“Peter,” came Maia’s voice, echoing inside his head.
“Peter, AssMachenstan is toying with us. They’re
not even using magic.”
“And yet they’re still whooping our asses,” said
Peter. He dodged a purple energy beam from an enemy ship. “Maia, have you felt
their minds?”
“Yes. No. I’m not sure. They all seem to… not be
thinking.”
“They’re all in tune, somehow,” said Peter, maneuvering
his ship around to get a better view of the battle scene. “At least as far as
emotions go, they’re all feeling the same
exact thing.”
“You can feel all
of—?”
“Yeah,” Peter interrupted. “Something in me just
kind of snapped. But Maia, listen. I need you to psychically amplify my
emotions.” An enormous explosion, and the seventh wing of the Platinum was
blown apart. Peter quickly told Maia exactly what she needed to do, and a
minute later he was flying into the thick of battle.
“Alright,” he said, releasing the controls and
closing his eyes. “Let’s see if this works.”
Despite the laser beams, energy blasts, spaceship shrapnel
and careening space crafts, Peter slouched into his seat and shut everything
out.
He focused on what he felt. A brave soldier 200
meters above him… A determined pilot below… A dozen terrified soldiers dodging
beams all around him… The focus and zeal of every AssMachenstani…
Eyes closed, Peter selected what he needed, and let
his emotions expand. Out from his mind… through his hands… onto the glass windshield
of his StellarFighter… out through space… out into one soldier… two soldiers…
five soldiers… twenty soldiers… He felt every one of them as he made contact,
flooded them… Replaced their own emotions with his…
Peter opened his eyes. “Now it’s your turn,
AssMachenstan.”
A second later, every AssMachenstani was overcome
with an inexplicable wave of blind terror, and every Foggistani filled with a
surge of courage and an irresistible urge to kick ass. “Kill them all!” Maia yelled into their minds, and in mere seconds,
the tides of battle shifted.
The AssMachenstani fleet lost all coordination; exploding
left and right, they shot the wrong ships, smashed into each other, fled into
the darkness of space—they were lost in pandemonium while the Foggistani forces
attacked, pushed them back, pushed them away.
“We’re doing it!” cried Peter. “We’re winning!”
Hardly five minutes had passed before every
AssMachenstani ship had fled beyond the Platinum’s airspace and out of reach of
Peter’s influence. Yet as soon as they escaped Peter’s hold, Maia noticed they
redirected, all in perfect coordination, away from the Platinum and, contrary
to what she expected from a retreat, resumed their route towards Coralende.
“You seeing that, Peter?”
“The spell’s been broken. They’re moving like a swarm
again,” he said, noticing the individual jets of light from the enemy
spaceships above him shift at oblique angles as soon as they left his influence
to merge into a single, cohesive fleet headed straight for Coralende.
The AssMachenstani coordination was impeccable, but
there was nothing Maia and Peter could do from such a distance to stop them.
“Peter, that was incredible,” said Maia.
Peter smiled. That had been pretty awesome.
“All forces, return to the Platinum,” came Maia’s
voice. Peter veered his StellarFigher around with the remaining survivors, and
sighed upon sight of the Platinum. The ship was in a pretty sorry state. Still,
the crew had evidently done a good job at keeping the damaged areas in
isolation, as the fires on the sixth and seventh wings had not spread. “And Peter,”
Maia said, in Peter’s mind only. “Meet me as soon as you can on Bridge C. You
and I have got to explore Styx as soon as possible.”
Peter unconsciously touched the burn mark on his
chest, the little souvenir left behind by Latvia’s quilaire. It seemed he
wouldn’t be seeing Latvia for quite some time.
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