Catch a Falling Star

Canto 144 – Raising the Walls

Outpost was abuzz with activity.  The airless world had only limited defense from attack, but that was swiftly changing.  The primary protection had always been the secret of its location.  As an airless world, the surface could easily be lasered or bombarded with no atmosphere to interfere with the destructive force. 

But now a new technology had arisen from an unexpected source.  Tron had ordered the mirror fields raised, hoping that some laser fire could be reflected into the surrounding darkness.  This, by itself would’ve been very little help from the orbital bombardments that Admiral Tang’s military space fleets were capable of.  But his little Peri Space-Elf friend, Hassan, had invented nanite armor that could adjust instantly into whatever weapon or defense system the wearer could command.  And he had recruited the silicon-based alien lifeform known as the Lazerstone Collective to wear this incredible morphing armor as the Lazerstone Marines.

Lazerstone then raised a million alien troops from the harmonic stones the planet Outpost was amply blessed with.  They practiced relentlessly with the new armor, when the original Lazerstone suggested they use more of the harmonic stone to raise and lower mirror-defense walls for protection against beam weapons and diamond force dissipation shields against all physical and nuclear attacks using the nanite technology to create the walls.

 It was an amazingly effective defensive weapon.  The original Lazerstone could raise and lower walls to counter the practice attacks of ace pilots Elvis the Cruel and Apache Scout.  He did this with the skill and style of a master pianist playing the best of Mozart on the piano.

“I’m beginning to feel like we have a chance to win when Tang shows up,” said Tron.

“It is looking good on the defensive side, I have to admit,” said Admiral King Killer.  “But whether or not we can get the space forces coordinated and capable of fighting is another problem all together.”

“What’s the problem, King?”

“Well, we have all these dinosaur-shaped starships built with the Ancient technology that Frieda provided from the new shipyards in Don’t Go Here.  And they’re massively powerful, but the rookies flying them are practically hopeless as pilots, let alone space warriors.”

“What about the Nebulons and the Lupin corsairs?”

“They can be a bit of a hassle too.  The Space Smurfs have those living space-whale cruisers, and other space-fish-shaped crafts that are actual creatures too.  And they don’t cotton too well to the giant dinosaur-looking things they have to fly near.  The poor Nebulons have had to deal with some of their spaceships having complete panic attacks.”

“And the Lupins?”

“Effective fighters in small packs against solitary vessels, but completely chaotic when you try to get them to coordinate with other non-Lupin fleets.”

“We are old veteran star fighters, you and I, King.  We get out there in the glorious heat of battle, we can defeat any enemy that rises against us.  Just like the old days.”

“In the old days we had nothing to lose.  We fought every battle like we would be killed to the last man.  And we did get our behinds licked by the Faceless Horde before we left Pan Galactican space.”

“Yeah, well…  There was too much we just didn’t know about that enemy.  You know we killed a lot more of them than we ever thought we did.  They were just evaporating when they died.”

“Yeah, there’s that.  But this could be the final battle this time.  And we might not live to have a next one.”

“Don’t worry, my friend.  It may be the end.  But we’ll give them a fight they won’t soon regret… err, I mean, forget!”