"Outside the box is where I live."
~Starbuck, Battlestar Galactica
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Optical Illusions for Beginners
Katie, a citizen of Earth, had spent much of her adult life on Mars. Always inquisitive, she had studied—a little light reading—the Martian fleet's weapons systems and ships. Archangels were Mars Fleet's light corvette class ships, maneuverable enough to dance with starfighters, but designed to face heavier corvettes and frigates. They were equipped with railguns, ion cannons, small plasma guns, and large enough to deploy bursts of missile spam. Purely starfighters, only capable of flying in space's vacuum, Martian Sabers were nimble brawlers, made for dogfights.
Archangels were wormhole capable, and Katie knew—because Lance was always going to be Lance—that Lance's question about Thorn's wormhole capability probably meant he'd briefly concocted a hairbrained scheme where he'd engaged the enemy, keeping them from following her escape with Keith into a wormhole. She clenched her jaw as she plugged into the Thorn's primary sensor module, hoping Lance's bright idea—and it wasn't a bad idea—wasn't just another attempt to get her off Athena so he could go into noble sacrifice mode.
Under interplanetary treaty, decommissioned military ships were supposed to be dismantled with only non-armament parts permitted to be sold for salvage. Mars Fleet got around that pesky edict by dismantling decommissioned ships, shuffling the parts around, reassembling without armaments, and then selling the remade ships to licensed security and paramilitary companies. Who, of course, refitted the ships with armaments.
Merc outfits used the Hel out of their ships for a few years, then disposed of them at auctions where buyers were often less-than-savory entities like gunrunners and the Reds. Decommissioned Martian ships frequently became part of Xyphoid's growing fleet, informally known as the Wolf Pack.
She paused to note the approaching ships' location on her glasses' HUD, now linked to Keith's ship. She had to get this done quick. Even if it worked, the deception would only work for a few targets, limited by the Galra ship's signal power and therefore, its fuel levels. She could pull some energy from Athena, but the little hopper, even with her mods, was at her core a passenger cruiser and not a warship.
Kosmo lay at her feet and she glance briefly at the old wolf, then up to her tacsuit's helmet sitting on Thorn's dashboard. She rotated her ankle, flexing her foot, toe up, and her calf muscle pressed against the knife in her boot. A bayard was holstered at her back. Darting a look at Keith who sat inches away, she flexed her left hand's fingers. Not perfect mobility but it would do. A backup plan simmered in her brain as she folded the patch into signal systems, rerouting energy draws, pulling from shields, engines, and some non-essential systems; and building an ad hoc AI that would calculate optimum energy assignment based on enemy proximity.
She opened a line to Athena; on screen because she needed the reassurance of his face. "Lance, you read?"
"I'm here."
"On the tertiary signal panel, there's a mode switch…." She walked him through mods on his end, and then fired off a data package with another patch.
Thorn was twice the size of Athena, but had the equivalent habitable space. The rest of her structure given over to life support, engines and weapons. In size and capabilities, Thorn was comparable to an Archangel, her small living quarters giving her a larger silhouette than that of a traditional starfighter. This ship was a newer model, fusing the best of Altean and Galra tech with Earther innovation thanks to the Holt clan.
Clyde, who had a proper Galra name, but on learning the origin of Katie's teasing moniker—human outlaws—embraced the nickname, already sat at the primary gun port, to the right of Keith. Bonnie, Katie's techy counterpart, stood behind Katie, watching her work. Out of politeness and knowing Bonnie needed to feel useful, Katie asked her questions about the system, although she had designed chunks of its architecture.
"It's done," she said to Lance.
His gaze swept over her face, taking her in and she did the same. Then with a cocky smile, he said, "Hic sunt palatini."
"Hic sunt palatini."
Lance laughed. "Keith, come on, buddy, this one's way easier than 'Vol-tron.'"
Muscles played on Keith's face, humor toying with Lance-made irritation. He stage whispered to Katie, "I so want to say 'Vol-tron.'"
"Just humor him."
"I heard that," said Lance.
Keith's gaze moved from Lance to Katie. Then his mouth broke with the soft smile he only showed with those he trusted. "Hic sunt palatini."
"Deploy countermeasures on my mark." Pidge's voice came over the coms.
"Wilco," said Lance.
This version of countermeasures was a small shot of flak accompanying two of Pidge's small scout bots, like the one she'd sent ahead to survey the Ox. Sacrificial lambs to the gods of staying alive.
A couple minutes later, she followed with, "Silent and dark on my mark."
Lance made one last sweep of the coms, fingers poised to shut down main drive engines and switch several systems to low energy mode. Athena's internal environment was going to get frosty, and the G-compensators would go to partial power for a time, all in an attempt to make only the smallest signature in space, so he was strapped into the seat and wearing a tacsuit and the accompanying helmet.
"In three, two, one, mark."
His fingers flicked over the controls and all the lights in Athena went black save for status screens. The usual hum of all but essential systems faded. Carried by momentum and without atmospheric resistance, Athena cruised along at a constant speed.
The screen showed a blossom of energy ahead and slightly out of Athena's flight path. Another flared beyond Keith's fighter. Blossoms that instantly became Athena and Thorn's twin, at least to sensors. Athena's shield indicators flashed as their energy modulated, becoming light benders. A simply light bend wouldn't fool their pursuers' sensors, but they made them invisible to anyone who tried to lay eyes on them in the literal sense.
The bots and small countermeasure clouds, fired ahead of both ships would also cruise along at ship-like speed. The powerful sensor array on Keith's ship, tweaked with the semi-sentient simulacrum algorithm, threw out signals mimicking Athena and Thorn's signatures, decoys that were channeled through the bots and amplified through the countermeasure flak.
Lance shifted his attention to sensors, watching both their pursuers and the vacillating blips just beyond Thorn's sensors. The pattern screamed combat, but who?
His gaze lifted to the broad panorama of space. Saturn was currently at its closest to Jupiter, making this an ideal time to make the journey in a non-wormhole capable ship. Space travelers, pilots especially, were a superstitious lot. Saturn and by default, Titan's position, in conjunction with St. Elmo's Day were considered lucky by most human voyagers. In just a few days' travel, Saturn had ballooned from just another tiny light to the distinctive ringed disc.
As he always did before a fight, Lance breathed deeply, absorbing the ebony, star-spangled blanket before him, and feeling simultaneously tiny and vast. He was nothing, just a tiny blip of energy and matter, but made of star-stuff and part of infinity's enormity. He pondered, not for the first time, the curious fact that "just a boy from Cuba" was out here at all. Then again, so too was his sister—somewhere. The McClains of Viñales, Cuba making their mark in deep space.
With care, because this needed to work, more than his life was on the line, he plugged a short, but complicated flight pattern into auto-pilot. This was the part of his plan that Pidge hated, but it had to be done, because what Athena lacked in weapons and armor, she made up for in maneuverability. At the rate their pursuers chased them, they couldn't be outrun. The decoys wouldn't work forever. They needed to get the upper hand, sow a little chaos, before the ruse failed. His need to chatter ate at him, so he channeled it into checking and rechecking his work.
Minutes ticked by and the four predators expanded on the screen and then began firing on the decoys. "I'm reading the room, and it's not friendly," he muttered. He focused on Pidge's latest construction, a display reflecting the decoy's integrity, watching the attack slowly eat away at the illusion.
"Abra-fucking-cadabra," he said and began his countdown.
Kosmo set his enormous head on Katie's knee, lamp-yellow eyes meeting hers in the gloom of Thorn's cockpit. She sat to Keith's left with Clyde to Keith's right. Bonnie had retreated to the aft gun port. Her body otherwise in battle calm, her fingers burrowed into Kosmo's dense neck ruff.
"Say when, Pidge," said Keith. She nodded, switching focus to her helmet's HUD. Before her eyes, the decoys wavered. With her datapen's holo-keyboard, she made quick corrections, and the decoys shifted position, closing their interval, the Athena decoy slowing as though badly damaged.
She knew Lance was making his move, peeling away from them and hurling towards the enemy. The thought drove flow into her bloodstream, her pulse quickening, palms sweating.
The first Archangel rose large in Lance's screen, and then turned, pursuing the Athena decoy. The real Athena breathed fire, engines coming to life, thrusters flipping her back at a precise angle and accelerating toward the larger ship. The G-compensators came online, but not quite quick enough and Lance braced himself, hands over the controls. His vision dimmed from the G-forces. His hands shook over the control, waiting. Pressure built in his skull. Blackout impending, he launched the auto-pilot sequence.
"Now," said Katie.
Thorn's engines back online, the fighter reversed and accelerated toward the second Archangel. Clyde's big, clawed hands moved over his targeting screen, readying missiles. Thanks to the Holts, Keith's ship had a comprehensive encyclopedia of ship specs, specifically weaknesses. The big Galra set missile lock to an energy seam, near the Archangel's nose, a small gap between ventral and fore shields. It wasn't a design flaw, but an intentional way to dissipate energy, common on many older ships.
"They've slowed. They see Athena, both Athenas," observed Keith.
Katie nodded, fingers clenching wolf fur. Kosmo nudged the top of her thigh and she relaxed her hold with an apologetic pat. This was so much easier in the early days of Voltron, when life and death were abstractions, when they didn't signify the thin line between survival and catastrophic loss.
"He's reached the Archangel" As she watched, the little hopper cut a hard arc and shot up, over the Archangel's dorsal side. The pilot must've still been confused since they didn't follow his move. The maneuver, beyond what most pilots would attempt even with fully charged G-compensators would drop him in close to the ship's other significant weakness.
A Saber, flying at the Archangel's wing, broke away and toward Athena.
Athena's direction changed abruptly again, and the hopper dove at the Archangel. The two signals began to converged, but no fire came from Athena.
"What's he waiting for?" said Keith. He exchanged a nod with Clyde as their target loomed large. The Thorn decoy disappeared, devoured by enemy fire, just as Clyde sent two missiles snaking into space.
Athena and the Archangel's signals were perilously close.
Katie gritted her teeth and hit her coms. "Wake up, Lance. Wake up."
"Ow" Dazed, Lance swatted at the side of his neck where the insect stung, buzzing fiercely. His hand impacted the metal. What?
His fingers fumbled, fingernails skating down helmet. Not an insect, but a Pidge mod, an electrical charge to zap him awake if he didn't do so on his own. The dorsal side of the Archangel, light gray with the faded red logo of Mars fleet was coming at him fast.
Correction, he was barreling at the ship. Giving himself a shake like a wet dog, he snapped his hands back on the controls. He immediately found his target, a spot just behind the railgun turret. "It's moronic. Running the steering wiring that close to the hull, and in the same conduit as the ventral shielding and the railgun wiring too," Pidge had said.
The nimble little ship responded fluidly to his hands, welcoming him back. His blood buzzed with a familiar sensation as though the hopper and he shared the same skin. He grinned like a maniac, icy battle calm denying fear, leaving exhilaration.
"Wake up, Lance. Wake up." Pidge's voice buzzed in his helmet, rimmed with tension. In the zone, he ignored it, the target consuming his attention. His first two shots sizzled on the shield. The next two cut through shield; two more ate through metal. Collision imminent, he steered Athena hard right, after firing a last duo of cutting laser fire.
The Archangel's gray sides consumed the cockpit screen. For an instant, he thought he'd made a fatal miscalculation. Athena slid sideways, nose up, ass spinning low behind her. Lance braced, knowing the little hopper's rear was inches, or closer to the bigger ship.
It was just a brush, a kiss of hissing shields and touch of metal on metal, but it reverberated through Athena's structure. Lance fired thrusters and slid sideways and down, strafing plasma fire along the ship's ribs. The shields absorbed the blasts until he dropped lower, then plasma scorched and began melting metal. He switched to lasers for close-range cutting power and sliced a nice breach in the hull. The Archangels returned the courtesy, side guns spitting plasma fire that impacted Athena's side, and splatted on the cockpit window's transparent aluminum skin.
"Archangel's ventral shields are out," he said into coms. Athena shuddered and Lance pulled away from the larger ship, switching her shields back on. The decoys destroyed; the light-bending invisibility was pointless now.
"Smart," said Katie grudgingly as Thorn's missiles impacted solid shield. "They moved the shield gap."
Keith, face passive, nodded. "Targeting Lance's Archangel instead." He deftly directed Thorn toward the other Archangel at an angle that would minimize their exposure to the first Archangel's still functioning railgun. Thorn's shield protested a hard ion canon blast. In seconds, Clyde sent missiles at the disabled ship. They impacted and unshielded metal wavered with the percussion. Keith followed that with a salvo from the ion cannon. Thorn shuddered as a Saber hit punished her aft and dorsal shields.
The Archangel's flank sank inward and then dissolved, wing arms collapsing together as internal framing folded. Thorn jogged to the side, evading fire and flipped around facing her attacker. Katie watched the status screen, approvingly noting that Bonnie had beefed up aft EMP shielding, anticipating the Archangel's explosive end.
She went back to studying the undamaged Archangel specs on her wrist com's screen. Where had they moved the quiznaking seam?
"I have two, no, three more signatures approaching," said Bonnie. "No ID, but another Archangel, possibly."
Giving the Saber a cursory blast, Keith dodged Thorn past it, focus again on the second Archangel. "Lance," he said. "The Sabers." He didn't bother to elaborate, clearly confident that Lance knew what needed to be done.
Her eyes lingered on Athena's signature, before focusing on the task at hand. Lance's near kamikaze stunt, attacking from above at stroke-threatening acceleration, in the railgun's targeting window, would only work on an enemy caught unaware. Even Thorn couldn't withstand heavy railgun fire.
"It is another Archangel," observed Bonnie, of the approaching bogeys. "Two Sabers."
The good thing about space was that there was so very much of it. Lance sped away from the doomed Archangel—it lit up with Keith's missile fire and came apart—turning periodically to fire at the ship's Saber escort, but swinging his path toward the Saber that dogged Thorn.
Chances were good they'd see him as the easy target and he could draw them both off the field of battle. Running away was like saying, "Here's my big, fat cowardly ass, fire at will." But he needed to buy Pidge time to work out how to take out the other Archangel.
Some of Xiphoid were former pilots and soldiers, but most, fortunately, were just disaffected youth with delusions of heroism. These Saber pilots must've fallen into the latter category because they took after Athena like dogs on prime rib. Really, the smarter option would have been to deal with the real danger posed by Keith's ship.
On the other hand, presenting an easy target to the Sabers wasn't doing Athena's shields any favors. The chase devoured eighty kilometers and he turned Athena, facing his shadows and dropping out of their path. He fired at one, striping its belly with plasma fire, turning as it passed him. The second Saber turned, firing on him, but Lance slid Athena in a tidy arc, using the other fighter as a shield.
He eyed Pidge's target solution screen, making note of Saber vulnerabilities, all located in the fighters' upper arms, and of course, engines. Finally realizing they were serving no purpose except target practice, the first Saber's pilot banked and turned into the other's path. Lance kept firing on the second Saber who was distracted by the first's inability to maintain a proper interval.
Lance decided to put the weaker pilot out of their misery first. Athena rushed toward the first Saber, spraying fire, expecting to induce panicky flying and getting just that result.
If this weren't life and death, Lance would have felt pity since the other pilot was so overmatched it hardly seemed fair. They flew the Saber as if it were a cargo hauler moving through atmo, firing thrusters unnecessarily long and with awkward turns that handed Lance the widest version of the ship's silhouette. The other Saber rode his ass, but Lance slid into the zone again, maintaining a delicate balance, evading some, but not all fire, letting Athena's shields do their thing. Lining up a shot, he struck at the junction between the starship's right arm and body.
Target practice for all, thought Lance, periodically positioning Athena so that the second Saber friendly-fired the noob as he dodged away. Were he also flying a Saber, this would be over in minutes. Neither pilot was his equal, but both flew actual fighters and he was distracted by Keith's and Pidge's situation.
He hesitated, thumb twitching on the trigger, momentarily reluctant to burst his murder cherry in this engagement. Had the noob taken advantage of Lance's hesitation, they might have salvaged an iota of honor and gone out fighting. Instead, they kept running. He fired three fat bursts at the weakened arm joint and engines, pulled up and reversed, full attention on the remaining Saber. Sensors showed the noob's ship dissolving into multiple signals.
"Apparently the party invites said, 'Plus three,'" Lance noted as he checked scanners.
Thorn hurtled forward at the Archangel, shields blazing with railgun fire, spitting ion canon fire in return. Katie clenched her fists, frustrated, feeling useless. She wanted back on Athena, but couldn't risk it, not with both Athena and Thorn in a dogfight and separated by at least fifty kilometers. She stroked Kosmo's head, knowing it was too much to ask of the wolf.
Missile spam, a sensor dominating flare, rushed at Thorn, and Clyde fired off countermeasures. Keith used the fiery cloud of projectiles and countermeasures as cover, risking a few seconds in the railgun's optimum firing radius. Thorn's ion cannon scored a solid hit behind the railgun, weakening the shield before he had to slip away to a safer angle.
"Try this," she said to Clyde, offering up a third missile target. Based on her analysis, there were six other possible locations for the energy dispersion seam in the Archangel's shields. Her first two had been wrong.
Like Lance, Keith had picked up some fierce piloting skills over the years, but Archangels were a beefier class of fighter than Thorn. And time was of the essence as another Archangel, with two more Sabers, bore down on them.
And still out of range, the mysterious firefight continued. It could be anyone. More Xiphoid versus Garrison or Coalition forces. Or gunrunners having a territorial dispute.
In Keith's capable hands, Thorn spun, rising and falling, multidirectional thrusters firing, pelting the Archangel with ion cannon blasts as it made similar moves. The pilot wasn't Keith's equal but they weren't bad either. Their secondary gunner periodically added ion cannon salvos to the attack when the railgun paused to cool.
Missiles met more countermeasures. Thorn's shield glowed in protest. Katie squirmed, watching Bonnie compensate for damage, shifting energy loads from generator to generator.
A shield failed. Thorn shivered. Katie, Keith, and Clyde ducked instinctively at the angry hiss of railgun fire penetrating the hull. Something crackled in the small cabin behind her.
"Bonnie, status," said Keith.
Katie sat up and sent Clyde a fourth target. "Near the engines." She pointed at a schematic. Keith darted a glance at it, then maneuvered the starship, trying to optimized Clyde's missile targeting. The Archangel matched the move, protecting its vulnerable side.
"Minor hull penetration. Sealant is working. Shield will be back up in a few ticks," said Bonnie. Katie watched the screens, biting back the urge to help repair the shield, knowing better than to trespass on the other woman's territory, but driven mad with uselessness.
Burning the remaining Q, Lance charged back toward Pidge and Keith. As he watched, their fourth missile salvo penetrated and the Archangel jittered, losing power. But like all combat ships, it was made to take damage. Thrusters still functioning, along with the damned railgun, it turned, still firing on Thorn.
With sensors still linked to Thorn's, he watched as a second Archangel entered the field of battle. He made a quick spiral sign of obeisance at St. Elmo and dove into the chaos, which now included an expanding debris field from the destroyed Archangel. "Hic sunt palatini," he said driving hard at the newest Archangel's accompanying Sabers.
Crippled but still capable of full steering capacity, the Archangel spun, keeping its injured engines out of easy targeting range. Katie knew Keith didn't want to waste more missiles, not with another Archangel just a few kilometers away.
A small signature, Athena, darted toward the arriving ships and Katie's anxiety spiked. The railgun began to fire on the little hopper. Athena broke off, pulling a Saber with her, obviously Lance's intent.
Her eyes raked the schematics, but couldn't find any other weaknesses.
Keith pulled away, sending Thorn spinning, a dancing, hard-to-target, spikey gray beast in the black. With its main engines down, the Archangel couldn't pursue at any speed. The newer, whole Archangel was the greater threat.
The Saber's pilot was smarter than your average bear, breaking off and returning to formation after only a couple minutes of pursuing Athena.
"Fuck. Somebody was paying attention in tactics class." Three ships on course for Thorn. Never one to turn down a party invite, Lance shot toward the trio, focus on the Archangel.
Keith met them with a spiraling flourish, outnumbered, but still the superior pilot. With its attention on Thorn, the Archangel's railgun was occupied. Lance closed his eyes for a split second, sinking into the idea of being Athena, feeling the ship's outer contours and dove into the fray.
Athena's shields blazed red, hit by both Sabers, but Lance only had eyes for the sweet spot by the railgun.
"He's going to get shredded," said Katie.
"He's going for railgun's soft spot." Dodging fire, Keith rotated Thorn and slid sideways, drawing fire away from Lance's approach. Bonnie, anticipating this, redirected shield energy. Nevertheless, Thorn quivered again and another burst of angry metal ripped through the cabin, a few deadly bees tearing through the cockpit. The ship lurched in Keith's hands. Clyde unleashed more missiles, which were met with countermeasures.
"Status," said Keith.
"Hull is holding. Sealant functioning," said Bonnie. "We've lost the left dorsal thruster."
On the downside, both Sabers were whipping Athena like the proverbial redheaded step-child. On the upside, a lot of their missed fire was hitting the Archangel too. He aimed and managed six, solid shots at the railgun, before pulling up, rotating and returning fire on the Sabers.
Athena jerked in his hands as he sped away. A hot swarm of railgun fire ripped through the hopper's shields. He winced as bits of hull, wood and neoplastic made like shrapnel.
"And this, boys and girls, is why you should always wear a helmet," he muttered.
"Lance, do you read?" Pidge's voice was several notes higher than usual.
"I read, write and do arithmetic." As he watched, the status screen registered loss of cabin pressure, followed by stabilization and a slow rise as Athena's self-repairing hull instantly did its thing. "Next time I see Shiro, I'm giving him a sloppy, wet kiss with lots of tongue."
"Get out of there!"
"Don't need to tell me twice." He eyed the shield status. Two gone and no Pidge to make rapid repairs.
The wounded Archangel apparently wasn't quite that wounded. It had limped over, closing the distance and was firing its railgun on Athena. Lance's attack had been partially successful, knocking out the railgun, but not shields or steering of the second Archangel. Two partially functional corvette class starfighters and two smaller starfighters. And more on the way. She did the math and it was ugly.
Her heart was in her mouth. No, it wasn't. It was in three places at once. Her heart piloted the Galra starfighter and its big, furry head was on her lap. And above all else, her heart, a piece missing for so long, flew in Athena, through a lethal cloud of missiles, ion canon and railgun fire.
Without looking at Keith, she bent toward Kosmo and whispered.
Keith's voice had a weird, un-Keith-ish tone. Panic? "Lance. Is Pidge with you?"
"No." Anxiety sent a pulsing beat through Lance's head. "Why?"
"She and Kosmo just teleported. Somewhere."
Dodging fire, shields screaming for mercy, Lance didn't notice the new signatures immediately. One large, frigate size. And five—fuck, five!—equal to Thorn. He was too distracted to get an ID, though.
"I'm not dressed for this party."
Kosmo's aim, as usual, was impeccable, plopping them to the left of the Archangel's pilot, opposite the gunner's seat. The wolf had blipped them onto the Archangel that had damaged engines, but a functioning railgun.
Flow surging through her veins, Katie swept a brief recon of the cockpit, marking the pilot, a big Titan; the gunner, a blond woman; and the position of the aft gun station. All parties blinked at each other for seconds, before the gunner leaped to her feet. Without hesitation, Katie sliced her knife across the pilot's throat.
Shifting her grip, she threw the knife at the gunner. Knife throwing obviously wasn't her strength. The blade embedded in the meaty side of the woman's neck, but missed anything vital. Kosmo charged the gunner, knocking her down, and clamped his fangs on her arm. The woman's eyes widened, mouth opened in a silent scream as the wolf teleported them both away.
A mote of sadness in her heart—that had been her favorite knife—Katie turned toward the aft gun station in time to see a skinny alien emerge. Stunned, she stared at Rolo, the bounty-hunter-turned-rebel from her Voltron days. No, not Rolo, but another Foerli, the same race as Rolo. The hesitation lost her the element of surprise as the man fired on her. The blast hit her tacsuit, knocking her back against the pilot's chair.
Kosmo, having spaced the unfortunate gunner, returned at that moment. Seeing Kosmo as the softer target, the Foerli fired at the wolf. Instinctively, she threw herself over Kosmo, shielding him from fire. Plasma blasts hit the suit like powerful fists, and she gasped as the air left her lungs, and her skull rattled with the impact. The wily wolf blipped several feet away, then again and again, drawing fire.
Katie yanked her bayard from its holster and fired, aim guided by flow and the halo of blue surrounding the man. The blast took off the top of his head, an object lesson for wearing a helmet during a complicated battle. She paused, waiting to see if anyone else would emerge. A panel above her dripped sparks. She turned, watching the battle beyond: little Athena desperately dodging fire from two Sabers; Thorn not quite as agile due to the lost thruster, spitting her last round of missiles. On the Archangel's display, she could see more ships approaching.
"Help me out, Koz." She pointed at the dead pilot. Clever Kosmo chomped on the dead man's leg and teleported away. With her glove and upper arm, Katie scrubbed blood off the controls and sat. Kosmo returned, having spaced the body and she rotated the ship, aimed and fired its railguns at the other Archangel.
"Pidge is on that Archangel," said Lance. The wounded ship lumbered toward its twin, pouring lethal rain. The second Archangel caught on quickly though, and fired back with its ion cannon. Seconds later, missile fire bloomed; then a countermeasures response from Pidge's ship. She had anticipated the missiles, fortunate, at such close range, but several broke through the flak cloud, impacting a wing. Fire rippled over shields, hungering for an opening and finding one. The Archangel flinched, a thruster lost.
In Lance's mind, he saw her making adjustments, compensating for the damage. He also imagined her jumping onto the ship in the first place, taking on the crew one-handed, and horror made his brain swimmy. Pidge responded with a flurry of missile spam, then the railgun, using the recoil and remaining thrusters to slide back and sideways. Watching her manage the unfamiliar ship with ease, he felt he couldn't love her more.
Keith's response was to redouble his attack on the other Archangel, leaving Lance the Sabers.
As before, Lance toyed with the two attackers, both unfortunately, decent pilots, drawing them away from the battle. One determined asshole kept slipping back to fire on Keith. Fine, keep showing me your pretty ass. He fired on the Saber's weak spot, scoring a solid hit. Realizing their error, the pilot reversed and fired back.
Athena's remaining aft shield raged red and died. Lance slid her sideways, out of the second Saber's blasts, still exchanging fire with the other Saber.
Then the Saber behind him abruptly came apart like chaff. Heavy ion cannon fire shot past him and Lance banked Athena hard, facing this new threat.
A frigate, Hera class, loomed in the cockpit window and on sensors. Closer still, a Garrison MFE fighter turned and shot toward the remaining Saber. A full barrage of missile spam spat from the frigate hitting Keith's adversary. Lance watched as Thorn flipped and darted away from the inevitable explosion when the Archangel's Quintessence fuel pellets ignited.
A thought, a horrible thought, occurred to him. He turned Athena toward the other Archangel just as the frigate fired on it next.
"Wait! No!"
His cry was echoed by Keith's as that Archangel began to come apart.
Kosmo's growl alerted her to the attack.
Katie leaped up in time to see a large person in full power armor charging her. Someone had been hiding in the rear gun port. Fuck!
With a roar, Kosmo flung himself at the person. But his attack was met with a vicious sweep of the person's arm, augmented by powerful hydraulics, flinging the wolf sideways against the wall.
And Katie saw red. More like purple, as flow etched the person's outline. The person charged and she skipped sideways, and immediately tripped over the gunner's corpse, her fall only partially arrested by her injured hand. The cast took the brunt of the force, but her partially healed bones rattled in pain.
Her attacker surged forward, graceless, but actions driven by powerful machinery. Their fist slammed into the control panel above her, showering her with sparks.
She scrambled away, realizing she'd dropped her bayard. The person's next blow ripped the pilot's seat from moorings. Katie ducked and rolled, remembering the Foerli's blaster. As she rose to her feet, the floor jerked under her feet. She tripped. The armored person punched, a glancing blow to her shoulder, and she fell sideways.
Her second try at running worked. Feet under her, she darted to the corpse, scooped up the blaster and began firing. The floor rocked and then rippled under her. Confused, even her attacker paused.
Aiming for the neck, she fired and fired, and fired. Armor, in this case, really meant armor, and her shots sizzled ineffectually on titanium. The cheap blaster's status light flashed red. The suit charged her again, and she dropped and rolled to the side, the maneuver awkward with an injured hand. Miscalculating, she hit wall. An armored foot impacted her hip, pain sharp even with the tacsuit dispersing much of the blow's energy throughout its material.
The floor rippled, tossing her attacker backwards. The Hel?
Just a few feet away, Kosmo struggled to his feet. The helmeted head swiveled and the person took a heavy step toward the wolf. Katie aimed and pulled the blaster's trigger. The stupid blaster, overheated and low on charge, spluttered. She threw it instead and it bounced off the helmet's faceplate. "Over here, motherfucker!"
She rose painfully just the ship bucked and her armored attacker was flung at her, arms swinging. A fist impacted her helmet, knocking her sideways, away from Kosmo. Skull ringing like a bell, her vision wavered and the cockpit's glass, in the background, seemed to dissolve.
No. It was actually dissolving. With a horrible, leviathan scream of folding, grinding metal, the front end of the ship bent inward.
Then the Archangel died around her, disassembling into heat and dead metal.
The Archangel broke along with Lance's heart.
Bits and pieces of ships already flew through space, a few bodies as well. He removed his helmet, wanting nothing between him and his search through the mess, terrified of what he might find, but desperate to know. There, amid the Archangel's shattered structure, something that might have been a wolf? A human-shaped form? Then a large chunk of ship slashed the darkness and through the canine shape.
"Hey, Pidge. Girlfriend, you read?" said a familiar voice over coms.
"Veronica?" said Keith.
Eyes drawn to that spot in space, Lance felt his psyche split, the part that was strong, that had learned how to survive anything, cleaving from the wreck he was becoming, fleeing a doomed vessel. This other self watched as before his eyes, the Lance who still sat in the cockpit seat broke apart, a sandcastle crumbling into a formless lump in a wave of shock, all his fragile strength gone. The spot where Pidge and Kosmo had been now became his personal Medusa, leaving him petrified, even his eyes frozen.
The chatter continued on the coms.
"We've still got three on the run." said another female voice. "Pursue?"
"Affirm. Leifsdottir and Saetang, turn 'em to shards," said Veronica.
"Lance, do you read?" said Keith. "Lance? Is Pidge with you?"
"Keith, is there problem?" asked Veronica.
"Veronica," said Keith, "Pidge and Kosmo were on the second Archangel."
"Fuck!"
"Does anybody have eyes on Pidge?" said Keith.
"Lance, do you read?" Veronica's voice unnaturally shrill.
"Lance?"
"Lance, you are heading for the debris field. Change course."
"Lance!"
A male voice asked, "Who's piloting Athena? Lance?" Lance's numb brain found the voice familiar but the name slipped away along with his interest in much of anything.
"Lance, are you okay?"
"Lance, is Pidge with you?"
"LANCE!"
Many thanks to my readers!