Fate woke up panting, snapping straight, and accidentally banging his head on the wall behind him. He rubbed the bludgeoned area, then noticed that everyone in the cabin was looking at him.
They were all still in the Kraken, on their way from Bulgar XIV to Bulgar VI for a refuel, before heading to Myst II to be relieved. Grunting, he crossed his arms and shut his eyes again. However, he did not dare to sleep again, for fear of another unpleasant nightmare.
Thinking about his time with the Advanced always left Fate in a sour mood, the same as the rest of the members of Styx. Thinking about their dead friend, Gavyn, left an even more bitter taste in his mouth. In many ways, Gavyn was the best of the six. He always stayed strong in the face of the cruel scientists, was always cheering the group up, and was the entire reason they managed to escape from that godforsaken place.
While Maya was the one who took the loss of Gavyn the hardest due to their relationship, not a single member of Styx wasn't depressed for weeks after the incident. Ridding the galaxy of the cause of their pain was the only thing that kept them going for the longest time.
Tom observed Fate with a knowing look before looking away. The members of Styx often had these nightmares, and their time together let them easily recognize the signs. Those in the cabin spent the next three hours in silence.
Those in the cabin braced themselves after the speaker system announced the Kozmos Drive was about to be deactivated. After a lurch and a shudder, they all let go of the handles above their heads, which were designed for this exact purpose.
Some of the soldiers afforded a small smile, glad to almost be done with the blood and death of the past few days, before a sudden *boom* caused frowns to sprout on several faces. Then another *boom* and the sounds of lasers being fired.
Then the speaker system activated, the Kraken's pilot using it to say "We've encountered Cragost forces! It seems we've stumbled into the middle of a battle! Prepare for landing!"
Everyone instantly grew serious. It seems they wouldn't get to relax just yet.
After what seemed like hours of shaking and shuddering, but was no doubt only minutes, the Kraken finally landed on Bulgar VI. The cabins rotated, the door opened, the ramp extended, and the men rushed out. Tom and Fate took up the rear, due to their position in the cabin.
As soon as the men disembarked, they started firing into the massive crowd of Cragost a few hundred feet away from them, which were currently fighting other Collective soldiers. Fate spotted a few Tortoise tanks in the crowd of soldiers, which seemed to have their hands full taking out the General Cragost.
The Tortoise Tanks looked like the old tanks from Earth, except their treads were replaced by a hover jet that took up the entire bottom of the tank, glowing with blue light. The main gun was a railgun perforated with holes the size of three heads stacked next to each other, and every side of the tank seemed to have both a small nozzle and a slightly longer nozzle, which was a flamethrower and plasma gun, respectively.
Despite the name, the Tortoise could move up to three hundred miles an hour, allowing it to become a lethal battering ram.
Up above, the Cragolo and Firebirds were warring against each other, and the Kraken was lifting off to join the fight. Thankfully, Fate could only spot three Cragoloss in the sky, while the Collective had one of the best weapons at their disposal here on this battlefield: a Phoenix Capital Ship.
The ship was over six miles long, with enough firepower to decimate anything that stood in its path. The Phoenix looked like an oval-ish rod, with mile-long cannons extending from relatively small cubes on the sides of the back and pointing forward.
These cannons could topple a mountain with each shot, and on the top of each of the cubes were two swiveling missile launchers. The top and bottom of the ship were almost entirely covered in laser cannons, and the shields were capable of blocking up to five shots from something with the strength of their own cannons.
While as small as a chihuahua is to a human compared to the Cragoloss, Fate could see far in the distance mountainous lumps of shell, and he knew that the Phoenix had already taken care of at least five of the Cragoloss. It seemed this would be a short battle.
It seemed he was right. Not even an hour after they landed, the Collective had killed the last of the Cragost, shot down the last Cragolo, and toppled the final Cragoloss. The soldiers cheered, a thunderous sound with so many voices chiming in, weary but happy they could finally rest. Their cheer was short-lived, however.
A loud *BANG*, so loud it made their previous cheer seem like the squeak of a mouse. All the people on the battlefield looked towards the source of the noise, only to find a blade as long as the Phoenix stabbed straight through the side of the capital ship. The blade appeared to be made of bone and was attached to a long tentacle that extended up, up, up, for miles on end. Then the tentacle contracted, and a kaiju appeared.
What floated into their view was an octopus-like creature as large as the Earth state of Texas, with eight tentacles that were each long enough to wrap around Bulgar VI once over.
The beak was yellowed and cracked, and the tongue was a glowing green. The skin of the monster was a deep purple, its eyes were as black as space, and it was only visible in its entirety because it was right next to one of Bulgar VI's moons. This moon was what revealed to the onlookers the true size of this behemoth.
Then the creature moved forward, covering the sun and casting the tired soldiers into an early night.