Ember sword chapter 0: The Lone Pilot

“Alert! Alert! This is not a drill! Everyone to your station!” The sirens blaring in Luna’s ear were almost deafening. She just finished her night shift of patrols and in the morning, the sirens were blasting for some reason. She rolled out of her cot, put on her uniform, and opened the door leading into the hallway. Soldiers, pilots, and other crew members were running hectically in all directions. “This can’t be good,” she told herself. Luna wasn’t sure if she needed to run to the hanger where her ship set or to the command center. She knew Gunther was most likely at his post in the command center and could fill her in. All she had to do was leave the barracks and run across the training field to get to the center and away from these sirens. She made a dash past the crowd and stepped outside. Once she made it out, she looked up and froze. As more and more ran outside of the barracks, many of Luna’s colleagues did the same. They could not believe what lay in front of them. 

Someone spoke up near Luna, not speaking to anyone directly. “Is that, is that Starzhen?! What exactly is he doing?!” Someone else from the crowd shouted, “Th-that’s the ember sword! He’s attacking Jupitar!” Screams erupted as Luna saw the power of Starzhen. He was going to doom them all with that sword. She had to get to Gunther and then to her ship. Chaos erupted all around her as she made a dash towards the command center. Pushing troops aside through the crowds she made it to the security station. She showed her badge to the guards which allowed her in. As she walked in, Gunther was with other high-ranking officers looking upon the holo-screen that sat in the middle of the room. Gunther caught Luna out of the corner of his eye and approached her. 

“What is happening?” Luna asked. “Looks like that day is finally upon us. Just 5 years later. The zealot fan club was right about their God Starzhen” Luna shook her head, “this can’t be happening, I need to get to my ship.” Just as she was about to leave, Gunther grabbed her harm, “wait, The Pangea convoy is already heading to attack, your ship is for planetary combat not cosmic. Luna pulled his arm, “my ship can handle it, and they need me up there.” Gunther looked worried, “Luna, this is bad, really bad, I don’t want to…lose you.” Luna knew what he meant. Always a romantic tension between them, as the world was coming to an end, formalities were out of the picture. Luna grabbed his hand, “you want me to stay. Is that an order from my commanding officer?” Gunther looked back at the other monitors, “I want you to form a perimeter around the atmosphere, we are going to need something a little bigger if we want to stop Starzhen.” Luna nodded and head into the hanger.

The thrusters burned hot as Luna lifted out of the hanger to go meet the rest of the convoy going to take on Starzhen and the ember sword. Luna activated her comms, "this is Thanabus Valkriye mark 0304 coming to assist." Comms responded from the Pangea convey, "negative 0304, any ships on Thanabus are assigned to monitor any activity in the atmosphere. Luna rolled her eyes, she knew she could help with the attack herself. She was starting to hit the atmosphere. She looked down upon Thanabus. She wasn't going to fail them. She pulled back on the controls and continued her ascent. Gunther came over the comms, "Luna just got word from the convoy, pull back." Luna continued to ascend. "Luna, pull back, that's an order." Starzhen began to turn his gaze towards the convoy. Luna turned off her comms and activated all power to thrusters. She knew she had to stop Starzhen. Before she could make it to the main convoy, she saw them all open fire upon Starzhen. Shells, missiles, and streams of energy blasted all towards the monstrosity planetoid of Starzhen. The screams of Starzhen were deafening as Luna's ship shook from the scream. A flash came from Starzhen and Luna once again could not believe what she saw. She flipped her comms on, "get out of there!" She pleaded to the convoy. Before she got a response, Starzhen exploded and the mass of the planetoid shattered engulfing the massive Pangea convoy. Luna heard the screams of the convoy and then radio silence. She was afraid. The whole Pangea star fleet was gone just like that. The astroids of Starzhen began to scatter among space as large rocks headed towards Luna's ship. She began to dodge many astroids but from her left, one struck her ship. Everything went dark, Luna knew she was gone. 

In the darkness, Luna heard a voice in the distance, "Luna, are you there? Come in Luna. Are you there?" Was that Gunther? What was he doing here? Is he in her head? No, it was coming from the comms. She was alive. Luna gasped as she noticed that she was still in her ship floating above Thanabus. Luna responded, "Gunther are you there?" Gunther responded, "Luna, thank God you're okay. I thought I lost you." Luna looked down at Thanabus as the asteroids began falling towards the moon. Luna began activating her ship's backup power cell, "Gunther, what is happening?" Gunther sounded panicked, "this is bad Luna, real bad. Starzhen's body, or whatever you want to call it, is crashing down on Thanabus. I'm the only one left in the command center. Everyone else has abandoned posts to get the evacuation ships. You're the only starship left of the whole fleet." Luna couldn't believe all the other ships were gone. Everything was going wrong and she didn't know what to do. Luna took a deep breath and went over to the comms "what do we need to do?"

Luna began descending back down towards Thanabus. Gunther came over the comms, "if you can focus on the bigger asteroids and focus fire, you may break them up enough to burn up in the atmosphere." Luna knew she had a mission now and the lives of Thanabus were counting on her.  Luna focused on the first asteroid near her. She focused her shot and opened fire, a direct hit. The asteroid shattered into smaller pieces. She pulled away to see the smaller pieces getting burned up. "Nicely done! I can't believe it worked" Gunther shouted over the comms. Luna turned and weaved through debris as she continued to take out more of the asteroids. She couldn't stop them all but she knew anything would help. "How's it looking down there," she asked Gunther. "Not so good but I'm seeing on the monitor that your shots are helping for sure," Gunther responded. Luna continued to blast asteroids throughout the atmosphere. As Gunther called them out over the comms. They worked well together and were destroying asteroids back to back.

Soon, Gunther would come on again, "Luna, I'm reading an asteroid heading towards one of our striders. If that crashes, I don't want to think what the terraformer will do if it crashes. Luna pushed forward and saw the asteroid heading directly towards the strider. She opened fire but the asteroid was too big. She pulled away to make another strafing run. She knew that her ship's guns wouldn't break up the asteroid, but for a second, she thought maybe her ship's mass could do the trick. Luna knew what she had to do, if she crashed her ship directly at the one asteroid, she could break it up enough where it may not destroy the strider. Luna focused all of her power cells on thrusters, lined up with the asteroid, and pushed forward. "What are you doing," Gunther asked over the comms. Luna took a deep breath, "if I focus my ship directly on the asteroid, I could break it up enough to not hit the strider." Gunther responded instantly, "Luna, that's suicide. Turn back now!" Luna knew he was going to say that, "I have to do this, Thanabus needs to live on, I knew what I signed up for." Just as Luna was just a few clicks away from the asteroid, a distress beacon blipped on. Leak in the power cell was draining most likely from the first crash of the explosion. The asteroid was closing faster than she expected. Luna wouldn't make it in time, as the asteroid collided with the strider. A light flashed, causing her to lose all power. Luna began freefalling as she tried to regain control. 

Luna began flipping emergency power as debris fell around her. Chunks of asteroid rained on her ship denting and cracking her ship. Lucky, she regain control and began to maintain altitude. Luna was back on Thanabus and she could not believe just how much damage she was witnessing. As far as she could see, The Thanabus she was raised on was crashing all around her. She witnessed massive asteroids colliding off in distant lands and nations. She could see fires erupting and striders falling all around her. This wasn't a disaster, this was a catastrophe. Luna's ship monitors began flashing that she was losing power fast. She only had time to land and wasn't too far from base.

Gunther waited outside the hanger waving down Luna as she made a very rocky landing. She didn't even use her landing gear as it was damaged from the fight. Her ship skidded across the landing zone and eventually came to a halt. Gunther pried open the ship to get Luna out. As she stepped out, she noticed that she could see her breath and that the air was extremely cold. Before Luna could ask, Gunther knew what she was going to say, "the strider we tried to stop crashed and went haywire." Luna saw the crashed strider on the mountainside. As she began seeing snowcaps appear from nothing. Luna turned to Gunther, "What now? We need to get to the evacuation ships or to the bunkers at least?" Gunther stood silent as Luna walked around. She looked at him confused, "what should we do?" Gunther looked with despair, "none of the evacuation ships made it. Once the striders came down they were destroyed. All of the bunkers are closed off but even some of them are being destroyed just due to the sheer impact of the asteroids. Luna looked around her as she saw more and more debris, asteroids, and striders fall from the sky. She turned to Gunther, "this can't be the end, there has to be something we can do. Any word from Claudius or Abel? They would know what to do!" Gunther shook his head, all comms are gone." Luna began to panic, "Gunther, we need a mission, we always have a mission. What do we need to do?" Gunther walked over and sat beside Luna's crashed ship, "perhaps you can accompany me in these final hours."

Luna and Gunther sat quietly next to each other as they watched more and more crash down around them. The bulk of the planetoid was descending upon Thanabus and Luna and Gunther knew this would be the end. Luna leaned towards Gunther, "why didn't you evacuate with the other officers?" Gunther shrugged, "the same reason you didn't just flee to another moon in your ship when you saw the destruction, we had a mission to complete. Luna smiled and looked up at the planetoid. After a few minutes of silence, Gunther did speak up, "I also didn't want to lose you all the way up there." Luna smiled and knew that he wasn't referring to her as a pilot but as someone, he actually admired. Luna laughed, "I didn't want to lose you all the way down here either." Gunther wrapped his arms around Luna tight, "Luna can I ask you something?" Luna shrugged, "Gunther, the world is ending. You don't have to ask permission." Gunther laughed, "do you ever think if this wouldn't have happened, that maybe we could have had a life together after leaving the corp? Maybe would have had a simple life in Solarwood or maybe a business in Duskeron?" Luna chimed in, "We could have found some great land sales in Sevrend." They both laughed. For a brief moment, they enjoyed each other's company as they did throughout the many years of service. They both turned to see the asteroid that would eventually end any chance of a life they would have had together. Gunther looked at Luna, "I hope you know you saved a lot of lives today." Luna grinned, "I couldn't have done it without you on the ground." Gunther shrugged, "you think anyone will make it out of this?" Luna nodded, "I like to think so. I know Thanabus will live on without us." Gunther grabbed her hand, "Thanabus will live on because of us." With tears in her eyes, Luna smiled. They both embraced each other. They were glad they stayed with each other to the very end.