Chapter 21

The next day, Jim emerged from the bunk room feeling completely different. “Dickie are all preparations ready?” Jim asked, Mary and Amber’s heads snapping up at the sound of his voice.

“Everything is proceeding as you requested, everything should be ready within 2 hours,” Dickie responded.

“All what preparations?” Mary asked.

“We’re going back, but this time, I have a few surprises for them,” Jim replied. Mary saw the cold, calculating look in his eyes, the same one she remembered him having when he first recruited her. Good, she thought, ‘bout time the ass-kicker was back.

Departing, they were a few hours from the planet when a new fleet met them. Though not nearly as big as the Krong fleet, it was still quite sizeable. Coming to a complete stop, Jim began to scan the whole fleet, looking for desperate measures by the enemy ships.

Sighing after he found nothing out of the ordinary, he started to issue orders, “Alright Dickie I want a line of vapor drops a mile wide in the path of the enemy advance. Keep producing and deploying as fast as you can. Mary, activate ALL the planet killers and bring all plasma rail guns online. Check all the reactors and shield generators. Amber, watch all the readings and let me know when they start to move.”

Mary was getting everything ready when Amber yelled that they were on the move. Within minutes, the first few thousand were nothing but debris, and still, they kept coming and dying.

“Jim, vapor drop supplies are almost depleted. They are coming faster than I can produce them.” Dickie said

“Thank you Dickie, now deploy the phasic missiles,” Jim ordered.

Mary turned her mouth wide, “you realize those can turn on us, right?”

Jim nodded, though he wasn’t that worried as thickly situated as they were. He still had high hopes that the tracking system he’d added to them made them more reliable. “Jim I hope you got something up your sleeve,” Amber said, “those things have always been uncontrollable the micro AI’S aren’t powerful enough to discern between an enemy or an ally.”

“I added a new type of tracking system, almost as simple as a heat-seeking system,” Jim replied, drawing a few hard looks from Mary.

“Again, Jim, you realize that they CAN turn on us,” Mary repeated.

Jim again nodded as he watched the track of the missiles. At first, the Krang ships started to disappear, that is till three, then four more world ships appeared. Immediately, all the missiles converged on the seven massive ships. The first two were obliterated within seconds. The next two were hit hard and blown in half, each half taking out even more of the fighter ships. The final three had started to build speed when two of them were hit and crippled, slowing to a stop. The last had drawn closer, cursing Jim, armed the planet killer, and fired.

Staring, Jim watched as the massive charge hit the ship and a shield far stronger than he knew the Krang had.

Cursing Jim armed two more and fired this time the ship shuddered rolling away from the station. Jim watched as its systems overloaded then exploded taking even more of the fleet with it.

“How long till the PK’s are recharged?” Jim questioned Mary.

“The first is at half power, at least twenty minutes for a full charge, the other two at least 45 minutes with the last two of the reactors coming online now.” Mary shouted back.

Jim started to move slowly closer to the debris field, scanning, but he wasn’t detecting much of anything left. They’d just entered the debris field when he started to get readings from a well on the other side of the field. It appeared that a few of his missiles were still active. Shit! Slowing to a stop, Jim had started to activate the self-destruct in each missile when there was another proximity alert. Looking up, he saw the largest world ship he’d ever seen, clearly twice the size of the one that had nearly destroyed the station at the end of his and Mary’s battle with the Krang.

“Dickie I need everything you can make vapor drops, phasic missiles I want as wide a path as you can make as thick as you can make it,” Jim said hoping Dickie had a large supply ready to go.

“Compliance Captain, everything is ready for deployment,” replied Dickie.

Jim had Amber and Mary move to the anti-gravity room. He was afraid that this might fry a lot on the station. They had both protested till he promised to run for the room at the earliest moment. Watching Dickie ramble off the distance to Jim crossing his fingers, he hoped what they had was enough.

The massive ship started to break up slowly as the thousands of vapor drops started to explode against its hull. Jim could only worry now, true it was damaged, but it wasn’t enough damage, not yet. Still advancing with hardly a let up in speed, Jim next had Dickie deploy the missiles. As they streaked toward the massive ship, Jim got a charge warning that three of the four PKs were ready. Jim just hoped he didn’t have to use them. They were only good within a few miles, and they tended to dissipate any further than five miles. Almost being useless any further, Jim knew at that range it was almost a death toll for the station.

The track of the missiles was better than he hoped for, at least half striking the engines and damaging much of the exterior, finally slowing the ship to less than half its previous speed. At ten miles, the ship encountered the rest of the vapor drops ripping into the ship, and it started to explode. Jim was down the hall at a full run this time. He was within sight of the anti-gravity room when the shock wave hit the station. Leaping for the doorway, he’d almost made it when the full force of the wave ripped into the station. Desperately clawing his way to the doorway, debris started to fall all around him. Reaching out, he managed to grab the entranceway when something struck him across the back of his head.