A few days later than the projected time, Sergeant Robert got a call from Mystar HQ and stepped outside to receive it, Fate tagging along.
"I hope you're calling to tell us you've found a way to deal with the Octoloss," Robert said. "My men are getting restless. We've already had a riot, and I had to throw the rioters in a makeshift jail."
"I've got good news and bad news," replied the man on the other end of the Ex Ear. "Good news is, we're almost certain that we have a way to deal with the Octoloss. Bad news is, we aren't *completely* sure. If this doesn't work, you could be stuck there for another year."
Robert grimaced. "We won't last another year. We have the food and the water, but the men's morale is so low I could make a pool out of it and fit an entire Phoenix in it."
"Then hope this works. It's on its way now. ETA three days, thirteen hours."
With that, the call ended. Sergeant Robert looked into the sky, where currently he could see the silhouette of the Octoloss, so far away it looked human-sized.
"This better work…"
The arrival of the weapon they would use against the Octoloss arrived with a bang. A bang so loud, everyone in the mines could hear it, even those hundreds of miles in. Sergeant Robert rushed out to investigate the noise, followed by the hundreds of soldiers in the frontmost cavern.
They all turned their eyes to the sky and were shocked by what they saw. As they stood there in awe, more soldiers were streaming out from farther into the mine.
What they saw could only be described as the act of a god. The Octoloss, hundreds of thousands of miles tall, was falling from the sky. Three of its tentacles were gone, turned into a rain of gore, and every inch of the creature's skin, or what little was left of it, was charred black.
The left half of its body was gone, the flesh that was now exposed smooth, as if the missing chunk had never existed. And above the octopus-turned-meteor was the hand that smote it down.
The ship was four times longer than the Octoloss was tall, an absolutely gigantic hunk of metal shaped like the Phoenix, with a noticeable difference. While it had the same plethora of cannons, guns, and missile launchers, as well as the large thrusters on the side, the entire front half of the ship looked like the barrel of a railgun.
There was a long split down the middle horizontally that extended from the front of the vessel to the halfway mark, leaving a gap between the top and bottom of the split that was at least half a mile tall. The split was crackling with bolts of blue electricity as thick around as a person, slowly lowering in intensity.
The ship was painted blue as well, but while the electricity was sky blue, the ship was a deep, rich navy blue. The colors went well together, Fate thought, making it look like something divine.
Fate noticed something out of the corner of his eye, and when he turned to it, he gasped. The mountain a few miles west of them was missing three-fourths of its structure, reduced to a lowly hill surrounded by hundreds of chunks of earth and rock of various sizes. It seemed that the ship was much more capable than the Phoenix was.
Finally, the Octoloss hit the ground, causing a massive tremor to spread throughout the planet, cracks spreading and ravines forming for miles in every direction from the impact point.
He heard Sergeant Robert's Ex Ear beep, followed by the men clicking the button and saying, "Sergeant Roberts, reporting. Who is this?"
"Admiral Pyson, here. You boys ready to go home?"
"Very much so, sir."
"Good. We'll send down a Phoenix to pick you up. That corpse down there means your boys'll have to walk a few miles, though."
"That's fine, sir. I'll gather them up and start marching immediately. And sir, may I ask the name of the ship?"
"Atlas, Sergeant. Her name is Atlas."
After a long march, everyone was aboard the Atlas. Like the last rescue, Sergeant Roberts was on the bridge being debriefed, flanked by Fate and Tom. The last two were happy to find that Maya, Nikolas, and Autumn were aboard as well, standing at attention behind Admiral Pyson. Pyson was a thin man with a scruffy brown beard, short-cropped hair of the same color, and eyes a deep blue.
He was garbed in a typical admiral uniform, the left breast of the tunic covered in badges and medals. At Sergeant Robert's urging, they had activated their Kozmos Drive at the soonest opportunity and were currently traveling at near-lightspeed.
Pyson looked at the members of Styx, studying their eyes, as the rest of their faces were hidden behind their masks.
"… It looks like you five have some catching up to do. You're dismissed."
The five nodded, leaving the room so Robert and Admiral Pyson could talk.
When the members of Styx were in the quarters of Autumn and Maya, they all embraced tightly.
Maya shoved off the pile first, saying "We would've gone to get you, but the Shyv kept throwing us into mission after mission. Autumn was about to throw caution to the wind a month ago until the Shyv personally guaranteed that you two were safe."
"I would've gone anyway, but someone stole the keys to my Shadow Jumper,' Autumn said, looking at Nikolas.
"That reminds me." Nikolas grabbed something out of his pocket and threw it at her. She caught it, of course, and looked at it to find her keys. "If you weren't so bullheaded, I wouldn't have taken them." He turned to Fate and Tom. "By the way, how'd you guys survive in the mines for so long, with that many people?"
"We found a large farm and a huge store of water. We only had a few days' worth left when you guys picked us up." Tom looked at the wall, in the direction of the bridge. "Sergeant Roberts was the only reason we all made it out."
"He's due for a promotion soon, I'd say." Fate looked at the beds in the room, suddenly realizing he'd only slept on a bed twice in the past few months, as the few beds they found in that mine were rotated out so everyone could get a chance to sleep soundly. "Where are our rooms, by the way? I haven't had some decent sleep in months."
"Oh, right. Follow me." Maya led Tom and Fate through several long corridors and a handful of elevators and even light platforms, before they eventually arrived at a door, one of the many doors in the extremely long hallway.
It had the number '124' painted on the right side of it. Maya opened the door with a key she retrieved from her pocket, before handing the key to Tom. "Here. Get some rest. Those bags under your eyes don't do much for your look."