Kella banked hard, the sudden force throwing her into her restraints as she dodged a salvo of incoming missiles. She launched flares and immediately banked again in the opposite direction. Some of the missiles took the bait, but not all. The warning buzzer sounded shrill over her ragged breathing as she forced her Scythe into a vicious half-barrel roll followed by a hard climb. The missiles couldn’t keep up with the maneuvering and having lost target lock, detonated. She felt the shockwaves roll over the mech and was instantly glad they hadn’t been any closer.
She knew Tenner was in charge of the Vicious. And, from the change in his tactics, it was obvious that Tenner knew she was the one opposing him. She could just imagine his anger at her betrayal. She knew without a doubt, that should she fail and become captured, he’d spend weeks taking his frustration out on her until she broke, or died. That was a reality she would not allow happen.
Kella rolled over a medium cruiser and raked it with her laser rifle as she went. She saw the flash of light of the beam reflecting off of the bridge windows followed immediately by the reinforced transparent alloy shattering inward. The explosion that came after ripped most of the forward hull apart and almost anticlimactically, the cruiser began to slowly fall towards the ground below, smoke and flames streaming from its wounds.
The Deep Wolves formation changed again, adapting to her attack pattern. The ships moved quickly trying to catch her in their sights. Beams of light arced out through the sky creating patterns of color that in any other situation would have been beautiful. Still, they were too slow, and Kella was easily able to dance out of the reach of the beams, winding her way through them like a needle through cloth. At every moment, she’d fire a well-aimed salvo of missiles or a precision strike with her laser rifle and each time she did so, another cruiser would fall earthward in flames.
Kella didn’t allow herself any joy over her success. Even with her intimate knowledge of Deep Wolves tactics and weak points, there were just too many ships. Her job at this point had been simple. Smack the hornet’s nest. Hit it as hard as she possibly could, and then run away. The only problem was in which direction to run. Gavin had been supposed to tell her where, but he had yet to contact her.
Concerned, she let her focus drift a moment and checked the scanner she’d left fixed on the Praetorian. The ship was still there, still intact. So why hadn’t he called her? A near-miss from a massive laser beam brought her attention back around immediately. It was the Vicious. The massive warship, normally not suited for atmospheric conditions was ungainly and slow in Falldown’s gravity. But with all of Tenner’s modifications, the ship managed somehow to stay aloft and lumbered onward, leading the pack against her. She had been purposefully avoiding that ship as its defenses were much greater than the small cruisers surrounding it, and more importantly, it frustrated the ship’s captain.
Kella peeled away in a tight spiral and swung in low, skimming over a small formation of three cruisers. They apparently realized what was going on because they immediately started to scatter, but it was too late. A second flash of brilliant light from the Vicious, intended for her, cut right through two of the ships as they maneuvered. The beam, far too high a power to reflect, simply carved through the hull of the first ship and undaunted, continued onward into the second ship behind it. Both ships were near cut in half and as their hulls separated, their reactors lost containment and the ships exploded into balls of flame and burning wreckage.
Kella finished her maneuver by landing on the top hull of the third cruiser meters from the main bridge. The armored hull of the cruiser crunched and bent downwards from the weight of her Scythe. She could see the Hunter manning the sensor blister stare at her in abject horror before coming to his senses. He jumped from his chair and ran for the bridge escape pod. Feeling no remorse or pity, she shoved the muzzle of her laser rifle through the blister windows and depressed the trigger. The bridge tower exploded outwards in a flash of light and flame, and secondary explosions continued on along the spine of the ship. The hull buckled, and Kella leapt back into the air, firing her PDE. She didn’t even look back as the ship cracked and fell.
“Kella,” Gavin came in over the vox. “Kella, do you read?”
“Gavin,” Kella said, breathing his name in relief. “Where the hell have you been?”
“Sorry kiddo, we didn’t pick up the other party until just a second ago. Here’s your coordinates, so get moving. That big bruiser is getting a little too close for comfort.”
“You’re telling me,” Kella said as her navigation display lit up with Gavin’s data. She winged over and fired the PDE to max streaking off from the fleet. A whole new bombardment of weapons struck out from the ships as they realized she was bugging out, but they were too late, she was already out of range. Hopefully they’d decide to follow her, or else this little maneuver would be useless.
“Enemy mech is fleeing!” the Hunter shouted from the blister.
“Impossible!” Tenner roared, standing from his chair. His ire had increased with each cruiser Kella had dropped and now he was almost beyond reason. “Full power to engines! Don’t let that traitor escape!”
“What about the prize?” a brave Hunter asked.
“It’s not going anywhere!” Tenner exploded. “No one betrays the Deep Wolves and gets away with it! No one! Full power to the engines!”
“Yes, Leader!” the helmsman cried.
Kella watched as the formation suddenly picked up speed, falling in behind the hulking flagship. So Tenner had really taken the bait. She shook her head in disgust. The man was just plain stupid at times. He’d built up one of the most powerful mercenary bands in recent memory through fear, intimidation, and skill. All of the other mercenary groups, cowed by fear, waited to see what Tenner and his Deep Wolves would do first.
So why would he throw all of that power away just for her? Kella knew it to be a simple answer: because of his rage. A classic, ancient, stupid flaw in the man’s character. If he could only see how much more power he could have if he kept his rage in check, the Deep Wolves would probably own most of the galaxy. But no. Tenner was a man of passion, and unrestrained anger. By his own will, he let it run wild. He let it rule him. And Kella knew that that would be his downfall. She checked the scanner again and confirmed his failure. They were speeding full bore, headlong into the unknown. All for her. All because she had betrayed the pack.
She wanted to vomit as the memories flooded back, unbidden. She couldn’t remember her parents. She only remembered the endless waiting. One of her earliest memories was of her waiting. She remembered a park: trees, fresh air, birds singing. And then things got dark. It was nighttime. It was frightening. She was all alone. Kella remembered running for a long time, afraid of everything, desperately searching for her parents. But she never did find them.
Instead, she found Tenner, already a young man at the time and already forming his ‘pack’. Kella thought he’d been a different person then, but she realized now that he was the same arrogant bastard back then as he was now. But damn it all, she had admired him. He had given her solid footing. He had given her what she’d been so desperately seeking since that day in the park: a home. And because of that, she would’ve done anything for him. Even steal, lie, cheat, and any other horrid thing he asked her to do. Even when she got caught on one of her first solo jobs and nearly killed, and the bastard left her in the prison as a lesson, she didn’t want to admit to herself the kind of man he was. What he offered had simply been too precious to her to throw away.
In fact, it wasn’t until she had met Gavin that she began to question everything. The man, who was not a man, stripped of his humanity, his dignity, and his freedom awakened memories in her that had been long forgotten. Memories of trust. Memories of friendship. Memories of love, and being loved. Somehow, during her stay with the Wolves, she’d forgotten those simple things. When those memories resurfaced, the silly façade that had been Tenner melted away and she saw the man for what he really was: a rabid, mongrel dog. She didn’t love him; she didn’t even hate him. She only pitied him. And she was going to put him out of his misery before he ruined everything she’d so recently discovered and truly loved. He would not take that from her.
She increased power, heading for the mark on her screen. In minutes, it would be done. In minutes, Tenner would be a simple memory to fade and be forgotten with time. He only needed to follow for just a few more minutes.
“Commander,” the Gladius’ AI spoke up suddenly. Shenan hadn’t been heard since Hughes had commanded the bridge. To his frustration, it had taken some time for the Military to give Deckert the command codes. But they had finally acquiesced and they were finally his. The Gladius was finally his.
“What is it?” Deckert asked casually. He was watching the distance to the Praetorian tick down.
“Sensors indicate a fleet of ships on this heading,” the computerized voice reported.
“Obviously,” Deckert said flippantly. “That’s the Mercenary fleet. They’re still hanging in orbit over the target.”
“Negative,” Shenan intoned.
“What?” Deckert asked with the tone of a man who had just realized he’d walked into a bear’s den. Dawson and Abigail shared a nervous glance.
“The fleet of ships is at our altitude and heading in our direction on a collision course. Time to contact: twenty seconds.”
Deckert stood up in a panic. “Where the hell did they come from?! Richmond
Abigail cringed as Deckert called her name. She didn’t want to reply that she’d been preoccupied with flying a combat carrier the size of the Gladius at nearly twenty times the speed of sound in a gravity well. Instead she simply apologized quickly.
Deckert roared for battlestations, but before Dawson Dawson
“Launch the Class II mirrors! Prepare to engage enemy fleet!” Deckert roared sitting back down in his chair with a grunt and strapping into place.
Outside the ship, dozens of ports opened and the ship’s Class II mirror targeting system launched outwards. The Class II mirrors were intended for atmospheric combat and used small anti-gravity repulsors for propulsion as opposed to the Class I’s simple RCS system. The Gladius was at a disadvantage while in the atmosphere against the turret-based laser systems aboard the Deep Wolves’ ships. They were in for a rough fight.
“Call up the sensor data,” Deckert ordered. “Let me see what we’re in for.”
“Acknowledged,” Shenan responded again before any of the other crew could comply. The tactical holodisplay lit up the bridge and Deckert swallowed as he scanned over the large fleet barreling towards his position. He couldn’t make it out in the clutter, but at the head of the fleet, racing as fast as her engines could go, was Kella.
Kella finally spotted the Gladius as it emerged from a cloudbank. Like a dark triangular wing floating amongst the green clouds of Falldown, the ship looked every bit as deadly as she remembered it. She realized suddenly that it was heading towards her far quicker than she had realized. In danger of colliding into it, she pushed her Scythe downward into a death dive. Speeding straight downward, she missed the sudden barrage of lasers erupt from the Gladius and strike out towards the Deep Wolves’ fleet. Like great wings of red light, the lasers reflected off of their respective mirrors and lanced out, raking across the mercenary fleet.
Explosions erupted across the mercenary’s ships. It was devastating for an opening salvo, and the Gladius had more where that came from. The lasers fired again, and ships began to fall from the formation, cracking and burning, their hulls broken and twisted. In response, the Deep Wolves returned fire. Rallying around their giant flagship, laser beams filled the sky as they fought back against the Military ship. The Gladius began to move quickly, evading most of the larger beams, and it’s special hull dispersed the ones that hit.
Kella ran from the skirmish, trying not to get sprayed by wayward fire that seemed to light up the entire sky. She had to admit as she watched the visual scanner that the Gladius was an impressive warship. It was fast and nimble, and like she had before, dodged out of the way of the Vicious and its kill gun. Still, the smaller cruisers in the Deep Wolves’ fleet were nimble as well and were capable of keeping up with the Gladius. It almost at once turned into a bloody brawl thousands of feet above the ground. In the chaos, Kella was not missed.
“I hope the engines are fixed, Gavin,” she called out over the vox channel. “I don’t think this little party is going to last very long.”
“Agreed,” Gavin said. “Hurry back.”
“Working on it,” Kella said as she notched up the emitter to max. Her purple spiral was just another light in a sky filled with them.
“Enough of this!” Deckert roared as the Gladius took another hit off of its port beam. The armor held, but the ship’s defenses were quickly becoming overwhelmed by the number of cruisers they were fighting. Not to mention the Capital ship that could wipe them out if they gave it half a chance.
“Retreat! Get us out of here! Make ready to enter slipspace!”
“What?” Dawson
“And we can’t enter slipspace in the atmosphere! We could ignite it!” Abigail seconded.
“I don’t care!” Deckert cried out angrily. “Shenan!” Deckert called to the AI, panic cracking his voice. “Command override! Enter slipspace!”
“Acknowledged. Command override accepted,” the AI intoned.
“What?” Dawson
“Stand down, Mister!” Deckert yelled back. “Hughes has been declared a traitor and I’ve been given command of this mission. The AI’s compliance is proof! Now return to your duties or be relieved!”
Tenner watched with disgust as the Military hyena’s ship evaporated before him. A slipspace jump? In an atmosphere? Were they crazy? Or merely stupid? They could have incinerated the planet. “Stupid cowardly dogs!” Tenner roared.
Regardless of the fools commanding it, that Military ship had been impressive. It had taken nearly a third of his ships out before it had run. Tenner held no illusions as to who the victor would have been if the ship had stayed. It would have been a long bloody battle, but once it cut through his cruisers his Vicious would have been a sitting duck. His flagship was just not maneuverable enough. No matter, now he could concentrate on other matters.
“Helm!” he ordered standing from his seat. “Bring the fleet about! It is time to deal with our real prey!” A cheer went up from his Hunters. Good, they were primed, just as they should be before a kill.
Almost leisurely, the big ship along with its pack came around and headed back toward the vulnerable Praetorian.
“Kella,” Gavin came over the vox suddenly. She could tell immediately something was wrong. She was only minutes from arriving at the wounded plane.
“What’s wrong?”
“Looks like our little party didn’t last as long as we hoped. The Military just slipped out.”
“What?” she and Hughes responded in unison.
“Why the hell would they run?” Hughes asked indignantly. “That ship could easily handle that mercenary fleet!”
“It doesn’t matter,” Gavin replied testily. “They’re gone, and the Deep Wolves are coming back our way. How are the repairs coming? Please give me some good news.”
Kella heard an awkward pause from Hughes. “Sorry Brains. There’s just not enough time.” Kella felt her heart sink. The Praetorian was a sitting duck without her PDEs. Even if she were still heavily armed, the Deep Wolves were patient. Tenner had been known to take weeks to hunt a prey. Even now that he had been provoked, he would come in cautiously. They would come at them sideways, or just simply whittle them down until they were defenseless.
Kella felt all of her fears jump up at once. She panicked. This couldn’t happen. It wouldn’t happen. She wouldn’t let it. Not again.
“Not again!” she shouted without realizing. She pulled up and her Scythe twisted around. She throttled up and launched forward heading for Tenner and his fleet. She wouldn’t let that man destroy this. She wouldn’t. She’d buy time for Hughes to complete the work and for the ship to get away. She had the skill. She knew how Tenner thought. He wouldn’t be able to touch her. For all of the mistakes she’d made in her life. For all the wrongs she’d committed. This was how she’d atone, this small act of selflessness. She just hoped it would be enough.
“Kella!” Gavin cried over the vox. “Kella! Where the hell are you going! Get back here!” She didn’t respond. She heard Hughes call over the vox as well, trying to make her understand reason. She didn’t want to hear it. She switched off the channel and across the darkening green sky, a lonely purple spiral shot off towards the horizon.
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