In A Universe Without Stars 1: Skyeater (18 page)

A
bus stops
in front of a barricaded gymnasium. The windows and doors are covered with thin
aluminum sheets. Twenty soldiers patrol the entrance. The bus door opens and
the civilians start to file out and head toward the entrance, carrying all
their belongings with a lack of vigor.

Inside
the gymnasium, the floor is filled with emergency beds. The beds are made out
of barely a sliver green polyester, wrapping around the metal bars that makes
its frame.

Not
comfortable.

But
the civilians come in and pick and choose their beds, settling down for a fight
that’s out of their power, even though it really doesn’t matter where they lay,
if the roof comes down, it’s coming down on all of them.

“Here
is good,” Arnold says.

The
metal legs of the bed squeaks against the polished floors as he throws down his
bags on the farthest bed from the entrance. Thora, beside Arnold, hands him
Neil.

Thora
picks a bed near his, she only has a bag on her back, everything she could
carry. She throws her things under the bed and sits on it. This is where she’ll
be when the battle ends, win or lose.

She
pulls her knees up and wraps her arms around them and starts to rock back and
forth. She’ll do anything to stop thinking about what’s about to happen.
Anything to block out the world around her.

…

Julio
stares into the cloudy sky, the rest of his team next to him check their own
equipment. Most of them have never held a gun before, he doubts they’ll even
hit the broad side of a barn.

He
doesn’t know what in the hell Jahum was thinking giving them those. He probably
expects them to use their powers instead of the rifles.

Julio
looks around, they’re at
Bolling
Air Force Base. The
Eliite put the battle lines directly surrounding the base but left the front of
the base toward the capitol open so they can get to the battle.

All
of D.C. is game.

He
doesn’t know why they didn’t prevent them from having air support, maybe this
is just a game to those fuckers. The world’s air crafts have no outer limits,
it’s free rein for them too.

He
hears Lance behind him.

“I
have three grenades as well,” he says. 

It’s
eerily quiet here, even though the engines of the jet roar off beside them.
Maybe he should check his equipment too, not that it would really matter.

The
sky flashes white and then there’s a loud screech. Hundreds of giant pods fall
from the sky, raining down from the sky like black tear drops, crashing over
the city.

A
pod crashes a couple miles away from Julio. The pod is shaped like a one
hundred foot spherical egg; its middle opens up and a hundred grunts leap out.
Afterward, its top collapses in on itself.

After
the pods fall, twenty faire descend down from the clouds. Its sides open
releasing out a swarm of Peons. Then only four angels trickle from the clouds,
they don’t have their halos, they’re docile.

And
at last, the one and only Damon descends to join in. Ulbe, the general of this
battle. He slowly descends from the sky. A golden energy crown floats over his
head; it has four large spikes that drifts and waves with the wind. He’s the
same Damon that watched over New York City’s attack and the one who controls
the angels.

He
lands on top of the Washington memorial. He sits on the spike, legs crossed. He
puts his hand together for a quick prayer.

“Deny
the perfect. Prevent the end. May Numenwolfe save us all,” Ulbe says in
Serephin. His eyes light up white. He envisions it, he envisions the
battlefield, every angel, every faire, every, Peon, grunt, every single one of
them flashes in his eyes.

The
spikes in his crown each shoot out and zaps to the angels. It wraps around them
and then disappears in a flash. A golden energy crown appears over their head.
Ulbe has taken control of the battle.

He
is the commander.

He
is the watcher.

It
begins.

Julio
has never seen anything like this before. There’s thousands of them,
how in
the hell are they supposed to fight that?

“What
now?”

A
large booming sound approaches from overhead. A pod hurls down over them. It
explodes as
itis
hit by an artillery round, the
world’s forces, snapping Julio out of his daze and reminding him that they are
not the only ones in this fight.

“There!”
Julio screams as he points up to the sky.

From
the hell fire above, ten grunts fall from the flames. Julio’s team lights up
the sky, bullets flinging into the swarm of grunts.

Aiming
with surprisingly good accuracy they take out five of them. But it’s not enough
as they crash down in front of them. One of them lands in front of Julio.

It
kicks him hard in gut and he’s sent flying. It turns around to the others and—

Headshot.
Lance litters him with bullets. The other grunts land but Julio’s team makes
quick work of them. They were picked as an attack team for a reason. 

Julio
runs up to them, practically unharmed. Looks like he was wrong to think they
couldn’t stand up on their own and that he would have had to pick up the slack,
especially when they got first blood.

“Are
you alright comrade?” Lance asks.

“Yeah,
just fine.”

A
boom bellows in the distance, they all look toward its direction. Another pod
crashed down only a few miles away from them.

“Well
what are we waiting for?” Julio asks. With this group, maybe he can defy the
gods, maybe he can stop the apocalypse. They run for the pod, ready to take on
anything.

 The
battle rages on
on
all stages of the battlefield,
humans and Eliite clash, fighting to the death.

In
the air, angels spit out beams of energy suppressing the Earth’s forces, while
Peons pick off the jets when they are in dismay.

In
front of an auditorium in a safe zone, Noata’s team overlooks the battle. The
fighting is a lot closer to them than they would like. Noata leans against the
auditorium wall, trying to calm himself down but his thoughts are racing.

“How…can
we beat that?” Noata asks. Wilker and Serena stand next to him. An ill equipped
squad of soldiers are the only ones with them.

There’s
only five of them, and they barely look out of high school. One of them throws
up.

“Come
on men, pucker up, there is a war going on.” The squad leader says, he looks
fresh out of ROTC with his newly polished lieutenant ranks.

“Look
at them,” Wilker says. “They’re barely old enough to get their peckers wet.
What in the hell was the military?”

“Look
over there,” Serena says. She points to a team of grunts only a couple hundred
yards away, advancing toward them.

Jahum
said the safe zones won’t be the main targets, but he didn’t say that they
wouldn’t attack them. To think Noata thought just for a second that he could
escape the fight.

“Do
we—“

“Charge!!!”
Serena is cut off as the squad leader screams. The soldiers run toward the
grunts. They were throwing up just a minute ago; they have moxy Noata would
give them that.

“Wait!!!”
Serena screams for them. Noata jerks his eyes away as they’re massacred. The
grunts didn’t even use their weapons, they just drove their hands in and tore
them apart.

A
bloody mess.

The
grunts leave their remains as they turn back to Noata’s team. They’re happy,
cheering, delighted to finally spill blood.

They
advance toward Noata’s team, they have no formation, no order, they’re too
confident in their overwhelming strength that there will be no need for
tactics.

We’re
too below them for that, too beneath them for a true strategic battle. This is
a game to them.

Serena
lets off a smirk. “Protect the auditorium,” she says as she cocks her gun.

“What?”
Noata asks. She pats him on his head and charges the grunts.

“Are
you going to let a girl fight your battles for you, boy?” Wilker asks.

What?

He
can’t, he doesn’t have the confidence she does. After what happened to the
soldiers he’s not sure he can do anything anymore.

Serena
fires at the grunts. Noata doesn’t answer Wilker.

“Well
I’m all up for equality and
the such
,” he says. He
cocks his gun.

“I
thought you didn’t want to fight!?” Noata yells.

“I
don’t but I’m not an idiot, its kill or be killed. They think we are so far
below them that they are leaving openings all over the place. If they keep
under estimating us I can see right through them.” He steps forward. He looks
like he’s concentrating in their movements.

“A
little word to the wise, when you load your clip, make sure you rack your gun,
it can lead to an undesirable scenario.” Wilker charges in after Serena.

Leaving
Noata alone to protect the auditorium. Both sides clash, no rules, no order,
just a fight to the death.

The
battle rages on in another part of the city. The sky is thick with smoke.

Julio’s
team fights in the streets. A group of grunts shoots at them from the distance,
they both fire at each other, using over-turned vehicles as cover. But both of
them aren’t hitting a damn thing.

“Fuck
it,” Julio says.

He
crouches on the wall in an alleyway, his team is next to him firing at the
grunts. He tosses his gun to Lance and walks into the street.

 “What
are you doing?!” Lance snaps.

“Winning.”

“What
the?” one of the grunts says.

The
human doesn’t want to play anymore.

The
others notice and turn their barrels toward Julio. Julio stands off against
them, he hopes this works.

They
fire, bullets rip through the air. Julio launches off, he ducks and weaves through
the hailstorm, and sprints toward the grunts. Dodging the bullets like a
jackal, he closes in and swings down.

In
a flash, his force field forms around his hand, it quickly stretches out into a
long plank. He opens his fist, the plank suddenly smashes razor thin. Julio
grabs it.

He
slices the top half of a grunt off, a clean cut. Another grunt comes from his
right, Julio moves fast and kicks it hard in the head, dislocating its neck.

A
third grunt lands in front of him, Julio throws his hand forward, his sword
flies forward. It melts in the air and melds into a wall and crashes into the
third grunt.

Julio
turns around, the last grunt swings for him. Julio tries to duck but it’s too
late and—

Its
head is blown straight off. Lance and the others advance toward him. Julio
barely broke a sweat. He sees the pod they were after.

Some
grunts still attempt to get out of it.

He
grabs a grenade off his belt and lugs it hard. It smacks against the pod and
sticks. It explodes and takes the grunts with it.

Another
rumbling, above them another pod zooms over. Heading toward the Airfield.

“It’s
going to be a long day,” Julio sighs. “On me!” he yells to his team. He runs
back toward the airfield. 

Noata
stands in front of an auditorium.

Alone.

The
rest of his team fight off in the distance, taking cover behind an armored
truck only a mile away from him.

Wilker
takes lead, suppressing the grunts while the others flak them. The grunts are
laughing. Are they not serious? Noata wonders how well they actually could
fight if they were serious.

He
thinks they can end this quickly if they wanted to. It’s all a game.

A
screech comes from above him, he looks up and takes a step back. The sky above
him is a swarm of metallic death.

The
air battle is intense, an angel right above him screeches as it releases
hellfire. The beam cleaves right through the world’s air force.

There’s
a rumble.

“What
was that?” he asks himself. His advance down the street, away from him, past
piles of dead grunts.

Their
plan worked but he looks farther down, and more grunts advance for them. Then
he sees something appear over them.

A
booming sound is heard. A deep consistent
ratta
-tat.
Noata feels it in his chest. A faire hovers over the grunts, only a couple
hundred
of feet in the air.

It
slowly approaches the auditorium. Small slots opens on its sides. Energy based
bombs rocket out and into the buildings under it. It sieges everything in its
path, heading toward him.