The Phantom Fleet

Jetpack angels

A hail of drop-capsules fell all around us and soon a dozen huge adult Martian marines emerged from them. I shot one with my laserfinger, probably leaving a very unaesthetic burn mark on his armoured battlesuit, before retreating back in the cracked hull. "They're the ones that shot down your ships!" I cried to Black Helmet. Not that I knew for sure, but better get them on my side for now. He dove for cover behind me, but probably didn't have time to pass the message to his people, because they all dropped to their knees raising their arms high. Me and him hopped around the corridors, going deeper and deeper. Movement of light and shadows behind us as one or more Martian soldiers were tailing us. "We hide, we shoot." I told Black Helmet. "I shoot no one." He replied. He what? A pacifist? I let him spring ahead of me, lodged my tiny self in a crack of the floor. Martians were big, and Martian adults were even bigger. They wouldn't even register the crack as a potential hiding place. Sure enough the Martian soon bounced off the wall into my field of vision, I jumped out of my hidey hole, finger pointed at his neck and opened fire. The seam at the back of the neck is their main point-of-failure, said a rumor back on Earth. Turned out the rumor was true, and that he was alone. So I'm still here to tell the tale. Once his suit was done pissing air and gesticulating, I picked up his gun and shot the wall to make sure it worked. It pierced it like butter, gushing out thick smoke that was quickly sucked away. Now that was a laser gun. I didn't bother testing the grenade launcher for obvious reasons. I rushed ahead to catch up with Black Helmet. Not that I would ever spot him with his black suit in the dark corridors, but I hoped he would see me.

I did end up finding him on the other side of the ship. He was busy squeezing himself out through a crack of the hull that wasn't swarming with Martian soldiers.

"You shot him?"

"Sure I did. And now I have a proper gun, and you have a much better chance at not being captured by these assholes."

"What's going on here?"

Now that would take a little too long to explain.

"What's going on with you? Where are you people from?"

Saku interrupted: "No need to ask him, I can tell you. They're what's left of the colony that went to Sirius ten gigaseconds ago."

I tried to get an uplink to an observation satellite. No luck. Martians must have blasted them all. What was the cavalry doing?

"They'd been doing great up there for as long as we've been watching. But something happened a hundred megaseconds ago that..."

"The distance to Sirius is counted in parsecs, Saku. Those guys travel faster than light?"

"Hey! I was well on my way to finding out when you disconnected me."

"It's nonsense Saku, we're keeping watch over all the colonies. Sirius is doing fine. Plus, those came from Cassiopeia, not Canis Major."

"No, I'm telling you, they're from Sirius. Everything checks out."

"Yeah, right."

He probably found a compliant encryption certificate and that's final for him. AIs and bitwork...

Now, I had to have a look over the hull of that ship to see what the Martians were busy with. Which meant I had to reveal myself, which meant they'd shoot me. They probably hadn't replaced our satellites with theirs, but they most definitely had observation drones up. Devilish luck that I had one of their guns. I shouldered it, and my HUD connected to its sensors. I took a few careful steps away from the shadow cone of the hull, aiming up. There! Three hovering drones that were probably just about to discover me. I clicked them all, waited until I had an aim, and felt the gun pulse warmth as it fried them to a crisp. I instantly bounced and, assisted by jetpack thrust, I ran up the hull of the mooned ship. Nearing the top, I dove flat and crawled the remaining meter. I raised my camera-finger and had a look around. Half the Martians were still outside. They had corralled the black figures that Saku thought were from Sirius. They also all had their guns shouldered and were feverishly scanning the perimeter. When your drones all fail at the same time, it usually makes you rather suspicious. I got into position just before one of them pointed his gun at me, but I shot first. The top half of his suit exploded in white smoke. I managed to shoot another two before I decided I'd exposed myself enough and crawled back. I was wondering what to do next when I got a call from Axxo.