Chapter 12
“As soon as we are in range teleport us down to the City Commander” Said Greeny. He sat perfectly still in his command chair issuing orders, despite the fact that the ship was being heavily pounded by weapons fire.
“Emperor,” Called an Orfine “Scanners are offline, we can’t teleport you down, we are blind”
Greeny sighed and then let out a low growl that caused the ears of several Orfine to twitch. “Tell Womble to lock on to the signal of my fighter, prepare to teleport it into the atmosphere of Earth” He said, departing from the command deck.

Elvis stood with his hands tied firmly behind his back. He was blindfolded so he couldn’t tell where he was going. He suddenly felt his heart sink ‘Even if I could see, I wouldn’t recognise the streets, they are mostly just rubble now’. Suddenly there was an ear splitting roar followed by gun fire. Elvis dove for cover and began to crawl on his hands and knees along the remains of a wall until he found a section which was jagged enough to cut through the makeshift bonds holding his hands.
After they were free he tore off his blindfold and looked around. Most of the pirates lay dead or dying. J0E was still unconscious and it looked as if he had been dumped as soon as the shooting had started. Elvis looked up, a few miles above his head he could see hundreds of ships, Orfine, Slah’ke and Hive. For a few seconds he was greatly relived, someone had obviously managed to get help, despite Greeny’s death, but then he realised that the ships were firing at each other, he couldn’t see who was firing at whom, but he knew that in a few minutes there would be hundreds of tonnes of debris falling from the sky.
“Time to get out of here my friend.” He said, to an unconscious J0E, as he picked him up and stumbled back in the direction he thought that he had come from.

Greeny felt his fighter vibrate and shudder as he brought it in to land. He had no ladder to help him down so he jumped to the floor and as he stood up he looked around. There were a few dozen Terrans muttering and whispering to each other as their eyes remained fixed on Greeny. Greeny called out to the crowd.
“Do any of you know where any councillors are?” He asked.
“Yeah, I do.” Said one Terran, he was dressed in standard military gear but was lacking a helmet and his breastplate was stained heavily with blood. “Follow me, its not far from here, my Lord.”

Elvis stumbled into the temporary headquarters of the Terrans and carefully lay J0E down on a table. He walked off to get some bandages to dress J0E’s wounds. After a few minutes rummaging through what was left of the supplies he heard talking behind him from outside the door. He instinctively reached for a gun strapped to his hip, and it surprised him to find that he didn’t have one, so he grabbed his knife from his belt and slid up behind the door. He was about to strike when he heard a voice that made his heart skip a beat. Greeny walked in the door and looked around. From where he was he couldn’t see Elvis, so he walked up to J0E and checked his pulse. He then turned and spotted Elvis, who still had his knife drawn and ready.
“Elvis!” He said smiling lightly, then it faded, “What’s wrong?”
“You’re dead Greeny!” Elvis said, as if Greeny should know this already.

Darius turned to Cold Fire, “Has Narses told you anything useful, my Lord?” he asked. Cold looked him up and down for a second and then answered, his voice sounded drained, as though he were exhausted.
“No, he mainly just mutters gibberish now.” He said.

“I see.” Replied Darius, returning to his seat.
“I am going back up to the surface now, I am having difficultly concentrating here, I need some more fresh air and sunlight, too long I have been cramped up in places like this.” Cold said, gesturing around at the dark room and its bland and sparse furnishings.
“Master.” Darius said with a frown “There is a battle going on up there, you might get killed!”
“That won’t matter if I lose my concentration Captain.” Cold said, slowly turning and walking out of the room.

“Excuse me?” Greeny said, placing a hand on his weapon.
“Cold Fire had you executed, I was there.” Elvis said, he lowered his weapon but he remained where he was.
“Look, obviously it was a deception.” Greeny said, “Now where is the Prime Minister.” Elvis froze and then straightened up, a mixture of pride and shame on his face.
“Sonar is dead Greeny.” He said. Greeny looked away for a few seconds and then turned back, his face knotted into an expression of rage and sadness.
“That’s the second time you have called me by my name, have we dispensed with titles now Admiral?” He said. He was ashamed to find that his voice cracked whilst he spoke.
“My friend,” Elvis said, clearly feeling very uncomfortable having to be the one to break the news to the ex-Emperor, “You don’t have a title. After your…death…we chose a new Emperor and he named me Prime Minister.” The sadness from Greeny’s face drained away and left only the anger. His stare caused Elvis to back away a half step.
“Who?” He said simply. Elvis responded by pointing to J0E’s unconscious body. “Will he live?” Greeny asked.
“I don’t know.” Elvis said, finally moving to J0E to deal with his wounds.
“Well, make me Emperor again, so that I can lead our men to kill Cold Fire.” Greeny demanded.
“Sorry, but I don’t have the power to do that, you know that.” Elvis said, not quite meeting Greeny’s gaze. “He needs to retire himself, or die like you did.”
“But I didn’t die!” Shouted Greeny, a few specks of saliva flying from his mouth.
“We know that now, but at the time we thought you were so it still counts.”
“Fine, then wake him up and make him retire, Prime Minister.” He said, making Elvis even more ashamed of his new rank.
“I have tried waking him up, Gree…erm…Emperor, he is in bad shape, I couldn’t make him regain consciousness.”
Greeny’s hands knotted into fists and he slammed them down onto a table. “I don’t have time for this!” He shouted.
“There is nothing we can do!” Elvis shouted, matching Greeny’s level of volume.
“Yes there is.” Greeny said, drawing his pistol. He turned to J0E and fired two shots into the unconscious man’s head.

Cold Fire took a deep breath, closed his eyes and stepped out of the shadows into the sunlight. He lowered his hood and allowed the light breeze to wash over him. After a few moments he opened his eyes and looked up at the battle raging overhead. He focused on a Slah’ke cruiser and the Hive ships around it all concentrated their fire on it. Its shields flashed green and then blinked out of existence. It took only a few seconds for the pounding to render it to scrap metal.
Cold then concentrated on a squadron of Orfine fighters. He glanced at a Hive scarab and it cloaked, shutting down all of its weapons systems to minimise its energy output. Cold then concentrated fully on the squadron again and the nearest Hive ships began firing at them, but they weren’t aiming to hit them, they were simply leading them around in a turn towards the cloaked Scarab.

The first nine fighters impacted on the ships shields, destroying the fighters and collapsing the shield, the next ten could not react fast enough and slammed into the bare Hull of the scarab, tearing fissures and blasting holes in the ship. The Scarab began to break up and fall from the sky, allowing the final fighter to veer off and avoid the impact, but it was shredded by a lucky shot from another Scarab.
Cold smiled and walked back into the shadow. ‘I will let them handle the rest themselves’ he thought to himself as he walked off.

“What the hell are you doing?” Shouted Elvis, knife held ready again. “He was the Terran Emperor and your friend, and you would just kill him like that?”
“Make me Emperor again.” Greeny shouted, pointing the gun at Elvis. Elvis just stared at him. “You said that the Emperor has to retire or die for another to be appointed, J0E is dead, so I can become Emperor now. Do it!” Elvis hesitated.
“No.” Elvis said, firmly but quietly. Greeny’s eyes narrowed.
“So be it.” He said, his voice completely level. He raised the gun to aim at Elvis’ head but was suddenly thrown off his feet. He felt his body slam into a wall and passed out.