Rigel Rising

Stage 7- Blood and Eyes

"Power down! I repeat, power down! Power failure at all sections! We are losing thrust! Captain!"

But I shook my head at Trey and look at the image of the reactor on my screen, slowly being activated with the reserves from the boosters, "Not yet! Just a bit more!"

"Imperial fleet escorts approaching! Weapons systems offline! We will not be able to ward those cosmo armors off! Numbers, three hundred!" Mariana screamed as a huge swarm of red blips is fast approaching our position, "Estimated time of arrival, less than a minute!"

"Standby! Cailee, prepare to divert all weapons power to the Panthera once the reactor is online. Candice, you hold the trigger! Target: First Fleet of the Imperial Space Armada!" I ordered as the two siblings nodded quickly and began their preparations in advance as I look at Drew who is steeling himself for the worse, "Drew, maintain the ship's stability and deploy the gravity anchors! Point our ship at the center of their fleet and don't move an inch!"

"Aye, aye, captain!"

Trey suddenly gasped and I am sure something miraculous happened, "Gravitational perpetual motion reactor online! Powering all systems now! All connections clear! Energy indicators all in the green!"

Suddenly I felt as if my heart is being crushed and I am slowly losing my consciousness.

No.

Not now!

"Captain, are you all right?!" Mariana asked as I nodded quickly and bit my lip to force myself awake, "Your eyes! They're..."

"I know! Now, Mariana, pass all targeting controls to Cailee. Cailee, activate the Panthera, now!"

The fire control systems officer followed my orders and began activating the last-ditch weapon of the ship, "Diverting all weapons power to Panthera. Heat sinks stable, gravity condenser online! Disengaging limiters and dampeners, opening the hull, releasing the gun barrel! Final safeties cleared, Candice!"

"Give me the trigger, sis! Target: First Fleet of the Imperial Space Armada! Heck, I don't even know what I will be firing right now but if we can sink down at least one ship then that's good enough! Captain Caerus?!"

I gasped as I tried to catch my breath and grasped my chest in pain, "Panthera Gravity Cannon commence discharging!"

"Panthera discharge!"

After Candice screamed, a huge dark gravitational energy erupted from the barrel of the Rigel's huge gun in an awe-inspiring wave, no, a tsunami of destructive energy that destroyed all the cosmo armors heading for us, and then it reached the entire fleet of the empire and what happened will forever be etched in my memory for my entire existence.

When the gravitational wave hit the ships of the enemies, they exploded violently at the same time until nothing was left from the hundreds upon hundreds of the First Fleet of the Imperial Space Armada are wiped out completely and nothing, no one, was left.

"Heat sinks melting! Backlash energy is now tearing our hull to pieces! The automated repair cannot keep up with the damage it is sustaining. Hull integrity failing!" Trey screamed as everything on his screen became red.

"I'm losing control of the ship! Propulsion and thrusters not responding! Main engine power fluctuating rapidly!" Drew reported as he cursed at his seat.

Mariana screamed when she heard reports from our damage control teams, "Internal circuitries are going haywire! Our damage control teams reported a hull breach in the lower decks! Sealing bulkheads! We cannot reach the damaged compartment because of the excess gravitational energy around the ship preventing us from performing external repairs!"

"Oh goodness, gracious! Cailee! Come here! Help me with Caerus! Hey, don't go dying on us you fool! Answer me damn it!" she then slapped me repeatedly but my body is no longer responding to my brain. I just lie there in her arms wide-eyed and unresponsive, "Call the medical team! We need them here now!"

"I will go there myself, sis! Direct communications are not working! Well, it's either Rigel sinks first or our captains dies before that, goodness, I'd rather not choose!" Cailee cried out as she left the bridge and slowly, my eyes dimmed, and maybe, this is the end for me as well.

At least I can meet you all, Katarina, Jana, Cairyn, and Pyotr.

Hey, at least I managed to captain a ship as well, everyone.

Can you praise me for a job well done like you always did?

-0-

"How long has it been?"

"A week and a day to be exact."

"Rigel and our captain are in the same state, drifting away aimlessly. Well, I guess with the reactor being natively stealthy, we have successfully evaded scouting parties."

"Kind of odd, right? I mean this is a floating hunk around four hundred meters long give or take. They should've detected us easily."

"Well, it helped that the hull is painted black and with the engines silent, we can just sort of blend in."

"That and the tungsten armor has an added capability to fool external cameras so even if they search for us manually, they wouldn't find a thing."

"To the empire, we are just another of the floating space debris from the last battle."

"Welp, it has been more than a week and I still can't process what happened. I even dreamed of it several times."

"I know, right? If I knew something like that will happen, I will think twice when pulling the trigger."

"Nah, you would've pulled it still no questions asked, sis. It's that or we are dead. The choice was all too clear."

"Well, yes. But gosh, I never expected that kind of destruction! The Panthera truly is a weapon of mass destruction."

"I heard rumors before I was recruited aboard this ship that the Rigel is mothballed, not because it is is a used old piece of malfunctioning testbed prototype, but because the king himself feared it."

"He has a valid reason to be afraid. We destroyed an entire fleet in a blink of an eye. In less than a minute."

"As if we didn't go unscathed. If not for our captain diverting the excess energy of the gravitational perpetual motion reactor to the Clowders before he lost consciousness, we have exploded right there and then. Not to mention we have melted not just the heat sinks, but the gun barrel itself. The armor took almost a week to repair even with manual labor."

"If the imperials returned with reinforcement, we would've been finished."

"Yes. But thankfully, they haven't and we managed to do some repairs. Though we wouldn't be using the Panthera anytime soon. Forget the barrel and heat sinks, we fried the circuitry and it is not responding to reboot sequences."

"And the other weapons?"

"No worries, they are offline when we activated the gravity gun so they were spared from the emp effect."

"That's good. Once he woke up, we will know what to do."

"Yeah. But really, his eyes back then, what the heck is that?"

"To be honest, it scared the living soul out of me. It was like his pupils shrank and the irises grew exponentially. Like his eyes became a big black void of nothingness."

"That and he seemed to be grasping his chest and can't seem to breathe properly. Like he is in severe pain or something. It is horrible to watch."

I heard a door opened and footsteps followed, "I can hear your voices outside, please refrain from speaking loudly. This is the infirmary, you know?"

"Sorry, doctor. So how's our captain?"

"Well, he is physically better now but I don't know about his mental status. Though I have personal knowledge of Irradiateds like him, this ship is not equipped to take care of someone like that."

"Wait, what? Irradiated?"

"By the king's name, Irradiated!"

"Well, the eyes explained it, eh, sis?"

"Yes, but what are the odds of our captain being one of them?"

"They are treated near-mythical status. I never knew they are real and not just rumors or pseudo-scientific hearsays."

"Oh yes, they are very real. In the medical and scientific world, they exist flesh and blood. Humans who are gifted with the capability to exceed physical and mental limits."

"So our captain is the mental type?"

"I am inclined to agree with that. If I am going to base my conclusion on your reports on what happened back at the bridge, it seemed to me that he unconsciously activated his abilities to activate the gravitational perpetual motion reactor when no one was able to do it. That and he exhibited superior command skills and foresight on an occasion when even the most seasoned captains will buckle under pressure."

"You got that right. I was there about to s**t myself when I saw hundreds upon hundreds of imperial ships bearing down on us but he just kept his cool and proceed to decimate them all in a blink of an eye! I would've called it hogwash if I was not there to see it for myself!"

"Doctor, what are the other capabilities of Irradiateds?"

"They differ greatly. On normal occasions, some exhibit inhuman strength, extreme mental aptitude, and superior fortitude. Even without exceeding their limits, Irradiateds truly stand out from the rest of us mere mortals."

"What about Caerus?"

"I noticed during our battle against the Hella and Baal, he can immediately adapt easily and formulate counterattacks on the fly. For someone who is not trained to be a captain on a ship he barely knows, he really is something else."

"I know, right? I also remembered how he absorbed the tactics of our enemies and used them against them right there and then. No matter how good your grades are back at the academy, you wouldn't be able to do such a thing without gaining experience in real battles first and as far as I know, that is his first stint as a captain."

"Though I have met a handful of Irradiateds back in my days at the Royal Research and Development, I never encountered someone like him who's abilities are directed to battle strategy."

"What are the abilities of the other Irradiateds you've met, doctor, and how many are they?"

"Oh, there are only really painfully few Irradiateds in the kingdom. Actually, there are only five of them registered, however, I never saw his name on the list. He belongs to those who are either in hiding or with latent capabilities he didn't know himself. As early as last year, we have put the numbers of Irradiateds in Reginald to less than ten, known or not. The empire, with its sheer population by the billions, may have several of them. One possesses incredible physical capabilities. One is a musical genius, the other, a scientific prodigy and the rest are excelling in the fields of architecture and engineering."

"But he seemed to be in pain when his eyes turned to something more than a human's. Is it because he is using his abilities to its limits?"

"Oh, yes. That is the price the Irradiateds must pay if they want to exceed their limits. By pushing their abilities to their maximum, they are also pushing their physical safety to near-death situations. It differs with their kinds but I've seen some who experiences unbearable migraine to the point of a mental shutdown, in his case, I detected signs of heart failure. If he didn't lose consciousness, he would've died back then."

Finally, I've got the strength to open my eyes, and true enough, I saw my four companions on the bridge sitting around my bed while talking to the doctor and nurse.

"Oh, good, you are awake, captain," the doctor quickly said as he noticed the increase of my body temperature on his medical monitor, "Are you feeling uncomfortable or in any pain?"

I took a deep breath and suddenly I winced painfully when my chest produced an unbearable sensation I cannot even begin to comprehend, "Yeah, my chest. It hurts a lot."

"I knew it. Hold on, we are going to administer muscle relaxants. This might sting a little so please bear it."

I rolled my eyes in pain as the nurse prepared the syringe, "Please hurry."

"On it."

And they weren't kidding when they said it will sting because it stings like hell on my arm.

But in less than a minute, the pain in my chest slowly faded away and I managed to breathe in deeply without a problem.

Drew looked at me carefully before speaking, "How are you, captain?"

"Still calling me captain, eh?"

"Well, nobody voted you out, that's for sure," he answered matter-of-factly that made Mariana giggle a little.

"I for one am relieved to see you back to normal. Especially your eyes, Captain Caerus."

I gulped and avoided her gaze, "Yeah, sorry that you have to see that. It's not something I am proud of."

"Well, those eyes are the sign that you saved us all from total annihilation," Trey interjected quickly, "If not for you, we would've died right there and then."

But I shook my head and bit my lip as I tried to hold back my tears, "I want to hide it, preferably forever, but with me on the captain's seat, it will only be a matter of time before everyone found out that I am an Irradiated."

"I wouldn't blame you for trying to hide it. From what Candice and I learned, Irradiateds in the kingdom are feared, exploited, or shunned at the very least," the fire control systems officer said sadly as she looked at her pensive sister, "You are looking at the syringe, sis. Oh, I see, you bitch."

I knew Candice is only joking but what she is thinking is true, "If you want, I can give you some of my blood, Candice."

"Oh, please. I will retire early if you do! A drop costs several millions already! I overheard from a drunk scientist homelander when we were down at Regus that a single drop of blood from an Irradiated is enough to send anyone to a financially secure early retirement!" she said excitedly but I saw in her eyes the pity when she looked at me.

She and her sister understand on a personal level what it feels like to be rejected and shunned by the public just because of who you are.

"A few million?!" Mariana gasped and the nurse giggled a little before answering.

"Yes, Mariana and that's the lowest price. Some pharmaceutical companies offer a couple of hundreds sometimes. Irradiated blood is very rare and valuable. Why studying their plasma composition alone leads the kingdom to several medical breakthroughs and medicine creations."

Trey sat down again beside me before looking at me from head to foot and shrugging his shoulders as if to say that I didn't look that different, "Well, eyes aside and being awfully underweight, I don't see anything worth noting about our captain. What are Irradiateds anyways and where did they come from?”