Reunion: Chapter 26

Space travel is dangerous. So many unknown variables hidden in the dark reaches that hide and then strike when least expected. Anything can cause a ship, jumping across countless light years across the galaxy to become damaged, get destroyed or simply vanish from existence. Routes through the stars must be meticulously planned and scouted before large-scale movement could occur.

Hundreds of smaller scouts had traveled between Earth and New Earth, plotting the safest path for the Dominion Expeditionary fleet. A black hole was circumvented. A nebula noted but disregarded as safe to travel through. Asteroid fields, comet tails, there were hundreds of potential hazards which were discovered and documented appropriately. The path the fleet would take had been blazed well before warships made their jumps and there shouldn't have been any issues, but nature isn't man's worst enemy. Man is man's worst enemy.

The dreadnaught cruiser, Fleeing Bastion was at the spear tip of the invasion. One of only three of these five mile long ships were ever made. They were a dying breed of ships, too massive, too slow, but godly in power. Most of the fleet was made up of smaller ships. No larger than destroyers, but for an attack of this scale, Fleeing Bastion was perfect for the job. Grab the attention of the enemy and soak up damage to allow the rest of the fleet to get into position and get the surprise attack underway. Every step of the plan had been detailed down to the second, and yet it didn't matter.

A poorly written watch bill was the Fleeing Bastion's doom. Engineer Officer, Daniel Mason, put one of the sailors under his command, who he knew would have been working for ten hours prior, on the final maintenance crew before the jump. The sailor, fatigued, had missed a small discrepancy in the valves that fed cooling water to the main reactors. The small issue led to a minor power fluctuation when the ship jump, nothing more than a small spike in the readings for those at the monitoring station, a normal occurrence caused by abnormal circumstances.

The fleet was to jump right over New Earth, as close as possible to hit them as hard as possible as fast as possible. It was to be a blitz. Take out the Ai before its fleet could retaliate. It was a sound plan that had the support of many military minds, even those that didn't directly support the Dominion. Yet, the small power spike caused a delay in the timing and navigation's of the Fleeing Bastion, causing it to jump too close to the planet. It hit the atmosphere hard; its fifty-meter thick hull was stripped away at the bow. The engines strained, the reactor overheated and the ship crashed to the ground where the reactor melted down and subsystems detonated. The blast made its way to the ship's magazine where all of its ammunition, meant to last it for weeks of nonstop combat, lit up.

The explosion killed most of the ship's fifty thousand crew members instantly. A few were able to get to rescue pods and jettison, but none escaped the blast that was felt even on the opposite side of the planet. The ground was turned to glass in a two-mile radius, and even then, the massive ship was still there, creating an artificial mountain range.

Emil and Marcel were ten miles away and still the entire cottage they were in was entirely obliterated and threw the two back nearly one hundred feet. It was a miracle that they both survived.

"Wake up." Emil shook Marcel's body. The Canis was unconscious, still breathing and had a gruesome cut across his forehead stretching from his nose to his ear where he had been struck by flying debris. Emil was bleeding as well, small abrasions and cuts across his arms and chest, but he wasn't worried about that.

Night had turned to day, the fire from the crashed ship was bright enough that he could no longer see the stars. However, he wouldn't have known if there were stars out or not. The sky looked like it was full of shooting stars. Streaks and blips of lights were scattered from the horizon to horizon. They moved amongst each other, dancing, twirling, occasionally exploding. It would have been a sight to marvel at if the man wasn't so terrified.

"Come on, buddy." Emil lifted Marcel's head, cradling it in his lap and slapped him gently with the back of his hand. "We got to get out of here." He didn't know where he would go. The grav car the two had taken to get to the cottage was nowhere in sight and even if they did find it, Emil wasn't sure if it would be in working condition after what the blast had done to the building.

Marcel stirred, his tongue licked the blood off of his lips, and he grimaced as the cut was stressed when he made any kind of facial expression. "Fuck." He groaned and rolled of off Marcel's lap. He blinked the stinging away and wiped some blood off of his jaw. "What happened."

Marcel crawled over to his friend and put an arm under his to help stand him up. He didn't want to stay and chat. What if another ship came barreling out of the sky. He could see more burning debris, parts of ships from the battle above, falling out of the sky. It was the night it rained fire.

"We need to get moving." He used his legs to lift both himself and the Canis us, shouldering most of the weight. "They're here. The enemy that Damien had been warning us against." He didn't know where to go, so he picked a direction and went.

Once Marcel got his bearings, he was able to walk, though he, understandably, had a massive headache. He was glad that it was actually very quiet. The battle was way up in low orbit, so not much sound reached them. There were distant explosions, but none that were close.

"So what now?" Marcel asked, holding up his scrunched up shirt to his head. "Now that this had actually started. What do we do now? Go hide in little holes while we let the robots and the enemy fight it out?"

"I don't know." Marcel shrugged. He looked back. They had been walking for about thirty minutes very slowly. He finally had some time to take in what he had witnessed. For the size of the ship, they were lucky that it hadn't fallen on them. No one would have known either. Not many people know where Marcel lived. The Canis didn't like crowds and he had it in his head that if people knew where he lived, way out in the middle of nowhere, random strangers would appear at his doorstep. It wasn't that he was antisocial, it was that he was very aware of how messy his house was and didn't want to get judged for his uncleanliness. People who he considered close friends, like Emil, were an exception.

"You think someone is going to come looking for us?"

"I'd hope so," Emil replied. "I really do hope so."
--

It was two hours later before they needed to rest. Marcel was having a hard time walking; his breathing was raspy from exertion. He fell with no grace onto his rear with his tongue slid partially out of his mouth.

"No more." He gasped. "Everything hurts. I- I need a moment to rest." He fell onto his back with his arms and legs spread eagle. He grunted in pain, clutched his side and then closed his eyes. "Just a quick rest." He was asleep before Emil could sit down next to him.

Emil was feeling okay. He was sore, but then again, he hadn't taken nearly as much of a beating as the Canis. Rest wasn't going to hurt at all anyways. They were still far away from the city.

If the city was still there.

Worry plagued Emil's mind. The battle still raged overhead with just as much ferocity as when it began, and there was no sign it was going to stop any time soon. That was just overhead, still going on as far as the eye could see. It could have very easily reached the city. Even with all of the preparations and time that Damien had, Emil was unsure if it was enough. There seemed to be so many ships up there.

"No." Emil gripped his head in his hands. "I can't think like this." He then looked over at Marcel. He needed to get the both of them home or at least somewhere that wasn't just out in the open and had a way to communicate with someone in the city, preferably Damien. The Ai had integrated itself fully into the colony's systems. He would be the first to hear him. Then there would be a rescue.

The Ai had become attached to Emil, almost as much as Marcel was, which was impressive. Canis were extremely notorious for finding a human, usually at an early age, and then sticking with them. Marcel and Emil's parents had known each other. The two had grown up together. They went to the same school, did the same sports and activities. It was no surprise when Marcel went into topography along with Emil and then applied for the same job as well. Between humans, it would be creepy and signs of a stalker, between a Canis and a human, it was expected.

Damien had a lot of personality that reminded Emil and many others of Canis. He was nosy, annoyingly so and especially intrusive in Emil's affairs. With the Ai essentially acting as the central nervous system of the city, he could query into what Emil was doing on a regular basis. He was polite in how he did it, going as far as imitating the sound of knocking on a door before he would just appear on Emil's computer and try and start a conversation. The Ai's curiosity was insatiable, again, like a Canis. Marcel didn't just tinker with broken machines to try and fix them, he wanted to see what was inside of them. Damien wanted to see what was going on in Emil's life like how Marcel wanted to see what was going on in the radio.

"The one time I get away, I need you most." Emil sighed and laid down. "How ironic." Emil turned to face the direction that he and Marcel had been walking. Nothing but more grass and then the horizon. It would have been perfectly flat if there wasn't the curve of the planet which Emil could see. It wasn't a promising sight.

But what was a promising sight was one of the lights over the horizon. It was different from one of the thousands overhead. It was brighter and moving faster than all of the rest.

Emil squinted to try and see the light better, rolling onto his stomach. The light was progressively getting bigger, because it was very close.

The engines were quiet as the ship's shape became visible. It wasn't the prettiest ship, looking like a metal box with wings and a cockpit. It swung overhead, the thrusters on the end of the wings twisting to pivot the ship around to face a new direction with the front towards Emil who stood up. He didn't recognize the ship's design at all.

Marcel stayed asleep as the ship touched down on four legs that came out from the undercarriage. It settled down, crushing the grass under the feet, but not disturbing the rest of the gas as the thrusters, normally giving off a blue light, dimmed to a soft white.

Emil could only stand and watch as the front of the ship opened, the door turning into a ramp, allowing a dozen armed men, both Canis and humans to storm down and encircle the two. They looked different from city security or even the militia that some of the people from the city had made. These people, soldiers, wore sectional armor that only opened up at the joints and glowed at various locations. Some wore helmets that covered the entire face, others didn't have helmets. They also held weapons that were different from anything that Emil had seen. Sleek and black versus the more clunky city security had or the white weapons Damien's robots had. These were the aliens attacking. The aliens were humans and Canis.

"Put your hands on your head!' One of the soldiers yelled out. "We will shoot!"

"Don't be so dramatic." Another figure stepped out of the ship.

"Yes, sir." The soldier nodded and visibly relaxed. "Sir, there's a human and a Canis."

"Interesting." The new figure, not in armor, but in tight fitting clothes with a large, brimmed hat and a colorful display on his chest came into view. "We were expecting something else entirely." The man was older, older than Emil was by the amount of wrinkles on his face. The man's eyes scrutinized Emil and then Marcel. He pointed at the Canis. "Is he alright."

"Uhh." Emil was only able to blurt out and then nodded.

The man turned to the solider. "We'll take them both with us. Load them onto the ship."