November 14, 2111 - November 18, 2111
Dancing-Sky
The Whispering Dragon exited slip space and began its orbit around one of Idor's moons. There was madness on the bridge, and the air was hot with Dancing-Sky and her commanding crew rushing and sweating through calls as they sent out and received loads of urgent messages.
"Dancing-Sky! Urgent hail coming in!" the operations assistant called out.
"Every call is urgent right now!" Dancing-Sky responded, louder than she wanted to. The stress was reaching her. "I get it! Korkyran soldiers are confirmed to be aligned with the Wersillian Legion. I don't need a couple hundred ships bitching about how powerful they are and how we are all doomed to lose this war! And if it is about the mass gathering of Wersillian Ships, I don't want to hear about that either!"
"Sky, it's Day-Bringer."
"The chief admiral?! Send her to my personal channel." Dancing-Sky opened a hologram on the front of the commander's chair where she sat. The audio played through the render chips inside her ears so only she could hear. "Ma'am, Dancing-Sky here. What, may I ask, can I do for you?"
"I just got out of an eye-opening meeting with Kalvin Keefe, and what he had to say was unpleasantly shocking."
"Ma'am?"
"Relics. Kalvin called them keys and said the warlords were after them."
"That is correct, and--"
"And you failed to mention this to me earlier! Any action and-or mission involving warlords must be run by the chief admirals immediately, no exceptions!"
Dancing-Sky was taken aback by her sudden rage. "Ma'am. I didn't think the relics were of any importance. I was pretty much strong-armed into sending in a response unit to Garatopia by Kalvin in the first place, although he told me it was because of a bomb! I'm sorry I didn't inform you earlier… it won't happen again."
"Make sure your last statement remains true."
"Ma'am, you're, ah… you're making it seem like these keys are vitally important. Is there something you aren't telling me?"
"That information is need-to-know. Anyway, we have other matters requiring immediate discussion. That response unit you sent in, I've read your report logs, and I must have missed something, because I didn't see a rescue plan in there."
"We are working on it. With all the recent traffic and chaos over the korkyran news, operations here have been in an uproar."
"The other three chief admirals are on their way to a meeting with the ARW Senate to discuss that very topic, and I assure you, we will mitigate the chaos until then. However, right now I want you to make extracting that response unit your absolute top priority. I will be accompanying Commander Sizar and Commander Balthric as we head to your location."
"Our location?"
"Yes. We're your reinforcements."
Day-Bringer continued to speak, but the operations assistant caught Dancing-Sky's eye. He was signaling for Dancing-Sky's attention. "Day-Bringer, I'm so sorry, but can you hold for a second? Something pressing has come up." Dancing-Sky cut off Day-Bringer and listened to her assistant.
"Sky. Something just came in. It's--" the operations assistant stopped.
"It's what?"
"Well, it's weird. The message is a rescue plan created by our response unit on Idor, but the message wasn't sent by them."
"Who, then?"
"The source is encrypted and unknown by anything in our database. It's from something we haven't seen before."
"Send the source code to our executive engineer and see if he can decrypt it. Meanwhile, send the instructions to me and Day-Bringer."
"Right away."
Dancing-Sky reopened her line with Day-Bringer. "Ma'am, did you receive the message I sent to you?"
"Yes, and the plan is well thought out. Extraction from Mount Pillar is certainly the best option I can see."
"Are you saying we should run with that plan? We don't know the source, meaning it may be a trap. "
"I won't hold it against you, as you don't have the full picture of the situation, but let me just say: This battle will be the beginning of a much larger issue. For the time being, this battle will set up a major play against the Wersillian Legion. We must absolutely run with the plan that was so generously handed to us on a silver platter."
"Of course. When can I expect your company?"
"The seventeenth - a day before your response unit should reach the peak of Mount Pillar."
Day-Bringer finished the call and hung up. Dancing-Sky made a quick call to her executive engineer. "Any luck with that source code?"
"Commander, whoever sent this is using technology I have never even seen before. Our own computer cannot keep up with the speed at which this code rewrites itself to lock away its information."
"Keep me informed."
Dancing-Sky rolled her eyes. It was just another complication she had to keep track of. How much weirder could the galaxy get?
⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕
It was the morning of November 18th. A fleet worthy of a space opera lined up, ready to enter a newly created wormhole. Its destination: Idor, above Mount Pillar. The Tempest of Titans, commanded by Sizar, who had brought Day-Bringer to accompany him aboard, took the lead. Slick, smooth, and elegant, this mostly human star cruiser was nearly twice the size of the other two cruisers and could easily take the most hits. Behind the Whispering Dragon was the Leviathan II, commanded by Balthric, along with a few Order of Aegis small, specialty cruisers. The leviathan was only the second human star cruiser ever created. In the middle was Dancing-Sky's Whispering Dragon. One by one, the ships entered the wormhole, ready for battle. And it would be only minutes before they reached it.
The bridge aboard the Whispering Dragon was in a frenzy as every crew member made their last-minute calibrations before heading into the wormhole - the wormhole that would lead them into a battle bigger than any they had ever been a part of.
"I want shields at full power, directed toward the bow. Start charging our HIL Cannons immediately. Get all crew to battle stations, and put the ship on alert code five!" Dancing-Sky barked. "Are all our shooting-star squads ready to disengage from the ship?"
"Yes, Commander," the first officer replied.
"And the eagle units? Are they ready to escort the evacuation dropships for our response team?"
"Yes."
"Then here we go!"
Dancing-Sky looked out as the ship exited the wormhole into a barrage of plasma mortars. The Whispering Dragon shook like an earthquake under the fire. Dancing-Sky clutched the metal bars on both sides of her commander's chair.
"Get us under the Tempest of Titans. Use that ship as cover!" Dancing-Sky instructed.
"Right away." One of the three flight helmsmen punched the ship into gear.
"Commander, HIL cannons charged!" the first officer announced.
"Fire at the closest enemy cruiser!"
"Firing… three… two… one! Now!"
The Whispering Dragon rumbled as the high intensity laser cannons, or HIL cannons, blasted outward. The concentrated laser cast a shadow of blue within the bridge.
"All fighter ships are out!" yelled the tactics advisor.
"What about the dropships and eagle units?" Dancing-Sky asked.
"On their way!"
"Commander--" the first officer began but was abruptly cut off.
"Incoming plasma vortex!" a flight helmsman screamed.
"Take evasive action!"
Dancing Sky gripped her handlebars tighter as the ship veered to the right. The plasma vortex, a ball of plasma as big as a city, just missed them. Seconds later, one of the Order of Aegis specialty cruisers zipped in front of the Whispering Dragon. Out from its haul, that cruiser activated a one-way stasis shield for the Whispering Dragon to shoot behind.
"Sizar wants us to move in on the enemy's leftmost cruiser!" the tactics advisor shouted.
"Hear that? Follow our escort, and let's light that cruiser up!"
"HIL Cannons primed!" added the first officer.
Following the Order of Aegis cruiser, the Whispering Dragon tanked its way through the cluster of fighter ship debris and minor blasts. The bridge shook as an enemy fighter zipped past the windshield and landed a plasma mortar on the Order of Aegis ship's engines!
"Full reverse, now!" Dancing-Sky shouted, staring at their helpless allies as they flew closer and closer.
"Too late!" a fight helmsman yelled, bracing for impact.
The much larger Whispering Dragon punched through the smaller ally ship. The explosion lit a blaze of fire and light over the hard-glass shield before dispersing as if nothing happened.
"Damnit!" Dancing-Sky cursed. "Make the enemies pay. Give them everything we got!"
"Firing everything!" the flight helmsmen coordinated.
In combination with many other fighter ships, the Whispering Dragon melted through the shields of one of the seven enemy cruisers and blew away its bridge. The ship descended toward Idor, catching fire as it hit the planet's atmosphere.
Massive mortar blasts drained the Whispering Dragon's shields to critical levels. "Shields at thirteen percent!" a flight helmsman reported.
"Turn us to the side. We can't take any more of those heavy shots to the front!" the first officer responded.
"Sizar said to hang on! He's almost with us!" added the tactics advisor.
The silhouette of the Tempest of Titans swept over the Whispering Dragon as it body-blocked the enemy shots with its bulkier frame. Further off, the Leviathan II was in the thick of it with two Wersillian cruisers attacking it from both sides. It was a light show over there.
"Sky. Balthric is taking critical damage. He ordered a ship-wide evac!" gasped the tactics advisor.
"Start praying!" Dancing-Sky announced. "We'll need a miracle if we are to hold out for another twenty minutes!"
A sudden shockwave caught the crew by surprise. An explosion larger than their cruiser came from the Leviathan II. It had rammed into an enemy ship, causing that ship to implode on itself. Then that ship hit another, and another. A domino effect of explosions turned the tide of this space battle, and just like that, the two opposing forces were on an even playing field.
"There's your miracle," commented the first officer.
"Sky. There are no reports of survivors of the Leviathan II," the tactics advisor added morbidly.
Dancing-Sky gave her first officer a solemn look. "A costly miracle."
The shattered remains of all the destroyed ships continued to descend to the Idor's atmosphere. Like a rainstorm of fire and metal, the debris would make life on Idor a true night-terror. If the response unit managed to get those overshields up, Dancing-Sky wasn't too sure how long it would hold under all those hits.
"Sky. The first dropships have reported in! They are making their way back to us, with full loads of civilians!" the tactics advisor cheered, followed by a crew-wide hooray.
"Cool it, folks. It isn't over yet! We keep the enemies off those dropships' tails at all costs," Dancing-Sky commanded.
In her mind, she was congratulating her response units for their efforts in saving as many as they could. There were truly brave souls down there.
⁕⁕⁕James Stone⁕⁕⁕
All throughout human history, war has been an ever-evolving resolution to conflict. From men throwing themselves at each other with swords to men standing in a line, firing handheld cannons at the enemy line to trench warfare, human wars had seemed to become more 'civilized'. The trend in warfare only took a turn when other intelligent species jumped into the mix. Warrior-oriented societies, such as the maelkii, korkyras, and dytircs, used to tip towards a series of duels that devolved quickly into a tangled brawl. Humans, dor'o, qwayks, and lycargans used to have a much stricter unit cohesion where soldiers fought together in groups like a well-oiled machine; today, we have the ARW's method of specialized training to reduce casualties and enhance each species' specialties within a battle, as well as the Wersillian Legion's use of mass numbers of warrior-like fighters to overwhelm. I guess when you force different histories of war together, this is the best possible outcome one can get. None of that changes the fact that war will always remain the most brutal way to resolve conflict; a no-rules based ideal that'll never change. This was surely the case as this very moment.
Sweat poured down my face and stung my eyes like tiny bees, dripping down from my gore and mud-covered face.
"James! We are ludicrously outnumbered!" Valiic gasped from behind a rock pillar a few meters away from me.
"When are we not?" I yelled back to him.
All around us was nothing but a blizzard of disorder and violence, a blur of color and malicious motion. My parched, panting tongue absorbed the dust-choked air that intermixed with the bitterness of crushed rocks. Pain from a dozen bruises and scratches barely registered, being drowned out by the heightened, throbbing high of adrenaline pulsing in my veins. Clashing bodies howled amidst a sea of blood, different colors from all the different species, which drained from friend and foe alike, flowing and spraying across this rocky war zone that was once only plain shades of gray and black.
"Ten more dytircs coming up the right slope!" Shadow-Walker, who was a ways behind me and Valiic, announced over the coms.
"Let's treat those bonies to the same course of pain we gave their friends earlier!" I encouraged.
Blood pounded in my ears, drumming to war's uneven tempo inside my head. The sound was barely enough to obscure the cries and screams of injured allies and foes. It had been only ten minutes since the first enemies dropped from their ships to kill us. When that moment came, two of Captain Wild-Heart's soldiers offered to load the civilians into the dropships, while the rest of us fought further down Mount Pillar's peak. If you were to look at this mountain from a bird's eye view, you would see that half the mountain sloped down at almost a ninety-degree angle. The half we were defending now, the only half the legion could attack from the ground, was the harshest battle I'd ever fought.
Because of the firestorm that beat on our overshields, they'd been weakening, and holes occasionally formed, leaving us to dodge our way around the deadliest hail ever. To add to this icy hell, freezing temperatures, a clusterfrak of ally reinforcements in the form of ranger squads, shiploads of dytircs and lycargans led by brutish korkyras, and a flock of fighter ships all blended together in a smoothie of unrelenting chaos.
"Incoming defenses!" Captain Wild-Heart called over the comms.
An Order of Aegis vessel pulsed by us towards the mountain peak, dropping supply pods as it passed the peak.
"Get some rangers to bring the supplies down!" I responded.
"Right away!"
Valiic was at my side, firing down the mountain at the korkyran warchiefs - the name we gave to the battlefield leaders of Wersillian squads. Shadow-Walker gave us sniper support from further up the mountain. Brad, Frost, Captain Wild-Heart, and her remaining commandos were down lower, disrupting and annoying the enemies. All in all, we held the left slope of the mountain, while the ranger reinforcements held the right. Separating us from them, down the center of this side of the mountain was a steep valley filled to the brim with razor-sharp rocks. Most of the fighting was on the rangers' side, and they struggled to hold back the enemy. However, we would need to buy ourselves only ten more minutes so the remaining civilians could be evacuated. Then it was our turn to retreat like an ebbing wave.
Down from the hills came some rangers carrying our defense supplies.
"Here, sir, they gave us a few one-way stasis shields… the latest technology!" The ranger handed me a bundle of them, then returned up the slopes to place some defensive sentry turrets for suppressive fire.
"Cover me, guys!"
I jumped away from the cover of the rock I was behind and was met with an immediate stream of fire. Plasma and pulse rounds zipped by me, and I quickly evaded the plasma shots and popped on my stasis shield to deflect some of the fire back to its senders. Unfortunately, I dropped the rod-shaped generators on the ground, and they began rolling down the hill.
"Shivf!" I cursed out loud and fired my pistol at a dytirc Ultra breaking for our tech. I'd borrowed this pistol from a ranger because my last one had been destroyed by Ghost.
"I got it, uzzo!"
Frost created a small wall of ice to stop the shield generators from rolling any further down. Brad lit the Ultra up with explosive rounds, tearing through the powerful dytirc's armor, but more enemy troops came for the tech. I dashed forward, shield outward, firing at a lycargan and two dytircs. One boney down, then another. The lycargan rolled up into a ball and met me square at the location of the shields.
I leapt over him, and he unrolled to fire his plasma handgun at me. I managed to duck and grabbed hold of his arm.
"Grrh!" he growled.
"Behind you!" Frost warned from further back. Unfortunately, that was all he could do because he was busy doing some kick-ass fighting of his own.
I turned to meet a body-check from a korkyran warchief and was knocked into the thorn-like pebbles and clumpy, snow-covered mud. Both he and the lycargan took aim at me, and I popped on my shield and scrunched my body together to fit as much of it behind the shield as possible. The korkyran warchief took a massive blast to the head and barreled backward. I fired my pistol at the stunned lycargan and hit him between his natural armor, killing the bowlhead.
I lay back onto the rock surface for a moment to try to comprehend the million things happening around me. My allies were still too occupied to focus on me, meaning I wouldn't have much aid with my retreat. I grabbed the generators, but before I took off, something from the sky caught my eye.
"Damnit!" I slid to the side and barely avoided a fiery hunk of metal that had passed through the overshields.
"Ergh!" A sudden force knocked me off my feet, and I fell face-first onto the rocky landscape, losing the generators once again. Something then stomped its plate-sized heavy foot on my back. "ERGH!"
The air was shoved out of my lungs, but I fought through the pain and rolled away from my attacker, then jumped to my feet and spotted an enraged korkyran warchief rushing me - the same one that had been blasted in the head.
"Christ, is it annoy-the-hell-out-of-James day?" I swore to myself.
The enraged beast had a different, vicious look in his eye and his body language was more primal in nature. He reached me and swung at my face like a territorial gorilla. I lifted my arms to block the impact, but each hit knocked me further downhill, towards the enemies. The korkyra went for another strike, but I ducked and drove my body at his legs, then lifted and slammed him on his back.
His expression switched from anger to surprise as I hammered away at his exposed face. He grabbed my arms and launched me off him with his knee. I kicked myself back up to my feet and met him again. Plasma fire came at me, and I instinctively allowed the korkyran to overtake me and used his momentum to switch us around. The plasma burned into his back, and the korkyra fell. He was dead.
I popped back on my shield, grabbed the generators, and backed the hell up. When I was further up the mountain, I activated the shields to separate us from the enemies. Those shields allowed us to shoot the enemies from our side but blocked the shots from their side. Now we had the upper hand in this complex game of chess. Now we must hold position and see how the enemy retaliated.
"James. All the civilians are loaded!" announced the rangers assigned to that task. "The dropship is taking off now, and another is landing!"
A loud, joyous cheer from all the soldiers on our side of the mountain echoed down the mountain peak. Accompanying the cheer was a sudden burst of energy as we realized we were almost out of this hell.
"Captain Wild-Heart?" I called over the comms.
"Here," she replied.
"Get your soldiers and the rangers out first. We will cover you."
"You're a true soldier, James," she responded.
From lower down the mountain, I saw her and all her soldiers dash past us. As they retreated, so did we, as did the rangers from the right side. As we trekked further up the mountain, the enemies gained ground, firing at us. We fired back, of course, but it was slowing us way the hell down.
"James, we can't keep going up and allowing the enemy space to advance!"
Valiic planted his forcidion shield in the ground and held it. Down the hill, the enemy had almost made it to our one-way shields.
"Shivf," I cursed from pure annoyance. "Shadow, take position as high as you can get. Brad, Frost, spread to the far sides. Everyone else, we hold the middle."
"My ice! Your doom! Make room!" Frost chanted as he slid further right, using the ice skates he'd created. He was fully encased in ice armor. "I think I just invented a new sport, bitches!" His voice faded as he got further away.
Only seconds after we took position and pressured our enemies, Captain Wild-Heart cried out over the comms with worry in her voice, "James, have you seen Darcrose? She was just behind us. I--"
I tuned her out as I spotted Beverly Darcrose running like a mad woman from behind the enemy! "She's, ah… she's coming."
"From where?"
"Umm… behind the enemy!"
There was silence on the coms for a second. "Repeat that."
"Just head out. We'll bring her back safely!"
As I spoke, I saw her dip behind a large boulder. The enemy was too occupied with us to notice her; that was good.
"You'd better hold true to your word," Captain Wild-Heart said, and I saw her dropship blast towards space.
The remaining rangers were the next to leave. Their dropship was seconds behind the commandos, leaving us alone with the enemy.
"Our ship is here!" Shadow-Walker cheered.
I glanced back to see the dropship landing.
Bang!
An enemy pursuer pounced on our dropship and sent it crashing down the mountain.
Frustration overtook me. "Can any particle of luck blow our way?"
Just as I said that, it seemed luck had been listening and provided a fortuitous act. An Order of Aegis supply ship dropped pods down onto the enemy. These pods were bigger than our last drop, and as they blew open, dozens of Model-2B battle technoids hopped out and fired at the enemy using heavy weaponry. It was a slaughterfest of scrap parts and limbs as they came in hard and fast. Through the chaos, Beverly, with her petite body, seemed to slip through the crowd of bots and foes like ice on a slope. One problem down, but more to come, I was sure.
"James. Hold tight for another five minutes. Another dropship is on the way," Dancing-Sky's tactics advisor informed us over our coms.
As those words were spoken, we held position, firing at the distracted enemy. Beverly Darcrose made it back to us, and she slid behind the same rock I was behind.
"Woooow! That was crazy. Di-did you see that?! I was all like whew and zoowp and-- I-I can't believe I made it out of there!"
"How did you get behind them anyway?" Valiic asked.
"I was running back, and… and I saw this awesome plant! Look!" She scooped up the plant from a pouch; gold-laced and petals spinning like a chopper.
I chuckled. "Girl, you mean to tell me you stopped in the dead of war to grab a souvenir?"
"Aahhh… yeah." She smiled and put away the plant, then pulled out a weapon and fired.
"You've got quite a pair." I chuckled and fired into the enemy.
"Do you think we will ever see our families again?" she questioned. The question, however, didn't have the glass-half-empty feel; instead, it was her way of building up hope.
"Darcrose, you're already with family." I patted her on the back before returning fire.
"Incoming!" Shadow-Walker warned.
It was too early for our dropship. I gazed up to see an enemy starship carved with elegant design and four wings double the size of the ship's haul. It was made with the enemy's best material. A ship that expensive could only mean one thing: A warlord.
"It's a warlord!" I gasped.
"We're so screwed!" Shadow-Walker muttered.
"Just wait till they meet my ice wall!" Frost celebrated. Nothing could scratch away his hype in a fight.
The ship slowed to a hover just over the enemy line. Steam hissed out of the hatch as it began to descend. The hatch stopped a few meters below the ship's bottom, and standing on it was an elegantly dressed lycargan. No armor or weapons; just an outfit you'd wear to a formal event. He extended his hands, and out from the same hatch came dozens of raging beasts. Ungies, six-legged hellhounds, leapt to the ground and began pouncing on our ally technoids. Boulthas, hard-granite encrusted berserkers, shook the ground as they landed and rushed for us. Xyphins, two-headed, man-sized ravens with fangs for talons, dove for us. Once the deed was done, the warlord's ship took off in another direction. I didn't know or care where it was going, just so long as it wasn't staying here.
"Holy fraken hell!" I cursed and fired into the air at the xyphins.
One, two, three. We began picking them off; however, that was the least of our worries. Four boulthas steamrolled toward us. By now, the technoids were almost completely gone.
"James! Plan?" Valiic probed.
He saw the fear in my eyes. "Survive," I spoke the words of ice.
Valiic soon shared my concerned look. I prayed for a miracle. "If there is anything out there looking out for me or my squad… please… show us." Nothing. I should have seen that coming.
Like a flood of struggle, everything hit me at the same time: The adrenaline; boulthas; and the xyphins. I took fangs to the back and pecking to my ear as I leapt away from the rock I was behind, just getting away from a boultha that plowed through the stone like it was paper. Valiic stepped back and fired his plasma cannon at the boultha, ignoring the xyphins biting at his neck. Darcrose, like the adventurous, daring girl she was, climbed onto Valiic's back and tackled one of the birds to the ground. And lord knows where Brad and Frost were at the moment, as I could hardly keep track of everything in front of me.
"Die!" Darcrose screamed as she repeatedly stabbed the xyphin she'd tackled.
"James, let's take the boultha down at the same time!" Valiic told me. "I'll charge, you trip."
I reached back and shot the xyphin on my back, thinking what Valiic said was a good idea. As he charged into the boultha, I slid my body behind the beast's two large legs, hoping to trip it.
"This is not going to tickle."
I braced for the impact. The boultha's legs slammed into me, and I was knocked to my side. Luckily, the boultha fell to the ground just past me as Valiic put all his weight on it. It growled and thrashed around the ground like a maniac, knocking Valiic around like a rag doll; he wouldn't last much longer.
"Frost!" I called.
"Already here!" He slid up next to me and began to freeze the boultha to the mountain. "Saw the big-shivf causing a fit here, and I thought y'all could use my company! Oh, and Brad said to thank him later."
I glanced over to where Frost signaled. Brad was ducking, dodging around three boulthas like a bullfighter would with bulls. "He wouldn't say to thank him later." I turned back to Frost.
"You're right. He didn't say that, but the uzzo was prolly thinkin' it." Frost finished encasing the boultha under a massive iceberg.
"Guys! You might want to look ahead!" Shadow-Walker insisted.
Ahead, there was an ice wall between us and our foes, obviously created by Frost. However, the enemy troops were done with the technoids and had just broken through that wall. A storm of enemy plasma and pulse rounds hunted for us, and Valiic set up his shield to block for us as Frost began working on another wall - but it was melting down as fast as he could create it.
The enemy was gaining on Brad, who was still distracting the boulthas. His power armor's shields took a beating as opposing fire hit him. Suddenly, a light bulb popped into my head. I turned on my stasis shield and dashed for the enemy, shield in front. As I ducked under a boultha, I yelled at Brad, "Follow me!"
"Gud idea."
Brad caught on instantly and shimmied around one of the boulthas, then used it as cover, blasted two others in the head, and took off toward the enemies with me. The enraged boulthas chased us right into the confused enemy crowd. They knocked around our enemies like piñatas, giving them another distraction. Brad and I then finessed away from the enemy, leaving all of them in a chaotic tornado. I knew it wasn't going to last long though.
The dropship had finally arrived. It was much bigger than a standard ARW dropship. This was one used by the Order of Aegis.
"Go, go, go! Haul ass!" I shouted.
Valiic picked up his shield and hooked it to his back. Being at the rear, his body shielded us from the enemy fire. I could see the pain in each of his cringes. Shadow-Walker was already on the dropship, firing his scout rifle from the side. The dropship fired its arsenal at the enemy and provided covering fire. Frost dove onto the ship as Brad grabbed the side and fired outward. I waited at the end and helped Valiic.
Plasma was everywhere. Being the last in, I practically threw myself into one of the seats.
"Where's Darcrose?!" Valiic called.
Fear arose in my head. I looked back and saw her spraying her gun recklessly at the enemy. She had no cover; apparently, she'd been covering our asses the whole time.
"I got your backs!" She turned around, still firing, and noticed we'd all gotten on the dropship.
"Get your pretty ass in here! Hurry!" I gestured with my hand.
"Darcrose! This isn't the only battle! Save yourself for when it matters most!" Frost shouted.
She bolted for us, and as I reached out my hands, ready to grab hers, my eyes caught something else: In the distance, a korkyran warchief had put together a turret. He unloaded thunderous rounds at our ship at a slow rate of fire, with a deadly impact. The bullets flew by, sending shattering waves that began to decimate our ship. It was like the bullets were a half-meter wide! Everyone, except me, dove back to avoid being shredded. I ducked away but kept my hand out, ready for Beverly to grab it.
"Taking off," the automated pilot said, and the dropship began to lift off.
"No! Wai--" I stopped as I felt her hand grab mine and pulled her in. Blood! A lot of blood! It pooled around Beverly as she heaved heavily and covered her side with her hands - at least what was left of her side. A chunk was missing. One of those bullets must have zipped too close to her.
"We've hit the outer atmosphere!" said the robotic voice of the automated pilot. But I wasn't paying attention.
I pulled Beverly over to a better spot in the ship. Shadow-Walker grabbed the medical supplies. Valiic quickly began to put pressure on the wounds. Beverly stared up at me, into my eyes, with pure terror in hers. I could see it. She wanted to know if she was going to make it through this.
"You're not going to kick the bucket yet, Darcrose! You hear me?!" I told her what she wanted to hear. She reached for my hand, and I was happy to give it to her.
Frost jumped in to inspect the wound. "We need tissue spikes right now! The human version!" Shadow-Walker reached into the bag and handed the needle to Frost. He injected it near her injury. "Peric fiber!"
Beverly's breathing slowed, her grip loosened, and her eyes began to fade into sleep. "No! Beverly!" I shook her shoulders. "Frost!" I looked up at him.
He was covering her wounds with the peric fiber. "She's losing too much blood!" He finished the wrapping. "Quick! Blood transfusion needle!"
Shadow-Walker handed it to him. Beverly had closed her eyes completely, and her breathing stopped.
Frost grabbed my shoulders. "James, blood type?"
"Universal donor," I responded.
Without asking, he shoved a needle in my arm, hitting a vein perfectly. He stuck the other into Beverly's arm and began a cycle of pumping her chest and breathing into her mouth.
Seconds ticked by like minutes. Frost tried over and over; nothing. The moment came when all of us knew she'd passed away. Frost turned back to us, mortified. "God rest her soul."
Our mourning was cut short. "Malfunction! Malfunction!" the onboard automated pilot stated before short-circuiting.
"Damnit!" Frost went over to the cockpit and started messing with the controls.
"Do you even know what you're doing?" Shadow-Walker asked.
"Kind of," he spoke, frustrated.
"Kind of?" Shadow-Walker repeated. He rushed over to help.
"The ship's controls… they aren't responding! What the hell?"
"Let me look." Shadow-Walker opened the circuit panel. "Damn! All major navigation controls are being overridden!"
"What?" I scrambled for information. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying we don't control the ship anymore!"
"Then who does?" Valiic asked.
"I have… I-I don't have any clue."
"Fan-fraken-tastic," I cursed.
Suddenly, a wormhole opened into space from our ship, and it zapped through. We were off to who knows where.
⁕⁕⁕Dancing-Sky⁕⁕⁕
Dancing-Sky gazed through the glass at the space battle before her. They bought all the time they could in the battle. The enemy reinforcements hit just a minute before and were beginning to overwhelm the ARW through sheer numbers. Most of the ally fighter ships had been destroyed, and the Whispering Dragon's shields were on critical. She barked orders and received them at the same time. It was chaotic on the bridge, but it wouldn't last much longer.
"Sky. The Order of Aegis dropship has picked up the last of the response unit from Idor," the tactics advisor gave them good news.
"Get ready to take off. Once they are on board, we leave!"
"Yes, Commander," replied the head flight helmsman.
It had only been a minute before bad news came. "Sky, look!"
An image of the rescue ship came to Dancing-Sky's hologram projector. The ship that held the last of the response unit, James's unit, took off through a wormhole. Just as quickly as the wormhole formed, it dispersed.
"Where are they going?" Dancing-Sky screamed, frustrated and ready to leave.
"Uh, scans indicate their navigation systems have malfunctioned! They aren't in control!" said the navigator.
"Did you get a read on where they went?"
"Negative. Sorry."
Dancing-Sky knew Day-Bringer and Commander Sizar would have witnessed the same thing. It was now on Day-Bringer to make a hard decision, one they wouldn't have to wait long for. Word came in, and it was time to retreat.
As instructed, all remaining ships landed inside their cruisers, and both the Whispering Dragon and Tempest of Titans retreated through a wormhole.
"Commander, what do we do about James's unit?" the first officer asked Dancing-Sky.
"Classify them as MIA."
"Sky? Shouldn't we find them?" asked the tactical advisor.
"Our galaxy is incomprehensibly big, and the ARW has only mapped roughly forty-five percent of it. They could be anywhere."
With those words, the decision had been made. Dancing-Sky could only hope those soldiers would find their way home someday; Dancing-Sky, however, had a war to focus on.