The battles from the hangar and brig had spread, spilling to different levels of the Argonautis. The United Planets met their enemy, slowly pushing the nemesis invaders back. But as the intensity of the combat increased, the number of their available soldiers decreased. There was still one location left unguarded as the nemesis progressed undeterred. However, a devastating combatant hurried through the vessel to cover the blind spot. In corridor 27-B, Carter marched alone, meeting the flood of hundreds of Nemesis soldiers.

  "Let's get this over with!"

  The soldiers ran towards Carter, confident, readying their guns to shoot. But he stood still, calmly drawing his sword, looking at them with exasperation. And as the first shots fired, they missed him as he sped past them, cutting the shooters down in the blink of an eye!

  The Nemesis swiftly stopped their advance, seeing their comrades slain. Carter ran toward them, sword in hand, undeterred by their superior numbers. But soon, they steeled themselves forward, readying their weapons. The two forces clashed in the middle of the corridor. The Nemesis attacked Carter from all directions with different weapons and combat styles. However, he countered their blows, cutting them down at blinding speed. Carter moved so fast, disappearing from view, only visible from the red shimmer of his sword! He hurried down the hall, continuing the onslaught, and the remaining Nemesis finally retreated, seeing the red shimmer as certain death!

  Daisy and Lev, in her space suit, left the Argonautis, readying to attack the enemy ships.

  "I want this done quick and tidy, Damara. A lengthy battle will surely damage the Argonautis!"

  "Understood, ma'am!"

  The Nemesis ships swiftly armed their cannons, aiming them at the Argonautis. From two directions, they unleashed a bombardment of dozens of white lights. They fired energy streams, each capable of turning the Argonautis to ash with its colossal size and speed!

  "I'm guessing the kill-on-site order is active now, " Daisy said.

  Daisy quickly summoned her dual shields, flying from her hands. The shields grew to a giant size, each taking guard in the direction of the bombardment. And deflected the massive attack, keeping the Argonautis safe from harm!

  "Good girl! Now hold this position until I tell you to move!"

  "Ma'am, yes, Ma'am!"

  Lev quickly flew from the safety of the shields, diving into the sea of plasma. She evaded the hazards, skillfully flying through them in a flurry of motion. Lev was a master artist at work! She elegantly danced across the void, going to the further ship! With the most graceful pirouette, Lev drilled into the windows of the enemy command center. And Nemesis soldiers were sucked helplessly into the vacuum of space from the hole she made!

  Lev's performance continued, drawing her dual tessen! She flew at blinding speed through the ship, slashing across the circuitry of the walls. Leaving fiery destruction in her wake as they exploded. And again, she pirouetted through a window, escaping the ship as an inferno consumed it!

  "My god," Daisy said in disbelief.

  The remaining Nemesis ship swiftly broke from the Argonautis. It pulled its tentacles free from the vessel, sending people flying into space from the holes it left. And its cannons glowed white, readying to continue the onslaught! Daisy sighed in deep sorrow, looking at the ship. "I'm sorry!" But with a flick of her hand, one of her shields flew toward the vessel, cleaving through it like a knife cutting butter, ending the threat.

  Lev flew to Daisy."Good work, Damara!"

  "General Lev, I'll see who I can still save from the vacuum. But what should we do about the three holes in our ship?"

  "Give it a second!"

  Before Daisy's bewildered eyes, the three holes in the Argonautis swiftly closed as Liquid Metal sprayed from the openings like blood clotting over an open wound!

  "How?"

  "Athena! She built self-repair systems into the ship for just such an occasion!"

  "Amazing! But I better help those people!"

  In the command center of the Argonautis, Daisy sat between the two generals by a table, hearing Clive and Norn's damage report of the last battle.

  "In closing, around sixty percent of our squadron ships are still battle-ready, Ma'am," Norn said.

  "Sixty percent? Not ideal, but I suppose we'll have to do more with less!"

  "Clive, how's our injured doing? Does Sick Bay have enough supplies?"

  "The attack was brutal, Carter! Aelia told me a hundred thousand troops are down for the count! We might not have enough supplies for the main event!"

  Carter swiftly turned to Lev, glaring at her."You know what I'm going to say!"

  "As do you, General Carter! We're staying on this mission!"

  "This is what happened on the siege on planet Srian! I ignored the signs and warnings, and my soldiers paid for it!"

  "But we can't back down now! We can't let their sacrifices be in vain! Or have you forgotten about the death beam, as you put it?"

  Carter and Lev quickly turned their angry looks to Daisy, sitting in the middle of their rage!

  "Damara?" Carter and Lev shouted in unison.

  Carter and Lev, entrenched in their ideological viewpoints, had no intention of yielding to the other. With them both having the rank of general, they had equal authority, halting the army. And worse, there was truth to what they both were saying. Daisy had to be the tiebreaker as their trump card and the hero of the galaxy. She hastily looked back and forth between the two, laboring to decipher an answer. But soon, she bit her lower lip, stopping as she came to one.

  "I think I agree with General Lev more!"

  "Damara!"

  "Carter, I know how you feel, but it's the only way to end this war as quickly as possible!" Daisy tightly and lovingly gripped her hand on top of Carter's.

  "Fine if you say so!"

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  Lev noticed Daisy's hand holding Carter's."I see!"

  "But we can't stay on this course! We'll meet more ships like the other two!"

  "I have a solution for that! Athena, please come in now!"

  Athena walked in through a door to Daisy and Carter's shocked eyes. She was a slender, curvy female! Before them, in bright pink and silver, stood a humanoid comprised of pure metal, a member of Orion's kind, the Metallica. The race of sentient machines was created eons ago by a mysterious entity known as the maker. But all other facts of their creation were lost to the waves of time.

  "A machine?"

  "No, she's one of Orion's species. The Metallica, right?"

  "Too true, Damara," Athena said.

  "Where do you...people come from?"

  "Planet Metalic, the world of living machines!"

  "Of course!"

  "Anyhow, Athena, we need your technical expertise!"

  "Yes, General Lev?"

  "After the last attack, we must alter our course to evade more trouble! Our best bet is the long route, but I don't know if we have enough fuel!"

  Athena snapped her fingers, summoning a holophone panel and typing away on it!

  "We should have enough, General Lev, but we'll have to cut some non-essential systems!"

  "Such as?"

  "Well, for one, the various recreational activities in the mess hall are done!"

  "I think we can live with that! Thank you!" Lev giggled.

  Later, repair crews crowded the halls of the Argonautis. Walking down the busy corridor, Clive spotted Ros approaching, helping her fellow soldiers, carrying crates. His heart skipped a beat, seeing her, and he ran away at battle speed. But soon, he stopped, panting and dropping onto the floor, clutching his chest as if he had a heart attack!

  "Lieutenant Rogers," Daisy said.

  Clive calmed, noticing Damara's worried face. “What’s up?"

  "Do you feel sick? Are you hurt somewhere? I can find a doctor!"

  "N-no, I'm fine!"

  "You don't look fine!"

  "It's nothing. I swear!"

  "Please! You can tell me!"

  Clive swiftly scanned across the hall, seeing no one but himself and Damara close enough to listen.

  "You promise not to tell Carter?"

  Daisy nodded yes.

  "I think I'm in love with Captain Ros! I tried making a move on her with a scarf my friend Daisy made, but she shot me down!"

  "She's the girl you were t-" Daisy covered her mouth as she was about to reveal sensitive information.

  "I'm sorry! what?"

  "I-I'm just so shocked! You know her life span is around a thousand years, right?"

  "No, being the fool I am, I didn't!" Clive shouted.

  Daisy took a deep breath and dropped onto the floor, sitting beside Clive!

  "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to be insensitive. But if you want my advice, I think you should try again! And if she says no, so be it!"

  "Why?"

  "I've learned the hard way to treasure my loved ones! It doesn't matter if it's a year or a few minutes. That time’s irreplaceable!"

  Clive unloaded a sigh, flowing with stress."I'll give it one more go when the mission's over! Assuming we survive!"

  "That's the spirit, Lieutenant Rogers! You're a good man, and Captain Ros would be lucky to have you!"

  "Seeing you know so much about love, is it safe to assume the hero of the galaxy has a boyfriend, a husband?"

  Daisy quickly rose, smiling nervously, walking away." Good luck, and I'll see you later!"

  Meanwhile, on Zeemos, the war room flooded with soldiers running back and forth! In the center of the chaos, Evelyn directed her subordinates as they crowded around her. But as one entered the room, she ran to him.

  "Any answers, soldier?"

  "Yes, General Evelyn! Our scanners and scouts have confirmed the enemy vessel has altered their course!"

  "Are they going back over the schism?"

  "No, ma'am! It appears they're taking the long route to evade our patrols!"

  "Which route?"

  The soldier showed Evelyn an image of the Argonautis' course on his holophone panel! Her eyes widened with shock and joy, seeing it."Checkmate!" As she burst into a laugh!

  "Ma'am?"

  "Our troops in that area forced them on a route of certain death!"

  "Is that so? Shall I give the order to relax our defenses?"

  "No! On the less than one percent chance, they survive. Let's keep them up. Better safe than sorry!"

  A few hours later, on the Argonautis, the mess hall filled with thousands of hungry soldiers. The meter-long tables occupied over fifty people each. But in one corner, Ollete and Kinana sat together, eating alone.

  "Letty, can we talk woman to woman real quick?"

  "Permission granted!"

  "General Carter's handsome, isn't he? I might make a pass for him when the mission's over!"

  "Sister, don't try it!"

  "Why not?"

  "One, he's older than you; two, our superior officer; three, didn't you tell me one time you weren't into interspecies dating?"

  "For a man like that, I'm willing to be more open-minded!"

  Ollette’s jaw dropped in disbelief, hearing her friend."You have no shame!"

  Without warning, the ship shook violently!

  "Are we under attack again?"

  "Can't be! We made sure to dodge their patrols," Ollete said.

  As the shaking intensified, red lights and alarms flared throughout the corridors as the soldiers ran to their emergency stations. But through the panic, Daisy and Carter hurried into the control room, meeting Lev, Norn, and Athena.

  "General Lev, what's happened?"

  "There's no way the enemy's attacking again! Right?"

  "It's a solar storm!"

  "What?"

  "The suns in this area have titanic bursts of energy in the form of coronal mass ejections. Think of it like an earthquake in space," Athena said.

  "Get us out of here," Carter said.

  "We can't! Our instruments say that enemy ships are covering all the nearest routes!"

  Again, the ship shook violently, but worse than before!

  "Athena, can the ship's armor handle this punishment?"

  "We're about to find out, Damara!"

  Again, the ship shook violently but hundreds of times worse than before. Blinding orange light flooded the vessel, carrying a colossal booming roar like the war cry of an invading force. Screens shattered from the shockwaves as they knocked everyone off their feet. And swift explosions littered across the Argonautis! But soon, the onslaught finally stopped!

  "It's over?"

  Athena typed away on her holophone panel."That's what the data says!"

  "Thank god!"

  Another explosion swiftly echoed through the Argonautis as the lights went out and the ship stopped moving!

  Athena rapidly checked her holophone panel, horrified! "A massive breach in the vessel's haul, and the self-repair systems aren't working!"

  "Where?"

  "The starboard side, corridor 15-A!"

  In a heartbeat, Daisy dashed out of the room to the emergency. She summoned Flaremane, flying through the corridors at blurring speed! And Daisy soon reached the breach, seeing the hole suck scores of soldiers into space! But she quickly sealed it, flinging her giant shield over its mouth!

  Later, in the control room, Daisy staggered in, dropping to her knees.

  Carter ran over, helping her stand."Damara!"

  "I'm fine, Carter. I mean General Carter! It just there were so many I couldn't save!"

  Carter glared at Athena, working around her holophone panel."I want a damage report now!"

  "The armor integrity is damaged, and two of our primary power couplings are gone. Propelled somewhere into space from the explosion!"

  "What does that mean?"

  "It means that the vessel doesn't have enough power to reach our destination or sustain life support. We're trapped here in enemy territory while you organic life forms slowly suffocate!"

  Lev shook Athena."Think woman! There must be something we can do! The self-repair systems?"

  "Ma'am, the solar storm disabled them. And I don't have the material to repair the armor or replace the couplings manually!"

  Daisy walked to Athena with Carter's help.

  "W-what if I go outside and push the ship to the nearest habitable planet?"

  "Too dangerous with the armor compromised! Besides, the nearest habitable planet is Kaillest. We would lose people by the time we get there!"

  Norn took a deep breath." Then we have to fix the ship!"

  "How?"

  "We'll just have to find the couplings and hope they're not too damaged," Lev said.

  "What about the armor?"

  "There must be an asteroid field around here! We can refine one for its metal!"

  "But, ma'am, we don't have the facilities for that! Do you know how much heat it would take to refine an asteroid?"

  "Let me worry about that," Daisy said.

  "Excuse me?"

  Daisy ignited her shield."I can summon these flames on command. So maybe they're hot enough for the job!"

  "Looks like everything's settled! Everyone, make haste," Lev said.