*ACTION* End of an era.

<Snip>
"Charge the weapon..." Jay ordered "And open a communications
chan...NAAAAGH!!!!" Jay dropped to his knee's clutching his temples.....
<End snip>
Who:- Alota
Where:- Within the hive
The last thing Alota had remembered was being strapped to a chair on the
bridge of the Thorax, with a spike being thrust into the back of her neck.
Now she found herself, inside the hive mind, completely immersed within it.
And it hurt, she’d been connected differently than most, she hadn’t been
connected to be a part of the collective, operating independently with a
constant stream of two-way information. Instead she’d been connected with
the sole purpose of extracting information she was no longer aware of her
own surroundings, only of the hive. As they probed her mind, tearing the
data they required from her consciousness she screamed in pain, it felt as
though someone had thrust their fist into her cranium and clumsily tore out
a section of her brain.
The next thing she was aware of, was something calling out to her.
“Alota!!!! ALOOOOOTTTAAA!!”
It was faint, distant.
The pain subsided, the hymenoptera had clearly found the information they
were after, she moved her hands to her face and sighed, racked with guilt
she held back a tear. It hadn’t been her fault, but she felt as though it
was. She had given the security codes to the defence field.
The only thing that could save everything she had ever known.
“ALOTA!!”
There it was again, louder this time.
“ALOTA YOU CAN STILL STOP THEM!”
It was Jay’s voice! She opened her eyes and was greeted with a physical
representation of the hive. It was a white landscape, barren. Thick black
web’s spread across it, she looked down, there was nothing beneath her feet
yet she could walk. She headed toward the voice.
“ALOTA!!!!”
The voice was right on top of her, she looked up.
What she saw, was her husband, shackled to a spider’s web. He looked
exhausted. As though he had endured perpetual torture for weeks on end.
“Alota! You can still stop him!”
“What…what’s going on?”
“Sever yourself from the hive! Just imagine yourself back on the Thorax, you
need to stop him before it’s too late..go back and kill me!!”
“Jay…you want me to…no..this is a trick!”
“It’s no trick Alota, it’s the real me, the me you loved before all this
happened. The person about to destroy earth is my counterpart, the evil
version of me from the parralell universe.”
“How is that possible? He’s dead!”
“THERE ISN’T TIME TO EXPLAIN!”
“TRY! After everything I’ve seen you do over the past few weeks I’m not
gonna believe anything you have to say without hearing the whole story!”
Jay sighed. He should have known, he loved Alota, but damn, she was
stubborn.
“You remember when Evil Jay led the Hymenoptera before? When he tried to
destroy earth the last time? We thought he was killed when I rammed his ship
with the Blue Dwarf…”
Alota nodded.
“His body was killed, but his mind lived on within the hive, when I was
connected to them as their ambassador before the war with the Anti-noptera
his consciousness gradually took control of me. My consciousness was ‘held
captive’ if you will…”
Alota held her hand to her mouth, she couldn’t believe what she was hearing,
it felt as though a weight was lifted from her shoulder, finding out her
husband hadn’t turned into a genocidal maniac.
“The only way to stop him is to kill us both Alota.” Jay said sternly
“I love you”
“NO!” Alota shouted suddenly “Now that I know you’re still the man I love I’
m not going to kill you! There has to be another way!”
“HOW?”
“He took over your mind…surely it can work both ways?!”
“In case you hadn’t noticed…” Jay gestured to the web’s holding him in
check.
“WELL BREAK FREE!!”
“You think I haven’t tried?!”
“You didn’t have me here to tell you how much I love you before, to tell you
how everything depends on you, to tell you, that YOU CAN DO IT!”
Jay looked down at Alota, he was mentally drained through the torment of
being forced to watch as his double wiped out millions of lives using his
body.
But to know that Alota didn’t hate him for what she’d witness him do, to
know that she still believed in him, to know that she still loved him, gave
him the extra strength he needed.
“AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!” He yelled as he strained against the bonds
holding him prisoner inside his own mind, the bonds fought back, as though
alive, Jay fought harder the bonds were as strong as iron chains, but with
Jay’s new found strength, they could no longer hold him and they creaked,
then snapped. Jay leapt to the floor, next to Alota.
“This is why they didn’t want me connected to the hive..” Alota said,
throwing her arm’s over Jays shoulders “They knew I’d set you free!”
“So it would seem…” Came Jay’s voice, from elsewhere.
Jay and Alota broke their hold of each other and turned to face, Evil Jay.
When Jay had been released, he had felt incredible pain, and drew back into
the hive. His body now lay unconscious on the floor of the Thorax’ bridge.
“It will do you no good however, the weapon has already been charged…Earth
has only a few minutes before it is vaporised.”
“Still gives us a few minutes to stop you!” Jay yelled, and dived at Evil
Jay.
He knocked Evil Jay to his back, who then kicked his legs up, sending
himself into a backwards roll, still holding onto to Jay they rolled over
and over each other finally coming to a rest with Evil Jay pinning Jay to
the ground.
“You really think you stand a chance?” Evil Jay taunted “I could easily
defeat you in combat in the physical world, but here, I can draw on strength
from the hive…you don’t stand a chance…”
His fingers closed tightly around Jay’s throat. Jay began to choke.
Jay had to act fast, he raised his left leg up as quickly as he could, his
knee thrusting upwards into Evil Jay’s abdomen and throwing him upward over
his shoulders. Jay got to his feet and darted across to where Evil Jay now
lay, pushing himself up off the ground. Jay seized the opportunity and
landed a kick straight into his doppelganger’s chest, winding him.
“So much for your hive strength” Jay said
“FOOL!” Evil Jay replied, “You cannot even DREAM of besting me!”
He swept his legs round in a kick, taking Jay out at the knees, sending him
toppling to the ground. He placed a foot on Jay’s chest, pinning him to the
ground. “Now…it ends…” he reached for his sword.
“What?” his sword was gone.
“Lights out, asshole!” came Alota’s voice behind him, he turned, to see
Alota leaping at him with his katana in her hand’s, she swung wide and
brought the blade down on Evil Jay’s right shoulder, it slid neatly through
the flesh to the other shoulder. Severing his head.
“We’ve gotta be quick!” Jay said getting up, “It won’t take long for him to
get over the mental shock and realise it’s all in our minds! Imagine
yourself back on the thorax, and we can sever our connection, trapping him
in here!”
Alota nodded, and everything went white.
The whiteness faded, and was replaced by the Thorax’ bridge. Across the
room, Jay was getting to his feet and removing the implant that linked him
to the collective mind.
He came over and removed Alota’s then released her from her bonds holding
her to the chair.
“We’ve gotta stop the weapon!” Alota said, getting to her feet. She was
still weak from her beating’s earlier, and walked with a limp over to the
control panel.
“WHAT’S GOING ON HERE?!” Amber asked looking over from her station.
“Er..” Jay said “I’m calling off the attack…withdraw your fighters, that’s
an order!”
Amber thought for a second, then realised she could no longer hear Jay’s
thought’s within the hive.
“LIAR! SHE’S TURNED YOU AGAINST US!”
“NO!” Jay replied, “I just…”
His protests were too late; Amber had drawn her weapon and fired.
The bullet, piercing through the front of Alota’s chest, and out the other
side. Jay watched as she fell to the ground.
“NOOOOOOOOOOOO!” He yelled, he dropped to his knees and checked her pulse.
It was still there, but faint.
“STEP AWAY FROM THE CONSOLE OR YOUR NEXT!” Amber ordered.
Jay couldn’t follow that order. In a blind rage he leapt across the bridge,
diving at Amber sending her flying, she dropped her gun.
Jay grabbed it and aimed it at her. “Go on…” she said “Do it…let’s see if
you have the guts…”
Jay cocked the gun, his finger on the trigger. Amber had to be made to pay
for what she’d done to Alota.
Then it hit him. Amber was as innocent in this as he was, she’d been
manipulated into doing the bidding of an evil madman, just as he had been.
He flipped the gun over in his hand, so that he was holding it by the barrel
and swung it hard across the side of Amber’s head, pistol –whipping her so
hard it was sure to knock her out.
Amber fell to the ground, Jay reached around and removed the implant from
her neck and ran back to the control panel.
Amber was sure to have called in reinforcements so he had to be quick.
He stared at the console, taking it in to work out what he needed to do to
shut it off, when the ship was rocked by an explosion that knocked him off
his feet.
Through the window, he saw the Raven soar past, unloading high-yield
missiles.
”DAMMIT DEAN!” Jay muttered, as he got back to his feet, being knocked over
again a second time by another impact “You could have picked a better time
to get good!!”
He got clambered back up, and reached the panel once more.
The countdown had hit zero…
A flash of light shot out of the front of the Thorax. A blue flash, filled
Jay’s sight.
When the light faded, Earth was gone…in its place, chunks of debris
thundered past.
Jay stood, in stunned silence. He had destroyed his home.
Earth, was no more.
“These son’s of bitches are gonna pay for this…” he muttered to himself. Jay
ran across to Amber’s tactical console and entered the command for
self-destruct. Luckily, his fingerprint scans still counted for something.
He picked up Amber and threw her over his shoulder, then did the same with
Alota and walked into an escape pod.
The pod launched, and Jay radioed the Blue Dwarf to explain what had
happened. He also explained how when the Thorax, the hub of the hive
explodes, the Hymenoptera will take a while to adjust, they’d be disabled
for a short period, and the remaining Earth fleet should take that moment to
escape from the region.
He didn’t expect them to listen to a thing he said, but he continued to
explain how he had wounded Blue Dwarfers aboard.
He looked down at Alota, how now lay in his arms.
“Don’t blame yourself Jay..” she said weakly “Don’t go crazy ok?”
Jay nodded. Fighting the urge to cry.
“I love you…” he said
“I love you too…” Alota replied, she took a deep breath, then closed her
eyes.
And died.