John Davis - The Colony

Julia remained behind him. Better than Jack had expected. In fact, she’d covered a lot of ground in better fashion than many soldiers who’d served with him had. A compliment to her will to live, if nothing else.

“Up ahead.” Jack yelled, the bursts of destruction now hitting their ship more rapidly. A fact which the lieutenant knew was an indication that the ship’s rail guns had failed.

The entire hangar was filled with the bustle of bodies. Each of them eager to cram into one of the few remaining ships. Each lifeboat would plunge to the surface and with any luck, land near the rest. At which time they would regroup and do what they could to survive an attacking force which was soon to be behind them.

Jack pressed through the crowd as best he could, still holding Julia’s hand tight, though it became increasingly harder to edge his way through what now seemed like a wall of human flesh.

He stopped dead in his tracks, as did everyone else as hush flowed through the crowd. A single gunshot to blame.

“Let the man and woman through, you bastards!” Renaldo yelled, having fired a warning shot through the hangar bay.

It didn’t stall the crowd for long, but it did give enough of a window for Jack and Julia to make it to the skiff where Renaldo remained standing.

“Welcome back boss.” Renaldo commented with a smile, extending his free arm and helping each of them to the chopper.

“The general?” Jack asked.

“Doing general things I suppose.” the sniper replied.

Standing to her feet, Chandra wrapped her arms around the lieutenant and nearly refused to let go. Drawing strange looks from Julia, who had become so attached to the man in uniform.

“We didn’t know that you’d make it in time.” Wesley commented.

“Yea, well,” Jack replied, turning to look into a mob of humans that longed to survive. Each of them beginning to trample the other in hopes of grabbing a place aboard a lifeboat. “We’re aren’t out of the woods just yet.”

Chandra finally cut the lieutenant loose, though she did her best to keep him close.

“A little help?” Jack asked, turning to begin offering his own arm to those who needed help climbing up into the chopper.

“Wait? The children?” Julia asked loudly.

“Relax, they were on an earlier flight out. Missing all the fun.” Wesley replied.

“You mean?”

“Yea, they’re no doubt out of harm’s way. Eating well and sleeping warm, I’d say.” Wesley added.

“Oh,” Julia replied with a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”

People continued to file into the chopper, each one of them hoisting themselves up through a large door at its rear. Dozens more awaited their turn, but Jack knew it could never be.

“We pick up too many more and we’ll be weighted. Never make it to the surface.” the lieutenant commented loudly.

He also knew that the war ship, no matter how mighty, was still taking major shots and would soon burst into nothing.

One of the two soldiers positioned in the front of the chopper, turned to hand-signal the door closed. His order followed moments later by another soldier pressing a large button to its right.

The passengers aboard the chopper could hear the screams of those outside – total chaos continuing.

Cries for help and pounding against the thick steel of blast doors, as the chopper began to pull from the ship’s deck slowly. Jack’s stomach began to knot as he thought of those screaming people being left behind. Perhaps a few of them would find themselves safely aboard another skiff – though he knew for certain that most would perish.

Jack also thought of the war ensuing right outside of their ship – small fighters tearing into one another as cannon shots ripped wildly through the void black of space. He understood that their journey to the surface would no doubt be a turbulent ride. One that may find them all meeting death by way of exploding fragmentation.

Then again, should they survive the onslaught of enemy fire, their survival could very well be short lived down below. On a rain-drenched rock that hosted the colony. The fucking spot which, in his mind, started everything. It had quickly become a curse of sorts, a damnation of his sins now pushing against him.

Jack would be lucky to survive the free-fall. They all would. If luck was on his side, Jack’s inner soldier would once again be forced to fight for their survival. This time, however, it was as if he were a wounded tiger with nothing more to lose. His wife, his crew – everything he’d lived for up until this moment. Gone. Jack embraced the fight to come, his fingers clamoring a bit from the thoughts of revenge against these bastards of the stars. This time he didn’t run from the fight, he ran to it.

Two tears in a bucket.

“Delta-Seven-Delta, this is Star Hammer Orion. We read you loud and clear and have received your coordinates. Hold tight and give them hell, we’re nearly three full days out. Copy?” a soldier replied through his hand com, awaiting a reply.

A reply that would never come.

“Call our scout ships back and burn to their position.” a highly-decorated officer ordered.

“Yes sir,” one of the soldiers replied, nearly a dozen in total – each seated in front of a workstation. “May not have the fuel to make a return trip if we burn the entire way.”

“So be it,” the commander replied. “Send out a message to the defense platform, tell them we’re responding. Advise them we may be burning into a one-way trip and ask them to get us a tanker ship as soon as possible.”

“Yes sir.” the soldier replied.

Each of the soldiers knew it’d be a one way trip if they burned in. Simply put, the ship would consume fuel at alarming rates – pushing the engines to their limits in return. It would allow them to make what was normally a three day trip in about half of the time. The core warned against this, however, as the ship would tap through its reserves and become stranded at its destination.

It was a gamble. Each of the six Star Hammer ships were nothing short of massive. Built to serve as a command post in space, they were filled with commanding weaponry and thousands of skilled marines who knew how to utilize it.

As four birds made their approach to the Hammer’s docking bay – each of them an unarmed recon shuttle, their lights blinked of red and yellow. Sensors which began to communicate with lights built within the flooring of the hangar. Moments later, the shuttle’s on-board navigational systems synced with the navigational systems built into the hangar’s flooring. All of the lights turning green.

Standard procedure as the small ships coasted in on auto-pilot, bringing each of them to a soft landing as steel beams gently rested onto the thick flooring below.

Less than five minutes after, the entire ship began to thrust loudly, eventually burning its way to the fight. Hoping to rescue anyone who was in need, though the Hammer’s commander had no idea of the enemy forces that awaited him. He simply knew of a fight in which marines just like him, needed help. And help was on the way. Sprinting hard across the star-draped landscape and ready to whip some ass.

“Gonna be going down hard,” one of the soldiers yelled, shouting his warning to the seemingly overcrowded shuttle of souls. “If you’ve got a harness, use it. If not, find something bolted to the ship’s frame and don’t let go.”

It was the worst sight Jack had ever witnessed, at least in terms of battle. As they glared through the thick windows of the small craft, which tumbled quickly to the colony’s gravitational pull, Jack knew it without a doubt.

They were beaten.

A majority of the ships outside of the glass were painted with markings he’d never seen before, and gave chase to defenseless shuttles that bolted for the surface. Shuttles just like the one currently full of panic.