Siege of Terra (The Mavrik Woods Series, Book 1) (38 page)

We’d survived the blast of both the planet blowing up and the end of
Comets End
. Now all that we have to do is fly this tub home, hopefully nothing got damaged during the shockwave.

Tears are steaming out of Jayons eyes, that ship had been his entire life, now it’s gone forever in the blink of an eye.

We walk back towards the bridge, Jayons head’s in his hands the entire time.

The two marines are waiting for us at the bridge.

One of them walks up towards me, “Sir, there are two sets of coordinates in the system; one of them is the ships previous destination. We can't figure out what the other one could be for though.”

My heart skips a beat. T-Rave mentioned that he was getting coordinates as a reward. He must’ve transferred them to the ships navicomputer before he died in the explosion.

That meant that I’m the only human that possesses the coordinates of the planet where the Hakorians originated from. Endless possibilities race through my mind, for now though all that I can think about is getting home. I’ll leave the coordinates in the computer for the time being. I’ll come back to them though. I promised Syreena that I’d leave the army, and I’ll do just that. My plan to save her is still intact and possible;
they
will hold the key to her life.

Day 36: Cycle 3: Period 2: Year 2397

The jump home doesn’t take overly long. Well, in the sense that a day is not that long of time. Compared to how slow it had been flying to Hakor the first time that I’d been captured. This time however seems instant.

When we come out of hyperspace over Terra what we see makes our jaws drop, the entire Hakorian fleet is in millions of different sized pieces, all floating about in low orbit. I don’t even know all the details to how we’d survived the attack of an alien race, I’ll call it lucky; others on the other hand will call it pure human intellect and beating the odds. I’m more humble than that though.

After we land on Terra -back at the underground complex- me and Jayon go down to the briefing room and talk to General Weber.

We fully debrief him about the mission out in space. What Jayon had said previously about Major Ravenson was that they were monitoring his movements and actions for some time. Long before he and his team had rescued me. Weber also congratulates us in our success, for the destruction of the planet and the fleet. We’d been welcomed home as War Heroes.

It’s too good to be true though, and I’d promised my wife that I’ll leave.

“What do you mean you’re leaving?” Weber exclaims.

“I want out, I did my planet a service; I’m done. I made a promise Sir, I intend to keep it.”

“Where will you go?”

“I have a place in mind among the stars.”

That piece of information gives him a puzzled look. He doesn’t inquire further though.

“Is there any way that I can change your mind? We need soldiers like you.”

“Soldiers for what Sir? The war is over and I don’t plan on fighting other humans ever again.”

“Very well son, I can grant you a discharge, an honourable discharge. You are Dismissed Colonel.”

I give him a salute for the last time and start to walk out the door, “it's just Mavrik now General.”

A smile rises on his face. He nods at me.

I close the door behind me; it’s a tough call where to go.

First thing’s first though. I’ll return to my home and collect whatever I can salvage from the place, before we landed I’d flown over that area, luckily there were still a few buildings standing, my apartment building’s one of those lucky enough to survive the bombardment.

I’m on my way to the hanger when I feel a small hand grab my own, I look down. It’s Kate.

“Are the bad people gone now?” She asks.

“Yes they are, and they aren’t coming back,” I pick her up in my arms.

“I heard that you’re leaving.”

“And where did you hear that?”

“People say many things when they are happy or sad.”

“Well, what you heard was true, I am leaving. I plan to come back here though,” I think of Syreena still frozen in Cryostasis.

“Is there a chance that I can go with you?”

I look at her, a surprised look on my face, “why would you want to come with me? You have a family here, they need you.”

She shakes her head, “my mama and papa died.”

Right, I completely forgot about that. It’ll be a hard life as a child living in a strange world, a world that I’m going to, “you can come if you really want, but let me tell you this first, it will be a hard and dangerous life, one that I can't guarantee your safety, I’ll do everything in my power to protect you though.”

Her face lights up with joy at the sound of that.

“First things first though. We need to stop and pick up a few friends that I promised could come along.”

I set Kate back down on her feet when we reach the lift. The doors open, we step inside and I hit the icon that’ll take us directly to the surface.

When the doors open up to the main level light comes flooding in. Kate laughs and raises her arms to block out the sun. It must’ve been a long time since she’s seen the light of day.

Seeing as there’s no actual regulation to where one can park their space ship, the ship that we’d flown back in is parked just a hundred or so meters away from the door. The ramp leading up to the ship is already down; Jayon and another figure are standing on the boarding ramp, waiting for us.

As we get closer I realize that it’s Krystil, she’s obviously feeling better to be walking around after she’d been injured on one of their previous missions.

“Glad to see you are up on your feet again. What exactly happened anyways?” I ask her.

“When we were flying supplies to one of the bases I was in the cargo bay double checking the gear when the ship was attacked and we were hit multiple times. The hull was damaged and the valves went off, a bolt shot of right into my side,” she pointed to a spot just right above her left hip.

“Are we ready to go?” Jayon interrupts.

“I believe we are. Let’s get on board shall we?”

We all climb aboard, the ramp hisses shut behind us.

It doesn’t take long to get to the bridge, after spending an entire day onboard I memorized the complete layout of the ship.
My ship
.

We arrive at the bridge, the doors whir open, Jayon gestures to me to take the pilots chair. I sit down in the leather chair; the Holo console pops up in front of me.

“Did we ever find out what the name of the ship is?”

“Yes, it’s the
Phoenix
.”

My name is Mavrik Woods, we’d recently discovered the planet Terra, after colonizing on it alien hostiles showed up, a short but bloody war. Many lives have been lost; there’s no way to tell whether or not my current plans will a success. A vast Galaxy awaits my crew and me as we make our way out towards the stars. Since the start of the war I’ve been reborn, a completely different person, I can never look at anything the same now. It’s a suiting name for my ship then, my legacy.

The
Phoenix.

A lone ship floats through the emptiness of space; a planet had once been here, not too long ago in fact. The ship is of an odd design, similar resemblance of the shell of a beetle.

Two life forms onboard. One of them barely registers.

The ship's main engine starts to ignite and glow a cherry red. All hell is about to break loose when they arrive at their destination. Fresh coordinates lie in the navicomputer, the destination is unknown amongst the stars.

The ship blasts into a hyperspace window, leaving nothing behind but the rubble of the planet.

Many will wonder how the ship managed to survive the blast wave as the planet exploded; others will believe that nothing survived. No one will know for sure until the evidence will say otherwise. Many will be proven wrong.