Chariot 3: Conception
Chapter 23 – Imminent menace

In the meantime and not so far from there, the menace was imminent.

“Captain, we have located the Nibirian ship closely ahead of us…hiding under the water.” The pilot on the Grey scouter craft telepathically passed the information to his superior onboard the other craft not far behind.

Positioned on their seats in rows of two, aligned behind each other, the six aliens had the palm of their hands positioned on the hand shaped sensors located on the panels in front of each one of them. Through it, their brain could receive a reading of the void signature momentarily left in the sky by Chariot 3`s dislocation. Even though that space had already been filled back with air, their technology could identify it in a way that the Nibirians would not understand.

Completely absent of any buttons or other mechanisms, the Grey craft was being proficiently maneuvered by all their brains combined in a common power of will.

Hatches under the wings of the two scouters swiftly split in two, sliding sideways on opposite directions. The imposing canons then became visible as their dark gray pointed extremities moved forward through the holes.

“Annihilate them. Make no prisoners.” Seating behind the cockpit on the third row of seats, the Grey leader furiously transmitted his orders to the crew on both crafts while he impatiently waited for the heeling aid apparatus, attached to the right side of his face, to finish repairing the tissue of his injured eye.

Although the pain was gone, the embarrassment of the leader`s defeated ego would remain until the last moments of his existence.

Once the surgery was completed, the black device detached from his face with an awkward sound and hovered away, leaving a slight vertical scar above and underneath his eye.

As the leader blinked, his eye dropped a tear of his dark blue blood. With his eye sight fully restored, the leader observed the first scouter craft ahead of them reduce its speed, point its nose upwards, and then invert its horizon into a skillful dive towards the ocean.

Cold blooded and with one unique thought in their minds the Greys did not even blink as their ship penetrated the water after revenge.

Chariot 3 took off and saw what was probably one of her most important parts disappear within the deepness right under their feet.

At that precise moment Chariot 3 and its crew sensed the Grey craft, abruptly approaching their tale.

As if they did not have enough problems to worry about, the crew felt the strong vibration behind them. The antimatter was destabilized and nevertheless, it did not detonate but initiated a catastrophic reaction, far worse the Nibirians had anticipated.

Instead of detonating, the antimatter did far worse. It activated the ejected magnetic pole, amplifying its capacity.

“Attention. Destabilization of the essential tube`s antimatter in place. Tightening yourselves to the seats is highly recommended and it will increase your chances of surviving should the ship not resist.”

The five jumped on their seats which strapped them on automatically. What initially started as an almost vibration turned into a heavy tremor.

Once again Chariot 3`s metagraphene body started to crack. Captain Shoffer, V-Nus and Cai Yiu Hun were sweating cold as they tried to focus on maximizing the ship`s propulsion. The agony on their faces was inevitable and perhaps soon, it would also be the pain.

“Sissy, V-Nus, increase our thrust to its maximum capacity. Immediately!” Captain Shoffer shouted, barely hearing his own voice with the noise caused by the vibration between Chariot 3`s propulsion and the force of attraction they were suffering.

Their ears started to feel the discomfort of the increasing depressurization. They knew it meant their ship was no longer properly sealed and as the thought went through Flumen`s mind, a small piece of the ship`s body almost did the same as it missed him by an inch, flying over his head.

Flumen looked back over his shoulder and saw half of that piece of metagraphene stuck against the wall, and as he looked back to the front, a stream of water splashed on his face.

He could taste it. “Salty water…”

Flumen looked back over his shoulder one more time and wondered how much he would have to swim to reach the surface. “Too much.” He realized.

Doomed, the enemy scouter ship behind them, rapidly started to have its stern attracted by the magnetic epicenter without standing any chance.

Almost hopeless, Flumen finally had his moment of light.

“Captain, I am not a pilot, but couldn`t we use the force of attraction in our favor if we accelerated the ship on reverse?

At that point Chariot 3 had no longer any resistance to keep on moving forward and had already changed its direction, moving backwards as the force of attraction increased exponentially.

Captain Shoffer, V-Nus and Cai Yiu relaxed for a quarter of a second in a distinctive synchrony and without talking to each other, simply let the ship go.

Chariot 3 was immediately pulled back towards the center of the nightmare. The five occupants felt the pressure of their seatbelts compressing their chest against their seats as the ship moved back.

With his eyes closed whilst feeling a slight pain on his torso, Ezekiel wondered how much longer his faith would last and started to pray out loud.

Flumen heard his words and silently questioned if the man`s urge could ever be of some help.

Back on track, the three pilots accelerated Chariot 3 as fast as they could. “Sissy, I will never ask you anything ever again, but please take us out here!” Captain Shoffer begged what he truly thought could possibly be his last order.

Sissy followed the instructions as she moved through the water with a blurred visibility caused by the blend of sand and a variety of other debris lifted from the bottom of the sea.

The sandy water suddenly cleared up and they saw the considerably damaged Grey craft still trying to resist the attraction in front of them. With hardly any chance to react, all they did was to lift their stern a few degrees to soothe the impact as much as they could.

Chariot 3`s hull then hit the enemy spacecraft right above their ultra-resistant cockpit leaving them with nothing but a quick ending.

The material that initially was gray and metallic-looking cracked from one side to the other and then changed its color, becoming completely translucent.

The crew looked up to the damage and then hopeless, looked back down, detaching their hands from the panels in a final abdication.

The next instant, an unstoppable jet of water flooded the Grey ship, filling it in no time.

The piece of scrap metal had reached its final destination, forever trapped within the magnetic pole.

The magnetic attraction then ceased, allowing Chariot 3 to move as fast as they could until they hit the reached the surface once again.

For a few seconds Chariot 3 kept flying on reverse making the crew feel the pressure against their chest.

Exhausted, they looked forward to what they had luckily just escaped from and pondered r a moment, thinking that the Greys were the worst of their concerns.