Esthi fires at the charging soldiers as I get to my feet and turn to confront them. She takes one out as gunfire races in a mad dash for Fracture and Evo.
I’m too slow in my suit, heavy but without the maneuverability of my wings. I used to outstretch them and protect my brothers. Now I have only myself.
Fracture splits into a million pieces. Evo touches one of his crystal fragments and shatters with him. Bullets race through their parts, missing them completely.
Esthi leans away from them in horror. But the moment the bullets pass through, my Rogue Brothers pull themselves back together again.
Craze hikes up the side of his ship in a Solcrue officer’s suit of armor, blasting enemy soldiers off of the hull with a three-roundburst rifle. Ranger joins us from another batch. Then RamBash, until I’m left wondering who is flying the ship.
Craze>>Navi: Ready for deployment.
The ship banks hard toward the portal, shielding it as the last Titan and rebel vessels flee in the Ravenger’s shadow. Soon, we are the only ship remaining of the resistance on this side of the portal.
Craze’s squad picks off the landing soldiers but can’t seem to stop them from dropping in greater numbers from the ship.
RamBash>>Local: I knew this would happen! We’re surrounded!
I put myself between the gunfire and my friends and mate, trying to hide them all with my body. I’m large, but not enough without my wings to protect them all.
Bullet after flaming bullet hits me.
Evo touches my shoulder as he finishes helping Fracture set up the radiant canister. Bullets start bouncing off of Evo like he’s suddenly built of my kind of metal. He and Fracture adjust a few settings on the weapon, lock in a ring, and hunker down.
“What now?” Esthi asks as she returns fire from behind my shield.
Evo>>Local: Pray you aren’t any part Solcrue.
Esthi gives me a wide-eyed look.
Evo releases me, grabs the handles on the sides, twists them, and shoves them together. His palms drip with red blood, which makes no sense. Evo’s digibadge is not red, nor is his nanosolution. But nothing about Evo makes sense to me at the moment.
One last rocket releases from the berserker. I don’t see it until the Solcrue boarding party begins vanishing in a puff of mist under the power of the blue wave.
“Armor!” Esthi screams and reaches for me. The projectile punches through my middle.
Evo steadies the weapon as it blooms with light, billowing out like a luminous, spherical blast wave, while cold emptiness invades me and my nanosolution, along with bits of wiring, drift out into space.
Esthi’s face appears before me, terror in her beautiful eyes as she catches me.
“Armor!” her voice is a muffled whisper.
I’m okay.I want to say it because I feel it even though my suit depressurizes and shuts down.
I don’t need air.But the pain is immense. I just don’t want her to see it on my face. I don’t want to scare her more.
Solcruean ships nearby empty of their pilots and crew. But the wave only eats into the closest third of the ships.
The Ravenger makes one last turn toward the portal as the mothership and her berserker launch a fresh missile assault from the back of the pack.
Navi>>Local: I’m at full throttle, but she’s not going to make it. Brace for impact!
As the portal nears and our fate closes in, another vessel punches through the portal—a rebel ship.
Kelta>>Local: Hi, Aidathra. Miss me? This is for my mate, you…
She lets out a string of swears that would make Menace blush as she sprays cluster bombs out of the ship. They carve through space, separating into smaller and smaller bombs until they’re nearly a wall of explosives, racing to blanket the enemy in deadly blows.
Esthielle>>Local: Kelta! Hurry! We’re heading back now!
