Taking SPACE

ASSAULT

"The Lionhearted have been dead for hundreds of years and they have no jurisdiction here! I don't know who you are or what you are playing, however know this: ULIX will not tolerate interlopers. If you interfere with our businesses, we will hunt you down and eliminate you! You and all those who are close to you!"

Stephanie's eyes grew wide. "Oh, wow this guy sounds nasty."

"You can say that again." Steven answered, as he pointed at a screen that's displaying the readout from his voice recognition software.

Catherine leaned closer to the indicated screen, and read the name out loud. "Tarax U. Marlune, ULIX's chief executive over customer service."

"Blast man," Daniel exclaimed. "Remind me never to get on the coms with their customer service. He's got a rap sheet as long as my arm."

"Longer." Steven said, as he used a finger to slide down a list on another screen. "There're at least fifteen cases of aggregate assaults here and five suspected of murder if not more. How in the world is this guy not behind bars."

"I think it's time we put an end to this farce of a company, what you guys think?" Michael asked them.

"Absolutely." Daniel declared. "Let's obliterate them."

Michael nodded, and sent a new message out through David Kel's computer-generated voice.

***

Suddenly, the giant hologram reached out, pointed straight at Tarax's battleship, and shouted. "Tarax U Marlune, we have received your death threat, and have found you guilty of intent to kill, breaking the first Great Law of 'Thou shall not kill!' Your battleship will now be destroyed, with you on it."

Tarax burst out into laughter. There wasn't a force in the entire sector that could even put a dent in his ship. Whoever these people were, they were absolutely insane.

As he laughed, David Kel's hologram shifted as if addressing someone behind him. "To all hands on his battleship: if you do not wish to share his fate, abandon the ship NOW."

With that, the hologram of the supposed David Kel blinked out of existence.

"All right, enough of this..." He began to command, when he noticed three blimps broke off from his ship. Suddenly all of his earlier mirth turned to pure anger as he realized some of his crew had actually just abandoned ship. "Turret control now!" he barked.

A display of holographic controls flared to life in front of him. He jabbed it indicating the blimps of the escape pod as his targets, and pulled the trigger.

***

A gasp escaped Stephanie's mouth, as she watched the high-powered laser turrets on the long tubular battleship melt the three escape pods into a floating slag that exploded into tiny shards, as the superheated metal came into contact with the absolute zero temperature of space.

Daniel clenched his fists and punched at the air. He shouted. "Oh! This guy is SO going down!"

"Yes he is!" Steven said fervently, as he moved controls around. "Preparing to open the first dimensional door. Start your run now. It'll take you some time to get up enough inertia."

Daniel jumped into his simulated cockpit and drew down his virtual helmet, as he took control of half of the Starfighter.

As preplanned, he pushed the fighters to their max speed and aimed them straight for the dimensional door Steven had placed four thousand galactic space units away (or rather, four K GSU). Daniel smiled to himself, as he shook from the excitement of the battle to come. All three of his fighters slightly jerked, as the chain that was strung out behind them became taut, and started to pull along the first of the fake asteroids chained together behind him. He raised the tip of his helmet to glance out over at the screen; it's showing the drone unfolding the tube-like metal circles that would open the dimensional door to where the Armada was.