Taking SPACE

DOWNFALL

Henderson stood in the middle of the real-time 4D holographic display of asteroid field watching every minute detail. Both fleets were now fully inside the gas cloud, with his ship bringing up the rear.

Another two fake asteroid came alive and one of his fighter units blinked out of existence and shortly after the fake asteroids were destroyed by his units.

He had lost twenty-six fighter to the sentries so far, which all in all wasn't that bad. What annoyed him however was the fact that it was absolutely impossible to distinguish them from regular asteroids enabling them to continuously ambush the units he had pushing the larger asteroids out of the way, dramatically slowing their advance.

He didn't have a clue what the lionhearted strategy might be but he knew they wouldn't let themselves go quietly. As such he needed to get in there and take them out as quickly and efficiently as possible before they had time to react.

"Sir, our scanners are picking up a rather large amount of gravity fluctuations." One of his officers informed him.

His eyes grew the size of saucers as realization of the lionhearted strategy hit him. "Pull all units out of the gas cloud now!"

"Sir?"

"Now!"

His communication officer sent the message and he took manual control over ship throwing it in full reverse.

In seconds the cloud around the ship began to thin as they left it and he began to relax but as he watched the 4D hologram all of other ships continued to advance. "Why aren't they pulling back?!"

"Our message doesn't seem to be getting through." The officer answered.

"Wh –" he was cut off by a message playing over the ships speakers.

"You have entered lionhearted territory turn back now or face the consequences."

The message repeated itself ominously over and over.

"Sir whatever this message is it's blocking all of our communications."

"Breakthrough it you have to tell our ships to get out of there!"

There ship bucked backwards and Henderson fell to the floor as the entire forward viewscreen became white displaying hundreds of thousands of explosions as the gas cloud seemingly spontaneously exploded.

He managed to pull himself to his feet as the last of explosions died away. He anxiously stared out the viewport and at the 4D hologram. The cloud was mostly gone and what was left of it was easily seen through. Surprisingly however it looked like most of his fleet was still intact.

"Sit rep now!" Henderson shouted.

As the words left his mouth the 4D hologram screamed warnings as it displayed thousands upon thousands of red dots.

Life drain from his face as he watched fake asteroids scattered all through the asteroid field come to life and opened fire on the weakened ships. Most of the ship's shields had held against the explosions the gas had caused but they were at the breaking point and the endless streams of lasers pouring into them easily eroded what was left.

Henderson stood there completely helpless as two whole fleets were obliterated.

**

Daniel's mouth hung wide open.

"Your chin is about to touch the floor." Michael teased as they watched the destruction being wreaked upon the ships.