The Reunion

"Does this ever end?!"

The question I asked to myself and to Cass after defeating hundreds of hostiles in the past hour. I was floating in between the Mesosphere and the Exosphere, still alone fighting the never ending barrage of hostile ships and drones. I've already used up about half of my suit's power and there were no signs of the enemy's defeat. It started to sound ridiculous.

"Cass, did you get the number of ships that arrived with Elon?" I asked.

"73 including the Mothership" She replied.

So where the hell do these ships come from?? Judging from the size of the hostiles I'm at war with and the size of the Mothership, (Cass displayed their exact dimensions on the screen) that mothership could only carry about two hundred ships only.

"Cass, how many kills did we got so far?" I began to see what Elon's trying to do.

"534 and counting."

"He's tryna exhaust the suit and I don't know where the hell these extra ships come from. Cass, search for the origin of these ships before another batch shows up. They can't be from around here. I've been keeping an eye on the vicinity for a while now." I've destroyed the last one from this batch.

"On it."

Seconds later...

"It's from the closest Vortex they opened. They followed the path the pollutants took." Cass said.

"Location?"

Cass displayed a location somewhere around the Mesosphere, North East from my current location.

In this era, the existence of Vortices/Wormholes was proven true. We studied its characteristics back in the Hive. Together with other research facilities around the globe, we managed to solve half of its function and harnessed One-way Vortices.

Meaning, one can travel from 𝙋𝙤𝙞𝙣𝙩 𝘼 to 𝙋𝙤𝙞𝙣𝙩 𝘽 using this but it cannot use the same vortex to get back to 𝙋𝙤𝙞𝙣𝙩 𝘼. It's like a teleportation door but it doesn't work vice versa.

But Vortices also use too much energy that it was not advised to be used by the public. Daily use of vortices would cause an energy shortage worldwide.

Elon must have prepared so much stored energy to keep these Vortices open for days. I can only imagine his preparation for this moment.

"We're still at 59%. How much charge would we need to close that Vortex?" I asked Cass.

"We'll need at least 20%"

"Let's go." Without any doubt, I went.

Vortices/wormholes spin at the speed of light tearing the fabric of time and space. To close it, one must be able to send a group of negatively charged Photons that would oppose its rotation faster than its speed of light.

"Firing Photons now!"

The Vortex was in range and I fired.

And like a crumpled paper in mid air. The Vortex closest to Earth.

Closed.

Problem one solved.

The only problem left are the trapped foreign pollutants that are currently causing weather issues.

They probably noticed the closure of the vortex. The mothership itself started to ascend towards me. Releasing its reserved drones and ships.

Aside from these,

"There are movements from the ground" Cass noticed.

"and on air! Hostiles from all directions!"

I saw the swarm of unidentified flying objects headed towards our location on the GPS. They're fast and too many for me to handle. My suit only has 39% charge. It's nearly impossible for me to keep up...

"Sh*t"

𝘐𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘵?

A question that popped on my mind as I looked down on the planet I had been saving half of my life.

So in my imminent end,

I laughed.

"It's been a hell of a ride, ey Cass? Thanks for everything, ya know?"

"Shut up. The Honor is mine, Joe."

The incoming hostiles fired their shots. I could see their projectiles on the GPS...

.

.

.

.

.

There was no possible flight route to evade all of the incoming shots according to Cass...

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

So I closed my eyes.

.

.

.

.

.

Explosions after explosions.

"Wait."

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

"What?"

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

THE PROJECTILES RE-ROUTED ON THE LAST FEW SECONDS AND HIT ELON'S MOTHERSHIP !!

I was like 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧*𝘤𝘬 𝘪𝘴 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘯𝘰𝘸?!

As they come closer, we were able to verify their identity. Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Indonesian, and Singaporean fleets and warships came to my aid. Looks like the broadcast worked.

They swarmed the gigantic mothership and threw everything at it. The Mothership fought back but it started to retreat. It tilted in mid air as it took critical blows from the Russians and Filipino Warships. War broke out even on the ground in pursuit to take back the city from Elon's hands.

"Hey, Joe. Miss me?" A familliar voice suddenly emanated on a voice message.

"ED!?" I almost jumped out of my suit hearing his voice.

"Surprise! HAHA. I'm still alive! Good job on the flying thing. You look good on your new toy"

I feel so relieved knowing he's alive. He's the only family I got on this planet.

"The russians released me after verifying your broadcast. So yeah, here I am"

He sounded so happy. I was happier.

A webcall suddenly popped up on my display and I opened it. It was NEA with Ed on the Russians' headquarters.

"Good day, Commander Madrid. This is the New Earth Alliance (NEA) apologies if we took some time. We heard your broadcast. We had to confirm everything you revealed and you were right. Please receive our assistance as an apology for the false accusations. We beg you to save the world once again." A voice message from NEA.

"Thought you'd never ask." Cass replied.

I smiled.

"Thank you, sir. That's the original plan. Let's go Cass." We proceeded to the Ionosphere where the ML1 was floating.

The plan is to hard reset the ML1 and let it re-register all gases surrounding it. That way, the foreign pollutants will be included in the purification process and eventually clear our atmosphere.

"Ten seconds to the ML1" Cass notified.

There it was...

It has been years since Simon and I fired it up there. It still looked exactly the same...

I started the authentication process. Only I can do a hard reset on it using my DNA and biometric data.

Tapped on some buttons and...

"𝘙𝘦𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘵 𝘴𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘥"

The message displayed on its user interface.

𝘈𝘵 𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘵.. 𝘷𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺'𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩..

[To be continued]