Sadness
Lucas switched to one of his spare bodies inside his pocket dimension. Teleporting himself to the Nugitraiilian homeworld, Lucas found himself aboard his stealth ship sitting in his command chair. The ship he had taken to the jellyfish homeworld was an unarmored and unshielded cruiser, which was why it had been destroyed so easily.
He opened the feed from the probes to see what would happen after his ship was destroyed. He watched as the robots fired plasma bolts into the jellyfish planet. A sinking feeling in his gut caused him to order the probes to scan the area they were firing at. He fell back into his chair as he realized that the alien jellyfish he had been talking to had been murdered.
Lucas just stared at the screen. If he had tear ducts, his eyes would have started tearing up. To have someone try and help you, only to be killed in return&h.e.l.lip; what kind of feeling would one have? Lucas was being torn up by guilt. There was a flicker of movement as one of the robot ships on the screen moved out of the jellyfish homeworld’s gravity. Without the gravity disrupting hypers.p.a.ce, the robot ships jumped out of the system.
Lucas’ head whipped around, staring where the robot ships had been just seconds ago. There was a shriek of tortured metal as the armrests on Lucas’ chair crumpled under his strength. Chu Shen had been in his cabin when he had sensed a slight change in the surrounding Qi. Realizing it must be Lucas coming back, Chu Shen headed for the bridge.
Arriving there, he saw Lucas staring daggers at an image of empty s.p.a.ce. He turned to question what Lucas was doing and noticed that Lucas’ armrests had been crumpled up into a ball. He ran over to Lucas. “What is it Lucas? What’s wrong?!”
Lucas shifted his gaze towards Chu Shen, causing Chu Shen to flinch. “What’s wrong?” Lucas’ voice was quiet but it carried a deep anger with it. A chill came over Chu Shen.
“I’ll tell you what’s wrong. I made contact with the jellyfish. They told me that they had created these abominations to explore the universe. Their creations started killing everything! They tried to stop the killing! They even tried to warn ME! DO YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED?! THEY KILLED HIM FOR IT! THEY KILLED HIM! BECAUSE OF ME!” Lucas gradually became louder until he was shouting at Chu Shen.
After he was done yelling, Lucas slumped back into his chair. He seemed to age by ten years. Lucas sobbed, but not a single tear fell down from his face. “I killed him. I killed him and I can’t even cry. Why? Why didn’t I make tear ducts? Now I can’t even cry for who I killed.”
Chu Shen came over to Lucas and hugged him. “It’s okay Lucas. It’s okay.” He knew exactly what kind of soul Lucas was. He was a kind and caring boy, coming from a more gentle age. It was the reason why they had gotten involved with Aslo and Chrissa to begin with. To have someone die for him&h.e.l.lip; It was truly torture for Lucas.
Maybe if it was Chu Shen this wouldn’t be as much of a problem. He wasn’t heartless, but Chu Shen had been raised in a far more brutal era. People being killed was quite common. Of the four hundred young people of his generation, only a hundred and fifty-two branch sect children had survived to adulthood. The kids were killed in training or in accidents while hunting. Some were even killed in cultivation mishaps. Death was a constant companion in his world, so a stranger dying, even if it was for him, wouldn’t have torn him up so much.
After a while, Lucas finally stopped mourning. Standing up he reflexively rubbed his eyes before glancing down at his hand. He made a sad smile before turning back to Chu Shen. “Thanks for being there Chu Shen.”
Chu Shen smiled. “It’s alright. I won’t say anything to Aslo or Chrissa either.”
Lucas shuddered. “Yeah. Aslo would be awful to deal with.”
Chu Shen gestured to the video of empty s.p.a.ce. “So, you going to destroy those ‘abominations?’ Or do you want to let them go free?”
A fire seemed to appear in Lucas’ eyes. He shook his head decisively. “I’ll prepare the warp gates. We need to wipe all of the robots out. Right now.”
Lucas sat back down in his chair. Closing his eyes, Lucas entered a virtual reproduction of the solar system in real time. Issuing orders, Lucas prepared to destroy the robot invaders.
953 battleships, 637 carriers, 2860 destroyers, 12760 sniper drones, 6378 shield drones, and 9516 fighters. This huge amount of ships started moving out from their places in orbit around various planets. The ships formed up into their fleet formations as ordered.
In the middle of each fleet were the carriers. Surrounding the carriers in sphere formations were battleships. Surrounding those battleships in their own miniature spheres were the destroyers. The fighters had already been loaded onto the carriers which was why there were none of them around. If one looked at it with a telescope from a distance, it would look like ball with cancer.
The fleets formed in the s.p.a.ce between the sixth and seventh planets into ten even formations. There was a flash of light and then ten huge spherical ships suddenly appeared beside each of the ten fleets.
Chu Shen gathered Aslo and Chrissa onboard Lucas’ ship and informed them of what had happened when Lucas made contact with the jellyfish. Of course, he left out how much it hurt Lucas, but everything else was accurate. Aslo reacted in his typical fashion. Rage and the thirst for killing things.
Chrissa gasped and then stated she wanted to destroy the robots, though she did confirm with Chu Shen that they weren’t alive but were more like rogue puppets. Afterwards, Chrissa became firm in her decision to wipe out the robotic plague.
They all gathered on the bridge where Lucas was sitting. Lucas had programmed his face and voice to simulate his normal att.i.tude. He didn’t want them to know how badly he was failing.
“Is everyone ready to destroy the robots?” Lucas asked the group. As one, everyone nodded. “Alright. I hereby begin the a.s.sault!”
As Lucas spoke, the huge spherical ships started splitting apart. The upper half of each ship started peeling apart, forming 8 equal sized wedges. The wedges went out to 45 degree angles before stopping. A huge rod with a ball at the end emerged from the middle of the sphere. Rods from the tips of wedges shot out and connected with the ball at the end of the sphere.
A bluish-white energy surged across the rods, collecting at the ball at the end of the main rod. The bluish-white energy swirled and shimmered before suddenly expanding. A huge portal appeared in front of the spherical ships. When the portals stopped expanding, they were twice the size of each fleet formation.
Immediately after the portals formed, the fleets surged towards them. The fleets flew into the portals disappearing from view.
Lucas had a sad smile on his face as he saw them disappear.
“It’s time to take revenge.”