Mother of Stars

Hypernova - Skylar

My fighter roared as the sudden decompression pushed it out of the hangar. It followed the general stream of fighters for a moment, but then it took a hard turn. While the others were puncturing through the rotating field of fighters, mine escaped by following the surface of the ship to its tapered end.

As my fighter continued on its way in no particular direction, the swarm of other fighters then began to spiral around each of Mother's defenses. They were just skimming the surfaces, not doing any real damage.

I tried to contact any of my fellow Drakes. "Uh, is this part of the plan, anyone?"

"Not to my knowledge," Thayre replied. "Though we never truly got into the logistics of it all. We're going to have to find out on the fly."

"Am I the only one being taken away?" I asked as I looked frantically around me. Only vast space surrounded me. The Asturnian ship shrunk to a dot in my vision as my fighter zoomed away.

"Negative," Thayre said. "Our entire squad is being transported this way, it seems."

"But where are you?"

Chester spoke up. "We must be cloaked. I cannot see anyone else either."

"Agreed," Thayre stated.

I kept glancing around despite what was just acknowledged. "Connor?"

There was no response.

"He must be with those fighters," Thayre pointed out.

I watched in nervous silence as the swarm of visible fighters shot away from the diamond-like structures, only to curve swiftly back around. They struck with laser precision into the centers of Mother's defenses. Each structure flared with flashes of light that illuminated the Asturnian ship for a few moments. The rubble expanded rapidly into space, creating a vast cloud of destruction.

The fighters seemed to come out of the encounter unharmed. They swarmed back into one mass and moved past the corpses of the newly-slaughtered victims.

My squad had been moved so far from the action I was forced to use the zoom function in my interface to keep the visible fighters in view. I watched them intensely as they sped toward nothing in particular. Then, Thayre pointed out where they were headed. It was some sort of oddly-shaped moon had looked to be one of the thousands of tiny stars. We seemed to be moving in that direction as well, though still far wide of actually confronting it.

From that moon emerged an entire army of its own fighters, all clouding in the direction of the Defect's. For the next few minutes, I experienced a rollercoaster of horror and terror when the Defect's fighters looked to be overwhelmed, accompanied by occasional relief when I saw that they had evaded all the strikes.

Curiously, they made steady progress against the Mother. Each attempt of Mother to defend the odd moon was weaker than the last, while each assault of the Defect's got progressively stronger. Within minutes, I could no longer tell the difference between the forces of the opposing sides.

A glint of light drew my attention to the moon itself. Had it been my imagination? I realized it wasn't when a sea of soft light erupted from the moon's surface. It spread outward far faster than any of the fighters could react, and engulfed them all. Each fighter that was touched by it was immobilized instantly.

My eyes widened when I saw my squad was going to be hit as well. The Defect, however, gave no hint of an attempt to avoid the wave of light. I was stuck writhing in my fighter in the few seconds before the wave washed over it.