Chapter 128: 128: In The Name of Duty

"Could someone please open a channel to the rest of the ship?" I asked, striding to the centre of the room to stand in front of the captain's chair before taking my seat. 

A whistle pierced through the air, I assumed that meant a com line was open. 

"To all lifeforms who are present on this ship, my name is Jacob Lyre, and from this point onward I will be the Squadron Leader in charge of this vessel," I said, trying to project confidence into my voice. I was uncertain if I was failing or not. 

<So good so far,> BB said, almost throwing me off. 

"You may have heard the rumours, and yes they are true. I am indeed a Human, the only Human to ever join the Guard, but I hope in time that I will be able to prove to you that my loyalty lies with the Guard and with the people that the Guard protects. 

"Whether you like me or you hate me, we have a job to do and that job is simple. We have been tasked with taking the refugees from this world to Actaeon, and when that is done we shall help to make sure the refugees are successfully integrated into the population, providing support and protection where we can. 

"Our duty is to the Guard, and our duty is to the people who live under its protection. Lyre out." 

As I finished my speech the whistle sounded once again, I took that to mean I was clear from the coms. 

"What are the capabilities of our view screen? Could it tap into cameras back in Prespian City?" I asked the room, uncertain of which alien would have the knowledge that I needed. 

The one in front of me and two on the right, a humanoid alien with bright green skin, spoke up first. "I can patch our Viewscreen into the security feeds down in the city if need be, Squadron Leader," they said, their voice distinctly feminine. 

"Please do so, I want to see exactly what's going on down there," I said, leaning forward and resting my chin on steepled fingers. 

Lara and her father were going to fight. There was a chance that he wouldn't get to come back. If that were to be the case, he deserved to be remembered. His sacrifice and his heroism, enshrined in our minds. 

The viewscreen flickered as it switched to the feed of a drone that was circling high above the city. 

Things had changed drastically since I was last down on the surface. 

One of the three megabuildings had all but collapsed, the colossal structure had toppled and was now leaning against one of the other two as its only method of support. 

All three of the buildings were burning brightly in numerous places, with more explosions ripping through the superstructures with every passing moment. 

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It was only a matter of time before the whole thing came crashing down. 

Above the city, and the focus of the drone that was circling the destruction, hung both Adonis and Lara floating in the air. Seaspray and rain pelted down onto the pair from above, creating a shadowy gloom that their glowing green eyes pierced straight through. 

The drone camera was unable to pick up any speech between the two, but it seemed as if Adonis was making an incredibly impassioned plea toward his daughter. One that fell on deaf ears. 

A slight shimmer appeared around Lara's hand as she engaged some kind of telekinesis, ripping up one of the large bridge platforms that had previously been teleporting people off-world, before launching it at her father. 

The makeshift spear soared through the air at supersonic speeds, barely missing Adonis as he managed to jink out of the way. 

He said one more thing, once again inaudible to us, before launching a flurry of his own attacks. 

With a few swift hand movements, the rain and seaspray around Lara began to coalesce into a ball, tightening around her. Before long it wasn't just water that was being pulled in. Pieces of rubble joined the slowly growing mass, being torn straight from the building as whatever gravity distortion the man had created grew in strength.

All the while he was still moving his hands, making the spell stronger and stronger. 

Lara wasn't idle in this time. Blasts of powerful energy lanced blindly through the ball of material, all of them failing to hit Adonis. 

With one large flourish, a gigantic runic circle appeared beneath the two fighters, larger than any I'd seen before. It stretched further than the camera could make out. 

<We're going to need to get out of here, and we're going to need to do it fast,> BB said suddenly, alarm as I'd never heard it from the AI. <That gravitational anomaly that he just spawned, it's going to consume the planet. He's basically just made a black hole!>

I swallowed hard and rattled off the orders I needed to give. 

"We need to get the ship out of range of Adonis' attack immediately. His attack has begun forming a singularity that will absorb the entire system to try and stop Lara in her tracks, being around when it reaches the density to form a black hole would be unwise," I said. "Chart a course to Actaeon and get us out of here immediately, comms relay my message to the rest of the fleet. If they don't move out now, they'll be absorbed." 

"Aye Squadron Leader Lyre," the two aliens in front of me chimed in synch. 

If it hadn't been for BB, we'd definitely have been dead this time. There's no way I would have spotted the slowly forming singularity on the view screen for what it was. Hopefully, the black hole would manage to keep Lara down, because if it didn't I had no idea what the galaxy would do. 

Either way, I couldn't think about that now. My charges were the people aboard my ship, and I'd keep them safe at any cost.

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