Tuesday, January 16, 2007

The Light

A continuation from "Don't let them know what hit 'em"

Now we knew that these Confederates were prepared for our "surprise" ground assault. "Next gun, next gun!" yelled our clone CO. "Use grenades, and don't let them know what hit 'em." We ran over to the next turret, tracking the plasma bolts back to their source to find it. It was about 2000 feet away, so we had a bit of a sprint ahead. Our footsteps were light and swift, just as we had trained for them to be. I listened through my helmet to the deep "chunk, chunk" noise of our target, and the grasses swaying in the light nighttime breeze as we ran past. I heard my own breathing, which started getting heavier and heavier. Then I heard a sound that shouldn't have been there. "Tink". That was it. It was followed by a thump and some static over the comlink. "Oh, god!" yelled Beta 487, "They've got Kappa, sniper, sniper!"

We dropped to the ground instantly, and crawled as fast as we could in any direction of cover. We were in the middle of the open field, and the only protection accessible was another part of the forest that we had recently emerged from. We turned perpendicular to our previous route, Kappa's last route, and crawled for the trees. Whoever had shot at us fired one more round of a sleek, long, lethal, red plasma round, but then mysteriously stopped. We continued towards the forest for what seemed like an eternity, but at last, the trees stood before us, offering to shelter us from our unseen attacker. We continued inwards, still crawling, until a bright spectrum of light, dominated by a silvery gold hue blinded us.

An immense hole, larger than any ship that the Republic had in service, opened slowly in the ground, releasing more and more of the increasingly brighter light. We shaded our eyes with our hands, but the light was everywhere, all - penetrating. Then a massive object started to move, very slowly, and hardly visible through the glare, upwards, towards the now bright night sky.

To be continued...