The Paragon of Eden

Part 9

The Paragon quaked. The power of all eight Genesis Shards hid in the different compartments of the shifting shell of the Warback, glowing and radiating power. The white exterior was alight, and space itself seemed to be at its command.

Deelia found herself inside this vessel of power. She had seen its interior before, but it was different now. It felt like being at the center of the world. At the center of everything. All the power that was needed for anything in the galaxy, any kind of goal or ambition, was contained in a single point in space that was small enough to be compared to a building. And it hurtled forward, taking Deelia and Hau to some place now nearby.

Deelia held her blanket close to her. She was nervous and tried her best not to seem like she was hiding from Hau. She had loved him, but he was scaring her. She had never seen him so giddy before.

Hau was smiling, and his eyes were wide. He was looking into the void before them, twitching and agitated at every small sight. He was naked, having left his clothes behind at the Sanctuary. He had woken up and rushed the two of them out of there, barely giving notice to his attire. He hadn't gone to sleep naked, though. Was this part of his plan?

Deelia wrapped herself tightly in the blanket as if she were trying to shield herself from the power of the center of a star. She felt like she should have been burned or atomized, existing near the Paragon in its current state. As far as she knew, though, she couldn't leave it.

The space around them was silent and unmoving, but the trail of the Paragon's invisible thrusters was waving and shivering, oscillating its repetitive destruction of nothing. They were going almost too fast to survive, even in this structure of invincibility. Did Hau know its limits? Did it have limits?

A sliver of light appeared before them, growing and growing as they neared it. Hau slowed the Paragon and adjusted into readiness. The glow before them gradually became a bubble, or rather, it was a giant series of conjoined bubbles that formed a string of air connected to a planet below, DAs, and then the real thing. It looked almost natural, like humans had finally reached their preferred state and position in the world and altered its appearance in ways they were not aware of themselves, painting pictures only higher beings could witness.

Each of the ships that emitted their atmospheres was of the biggest the UPOA had access to. Their bulbous design made them look like creatures of space, their ocher plating making them visible against the black void behind them. They were littered with laser turrets as well as projectile turrets, lined everywhere with small glass windows that showed the hallways inside, patrolled vigorously by uniformed men and women. Exposed ports housed the visible jets and Warbacks, open and ready to launch. This was quite literally their entire military might. It was a miracle that Hanin had organized all this with the time he had. Hau knew this. He had actually been waiting for it.

Even though the Paragon had slowed significantly, it ripped through the barrier of the first DA. The bubble wobbled slightly, but it held. The Paragon was a meteor, burning through its trajectory.

All the turrets aimed. DAs around them moved into place, displaying a massive array of Accelerator Cannons, mounted on boosting platforms with massive structures meant entirely to make for a modular use. Their railed rings rotated and clicked in the distance. They had been built excessively fast, but they were up to par with the structure that had almost killed Hau at the Genesis Protector Base. This time, however, there were rows upon rows, placed without concern for the thing they were priming to destroy.

The Paragon exploded towards the spaceship ahead. It turned into a giant needle, and with a thrust powered by the Crystals, it pierced the walls of the construction. Deelia saw through the exposed wall in front of her all the carnage and fire of tearing through metal sheet after metal sheet, pipes bending and generators exploding as they drilled onward. The Paragon itself was the size of the cavities it exposed, crushing them against its shell and ripping them all into new creations. Shortly after, the aftermath was left to explode as fire trailed their path.