The Maintenance Man another repair 4

Mark’s anger hadn’t dampened the least bit, he could feel the heat of it coursing through his body.
Walking out of the make shift control/war room, Mark went through his bag finding his comp. Activating it he
waited for a few minutes till the face of the Imperial Space force leader appeared on it.
“How close are you,” Mark asked tight lipped, “We managed to take out 241 ships including 2 of their command
ships, thing is, from what I’ve seen, they have well over 20,000 ships out there.”
Pounding his fist on the desk the Space force leader replied, “20,000? Damn it! They are committing their whole
damn fleet. They must feel awful confident to come in full force like this. We have a small contingent coming
your way but it will be tomorrow till they arrive, can you hold out that long?”
“Yes, we’ve managed to move almost all the populace close to the center cities, but they still managed to
capture a man.” Almost in a whisper Mark continued, “I won’t allow this to happen again.”


The Space leader knew the look Mark had on his face, he’d seen it on the faces of many under his
command. “It’s never easy to lose anyone, the only thing you can do is to punish those that committed the
atrocities.”
Mark was nodding not really paying attention to the leader.
More to himself than the leader Mark started to talk, “Yes, he’s right, they have to be punished everyone of
them, I have to eradicate them all, like the insects that they are.”
The leader shook his head he was afraid that Mark might go to far and actually try to eradicate the entire
race. “Mark you need to think about this, you can’t commit genocide. The Imperial rights league would be
clamoring for your head, besides,” the leader said changing tactics, “you want to be around to raise those
children, you want them to look up to you and not be ashamed.”
Thankfully the remark had the desired effect snapping Mark back to reality.


Shaking his head Mark looked at the leader and nodded his head toward him, “Thank you, we’ll await your
arrival.”
Though there were no more incidents that day Mark made sure everyone was out of the outer cities before the
imminent collapse of the other outer shield grids. Half the day was gone when the alarms went off to let Mark
know that 10 more sectors had gone down. Mark watched as the Styrox came gliding in this time he was ready for
them destroying 10 ships before they were even near the ground. The rest of the descending ships opened fire
haphazardly, destroying everything in sight. Mark smiled again as he destroyed another 10 ships causing the
Styrox to retreat for a few minutes. Finally they were able to land, the Styrox began scanning the debris, Mark
could see that they were disappointed. Almost 10 minutes later they started to leave, once again Mark picked
off another 10 ships before they were airborne, then gone.


An hour later the fleet began to bombard the shields again, Mark had been able to adjust the shields
again. When they started to hit the shields again they were soon surprised that the shields were once again
more stable. Mark and the others tried to get some sleep, though it was difficult with the constant percussion
of the Styrox blasts striking the shields. Early the next morning Mark was making another round of the systems
when another 5 shield grids went down, they were almost down to those around the center cities now. Well over
half the planet was now exposed, a lot of it now smoldering wastelands from the constant energy weapons.
The sun began to rise, as the start of the ninth day of the planetary siege also started. Mark was walking the
hallways when an alarm went off on his comp.


Quickly quieting it, Mark could see the Imperial forces dropping out of hyper drive. A huge smile lit
his face as the first 100 ships on the back side of the planet exploded into nothing. Ah! Good they had
improved the energy cannons like he’d instructed, Mark watched as another 100 ships were destroyed before the
Styrox started to retaliate. Mark went over all the data he received, damn! They’d only gotten a portion of the
fleet ready, from what he saw they only had about 1500 ships this was going to be a long fight. As the battle
raged on Mark saw that the Imperial fleet was much better prepared, but the Styrox weren’t going to go away
that easily. 2 hours later the Styrox had lost 800 ships and partly retreated, the Imperial fleet had lost
around 500, Mark started looking into ways to improve the odds better.


The Imperial Leader called from his command ship, “Damn it Mark! I was hoping that your improvements
would have helped more.”
“They will, I need to send the fleet here, more updates, it appears that Tantka was able to decipher part of
the shields energy matrix that the ships have, after this I don’t think you’ll have as much trouble,” Mark
inserted confidently.
“Alright,” The leader said, “I’ve never seen anyone correct their mistakes as fast as you, we’ll wait a day to
do this, that way more will be able to join us.”
Mark started the uploads as fast as he could, afraid to widely broadcast it fearing Tantka might get it and
decipher more.