Colony Wars 1: War Never Ends

Chapter Eight - Space Combat

3rd March 2076 – 1st Galactic Step

Approaching Low Earth Orbit

Earth

Solar System

Lance's fist tightened angrily around the control stick of his Trident heavy aerospace fighter, which was soaring up through blackened clouds. He took a deep breath and quoted a quick mantra from his old training days to try to subdue his irrational feelings.

"Anger and frustration leads to mistakes, a calm mind and a steady finger lead to victory," Lance muttered under his flight helmet.

It was very difficult not to be angry at the destruction and loss of life that the destructive light beam had caused to New Dawn City. Lance had been on the training grounds beneath the Chateau, helping a squad of young recruits when the warning claxons had sounded. Apparently, the Chateau's defence radar had detected an object exiting the Earth's atmosphere, but then it had completely disappeared for a few moments and then reappeared instantly far, far above the city displaying a massive power output. The officers on watch that day, knew exactly what the power build-up was, they panicked, hit the alarms, and began running away from the resurrected death satellite.

Only a matter of seconds passed between the alarms sounding and the impact of the column of pure white laser fire. The ten-metre-wide light beam slashed into the number one Agro-dome atop the canyon wall, cutting open the thick metal skin and incinerating everyone and everything inside it. Fires raged out of control and lumps of hot molten steel spewed out from the wreckage in every direction. The impact also caused the cliff face to crumble away dropping several tons of rock and debris down on top of the chateau and the surrounding residences.

Lance had reacted quickly to the sudden attack and led his troop of green cadets away to the far side of the canyon to a small series of cave entrances, away from the avalanche. He had also gathered up as many people as he could along the way, to save as many lives as possible. Several of the stored munitions supply dumps had exploded as boulders fell on them, sending thick black plumes of smoke swirling upwards.

A great many people had lost their lives that day, the death toll currently stood at nearly eight thousand people, but Mugumo and his engineers were still carefully searching through the rubble for more survivors. President Jamison had addressed the people as soon as possible, asking for help during this tragic event, asking the citizens to look after their neighbours and be compassionate to their needs.

Then came the bad news, Viktor had told the councillors that the destructive weapon would fire again sometime the next day. All his previous knowledge about the satellite said that it had a recharge time of somewhere between eighteen and twenty-four hours and until that time it would be completely invisible to any Earth based scanners. Viktor had also said that the machine had to have been operated by a human, there was no way that any form of radioactive interference could have caused the unit to launch by itself and begin firing at designated targets. Which meant only one thing, that the New Dawn City colony was definitely not alone anymore.

Upon inspecting the old East Asian Dynasty machines, which had been brought in after the final battle of the Great War, Viktor had discovered that their computer cores had been accessed on more than one occasion by a remote source, somewhere on the other side of the planet. He managed to track the signal back briefly to a point deep underground and had been greeted by the same logo that had been inside the Demon's cranial shell. The signal had then been cut off abruptly, and the communication devices inside the three small tanks all suddenly sparked and disintegrated, to stop Viktor from accessing the enemy's network.

The one thing that was now for certain, was that Xu Sing, or someone posing as the fallen Emperor was still alive and in charge of a dreadfully destructive force. More importantly, the enemy knew exactly where they were and very soon, the tower of terrible light would return and bring with it yet more death.