Mark Chase's
METAL STORM 2380
(Kinzoku Arashi 2380)
Episode 20
"The Final Countdown"
November 17th, 2380. T-minus 1 day
"She's still catatonic," explained Sara Toshio. "Her brain
wave patterns are extremely active despite her apparent state of
non-responsiveness, and Alex says her aura is fluctuating
wildly."
Taeon followed his sister down the hall as she spoke. He had
spent the long sleepless night speaking with doctors and divers
about Xandra, and worrying quietly to himself about the future
that surly resides in the palm of her childlike hands. She had
been in her non-responsive condition for the past nine hours.
It was then that Taeon realized the terrible truth. The
truth that she was one step away from the level of godhood...
Assuming she wasn't already beyond that stage. "I still don't
get it. She's never done anything considerably powerful before."
"Huh?" asked Sara.
Maybe Sara didn't know. "Xandra... What's the most
impressive thing she's ever done?"
"Aside from having an incredibly long telepathic range and
vividly accurate clairvoyant and precognitive visions, not too
much. She does posses a psychic potential exponentially higher
than any other diver in history. She demolished part of Castle
Toshio in a psychic fit once, remember?"
"How could I forget," replied Taeon. "That fit was what
awoke my powers!"
"At any rate, Alex told me to find you because Xandra's aura
has become unbearably brilliant. He's had to remove his psi-amp
to keep his brain from melting whenever he looks at her."
"Geez," said Taeon. "So her powers are still growing?"
"Exponentially."
They rounded a corridor and came to the medical lab. Inside
was a cluster of sophisticated diagnostic and sensing equipment,
all trained toward the small, unconscious child who rested upon
the bioscan bed. Monitors arranged around the room displayed
every conceivable brain scan in existence from electron resonance
to psion particle imaging. Scientists and doctors moved
hurriedly in and out of the room. Standing above Xandra was Alex
Nair.
Alex turned to Taeon and Sara. "Her eyes have begun to move
in REM. She may be coming out of her coma."
Taeon approached his little sister. "Maybe you can tell me
something. You people know more about divology than anyone else,
right?"
"Probably," said Alex.
"How did Xandra come to be like this?"
Alex crossed his arms. "For the same reason divers are
divers. All matter is energy. Ours is a universe of energy.
Biology, in its elegant forms of structured chemistry, is nothing
more than highly organized, powerfully focused energy. Our life
force, as the less educated might call it. We call it bioenergy.
All life has it -- plants, animals, microbes, and, of course,
humans. The more complex or evolved the animal, the greater the
bioenergy."
Taeon nodded. "And so Xandra is at a higher level of human
evolution..."
"Don't be silly," said Alex. "She's your sister. There's
barely half a generation difference between you two. It would
take a million years to evolve a better human."
"I don't understand."
"You didn't let me finish. As I was going to say, some
people's material structure is in a state slightly closer to that
of energy. However, this difference is almost unnoticeable. Put
simply, it allows for such individuals to effect energy and
matter with their own will."
"That's it? That's what psionics is?"
Alex shook his head. "The truth of the matter is much more
complex. Your 'will' is really nothing more than bioenergy
patterns which have become self-aware, a state unique to humans.
This 'will' can affect not only your own material form, but the
form and energy of other objects, as well as space-time itself."
"So this is what diver science is all about?"
"Indeed. You have been to the astral plane, yes?
Diverspace is the astral plane. This has been rumored for years
by your scientists, but we have confirmed the theory. It is a
sub-dimension of space-time, perceivable only in a dream-like
state to us humans as it exists as a zero-point space. This
allows us to see into the past and future, as well as travel vast
distances at enormous speeds. As it so happens, space-time is
complete, as seen from the zero-point of diverspace. This has
the unfortunate effect of us being able to witness our own
destiny; and, in accordance to the laws of quantum mechanics,
once an event has been seen, it cannot be changed."
"But if it is hidden..."
Alex smiled. "The coin can fall either way. Such is the
way of quantum mechanics."
Taeon nodded. "You know who is blocking the future?"
Alex glanced at Xandra. "You know as well as I she is the
most powerful diver in the history of human civilization. Either
it's her, or there's a god who, until now, has not yet revealed
himself. Today is the day of reckoning. Given her current state
of psychic unrest, I'd say something's up. She is closer to a
state of pure energy than any other person I've seen. Her
component atoms are hovering at the verge of transition between
matter and energy, almost the point of quantum fluctuation. It
is beyond..."
Alex stopped mid-sentence. Xandra opened her eyes.
"They have invaded Sol," she stated staring blankly at the
ceiling.
"Who?" asked Taeon. "The GSC?"
"The end of history has come," she continued. "Both empires
shall fall and the new shall arise from the ashes of the old.
Earth must burn and the armadas of war shall be destroyed. The
time has come to write the final chapter of our era of blood."
"What is she talking about?" demanded Sara.
"For a child, she speaks as an educated adult!" commented
Alex. "That is very peculiar."
"Welcome to the end of time," continued Xandra, her voice
still that of a child's, but the words those of a mind
unprecedented, "and the beginning of the next eternity."
Taeon staggered back as a blinding light washed through the
room. Xandra became as bright as white-hot iron. In an instant,
her brilliantly glowing form imploded and sank out of space-time
into the dimensionless netherworld of diverspace.
"My God! She's teleported away!" exclaimed Alex.
"What?" demanded Taeon. He looked around the room hoping
someone would give him an answer.
"Dr. Zann!" yelled Alex. "Give me the data on all neural
wave patterns from when..."
Alex froze, then grabbed his head and screamed. Taeon felt
the all-to-familiar pulsating wave of knives wash through his
mind as yet another diver shock wave thundered down from the
future. But this time it felt as if the origin was practically
on top of him.
Taeon fell to his knees clutching his head in agony. He was
screaming, but hardly noticed the sound of his own voice. A
thousand pulsing points of lights blinded his vision and his ears
throbbed with the amplified sound of his own heart. Claws of
fire ripped into his mind, tearing his very being asunder. The
pain was unbearable. Purely mental as it was, the trauma became a
physical nightmare. Something wet ran down his face and trickled
through the trembling fingers that grasp his head.
Vertigo washed over him, much like the disorientation of a
diverspace jump. Taeon noticed it above the pain cutting through
mind, only because of the sheer intensity of the sensation. Over
his own scream, he heard the others yelling. There was panic,
but Taeon could do nothing. He was a curled ball on the floor,
languishing in psychic hell as wave upon wave of razor sharp
psionic energy tore though his mind.
Finally, something gave way and Taeon plunged into
unconsciousness.
* * *
"The nuke is a two megaton fusion bomb," explained Dr. Gunn.
She looked back at the display screen. "You will have only one
shot, so make it count."
"How's the Sri Lanka?" asked Ryo.
General Avenger stood and glanced at the others who were
gathered at the briefing room table. The captain of the Sri
Lanka nodded to the General. "Though our nuclear arsenal is
depleted," said General Avenger, "we have been working on
improvised cruise missiles using small probes to deliver fusion
warheads. It would take too long to build standard missile
delivery systems that would fit our current launchers."
"Is the Sri Lanka flight worthy yet?" asked Leta Zodiac.
Avenger nodded. "The DCC teams are making the final checks
now. The drive system has been repaired, but about half of our
weapon systems are down. The core cannon is operational."
Leta nodded. "We might have a chance after all."
"Once I nuke the Victorious, our victory will be assured,"
said Ryo with a grin.
A light blinked on the control panel at the front of the
briefing room. Dr. Gunn pressed the button immediately under it.
"Yes?" she asked.
A technician appeared on the main screen. "Dr. Gunn!
There's a massive power build up in the Reality Horizon!"
"What?"
"It's just jumped five percent in the last few seconds...
Power's at ninety percent... Ninety-five... One hundred percent!
Power is at maximum!"
"How could Briggs get that much power to the RH!" exclaimed
Ryo.
"That's impossible," stated Kei Gunn. "The system can't
charge that fast; it would burn out the psion relays!"
"Power has discharged," stated the tech. "Energy at zero
percent and... Oh my God!"
Leta fell out of her chair and grabbed her head. She
screamed and tore the psi-amp headband away. That didn't seem to
help much as she continued to scream and clutch her head in what
appeared to be a state of unbearable torment.
"Another shock wave?" asked Ryo.
Before anyone could answer, the sensation of vertigo swept
over him. Ryo moaned, feeling his stomach do somersaults. But
in seconds it was over. Leta had stopped screaming and was now
lying on the floor unconscious, blood running from her eyes and
nose.
"Get a medical team down here!" ordered Kei.
"What the hell was that?" demanded General Avenger.
Kei looked back to the technician on the screen. "Report!"
The tech was stunned, staring at something off screen.
"Report!" repeated Kei.
The tech looked back, wide eyed. "I don't know... Our
instruments must be screwed up... Or..."
"What?"
The man cleared his throat. "According to the astrogation
computer, all local constellations have changed by ten to eleven
parallax arc seconds..."
"What?"
"We've jumped nearly thirty-five light-years!"
"Impossible," muttered Kei.
"Hmmm," said Ryo. "The Zion Moon appears over Arcturus,
then a couple days later it leaves again. I can't image the
tidal calamity that planet is going though."
"Attempting to match stellar positions with known patterns,"
said the tech.
"A thirty-five light-year jump in a matter of seconds?"
asked Ryo. "Nothing can travel that fast!"
"Actually, there is no speed limit in diverspace," said Kei.
"The more power you put into the drive the less time it takes to
get somewhere, that's all. It takes an infinite amount of energy
to travel at an instantaneous speed. We moved thirty-five light-
years in less than two seconds... That would take more power than
most worlds produce in a year."
"Dr. Gunn," said the tech. "I've matched star patterns. It
appears we are in the Sol system."
"What?"
"According to in-system radar ranging, we are thirty million
kilometers from Mars and one point two AUs from Earth."
"At least we didn't jump into the core a star," said Kei.
"Anything else?"
The tech looked at his scopes. "Well, we appear to be
accelerating relative to solar positioning. There's also a damn
big battle going on!"
"Link all sensor readings to the Sri Lanka's CIC," ordered
General Avenger. "And patch me through to the first officer."
The tech nodded and the screen went blank. A moment later
the first officer of the Sri Lanka appeared on the screen.
"Sir!" said the first officer, saluting to the General.
"Commander Jones. Put the ship on red alert. The Captain
and I will be over shortly. You should be getting a sensor
uplink from this base."
"Yes, sir," replied Commander Jones. "The data is coming
through now."
"Very good."
The Commander looked over something, then turned back to the
screen. "Is it true sir? Have we jumped into the Sol system?"
"So it seems. I want CIC to evaluate the current tactical
situation of the battles raging through this system. I want to
be briefed the instant I come on-board."
The Commander saluted. "Yes, sir!"
The screen switched off and General Avenger turned to face
the other occupants of the room. "I won't pretend to understand
how we got here. I'm a soldier and its not always my place to
understand the 'why's' and 'how's' of things. I do know there's
a war here, and that's the important thing. The GSC has invaded
Sol. In doing so, they've become careless. They've pushed
themselves to the brink of economic exhaustion. By all tactical
estimations, only two hundred ships remain on either side. Many
of ours are in Sirius and Alpha Centauri. Many of the GSC ships
are also in those systems, and many came to Arcturus where they
met their demise. We have the GSC out numbered. But here, at
the home world of human civilization and the throne of our great
Empire, the GSC may have us outnumbered. If Sol falls, all is
lost. The fleets at Sirius and Alpha Centauri may not have time
to get here. But we are here. We may have just one ship, but
nonetheless it is one ship more!"
"If you're done making speeches, I suggest we all get out
there and join the fight," said Ryo.
"What was that?" barked the General.
"He's right," said the Captain. "We must hurry."
At that moment, the medical team rushed into the room. Kei,
who was tending as best she could to the unconscious Leta,
motioned them over. "Another shock wave," she explained.
The medics knew what she meant. By now there had been so
many that treating mind-blasted divers had almost become standard
procedure.
"Is Taeon hurt?" Ryo asked one of the medics.
A medic nodded. "All divers were affected."
Ryo turned to his mom. "You think every diver was affected?
Everywhere? On every planet in known space?"
Kei nodded. "It seems that is the nature of the shock wave.
All hell must be breaking loose in the divological academies.
Even latent divers appear to be affected. Non-divers, as you
know, are immune."
"I wonder why..."
General Avenger shrugged. "Who knows. But that's the way
it is. Now, Lieutenant Gunn, I'll take you up on your tactless
tactical suggestion. We still require a few hours to finish
getting the ship in battle ready condition, but the sooner we get
started the sooner we'll get out there. Let's move out!"
* * *
"What's that damn noise!" moaned Taeon.
"Noise?" asked the medic.
Taeon blinked and put his hands to his ears. "It's this
awful background hum."
The medic looked around. "I hear no such sound. I'll make
a diagnostic scan of your ear and auditory nerve."
"I'm starting to get tired of those shock waves," stated
Taeon as the medic got to work running a small sensor around his
head. "How do I check out?"
"You were lucky. In your case, only the inner lining of
your brain was disrupted, though you burst a good many external
blood veins. Some divers were not so fortunate. Three had
aneurysms, one is a vegetable, and two even died."
"Ouch," said Taeon. "Leta? Alex?"
"Leta is recovering. Alex had an epileptic spasm and bit
off half his tongue. It's being regenerated now. He should be
fully recovered in a day."
"And my ears?"
"Your ears are fine," said the medic looking at the
diagnostic screen. "And there is no sound by your description.
What you are hearing is the psi-static."
"Psi-static!" exclaimed Taeon. "Is there a psi-jamming
field?"
"Not entirely," replied the medic. "Leta was the first to
recover and the first to notice the static. All her powers
worked fine, except for having an agitating hum in the
background. It appears the static is simply blanketing
precognitive senses. This may be a side-effect of the precog
black out which we have just passed through."
"No one can see into the future anymore?" asked Taeon. "We
have passed the Fate Blanket, haven't we?"
"We appear to be under the Fate Blanket, as you call it,"
replied the medic. "But I know little about such things. You
are cleared to leave the medical bay now. I recommend you talk
with Leta. Your sister, Sara, wishes to speak with you as well."
Taeon hopped off the bed and headed for the door. "Thanks."
He left the medical bay and made his way to Sara's room.
When Sara didn't answer her door, Taeon entered the override code
and ordered the door open, worried that something might be the
matter. He found her, lying in her bed, her face buried in the
pillow.
"Sara?" he asked.
"Xandra..." she whispered, pushing the pillow away. "Now
she's gone too."
"Not gone," said Taeon. "She just teleported somewhere.
I'm sure she's still alive."
"That was no teleport!" exclaimed Sara, sitting up suddenly.
"That was an explosion! Divers don't flare like a fusion bomb
when they teleport, and neither do ships when they enter
diverspace!"
"Well, if she was on the boarder between matter and energy,
perhaps..."
"She turned in to pure energy, Taeon! That's like total
matter/antimatter annihilation! She's ceased to exist!"
Taeon shook his head. "Sara, if all her matter turned to
energy this moon wouldn't be here anymore. She weighs what? A
good twenty-five kilograms? Turned into thermal or radiation
energy, that would generate a couple hundred megaton explosions!
It would have cracked the damn moon in half! Well... Maybe
that's an exaggeration, but it would have been one big explosion
for sure."
"Not if she teleported the explosion somewhere."
"True," said Taeon. "I hadn't thought of that. She could
have sensed she was turning into energy and teleported herself
into deep space... But let's not consider that! For now we will
proceed with the assumption that she is still alive, in whatever
form she might be. Until such time as we discover otherwise we
should strive to locate her."
Sara nodded. "It just seems that within the last year our
family has been decimated..."
Taeon sighed. "Once this war is over and we triumph over
the treacherous GSC and that madman Briggs, we shall liberate
Eridani in the name of House Toshio and reclaim what is
rightfully ours!"
Sara rolled her eyes. "Don't start taking like Kanis, may
he burn in hell. Just tell me, how do you plan to find Xandra?"
"Maybe Leta or Alex can help us," said Taeon. He started to
head for the door. "I'll go find Leta. I need to see what she
has to say."
"Wait," said Sara. "Have you been briefed?"
"Briefed?"
"You blacked out before the jump, right?"
"Jump?"
"To Sol."
"Sol?"
Sara puckered her lips. "I see you haven't."
"What are you talking about? Jumped to Sol? When! I
thought this was the moon and.... What the hell is going on!"
Sara told him.
* * *
Taeon tore down the hall, asking various passer-bys if they
knew were Leta Zodiac was. Finally, someone was able to direct
him to the gym, where she was exercising her mental powers.
Leta was meditating in the gym. Meditating and levitating.
"Leta?" asked Taeon as he approached her floating form.
Leta replied telepathically. The word "What?" came in with
a burst of sharp, brain tickling static.
"Quit that!" exclaimed Taeon.
"Sorry," said Leta opening her eyes. "I'd forgotten about
the psi-static."
"Forgotten?" asked Taeon. "How could you forget! It's so
irritating. The noise is everywhere."
Leta lowered her legs and touched down, relaxing the psionic
forces that had held her against the pull of gravity. "I was
meditating to filter out the noise. It worked, and I had cleared
my mind to relax. Sorry."
"So you don't hear the noise?"
"If you keep reminding me of it, I will," said Leta. "It's
a form of self-hypnosis to filter its effects out of my extra
sensory perception."
"Noise," said Taeon. He smiled. "Noise!"
Leta narrowed her yes. "Stop that or I'll hurt you. What do
you need?"
"Can you help me filter out the noise?"
Leta sighed and put her hand to her head. "Great. It's
back. Now I'm going to have to meditate all over again."
"Sorry."
Leta shook her head and brushed back her long, dark hair.
"Why did you need to see me?"
"I was worried about Xandra."
"I heard the reports. She teleported away in a strange
flash of light. Alex may be more helpful as he was present when
it happened. All I know is what the report said."
"Well, I was there, too you know. I was hoping you could
help me track her down."
"Track her down?"
"By remote viewing or astral travel," replied Taeon.
"You're much more powerful than I, especially with your psi-amps.
You might have better luck."
"She could be anywhere. With her power, she could have
teleported a dozen light-years. We can't scan that much space,
even if we had a billion years at our disposal, which we don't."
"But can't we use divining sense to locate her..."
"Divining has a terribly short range and a nasty habit of
being too unpredictable to be useful. It's just one step above
rolling dice or flipping a coin."
"So that's it? We have no way to find her?"
"I think I know where she is, anyway."
Taeon blinked. "You do?"
"I ran a calculation to see how much psychic potential it
would take to teleport this moon thirty-three light-years. The
result was in exponential form. There is only one diver on
record who can channel that much energy."
"Xandra?"
Leta nodded.
"Xandra took over the Reality Horizon?"
Leta nodded again. "I suspect she knew about it the moment
she set foot in this base. She may have known about it much
earlier, as her precog powers are quite impressive. Why she
would do this, I haven't a clue."
"She's just a kid..."
"Taeon, your little sister's IQ immeasurable. Her language
skills are equivalent to that of a person three times her age. I
have no doubt her mind is unbounded by the corporeal nature of
our liner existence."
"What?"
"It has been surmised that at a certain level a diver with
advanced precognitive powers could, in effect, cascade their mind
across all instances of time within their own life-time, past,
present, and future. She's living all moments of her existence
in one infinite moment."
"Good God!"
"Time would have no meaning, it would all be one great
moment of existence. She would know all memories, possess all
skills, and think all thoughts at every moment. She would be a
zero-point entity in a physical body, but we would only perceive
the individual moments of her existence as we travel down our
liner path. She would seem odd, yes, but normal enough. And
yet, I dare to call her human."
Taeon's mouth opened, closed, and opened again. "She said
the Earth must burn..."
"And here we are in the Sol system."
"Is Earth okay?"
Leta nodded. "The GSC armada has not broken through the ITR
lines. Our ships are holding up pretty well."
"I don't like this," said Taeon. "You think she brought us
here to witness the final battle?"
Leta smiled. "How would I know the mind of a god?"
"Goddess," corrected Taeon.
"At that level of existence, sex is irrelevant," said Leta.
She smiled. "Too bad, really. Anyway, how are your studies
coming?"
"I've been trying to learn teleporation, but it's hard."
Leta nodded. "Its the most difficult of all the techniques
but very useful. Let me give you a crash course in it."
"You can do that?"
"It's easier than it seems. You just have to know what
you're doing."
"Okay, how would I teleport to the other side of the room?"
"Forget this room," said Leta. "If you wanted to get to the
other side of the room, you can walk. Teleport to your
quarters."
"How?"
"What have you been studying? Look, just close your eyes
and concentrate on your room. Picture it in your mind."
Taeon closed his eyes. The image of his room floated into
his mind. But it was only a thought, insubstantial, nothing more
than a haze of memory.
"You know remote viewing?"
"Yes," replied Taeon.
"That's the trick. You must force your presence to exist in
that room. Focus your mind on the center of the room. Will your
senses to trace through the spaces between."
Taeon concentrated, just as he had in all his previous
teleporation attempts. The mental picture of his room grew more
solid and distinct. Details his mind had forgotten magically
filled themselves in. He was seeing the room as it was now:
remote viewing.
"Your mind and soul are in your room," explained Leta, her
voice was distant, but strangely clear. "Space and time are
interwoven like the treads of a great, ever growing cloth. You
may travel across the threads, as all objects within the
Euclidean universe do, or you may dive beneath the boundaries of
space-time into the zero-point space. Feel your body sink
through the treads. Feel your material form unbind itself from
the grasp of the spatial continuum. Fall into the
singularity..."
Taeon ceased to feel his body. His mind's eye still saw his
quarters, but he felt like a disembodied form. Panic began to
swell within his mind.
"Pull yourself upward. Rise from the point beneath the
ocean of space-time. Reunite your body and mind. Feel your bone
and muscle and sinew."
Taeon concentrated on his physical form. He felt a sudden
heart-pounding rush, like a downward fall on a roller coaster,
only upward. Matter coalesced about his consciousness as
sensation returned to his ghostly form.
"Open your eyes."
Taeon blinked and looked around. He was standing in the
middle of his room, half a meter from his bed. Leta was also in
his room. She gave him a half smile and sat down on the bed.
"Perfect."
He took in a deep breath and let it out. The teleport jump
had taken away much of his bioenergy. "Wow. You made that
pretty easy."
"Humph," smirked Leta. "It's just that you can't learn crap
from reading. You only learn from doing. If we had more time, I
could show you a dozen other tricks. For now I think you need to
work some more on teleportation."
Taeon looked at his bed. "What would have happened if I
teleported into the bed?"
Leta looked down and patted the mattress. "Juxtaposition,
of course."
"Right," said Taeon. "The castling switch."
It was a fundamental law of space-time, he knew. No two
objects can occupy the same space at the same time. When an
object jumps through diverspace, be it a starship or a
teleporting diver, it will either land in the presence of a
solid, liquid, or a gas. Even in a hard vacuum there are still a
few atoms and molecules floating around. The physical result is
that when an object teleports into another, be it gas, liquid,
solid, or even plasma, that volume is suddenly thrown back into
diverspace, and usually comes out from where the diver departed,
being a destabilized area of space-time and an thus an event
attractor. A diver teleporting into a lake would throw a man-
sized volume of water back to where he had been. Teleporting
into solid rock would create a stone statue. Teleporting into a
table would throw the section of table thus displaced back to
where he originated. The results were sometimes humorous,
sometimes grim, and sometimes lethal.
"I need to practiced and rest up," said Taeon. "Teleporting
might be useful in combat."
"It will indeed," added Leta. She stood and headed for the
door.
"If Xandra is at the helm of this moon, she has access to
all the power of the Reality Horizon, right?"
Leta turned back and nodded. "That's right."
"How much power is that?"
"It is only limited by that power which the user can
channel. That, and the power which the psion capacitors can
store."
"How much power is that?"
"A quarter the power a standard G-class star puts out in one
second."
"I'm not sure that means much to me..."
"More power than most worlds produce in a year," answered
Leta. "And Xandra used it all in one second. She also recharged
the system at ten times its normal rate. With her powers
amplified as they are... I can't image the energy she has at her
disposal."
"What could she do?"
Leta closed her eyes. "Anything she damn well wants."
* * *
"All units, stand-by," said General Avenger.
Ryo looked up. The black space beyond the ceiling bay doors
was ominous, but he was in no danger. Even if the atmospheric
force shields collapsed, he was still inside his mecha.
"All mecha units report in if you have not landed aboard the
Sri Lanka."
"Lieutenant Gunn," said Ryo. "I'm in the Metal Storm."
"Lieutenant," said the General. "You can fly along side us.
Keep your nuke handy."
"Yes, sir," replied Ryo.
As a human might before a fight, Ryo balled his Metal
Storm's fist and punched it against his right hand. The metal
collided, and he flexed his hands feeling the powerful servos and
actuators in the finger units. "Today Briggs dies. Briggs and
Kay Sabre both."
Kay Sabre... She had all but killed JT. JT was still in a
coma and still on the verge of death. The black void of lose and
loneliness was even now beginning to simmer within his heart.
He had gone to see her just before coming to the mecha bay.
It rent his heart to see the wires and sensors scattered across
her body and the beeping diagnostic equipment which gave nothing
but bad news. The doctor said her chances were fifty-fifty, but
Ryo knew the doctors weren't telling him everything.
Ryo flipped the channel. "Taeon, you there?"
"Right here," replied Taeon.
"Are you on-board the Sri Lanka?"
"With all the other normal-sized mecha, yeah," he answered.
"Lucky you with Metal Storm gets to be an assault escort along
side our gunships."
"Well, I am packing the nuke with Briggs' name on it."
Taeon laughed. "You may think you're going to get all the
glory, but I'll have you know -- I just learned the art of
teleportation!"
"It works with your mecha?"
"It's a diver mecha," replied Taeon. "With the built-in psi-
amp, I can teleport myself with my mecha over a hundred
kilometers."
"Can you teleport a rock into a mecha's reactor?"
"Sure," said Taeon. "But, it would be really hard to get it
pin-pointed, especially if the mecha was moving, but
theoretically, yes. It wouldn't be to honorable, though."
"That's one thing I've wondered about teleportation. What
happens to momentum? I mean, you're always in motion right?
Teleporting from one side of a planet to another, your angular
momentum would either throw you off into space or drill you into
the core. And teleporting between to ships moving at different
speeds or different directions..."
"That's part of the castling effect. When I teleport into a
place where there's air, or maybe another object like a rock,
that object, or part of it, switches places with me. I won't go
into the details of how, but momentum is conserved because the
forces are switched between the two objects, or at least
equalized."
"Uh huh," said Ryo. "What if the object is of lower mass?
Or if you teleport into a vacuum?"
"I don't know the details! I think if the mass is lower it
will have a greater velocity after the switch. But there is no
such thing as a pure vacuum. If there is one hydrogen atom, all
the momentum will be transferred to it. A few hypervelocity
hydrogen atoms never hurt anyone."
"It still seems dangerous," said Ryo. "You should be
careful where you teleport, especially in a fifty ton mecha."
"Yeah, yeah," replied Taeon. "But, as I said, the momentum
gets equalized."
"All units, this is General Avenger," came the General's
voice over the primary channel. "We are now departing for the
assault. All escorts launch and take position around the Sri
Lanka."
Ryo activated his gravitic thrusters and allowed his mecha
to ride the invisible plume of gravity upward and out of the
landing bay. The Sri Lanka was already in flight, its hull still
scarred ugly from the last battle. Eight gunship were moving
into formation to guard their last great capital ship.
"Tactical briefing to all units," started the General.
"Stand-by for upload."
Ryo willed a small display screen to appear in the periphery
of his vision. The window contained a text display screen. He
opened it to receive the tactical data upload from the Sri Lanka.
It took only a moment for the ship to transmit the data to all
mecha and gunship units.
According to the tactical report, the Zion Moon was heading
for Mars at an alarming rate. It would reach the planet in less
than thirty minutes. The war, which raged through the solar
system, consisted of many self-contained battles scattered about
the major worlds. Two large battles were around Jupiter on the
other side of the solar system. There was a small battle at
Saturn and another near Uranus. A division of GSC ships was
trying to break through the ITR lines at Venus without much
success. Another group was attempting to break through to Earth,
having already launched several nukes all of which were
thankfully intercepted. There was a battle in orbit around Mars,
but the ITR forces there seemed to be winning, assisted by ground-
based cannons and orbital defense platforms.
"We may win after all," said Ryo as he took position in the
flight formation.
"Don't get over confidant," said Taeon.
"How can I get overconfident? All I have is a super-mecha
packing a two megaton tactical nuke."
"Yeah, yeah," replied Taeon. "Just take out the Victorious
and stop bragging."
The task force circled the moon, cruising swiftly in low
lunar orbit. It took only a few minutes to orbit to the other
side. Ryo watched and held his breath as the blue and white orb
of terraformed Mars quickly rose on the horizon and crept across
the black, star-filled sky.
On the craterous surface below, the Zion Base rolled into
view. At first glance, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. But,
as Ryo zoomed in on the base, he discovered the main biodome had
been breached; it's entire dome shattered like an eggshell.
Several other structures -- radar stations, power plants, shield
generators, and gun emplacements -- had also been destroyed. And
there, resting silently on the ground, was the sinister flagship
Victorious.
The other GSC ships were not present. Ryo could only assume
they were not on the lunar surface when the moon teleported,
leaving them behind in the Arcturus system. Even so, there were
dozens of other GSC ship now in the Sol system, assaulting the
core worlds of the ITR.
"Victorious spotted," stated General Avenger over the
channel. "We have incoming. All mecha launch. Gunships, break
and attack."
Ryo looked at the range counter spinning down his upper
periphery. The main cannon was still not in range of the
Victorious, but it would be soon.
"Ryo, Taeon, Vista, Allen, you read?" buzzed the voice of
Major Katana.
"Roger," all replied.
"Long time no see," said Ryo.
The Ironclad Mindancer swooped down into formation with the last
of the Guardian Squadron. "Form up and punch a hole through the
GSC lines. Ryo, are you ready to blast the hell out of the
Victorious?"
"You'd better believe it!" replied Ryo.
"Good. Get ready. A heavy assault squadron is coming right
at us."
Seven blips lit up on radar scan. Ryo tuned his sensors and
brought up a computer rendering of the approaching adversaries.
"Three Cobra ATMs, three Ironclad Neo-Morays, and the squadron
leader's in a War God."
"Mother of Hell!" exclaimed Allen.
"A War God?" asked Taeon. "Briggs?"
"I doubt it," said Vista. "Intelligence reported that
Briggs had about a hundred War Gods constructed for his high
officers. The pilot may not be Briggs, but he sure as hell's
important."
"Humph," smirked Ryo.
"Ryo," said Katana. "Take out that War God. The rest of
you, follow me. We'll deal with the others."
* * *
Taeon burned command after command through his Psycho
Raptor's computer, scanning desperately through every
electromagnetic wavelength in an attempt to locate the
approaching Cobra ATMs. "Come on! Where are you!"
Then it saw them. Three black silhouettes, barely a shade
lighter than the pure black background of space. "Lock on!" he
screamed at his computer. "Lock on, dammit!"
The targeting cross-hairs danced around Taeon's view, and
failed to settle down on any of the stealth mecha. Disgusted at
the inferiority of his targeting computer, Taeon switch it off.
"Taeon," said Vista. "You've switch off your..."
"Shut-up!" growled Taeon.
He swung his left arm toward the flight of mecha and powered
up the graser wave cannon. "As Albert Einstein might say,
gravity kicks!"
An invisible wave of spatial distortion ripped out of the
Psycho Raptor's arm as the gravitic forces were unleashed. The
wave of force spread outward, alternating between repelling and
attracting at a billion cycles per second, and struck the
incoming squadron.
The lead Cobra took the blast head on, it's black metal body
crumpled like a tin can. The other two were unaffected, being
nearly a hundred meters below the wave of rippling space-time.
One of the Neo-Moray was grazed by the attack, and it's left arm
crush in on itself, then exploded. The mecha spiraled away,
knocked back by the incredible forces that had drilled into it.
Taeon charged up his energy array and willed a volley of ten
energy missiles into existence. The projectiles appeared,
already moving at light-speed, and at practically the same
instant they impacted the wounded Neo-Moray.
"Scratch two," said Taeon, as the Neo-Moray became nothing
more than a fiery sphere of expanding, exploding gas.
The proximity sensors screamed to life, and Taeon
reflexively kicked his mecha's gravitic thrusters to full
reverse. Despite the momentum buffer system, his body was thrown
forward into the emergency G-web.
One of the Cobra's had come up from below, and was
practically on top of him! Before Taeon could react further, the
super-high-tech mecha leveled it's nucleon pulse rifle and opened
fire. A stream of green energy pulses ripped mercilessly through
his mecha's protective force shields and dug deep into his armor.
"Ghaah!" screamed Taeon.
As the pulsating attack continued, Taeon clutched both psi-
amp spheres and focused his thoughts into a cohesive blast of
telekinetic force.
The force plowed into the Cobra and knocked it back. It's
nucleon rifle shattered like glass and both arms crumpled to
useless stubs.
Taeon flipped his right wrist and the hilt of his energy
sword sprung out of it's holding bay. He gripped the weapon in
hand and launched toward the stunned target.
"Die!" he screamed, as the beam sword flared forth and
solidified to a blade of fusion-point energy, gloved in a
singularity of gravity.
The Cobra's chest missile bays opened revealing the six AI
guided missiles contained within. Taeon never gave him a chance
to fire. He swung the energy sword down on the Cobra and sliced
him from left shoulder to right hip.
As the two halves of the mecha tumbled past, Taeon brought
his senses out of their battle-crazed fury and focused on the
tactical situation at hand.
He had destroyed nearly half the enemy squadron in less than
twenty seconds time. Meanwhile, the others were engaged in
single combat with the other foes. Vista and Allen's Kraken
mecha had blown past this squadron and was heading off to engage
a second incoming group, no doubt a reinforcement squadron.
Katana was taking on the last Cobra, and though she was having a
difficult time hitting it, the Cobra was even worse at hitting
her. Ryo, in his Metal Storm, was barring down on the War God.
Only two Neo-Morays remained.
Before Taeon engaged the remaining Neo-Morays, he watched in
envious dismay as Ryo opened fire on the great War God mecha.
Ten energy missiles flared out from either launcher and homed in
on the seemingly powerful GSC mecha. Taeon had been certain the
War God would have been at least an entertaining adversary for
Ryo. Instead, the mecha was blasted to burnt ashes, consumed in
the raging fireball of thermal destruction.
"Geez!" exclaimed Taeon as he watch his friend's triumphant
victory.
"Piece of cake," said Ryo.
"Taeon, look out!" yelled Katana as she finished off her
target.
Taeon jerked to the side as the two Ironclad Neo-Morays
closed on him, bringing their Vulcan rail cannons to bear. Both
let loose with the devastating rifles spraying out a dozen
hypersonic barrel-sized slugs.
Powerful as his force shields were, Taeon knew they could
not take such punishment. In the split second of time that
existed for one infinitesimal moment before his doom, Taeon
created a barrier of psionic force between himself and the shower
of destruction.
Each rail round slammed into the invisible field of
telekinetic energy. In turn, each round disintegrated, as if
impacting some impenetrable wall.
The two Morays continued on their flight path toward him,
but they had ceased fire under the impression that such force
would surely have destroyed him. Little did they know of Taeon's
powers.
Taeon opened the capacitors on his primary energy focusing
system. A swirling vortex of nuclear plasma formed directly in
front of the Psycho Raptor. Taeon held out both his mecha's
arms, and the energy ball condensed to a single brilliant white
point, as bright as a star itself.
"Polar energy flow, nominal," stated the computer.
"Eat this!" screamed Taeon, and unleashed the
gravitationally contained fusion fury.
The point of light exploded forth turning into a blinding
beam of energy. It washed over the first Neo-Moray and utterly
destroyed. Nothing remained but the dust of a trillion shattered
atoms.
Just as the looming ball of energy swelled where the enemy
mecha had been, Taeon leveled his sights on the last Moray. The
primary energy delivery system changed modes, switching to a
lower, yet equally deadly weapon.
Swinging around to finish the last target, Taeon created a
spray of energy pulses, a dozen a second. The track of brilliant
particle bullet's flared forth and staggered across the Moray's
body. As round after round tore into the mecha and blasted out
the back, Taeon swung down with his energy sword. The Moray
tumbled past, fire and smoke streaming from a dozen new holes,
and the fusion blade sliced clean through the mecha's mid-
section.
A fireball erupted behind him where the Moray should have
been, and Taeon's Psycho Raptor lifted away to join his comrades
in their victory strike against the tyrannical General Briggs.
* * *
The Victorious, still berthed on the ground, was preparing
to take off, it's engines glowing a fiery red. Now or never,
thought Ryo.
He reached back and grabbed the 80cm cannon mounted on the
Metal Storm's back. As he did, his sensor's caught sight of
something else. Something peculiar on the lunar surface near the
base.
Curious, he zoomed in on the object. He saw only a slight
optical disturbance -- like a mirage. On a hunch, he changed the
screens to high definition ladar imaging. A humanoid outline
materialized, over thirty meters tall and much like his own mecha
in appearance. "Metal Storm Alpha..."
"Say again, Lieutenant Gunn?" came the voice of the tactical
operator in charge of the Sri Lanka's Combat Information Center.
"Metal Storm Alpha spotted," said Ryo. "Ten kilometers
northeast of the Victorious at the Zion Base parameter. It's
immobile. Reactor readings at minimal. I'd say it's trying to
stay hidden."
"Negative," replied the operator. "We're not detecting
anything."
"It's cloaked," replied Ryo. "Use an intense laser imaging
sweep."
After a short pause the operator came back on-line. "Good
God! How could they have reconstructed it so fast!"
"It has a nanotech repair system, just like my mecha."
There was another pause. The operator may have been talking
to the General. "Lieutenant Gunn, your orders stand. Destroy
the Victorious."
"Acknowledged," replied Ryo.
He would rather have destroyed the Metal Storm Alpha. It
was likely Briggs was the pilot. But orders were orders. He
took hold of the giant cannon and swung it down over his
shoulder.
"I can't miss this one," he stated taking aim on the great
capital ship only eight hundred kilometers away.
The targeting cross-hairs centered on the mid-ship and
blinked to red. The lock tone sounded, and Ryo pulled the
trigger.
The bazooka launcher fired, sending fire and smoke out the
back of the cannon barrel. The ten ton shell launched, propelled
by the tremendous force exploding behind it. The shell arched
across eight hundred klicks of empty space and drilled into the
side of the enemy flagship.
Everything went white.
The optical dampener filtered out the light of the
unfathomable blast, generating only a soft white color tone no
brighter than that of a sheet of paper. In a matter of seconds
the infernal flare of the nuclear blast passed and the imaging
system returned to normal.
A tremendous dome of blazing red fire rose from where the
Victorious had been. It spread out for a two kilometer radius,
completely consuming the enormous vessel in its deviating nuclear
fire ball. A shock wave raced across the ground below, rippling
through the lunar soil. Structures blasted apart by the ensuing
earthquake and the remaining biodomes shattered and exploded
releasing their atmospheres into the void of space.
As the shock wave continued to radiate out it slammed into
the Metal Storm Alpha knocking the giant mecha off its feet. It
toppled to the ground and lay motionless as the torrential wave
of geological energy passed.
"We got 'em!" exclaimed Ryo.
"All right!" called Katana.
"Score one for the good guys," stated Allen.
"Good shot, Gunn," came the voice of General Avenger. "Now,
finish the Alpha!"
Ryo grinned and zoomed in on Metal Storm Alpha. It was
relatively undamaged, but the cloaking system was down. He
detected a power build up in its reactor. The mecha was coming
on-line.
"Ryo," said Taeon. "Take a look at Mars."
Ryo looked up and saw the planet directly above at the
zenith of the lunar sky. "Man, she's huge! Tactical, how close
are we to Mars?"
"One hundred thousand klicks and closing," stated the CIC
officer. "The Zion Moon's velocity is accelerating."
"Are we going to hit?" asked Ryo.
"Unless our course changes, impact with Mars is T-minus ten
minutes."
"Dammit!" exclaimed Ryo. "Somebody has to do something!"
"Remain calm," said General Avenger. "I'm sure whoever's
steering this moon has the sense not to crash into a planet."
Ryo flooded the electronics countermeasure computer with
lists of commands. He piped what he knew were the encrypted GSC
command frequencies into the Metal Storm's on-board AI system.
Rapidly programming a few decryption tricks of his own, Ryo
ordered the AI to get busy on breaking through the GSC
communications system. "CIC, I'm going to try to break the GSC
comm channels."
"That's our job," replied the CIC officer. "Just destroy
the MS-Alpha."
"I'm not in firing range yet. Besides, the Metal Storm's AI
system is twice as powerful as the Sri Lanka's primary computer.
And I still have their old encryption algorithm's to work with."
"Lieutenant Gunn, Lieutenant Toshio, proceed as planned,"
stated Katana. "I'm going to help out Vista and Allen. Good
luck."
"Thanks," replied Taeon. "Hey, Ryo, are your sensors
picking up anything funny? I suddenly got a really bad
feeling..."
Ryo brought up a wide-field sensor image of everything with
a thousand kilometer radius. "No, I..." he pause, noticing a
massive electromagnetic field. "This moon doesn't have a
electromagnetic field, does it?"
"No," replied Taeon. "Why?"
"It does now," replied Ryo. The EM field began to grow,
building power at an exponential rate. "Holy..."
"What?" asked Taeon.
"Something's wrong..."
The Reality Horizon amplifier bands that stretch over the
horizon to the east and west, north and south, flared with a
golden brilliance. Being in the middle of the cross-shaped
intersection of the two circumscribed bands, Ryo saw the flare of
energy from each point of the compass.
"What's going on!" yelled Ryo.
Light erupted from the equatorial and meridian bands. Wild
arcs of energy, like lightning but a billion times powerful,
danced across the black sky.
"All mecha, take evasive action!" barred General Avenger's
voice. "Helm, take us down! Take us down!"
Ryo watch as the Sri Lanka barreled at full steam away from
the chaotic sky of seething blue energy. In a matter of seconds,
the view of Mars was completely washed out by a ceiling of
unimaginable energies.
"The Reality Horizon..." said Ryo.
"That's the only thing known to man that can generate that
much power," said Taeon. "The whole moon's enveloped in a
blanket of energy!"
"A defense field?"
"Who knows."
Ryo heard a double beep, then the computer's voice. "GSC
comm codes penetrated."
"Wow," said Ryo, impressed. "CIC, this is Ryo. I've
cracked the GSC comm codes. Patching it through to channel
eight."
"Good work," said the CIC officer.
Ryo cycled through the GSC frequencies, hunting for
something important. Many of the frequencies were being used by
enemy squadrons or were data uplink channels. Then he passed by
what sounded like the voice of General Briggs. Ryo flipped back
a few channels until he found it again.
"...here now, Captain! Get me that update! Where the hell
is my ship!"
"Tactical reports confirm. Metal Storm Beta has destroyed
the Victorious," came another voice.
"What!" screamed Briggs. "What!"
"There is also a massive energy field surrounding the moon.
Origin appears to be the Reality Horizon system. We are
detecting zero power drop off from the RH power supply. Whoever,
or whatever, is powering that thing has no problem doing so."
"Impossible! Colonel Anders, get a support team down here.
We need to get through this TK barrier. If we can't access the
elevator to at the Reality Throne, get our engineers to dig
around it. I need access to the RH system. Those Imperial rats
will pay for this out rage! They will all pay!"
Ryo flipped to the ITR command channel. "Did you get that,
General?"
"Loud and clear," replied General Avenger. "It seems Briggs
has not yet accessed the Reality Horizon. The question is, who's
controlling it?"
"Xandra," said Taeon.
"What?" asked Ryo.
"My sister. She's the only diver I know with enough psionic
energy to invoke such power."
"Hmmm," said General Avenger. "Perhaps if you could
communicate with her..."
"I'll try," said Taeon. "But my telepathic range isn't that
great. I need to in close."
"Understood," said the General. "Just get this moon back
under our control, no matter the cost. General Avenger out."
Written and Directed By
Mark Chase
http://www.meta-earth.com
Copyright 1998. All rights reserved.
Casting By
Mark Chase
Starring
Ryo Gunn - Mathias Russ
Taeon Toshio - Jonathan Fuller
Other Characters - Mark Chase
Xandra Toshio
Sara Toshio
Allen Mercer
Vista Juno
JT
Major Katana
Jason Grivar
Dr. Kei Gunn
General Avenger
Alax Nair
Leta Zodiac
And Everyone Else
Mecha Designs
Metal Storm Beta - Mark Chase
Psycho Raptor - Mark Chase
Raptor Series - Mark Chase
Gallant - Mark Chase
Neo-Moray - Mark Chase
Cobra ATM - Mark Chase
Titan - Mark Chase
War God - Mark Chase
Ares-1 - Mark Chase
(all mecha were constructed under
the Mekton Zeta© RPG system, by
R. Talsorian Games, Inc)