Chapter 59 The Final Chapter

"So, you're telling me that thing in the sky used to be your friend?" the captain grimaced.

"And at the rate he's accumulating energy he'll end up self-destructing in about a minute. We need to get everyone off the ship before the energy wave hits us!" Loyd shouted.

"The what?" the captain asked.

The sky exploded with a rainbow of different colors as the atmosphere reacted with an intense wave of radiation.

"That. Run!" Loyd shouted, pulling the captain out of the wreck and sliding down the slope of the ship.

The ship started to twist and contort as the wave hit it. The barge was less affected thanks to its aluminum structure but it too was pulled skyward by the bolts scattered throughout it. Loyd was thrown into the water with the captain as the ship started to tear itself apart. A flash of light brighter than the auroras peeled back the layers of armor of the ship pulling anything ferrous towards itself including blood.

The pain running through everyone was compounded by the sound that could only be described as death filling the air. The air became electrified as a second sun started to form in the sky where Tiny had last been. The ozone itself began to disintegrate from the heat and magnetic waves.

It lasted for less than a second but felt like it lasted for an eternity. The heat continued to radiate as sparks flew across the surface of everything. A lightning flash was forming. It would be enough to kill any humans above the waterline and in the sea water. Loyd had been in a faraday cage the last time he had been in a lightning flash thanks to a metal net that had covered his ship. But the aluminum structure of the barge wouldn't be enough to save them.

White filled the world for a second as Loyd went deaf. The realization that he'd failed to save someone stung deeply. A sensation that was foreign to Loyd up until now. Defeat had come in the past but not like this. This was a complete failure unlike when he'd left his friends on their own.

The captain was still in his grasp though and Loyd could still feel his pulse. Something had covered the both of them just as the lightning had. Loyd's eyes and ears readjusted after the flash and he was astonished to find a sticky black foam had coated the both of them that seemed to have originated from the buckle on the captain's belt.

"My damn crash bubble deploys now that I've already crashed! Why do we even bother making this crap anymore?!" the captain thundered, completely unaware of the lightning flash that had nearly fried them both.

"The emp that just went off must've caused it to fire," Loyd muttered.

The captain turned to look at Loyd. "The hell happened to you? You look like you just got hit with a nuke!"

"An electrical one sure," Loyd joked.

The barge was nowhere to be seen and debris from the space battle was falling all around them as though the lightning had been a giant magnet. The sky was still filled with a toxic aurora and Loyd could easily identify a mass of cancerous metal hanging low in the sky the last of its glow dissipating.

"So long Tiny," Loyd said, watching the wreckage crash into the distant ocean.

The ship underneath them started to twist as something seemed to tear its way through the superstructure that remained.

"What the hell is going on?" Loyd asked.

"The central control station must still be operational! The mechanic must be furious!" the captain laughed.

"Can we get back to Mars with what little of the ship still remains?" Loyd asked, the sound of tearing metal coming closer.

"The central station is space worthy on its own if you can figure out how to get it out of the atmosphere."

"Thank you, Captain, but I'll have to commandeer the remains of your ship. I have a home world to get back to and try to repair. I'll inform the rest of humanity about where you and the rest of the earth humans are so they can mount a rescue operation…" Loyd began.

"What do you mean rescue operation?" The captain asked.

"Well assuming everything goes well no humans will enter this solar system ever again. If the need were to arise, I'd even sacrifice the Earth and Mars just to prove how much I hate you humans. Always playing with those you think are weaker than you and then getting surprised when they revolt and have your head separated from your shoulders," Loyd said. "You fled your home after your nukes were decommissioned because 'they would kill the planet if we ever used them'. Look where that got you idiots. Not even to mention you decided to take a chunk of the enemy with you to your new planet stich it to yourselves and then give birth to me and my sister. All in all, I guess I don't hate you so much as I hate how you all live under someone's boot until you deem it harder than living under someone who might end up worse then letting them get away with the exact same thing that got the last guy decapitated."

The captain stared up at Loyd. "So, you dislike our need for an authority figure?"

"No, I dislike how you put them on a pedestal only to tear it down because you're told they did one thing wrong and then build up that same pedestal for someone who should be put in a mental ward or shot," Loyd answered.

A bullet shaped ship pierced through to the open air just below them. Its structure covered in pre-evacuation script and symbols. A hatch opened spraying a mixture of steam and oil from its insides. Loyd slid down to the opening and looked inside the depressurized chamber. Its insides were vacant of any living creatures. A chair contained a skeleton in a rotten space suit the panel in front of it blinked with a dull green glow.

Loyd turned a key and felt the primary engine roar back to life showering him in sparks. Loyd smashed his fist into the console above him ripping out the wires that had been sparking. The hatch closed, but did not seal, behind him and he got to work figuring out how to get back to Mars.

xX meanwhile overhead Xx

The majority of the combined fleets of both human and Crystalid vessels had been smashed together and were slowly coming apart and falling to the surface. Tiny's crystal heart had exploded due to an over saturation of energy at the center of this mass of twisted metal. An aurora sat below it as though the sky itself had been cut. A few of the natural satellites that didn't contain ferrous metals were being drawn towards the wreckage as it warped the Earth's magnetic fields.

Even further out was the moon. A boiling wound was displayed on its surface from the energy beams that Tiny had generated. Beyond that Mars flashed with the signs of a war that would rage until all of the domes were destroyed and its moons were glassed or deorbited. The humans that had stopped and made their homes past the asteroid belt looked in to see the turmoil of their sister colonies and wondered whether they might someday share the same fate.

The Jupiter colonies also watched as their massive generation ship punched through the Oort cloud on its way to Alpha Centauri. That ship would be the last one sent from the outer ring colonies as well as the only human ship to not reach its destination before the destruction of Earth and Mars.

Beyond even that the remnants of the crystalid race would learn of their home fleets destruction and would seek revenge upon the humans whom it appears were responsible for the act. The remnants of a second swarm would see the increase of the newly terraformed systems around Alpha Centauri. Both these races would converge upon the humans almost ten thousand years after the events of the first war had passed from memory having them dub it the first trinity war.

The hybrids simply disappeared into the cosmos never to be seen by any other race ever again. The story of a bioweapon running rampant would never be told to those of the next generations and soon the hybrids were completely forgotten. However, they still kept tabs on the other races as they started another 'first' trinity war.

"Now if you were to look hard enough at the stars what other races might you find? If you did so for long enough maybe you would ponder whether those aliens would be friendly or not. If they were friendly who's side would they take? Might you find a hybrid among those very stars staring back at you?" Loyd asked.

"I don't know papa but I plan to find out!" a little girl declared.

"Alright you two, dinners ready!" Sara shouted from the other room.

The television cackled back to life as they left the room. "Today marks the thirty first day on our way to recolonize a reformed Earth."