Six Alien Ships: Shadow

Tom had tasked himself with taking down the Vinto ship that hovered invisibly above London. As he tore through the ship however he began to notice that he was never attacked from behind, and only ever from the front. However, he chose to ignore this fact and focus on getting to the engine room in order to destroy the ship.

Always a corridor behind him, a small red haired girl of about seven years of age followed closely enough to help, while far enough back to not be seen. Two years following her murder of Jackie, Connie had matured more than any seven year old should have. She took over her group of runaways after their previous leader had been arrested for a murder she did not commit, and she researched and discovered the entire history of the protectors from both the memories she had absorbed and from the books in the various libraries that subtly hinted at various protectors’ involvement in the shaping of human history in order to make them far more favourable to them in the present day.

As she had grown and taken control of the group, she cut her normally long ginger hair to be short and tidy in order to best minimise grabibility risks that accompanied her long hair, as well as to mask her identity after she killed two people and left a third with no left arm following a failed kidnapping attempt. Not that it would help if anyone remembered her deep red eyes, although she was both relieved and shocked to discover that the NCIS special agent in charge of the murder cases had written them off as just tricks of the light from the fire.

As she turned the corner after her father, around five soldiers came running down the corridor to her left, their guns drawn and firing. Sighing to herself, she jumped backwards and hid behind a makeshift barricade that the Vinto had created in the hopes that it would protect them from Tom. Unfortunately, it didn’t help them in any way, shape or form.

Shaking her head, she sat up and grabbed the Vinto who was coming around the barricade to try and catch her at gunpoint, instead he had his brain fried and his weapon stolen. Bursting a water pipe close to where the soldiers were using Jackie’s ability to control water that she had taken after killing her, Connie stood and exited her cover and used the distraction to shoot down each of the soldiers before any of them had time to react. Once the final soldier hit the ground, she discarded the gun and moved on down the curved corridor, following the trail of death and destruction left in her father’s wake.

She didn’t have much interaction with the Vinto between her previous encounter and the engine room, with the exception of a couple stragglers who had managed to barely survivor the attack. None of them survived the second.

The engine room was in stark contrast to the rest of the ship, instead of being pure white and uneasily peaceful, the room was various shades of dark grey and had mismatched panels that encompassed the room in a large dome that peaked at the top of the anti-gravity engine. In the middle of the room was the control console that allowed manual alterations to the counterthrust that was used to counteract the effects of gravity upon the ship. Tom was stood next to the console, but wasn’t altering it, instead he was staring across the room at the young brown haired girl with a freaky red eye that creeped even Connie out, despite the fact that she looked at red eyes every time she looked in a mirror.

            ‘What is wrong with her?’ Connie whispered as she appeared to wince. The Vinto beside her moved to help her but was waved off.

            ‘You and your sister made a huge mistake doing what you did,’ Tom warned. ‘You can barely fight off the monster within, let alone fight those of us with far more practice at this than you do.’

            ‘You. Are. Wrong!’ the Vinto exclaimed. ‘I can fight you and this monster all day if I have to! I will not lose to you!’

            ‘So you really believe that your brain can take two attacks simultaneously?’ Tom questioned as he placed his hand on the console and began to change the settings so that the ship would be propelled northwards towards the English Channel where it would suddenly lose all thrust and fall into the ocean and sink.

Whilst ensuring that the craft couldn’t have a last minute course alterations, he entered a series of Zoombian coding phrases that attacked and destroyed the entire Vinto operating system. All while continuing his mental battle with Amanda who was attempting to push out against both Tom and the deity.

            ‘Marcus, when she goes unconscious, you need to get her off or this ship will be trapped in a time loop like Lisa’s,’ Tom warned. ‘I’ve given you enough time to evacuate the entire ship before it sinks, so please, take my advice and get everyone to run.’

Connie meanwhile missed the entire conversation between her father and the Vintos after an attack squad came at her and tried to shoot her in the back of the head. Instead they all ended up with their brains being fried and their chests being shot to hell as they tried to shoot Connie. When she turned back she saw Amanda slump to the ground and Tom finish the final section of code that would ensure that the ship would meet its untimely end.

Shocking her completely, he then turned and ran at superhuman speeds, leaving the two Vintos to meet what Connie thought to be a watery death, unaware of what Tom had told them. Unable to shake the complete and utter shattering of her mental image of her father, Connie made up her mind and ran, taking out what few Vinto remained in her way if they tried to attack her. She managed to make it to the hanger bay as the carrier began to move out of the English Channel. Once she was sure the water was deep enough, she jumped out of the ship and dived into the water, willing it partly rise up to meet her halfway in the hopes of lessening the pain.

To her surprise, she felt nothing as she struck the water, and instead found that she appeared to partially merge with the water, allowing her to move quicker than any human could as she swam towards the Devonshire shore, almost completely sure that she would not interfere with the Protectors’ operations again.

Meanwhile, on board the ship, Tom stopped and absorbed the life force of a Vinto that was running at him with a sword. He thought to himself, They aren’t going to run… He then turned and ran back to the grav control room and grabbed Marcus and Amanda and dragged them to the teleporter in order to get them off the ship moments before the ship struck the water, thus allowing the ship to be destroyed without destroy the Universe along with it.

After arriving on the new ship, Tom noticed that it wasn’t the central Vinto mothership that hovered close to the moon, which caused him to begin pretending to be one of the Vinto while also subtly rendering Marcus unconscious.