Despite Everything, We Made It

No one was sure how they survived the attack. The battle of Ublaneth was a hazy vision of smoke and fire, of steel charging against plasma. The world was dark, suffocating and insurmountable. The EVO's assault was relentless, and never once did they fall back. The aliens were as tenacious as they were mindless in tearing apart the human defenders, showing no mercy or lack of skill in combat, yet they fell. By all measures, the humans, outmatched and outgunned, should've been wiped clean from the tunnels, yet they stood. Why did humanity live while the enemy died?

It was a question Emperor Szeer pondered as he stumbled out into the sunlight. His cloak was in tatters, and his ceremonial armor was scratched and breached beyond repair. His ornamental sword was chipped from hours of use, yet its build quality kept it secure in his hand. The old man had been through the gauntlet. His pudgy, sedentary body somehow pulled him through a last stand one kilometer long, through hundreds of monsters worse than anything imagined in their philosophy. He still breathed. Why?

Sometime later, Szeer would reflect on his battle, and in doing so, he understood the EVO's weakness. Despite their perceived unity, their efforts were disorganized when pressed into hand-to-hand combat in the tunnel depths. In truth, he never truly fought the EVO as a total force, even as he stood alongside his worst enemies. He only fought a mob with the trappings of human organization, a simulacrum of a human, but they were not. The superior alien races were just a pack of animals.

However, at the moment, Szeer could only imagine that his God had blessed him and that his fight was but a test of his leadership. Well, here he was, and as Rydians and Ublanethians emerged from the tunnels, all as battered as he was, they met the warrior king in the golden light, pointing to the ruined Flock in the distance.

"Victory is ours!" Szeer shouted to the heavens. "Victory! Victory!"

The desert echoed with their cheers. They hoped the survivors underground would hear their war cry, but instead, they received what sounded like a duck's honk from the plateau. It varied in its tone and length like a trumpet. The message wasn't clear, but its intention was. The Earthlings also survived, serenading the land with the call of the Albatross. That made them humans, too.

Surrounding the tower, the old city uncovered itself once again as the Flock had blown away the desert dunes, revealing the long-lost ancient ruins. On the edge of a steep incline, two objects overlooked the site. One was a small prototype glider with a lightweight dual thruster system, and the other was the dense, mechanical pilot buried halfway into the sand.

Devol was happy to have survived the fall un-concussed, but the relief was offset by a listless stare into the sky, her body motionless and defeated. The black smoke clouded her vision.

"I failed," she whispered to herself. "Thousands of years of continuous power, and I let it die. I'm a failure as a scientist and as a daughter. If only I was just a little faster, Ublaneth."

Not too long after, footsteps echoed across the dilapidated households, and several men appeared before her with great haste.

"Mother, you're alive!" It was her second son. He knelt before her to check for injury. "Why are you still here, mother? The men need your help. The core is fluctuating erratically. The explosion disconnected some of its power cables. If it's not transferred, it may die out."

The third sentence is what ejected her from the dune.

"The core is active?"

"For now, yes."

It was as if life had returned to her. "Gods, if you can hear me, thank you! Quick! Take me to it!"

"Yes, mother." 

The men turned, gesturing which direction to return to Ublaneth, but a strange noise from afar caught their attention. It was soft yet ethereal. In fact, it was more than that, a sensation deeper down. Even Devol felt her hair stand on end. There was something nostalgic about it, as if it was from an old friend, but its intensity was quadrupled.

Emperor Szeer fell to his knees at the sight of it, and every Rydian fell into deep prayer. It was a once-in-a-lifetime image. 

"They came," he uttered, lips quivering in awe.

From beneath the starship's ruins emerged three massive beasts, each the size of a building, behemoths in their own right. One was a shelled creature with clawed appendages and the neck of a snake that stretched a kilometer long. Another was wide and flat and carried an endless tide of water beneath it. The final one was coated in white fur and had two faces, one on its exposed belly and the other on one of its seven arms. To the Pandemians, they were named Ra-Sora, Nimdul, and Gayshronoya.

Dozae-Rae sat on his perch on the Flock's main engine with no

amusement in his countenance.

"Your assistance was not required, brethren," he huffed, scratching himself like an ill-tempered housecat. "I handled this machine all by myself, you see."

"We would never accuse you of incompetence, Westman," Nimdul spoke. "But it would be misfortunate if this calamity claimed you."

"There are very few of us, brother," Ra-Sora added. "And the world would feel a lot emptier if the tower would fall as well."

The dragon brushed them off. Just as he expected, a planet of many gods leads to nothing but meddling. Very nosy of them.

"Is that your Priestess, Dozae-Rae?" Gayshronoya spoke from his hand, curling with intrigue. "You make me envious, my worm friend."

The other two agreed. Quite beautiful, she was. It was enough to make Maed-Laio fluster, but not for too long. It was rude to accept courtesy from another god.

"She did not alter my designs in the slightest." The dragon puffed, expanding in size. "I am my own man, and I did not need any meddling, not from you or her."

Nonetheless, Maed-Laio took her hand off the reins and gave a proper bow, letting her hair down to show her neck.

"Still, thank you, mighty gods," she said. "We will never forget your kindness, our awesome lords."

Dozae-Rae snorted. She said what he was too proud to say. Socially, the pantheon was kept in harmony, and the four took some time to speak, as it had been decades since they had seen each other.

From the lower reaches of the Flock, the human survivors found their way out of the wreckage. The trip down was rough, and it was a miracle that they still stood. However, once they saw their gods before them, that miracle was taken quite literally, and only a few stayed atop the ruined structure as the men flocked to their deities. One of them being Captain Kalin.

"Something bothering you, my boy?" asked Yapul. "You should be happy right now!"

"I'm...embarrassed," Kalin replied. "We didn't complete our mission."

"At my age, having everyone out in one piece is a job well done." Yapul lit a rolled-up bush and smoked it. "What'd you think of them?"

"They were weak. Nothing more."

"I'm talking about the Earthlings."

"Right." Kalin's eyes caught movement in the distance.

As the sun set over the Pandemian sky and the stars returned, Sam snuggled up to Vinisnu for warmth. They were aware of the happenings around them, but they were too exhausted to participate. It wasn't important.

"How come you tried to make peace with them, Sam?" Vinisnu asked. "Were you trying to trick them?"

"I guess?" Sam looked at her hand. "But...I didn't want to kill them. I don't want to kill anyone. I just wanted the fighting to stop."

"I don't think that was gonna happen."

"But was it not worth trying? I still think about the Emperor and your dad and all of those people I hurt. Is it bad that I think we should all get along?"

"Hmm, I don't know. I don't think Rydians and Ublanethians will ever get along. As for Earthlings...I don't know enough of them right now."

"In that case." Sam blushed. "Based on me, what do you think?"

"Snu!"

The two peered down to find Kalin striding up the ruins of Flock 37. His pace was quick and fierce as lightning propelled him across the gaps. The man landed with a flash, meters away from the two of them. The father raised his head to stare down his son, only to find him standing as well. Snu had placed himself between Sam and his father, his stance wide and prepared for battle.

A moment lingered between them, a tense duel of will born of sheer stubbornness between the strange lizardmen, but the winner was obvious. After all, the battle damage on Sam and Snu was extensive, and Kalin, while brash, was smart enough to connect the dots. It was a ludicrous story formulating in his head, but he couldn't help but believe it and crack a smile.

"I'm proud of you, boy," he said. His eyes turned to Sam, quivering with fear. "Thank you."

"N-No problem." Sam could only chuckle. After everything that transpired between them, having such warm gratitude was offputting. Poor Vinisnu. She could never imagine having a dad like that.

Dad. Captain Reynolds. The Betelgeuse. The last party missing from the deserts of Ublaneth. It would take until morning to discover this, but Sam learned that the Betelgeuse had disappeared entirely from all comms and tracking, a ghost of Pandema. Her father, along with the rest of the Betelgeuse crew, was presumed dead, and if the Betelgeuse was gone, the jammer was still active.

The battle was far from over.