In A Universe Without Stars 1: Skyeater (20 page)

The crew try their hardest not to look directly at him, trying
their best to avoid getting his attention. All because of what he is now, all because
he was chosen by these so called alien saviors.

He’s still only human but maybe he can hopefully protect them,
save them from the horrors they’ve seen. Also, because the chosen was given
command over them.

“So you’re a chosen, huh? You got a big job ahead of you,” Reese
says, relocking his harness. He looks back above him.

There’s still a battle going on, except that the Eliite are
avoiding the base for some reason.

“It looks like we can’t win this without you guys. Especially with
those angel fuckers.”

“Bullshit! They used to call you fearless Reese, Reese’s
mother-fucking Pieces. You headed straight into this
clusterfuck
of a war with far less capabilities than I have, unless you’ve turned into a
pussy since the last time we met?”

The crew members signals Reese, the jet is ready to go. Reese puts
on his helmet, ready to head back into the death above.

“I miss the talks we used to have Julio. If I don’t come back name
your
first born after me.”

He jumps up to grab the canopy and starts to pull down.

“Wait! Don’t you need a navigator?” Julio asks.

“I can go alone.”

“Wait!”

Reese and the crew members stop in their tracks.

“Take me with you.”

The F-18 idles on the runway, getting ready for takeoff. Another jet
in front of them launches into the air. The sky above them empty. The dogfights
swirl around the perimeter of the base, but never entering them.

“What the hell? Why aren’t they attacking the base?” Julio asks in
the navigator’s seat. He’s just now noticed that there wasn’t any fighting
going on above them.

“They’re not going to attack something that sends out targets for
them. If you haven’t noticed they get some sick satisfaction from stringing us
out.”

Julio locks in his harness, he can’t believe they’re letting him
do this. Apparently the Astrons worked something out to give the chosen some
kind of high ranking status.

“Hmm, well, are you ready?” Julio asks. Reese places his hand on
the throttle, with no major satellite communications it’s up to him when to go.

Julio puts on his helmet and snaps on his nose mask.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this.”

“Me either,” Julio replies with a smile.

“GO!” Julio yells.

Reese forces down the throttle, with a lurch the afterburners are
unleashed.

Julio is pressed into his seat as they rocket down the runway. The
pressure hits him hard. His smile turns into a giant grin. They lift into the
sky, ripping straight up into the sky.

Reese relaxes in his seat as the
Gs
push
into his body, tightening the right body parts to not pass out. Julio eyes
water in the back. His teary eyes stare up into the empty sky.

No planes or aliens are in the sky.

It’s calm.

They quickly approach the clouds above.

“You ready for this shit?
‘Cause
I think
you’re not,” Reese announces.

“Yeah.”

Reese lets off the throttle as they hit the clouds. Whiteness
engulfs them. The jet starts to shake.

“Are you
ready!
” Reese screams, more for
himself than Julio.

Julio was born ready.

The clouds break.

Julio’s smile leaves.

It’s chaos.

Hundreds, thousands of ships enter their view. 

The explosions rocks the jet. Hundreds of dog fights are going on
around them. Streams and puffs of smoke paint the blue canvas of the sky.

It’s hard for Julio to become oriented with all the ships around him.
There’s just so many, so many jets and ships, so many bullets and explosions.

So much death.

Reese is the real hero here, to go into this. It takes more than
balls to fly in this.

The sky around them shakes violently as a dinging sound is heard as
they still fly vertically. It vibrate through Julio’s and Reese’s core. Its
echo is heard all around them. Julio looks back at the clouds behind him. The
clouds suddenly disappear, he can see the battle on the ground.

 The clouds aren’t real?

It is just a psychological barrier? Is it for the ground forces or
them?

The battle finally gets to them.

“Hold on!” Reese screams. A group of Peons swarm in around them.

“Shit!” Julio screams as he throws his hands on the glass.

Twenty Peons engulf them. Hording so close together but somehow
not running into each other. Reese’s jet burst through it, sending Peons
hurling down to the ground.

Julio’s force field surrounds the jet, encompassed of multiple
tiny mirror like force fields that make a sphere around the jet. Julio removed
his hands from the glass, his force field disappears.

The Peons they smashed through scatter away. Reese looks around in
the sky, searching for something.

“We got their attention!” Julio shouts. A group of Peons in the
distance swirl together and flies toward them.

“There!” Reese found what he was looking for. An angel spits beams
of hellfire only a couple miles away, decimating any and every jet that crosses
its path.

Julio’s ready for this, the moment he’s been waiting for. He’s going
to do the stupidest thing he’s ever done in he’s entire life.

“You sure you’re ready?” Reese asks again.

“Just go!”

Reese pulls on the stick. They lurch backwards, finally flying
horizontally. The Peons shot past the spot they were just in.

They head toward the angel, approaching fast. Into the thick of
battle, the world’s forces versus the Eliite. Julio places his hands on the
cockpit glass.

“Don’t. Save your energy. I got this,” Reese says.

Julio slowly moves his hands away from the cockpit. He looks at
his hands. He’s never thought about a limit, how much can he do before he runs
out? Does his power have a limit? What happens when he runs out? Does he die?

Julio continues to stare at his hand while Reese does his job. He
swerves and weaves through legions of Peons and jets. Julio is amazed at how
good of a pilot Reese is. Flying through the weaves of the battle without
engaging in combat. There’s so many other prey out in the sky, the Peons that
notice them just attack someone else.

But it’s time now for Julio to do his part, the angel is quickly
approaching.

“Brace yourself.”

Julio puts his hands on the glass. A shield expands out of Julio
and around the jet.

Reese fires the afterburners, the jet lurches and they rocket
toward the angel.

“Fight or flight motherfuckers!” he screams.

They ram right into the angel. It flings off the shield like a
ragdoll and tumbles toward the ground. It continues down until it rips from its
chains and crucifix, breaking out of the
Ulbe’s
, the
Damons, control.

It’s pissed. Its energy wings erupts from its back.

It lets out a screech that pierces through the entire battlefield.

“Hell yeah it worked!” Julio says, the angel flies for them.

“Let’s get those other fuckers.”

There’s two more angels in the distance, annihilating everything
around it.

Even its own comrades.

They jet for them, force field still active, crashing into any
Peon that dare get in their way, destroying them instantly on touch.

Crash! They run into the next angel. Crash! And into the next.

“They’re following us,” Julio says looking back. Reese grips the
joystick.

“Let’s do this.”

Reese
jerks down on the joystick. Once again they head straight up, heading for the
glass ceiling of the Earth’s so called atmosphere. The jet’s shield disappears.
Julio relaxes back in his seat.

Below
them the angels furiously follow. They have no other thoughts besides kill.
Rage in their eyes, fire in their mouths, they spit out beams of hellfire but
they fall short of the jet. The lack of air around them hinders them as they
ascend.

Their
wings and
claws  frost
over, but their unbridled
rage forces them on. The battle is thousands of feet below them, they’re alone
in the outskirts of Earth’s atmosphere. Ice crusts on the jets wings.

Inside,
Reese struggles to keep the jet stable, sweat slicks his face.

“Julio!
Are you going to do this or what?!”

Julio
sits in his seat, trying to hype himself up. He snaps off his air mask and
takes off his helmet. It gets hard to breathe as he starts to sweat. Bells and
alarms ring out from the console.

“Shit!
We’re going to stall!” Reese yells.

Julio
sits still. He can do this, he’s done far crazier shit than this before. So why
is he hesitating? He’s done many death defying things before, what makes this
any different?

Because
he’s going to die
,
he thought. He comes to this realization while he stares out into the bleakness
of outer space. It’s all silent to him now as if no matter what his decision is
everything is going to be okay.

Reese
is yelling at him in the reflection of the cockpit glass.

The
engine stops, they stall.

It’s
getting easier for him to breath, he calms down. Can he breathe because of his
power? He takes one deep breath.

Reese
is yelling, “Just do it. You’re going to die either way.”

He’s
going to die if he does it. But he’s going to do it anyways.

Yeah
, he thought,
and
he’s going to go out with style
.

Julio
smiles as the cockpit opens.

He
grabs his gun and jumps out.

He
closes his eyes as he falls for the angels. He cocks his gun.

Let’s
do this.

His
eyes fling open as he thrust down. The angels fly straight for him, approaching
fast as he fires his special round.

 In
a crack! He falls under the first angel as the round annihilates it. It doesn’t
even have time to let out a scream. He fires again at the angel immediately
under him.

Shit!

It’s
too close.

As
the round hits, Julio still falls for it.

The
round starts to expand as Julio falls eye level to the angel. He looks into the
eyes of the beast, even then it can’t tell that it’s about to meet its end. The
angel screams as the round suddenly expands out, consuming it.

Julio
barely passes the angel as the round expands out to an inch away his face,
searing off some of his hair.

It
stops, he needed a haircut anyways.

Overhead,
the jet loops over, Reese uselessly pulling hard on the joystick in the
lifeless jet. He hopes he has enough momentum to keep moving.

The
last angel is under Julio and he’s out of bullets. He lands on its shoulders,
it grabs his legs. Julio grabs a grenade off his belt as it opens its mouth to
spit out hellfire.

He
activates it and shoves it down the fuckers throat, burns be damned. It
releases his legs and grabs at its throat. Julio flips off it and—

The
angel explodes in a bloody fashion. The explosion thrust Julio though the air –

He’s
suddenly caught by Reese’s jet’s cockpit door as it flies straight down.

“Fuck
yeah!” Reese yells. Julio climbs into his seat and closes the cockpit.

Holy
hell
,
it worked. That should make it a lot easier for their forces now that the
angels are gone. Julio clutches his fist.

“Let’s
go!”

Reese
powers the jet back up, engine rev as they still head straight down, ground
approaching quickly below them. They break back into the main fighting area.
Julio places his hands on the glass, his force field projects over the jet.

A
faire flies under them.

“Go
through it,” Julio says.

The
faire screams as the jet rips right through it, bursting through the other side
unharmed. It explodes as they fly away.

Ulbe
sits on top of the Washington Memorial, watching the battle. With his power he
can see every single one of his soldiers, he knows when his children kill, when
they’re in danger and when they die. 

He
can feel their pain, their suffering and their emotions. That’s the job of the
general of the Eliite fleet. Because of this, he can control them.

He
can only handle it because he decided to ascend to this position, the power to
handle the emotional toll, instead of something greater.