Banquet In the Stars VIII : Mayday

"I'll get straight to business then, I know you two like that. I don't like fighting, you don't like fighting, let's have a cease-fire. What do you say?"

The voice on the intercom spoke to them as if he understood their interest. It Spoke about how they both don't like fighting, the two women could only scoff when hearing his words. It was quite obvious that what he said and what he thought were two different things.

– "Don't like fighting? If that isn't the biggest load of nonsense I've ever heard that dirty mouth of yours spout out. You started this war, you attacked our people, you got your people killed. Hah, you even started the last war, I don't want to hear you ever say anything about not liking fighting you filthy warmonger!" Nizael spat at the voice; The way he tried to play innocent had disgusted her.

– "Aggressive as always aren't you, General Bavel? There's no need to be agitated, we all work for our interests in the first place. No need to be bothered by me acting on mine." The voice said.

After the voice spoke again Nizael and Helia had to catch their balance as the Dreadnought shook once more, the sounds of a large object moving made way to their ears once more. Turning to the now broken glass, Helia walked over to it to see what was going on and she was tempted to punch the glass as she gritted her teeth.

– "Where are you?" Asking what she wanted to know, Helia turned to the nearest camera watching them.

– "Well you're both right outside the room, after all, It was your goal in the first place." It said.

After getting the information Helia marched towards the door, followed by Nizael, and stood in front of the door. Pulling out the slightly burnt card she had taken off a corpse quite a while ago, Helia swiped it on the scanner before entering the room like she owned the place.

Bang! — When they entered the room a soldier stood aiming his rifle at Helia and his head was popped open in an instant, blood, brains, and skull fragments painting the pillar behind him. Helia swerved her gun around the rest of the room scanning for any more brave souls; She was met with only the steerer, two operators, and a few mechanics who had their hands up.

Seeing the lack of soldiers, Helia also noticed the lack of anyone in control, there were only a handful of people in the room. Nizael stepped past Helia and grabbed the nearest operator and lifted him by the collar before slamming him into a control table at full force as fell off it, going into a ball due to the pain.

– "Where are the great of your people, I'm certain there should be many more people on this ship." Interrogating the operator, she pulled him back off the ground.

– "T-They went into the Ring on orders of the Emperor! Please don't hurt me!!" The man answered, pleading for his safety.

– "... You gave in so easy, I was preparing to hurt you a bit more." Nizael sighed in disappointment as she released the man.

– "Thank you, thank you-" The man began to continuously thank her before Nizael interrupted him.

– "So I'll let you go easily." With that said, she raised her handgun to his forehead, blowing a hole in it a second later.

– "Truly, you two are merciless. You know, my invitation to join us from cycles ago is still up on the table. How about it?" The voice, this time much clearer came from behind them, causing them to turn their heads.

Behind them and above the door was a large virtual screen, the image on the screen was dark so you could only the silhouette of the man; He was truly sarcastic and lackadaisical in every manner of tone, he even waved at them.

– "Well, your invitation is not welcome in my ears, just the thought of joining you makes me want to kill myself. What are you planning?" Helia spoke up to him?

Nizael looked out the large windows and saw the wreck of ships from the shot fired from the Anti-Space cannon earlier. She looked up at the screens that had the sights from the ship's cameras, showing all sides of the Dreadnought.

When she looked at the screens she could see the Ring pulling away from the Dreadnought, she sighed to herself as she had expected this outcome, the Ring couldn't be taken by force once it falls in somebody's hands. She was fine with it for the moment though, the parallel was in the Rift and they couldn't be harmed by the Kritol's Ring as long as that fact remained so.

Nizael turned to Helia who was now ignoring the man and raised her hand — following her hand movements, Helia looked around and walked to the table, and swept her gaze across the control buttons and keys; She saw a button encased in hardened glass, and found the right buttons and pressed them, flicked a switch before turning to Nizael.

– "Keys," She simply told Nizael.

– "Right," Giving a similarly simple reply she searched the others in the room, before snatching off the keyring from the steerer's waist, all while ignoring the man on the screen.

Getting the keys tossed to her Helia tried several keys out before finding the one and stuffing it into a keyhole, twisting it. After twisting it she flickered open the hardened glass and slammed her first onto the button.

"Thrusters shutting down. Repeat, thrusters shutting down. The vessel will begin to descend. Repeat, Vessel will begin to descend."

A female voice started to speak through the steering room intercom, this voice reverberated through every hall within the ship and, the ship shifted and shook as it began to fall towards the planet.

At the same time the two women put their hands to the pieces on their ears, Helia was just listening in to what was happening on the other end while Nizael was giving out new orders.

– "Coraline Meller, I need you to inform the ship graveyards to prepare their largest gravity net, their largest ship ever will be coming into the atmosphere soon. Tell them that they'll be able to pull apart a Kritol Dreadnought." She started while at the same time getting a confirmation from the man.

"I'll accept your cease-fire, but you'll have to repay us for the damage you've caused, we'll be taking this ship as a downpayment."

– "Oh... You're attempting to take my ship... I can't have that, It seems I was far too nice for you to have the gall to do this in my face." The man's kind demeanor seemed to be cracking.

Not bothering to listen to him, Nizael and Helia killed the rest of the Kritol in the room and moved out of the room, and quickly made their way to the lift.

"I see... Very well, we might have a cease-fire but I won't be giving you this ship for free. Commence self-destruction, overclock the Flauna and the Electrical cores."

The man gave this order to the ship's system, and once all the screens in the room turned red with a warning sign he left with loud laughter.

They weren't able to hear the man's laughter, but the women were soon met with the reason for his laughing and it was with the sound of explosions starting to resound out around them. They were now in the lift heading down and it was shaking continuously and explosions were coming from every direction, they couldn't turn their ears anywhere and not hear an explosion.

– "Hey General, did you expect this to happen? I guess this situation was the most expected considering his personality." Helia commented as she gripped the lift's bars.

– "Of course, I expected it. That kid has some problems, he thinks he can mock and threaten everyone else but he can't handle the same being done to him. Oh, I can't–... Imagine the look ye had on his face at that moment!" Nizael spoke, being interrupted by an explosion rocking the lift.

– "Yeah, I've had my fair share of experiences with that man as well. He's personally annoying, blowing up the ship to mess with us? Hah, we're still going to get the parts anyway." Helia also commented.

The two women started to laugh together, their laughter being drowned out by the numerous explosions. They soon quieted down as they began to think of their way out.

"So hey, what do we do if the ships are all blown up or out of commission?" Helia inquired curiously.

– "Good question," She answered.

– "..."

– "..."

– "No seriously, what is the plan if that situation happens?" Helia asked once again, this time with a nervous laugh.

– "... To die?" Nizael also let out a nervous laugh, giving a negative response.

–"Die- What!?"

– "Wait, wait! I didn't mean that, We could probably hide in one of their blast rooms as we re-enter the atmosphere... if the floors aren't destroyed that is," Nizael gave Helia an unsure response as she rubbed her chin, thinking.

She honestly didn't prepare for this, she just really wanted to mess with him, so she allowed him to see and hear what they had planned to do. She did expect him to start the ship's self-destruction but she wasn't ready for it and it was clear on her face.

Helia held back her urge to facepalm while listening to Nizael and watching her actions. She sighed and looked at the back wall of the lift that was previously pierced by a Cryo bomb and she looked at the glass above and she was tempted to curse out.

– "General! Above us!" She exclaimed.

Looking up she spotted the problem and at the same time, they heard a snap, at high speeds the lift fell, nearly causing them to float in the air, the lift was scratching against the walls as it fell to the bottom – Screech! – The noise permeated their ears as they both gripped the rails to keep themselves grounded.

– Bang! Crash! – The Lift banged into the bottom floor with a loud crash, noticing how the ceiling was about to collapse on them with the fire and explosions they both quickly rolled out off the lift, both of them kneeling on the ground watching the now fire-filled lift. Getting back up on their feet they turned on their heels and started sprinting in through the halls.

They passed through multiple passageways and very few rooms as they ducked and dodged the flames and explosives along with shrapnel that went flying due to the explosions. They finally made their way to the hall that was littered with corpses that were being devoured by fire and rolled through the hole they previously melted into the metal door, keeping up their momentum.

Making it back into the hanger they looked around for the ships, a majority had been blown apart and wrecked as the hanger had explosions happening all over, the danger increased further as the explosions made it to the explosives held in the hanger; The hanger had soon become a sea of flames.

They spotted a relatively unharmed ship and made their way over, sliding to a halt an overpass covered in flames slammed down in front of them, the pillar near the ship they were aiming for exploded as chunks of it crashed down on the ship, making it unable to fly.

Helia and Nizael clicked their tongues when seeing this, they couldn't see any more available ships, and the ship was tearing itself apart. They turned back to where they entered from and rushed through the fire, hoping not to get burnt.

– "Do you know where the Blast room is!?" Helia shouted, trying to have her voice be heard amongst the raging explosions.

– "There's usually at least one or two blast rooms on each floor–" Ducking under the ceiling that almost dropped on her, Nizael continued.

"Let's search for the blast rooms on the floor! They're usually in the center of the floor!" She finished.

Understanding what they needed to do the two quieted down, rushing through the halls, peeking into every room. They both slid to a halt as the floor in front of them split apart, she could see that they had now entered the planet's atmosphere and the ship was coming down hard and they needed to find a blast room.

The air had smacked them straight in the face, they both went back and ran to the edge giving themselves a startup as they jumped across; Nizael was able to barely make it as Helia was also hanging off the edge. She pulled Helia up and they both began sliding back due to the angle the ship was falling, grabbing at the openings in the wall they pulled themselves up and into the nearest room.

Shutting the door real quick they both fell onto what was supposed to be the wall of the room. Spreading out their arms and letting out heavy breaths and sighs the two lay there, getting a good look at the room. It was a beige room that was padded but looked quite sturdy at the same time, and it looked unaffected by the ongoing explosions, they could barely hear them now that they were in here.

– "At... least, we made it to the Blast room," Helia spoke through bated breaths, assuming that they were in the correct room.

– "...." Nizael didn't say anything as she placed her hand to her ear, wanting to know where they were going to crash.

"Coraline Mellin, where is the Dreadnought ship about to crash?"

– It's going to crash outside of the capital, General. How are you and Lieutenant General Urnfox faring right now?" He informed and asked.

– "I need a specific location, Coraline." She said, ignoring his question.

– "Yes... The Dreadnought will be crash landing in Lulin Forest. The city and Tower shields should protect the city." He responded.

– "Good, good. Prepare a rescue and excavation team, we'll need to handle the ship wreckage along with the ship graveyards and you'll need to pull me and the Lieutenant General out of this ship."

Nizael commanded, removing her hand from her ear and letting out another hefty sigh. Feeling the ship shake as they were crashing down.