"Let's start moving," Marcus said, "We don't have time to waste, we need to send the Swarmers to intercept them."

  The night before, Sam was sent out on a tender to take control of even more of his Swarmers; which brought the total number of creatures he had under his command to 59 Swarmers and 1 yet to be hatched Kraken, so everything was as ready as could be for the coming confrontation.

  "Sam, good that you arrived," Dan called to the tamer as he finally entered the Bridge, appearing quite sleepy, "Go to Marcus and listen to his orders, we have a fight ahead of us and we need you."

  Marcus updated Sam on what was going to happen as Dan was leading the Voyager as close to the island as possible. Unfortunately, the waters around the island were quite shallow, so they couldn't get as close as they would have loved.

  "What if we use the Swarmers to attack them? I mean, the hive is right there?" Dan suddenly heard Sam ask.

  He paused but then shook his head as he thought about it for a few seconds, and as expected, Marcus had the same concerns as him as he said:

  "It's too risky, we can't be sure that they would focus on us and that they wouldn't just head to the island right away. Even if that seems unlikely, there's still something that I fear more than that, what if the hive hides something like a Behemoth at its core? It's after all drifting in the middle of the ocean, I'm sure that there's something special about it, making sure that it would survive. We can't take risks, not now while our people are still down there."

  Dan ignored that conversation as he brought his walkie-talkie to contact Old Raily. They were close enough to the island that those could be used.

  Dan first updated the old veteran about what was happening on their side, what they were going to do, and what they expected to happen once the sun was out.

  "We are already moving," Old Raily said. Dan could hear all the shouting and moving on the other side. "But I will be pushing them even more. Over."

  After that things passed fast, the plans were finalised, everything was ready and they could only hope for the best. Dan had even spoken to the Voyager about what was coming, and what was expected from her. Soon enough, it happened, the first ray of light broke through the horizon, and Dan found himself swallowing dryly as he watched the hive through one of the bow's cameras.

  Right on time, it was as if an alarm was hit as Dan saw some of the Harvesters leave the hive. They didn't come at them straight away, they first went onto the hive, as if inspecting it, to see if anything was off about it after a whole night unattended.

  Their inspection complete, Dan watched in fear as a few Harvesters started heading their way, almost lazily.

  "They are on the move. Over." Dan didn't even look away from the bow's camera as he updated Old Raily.

  "Got it. We need ten minutes at most. Over," came the reply.

  Dan knew that in the grand scheme of things, ten minutes wasn't really that much, but as he watched the trickle of Harvesters grow into a stream in just a few seconds, he knew that things weren't going to be that easy.

  The Swarmers didn't go after the first few Harvesters in full strength, they feared what might happen if the bugs saw those wrathful demons, that they would send even more of their members to deal with them. So instead, Sam had his Swarmers attack from below at first, taking the Harvesters stealthily.

  Everything they had planned to do was to win as much time as they could for the evacuation.

  As time passed though, Dan feared that all their plans might be useless. Even with the Swarmers keeping themselves hidden for the most part, the stream of Harvesters soon grew to a roaring river as they headed towards the island at full speed. Their numbers grew so high that Sam had his Swarmers attack straight away, in their enraged state, and yet it wasn't enough.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Each of the Swarmers was able to take down a Harvester without any trouble, the bugs could barely put up a struggle, but what they lacked in strength, they more than made up for in numbers. Even if each of the Swarmers was able to take down ten of them a second, there were still more of them going around.

  Less than two minutes after the fight began, the first of the Harvesters started reaching the Voyager. Dan and the others had Voyager dock in the bugs' way, blocking them from reaching the island without going through her. Of course, the Voyager had shrunk her aura, enough for the bugs to get within the reach of her Appendages. At the same time, Dan was in control of the auras directly, they needed all the help they could get.

  Dan watched with dread as the same things repeated. The number of Harvesters bypassing the Swarmers grew big enough that the ones coming at Voyager were starting to become hard to contend with, especially with how a few were already passing at the edge of the aura's control, he could see things going south, and fast.

  After barely holding on for around seven minutes, Dan's walkie-talkie came to life.

  "We are hitting the water," Old Raily's voice came through, "We will be moving as fast as we can. Over."

  "Understood. Over," was all Dan could say, all his focus was on his control over the auras.

  The trip between the island and the Voyager wasn't that far, barely going to take 3 minutes at most with the tenders going at top speed. Any other time and it would have been a walk in the park, unfortunately though, 3 minutes seemed eternal to Dan at the moment.

  Dan could also feel how stressed the Voyager was, her emotions were all over the place as she controlled her metallic aura appendages and dealt with the bugs. She was drowning in a mix of anxiety, fear and anger. It was the first time that Dan had felt that much anger from her while she wasn't controlling the dark aura's Aura Appendages, he was sure that she knew what would happen if the Harvesters got to the tenders behind her.

  Dan felt all those feelings spike to unimaginable heights as a huge wave bypassed the Swarmers and was heading towards them. Once he saw that, he understood instinctively, they wouldn't be able to hold it, they were too spread out.

  The Voyager must have realised that too as Dan felt her stress rise even more, it was to the point that even he was feeling some crossover, as if his blood pressure was rising due to their shared feelings.

  Once the Harvesters reached them, the ones at the fringes passing by her sides and starting to head directly towards the two tenders, her panic spiked, and Dan felt all the auras under his control start churning as if they were boiling. At the same time, he heard a shout from Keith to his side.

  "We are losing fuel! Fast!"

  Dan's mind barely registered what he had heard from Keith, not because of the pressure he was under, or the onslaught of haywire emotions Voyager was sending his way, it was because he noticed something, he could control Voyager's auras beyond the 60-meter range that had held him back before.

  Dan didn't understand what was happening, but he wasn't going to waste that chance he just got, he pushed the auras after the advancing Harvesters, doing his best to protect the tenders from them. He knew that Voyager was doing something, but he didn't know how long it would last, so he was going to make as much use of it as possible.

  It wasn't all good though, he could feel a mind-splitting headache start attacking him, it was so bad that he could only close his eyes and focus his all on directing the auras. He was sure that if not for Advantage making him a superhuman while on the Voyager, he would have blacked out soon after the range extended.

  Even with his headache almost destroying him, he still forced himself to look at Voyager's Aura Appendages, to see if they too had their range extended. Unfortunately, that didn't seem to be the case, only the auras in their original forms had that change.

  "We barely have 1 minute with this before we run out of fuel!" Keith updated them. She must have noticed the Harvesters dying through her skill and understood that they were doing something, updating them on the time they had.

  After dealing with the Harvesters threatening the tenders the most, Dan turned his attention to the ones at Voyager's bow, pushing the auras ahead in a wave, aiming to create as much of a buffer as he could before he lost this new range.

  "It stopped dropping," Keith shouted, "We barely have a tiny bit left!"

  At the same time, Dan felt the auras under his control fall within their old range. Focusing his attention on the tenders, he noticed how they were still a bit far away, and that the Harvesters were closing in fast. Dan's mind moved fast, his headache getting even worse, his head feeling as if it was going to explode.

  "Voyager, release your aura," he shouted as he remembered something, "Extend it as far as you can!"

  The usual range of Voyager's protective circle was 100 meters, she could shrink it up to around 60 meters, and extend it up to almost 140 meters, it wasn't much, but anything would help.

  Voyager's emotions were still haywire but she listened to Dan and he felt her extend it.

  "They are in, the tenders are in!" Keith shouted for the final time before the bridge exploded into cheers.

  Dan fell to the ground, holding his head between his hands.

  "We did it, big girl," he whispered to Voyager, "We did it..."

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