Chapter No.36 Lies

You can't trust anyone.

A few days later, I came on the command deck and settled into the engineering station to check on upgrade status. I was pleased to see that all of the weapons and shielding upgrades were complete. I could relax now and enjoy the peace and quiet.

I turned to see Molly at the astronomical station tense up and emit a squeak. "Oh no!"

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"There is a large armada of vessels approaching."

I got up and looked over her shoulder at her screen. "What configuration?"

She turned to me with a panicked look. "Scath."

"What the hell! I thought they weren't going to bother us anymore."

"They lied," Molly said in a breaking voice.

I turned to Judy. "Go to Red Alert and prepare to leave orbit."

"Yes, Jason."

Madison appeared on the command deck and took her weapons station.

"That fleet is passing Saturn and is approaching Jupiter."

"How many ships?"

"I can't count all of them," she replied. "There must be hundreds of them."

I blew out a disgusted breath. "Shit! We can't defeat that many ships."

"What are we going to do?" Molly asked, looking perplexed. "They're headed for Earth."

I sighed. "We have no other choice. We must engage them and hope we can destroy them before they reach Earth."

"Get us underway, Judy. Get crews in all of the fighters. We might have to launch them to give us a fighting chance."

"Yes, Jason. We will fight to win."

I realized that fighters were not much of a match against large ships, but it was the only option I could think of. I just realized that the plan to destroy the androids and us might actually be at hand, but not by the idiots that conceived the Phoenix Project.

"Take us to the armada, Judy."

"Yes, Jason."

We were within a million kilometers when I realized that the number of enemy ships was too overwhelming for us to survive. We would destroy the majority of them but in the end we would be destroyed.

I turned to Molly. "No matter what happens, I am honored to have the privilege of serving with you."

"As I am with you," she said, her stoic face hinting of despair.

But, her eyes ballooned as she squinted at her screen. "I am detecting a large number of vessels approaching from our rear."

"If those are Scath ships, we're doomed for certain."

"No, they're reptilian and several types that we've never encountered."

"I have a vision feed request, Jason," Judy informed me.

"Put it on."

The image of the reptilian we had dealt with before appeared.

"Need some help?"

I wanted to smile, but I nodded instead. "It sure looks that way."

"We will prevail," he said.

"Okay, we're going to sneak under their fleet and come up behind them. That way, we'll contain them to give you a better chance of destroying them."

"We understand. Good hunting."

The video feed ended. I turned to Judy. "Take us at maximum velocity and cloak under the approaching enemy fleet and then prepare to stop and turn into them."

"Yes, Jason."

The maneuver was so rapid we actually felt it. When we stopped and turned around, we came out of cloak and flew into the back of the enemy armada. Judy maneuvered the ship to give Madison the most efficient angle so that she could pour volley after volley of powerful focused gamma ray blasts at enemy ships, blowing them to pieces.

We watched in abject fascination as Judy jumped the ship around in jerky motions to avoid enemy fire, while allowing Madison to do her thing. We took many weapons hits, but our new more efficient shielding helped us to avoid major damage. Judy and Madison ignored the enemy fire to continue their mad dash to destroy as many enemy vessels as possible.

Eventually, we ended up in the central melee that the reptilians and their buddies were involved in. Judy flew our vessel in crazy patterns of bobbing, weaving, twisting and turning to avoid enemy fire and disintegrating enemy vessels while pouring devastating fire into multiple enemy vessels.

The wild battle ended with the total defeat of the Scath.

"I have a video feed request," Judy announced.

"Put it on."

The reptilian stood proud this time. "We are victorious."

"Yes, and I thank you and your . . . compatriots for saving us."

"We are a coalition of planets that are dedicated to ending attacks by enemies from within our galaxy. Our center is on the planet in the system you call NuLupi. We invite you to join us in this mission."

"We are honored to join you, my friend," I said. I wanted to salute, but thought better of it.

"We look forward to your presence," he said before the video feed ended.

I turned to Molly. "I guess we're now a genuine member of the Milky Way Coalition."

"I'm not sure what that's worth," she said with a smirk.

"Well, for one thing, it will give us a chance to know what's going on in our little corner of the universe, and it should prevent any other aliens from coming to Earth now that they know it's our planet."

She smiled. "These human colonists we inserted on Earth will never realize how close they came to being annihilated."

"Maybe we'll tell them someday."

She simply smiled. I knew that we had escaped a cosmic bullet, but I was uncertain that the danger was actually over. It's a big scary universe out there.

End of Part 3

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