The Maintenance Man Book 2: Another Repair

Chapter 4

Mark's anger hadn't dampened the least bit, he could feel the heat of it coursing through his body. Walking out of the make shift control/war room, Mark went through his bag finding his comp. Activating it he waited for a few minutes till the face of the Imperial Space force leader appeared on it. "How close are you," Mark asked tight lipped, "We managed to take out two hundred forty one ships including two of their command ships, thing is, from what I've seen, they have well over twenty thousand ships out there."

 Pounding his fist on the desk the Space force leader replied, "Twenty thousand? Damn it! They are committing their whole damn fleet. They must feel awful confident to come in full force like this. We have a small contingent coming your way, but it will be tomorrow before they arrive, can you hold out that long?"

"Yes, we've managed to move almost all the people close to the central cities, but they still managed to capture a man." Almost in a whisper Mark continued, "I won't allow this to happen again."

The Space leader knew the look Mark had on his face, he'd seen it on the faces of many under his command.

"It's never easy to lose anyone, the only thing you can do is to punish those that committed the atrocities." Mark was nodding, not really paying attention to the leader.

More to himself than the leader Mark started to talk, "Yes, he's right, they have to be punished, everyone of them. I have to eradicate them all, like the insects that they are." The leader shook his head, he was afraid that Mark might go too far and actually try to eradicate the entire race.

"Mark you need to think about this, you can't commit genocide. The Imperial rights league would be clamoring for your head, besides," the leader said changing tactics. "You want to be around to raise those children, you want them to look up to you and not be ashamed."

Thankfully the remark had the desired effect, snapping Mark back to reality.

Shaking his head Mark looked at the leader and nodded his head toward him, "Thank you, we'll await your arrival."

Though there were no more incidents that day, Mark made sure everyone was out of the outer cities before the imminent collapse of the other outer shield grids. Half the day was gone when the alarms went off to let Mark know that ten more sectors had gone down. Mark watched as the Styrox came gliding in. 

This time he was ready for them, destroying ten ships before they were even near the ground. The rest of the descending ships opened fire haphazardly, destroying everything in sight. Mark smiled again as he destroyed another ten ships causing the Styrox to retreat for a few minutes. Finally able to land, the Styrox began scanning the debris, Mark could see that they were disappointed.

Almost ten minutes later they started to leave. Once again Mark picked off another ten ships before they were airborne, then they were gone.

An hour later the fleet began to bombard the shields again. Mark had been able to adjust the shields. When they started to hit the shields, they were soon surprised that the shields were once again more stable. Mark and the others tried to get some sleep, though it was difficult with the constant percussion of the Styrox blasts striking the shields. 

Early the next morning, Mark was making another round of the systems when another five shield grids went down. They were almost down to those around the central cities now. Well over half the planet was now exposed, a lot of it now smoldering wastelands from the constant use of energy weapons. The sun began to rise, as the start of the ninth day of the planetary siege also started.

Mark was walking the hallways when an alarm went off on his comp. Quickly quieting it, Mark could see the Imperial forces dropping out of hyper drive. A huge smile lit his face as the first one hundred ships on the back side of the planet exploded into nothing. Ah! Good they had improved the energy cannons like he'd instructed. Mark watched as another one hundred ships were destroyed before the Styrox started to retaliate. Mark went over the data he received, damn!

They'd only gotten a portion of the fleet ready, from what he saw, they only had about fifteen hundred ships. This was going to be a long fight. As the battle raged on Mark saw that the Imperial fleet was much better prepared, but the Styrox weren't going to go away that easily. Two hours later the Styrox had lost eight hundred ships and partly retreated, the Imperial fleet had lost around five hundred, Mark started looking into ways to improve the odds.

The Imperial Leader called from his command ship, "Damn it Mark! I was hoping that your improvements would have helped more."

"They will, I need to send the fleet here, more updates, it appears that Tantka was able to decipher part of the shields energy matrix that the ships have, after this I don't think you'll have as much trouble," Mark inserted confidently.

"Alright," The leader said, "I've never seen anyone correct their mistakes as fast as you, we'll wait a day to do this, that way more will be able to join us."

Mark started the uploads as fast as he could, afraid to widely broadcast it fearing Tantka might get it and decipher more. Nissie and Sam had gone into the cities keeping in constant contact, though his shields were almost impregnable many near the edges had been injured.

Early the next morning the Styrox started their attack on the Imperial fleet. For three hours the Styrox swarmed over the vastly out numbered Imperials. Suddenly a warp tunnel opened and another thousand Imperial ships emerged, engaging the Styrox, who in turn chose to advance past the planet pushing their way deeper into the empire. With the updates, the Imperial ships defeated over twelve hundredhile the imperials had only lost fifty.

"Mark," the Imperial leader started, "We have each part of the fleet stopping a day in front of the present position of the Styrox, the updates are being fed by secure channels, with any luck we'll have them in a few days."

"Alright, I'll continue here, good luck and good hunting," Mark saluted as he signed off.

Nissie walked up behind him at that moment, "everything is good in the cities, a lot of burns and broken bones but they are in high spirits." Mark nodded, taking Arthur and Catrina into his arms, he loved them as much as he did their mothers. Walking along the rows of machinery both began to ask him what was this and that which he happily explained.

Both Nissie and Sam looked at each other and ran for the bedroom, they didn't get a chance like this very often. Climbing into the shower they both groaned at how good the water felt, looking at each others bodies, they both saw that they were almost back to what they were before they got pregnant. Washing each other off, they both realized it had been quite some time since they'd last had sex, especially with Mark. Waiting, they saw Mark return with 2 sleeping bundles in his arms. Taking the children, they had him get in the shower where they joined him moments later.

"Mark it's been too long, we've decided that we need you," Nissie said as she washed Mark's back. "We've also decided that we are going to help you relax like we used to," Sam said as she gently massaged Mark's now stiffening and growing member. Mark was surprised, he'd thought that after the children they hadn't wanted sex any more, true, they had been busy.