Iter Per Astra: Volume 1 - Lost Princess

Following the explosion, all power was lost inside the command center terminating the communication between the command center and the admirals. People started screaming outside and the harbor alarms which had not been heard in decades started ringing across the harbor.

Back in the marketplace, people erupted into chaos after hearing such an explosion that shattered windows across the marketplace.

“For the love of--- how’d that get here!” Melody said gazing at the huge floating object. “It’s a confederacy battleship.”

“No,” Rose said to herself. Her voice shaking. “No...”

Back inside the command center, a female-voiced message was broadcasted on all available speakers in the building “All non-military personnel please ~head~ to the nearest *SKSST* nearest—nearest—nearest-- *SKSST PEW! *” Sparks started flying from the old speakers in the command center due to the sudden voltage thrust into them after not being used in decades.

“Aah! What’s going on?” Celyn asked.

“What I was afraid of,” Joseph said as he headed to the balcony outside the command center to see a Confederacy Battleship, along with a smaller destroyer escorting it, hovering just over the ocean of Nautica Harbor. “General Wilson! You must look at this!”

“Bloody Hell!” Wilson said as he noticed the huge Battleship. “That’s the Doombringer.”

“What are we going to do?” Celyn asked.

“Have any of you tried to contact the capital?” Wilson asked everyone inside the command center.

“Communications are blocked.” Said another officer. “I’ve tried the Bismarck, Star City, the palace... all blocked.”

“Listen up everyone!” Wilson shouted. “I know that people who are sent here are either in their very early years of the CRN or are in their last heading to retirement, I will be retiring soon but I don’t want any of that here now! We are still part of the CRN, and we will do our best to defend this harbor with everything we have!”

"“Sir yes sir!“” Said all the personnel.

“Everyone involved in communications, use any means available to send out a message to the capital, I don’t care if it's encrypted or not, or if you have to personally board a ship to get there, you have to find a way to send a message to the palace!”

“General Wilson,” Celyn said. “I believe that we can maybe tell some of the cargo ships that are still nearby to relay the message to the palace, they might be outside the affected area.”

“You heard her people. A couple of you try this and the others try other ways.”

""Yes General""

“We are on our own,” Wilson said to Joseph and Celyn. “With no battleship support, we can’t hope to damage it. The ships in the harbor are not strong enough to fight it. They can probably stop any fighters from attacking but they won’t last long against that destroyer.”

“General,” Joseph said. “How did Nautica Harbor defend itself in the past?”

“Before the space station? Nautica Harbor had one of the biggest laser defenses on the planet, but those were decommissioned about 20 years ago when the Starline’s donated the space station to the CRN.”

“Are those lasers still here?”

“They were never removed as they were so old for their time... you might be on to something...” He then rushed inside and took some old keys from a hanger in the wall. “Here’s what you will do, Celyn, there is an old computer on the lower floor that is covered with a tarp take some soldiers with you and see if you can turn it on.”

“Yes General, consider it done,” Celyn said as she left to do as ordered.

“Joseph, head to each turret and remove any obstruction that may be in the way.”

“Are you sure General?” Joseph asked. “I don’t think that I will be able to clear them all alone, I don’t even know where they are?”

“You’re right. Take this.” The general handed Joseph a piece of paper. “This star on the map is the Command center, I will have some soldiers take care of the ones to the south, you can take care of the ones in the north, you should only have to work with four, they should be between here and the marketplace, if you enter the area of the marketplace, you have gone too far.”

“Got it General.”

Back at the marketplace.

“I gotta call Forrest,” Melody said as she dialed on her phone, but no call managed to reach out. “They must be jamming us. We gotta move.”

“They found me...” Rose muttered to herself. “I can’t believe they found me.” It was as if she was in her own little world, and she didn’t listen to anyone or anything around her.

“Hey! ROSE!” Melody shouted.

“Huh?”

“You gotta keep it together, if you want to break down and cry this is not the place for that, you will get yourself killed if you act like that.”

“Y-yes Melody.”

Suddenly above them, three fighters in a V-formation flew above them headed towards the Battleship. They fired missiles at the battleship, but the damage was absorbed by their energy shields, when they returned to reload at the landing pad behind the marketplace, the destroyer started firing at the fighters and managed to destroy one of the fighter’s engines, causing it to go spiraling down towards the location that Melody and Rose were.

Melody was too distracted trying to get a call out to notice.

Rose quickly extended her hand towards the spiraling fighter in flame, then swung her arm sideways which caused the fighter to change course and crash right beside her at about 5 meters from her.

Two soldiers quickly headed to the crash and started to open the hatch of the fighter to get its pilot out.

“Come on. We gotta get out of here.” Melody said.

Suddenly the shops beside them started to blow up sending debris everywhere, as the battleship started firing at the people in the marketplace.

Rose looked at all the chaos beside her and the way that the Confederacy battleship just stood there in the sky firing its deadly laser blasts at the innocent people.

This familiar scene triggered a memory in Rose, a painful memory that she would prefer to never remember again. It was just like what was happening around her, but instead of one battleship, there were dozens of them in the sky raining laser fire on the innocent people on the surface, starfighters formed bombing runs for the more populated places in the city, and soldiers killed anyone who would oppose them. All the citizens were innocent and could not defend themselves against them.

The blue color of her eyes started to flicker between her blue color and a red color.

She then took a deep breath and shouted in frustration. “AAAHHHHH!!”

The air around Rose for a range looked warbled, and some of the lighter strands of her hair started to stand up, like hair standing up due to static electricity.

Shortly after Melody’s phone rang as a call managed to get through the jamming.

“Forrest,” Melody answered. “Nautica Harbor is under attack, I repeat, Nautica harbor is under attack, send any forces that you can.”

“Copy that,” Forrest answered. “Make sure Joseph and his cadet are saf—” The call was then interrupted as if the jamming field was only down for a few seconds.

“Rose... ROSE!” Melody shouted, bringing Rose out of her trance. “Get it together, now’s not time to be like that.” Melody then stood beside Rose and looked at the battleship which she was also looking at. “Did they take something from you?”

“Yes...” Rose answered as she clenched her fists. “Not only did they destroy everything around me, but they also did... they did...”

“Don’t take them on alone, you won’t survive,” Melody said, placing her hand on Rose’s chest to stop her from moving forward. “The director gave me some orders; we must make sure Joseph is safe and—”

“Do what?! wait?” Rose protested. “If we wait, they will come to us and kill us all... I am not going to go through that again!”

Melody recognized the anger that she had. “You were part of one of the Confederacy’s conquests, weren’t you? Which planet was it? Alphien? Zyra? Rigel?”

“None of them...” She answered. “They took everything... they destroyed my planet... my city, my home, my family... They took most of the population hostage to experiment on them...” Rose said trying to keep herself from crying. “It’s time that they pay for what they did...” The color of her eyes started to change to a deep red. “I was too young back then to do anything, this time it’s different.”

“You may want revenge... and make them suffer for everything they took from you... but now is not the time for that, you are not the only person that the Confederacy took something from them, the CRN fights the Confederacy for those people that cannot defend themselves. You and I are part of something bigger now, we can’t risk everything the CRN has done just to satisfy our thirst for revenge, the time for the Confederacy to pay for everything they did will come, we just have to wait a little longer, you understand that?”

“Yes-- Melody,” Rose responded angrily. “I do...”

“Good, now, head towards the command center you will probably see Joseph along the way. I have something I need to do.”

“Alone?” Rose said as she turned around and noticed that Melody disappeared.

She turned her gaze at the battleship in the air. Ignoring all the screaming and running that people around her were doing.

She then reached for the sky, towards the battleship. “If only you were a little closer. Then I could...” She said as she closed her fist. She remained in that posture for a few seconds. “Ten years have passed since that day... and I am still bound by something else... I can’t seem to act on my own---” She closed her eyes and tried to calm her rage. “This is not Elysium, this time is different, the people here actually have someone who can defend them, maybe if I follow orders, they can help me? yeah... maybe they can.”

Over at the fields surrounding the command center.

Joseph had just finished cleaning one of the turrets that was a couple hundred meters from the command center when many birds started flying after a thick smoke cloud rose from one of the buildings behind the command center.

“That must be the reactor.” He thought. “But there is no way of contacting Celyn to tell her to fire.

Then Joseph’s phone rang and displayed an unknown frequency trying to contact him.

“This is Commander Terix.” He answered.

“Good news Joseph.” The voice said. “Shortwave frequencies still work.”

“Great. Turret number seventeen is ready to fire.”

“It’s going to be a bit harder than what we anticipated, the computer here is damaged due to the large power loss earlier, I can fire each turret individually, but I can’t aim them.”

“So, it’s up to me then,” Joseph said to himself. “I’ll aim this one and tell you when to fire.”

“Copy. General Wilson told as many soldiers as he could about the plan, so you may see some turrets already set.”

With all his strength, he moved the barrel of the turret to where he anticipated the laser blast would hit the battleship.

“The turret is aimed, fire!”

“Firing!” Celyn answered as she engaged the laser blaster.

Joseph anticipated a continuous stream of multiple laser blasts to come out, but instead, a continuous laser came out.

“That’s weird.” He said to himself. “It shouldn’t be like this. Is the valve melted?”

The concentrated laser penetrated the battleship’s shield and damaged its hull.

“It’s working!” Joseph told Celyn.

But as he said that the turret started to turn bright orange and immense heat started to come out.

“Celyn, turn off the tu–”

The turret suddenly blew itself up sending a single laser column into the sky above.

“Turn it off Celyn!! Shut it down!!”

The laser then dispersed as the power to the turret was cut.

“What happened?” Celyn asked.

“The turret’s firing valve must be corroded,” Joseph said. “We can’t fire the turret continuously. They will blow up if we do that.”

“What do we do then?” She asked.

“The only thing we can do, we must continue doing this, it’s slow but it’s working.” Joseph then noticed Rose running over to his position. “Rose?”

“Yeah. I’m here.” She said drily. “What’s your plan?”

“I am going turret to turret and aiming them at the battleship, but I need you to keep an eye on it.”

“Why?” She asked clearly annoyed.

“I already fired at them, they know what we are trying to do, so they could fire at us if I’m not careful and end up killed.”

“Understood, you focus on the turrets I’ll focus on the battleship.”

Joseph then took his blaster and gave it to Rose. “Cadets are not allowed to carry their own weapons, so you’ll have to use mine.”

“Roger...”

Several shuttles were launched from the battleship’s hangar, each of them carrying Confederate soldiers preparing to attack the Harbor.

Joseph noticed them as they branched off in different directions including towards the marketplace and to the south of the marketplace but some of the shuttles were headed to where they were.

“Things just got complicated,” Joseph said as he noticed the shuttles. “Rose prepare to fire back.”

“Copy that,” Rose answered irritated.

Three shuttles were deployed and one of them landed about 50 meters from Joseph and Rose’s position. As he had predicted, the Confederacy knew what they were trying to do, so they decided to destroy the turrets before they could be fired.

“Get down!” Joseph shouted. “They’re using metal bullets.” Joseph continued as he recognized the distinctive ting-like sound of the bullets hitting the metal body of the turret.

Rose quickly threw herself on the ground, even though she wanted to fight the Confederacy she didn’t exactly want to die either.

“Reports said that the confederacy no longer used metal bullets,” Joseph said. “I guess the reports were wrong.”

“And why is that important now?!” Rose protested.

“Our uniforms are designed to absorb a couple of energy shots but with metal bullets, we can’t risk attacking them head-on.”

Joseph threw himself on the ground too using the slight differences in the ground as cover. He then grabbed his blaster from Rose’s hand and started firing back before they fired at them.

The soldiers quickly noticed him and started firing at them.

Joseph could have sworn that they were firing directly at him as he saw bullets headed directly to where he was. But either they were firing too low, or the bullets didn’t fire with the necessary strength as they would fall short before him at about a couple of feet.

The intensive training Joseph had taken allowed him to predict where the soldiers would be and where the bullets would roughly fly through, this allowed him to stand up and fire at the soldiers directly without missing a shot. which allows him to conserve ammo, minimize damage, and dodge bullets headed to him. He then noticed that some soldiers were carrying grenades on their belts, he took the opportunity by firing at the soldier’s grenades in the middle, which caused the grenade to explode taking them all out.

As the grenade took out all of the Confederacy soldiers in their vicinity, he handed Rose the blaster back and headed towards the turret to check if it took any damage.

“This turret’s dead,” Joseph said. “If I tell Celyn to fire this it would just explode right in front of us.”

“Joseph...”

Rose then looked at the battleship as it had stopped firing its lasers at the harbor.

Joseph assumed that as there were Confederacy soldiers in the harbor it didn’t want to hurt some of their own soldiers.

Rose, on the other hand, knew exactly what was going to happen.

“They are going to fire missiles at us... it’s just like back then...”

One missile was fired from the nose of the battleship and headed directly towards Joseph and Rose’s location.

“Watch out!” Rose shouted, pushing Joseph away from the turret, causing him to fall to the ground.

Rose looked at the missile rapidly coming to their location. “Come on!” She said to herself. “It’s now or never!”

While Joseph managed to get up, Rose extended her hand out towards the incoming missile, the same way she did earlier with the falling starfighter, she swung her arm to the side, and the missile passed overhead hitting the ground behind the turret, launching dirt and grass in their direction.

Rose gave a small sigh of relief, but it was short-lived as the piercing sound in her head returned. “Aaaahhhh! Why! Again!?!?” She placed her hands on her head trying to relieve the pain.

Joseph didn’t notice her as he was getting up. “We got to move! They know what we are doing.”

“Got it.”

“Good call back there, but not one I would recommend always.” Joseph complemented Rose.

Another clanking noise came from the battleship.

“It’s happening...” Rose said as a tear crossed her face. “Why did I have to relive this again...”

But instead of only one missile being fired, it was a multitude of them, the missiles coming up from the launch pad didn’t seem to end. Having to relieve this experience further affected Rose.

“This is bad. We got to find cover, come on.” Joseph called.

Rose started to run behind him but then stopped.

She remained fixated on a mother and her child who looked to be no older than 5. A CRN soldier ran beside them, probably escorting them to a shelter. Other civilians were coming behind them, but the mother and child only further caused her to relive painful memories.

She felt the next couple of seconds pass by like hours as she watched them until they went out of view.

“Rose come on!” Joseph called as he noticed she stayed behind.

Rose didn’t answer, she lowered her head, and the hair on her forehead covered her face from his view.

“Rose!” He exclaimed. “We got to go!”

“No,” Rose answered as another tear ran across her face, fell from her face, and then dropped to the ground.

“What?”

“No!” She shouted at his face. “I won’t... I won’t let anyone else go through what I went through!” Rose exclaimed. “I already suffered enough; these innocents shouldn’t suffer the same thing that I already did.” She then lifted her head to look at Joseph and her face was covered in tears. “If you want to go, you go ahead,” Rose said as she dropped the blaster on the ground. She didn’t say another word and turned around towards the missiles.

“Rose! Get back here!” Joseph called as he grabbed the blaster.

Rose ignored every word that he told her and continued walking.

She looked up as the countless missiles filled the sky above the harbor and heard as the missiles started striking the ground on the far reaches of the harbor.

“I won’t let anyone go through that again, not for as long as I live,” Rose said to herself. “I couldn’t stop them then, but I will stop them now. this time will be different,” she said as she lifted her gaze at the dozen missiles that were going to strike in her area.

Joseph didn’t know what to do, if he should just head to the shelter himself or remain there, his father wanted to meet her, and Melody who was the person who could help her was nowhere around her. But as he thought of what he should do, his time was up, and the missiles were going to hit any second now. He decided that the best action would be to just lay flat on the ground and hope that the missiles wouldn’t hit near him, or at least survive with minor injuries.

He closed his eyes and placed his hands on his ears to block the possible sound from the missiles.

“I failed...” He said to himself. “I’m sorry... father...”

He remained there waiting for the explosions of the missiles, as they grew closer and closer to the other parts that they had already impacted, the explosions grew louder and louder until he felt a sudden silence fall over him.

He thought that he was dead.

He couldn’t hear anything around him.

But he slowly started to hear the roar of missiles around him, but they were not moving.

The way that the missiles sounded reminded him of the jet propulsion test chamber, where they would hold a missile in place and let it fire at full thrust.

He decided to open his eyes and looked to the sky where it seemed as if time had stopped, all the missiles in the sky were stopped in midair, their thrusters still firing at full blast.

He stood up and wondered what was going on, he realized that Rose had her hands extended up towards them.

“This...” Rose said seemingly without breath. “Is for everything you ever did to me!” She closed her fingers into a fist, and all the missiles came back to life as they turned their direction high into the sky and came into contact with the Confederacy destroyer accompanying the Confederacy battleship.

The dozen missiles that were supposed to attack the area of the harbor they were in, suddenly changed direction and tore a hole on the destroyer. As it ignited into flames it was shortly followed by multiple small explosions culminating in a giant ball of flame as the ship crash landed on the piers below.

Rose lowered her hand and admired what had just happened.

A giant smile ran across her face, and a sense of accomplishment followed as she continued to breathe heavily. She then turned around and saw the mother and child from earlier seemingly relieved that they were saved from the confederacy troopers, but her celebration was cut short as an ever-increasing pain came upon her head and later the rest of the body, followed by what seemed to be burning up from the inside, she tried to stay conscious, she fought hard, but this time it was way stronger than what she had felt before, it was as if her blood was boiling, she felt herself get increasingly hot, causing her to collapse on the floor.

“Rose!” Joseph quickly ran up to her, as he placed his hand on her shoulder, he felt an intense electric shock, but he didn’t pay any mind, he had felt what an energy shot was when it impacted his bare skin, and that was way more painful.

He then noticed that some of the missiles hit the battleship and its shields were down on the front part of the ship, leaving the hull wide open. But the shields were slowly regenerating.

Joseph reached for his phone with his free hand. “Celyn!” Joseph said. “Fire all the turrets.”

“But Joseph.” She answered worried. “There are still multiple turrets which have not been cleared yet!”

“Now!” He shouted. “This is our only chance; the hull is vulnerable.”

“...Copy that... I will send out the call.”

He then heard an alarm go off across the entire harbor, as well as an ever-increasing metallic rattle, suddenly the turret behind him started to shake as it fired a concentrated laser beam into the sky at the battleship, one by one, all the laser turrets in the harbor were fired, some of the lasers weren’t even aimed at the battleship as some of them fired directly into the sky, others fired at the ground, and some of them fired as they should, firing multiple volleys of shots.

The lasers filled the sky over the harbor in a brighter orange tint than the nebula that surrounded Coryzen.

He gazed at the battleship as dozens of lasers hit the nose of the ship and tore open a hole clean through its hull on multiple positions, some even going across the entire hull of the ship.

Several explosions came out of the holes that the lasers were firing at as it started to cripple the ship.

“We did it Rose,” Joseph said softly. “We did it...” He looked at her hoping that she would have woken up by now. “So, you are one of them. No wonder father picked you.”

Joseph then heard the turret behind him start to shake violently and started to turn bright orange.

He gasped. “It’s going to blow!”

Up to this moment he had been holding Rose up, but as the turret was going to blow, she didn’t seem to wake up. He quickly picked her up and ran away from the turret shortly before it exploded in a much stronger explosion than earlier, launching them forward, Joseph falling unconscious from the combined hit of the explosion and the floor.