies and ambushing groups of them when the opportunity arises.”
“Let’s get going then.” Said Elvis, with the hint of a smile on his face.

“Sir! There is a fleet of ships coming in, mixed identification signals, Orfine and Slah’ke mostly, one Terran. S117 jumped out of his chair, and shot over to the Ensign. He looked down at the tactical display.
“Head to that fleet!” He ordered, and fire on anything that gets in the way.

“Fire!” Greeny shouted. ‘The Hive, what are they doing here?’ “Shoot that one.” Greeny said, highlighting a ship on the tactical screen. From their position on entry they had flanked the Hive quite nicely, all the bugs long range and more valuable ships were in easy firing range.
“Sir, there are almost three thousand Hive ships here.” Hissed a Lizard, “One of them is a communications jammer, and another I cannot identify, Aurelius class, but with some kind of weapon on it.
“Shoot it!” Greeny shouted, “Shoot it now, or we won’t be able to escape.” The communicator crackled softly and then buzzed. “Is the jammed destroyed?” Greeny asked.
“Yes!” Shouted an Orfine over the sound of an explosion somewhere in the ship. “Not much good it’ll do us though,” he barked, “That blast took out our communicator.” Greeny slammed his fist onto his view screen, but it didn’t break.
“Keep an eye out.” Greeny said, as he sprinted off the command deck.

“Communications are back online Admiral.” S117 didn’t even bother to reply, instead he pushed a few buttons on the communicator.
“Everyone pay attention, move to the new fleet in the system, prepare to enter hyperspace. We can’t win this battle.”

J0E climbed to the top of the rubble and lay down. He aimed his sniper at the head of one of the pirates at the entrance to the weapons cache. He pulled the trigger and the pirate fell dead, so quietly that the other pirate didn’t even notice, so J0E finished her as well. He turned around and gave the signal for the others to move in.

Greeny wove the fighter through the massive dogfight between the Hive and the Orfine, it was no G-47, but it did the job. All the while the Longsword grew in his sights.

“Sir, an Orfine fighter is requesting permission to dock, the pilot claims to be Greeny.” Said an Ensign, obviously not believing it.
“Teleport him aboard.” S117 ordered, “If he isn’t who he says he is, shoot him, we don’t have time for games.”

The trio of Councillors, J0E, Elvis and Speed Shot moved quickly but stealthily towards the door. As they approached Elvis pulled out his last remaining clip and loaded it into his gun. Then he leant around the door and fired off a number of shots into the darkness. There were two wet thumps. He shined his torch into the black and saw a couple of dead Orfine on the ground.
“Clear, lets get the stuff and get out of here.”

Throughout the fleet Greeny’s voice echoed.
“Listen to me now, forget all the targets you are currently firing at. There is a pirate Aurelius class ship here stopping our withdrawal, concentrate all firepower onto that ship. The second it is destroyed go to hyper and set a course for Sol.”
“Sir, if we leave now then everyone who lives in this system will die.” Said S117 firmly.
“People are already dieing on Earth, we need to save them before we can save the colonies.” Greeny replied coldly.
“There are nine billion people on Earth.” Shouted S117, “In this system there are fourteen billion, more than half of whom are children. If we leave then we are condemning them to death!”
Greeny swung around and punched S117 in the side of the face, the Stormguard spun and landed sprawled out on the floor.
“Don’t be an idiot. They are dead either way, the difference is that if we leave now then we won’t share that fate. Do you really think that the six hundred ships we have here can fight the thousands that they have?” Greeny regained his composure and watched as the Aurelius ship blinked out of existence on the tactical screen.
“Go!” he shouted into the communicator.

“There’s nothing here!” Shouted Speed Shot, shoving empty boxes off of shelves in frustration.
“No wait,” Said Elvis, “there are some crates over there.” He said, pointing into the corner. The trio walked up to them and forced the lids off. “Empty.” Mumbled Elvis. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Run.” Said J0E, calmly, as he looked down into one of the crates. “Bomb.” He said as he sprinted out the bunker.
Speed Shot stumbled as he ran out and fell into the back of J0E, just as the bomb went off. J0E was flung forewords by the blast and his head hit a small pile of rubble with a sickening crunch. Speed Shot him the ground hard and covered his hear with his arms whilst Elvis dived behind cover. Several small pieces of debris cut through Speed Shot’s armour and into his chest. Blood streamed out through the holes in his chest. Elvis ran over to J0E and checked his pulse, he was relieved to find it as strong as ever, but that feeling was soon lost when he looked up and saw a dozen pirates aiming various guns at him.