As the Valhalla arrived at the new location of the Ghosted Heaven, they could see the Nexus in the distance, still unaware of the incoming attack.
As they boarded the ship, a young lad with a small afro walked up to Joe, holding an old picture of the Valhalla 17 in her glory days.
"Can you sign this please, mister Vinker?" he asked.
"Sure..." he said with a soft sigh, signing the picture.
"you got an idea where the tavern is?" he asked the guy.
"Yeah, just follow along, man." he answered, leading him.
"What's your name, kid?..." Joe asked, putting up a cigar.
"Johnny, sir. Just Johnny... I ain't got no family."
Joe sat down at the bar and chuckled.
"I know that feeling..." he said, buying a drink for both of them.
"Where'd you come from, lad?" he asked, sipping his drink.
"Oh, everywhere and nowhere..." he said with a chuckle.
"You're an interesting kid..." Joe said, ruffling his hair.
"You're gonna wreck the Valhalla, aren't you, Joe?..."
"You bet your ass, friendo... But it'll be worth it..."
"It'll be an honor fighting alongside you, sir." he said with a bow.
"You're a gunner, right?" he asked, nodding to the patches on his jacket, noting the division it said on the shoulder.
"Gentlemen's Division are gunners, last I remembered..."
"No, sir, I captain my own ship. A fighter." he said,
his eyes shimmering with pride.
"Then the honor is all mine, kiddo..." he said with a soft smile.
"I wanna learn so much from you, mister Vinker..." he said sipping his drink, looking deep into the ale presented to him.
"You're a hero, I've read all about you... You're like a warrior for freedom, a hero. I wish I could fight this battle with you forever..."
"There was a time when forever meant forever... It was a time called childhood... And now we're just men without tomorrow..."
The alarms started going off.
Instead of panicking, Joe emptied his ale and got up calmly, correcting his leather bomber jacket, gifted to him by his flirt, Morgan.
He walked off to the docks and Morgan stood waiting.
"Joe... Don't... Don't do something stupid... Okay?..." she said.
Joe walked up to her, wrapped an arm around her middle and took her into the deepest French kiss she had ever experienced.
Her cheeks flushed red as she melted in his arms.
"No promises..." he said, walking into the Valhalla, the hatch closing, the cabin pressurizing as he walked up to the bridge, looking at the storm of gunfire ahead.
Teran was already in the mess of it all, she was having a blast.
The Priest was happily gunning down entire swarms.
But everything changed the moment the Valhalla entered.
Gunfire seized as they gazed upon the white and silver
goddess fly onto the battlefield.
"Joe... Don't do this." went Eliot's voice over the radio.
Her ship, a queen class, stood before him.
Another three queens laid behind her, in row, launching their squadrons as fast as they could.
"Don't you have any love or at least respect for me left?..."
"After everything you've done to me, the betrayal, the pain, the suffering..." said Joe, the monarch laser roaring up into it's beautiful butterfly shape.
"I have nothing but seething hatred and burning blood lust for you..." he finished, plowing right through the middle of the queen class and consequently two and a half empress cruisers.
The Valhalla got stuck, getting bombarded on all sides.
Joe laid his head back and sighed, rubbing his face.
"Don't worry, baby boy, I got you!" said the cheery voice of Shimola over the radio, the black king swarm eliminator floating by behind the Valhalla.
His turrets were down, he was just a flying monarch laser now.
Joe set the ship in reverse, pulling out of the now long dead empress cruiser before him, the black and raw metal below the paint showing.
Now was the moment... He felt it. The Nexus called to him.
He was in reach of it thanks to the wreck of the empress protecting him so far by floating in front, letting missiles and lasers rip into it.
He sighed and looked at himself in the reflection of one of his screens.
His eyes exhumed not a warriors flame, rather a frozen tundra of sorrow that was all too familiar to him.
He knew he had enough now.
He had lived his life and like a game of poker...
The house always wins.
You can't win the game of life...
It was then that he noticed Johnny sitting on his console.
"What are you doing here, Johnny?" he asked.
Johnny chuckled. "You're not seriously gonna..."
"Gonna what?..." Joe asked, sipping his bottle.
"Yeah you are... Heh, Joe, that's not the solution... If only you could see the other outcomes of what you can do tonight..."
Joe started up the monarch laser, then started to overload the main reactor of the ship, practically making it a flying nuke.
"What exactly are you, Johnny?..."
"I'm you... Telling yourself not to do it... Telling yourself there's hope..."
Joe got out his gun and pointed it at him.
"So if I shoot you... Nothing happens?..."
"Nothing happens..." he answered, the image of the boy becoming that of Jonah, smoking his pipe.
"So what'll it be?... Hope or hell, boy?..."
"Hope is hell..." said Joe with a sign, the monarch laser enabling.
He pushed the thrust forward, aiming for the core of the Nexus.
From the outside, anyone could see something was wrong.
You could see flashes of light from the part of the ship where the reactor was located, making it obvious it was overloading.
The laser cut through the empress, then smashed into the Nexus.
With a giant ball of fire, the ship blew clean in two.
With victory at hand, Joe closed his eyes.
The explosion consumed the ship and evaporated the ship as well as Joe.
And so... The Final Day passed on the Valhalla 17.
YOU ARE READING
Where Stars Go to Die
Fiksi Ilmiah*Attention:* for those still reading this book, it's fairly bad, it's hastily written and I'm not particularly proud of it, not as much as I used to be. I'm leaving this one up as a case study for how I used to write and to look at the mistakes I us...
