Chapter 11 Jake walked the halls of the base, knowing it was almost time to storm his former home. "What am I doing? Nexus Central Command is the most fortified structure known. And I'm going to try to break in and take control? I must be crazy." Jake finished his walk at the hanger, and witnessed a humorous sight. Frag was trying to load the remaining supplies on his ship, but he was hopelessly overworked. Jake jogged over and propped his foot on one of the boxes, "Care for some help? Or do you think your stupidity is some twisted form of manliness?" Frag glared at Jake, but didn't say anything. Jake shrugged and laughed, carrying the last few crates on the ship. Meanwhile, Mac had set up his computers aboard the ship. "I'm almost done analyzing the data I received from Jake. I just hope I can figure out what triggers the transformation. Jake would be a great asset if he were at full power." Mac continued to search through his data. Hours later, he finally found something. "What's this," Mac delved deeper into the information, then screamed out with such fury, he startled both Jake and Frag. Frag was the first to get there, so he was the first to ask what Mac was doing. "I have figured it out!" Jake soon stepped in the door, "Figured out what?" Mac cleared his throat, "I have figured out how you transform." Deep in space, Sean Fireclaw stood in the bridge of his ship. Looking out, he saw only one planet. He smiled evilly as he scanned the surface of this lone planet, "My, my. This is a lovely place to hide. I shall bring those fugitives to justice, and become a Supreme Guardian. My lifelong dream will come true, and I will prove I am the greatest Guardian to ever live!" With that, he motioned to the planet and began his ship's decent. "I said, I figured out how you transform, Jake. Is it so hard to think that I could figure out something so basic?" Jake began to answer, but was stopped short as he heard sirens. Mac and Frag both jumped up and ran to the view-screens. "Incoming enemy ship of an unknown type!" Frag pointed at Jake, "Get to the base's main guns, we need to shoot that thing down!" Turning on his heel, Jake ran at full speed to the guns. As soon as he got targeting data, he opened fire... On the bridge of the incoming ship, Sean fell back as his ship took heavy damage. "Those guns can't be from this world, they are passing right through my Vortex shields! That must be the pirate base!" Taking the controls to his own guns, Sean returned fire... "Frag, we're taking heavy fire, that's a Guardian-class ship. We'll have to use more than the guns to take it down." Jake's control panel gained some new controls as Frag moved it to gun/missile mode. "Right! TAKE THIS!" Slapping a trigger on the control stick launched a volley of rockets at the incoming ship... Sean was so busy trying to pinpoint the enemy base; he didn't notice the incoming rockets. In fact, he didn't notice them until they had already ripped the hull of his ship to pieces. "Hull integrity 30%, shields at 0, weapons are barely functioning, and I still don't know where their base is! Computer, track the path of all laser blasts and rockets, give me a central point. When you're done with that, point the ship there!" Jake saw the incoming ship turn slightly and head straight for him, "Frag, that thing's gonna hit us! Will it do much damage?" Hitting the COM switch, Frag answered, "Oh, it'll only destroy 50% of the ship, nothing much! Got anymore rockets kid?" Jake would have said something about the 'kid' remark, but now was not the time. He was out of rockets, and his laser shots were not going to do enough damage. He then remembered that GUN was in his hip holster. "Guys, I've got an idea." Standing on the hull of the ship, Jake looked over to Mac, "Do you think I can fire this thing without killing us?" Mac shook his head, "Nope, not in this form. But the blast is focused, so if you can hold it steady, it will hit only what you aim at. The problem is that is a bigger 'if' than we need right now." Jake took a deep breath and centered the sight on the incoming ship, "Mac, get back in the ship, I'm gonna try this." Sean noticed something on the hull of the ship below him, increasing the magnification showed that it was a man. Further magnification showed that it was Jake, "Well, the fool thinks he can fight me? I'll let him die in the flames of the inferno. Wait, is that a GUN unit he's holding? IF THAT THING HITS, I'M HISTORY!" Jake took in another deep breath and held it, centering the sights of his weapon on the incoming ship, he slowly let the air out of his lungs and proceeded to slowly pull the trigger. Inside the weapon, the trigger's movement caused a round to move from the clip to the barrel. The turbines built into the barrel began to rotate at a high rate, ionizing the inside of the shell as it passed by each turbine. By the time the bullet had reached the end of the barrel, its power had been amplified a hundred times. This was a hundred times on top of an anti-matter round reinforced with a small Vortex crystal core. The bullet left the end of the weapon followed by a massive trail of accelerated particles created from the ionization of the turbines, giving it the appearance of a massive energy bolt. Sean looked down and saw the coming energy beam and exclaimed, "THAT SHELL IS HEADED RIGHT FOR ME! I'M GONNA HAVE TO BAIL!" Looking frantically, Sean managed to find the cockpit escape hatch release. Smashing the glass around the button, he felt the pressurized air around him vent quickly in the thinner air of the planet. Without thinking further, Sean leapt through the doorway and began to plummet to the ground. Jake watched in awe as his weapon hit. The anti-matter inside the shell detonated, disintegrating most of the ship, then the ionized crystal shattered. The influx of power into the dimension created a black hole like gravitational vacuum, sucking in the remainder of the ship.