Tempest

18 - The Last Array

He was shocked by the sincerity in Blisk's parting words. This had to have been the most serious he'd ever seen the man, and ... well, what he'd said had been unexpected. He gave a slight nod towards the mercenary out of respect, and stood up. "Alright. Vale, Tyra, let's get out of-"

Suddenly, the rising noise of a wailing siren pierced the air. He turned towards Gates. "What is that?"

She seemed frozen. "That's the weather warning system. It was the only alarm that we were able to rig up, and I told them to ring it if the situation changed."

On cue, open comm channels began to light up with transmissions from high in the sky. "Commander Blisk, we've got a massive number of bogeys that just appeared outside of orbit-"

"Captain Gates, we are moving to intercept. But I don't think we can take them all on-"

"What the hell?"

"Holy shit, what is that thing?! Are you seeing this-"

"It's HUGE! There's no way we can-"

"Foxtrot, attack formation! Focus on those pods before they breach the line-"

"Foxtrot, this is Echo! Pods have broken the line, I repeat, pods have broken the line! To anyone on the ground, you have incoming!"

Gates spun towards him sharply. "Tobias, go! We're out of time!"

Heeding her word, he rushed towards the entrance and ran into the sunlight. KT stood there, waiting for his arrival. "Tobias ... I think the situation has changed."

Looking up at the sky, he could see a mass of shapes of gunfire flitting about. While the majority of the ships were above orbit trying to stop pods from coming in, a select group had fallen into atmosphere to help clean up stragglers. But it wasn't enough.

Streaks of black came crashing down in a massive range of distribution. There had to have been at least ten that had landed somewhere in the city, and he knew how much damage just one of those things could do. They'd spread easily enough on an armed IMC outpost. With a civilian population, who knew how quickly they could take over?

That wasn't the worst of it. Looking high into the sky past orbit, he saw a sight that truly rendered him speechless. All he could do was stare at it as more comm channels lit up.

"It's like a moon or some shit-"

"Wait, is that thing alive? It's moving!"

"Jesus, I can't believe this-"

It was a massive moon-like orb, with a surface almost completely blackened and charred like the Amalgamates' 'skin'. Interspersed all over were tendrils of some kind of material. From here on the ground, he couldn't really see what they were made of; but if he had to take a guess, he'd say they were composed of organic material. Bodies, flesh, whatever it could get its hands on. They swung around like roots of a plant, and he knew what he was looking at.

"The Seed," he breathed.

Evidently, it had found a way to break out of the frozen planet. He supposed that without the Arks and working fold weapons to hold it place, it wasn't too difficult for it to escape from its prison.

KT locked gazes with him, and he could sense her apprehension behind that blue eye of hers. "I can't see us walking out of this one, Tobias." Slowly, her optics turned toward the scene in the sky above them.

He heard the weariness in her voice, the tire of fighting. He felt it in himself too. The desire to be free of all this.

He gave a heavy sigh. "One final effort, Kay."

She too gave a sigh. "When you told me we could travel the stars together one day, I didn't think this was what you had in mind." She chuckled. "When we first met in that frozen forest ... I never would have imagined that we'd end up here. Back then we were just two enemies who banded together for survival. Now ..."

She looked at him. "... I can't imagine life without you, Tobias. You're my world."

KT seemed to have accepted the fact that they were probably going to die. He swallowed hard, and met her gaze. "And you're mine, Kay. Are you ready?"

She gave a shuddering breath. "No. Are you?"

"No," he admitted. "Are you with me?"

"Always," she replied. The waver in her voice had disappeared, replaced with a tone of courage and resolve. "Together to the end."

"Together to the end," he repeated. "Let's find that array."