33

33

The entire Silver Company was loaded into ships, ready to leave to the Adican homeworld.  The Silver Company's ships, as well as the robot ships, blasted off, across the stars, to the Adican homeworld.

Once at the Adican planet, the fleet, along with a few robot ships that didn't go to the other two planets, engaged the enemy fleet.

Grace, Lily, and Jensen flew out of the battleship to help with the fight.  Spencer stayed on the ship's bridge in the orbital dropsuit, and a rifle strapped to his back, with Helena.  He wanted to fly a fighter out to help with the attack, but he had a different assignment that the council discussed yesterday.

"I'll re-brief you on your task."  Helena said to Spencer.

"Please do."  Spencer said.  "It'll be a good refresher before I go down there.

"All right,"  Helena began.  "I know this isn't what you wanted to do, but I assure you this is equally if not more important than anything else.  As I've previously told you, the Adican prepared for any kind of attack on the homeworld.  The palace the Empress stays in is made of a very rare material found only on the Adican homeworld.  The material is impenetrable and I mean, impenetrable.  Nothing can break through while it has power.  Every day, however, the building charges for one minute.  The building is still incredibly resistant to damage.  The only way it could possibly be broken would be for the drop suit to break through the top of the building where it is weakest.  You'll have to time the jump perfectly, and you'll have to crash through the roof at high enough velocity that you actually go through, but not too fast to the point that you kill yourself.  You got that?"

Spencer nodded before Helena continued.  "Once you're inside the building, you'll have to wipe out all the empress' guards.  The suit is mostly bulletproof, but try not to put yourself in more danger than you have too.  Is your task understood?"

"Loud and clear."  Spencer replied to Helena,  "All we have to do now is wait and hope our army succeeds."

"Don't be so worried, Spencer."  Helena said.  "We will succeed.  Especially with the robots help."

Spencer and Helena waited in silence for a while before Helena told him to go to the ship bay and wait for her order to jump.  Spencer quickly rushed down to the ship bay and stood at the doors with his helmet on while the room depressurised.  The doors opened and Spencer looked out upon the stars.

A few minutes later Helena flashed the lights in the bay to give Spencer the go.  She would've just used the intercom, but the bay was depressurized so sound couldn't travel.  Spencer took a deep breath and jumped out of the ship.

Spencer began flying through space towards the planet.  Using the voice automated location system he quickly located the Empress' palace and flew himself over the palaces location.  All he had to do now was wait.  Wait and hope The Silver Company had dealt with the Adican outside the palace.

Spencer waited as he flew through space, through the planet's atmosphere, and down towards the palace.  Spencer began igniting the suit's thrusters to slow himself to the speed Helena had told him to travel in order to break through the palace.  He had to hope the palace really was charging.

Spencer crashed through the palace roof hard.  Luckily, because he broke through the roof, the plan worked.  Unfortunately, he landed in the middle of a bunch of trained Adican soldiers who didn't wait to open fire on Spencer.  The bullets ricocheted off Spencer's suit as he ducked behind a pillar and pulled the rifle off of his back.  Spencer fired back at the Adican and quickly dropped two of them.  Spencer stepped out from behind the pillar and allowed the Adican bullets to ricochet off the drop suit as he picked off the soldiers one by one.

At this point the suit was fairly damaged when an Adican jumped out as Spencer with a knife and buried it in Spencer's gut.  The suit absorbed most of the knife but Spencer could still feel the blade.  Spencer hit the Adican in the face with the butt of his rifle knocking him off of him.  Spencer stepped back from the Adican and quickly dispatched him with his rifle.

It was just Spencer and the Empress and Spencer quickly removed the damaged suit and pulled the knife out of his gut and quickly examined the wound.  The cut was about half an inch deep and shouldn't be anything serious thanks to the suit.  Spencer then aimed his gun at the empress.

"You're finished,"  Spencer said.  "You're reign is over."

"You really think this ends so easily?"  The empress asked Spencer.  "Bring her out."

Two Adican soldiers emerged from behind the Queen's throne holding Grace with a rag tied around her mouth and a gun to her head.  She looked scared and her eyes widened as she saw Spencer.

"Let her go."  Spencer said slowly as he aimed his gun at the Adica soldiers holding Grace.

"I admire your efforts, Spencer."  The Queen said.  She sounded almost bored.  "You went through a lot to get here.  The robot army was a nice touch.  You captured all three of my home planets, even if we destroyed your precious robot army along the way."

Destroyed them? Spencer thought and he searched for the voice in the back of his head that belonged to the robots only to find it was gone.  The Adican really had destroyed the robots.

The empress continued speaking.  "Unfortunately for you, this isn't the Adican's last stand.  We couldn't let you win so easily."  She pressed a button and a blue object that looked like a portal began hovering next to the throne.  "Let's just say technology has come a long way, and now we're going to cut the snake at the head."

Spencer was confused by what the Empress said.  "What do you mean?"

"I'm sure you've figured it out by now Spencer."  The Empress answered.  "You remember the bombs that fell when you left your home planet right?  That's what started this whole mess so that's where we're headed.  You can figure out the rest."  The Empress walked through the portal and disappeared and the Adican soldiers holding Grace captive quickly followed her through.

Heading where this mess started.  Spencer thought.  They're heading for Earth!  NO!

Spencer burst out of the Palaces doors into the Adican sunlight and collapsed and started sobbing.  He'd lost Grace, Earth, Everything.  All they had done was for nothing.  They came all the way here just to let the Empress get away along with Grace.

Jensen and Lily rushed to meet him and helped him to his feet.

"Hey man,"  Jensen said.  "What's wrong?"

Spencer sadly explained what went down inside the palace in between sobs.

"I'm so sorry,"  Lily said.  "Not just for you, but for all of us."

"You don't understand,"  Spencer sobbed.  "There's no point in going on, war is war, we'll all die."

"Hey you know that's not true."  Jensen said.  "There' still hope.  We can still get to Earth and save Grace, stop the Empress."

"I suppose you're right."  Spencer said as he wiped the tears from his eyes.

"You know we're right."  Lily said with a smirk.

Before they could talk anymore, Helena shouted towards Spencer.  "We've got a transmission from Earth.  You're gonna want to see this Spencer."

Spencer, Jensen, and Lily rushed over to Helena to find A computer with Colby's face on it.

"Hello?"  Colby said questioningly.  "Can you hear me?"

"Yes we can, Colby."  Spencer said.  "What's up?  We haven't heard from you guys in a long time."

"We haven't been able to get a transmission through until today."  Colby said.  "An Adican ship landed here and activated some kind of device that," Colby looked worried.  "I don't know how to explain it, get here quickly!  We're with a group of survivors in South Africa."  Through the computer Spencer heard a screech that gave him goosebumps and then heard the sound of bullets. "Please hurry."  Colby terminated the transmission.

"We gotta go!"  Lily shouted.  "They need our help."

"I know,"  Helena said as she stood on a pile of rubble to address the soldiers.  "I need 50 of you to come with us.  The rest of you stay here and deal with the aftermath of the attack."  Helena turned back to Spencer, Lily, and Jensen.  "Let's go see what kind of devilish device the Empress stirred up."

With that message they boarded a ship and flew back to where this whole mess started, to Earth, to Grace, and hopefully to the end of the Empress.