(Author’s Note: Special thanks to OHH for writing a good chunk, or nearly all of this chapter. Though I have about 1500 words in there, OHH is the creative mind behind this showdown. Also thanks DX for the edit.)

The crowd in Vorsha Grand Arena was crackling with life, as the two combatants took their position. The challenger, PuppetMaster had entered to a mix of cheers and jeers, but she had seemed ready for them, and she was egging the crowd on. The champion, Iron Maiden, remained placid as always, her eyes focused on her opponent – or at least, that was the direction her head faced.

The Emperor had taken his seat along with his wife; they were joined by a retinue of luminaries in the Imperial Box – among them Floor Leader Xeum Agace; Anax Syte Fath, the leader of Vorsha’s provincial government; and Imperial Senator, socialite and media darling Pryvani Tarsuss, who appeared to have brought a human along, or maybe two – it was hard to tell from a distance. Of course, pets weren’t allowed in the arena, but the rules generally didn’t apply to Pryvani Tarsuss.

“Your Imperial Highness, Madam Floor Leader, Anax Fath, distinguished Representatives and Senators, honored guests, and all Tol-Bot fans, here in the Grand Arena and around the Empire, it is time for the final!” The invisible announcer’s voice echoed around the arena, and the crowd grew silent in anticipation. Indeed, as if sensing it, the announcer waited a beat, before declaring, “Tonight’s Grand Tribute will be a Cataclysm Showdown!”

A roar erupted from the crowd unlike any that Darren had heard before. They were ecstatic. Darren looked across the empty combat area to his armor-clad opponent. If she was as nervous as he was, she wasn’t showing it; a slight quirk of her head was the only sign she had even heard the announcement.

A Cataclysm Showdown. They would play all four rounds played at once. It was the toughest Tol-Bot scenario any player could face. And he would face it against the toughest player Tol-Bot had to offer.

The announcer waited for the crowd to quiet, and began to explain. “In 2112 relations with our neighbors, the Insectoids, have all but collapsed. Sensing weakness they strike at a gem they have been eying for over one thousand years: Earth!” The announcer continued and the crowd muttered, gasped and cheered. “They send an invasion fleet, but before they can secure their prize they must first defeat the garrison at Titan Station.”

Darren’s console and the arena lit up simultaneously. Glowing huge was Saturn in the center of the arena, surrounded by its moons. The camera panned and zoomed in on Titan and a small battle group in orbit.

“The brave Titan defenders must hold out for reinforcements from Gama and Beta fleets, which are en route at high speed – but they won’t arrive for thirty six hours!” The announcer shouted and the clock lit up.

Darren’s eyes narrowed. Then they opened. Wide. Very wide. In the distance a green glow appeared. At first Darren thought it was a cloud or a nebula but it wasn’t. It was worse. Far worse.

“The Insectoid invasion fleet! Thousands upon thousands of ships carried by one, enormous hive ship, determined to strip Sol Earth bare and bring its riches back to their hive!” The announcer shouted to applause.

“Playing as the brave Titan defenders, our challenger, The PuppetMaster!” Eyrn waved as her name was called and the audience roared. This time, the cheers outnumbered the jeers by a significant margin.

“And as the Insectoids, the five-time champion, the four-time defending champion, Iron Maiden!”

The applause was deafening. Tens of thousands of Titans clapped their hands wildly and stomped their feet.

“All PuppetMaster must do to win and secure her first title is to keep Titan Station from being destroyed before reinforcements arrive in thirty-six hours. For Iron Maiden to win, she must conquer Titan Station before the clock runs out. Once the clock starts there will no breaks and it will not stop until we have a winner. This is a Cataclysm Showdown. There will be no fifth round. The players have two minutes to review their forces and to form a battle plan. Let them 2102 Tol-Bot Grand Tribute Final commence!” The announcer finished and a claxon sounded.

Darren’s eyes flicked wildly around his forces. In orbit of Titan was a small carrier group, nothing huge; one carrier, a couple of cruisers, some destroyers, frigates and a Kuklopes class vessel bearing the identification code KKV-04. Darren chuckled to himself, it was the Gyfjon. He wanted more given the armada Iron Maiden possessed. There were orbital defense batteries dotted in clusters over the moon. Batteries on the ground pointing skyward and then there was Titan Station itself. It was heavily shielded and heavily armed. But it was nothing in comparison to the swarm that was approaching.

“This ain’t gonna be easy…” Darren spat.

“You don’t think you can win?” Eyrn asked.

Darren shook his head. “I ain’t s’posed to. Don’t ya ever listen Twat? All I gotta do is not lose.” Darren grinned back at Eyrn, though behind his silly grin Eyrn saw the look of a man who was pressed to the ropes.

“What are you gonna do?”

“I’m gonna fight. I’m gonna give her hell is what I’m gonna do.” Darrren grinned. “Cut my strings.”

“Sarge?” Eyrn asked, puzzled.

“I can’t have them holding me back. Can’t wait for you to move me – even as fast as you do. I’m gonna need to be quick. Cut my strings and take a step back,” he said, looking up to Eyrn.

She pulled each string one by one until they were all snapped, and then took a step back.

“No matter what, no matter how tired I get you can’t step in. Then we’re cheatin’,” Darren reminded her.

Eyrn nodded. “You got it, Sarge.”

Darren smiled. “Thanks Eyrn…for havin’ my back.”

“Yeayea, thank me after you win!” Eyrn waved her hand dismissively, but she couldn’t hold back her smile.

Darren started to press at the oversized controls, positioning his forces. One advantage he had was that he was defending an entrenched positon, but he did have to watch his back door. He pulled his carrier, a cruiser and some destroyers to the opposite side of the moon. Titan Station itself was facing the oncoming force. A direct assault was almost a certainty.

He tapped at the controls some more and placed the station on the highest level of alert. He closed the civilian compartments and locked them down. There were some civilian ships in the docking bays…he smiled. He had a secret weapon. One he didn’t think the Titans would consider. He placed his anti-air batteries on the peaks of hills and placed his naval units in fjords, hoping to keep them in reserve. He had a limited number of Mobile Infantry to utilize, however they would prove all but useless against a heavy air assault.

He rushed to position his units in the minimal time he had but the seconds ticked down too quickly and a loud klaxon followed by the cheering crowd signaled the beginning of the match.

Iron Maiden wasted no time. A section of the swarm containing thousands of ships broke off and surged towards Darren’s ships in orbit above the station. The swarm seemed to move as if it were fluid, like a flock of swallows performing its evening dance. Darren turned his ships to face the oncoming horde, ordering them to hold fire until the last second. He launched ten of his twenty fighter squadrons from Titan Station to reinforce his fleet.

He watched the readouts on his board, his foot hovering over the “execute” button.

“Just a few more seconds…” He muttered as the swarm rushed and banked and swirled towards his ships.

“Fire!” he yelled and stomped his foot.

The ships opened up in unison. Hundreds of rounds left their guns and then detonated just ahead of the swarm. The Insectoid ships, while numerous, were not shielded. Keeping the occupants alive had not been a design consideration. Darren set his sights firmly on the cloud of flack, adjusting its position as Iron Maiden prodded for a way through. Every now and then a ship would breach the wall, only to be picked off by Darren’s fighters but there was a bigger problem developing.

The flak wall had been six thousand units from his fleet. After only fifteen minutes it was three thousand units from his ships. Darren gritted his teeth. He knew he needed to hold out in orbit much longer if he was going to make thirty-six hours. He recalculated the flak walls, varying intensity, allowing more ships to be drawn in before taking them out and pushing them back but it was no use. He kept it up for an hour before they were on him and his initial defenses were broken. His fighters fought valiantly and he spread his fleet out, hoping to allow them to cover one another, but there were simply too many of the corvette-sized ships and his fleet was soon in pieces.

He pulled his fighters back into the atmosphere, waiting for the inevitable attack.

He watched his screens. He assumed she’d rush straight after them into the atmosphere, Iron Maiden was famed for her aggression, but she did not. The Orbital defenses held off as best they could, with the fastest ship in the imperial fleet at his command, he may have had some sort of an advantage, had the Gyfjon been given the bulk to back her up. Still, she was an impressive ship and proved to be no easy target for the insectoid fleet to down. Her firepower was limited, as were her shielding capabilities, but she was maneuverable, a true striker, even in comparison to the insectoid swarm.

He was going to lose her, that was a mathematical inevitability, out gunned, out matched and outclassed, but he didn’t have to lose her in vein. Thinking quickly, Darren pulled the Gyfjon into low orbit, obscuring her from Iron Maidens sensors. The remaining orbital defenses were now easy pickings, a predictable move would have been to group them together and try to take out as much of the oncoming swarm as possible. That would be the safe, logical, titan thing to do. But Darren Avery was no titan.

Rather than continue to engage the swarm, Darren spread his forces thin in what appeared to be a scattering retreat. It wasn’t unheard of for the AI protocol’s to cause troops to ignore their controllers orders when commanded to do something foolish or suicidal. Titans were after all not kamikaze soldiers, they valued life, unlike their insectoid counterparts. Predictably Iron Maiden scattered her swarm to chase down the remaining enemy forces.

“Sorry Aerti…” Darren shook his head as he leapt across the board.

The Gyfjon arose from the murky clouds into high orbit, rounding the planet to engage a scattering cluster of Iron Maiden’s forces. The small group of 600 corvette sized ships scrambled to make formation against the much larger and stronger Kuklopes class vessel. The insectoids advantage was numbers, not strength. The Gyfjon took a pounding, alarm’s and warning klaxons went off all around Darren as her shields fell to 75%, then 50%, 33% and 15%.

“300…200….come on Aerti do this one for me!” Darren winced as the outnumbered ship danced around the insectoid swarm like a ballerina. Her struggle however in vein, with only a few dozen ships left, a second group engaged to reinforce first, and made short work of the damaged Gyfjon.

Darren frowned at what he was seeing. He had hoped she’d rush in quick but she was playing the long, patient game. Her forces moved in clear military formations across the atmosphere. Unlike him, she didn’t have full visibility of what was going on; her corvettes had limited sensor range. Four hours had passed while his carrier group sat in the upper atmosphere and took down any Insectoid ships that drew into range. They used the advantage of weapons range and visibility to dispatch them before repositioning to keep Iron Maiden second-guessing.

“What’cha gonna do tin woman? Play cat n mouse with my carrier or go for the main meal?”

He didn’t have to wait long for his answer. Most of the ships pulled into the atmosphere where they’d be harder to track. This is where it would get difficult. Hundreds of ships vanished from his scopes in every direction around the base and another thousand rushed into the atmosphere overhead. Darren brought his AA batteries online and set the firing priority based on a very specific formula and ordered his fighters to keep near the deck and to watch for ships at the perimeter.

It took a couple of minutes for the Insectoid ships to work their way through the thick, soupy, methane atmosphere, slowing from orbital velocity to one that was more suitable to flying. Darren started to count the second the first ship entered range. He waited and then waited some more. The timing needs to be perfect. There were now over one thousand ships plunging directly towards the station.

“Now!” he said and the ground based batteries opened up.

Darren really wished he could see the look on the face of his opponent rather than the unwavering steel helmet she wore. His AA batteries unleashed their high explosive rounds not into the oncoming swarm, but directly into the thick Titanian Atmosphere which Darren had used civilian tankers docked at the station to lace with oxygen, making it highly explosive and devastating to anything caught in it.

When the explosions stopped his scopes were clear. Aside from a few stragglers at the perimeter, there were no Insectoid ships in the atmosphere. The crowd roared on their feet, amazed at what was a totally unexpected move. Darren looked to his opponent who shifted her weight from one side to the other and set about reorganizing her forces. That was as much a hint of upset as she was going to let slip.

“That was amazing sarge! You kicked her ass!” Eyrn cheered from behind.

Darren paused and zoomed his sensors out to the Saturn area view. He’d destroyed about two thousand corvettes but Iron Maiden still had ten thousand left in reserve.

“Not yet I haven’t…” He said and started to reposition his forces for the inevitable second wave.

The next attack was sent simultaneously from the poles of Titan. It cost him half his fighters and a good chunk of his ships but he managed to take out the one thousand strong attack force.

Iron Maiden learned her lesson. She pulled her fleet back to the mother ship as it made its slow advance towards Titan. It was enormous, even by Titan standards. It was bigger than some planetoids in the Sol System – indeed, bigger than Hyperion, Titan’s nearest neighbor. It was awe-inspiring, but it moved awkwardly as it attempted to gain orbit.

The armor-clad woman continued to poke and prod at Darren’s defenses. Small formations attacked from all angles. They looked for any weakness in his perimeter defenses and tried to find his carrier group on the far side of Titan. Darren fought them off but as the minutes ticked into hours he knew his reactions would eventually start to slow down. For Iron Maiden, thirty six hours was a working day. For him it was well through his natural waking period. And Iron Maiden knew this and seemed more than happy to use it for her advantage.

Her mothership slowly sidled into orbit and as it did Darren’s sensors went offline. She was jamming him. Now he’d lost one of the few advantages he had.

He waited for the next onslaught. He waited and he waited and he waited. And then he waited more.

Darren looked up from his scopes to Iron Maiden. She stood behind her controls, hands on the console but not moving. She just stared at him across the arena, motionless, like a robot that had powered down.

It took him thirty minutes or so to realize what she was doing. The clock read fifteen hours remaining and she hadn’t made a move in an hour. She was waiting for him to crack. She had failed to break his defenses so she would wait for his human frailties to do the job for her.

“C’mon sweetheart…don’t leave me hanging.” Darren muttered and sent a squadron of fighters up into the atmosphere.

He got a quick reading of the full swarm of eight thousand ships and the behemoth of a mother ship before they were destroyed but she still didn’t move.

“Well if she ain’t moving…”

Darren couldn’t see his opponent’s fleet but he knew she couldn’t see his either. He sent up the oxygen tanker again and again, lacing the atmosphere ready for the swarm. It was a one shot trick but he’d need every advantage he could get. He repositioned his surface forces and moved his carrier group around over and over; anything to keep busy, anything to keep focus. His stomach ached with hunger and his mouth was dry. He needed a piss, he was hungry and he needed a drink.

Iron Maiden remained unmoved.

“Avery. Darren. Master Sergeant. United States Army. 4th Military Information Support Group, 8th Battalion, Black-2 Company, 1st Squad,” he muttered. “Avery. Darren. Master Sergeant. United States Army. 4th Military Information Support Group, 8th Battalion, Black-2 Company, 1st Squad. Avery. Darren. Master Sergeant. United States Army. 4th Military Information Support Group, 8th Battalion, Black-2 Company, 1st Squad….“ He repeated like a mantra, remembering his training.

He listened to the occasional cheers from the audience and allowed himself to watch the crowd that was moving about the seating area. Likely using the lull as an opportunity to get a snack or to visit the bathroom.

“Damn I could do with a leak…”

He thought back to his life in the army. The last time he could remember being this hungry, this tried and needing to piss the most was Tal Afar. His unit was told to hold a bus station which was being used as a refueling depot. It was his first tour in Iraq and despite having done a tour in Afghanistan he was on edge. It was a different ball game. Gun battles in the streets and insurgents being cleared house by house. A far cry from the poppy fields of Helmand Province.

There was the roar of a cheering crowd.

Darren swore as his batteries automatically targeted the fighters emerging from the thick clouds above. Just like that, Iron Maiden was on him.

They were coming down like hail stones. He launched his remaining fighters from the base and opened up with all batteries, igniting the atmosphere. One thousand Insectoid crovettes were wiped out and the crowd roared their approval but Iron Maiden kept coming. He could only pull that trick once and now he had to slug it out. He punched commands furiously into his console ordering his navy out into the open and for his fighter to fill holes in his defenses as his anti-air batteries started to go offline one by one.

Five hours left on the clock. It wasn’t looking good.

His scopes were a sea of red. Her ships were everywhere. There were thousands of ships strafing back and forth above the station proper. Its shields were holding for now but that wouldn’t last forever. Every minute or so he’d hear another alert as another hydrofoil was destroyed or another fighter was downed. She was working her way from the outside in. His defenses were too concentrated in the center; she needed to wear him down.

Four hours remaining and his outer defenses had crumbled. She had landed troops on the surface that were rushing his inner line of anti-air batteries. Darren ordered his troops out of the base to defend the batteries in a vain attempt to keep them operating for as long as possible. His men were outnumbered ten to one but if Titans fought anything like Humans he knew he’d be in with a chance.

It was only a simulation, sure each individual troop was programed with its own unique AI, a computer algorithm designed to mimic a real titan soldier in battle, no more, no less. Sure, it was an impressive piece of programing, but a program none the less. Despite of this, Darren almost found himself feeling a pain in his stomach for the troops that faced off on the barren moon’s surface against the insectoid ground assault. It was like nothing he had ever seen, the first wave moved like a carpet along the ground, their numbers impossible to tell. The first wave, shock troops meant to overwhelm and destroy; generally this was all that was required. They were not armored, and wore no protective equipment against the moon’s harsh, unforgiving atmosphere. Even insectoids were subject to the frigid minus -200 centigrade temperature. But Insectoid shock troops were never really meant to come back alive, they were a carpet of doom to disorientate, scatter, and weaken enemy lines in preparation for a more concentrated second wave. They tenderized the meat for the Soldiers to finish off.

Each shock troop was no bigger than a shaar; like the tardigrade they could go without food, without wate and without oxygen for extended periods of time. They could not last long on Titan’s surface, but then again they didn’t have to.

Darren’s batteries fired into the swarm as the mobile infantry set up a line of defense around the compounds main shield generator. These structures were overworked as it was, but were necessary for keeping the shields operational. The shock troops dropped in massive numbers, a pile of corpses began to build up in front of the advancing horde of insects, a wall that only seemed to move closer, and grow larger the more Darren’s troops fired into it.

“I need to keep at least three generators online to keep the shields going.” Darren mused. The underground facilities were protected from aircraft and orbital assault, but the fast, swift insectoid ground troops could easily make short work of the perimeter defenses and take a building offline in a matter of moments.

Darren leapt back and forth punching commands into his console; he ordered a withdrawal from the northernmost compound in an attempt to focus fire on the advancing assault. Watching the shock troops make short work of the underground facility was like watching an army of ants devour a gazelle, they chewed through dirt, steel, skin, glass, it didn’t matter.

The wave of shock troops advanced towards the next generator, his batteries were still slowing their progression, as were his mobile infantry, but it was only a matter of time before they destroyed the next generator, and perhaps a few more after that. He would be able to stop them before they reached Titan Station’s main generator, but losing the auxiliary generators in the process meant he would lose the shields completely.

“You want something’t chew on ya lil’bastards?” Darren narrowed his eyes and sprinted across the terminal.

Darren’s infantry pulled back to the third compound, and just as the swarm of insectoid shock troops began to burrow down to destroy the underground facility, a fiery explosion lit the sky, plasma fire like napalm spread across the ground, burning up the swarm, their crackling bodies popping like buttered corn.

Darren pumped his fist and let out a shout. What remained of the shock troops were easily held back by his batteries, and the mobile infantry engaged the soldiers, who without the protection of the shock troops were easily held at bay by Darren’s mobile infantry.

With two hours remaining all Darren’s defenses were gone. The only thing he had left was the station with its guns and it shields…

“Stay awake Avery, stay awake!” Darren wacked the side of his head trying to clear some of the sleep. He tapped at his console, rapidly firing off orders.

The Insectoid fleet swarmed overhead firing barrage after barrage at the station. Up above the arena the clock ticked less than two hours and Titan Station’s shield status ticked below fifty percent and it was falling fast. It wasn’t going to last the next half hour, never mind two hours.

His remaining batteries fired over and over again but didn’t make a dent in the thousands of ships that swarmed above. He was holding off the ground assault against overwhelming numbers, but only had to hold them off for so much longer. He had one last trick up his sleeve. He launched the oxygen tanker once more and ordered it full thrust into the swarm. Iron Maiden saw it coming and scattered her forces just as Darren targeted it with his guns and detonated it.

Titan Station rocked from the blast and its shields dropped to ten percent. He checked his scopes. He’d destroyed half the remaining fleet. There were only fifteen hundred corvettes left and they were scattered and out of formation.

“Now!” he ordered and smashed his foot down on the execute button and to the audience’s gasps and applause his carrier group and its fighters descended from the clouds.

His fighters smashed into the scattered corvettes and tore them apart. The smaller frigates gave chase to the larger groups, preventing them from forming up for strafing runs over Titan Station. He moved the cruiser and the carrier into positions overhead and used them as much needed flak cover.

He watched the minutes tick down. Sixty…

He was losing fighters now as Iron Maiden rallied her forces. He looked across the arena. She was desperately tapping on her console. He’d never seen her work this hard in any match.

Forty minutes left. She was down to under one thousand ships. They flew high into the clouds and then dove down at the base. They fired and plunged straight into the side of his cruiser. It lurched and its guns fell quiet as explosions rushed along its port hull. Darren gave it one last order to move away and it crashed into the ground, barely missing the station.

Twenty minutes remaining and it was nearly done. Iron Maiden only had small groups left and his fighters and frigates were harassing them. Titan Station’s shields held at five percent and it had suffered minimal structural damage. Darren looked up just in time to see Iron Maiden smash her fist into the console. She looked up and he swore their eyes connected for a second, he could see rage in them.

“I may actually piss myself but this is gonna be the sweetest victory…” he smiled.

Iron Maiden punched one last command into the console and stepped away. There was seventeen minutes left and she didn’t have the ships left to take the station. Darren knew it, Iron Maiden knew and the crowd knew it.

Darren watched looked to the clock and the back to his scopes. There was just a flicker at first. Then the fuzz grew thicker. A frown drew itself over Darren’s face.

“Her ECM is in orbit. It can’t reach this low…” he said to himself as his scopes totally fuzzed out.

He looked up to the arena which was growing darker and darker.

“She wouldn’t…” Darren gasped and looked to Iron Maiden who stood back from her console with her arms crossed.

It only appeared for a second. The enormous, deep brown, shimmering hull of the Insectoid mother ship plunged from the clouds and impacted the surface of Titan right at the edge of the station. The blast was massive. The Arena camera panned out to the orbital view where a pillar of fire was visible rising from what was left of titan station, a shockwave spread across the surface of the moon, the explosion itself was the size of a small city, the crafter left in its wake like a deep mortal wound on the small moon’s surface. The primitive multicellular life that lived in the depths of Titan’s seas would be destroyed; it was doubtful even single-celled organisms could survive.

All of Darren’s alarms rang at once. His carrier, his fighters, his frigates all gone. And then Titan Station.

The klaxon rang signaling the end of the match. The crowd erupted in applause, barely believing what they’d seen.

“You alright Sarge?!” Eyrn asked rushing forward and setting her fingers under Darren to stop him from dropping to his knees.

“I’ll let you know in a minute.” He replied breathing heavily.

It took several minutes for the applause and the cheering to die down and for the announcer to nervously walk into the center of the arena, as the holograms faded into nothing.

“What a match, ladies and gentlemen!” He spoke and the crowd applauded some more. “Following discussion amongst the Diatiti they have decided that since neither player has any assets remaining at the end of the match….” He paused again for effect. You could have heard a mouse squeak in the silence of the arena. “It is a draw. For the first time in history, a Cataclysm Showdown will be decided by combat!”