Chapter 8

Greeny couldn’t hear anything over the rush of air around his body, the wind stung his eyes so he closed them and prepared for the inevitable. He hit the ground with a thud.

“When we enter Sol our communications will probably go down, no doubt they will have a communications disruptor.” Aragon said over the communicator “Fire on what I do until I give the order to break, even if you come under fire.  We will be useless if we can’t talk to each other.”

“Admiral,” Called Aragon’s Commander “We will be entering Sol in less than one minute.”

“Thank you commander.” Aragon said, sitting down in the command chair and strapping himself in.

Greeny looked up from his position sprawled out on the floor.

“You alright Sir?” Came a familiar voice.  Greeny looked around and picked himself up, he we suddenly aware of how dry his throat was.

“Sonar,” he said, in a raspy voice “Where are we?”

“We’re in the Council hangar, on The Champion Warship, we teleported you here from your fall” Sonar replied “Elvis wont be needing it at the moment, as far a we know he is North of here fighting the pirates, possibly with Doomlord, but we don’t have confirmation due to the communications being down.  Any idea when the cavalry is getting here?”

Greeny looked down at the floor for a moment “Frankly I have no idea, I hardly even know what is going on.  Our forces are scattered and we have no way of talking to them.  Can we take off?”

Suddenly Dennis spoke up from behind them.  “There were twenty seven of us when we jumped out that window.”

“Standard procedure in a situation like that is to save the highest ranking officers.  This Invincible can only teleport four people at a time.  That’s me, you, Narses and J0E.”  Dennis looked at the ground and slowly slumped down until he was sitting on the floor, but Sonar and Greeny had already left the room.

“No, we can’t” Sonar said ignoring Dennis “Both exit tunnels have collapsed, along with half the hangar who ever this pirate is he knew exactly where to hit us so that we can’t fight back well.  Whilst on the surface I spoke to a group of Terrans, most of our surface weapon and vehicle stores have been destroyed.”

Greeny sighed “It’s not looking good.  I think we need to go to the ISC.”

“Will they even think about helping us?” Sonar said with a frown, “I imagine that having the Terran Empire out of galaxy would let most of that scum sleep easier.”

“But the Terran Empire won’t be gone, Earth will be.  If we are lucky the core systems will remain allied and elect their own leader, but the outer systems will split and be ruled by the various Lords and Admirals who currently watch over them.  It would be chaos.  I think they will help us, but our real problem is getting out of here.  How many soldiers do you have?” Greeny asked.

“Soldiers? None, my security teams are all dead, all we got left are pilots, gunners and engineers, but no one experienced in fighting in close combat.”  Sonar said.

“So that leaves the four councilors, and Captain Dennis.  Well, this is going to be fun.” Greeny said sarcastically.

“Everyone prepare for incoming fire.” Aragon said over the communicator.  He pushed himself against the back of his chair “This is going to be a bumpy ride” he muttered.

Greeny walked over to one of the many consoles on the command deck.  Do you think that the fighter bays will still be operational?”  He asked pressing a few buttons and then scanning through a list of numbers and letters.

“It is, we sent a team up there to take a look.  We were going to use the fighters but very all the pilots we have are trained for vacuum combat, not atmospheric.” Sonar replied.

“Get your people ready, we are going up there.”

“No ones here” Aragon said uneasily.  He quickly checked his straps with one hand and scanned through a report with the other.

“Sir, we are not detecting any cloaked ships.” A Lieutenant said uneasily “But we are also not detecting any communications from Earth” The Lieutenant looked at Aragon.  “Not even Utopia is responding” he added.

“Ok”, Aragon said “Chances are that there is just a communications blocker between here and Earth.  If we head directly for home we should run into it.”  He looked at his commander. “Set a course for the Imperial City” he said, once again leaning back into his chair.

“Good luck Sir” Sonar said, as he passed a flight helmet to Greeny. “We will be waiting for you when you get back.”

“Thanks Sonar” Greeny replied, with a weak smile.  He looked up at a few of the other Terrans “I expect to see each and every one of you when I get back.” He said, as he closed the cockpit.  The engines of the fighter started and then Greeny shot off into the sky.

Sonar looked at Narses and J0E “Lets get out of here, we need to find a way to disguise ourselves so we can move about unhindered.”

“Aye” They said in unison.  The trio watched the fighter for a few seconds and then jogged out of the hanger.

Sonar looked up at the remains of the Imperial Palace.  Cold Fire stood triumphant upon a pile of rubble and looked down at the crowd of Terrans who had been forced into the Plaza.  Pirates were at every exit and Sonar knew that this would not be good.  He raised his hood and stood next to Narses and J0E.

“Less than an hour ago” Cold Fire said, his voice amplified many times to the point of being almost deafening “A single person fighter craft attempted to leave this planet.  To cut a long story short we commandeered your ground based weapons and shot it down”.

Sonar felt his heart sink.

“But the pilot wasn’t killed in the crash.  Some of my men found him and brought him to me.  I give you” He shouted “Emperor Greeny”.  Several Pirates dragged Greeny up to Cold Fire and forced him onto his knees. “This marks the end of the Terran Empire” he said, drawing a bolt pistol.  Sonar could hear his own heart beating, the entire crowd was deathly silent.  Cold Fire put the gun to Greeny’s head, but Greeny did not flinch or turn away.  He simply stared up into Cold Fires eyes. Then Cold Fire pulled the trigger.  Greeny’s head snapped back and then he slowly fell foreword.

For a second the crowd collectively held its breath, then all at once they charged foreword with a mighty roar.  Cold Fire simply looked at the crowd.

“Kill them.” He said calmly as he walked away “And burn that” he said, pointing to the body of the Emperor.