By Idontknow164
The 22nd century was a time of great strives in human exploration in the far reaches of space. Just 10 years ago, humans perfected spaceships, weaponry and a vortex transporter that allowed ships to travel anywhere in a blink of an eye. Thanks to these advances, humans have continued to expand outward setting up bubble colonies-essentially a large plasma shield dome filled with oxygen. The shield can allow some ships to enter and leave but other things cannot enter. The bubble colonies are on extraterrestrial bodies such as Mars, Jupiter’s moons and even Pluto. But once humans began to explore past our solar system, things began to grow a little dicey. Although humans made many allies with extraterrestrial beings, some of them became our enemies. In particular, the Icheocrones which are essentially human size biped Hercules beetles. These aliens are a barbaric race that always uses violence to solve their problems. Icheocrones were the second race we discovered. The first was a race we found in the Giruss System called the Lymoths. These creatures are six feet tall humanoid creatures with the head that almost looks like a falcon. Unlike their neighbors, these creatures are friendly, kind and very advanced. Because the humans allied with the Lymoths, and the Icheocrones, saw us as their enemies. In the year 2302, the Icheocrones sent an attack force to the human and Lymoth colony on the planet Ralitir. They destroyed the colony and killed all of it’s citizens. Outraged, the humans and Lymoths declared war on the Icheocrones.
The year was 2310 was when it all started. The humans and Lymoths pushed the Icheocrones back to their solar system. Every day on earth, we heard about the high octane and heroic battles. However, as a pilot of a squadron on earth, I got none of that. I had to make routine trips around earth and her moon while filling out reports that said we saw no enemies. I so wanted to be on the front lines but they kept turning down my request. Their excuse was that I’m too valuable. Could you believe that? If I were so valuable why was I on earth? But that enough about that, you want to hear about the day diffusion and transportation stopped in the cell.
It began on a Thursday. I was patrolling earth in my squadron with my P-23, the swiftest one and two man fighter we humans have. It is incredibly fast, well armed and easy to fly. My wingmen consisted of two humans (both in P-23’s) and two Lymothains in their Lymothain bombers. The bombers were assigned fighters to protect them because they don’t go that fast. On my left wing was Jay ‘Joker’ Allan who protected a Lymothain named Za-tui and his bomber. To my right was flown by Junji Mayamoto who protected a Lymothain named X-ack and his bomber. It was an unusually boring day and I wasn’t the only one who was thinking this. There were no radio communications from moon base or any talking from anyone of my squadron. Finally Jay came on with a big sigh.
“Damn it!” he shouted into his headset “I’m sooooooo bored!”
“You say that everyday,” X-ack responded “it sure isn’t helping our situation.”
“It sure as hell is helping mine,” Jay responded with a sneer.
“You do realize your superiors can hear you?” Za-Tui asked.
“Trust me,” Junji said “he knows.”
“Hey Sarge!” Jay said addressing me. They called me Sarge on missions, it was like my nickname. My real name is Jack Colt. “What do you think about this?” Jay added.
“Come on guys,” I said adjusting the autopilot on my ship “you know what I think. I wish they’d put a DVDLP (Digital Video Data Link Player) in my ship.”
“But that would keep your eyes off your duty,” Za-Tui said. Lymoths were always about duty, they still are.
“Everything is duty about you guys,” Junji said “I’m Japanese I must admit you guys are obsessed. I mean what is there up here? Oh look a rock! And look a soda can! And, oh my god, look over there, a star!” We all laughed except for the two Lymoths. Suddenly, a giant white transporter vortex appeared in front of us.
“Whoa,” I said “that was unexpected.”
“Indubitably,” X-ack said. I changed my headset frequency to a radio base on earth. To be more specific, I contacted a communicator named Christine. She provides us with information about missions and anything else we need to know.
“Yeah?” she grumbled into my headset. It was late in the night on earth, about 4:00 am. She always got edgy when she was tired.
“Tired?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said “I’m on my six cup of caffeinated tea. This stuff gets me wired but then I always crash. What is it you want?”
“I need to know if there are any ships scheduled to dock now.” I could hear the typing of a keyboard. After 10 seconds or so, she had my answer.
“No,” she said “nothing is scheduled for another two hours.”
“Thanks,” I said “get some sleep, sweetheart. I call you if I need you.” I turned my headset back to the frequency of my squadron.
“Okay,” I said “it is either a crippled allied ship or bogey.”
“Hopefully it’s a bogey,” Jay said “I’m tired of the lack of action.” A ship began to emerge from the vortex. It was a long S-shaped ship, flames licked the sides of it and one of the engines was disabled. We all knew what it was from our training what it was a crippled Icheocronain battleship.
“Okay,” I said “we need to hit it with all we got. Stop it from heading to earth.”
“I don’t think the ship is heading to earth,” Za-tui said. It was true. The ship made a 90 degree turn and headed straight for moonbase.
“Oh boy,” Jay said in shock.
“Crap, crap, crap,” I said setting my headset frequency to moonbase. “This is squadron 164 calling moonbase, Icheocronain battleship heading your way!”
“Yes, yes, Jack,” a moonbase radio jockey responded “This is Commander Jackson. It is kinda hard not to notice. We’ll bring it down.” I turned my ship so I could see the giant plasma dome of the moonbase as the crippled battleship cruised towards it. The base came alive as all of it’s ground to air rockets pointed at the ship. Then they launched towards the ship, with pinpoint accuracy. Rocket after rocket hit and exploded around the already weak hull of the ship. The ship not surprisingly launched some of its escape pods as it exploded. The one man escape pods, three in all, headed towards the plasma shield of the moon base. I expected the rockets to target the escape pods but for some reason, they didn’t. Outraged, I called moonbase again.
“What the hell are you doing?!” I yelled into my headset “why aren’t you shooting the down the pods?!”
“Shut up boy!” Jackson yelled “we think that the escape pods hold the captains of that ship. Capturing them would mean more blowing them up if we ever needed a prisoner exchange.”
“Name one time when the Icheocronains have taken prisoners of war?!” I yelled back “What use could three of there own be to us?!”
“It isn’t important for you to know such matters,” Jackson said to me calmly “but the chief does want to see you. Alone.” He switched off his headset. I sighed and turned the frequency back to my squadron members.
“Okay boys,” I said “head home. The chief wants to see me, alone.”
“Rocks to be us!” Jay said “sucks to be you.” They flew from my side and headed back for earth while I headed for moonbase. By the time I touched down in the hanger, the spec-ops team already took to Icheocronains to the prison/interrogation wing.
I would like to say a quick word about the moonbase. It is the shape of the ancient war machine called “The Pentagon.” It houses almost one-third of the human army and spacecraft.
As I landed, two men from the infantry led me to where the chief was. However, instead of leading me to his office, they lead me to the interrogation room, not the interrogation part itself, but the room behind the two way mirror. There I met the chief. The chief, better known as General Tankain, always wore a colorfully decorated military uniform and an annoyingly stupid looking captain’s hat. But I really respected this man, and he liked me. We had been friends for a while. From the two way mirror we could see a man interrogating the Icheocronain with little success. I saluted Tankain smiled at me.
“What do you know about this, sergeant?” he asked “Why did that crippled battleship attack one of the most heavily armed installations we have”
“What happened to the other Icheocronains?” I asked as the interrogator slammed his fist on the table.
“They were found dead as they landed,” General Tankain said “we are still determining the COD (Cause of Death).”
“Okay,” I said turning towards the interrogation window. I could see the interrogator’s face turn red in anger.
“Would you like to hear what’s being said?” General Tankain asked turning on the speaker.
“Why are you here?!” the interrogator yelled. The Icheocronain said nothing. We could only hear heavy breathing coming from it.
“Why are you here?!” the interrogator repeated. The Icheocronain turned its three horned face at the interrogator and spat on his face before collapsing on the table, dead. The two officers in the interrogation room picked up the dead body and moved it out of the room while the interrogator wiped his face with a handkerchief. The interrogator began to cough uncontrollably as he left the room.
“That was weird,” I said “so how’s the wife?” Just then a woman, in about my age wearing a lab coat walked into the room holding a clipboard. She wore glasses and had her brown hair back into a pony tail. She looked at me and General Tankain.
“General,” she said “you might want to see this.” She led us down the long halls to the science wing of the moon base. Along the way, we could hear many people coughing uncontrollably. Finally we got to the biochemical part of the science wing. She stopped in front of the wing’s locked door. From a small tin cabinet next to the door she pulled out three black gasmasks. She put one on herself and offered us the other two.
“You are going to need this,” she said looking at me “by the way, who is this?”
“This is Sergeant Jack Colt. He’s with me,” General Tankain said as we put our gasmasks on. She nodded and swiped her security keycard opening the sliding door. We walked into the biochemical lab which had long black tables. Scientist wearing gasmasks were looking down into microscopes. In the far corner of the room behind a blastshield, there were two men in gasmasks and biochemists suits examining the body of the Icheocronain I saw earlier in the interrogation room.
“While examining the dead Icheocronain bodies we found something in their bloodstream, a virus,” the one biochemist woman explained “This virus is unique in what it does. Somehow, it can solidify the cell membrane of its host. We have given it the name Solidification Virus.”
“Huh?” I questioned.
“What you must understand is that all living things have cells, and all cells have cell membranes. The cell membranes allow certain things in and let certain things out. This is what keeps the cell and you alive. These actions are controlled by the proteins that pump out and let in nutrients i.e. the transport protein and carrier channel protein. However this virus somehow solidifies the cell membranes, not allowing any new nutrients to enter the cell. Slowly the cell eats up all of its reserves in the vacuoles and slowly begins to eat itself. This has happened with all the cells, blood cells, skin cells, even brain cells. Without any nutrients, the cell dies and after 2 hours, the infected host dies.”
“Is this virus airborne?” I asked
“Yes.”
“Is there a cure?” I asked again. She sighed.
“A cure isn’t possible. Not even a vaccination exists. For a vaccination to work the white blood cells have to target the introduced weakened virus but because they are solidified, they can’t do anything. We did try injecting water and other nutrients directly into the cells but that didn’t work either. It seems the virus also can solidify the ribosomes which are so important to the cell existence. This virus is the ultimate biochemical weapon.”
“Wait,” General Tankain said “are you saying the Icheocronains made this virus and injected it into their own?”
“Yes,” she said “they sent the infected here to hopefully spread the virus through moonbase leaving it weakened to attack. Which brings up my next question, did anyone come into direct contact with the infected?” I immediately recalled that the interrogator was spit on by the Icheocronain.
“Yes,” I said quietly.
“Who?” she asked “What symptoms did he have?” she asked again before I could answer her first question.
“He was coughing a lot. Oh my god.” Then all of the people the general and I passed who were coughing flashed before my eyes.
“The virus is spreading through the base already.” General, ordered an immediate evacuation of the moonbase!”
“Right,” the general said but as he was about to issue the evacuation, another siren was heard, the air raid siren. The Icheocronains were attacking. The intercom came on with a man’s voice “The Icheocronains have sent two troop transporting ships! They are launching their drillers!”
Drillers are 20 man (or in this case Icheocronains) pods that could penetrate any plasma shield, a must for invading planets. The scientists in the room began to run towards the door until only the general, the biochemist and I were left. That is when the evacuation signal came on telling us to get to our ships.
“Lets go!” I yelled as we ran into the hallway. Smoke and dust filled the air as rubble and dead bodies littered the floor. General Tankain picked up two AM16’s (standard issue assault rifle) and threw one to me. The general took lead while I followed close behind with the scientist woman.
“So,” I asked quietly while creeping forward “what’s your name?”
“Are you hitting on me?” she asked in disgust.
“What? No! I just want to know as long as we are in this mess.”
“Sharon,” she said.
“Clam the chatter back their!” General whispered “we got something approaching!” I looked ahead but I couldn’t see anything through the dust.
“I don’t see anything,” I whispered.
“What, you can’t hear it through that gasmask of yours? I sure can through mine. Get you gun ready.” I pointed my gun in front of me. Then I began to hear it, coughing. Then I began to make out human figures slowly making their way forward. They emerged from the dust. There were about 7 of them.
“Infected,” Sharon whispered to General Tankain and me. I pointed my gun down.
“What are you doing Jack?” the general said as the seven lurched towards us. I could see that the seven were just skin and bones. Their cells were eating away at themselves. They lurched closer then the general opened fire. He took down the first four but then stopped and looked at his gun.
“Damn it!” he exclaimed “I thought these things weren’t supposed to jam! Jack, take the last three down.” I couldn’t. My hear began to pound, my stomach tightened and my head throbbed. Every time I breathed it felt like a tornado was coming out of my mouth. These were humans, on our side, and I was being asked to kill them.
“Sergeant!” General Tankain yelled. Then the last three fell to their knees and crawled towards us. One of them, only an arms length away from me, reached out with his skinny arm and lifted up his skeleton like head.
“Help…me,” he said weakly. My heart felt like it was going to rip out of my chest and in a brief moment, I lost control of my actions. I pointed my gun and shot him in the head. Then I lifted my gun up again and killed the other two. Meanwhile General Tankain pulled the pin from a fragmentation grenade and threw it down the corridor. When it exploded, the whole hallway collapsed on another bunch of infected.
“Jack,” Sharon said putting her hand on my shoulder “it’s over your fine.” I lowered my gun over the dead infected.
“I just killed a human,” I said “a human.”
“Pull yourself together sergeant!” the general said “We have to-” he stopped. I looked up as Sharon screamed. General Tankain had a six inch spike in his leg, the standard round for an Icheocronain submachine gun. Then suddenly two Icheocronains emerged from the corner armed with two submachine guns. I pointed my gun at them and unhindered, pulled the trigger. They were finished. I pulled out the empty magazine from my gun and placed a fresh one in it. I ran over to Tankain and attempted to remove the spike from his leg.
“Ow Jack!” he shouted at me “it is no use!” Just then I heard a small but high pitched whistling sound, it grew closer and closer then, a large driller smashed through the roof.
“Jack!” General Tankain yelled “you got to get out of here! Take Sharon and go!”
“I won’t leave you to die!” I yelled.
“You have to!” he said taking out some C4 and pressing the activation button. I grabbed Sharon’s arm and pulled her away. I could hear the general’s gun go off and him shouting triumphantly. Then a large explosion rocked the station and the hallway behind us collapsed. I stopped and walked up to the pile of rocks.
“Damn it!” I said pounding the wall of rubble. Just then I heard my earpiece go off. Christine was trying to reach me. I put the earpiece in my ear and listened in.
“Jack!” she yelled “your not on moonbase are you?”
“Yes I am,” I said running towards the hanger, praying like mad there was still one ship.
“Jack! You have to get out of there! The army is going to blow it up!”
“What?!”
“There are a lot of infected and Icheocronains on moonbase. They figure they can take a lot of them out by blowing it up.”
“Damn. So news has reached home about the solidification virus.”
“Yes,” Christine said “they want to stop it from reaching earth.” I told Sharon the plan by earth.
“I’m not justifying what they are doing but I see why. Not only would it wipe out the human population but also plants will die.” Sharon said as we entered the hanger and found one last P-23 “Plants have cells too. And if they die, even if you aren’t infected, you will die of starvation, along with all other life on earth.” I entered the ship as Sharon got into the seat facing the back. I put down the canopy glass. I pushed the accelerator and the wheel forward. Just as soon we left, we could see the UCE heavy bombers fly by us and began to bomb moonbase. I sighed with relief and threw myself back into my seat. Sharon sighed also and smiled. We joined a mass exodus of pilots heading towards earth.
“Jack!” Christine said over my headset. I took off my earpiece and put on the headset.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Yeah Jack! I knew you’d make it! But listen I got some bad news.”
“I’m beginning to think there is nothing but bad news.”
“The earth’s ground to air rockets are targeting everything, Icheocronain and human ships alike. They hope that they will stop the virus from reaching earth by doing so.” Then a stream of rockets headed towards us. Explosions appeared all around us from ships and stray rockets alike as we headed closer to earth’s atmosphere. Then the rockets stopped firing and the Ack-Ack (Aircraft Killer) fire shot from the ground. Then came fighters and bombers, human and Lymoths. Seeing this I spun back and forth avoiding the explosions from the Ack-Ack and stray rockets from the fighter. As we entered the ionosphere, two Lymothain bombers closed in on us. I turned back to Sharon.
“Hey,” I shouted “use the back gun! Keep those guys off me.” She gave me the thumbs up and manned the back gun. I could hear the bullets fly as the artful pilots dodged everything she shot at them. Myself, I had my own problems. For example, avoiding the Ack-Ack and the rockets from the two Lymothains. Just then I could hear two familiar voices speak into my headset.
“Hello Sarge,” X-ack said grimly.
“X-ack?” I said looking behind me “you’re flying those bombers?! Let me guess the second one is Za-Tui.”
“Right,” Za-Tui said “I’m sorry, but we have given orders to destroy all ships trying to get to earth. Forgive us.”
“Come on guys,” I said “if I was infected I wouldn’t be talking to you, let alone fly this damn thing.”
“Sorry Jack,” X-ack said “but we have our orders. Our missiles are locked. Goodbye Sarge!” Suddenly, Za-Tui’s ship exploded in a giant fireball. I smiled and turned to Sharon.
“Nice shot!” I yelled back at her.
“But I missed,” she said.
“But then who…” then I heard another familiar voice in my headset.
“Hey sarge!” Jay’s voice shouted wildly “hope I’m not too late to join the party!”- I looked up and saw his ship as it fired rockets at X-ack’s ship.-“cause I brought the drinks!” Z-ack’s ship was hit and exploded.
“Remind me to buy you one when we get back to earth,” I said happily into the headset.
“Hey,” he said joining up on my wing “I know just the place.” As we passed into the stratosphere, it was apparent we were the only ones who had made it. All of the guns targeted us. Explosions rocked the ship as we swerved to avoid them.
“Wait,” I said into my headset while swerving “where’s Junji?” Then, when we entered the troposphere I could see that we were over the Sierra Nevada but another thing I could see was another P-23 shooting at the anti aircraft guns and rockets, it was Junji.
“Hey sarge!” he shouted “nice to see you again!” Just then, a stray rocket shot towards Junji’s ship, he had no time to react to it. His ship exploded in a giant fireball.
“Damn it!” I shouted as I looked up at where the rocket came from. I could see two P-23’s bearing down on us.
“Jay!” I yelled into my headset “time for some action!”
“Yes!” He streaked towards the wingman while I focused on the leader. I got behind him and shot my rockets at him. They all missed.
“Come on Jack,” Commander Jackson said “you can do better than that!”
“You!” I shouted shooting my miniguns. Suddenly Jackson jammed the brakes and to avoid colliding with him I flew over him. Then he sped up and began to fire his miniguns at me. I barrel rolled left and right to avoid his miniguns. Then he stopped firing and tried to get a lock on me. Suddenly, Jay shouted into my headset.
“I’m hit!” he shouted. I turned around in my chair. It was true, his left engine was shot and he was plummeting to earth nose first. The wingman that shot him down followed him.
“Pull up!” I said swerving left and right trying to prevent the french guy from getting a lock on me “Sharon fire the back gun!”
“I can’t!” she said “I’m out of bullets!” I turned back at Jay who was 200 feet from the ground.
“I got an idea,” he said “I’m going to the back gun.”
“No!” I said “you idiot pull up!” His back gun began to shoot at the wingman that was tailing him. It caught the wingman completely off guard, his ship exploded just before Jay’s ship crashed.
“Damn it!” I yelled, not paying attention to the fact that Jackson just got a lock on me. He fired a rocket at me. I began to swerve to try to get away. Then my brain hatched a brilliant idea.
“Hang on Sharon!” I yelled. I pulled the wheel back and looped over Jackson’s ship with the rocket trailing behind me. When I got behind him, I punched the accelerator forward and shot straight at him. Then at the last second, I pulled over him. The rocket however, kept going at a straight path and hit its master in the back. However, the explosion rocked my ship and all of a sudden my ship’s trouble alarm went off.
“Damn!” I yelled “starboard stabilizers are off! I’m going to eject!”
“Don’t forget about me!” Sharon said.
“Right,” I said smiling as my ship began to wobble side to side uncontrollably “almost forgot about you.” I unlatched my safety harness and Sharon unlatched hers. I grabbed her by the hand and pressed the eject button. We were launched in the air and my ship crashed into a mountain. We plummeted towards the ground but at the last second, my AGP (Anti Gravity Pack) deployed. These AGPs reversed gravity for a few seconds and stopped our fall. We floated above ground for a few seconds but then were dropped. I lay on the ground while Sharon looked around at the scenery. Then my earpiece went off again.
“Jack?” Christine’s voice came over “where are you?”
“Yes sweetheart,” I said lying down on the ground “send me a helicopter, get me the hell out of these mountains.”
And that is my story. Only later would I find out that Sharon and I were the only ones to make it out of moonbase alive. The government gave us the Congressional Medal of Honor, although I’m still trying to figure out why. Somehow, a weakened cell culture of the Solidification Virus was saved but was immediately turned into a biochemical bomb as a gift for the Icheocronains. I was given the responsibility of giving it back to them. The humans didn’t want it, so I sent it back. The war ended shortly after with the extinction of the Icheocronains.
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not so short but yeah. Like it?
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