Last Hope Invasion

“That was a rousing tale,” Hunter replied sarcastically and began to clap.

“Yeah, nice one Kenny,” Cloud grinned. “But how would all of you like to hear a tale that’s actually true?”

“You know penthouse forum is fake, don’t you?” Jason questioned.

The room full of students laughed good-naturedly. The Eighth Power team, minus Rian and Carra, was sitting around the common area of their dorm along with most of the Thunderflash Team from next door. It was late in what was affectingly known as the day, sometime after the dimming of the lights the Instructors liked to call ‘lights out.’

In theory you were supposed to be sleeping during lights out. It was somewhere in the regulations. But since classes were regularly scheduled during lights out, no one actually respected it; except those few die-hard dragoons who wore their pajamas and slept in class.

Now the day scheme was interesting at Gudersnipe, and very, very hard to adapt to. The school ran on a thirty-six hour day, with twelve hours of ‘lights out’ time. In truth the school was just as busy and bustling during any of those thirty-six hours, regardless of ambient illumination. Most students could see as well in the dark as they could in the light, and since the entire school was indoors and they weren’t really sure if the world it was in even had a sun—well long story short biorhythm was an unknown art.

As it happened the school actually had had a sun at one point. Gudersnipe School occupied three flat worlds, sub dimensionally linked, and the school proper itself was a single building that completely filled one of them. The growing need for electricity in the school’s early developments had eventually forced them to surround the tiny sun in a small diysons sphere. As the building grew and power requirements further increased, they began building systems that tapped into the sun itself and converted its heat into energy.

Then they began draining away plasma and further using that to produce energy. Eventually the sun’s mass shrank to the point where they had to employ artificial gravity stabilizers to maintain the pressure needed for fusion. By then it was consuming so much power just keeping the tiny sun burning that the school ordered it snuffed out. And it was.

And so the assassin’s school claimed the life of its very first star.

Not that any of this really mattered much to the denizens of the Eighth Power’s dorm. They were having one of those moments, the type that lasted forever. This one was at sixteen hours and counting.

It was a time to gather together and meet your neighbors; maybe even do a little better than meat them. Right now the diverse group of old friends were piled into the various couches and chairs, drinking flavorful things and trading stories. Accounts of their own, retellings of fables they’d heard else where, and even, in Kendrick’s case, making stuff up on the spot.

No one made up stuff better than Kendrick.

“No, this is a real story,” Cloud replied defensively and threw an empty drink container at Jason. “I found it in the school’s database.”

“You know the school has one of the largest collections of fiction in the known Multi-Verse, right?” Hunter questioned.

“Yeah, every mission report Hunter’s ever filed has been a work of fiction,” Rebecca grinned.

Hunter lobbed a pilot at Rebecca, who ducked deftly behind Jason. This was how these kinds of gatherings usually went: sweet beverages were consumed, stories and jokes where exchanged, and common household objects became dangerous projectiles.

“Owe,” Jason said hurtfully.

“All right,” Cloud said dramatically and sat precariously on the back of his chair. “This story takes place… somewhere. And I guess it must have been… well, sometime. Let’s go with a long time ago in a dimension far, far away.”

“And he insists this ones a true story,” Rebecca giggled.

* * *

“It’s ingenious!”

“It’s Suicide!”

“It’s so cool!”

Teaken, Chira, and Hebbi stared at the great gray machine that was said to be mankind’s last hope, a giant instrument of amazing power. What they saw from atop the hill was a wide, low gray building sunk into the ground, with a large laser cannon sticking out an open flap in the roof and pointing right into space.

The three brothers were mobile suit pilots, earth’s elite Shinnyu Team. Teaken, the oldest at twenty-nine, had been the first to become a mobile suit pilot, having learned from there father, who had been one for the greatest pilots ever. He now piloted their fathers high-speed air model suit, the Kugun. Chira was the second oldest, being twenty-one. He had been too young to learn from their father before he died, but Chira had learned a lot from his older brother. Though Chira wasn’t a fan of speed or air, his well-equipped Hell-Gunner made an excellent artillery backup for his two brothers. Hebbi had been far too young when their father had passed away; his birthday was just one month before the anniversary of the funeral.

But Hebbi had never needed any special training. Teaken and Chira had decided early on that he wasn’t going to pilot a mobile suit like there father, and had refused to teach him. Then one day the young Hebbi had climbed into the pilot seat of an old Blade Tora and taken off, without even knowing a singe control. Hebbi was a natural pilot; more skilled than either of his brothers or any one of the many pilots they all knew. What others had to work and train at came to Hebbi as naturally as breathing.

Hebbi was just fourteen, but in the world of mobile suit fighting age does not matter, only skill and courage. Together the three brothers made quite a fearsome team on the pitched battlefields of earth.

The battles were organized under strict rules and regulations and took place on enormous battlefields around the earth. The desert was a favorite place to fight; large, open tracts of land with nothing to crash into. The three brothers lived in the Arizona desert where they trained and practiced, but they traveled the world getting into battles wherever they could. In battle, a team gained glory and fortune, and there was little doubt the Shinnyu team would one day be World Champions.

“I’m telling you,” whined Chira. “Its nuts! You don’t know if you’ll come back from something like that!”

Teaken and Hebbi both looked over at each other and grinned.

“And you won’t know either unless you come with us!” Teaken laughed as he and Hebbi grabbed Chira’s arms and dragged him down the hill towards the complex.

Earth’s last hope, though insane and possibly suicidal, was actually a well coordinated, well thought out plan that had been in preparation for quite a few years; initially with a more peaceful purpose. The plan was ingeniously simple and yet amazingly complex. A good while back, when the first scientific breakthroughs enabled ‘Faster-Than-Light’ travel and mankind started launching its first deep space satellites a now almost forgotten scientist had published a paper with a new theory on plain old speed of light travel. His theory was that a form of matter, say, a human body, could be converted into energy baring the signature of the person; the energy could then be converted into light, and the light focused into a laser, and the laser shot anywhere, even into space, would then carry the pattern of that person with it. The light could be shot out into space, reflected off a simple mirror on a satellite and land on a different part of the earth in comparatively little time.

The scientist passed away before his plan could be brought to fruition. Unrenowned to him, someone important had seen his paper, and thought something of it. Hence, nine exploration satellites launched shortly thereafter were equipped with small mirrors. Nothing substantial, to anyone who didn’t know what they were for. Very small mirrors really, but plenty big enough to reflect a pinpoint laser beam.

Now for the plan.

Work continued on that scientist’s vision as a means of a planet and solar system wide transportation system. It was very nearly ready to start moving massive amounts of people and equipment when word came by way of one of the exploration probes in deep space that an invasion force was on its way. The trajectory led back to another solar system with a super nova some fifty thousand light years away.

The force was huge and clearly military. If all estimations were right there were over a billion people in that fleet, assuming they were the size and shape of humans. These weren’t concurring barbarians on their way to a new pillage, but a desperate army fleeing a dying world and looking for a new home.

The people of earth knew their forces could not stem the tide. The invasion was far too large, and a strategic retreat was the only option. That was when the satellites came into use. They would evacuate earth, sending its people out into space on beams of light. The farthest satellite was over three hundred light years way, and the closest just under one hundred. That was where the F.E.I.F. was going, the First Earth Invasion Force, earth’s expeditionary army to retake the planet.

“This is fief headquarters,” Teaken explained. “We go here, and ask to join F.E.I.F., that’s all there is to it. I think.”

“You don’t even know?” Chira whined. “Why don’t you even know?”

“Hey, we’re the Shinnyu Team, no one is better suited to be with F.E.I.F.. They have to let us on.”

“I hope your right.”

* * *