Chapter 40: Infernus Maximus

            Commander Zion had never been as happy as he was when he successfully patched through to Signas.

            The army was well into Megacity 5 now, but deep down they all knew they were too late. Gallagher could have done all sorts of things by now, and so no one even wanted to speculate on why they still couldn't reach Hunter HQ even though they had left Gallagher's EMG field far behind them in the Catskills. Zion and the others had heard it from Blaze Heatnix that a hacker had struck the HQ, but he didn't know just how bad the situation was. That all changed when to his considerable surprise and disbelief he got a voice at the other end of his communicator.

            "Commander Signas here," a very excited voice crackled. "Zion, is that really you?"

            "You bet," Zion replied, resisting an urge to let out a whoop. "We're in the city. We're moving towards Hunter HQ."

            "You mean what's left of it," Signas said grimly.

            Zion all but fell over. "You mean…?!"

            "No!" Signas boomed it. "No! I didn't mean that at all! But they did fire a Buzzbomb. It didn't go nuclear on us, but it still packed enough of a punch to demolish the front half of the building. They were pounding it with regular gunfire until the Ravens reunited and started kicking the airship's ass."

            "What's the airship status?"

            "Look up," Signas suggested.

            That Zion did, along with Commanders Archer, Mason, Zegmann, and Acting Commander Jasper of the 17th. They could clearly see Gallagher sending sprays of artillery at the eleven Ravens that were floating like butterflies and stinging like tanks. Nevertheless, despite the blows, Gallagher seemed to be holding up very nicely…almost too nicely.

            "They've got energy shields," Archer observed, watching the shimmers of light that flashed whenever a projectile made contact with the airship.

            "That's what Douglas says," Signas said from the other end.

            "Look, tell Taggart to knock it off," Zion suggested. "Those Ravens can't have much ammo left, and they'd best save it until something knocks out those shields."

            "We've already knocked out a few," Signas responded. "And this seems to be the only way. I've radioed the Megacity Army for help, but…"

            "Hah!" Zion scoffed when Signas didn't go on. "Fat lot of good they'll do. But I guess every little bit helps."

            "Where's X?" Signas asked next.

            "Eh…not here," Zion replied gingerly.

            "WHAT?"

            "He stayed behind to destroy Seraph Castle," Jasper explained. "I've assumed command of his unit. He's working with Unit 0."

            Signas processed that. "Oh. Well…I guess I see how he's thinking." He launched into a breathless speech then. "Listen, Zion, that airship is the least of our worries. There's a Maverick army surrounding the headquarters, and it's moving in."

            "Jesus," Zion breathed. "Where the hell are you guys?"

            "Under a burning highway," Signas replied. "We're not a fighting force at all. We need reinforcements, bad. Most of us made it out of the base before the missile was fired. Tiberius and some of the wounded were trapped inside…Dr. Cain included."

            "Cain!" Mason gasped, tripping over his own feet. "What happened to Cain?"

            "He had a mild heart attack before we evacuated," Signas explained, deadpan. "He was stabilized instantly and should be quite alive, unless…"

            "Jesus…" Zion breathed, and then looked up at the light show going on around the airship. "Those sons of bitches!"

            "Hurry," Signas ordered, and a blip registered itself on some of Erich Zegmann's tracking gear. "That's our location. I have no idea how long we can stay hidden, but if enough of them find us…"

            "No worries," Zion assured him. "We're about a mile away from the HQ. I'll have some units teleport ahead to your position."

            "It won't work," Signas said sadly. "The airship fires EMG pulses every few minutes or so, and they always hit the whole HQ area. It's too dangerous for us to find another location, so we're stranded."

            Zion absorbed it. "We're coming now. Don't worry. Where are the Megacity forces coming in from?"

            "We've called on the Reploid Air Force and the Icarus mothership. Icarus is sending some Dragoons, and they know our position. They'll reinforce us. In time? I don't know."

            "We're coming," Zion said again. "Zion out." He looked to Archer and Mason as they raced along. "We need to teleport some troops ahead anyway to fortify the HQ area faster, even if we can't teleport there directly."

            "Hey, Zion," Archer mused, glancing at the sky. "You think that airship's out of the way of its own EMG?"

            "…It's possible," Zion agreed, beginning to see and evaluate Archer's idea.

            "You think we could teleport some troops directly on board?"

            "It…" Zion blinked and turned to Zegmann. "Could it work?"

            "They have those shields," the big human replied. "If we want to break through, we have to break the shields somehow."

            "Guess it's good that Taggart continues his assault," Zion decided. Then he blinked and looked up at the sky. "I hope he's got enough juice left in the tank. That second group didn't get a chance to reload or refuel."

            Jimmy Taggart was thinking the same thing. His fuel reserves were dangerously low, but he had at least fifteen minutes left on him, and he figured that if something miraculous didn't happen during those fifteen minutes, it was a losing battle anyway.

            Alec Tremont wasn't doing as bad on fuel. It was his weapons systems that worried him. He was running lower and lower on ammo, and while his laser Vulcan cannons could generate their own power if the battery went dead, the time it took to build such power back up would be lethal, especially in these unfriendly skies. Alec still had two mini-Sidewinders left, one under each wing. He'd sent his first two crashing into Gallagher when the dogfight had begun, though all it did was weaken the damned thing's shields.

            Bale had finished that job. The Reploid pilot had come up behind Alec, using the most curious Raven weapon with brilliant effectiveness. Underneath the aircraft's belly, there was a concentrated laser cannon that fired a charged, continual golden laser beam. In effect it was an aerial lightsaber, though its range wasn't spectacular and it drained gluttonous amounts of energy, but it was dreadfully effective in this case. Right after Tremont's Sidewinders hit home Bale held his Raven in a stationary position, hovering right in front of the shield and letting his "Raven Slasher" sit against the shield, continually draining its energy and weakening it. Just when the airship managed to redirect its weapons towards Bale, he threw his engines into action and actually shot backwards, taking full advantage of his aircraft, the most nimble model in existence, and loosed two of his four Sidewinders at a safe distance that was still almost point blank for the airship. The shields died around that particular spot, but the Hunters were finding themselves hard pressed to take advantage of this new weakness as Gallagher was now concentrating its defenses on that side.

            Satisfied, Bale turned his attention to another threat: the Bee Bladers. The Mavericks had five left, and they were sweeping the city at low altitudes searching for the evacuated Hunters. Bale's main objective was to destroy Gallagher, but the Ravens had also been tasked with providing cover fire for the Hunters on the ground until Zion and company returned. Bale knew what would happen if a Bee Blader radioed in to the Mavericks where the Hunters were hiding, and he wasn't about to let that happen. Bale began to trail the nearest Bee Blader, one that was sweeping a little too close to where he knew Signas and company were hiding. He followed the bulky, ugly mechaniloid and unleashed his Vulcan charges. The Bee Blader immediately gained altitude as it felt the blows, turning nimbly but not nimbly enough for the Raven, which increased speed and passed the machine up, avoiding its counterattack of machine gun salvos. The Bee Blader turned again to see Bale coming for it. It fired two bulky, slow moving missiles from its upper launchers that honed in weakly on Bale's position. The pilot merely kept coming, slowing his speed. At the last second he pulled up sharply, letting the missiles bypass him. He continued over the Bee Blader and then decreased altitude just as he switched on his Raven Slasher and turned around while hovering in a stationary position. Just as he suspected, the Bee Blader had stopped to turn around, as it had done twice in the past. The laser sliced clear through the stationary target, spilling the upper and lower halves onto the streets below.

            "Sick!" Alec Tremont's voice broke through Bale's radio.

            "That's one for me," Bale responded, feeling the adrenaline. "Four if you count those annoying little things." Gallagher had come prepared with aerial mechaniloids to clutter up the skies and make things difficult for the Ravens, which were not heavily armored to begin with. They were launched from a compartment on top of the airship. "You wanna take out that drone launcher?"

            "No," Tremont replied. "Not yet. We'll have to eat through the shields first. Concentrated attack?"

            Bale was about to reply when something bad happened. Raven 4, piloted by a fellow named George Reese, headed underneath Gallagher to throw off one of the ship's many salvos of homing torpedoes. Reese, however, did not notice the belly cannon of the ship turn and lock onto him, and thus did not take any evasive measures as the cannon blew apart his right wing and sent his plane in a death spiral that ended with a fireball in a city park.

            "Goddamn it!" Tremont was shouting without realizing it. "You bastards! You sons of BITCHES!"

            "Settle down Alec!" Jimmy Taggart patched through, knowing what was happening even without hearing the words, just from knowing Alec. "Don't do anything stupid!"

            "Like hell I won't!" Tremont retorted, steering his plane in a new direction. "Get away from the ship!"

            "Alec!" Taggart said sharply. "What are you—"

            "Just get away!" Alec said even more sharply, driving towards Gallagher's left wing, where a Buzzbomb was still situated.

            "What ARE you doing?" Bale asked after getting his distance.

            "I'ma take out the launcher," Alec responded. "Just not the one we were talking about." He switched off his communicator and fired up his two remaining Sidewinders. Then he bellowed his war cry as he sped towards the wing. "Go to hell! You genocidal goddamned cocksuckers!!!"

            The explosion rocked Gallagher and tipped the ship to the right. Chuck fell flat on his face and Revolver had to hold onto a chair. Gredam was the only one who kept his balance, but only barely.

            "The hell was that?" the commander exhaled when the ship restabilized.

            "Some asshole fired on the launcher," Revolver said, turning pale.

            "Holy shit!" Chuck jumped to his feet. "I hadn't even thought of that! How the hell did we forget—"

            "Knock it off!" Gredam shouted. "The Buzzbombs can't go nuclear unless they're in the air for a while. That's Greenback's program!"

            "But those normal ordinances might go off, and SHIT, you saw what they did to the Hunter Headquarters!" Chuck would have peed his pants if he could have.

            "That's what we have the shields for," Revolver said, trying to keep his calm. "But…Jesus, that shot alone took out half their power. What if the rest of them pick up on that?"

            "We have to get rid of that Buzzbomb," Chuck declared.

            "Now wait just a minute," Gredam said, sensing a fatal breakdown in his officers and trying to avoid it.

            "No!" Chuck shook his head. "Use them or lose them, Gredam! That's how it works! Otherwise the next shot, or the one after that, will cause this ship to destroy itself with its own weapons!"

            Before Gredam could reply, Barrier Greenback hopped into the room. He was smudged with grease and looked very pissed off. "The hell you doing to Greenback?! You want him to have heart attack?! Greenback said not to launch the Buzzbomb while he was working on it!!!"

            "No!" Gredam shook his head. "That was a Hunter attack."

            Greenback blinked. He didn't much understand, but he figured Gredam wouldn't lie, and dismissed it rather too easily. "Anyway Greenback fixed Buzzbomb. Greenback doesn't think that the boom-boom messed anything up, but if it did…" He shrugged, but a grin was back on his face. Gredam recognized it as the frog's characteristic eagerness. He had to shake his head. Greenback had totally immersed himself in the Buzzbomb project, and for the frog's small brain that was all life was for him at the moment. He was so into seeing his project succeed that he probably never even considered that people would die because of his efforts. Gredam wondered absently what the effect would be on the frog if he ever figured it out.

            "Find a target," Chuck ordered. "We've got to get rid of it before those Hunters try that again!"

            "I've got something here!" Revolver said, very loudly. "Looks like the Hunters have returned home!"

            "Damn," Gredam breathed. He'd hoped to be out of here by the time the Hunters got back. "Turn the ship around. We'll deal with them."

            "Our target?" Chuck asked hopefully.

            "No!" Gredam was amazed. "They'll shoot that Buzzbomb down in a heartbeat! They're ready for combat now, not like before."

            "So you think they won't shoot down our normal ordinances?" Chuck challenged.

            "Not all of them," Gredam answered. "We've got enough cluster missiles that most of them will get through. Keep the ship turning!"

            "Another contact!" Revolver reported, looking towards Gredam. "It's a big one, boss."

            Gredam blinked, daring to hope. He walked over to the console and identified the new contact…a big floating blip approaching their position.

            "Cease turning," Gredam ordered. "Line us up with that contact."

            "What?" Revolver asked suddenly.

            "We're getting rid of the Buzzbomb," Gredam said quietly. "You should be happy."

            Revolver chewed on this and glanced at Chuck, who just shrugged. Greenback bounced happily at the news. Revolver nodded slowly and started lining the ship up. "As you command."

            Gravity Beetle hovered slightly above ground, his wings spread and the thrusters beneath them activated. He moved among a platoon of about twenty Maverick troops, leading them to Kuwangner's Frontline. These were the troops that Gallagher had brought with it, and it was Gravity' job to get them into position to attack.

            Storm Eagle stood with the five other Mavericks capable of flight. Their wings spread and up they went to lead the aerial battle. Eagle sped right towards a disbelieving Raven and extended his buster arm. He fired the Storm Tornado, a huge horizontal burst of wind that completely ruined the pilot's control. By some miracle he managed to regain control of his Raven before he hit the ground, but before he could launch a counterattack he found himself being harassed by a Bee Blader.

            "This is almost too easy," Storm muttered to himself. Though he knew that could change in a heartbeat. All the Ravens needed was one good shot with a missile and Storm would be scrap. He flew low to the ground for this reason, firing Tornadoes to throw the enemy off track whenever they got too close to Gallagher. "Gravity!" he called his comrade on a wrist-com. "You guys need cover?"

            "We're all right," Gravity replied. "The planes are busy in the air or tracking our Bee Bladers."

            "Hm…" Storm looked up just as Gallagher's belly cannon shot down a Raven. Cool. "I'm gonna move ahead anyway with my five. We'll see if we can't find those Hunter refugees."

            "Good idea," Gravity replied. "Radio me in if you—what's he DOING?"

            "Oh shit!" Storm breathed, watching as a Raven sped towards Gallagher's wing and fired two Sidewinders at the missile launcher underneath. Time stood still for the bird as the explosions started, and all through his head he pictured the violent explosions that had ripped Hunter HQ apart reoccurring now, destroying everyone inside their ship…

            But it didn't happen. The shield barriers surrounding that side of the ship flared and flashed, but they held. They must be weakened, though, Storm knew, and a few more attacks like that might…

            "Maybe you should stick around there," Gravity suggested. "Keep any more of 'em away from that wing."

            "I think you're right," Storm decided, waving a hand to collect his five flying Mavericks. Then he stopped and blinked up at the sky. "What do you suppose that is?"

            "Jesus, it's big…" Gravity was looking up from the ground. "Hey…you don't think…?"

            "Reploid Air Force?" Storm shook his head. "I don't believe it! I didn't know they had airships like that…it's a flying fortress!" Then it hit him. "Icarus! It's the Megacity Army! They're in that ship they stole from Storm Owl!"

            "And Gallagher is turning," Gravity observed, deadpan. "I…I think we'd better keep our distance for a while."

            "Yeah…" Storm nodded, just as his soldiers clustered around him. "All right," he said to them. "Keep the Hunters away from this launcher. But don't get in front of it." The avian looked apprehensively at the bulky device. "I have a feeling it's not gonna stay dormant much longer."

            "We've got a target lock, sir," the captain in charge of the weapon systems was saying. "Ready to fire on your order."

            "You sons of bitches," Colonel Alan Kitao whispered to the Mavericks aboard Gallagher. He knew who they had to be…and why they were turning to meet them. Those infidel Reploids had been a thorn in his side for far too long. They should have died when he'd sent Chartreuse out to kill them. Instead they'd lingered as the curse that Megacity 5 might never see the end of…but no. If they thought it would be as simple as that…well, they had another thing coming. "Fire concussion missiles!"

            The captain nodded and repeated the order. Air-to-Air-Missile batteries lining the sides of the floating base came to life. One by one they spouted chains of missiles into the air, all of them speeding towards the deadly airship in the distance. The Hunter reinforcements had arrived.

            But that was not to say the Hunters were entirely happy about it.

            "Great bleeding Jesus on his splintery wooden cross!" Tremont exclaimed into his radio.

            "EVERYBODY BEAT IT!" Taggart shouted, and the Ravens beat a very, very hasty retreat away from Gallagher. Apparently no one aboard Icarus had bothered to check if there were any Hunters in the area before sending a wall of missiles flying at the airship.

            Once they were a safe distance away the sweating pilots tilted their heads to watch the fireworks…and what fireworks they were. As the Icarus missiles closed in, compartments on Gallagher opened and sprays of countermeasure decoy missiles shot up into the air, locking onto Icarus firepower and streaking towards their respective targets. Seconds later a wall of fire was born in midair as the missiles exploded into each other all seemingly at once, and the flashes blinded everyone on the ground, in the air, and even the terrified citizens hiding in their homes. Some weapons got through, though, and pounded Gallagher with explosive damage. Shields flickered and died, and the entire hull groaned in consternation.

            "They got it!" Jimmy Taggart exclaimed. "Sons of bitches almost roasted us, but they got the job done! Those shields are out of there!" He looked at Icarus to see if it was planning to launch any other death weapons at them. Seeing none he continued. "Whoever's got missiles left, let's get ready to put a hole in that hull."

            "Wait, sir," Bale patched through, sounding fearful. "Look at the enemy launchers."

            "…Damn," they all said at once.

            Gredam remained quiet and fierce, even when the ship was rocking from the blows Icarus had delivered. Their countermeasures had saved them, but they only had so many of those. The ship was damaged. It was now or never. The leader of the Terrornova assassins inhaled deeply but quietly, looking out a glass portal at the enemy craft hovering in the distance. He knew who had to be inside of it, but there was one he could never be sure of. Would that one son of a bitch in particular be sitting in the ship, or running around on the ground by now? Well…life was all about taking chances.

            "Revolver!" he boomed to the most collected of the three mechanics. "Time to make them answer for that insult. Get ready to fire, Greenback."

            "Greenback will not let boss down again!" the frog promised, activating thruster 2. "He hopes, anyway…"

            Zion looked up just as Gallagher flared to life as he'd never seen it do before. The thruster under the left wing flared up, and at the same time every other gun on the ship came to life. Salvos of homing torpedoes flew out, and so did a stream of larger missiles. Zion didn't even notice the Buzzbomb launch, because while bulkier than the others it was not much so, and he lost it with the rest of the cluster…no, wait, there it was…it was…lagging behind?

            "Shit, they're shooting back," the nervous captain reported.

            "Fire countermeasures," Kitao ordered. "Do it, you fool!" The man carried out his orders while Kitao shook his head. "Look at that assault…it's like swatting gnats."

            Even as he spoke Icarus deployed countermeasures, much as Gallagher just had. However Kitao would take no chances. He knew that the Mavericks must have a nuclear missile in their possession, and so he intended to make impossible for anything to pass through. And so, far more countermeasures than necessary were used, nearly all Icarus had, seeing as Gallagher certainly seemed to sending its full load.

            "Be ready," Colonel Kitao advised the captain. "When this fire dies, I want you to use the burst cannon."

            "It's fully charged and ready, sir," the captain assured him.

            "Good." Kitao watched out a portal and sucked in his breath as the storm of projectiles approached. They'd endure this salvo, and then they'd destroy the Mavericks with their burst cannon. The world would be free of the Terrornova curse once and for all. It all came down to this.

            The Icarus countermeasures struck the Gallagher projectiles almost two to one, and the overpowering display of defense mounted by the Megacity Army's floating fortress evidenced itself in the form of a much, much bigger wall of fire than what had appeared around the Maverick vessel. The thunder of the continuous explosions resonated throughout the city, and those who looked out their windows saw a cloud of bubbling flames and smoke that occasionally twinkled with new explosive light. The Ravens were hovering around in uncertainty. Strom Eagle and company were perched atop a skyscraper, watching intently. Gravity Beetle was halfway to Frontline when he looked up and saw the spectacle. Zion and his army were fast approaching Gallagher by this time. Signas, Caligula, Alia, Douglas, Xu and the other "refugees" looked up from their hiding place in anxiety, wondering what would be revealed when the blazing wall dissipated.

            Colonel Kitao was wondering the same thing. "Do we have a shot?"

            "Yes sir," the captain assured him. "The burst cannon will teach them!"

            At the front of the Icarus hull, steel panels slid back to reveal a massive energy cannon. Icarus had been designed as a ship in Storm Owl's air infantry, and thus shared many characteristics with ships in Owl's fleet. The "burst cannon" was merely a horizontal form of the huge vertical lasers fired from Owl's gunships. As the fires from the countermeasures died, they revealed masses of pinkish plasma energy drawing into the burst cannon as it prepared to launch the killing beam at Gallagher and end the Maverick air superiority.

            But the dying flames also revealed something else. A single projectile missile had just penetrated the cloud, approaching Icarus at a rapid pace.

            "The hell is that…?" a corporal asked the captain in charge of weapons.

            "I don't know," the captain replied nervously. "Prepare countermeasures!"

            "It's too close for that!" the corporal pointed out.

            "Well do SOMETHING!" Kitao had a sick feeling in his stomach. "Fire the burst cannon!!!"

            "I'm trying!" the captain reported back, panic seeping into his voice. "It's gotta finish the charge before it fires!"

            "Shit," Kitao realized, watching the projectile as it approached. Those sons of bitches had sent it with their main assault…but lagging behind. Now that they'd used all their countermeasures…and the missile was so close…what could they do to stop it? Virdelko had been right to bug out…he'd been right about everything. Good lord, he'd been no match for Terrornova after all, Kitao realized, too late.

            "Do not watch!" Greenback warned them. "Red fire hurts eyes!"

            "Only if you're human," Revolver pointed out, mesmerized. "Also, these windows are meant to reduce infrared…"

            Gredam was silent. He watched the Buzzbomb speed towards the helpless Icarus, noting the charging burst cannon but not paying attention to it. If the cannon fired, Gredam knew he would die, but if the missile hit first… If that happened, everything would be worth it. Every last comrade would be avenged, with the fall of the Megacity Army's trump card.

            "I've got you, you little bastards," he whispered, eerily inaudible to his comrades.

            SCBM Buzzbomb Two did not reach full speed until halfway into its flight, and by then the collisions made by Gallagher's decoy assault more than disguised its coming.

            The missile, unlike its brother unit, suffered no faulty connections due to a poor connector rod. Greenback had fixed that too well. The frog's only concern anymore was whether or not the still-fragile nuclear warhead would come apart due to air resistance and the constant rattling of the missile body. All anticipation ended finally as the vengeance weapon struck its target, streaking over the upper deck and slamming into the first rising sector.

            Megacity 5 residents would remember it as the night Satan visited for a little while, bringing a bit of Hell's fire with him. The entire central sector filled with a flash of blazing white light that lasted only about a second but seemed so much longer. The thunder came after the lightning, shaking every building within a half-mile radius, though the blast itself was not very huge at all, true to the form of the Self Contained Ballistic Missiles. An impossibly thick red fireball engulfed Icarus and most of the nearby sky, the blast diameter approximately a quarter mile wide. Rings of white erupted out of the fireball once, spreading across the sky before dissipating. Then, finally, the mushroom cloud came. It billowed high in the sky, burning on bottom with red and orange light and thick with smoke at the top. It rumbled continuously, thunder with no more lightning. The effects were not just visual. Nearby buildings, especially taller ones, were shook to their foundations by the explosion and some began to crumble. Only two buildings—apartments—totally collapsed, crushing the inhabitants, but other buildings suffered major structural damage. The blast radius, while only a quarter mile wide, was still a quarter mile wide and in all directions: everything below where Icarus had once sat in the sky had been vaporized, and what was short enough to escape the blast was crushed by falling debris from either the mostly vaporized floating fortress or the nearby crumbling buildings. As a final finishing touch for Terrornova, the energy collected by Icarus's burst cannon dissipated when Buzzbomb Two made contact, rather than firing on Gallagher.

            Those who witnessed the blast experienced mixed reactions. Gallagher's occupants viewed it with proper yet smug awe from behind safe windows. Most people had no way to look directly at the blast, and turned away. Those who were close to the blast were…well, dead. Then there were those who saw the whole terrible firestorm from beginning to end, even though it hadn't ended yet. The rising ball of fire and smoke would burn well into the night, rising ever upwards until the wind broke it up and scattered radioactive fallout throughout Megacity 5. The fact that there was a blizzard blowing merely ensured that this process would happen faster.

            One who looked directly at the "sun" was Commander James Taggart, and it was the last thing he would ever see clearly. The initial waves of blinding white light served their purpose, and after viewing the spectacle with open eyes Taggart cried out as his eyeballs ached with pain. His discomfort gave way to panic when he realized that he could no longer see anything.

            By some small miracle Taggart remembered to switch on his autopilot before lapsing into full panic. "Shit, shit, shit!" he said into the airwaves. "I can't see, guys, I can't see a goddamned thing!"

            "Christ…" the weak voice of Alec Tremont came back to him. "Boss, calm down. Is autopilot on?"

            "Yeah, yeah, it's fine, but what's going on? Dammit Alec, what happened?"

            "Calm down!" Tremont was panicking too now, but he had to get a hold on himself. His boss couldn't see…what the hell was that about? Tremont's Raven 13 sped over to Taggart's bird and flew over it, spraying an approaching aerial drone with Vulcan cannon fire.

            "What was that?" Taggart asked nervously.

            "Nothing," Tremont responded truthfully. "Keep flying, boss, don't hit anything. You're good to go for a while."

            "What happened?" Taggart asked again, shakily. Tremont didn't respond. He was shaking too. He didn't even want to acknowledge what had just happened.

            "What's the problem, boss?" Tremont asked, keeping a look out for any more enemies who might be trying to harass Taggart.

            "I can't see," the man replied. "I see a glow, but…just a glow, just a goddamned glow, and I can't make nothin' out…"

            Tremont couldn't stand hearing his commander panic, especially when he himself needed some assurance that the whole world hadn't just given in to panic. "Settle down," he repeated. "Settle down, godammit, settle down. We're gonna get you on the ground, Jimmy. See, here's a strip of road, away from the center of the city now. Order a landing."

            Taggart regained enough control to do so. One advantage these two had was that Taggart quite literally could fly his plane with his eyes closed…or in this case with burned out retinas, which was what the explosion had done to him. His Raven landed roughly but successfully and skidded to a halt. Taggart himself sat in his seat, breathing harder than ever before and sweating something fierce. He still couldn't see. He thought of unstrapping himself and getting out of the plane, but he didn't even have the energy to move his arms, it seemed.

            "You all right down there?" Tremont asked, his voice less shaky and more tired.

            "Yeah…" James Taggart managed. Then he blinked his sightless eyes and started shaking his sweating head back and forth to himself. "I'm done, Alec…"

            "I don't wanna hear that, boss—"

            "I'm done, dammit!" Assertiveness was returning to Taggart's voice. "It's all you now. Get back there and work with the others and…Jesus Alec, make 'em beg if you know how. You're in charge of this unit now, Pilot Tremont."

            "I…"

            "You will succeed," Taggart said with finality. "Godspeed." He broke the connection before Tremont could object. He leaned back in his command chair and let out the longest sigh of his life. The career pilot was forced to admit to himself that he had been unfairly and prematurely, but very definitely, grounded.

            "Christ…" Tremont said, blinking stupidly at his radio for a few seconds. Then he finally became aware of Bale's voice chiming away on another channel.

            "What's going on with the commander, Alec?" Bale was saying.

            "The commander's blind," Tremont started to say, but Taggart's voice interrupted all channels of Raven radios.

            "Attention all pilots, this is Commander Taggart. I am no longer able to fly. Alec Tremont is now in charge of this unit. Follow his orders and don't give him any bullshit, or I'm pretty sure, knowing him, he'll send a Hellfire missile streaking up your ass. …You know what your mission is. Now go." Transmission ended.

            "Am I that impulsive?" Tremont asked himself. Then he realized that Taggart had opened all channels to him. He regained his composure and began to speak. "You all saw what just happened. Now they will pay for what they've done." His apprehension gave way to fury, and he threw Raven 13 into full speed and sped back into action. "Heads are gonna roll for this one!!!" he shouted into his radio.

            When Commander Zion could hear again, the first thing he thought was that he wished his audio sensors were still deadened. All he could hear were gasps of breath and people weakly repeating phrases such as "Oh, my God", "We're too late," or his favorite, "It's all over". It was, in fact, only beginning, Zion realized. As though in a trance or in slow motion, Zion tilted his head to where Gallagher still hovered, having won the title of King of the Air. Past that he noticed Frontline moving in, closing on the Hunter HQ to invade and do lord knew what to any survivors still inside. Yes, he thought, turning back to his terrified army. The battle for Megacity 5 was only beginning.

            And it would be Zion who struck the next deathblow.

            "JASPER!" Every voice was silenced at the powerful bellow from Commander Zion of Unit 20. The man who'd been summoned stepped forward. Jasper hadn't been far behind Zion to begin with. His face was lined with anger, but there was no fear. Just anger. Zion felt worlds better when he saw that.

            Jasper waited for orders but Zion was not finished. "LARIAT!" he bellowed again. The lion from Unit 17 stepped forward, his trademark steel-link whip in his hand. "SHADIN!" The dark-armored woman also approached. The three guessed that Zion was calling upon the elites of Unit 17. "SCYLLA!" They were right. The unflappable Scylla stepped forward, her white hair blowing over her unblinking eyes. Her face was drained by the moment and she appeared somewhat soulless. It privately scared the hell out of Zion, but that was what Scylla specialized in, after all.

            Mega Man X's sergeants clustered around the imposing figure of Zion, who spoke loudly enough for everyone to hear. It was a wonder he'd even bothered to call them up if he were going to speak so forcefully. "The shields around that airship have fallen. It took more damage from Icarus's onslaught than we've bothered to realize." He motioned to the airship, which did look a bit more ruined than everyone had thought now that the smoke had cleared. "You all will teleport inside that ship and destroy it. Scylla, you're with Aegis," he added more quietly. "You know sabotage like the back of your hand. Destroy the engine room. Take Shadin with you." He looked to Jasper and Lariat. "You two head right for the cockpit. Kill any of the sons of bitches you find there. Kill them good. Saboteurs, alert our assassins when to bail out. They can use their goddamned flying trump card as their tomb." Zion thrust his fist out towards Gallagher. "Now! GO! Before they use another EMG pulse!"

            Unit 17 traded looks at Zion's boldness, and then Jasper led the way, warping towards the ship as a streak of iridescent light, shortly followed by his three companions.

            "Are you sure they'll be enough?" Commander Mason asked nervously.

            Zion turned to him with the grimmest of grins. "You don't know these Hunters, Mason. They're insane."

            "It's done…" Commander Gredam broke the silence with a whisper. The roaring, flaming cloud in the sky was his vengeance, at long last realized. "Then fall Terrornova… Burn in hell."

            Alarms were going off. "Oh, shit!" Revolver exclaimed after running a diagnostic on the ship. "Shit, shit, shit…"

            "What?" asked the ever-anxious Chuck. "What is it now?"

            "Icarus hurt us more than we realized," Revolver explained. "They mangled our shields, but some stuff got through and mangled our hull armor too. We're fair game for their Ravens."

            "Hmm." Gredam let out a long breath. Kuwangner had two Dark Cloud jets in his possession…why wasn't Frontline using them? Anyway, he decided, the time for aerial combat had passed. They had a long battle to fight, and Gallagher had served its purpose. "Head for home," he ordered Revolver, Chuck, Greenback, and the other technician in the cockpit. "Quickly. They'll be after this ship in a heartbeat. If things look bad…warp out."

            "I will never abandon this ship," Revolver said forcefully, his eyes blazing with victory. "It's my prize creation…the reason we came this far. It'll come home with us."

            "As you wish." Gredam opened a radio link to Boomer Kuwang…no, he decided, Boomer was a dick. He called up Gravity Beetle instead. "How's it hanging?"

            "Couldn't be better," Beetle replied with a mysterious tone, one that Gredam couldn't interpret. "You coming down now?"

            "I'll rendezvous with your group," Gredam acknowledged.

            "We're almost at Frontline," Beetle replied. "I'll transmit our position."

            "Meet them, yes," said a new voice in Gredam's frequency. "But only to grab an army and follow me to the pot of gold."

            "What?" Gredam asked. "Storm, what have you found?"

            "The needle in the haystack," Storm Eagle replied with cold delight. "While the world froze in horror, I was quite active. The Ravens just sat there and let me explore. Guess who I found, all huddled together under a broken highway road?"

            "Don't tell me," Gredam breathed.

            "Come quickly," Storm Eagle urged. "I don't know how long before reinforcements get to them, but if we can destroy Signas and the others first…or even take them hostage…" He laughed out of sheer eagerness. Actual victory seemed within his grasp. "I'll provide aerial cover when you get there."

            "Send me the coordinates when I call from Gravity's position," Gredam ordered, breaking the connection. "So it begins. It's Frontline versus the Hunters now. Your battle is over."

            "Gallagher has already reversed course," Revolver informed him. "Go command, Commander."

            "Thank you." He turned to Greenback, the most curious of the lot, perched quietly on his stool. "And you, Greenback. Your efforts are the only reason we were able to pull this off. Congratulations. You have succeeded."

            Greenback didn't answer. He didn't even give an acknowledging nod. He just continued to stare out the window at the growing, burning cloud in the sky. Once in a while nictitating glands covered his eyes in a froggish blink, but that and his breathing were the only signs he was even alive.

            "You easily-awestruck fool!" Revolver laughed good-naturedly at his accomplice. "You can savor it as long as you wish."

            Greenback blinked again, responding to the words as though coming out of some trance. He nodded lightly to acknowledge Revolver but still kept staring out the viewing portal. Gredam analyzed the frog's eyes, thinking he knew what the problem was and quite correct in his guess. There was guilt in Greenback's eyes.

            "You can't be sorry," Chuck realized what was happening. "You did the right thing. Those humans would enslave us all."

            "Surely you knew what you were doing," Gredam said, slightly surprised at his condescending tone. Maybe it was that he couldn't stand any sympathy for such dogs as he'd just nuked.

            "Of course Greenback knew," the frog shot back. "But…it is different happening in front of eyes than on papers."

            "It's life. There are no real simulations. No trial runs. Just do or die. We did, and they died." Gredam's face hardened. "Don't feel bad for those men, Greenback. The things they personally have done to Reploids are atrocious. I saw it. I saw it all, and they earned their deaths. You merely gave it to them."

            "But what gives Greenback that right…?" the amphibian Reploid asked himself, almost inaudibly.

            Gredam pretended he didn't hear it and made an about face. He punched in a destination on his teleporter and vanished from Gallagher in a streak of green light.

            No sooner had he done so than four other teleportation signals touched down inside the ship.

            Revolver blinked. Intuition kicked in and he placed his hand on his weapon—a real revolver, filled with adaman bullets capable of demolishing Reploid armor like a normal bullet through a human's flesh—that was seated in a belt holster. Chuck glanced at the technician, who reached for a machine pistol he'd brought with him. "Where are the others?" Revolver asked the technician, after noticing that Greenback was tensing up too.

            There were three other technicians aboard, the one told them, and he didn't know how to get through to them without—

            The sounds of combat filled the cockpit from outside and everyone stiffened.

            "No one abandons this ship!" Revolver declared, taking his position with his revolver drawn and pointed at the cockpit door. He continued on, his voice a menacing hiss. "There are only four of them. Ambush them and kill them the minute they enter!"

            Jasper, Lariat, Shadin, and Scylla materialized inside Gallagher together with their weapons drawn: Jasper held his arm cannon at the ready, an energy dagger deactivated and tucked in his belt; Lariat with his steel-link whip connected by flexible intertwined metal bands; Shadin with a dual beam saber—one blade spouting from each end—; and Scylla with the longest, sharpest, nastiest energy sword most of the Hunters had ever seen. The blade was no simple long rod, and was rather a thicker, broader white blade emerging from a blue, spiky, gemmed "spine" attached to the handle. Unit 17's elites broke away from each other instantly, scanning the room for threats and finding none, and then heading their separate ways.

            Shadin and Scylla raced towards what they hoped was the engine room. It wasn't long before they encountered on the cramped hallways a frightened Maverick humanoid technician. Scylla gave him no quarter whatsoever. The Huntress sprang forward with an almost ethereal cry and dragged her sword diagonally across the Maverick's body, spilling him to the floor gushing blood. She leapt over him, and Shadin soon after, the latter jamming one end of her saber down into the dying Maverick on the floor, putting him out of his misery.

            They took the hallway the technician had emerged from, supposing it led to the engine room. It did—the door was ajar. Scylla was about to open it but Shadin stopped her with a touch and an inclination of her dark-haired head. Scylla nodded in understanding and backed up, letting Shadin go in front. They clearly heard frantic breathing behind the door…someone was there, and that someone knew that a battle was on.

            The door flew open and Shadin raced in, and was immediately greeted by a spray of laser fire from a machine gun. She was twirling her double-blade before she even got through the door, however, and continued spinning it with some demonic speed. Indeed that was what she looked like—a demon, armored mostly in spiky black with dark hair, tanned skin, and haunting brown eyes. Her red saber blades twirling like a nonstop fan complete the demonic image that scared the hell out of the Maverick, who started a scream as he was unable to kill the Huntress in front of him. The scream ended when his ammo clip expired. Almost instantaneously Shadin took half a step forward, pulled one shoulder back, and flung one arm out and released the spinning blade from her fingertips. It sped through the air and cut the crouching Maverick in half, spilling his segments to the floor.

            Once that was settled Shadin retrieved her weapon and looked to Scylla, who had just entered and sheathed her deactivated saber. Scylla looked at the complicated engines and machinery before them and looked thoughtful. Shadin went to the door and shut it, trying to drown out the whine of the engine and the roar of the alarms. Finally she could stand it no longer and asked Scylla if she had any ideas.

            "I don't have any timed explosives with me," the Aegis agent confessed. "I do have these, though." She produced four grenades.

            "Well fat lot of good those do us," Shadin observed. "We'll have to wait until they finish before we can destroy the place, instead of the other way around."

            Scylla nodded somberly, confirming Shadin's fears. Then she patched in to Jasper to tell him the rotten news.

            Jasper and Lariat moved with a vengeance, heading up small staircases, figuring the command room would be above them.

            They arrived atop one staircase just as a Maverick was descending another one. The technician raised his weapon—an arm cannon—but Lariat rushed him with a feral roar and snapped his whip arm out in front of him before the Maverick could pull off a shot. The whip punched clear through the target's chest armor and through his body, emerging out of his back. The stunned Maverick staggered even further when Lariat tore the whip out with a heave and another roar, cracking it on the floor for good measure as Jasper approached and fired a charged blast into the Maverick as he fell, not about to let Jasper have all the fun. These people would get no sympathy for what they had just done. The Hunters would have it no other way.

            This thought in mind, Lariat and Commander Jasper darted towards the Gallagher control room to dethrone the King of the Air.

            Every remaining Raven with a missile came together in midair, looking like the flying "v" ducks were known to perform. They sped towards Gallagher like a pointed spearhead.

            "Spread out and fire at various points," Commander Tremont summarized the plan they'd formed. "Bale, give me hand with the cockpit."

            "You got it," Bale responded, getting his plane ready for action. Tremont activated the Raven Slasher and fell behind Bale, who still had missiles. The latter began to activate his two remaining Sidewinders, targeting the hull nearest what they imagined the cockpit was. Raven 9 was coming down with a single missile to help, and it fired first.

            "The hell are they doing?" Archer asked of the Ravens.

            "You didn't tell Taggart?" Zion asked Erich Zegmann in shock.

            "Taggart isn't responding and all their radios are jammed up," Zegmann retorted. "I don't know what the hell's going on!"

            "Jesus," Zion and Archer said in unison, praying their soldiers would be out of the way when the carnage began.

            "Hold on," Lariat said to Jasper, backing away from the cockpit door. "I just had an idea."

            "Make it quick," Jasper warned, just as he got a call from Scylla. "Cute," he remarked when it was over. "I'll call ya when we're done, sure. Take care." He began charging his cannon while he waited for Lariat, who returned speedily, being a feline. When Jasper saw what Lariat was carrying he grinned in morbid humor. "You demon, you."

            "I hear something," the nervous woodchuck Maverick said, clutching his weapon—a huge adamantine club.

            Revolver just looked at him. It was all he had time for before the door burst open and the intruders entered in all their glory. Revolver acted instantly and perfectly, firing his weapon with a mighty bang. The bullet struck its unsuspecting target in the chest, blowing it apart and dropping the body to the floor.

            And what a body it was! It was the shredded corpse of a Maverick technician, the same one Lariat and Jasper had killed on their way in. He must have been used as a decoy, Revolver realized, too late. He'd been duped!

            "Look out!" Chuck shouted, as all hell broke loose.

            Jasper charged in first, just as the poor Maverick landed on the floor after dying a second death. The other technician in the room started firing his machine pistol, but his shots were frantic and poorly aimed and Jasper just extended his charged cannon and fired. The final technician never had a chance. He vaporized, much like Icarus just had, Jasper connected grimly but smugly.

            Revolver fired a second shot that bounced off the wall, narrowly missing Lariat. Annoyed, the Hunter darted forward but pulled an immediate about face as he sensed Chuck coming up from behind with his club. Lariat dodged the attack, which gloriously unsettled Chuck. The lion slashed the woodchuck across the face with his claws, but before Lariat's weapon could come into play Chuck struck out with his large right fist, catching Lariat in the stomach and sending him staggering backwards. Grinning maliciously with his newfound advantage, Chuck roared and swung his club hard, but it never fell. Another charged blast from Jasper's high-powered cannon landed in his chest, vaporizing a big hole in the Maverick technician. Chuck stared blankly down at the wound for a second, and then back up at Lariat in disbelief…and then behind Lariat.

            Revolver fired his weapon again, hitting Lariat in his whip arm's shoulder. The Hunter let out a huge roar of pain as the adaman bullet tore through his upper arm, rendering the whole limb useless, even as Chuck slumped dead to the floor. Revolver's eyes blazed with hot fire as he prepared to fire the killing blow, but Jasper's humming cannon stopped him in his tracks.

            "Tough break, asshole," Jasper whispered, just loud enough for Revolver to hear.

            But that blow didn't come either. Barrier Greenback leapt into action, landing hard on Jasper's back and sending his shot flying into Revolver's computer mainframe, destroying it. Greenback had seen Chuck die, he'd seen the technician die, and he wasn't about to let Revolver die. The loss of his friends more than outweighed any guilt he felt at causing the nuclear explosion. He would not let down his friends.

            Lariat glowered and shifted his whip from one arm to the working one. He lashed it out and it wrapped around Revolver's leg. He tugged hard, spilling the humanoid to the floor. The lion got to his feet and flung his whip at Greenback, who did the most curious of things: he shot out his iron tongue, and the two bodies wrapped around each other. Lariat's eyes widened in shock and he gave a one-armed tug that threw Greenback into a wall…which he rebounded off of with his super strong legs and flew towards Lariat, just as another blast from Jasper struck the wall where Greenback had just been. The legs extended and kicked Lariat in the chest, sending him flying back into the destroyed computer.

            Greenback disentangled himself and leapt back towards Jasper, the only Hunter left standing. Revolver, unsure what to do, pointed his weapon at Lariat, who was speedily recovering but not fast enough. One down, Revolver thought as he moved his trigger finger.

            "You bastard freak!" Jasper shouted in frustration, dodging Greenback's tongue and firing a blast right at the frog. Greenback let out a scratchy, throaty cry and just…stood there. A shimmering white barrier surrounded him, and the blast dissipated as it slammed into this barrier.

            "Hunter will not win!" Greenback declared. "Greenback won't let you!"

            At that moment something very big happened. It was an explosion. Several of them at that, and each one rocked the ship hard. An entire section of the cockpit exploded as the hull was torn away by Sidewinder missile blasts…and then the huge beam of a Raven Slasher cut through the rest of the hull, making a big hole.

            Revolver cried out as he was thrown to the floor by the Raven's assault. Lariat, seeing his chance, leapt to his feet with that monstrous, feral roar of his and cracked his whip once. The Father of Gallagher stood up just in time to have Lariat's lariat wrap around his neck. The lion shoved him bodily into a wall and Revolver's weapon clattered uselessly to the floor. Lariat tightened his noose, slowly strangling the Reploid—death by crushing spinal connections rather than oxygen deprivation, since Reploids didn't really need oxygen—and looked the Maverick right in his wide, frantic eyes.

            "You thought you'd kill us all, didn't you?" Lariat said, spitting in the bastard's face. "Do you KNOW what lines you just crossed? The Pandora's Box you just opened? Now everybody who gets vaguely annoyed will turn to nukes to solve their troubles!!!"

            Revolver somehow managed to lean his head forward and speak one final, vicious word: "Good."

            Lariat growled and snapped the Maverick's neck. Then he turned to see what happened to Jasper.

            When the Ravens struck, Jasper and Greenback hadn't had the best of times. Both were sucked out of the massive rip in the cockpit hull, and found themselves tumbling and screaming to the ground below.

            "Damn the Hunters!" Greenback shrieked as he fell. He managed to tilt himself towards Jasper, and the Hunter's eyes bugged out. Greenback's eyes blazed with something that Jasper couldn't identify…was it hate? No…then what?

            Greenback's next action cleared that up: it was a positively anguished cry of "And damn the Mavericks!" With that the frog tilted his head upward and his tongue shot out of his mouth. It punctured the side of a building like a grappling hook and Greenback swung away, rappelling away from the first and last battle of his Maverick career.

            Jasper didn't have time to reflect. Coming to his senses he punched in some codes very quickly into a panel on his wrist. Just before Jasper hit the ground and turned into a splattered puddle of Hunter soup, he transformed into a warp beam and shot off.

            Zion was in the middle of worrying when Jasper materialized next to him.

            "Damn you," the startled commander breathed. Then he blinked in concern. "What happened?"

            Jasper wasn't listening. He was speaking into his communicator. "Lariat, beat it." A second later a streak of light shot out from Gallagher. "Scylla, Shadin. Do your thing." Then he turned to look at Zion, Zegmann, Archer and Mason. "'Sup."

            Zion turned to Archer. "I told ya they was insane."

            Scylla pulled the pins on two grenades and placed them in key positions. Shadin did the same with the other two. Then they nodded and teleported away. The explosions shredded everything in the engine room and breached the core of the ship. A nuclear blast of a different sort tore through Gallagher, ripping the lower portion apart. The wings actually fell off and the ship slowly descended from the skies. Hunters whooped. Mavericks watched in shock and fear. Just like that, the tables had been turned. The Buzzbomb deliverer crashed in between some buildings, much to Hunter chagrin, but fortunately the major explosions were over, and the dead airship Gallagher laid still, with its parents Revolver and Chuck entombed inside.

            He'd thought the night couldn't get any crazier, but just like that he'd been proven wrong. The commander of the approaching Megacity ground troops quickly went over the situation. Icarus, his mothership, was gone. Gallagher had exploded in midair and landed hard and dormant on the ground. Both aerial menaces had been shut down in a relatively short time. The nuclear explosion had been fun to watch, though having to make sure his human soldiers didn't look was kind of annoying.

            But nevertheless, Chartreuse thought with smuggest of smiles, Colonel Kitao was no more, and perhaps his old friends had even died in Gallagher when it fell. Oh, wouldn't it be grand if all his loose ends had been taken care of like that! Yet, somehow, he didn't think fate would be so kind to him. He'd pressed his luck once already, he knew, just be deploying from Icarus when he had. Any longer and he might not have gotten away before the aerial firefight started. He was alive, he reflected, and he had a squad of Dragoons under his control, all waiting for his orders to do anything he wanted them to do…anything at all. And there was at long last no annoying, repulsive human telling him what to do.

            But what was there to do, anyway? Chartreuse was pretty sure that he knew. In order to tie this whole event up neatly, he'd need to make bloody sure he eliminated as many of those damned loose ends as he could…and he was pretty sure that if any had survived, they'd be running to fortify Hunter HQ at the moment.

            Perhaps the first thing to do, he decided, was to do exactly what he'd come here to do. He patched in to Signas, who he found was far away but could be accessed by moving in a simple straight line…and he wasn't picking up any major Maverick clusters in the middle of the road. It should be a short trip, if it needed to be made.

            "You guys still alive?" Chartreuse asked irreverently.

            "Chartreuse!" Signas blustered back. "God, am I glad you made it."

            "Something happening?" Chartreuse asked with a blink.

            "It might be. Storm Eagle and his floating goons spotted us. I imagine they'll be sending a party to eliminate us as soon as possible."

            And who might be in charge of that party? There was only one way to find out. "I've got your position, Signas. I'm bringing the Dragoons over."

            "Thanks," Signas responded genuinely. "We'll hold out till you get here. Signas out."

            "Right," Chartreuse said into the deactivated radio. Then he turned to his twenty-five or so Dragoons, some Reploid but mostly human, and all well armed and well trained. "Fall into line, people. We've got a battle to fight."

            It was great, Chartreuse reflected after they started marching, that everything had worked out reasonably well up to this point. His only major beef was that he was sick and bloody goddamned tired of keeping everything a secret. He really hoped he did find one of those Terrornova schmucks leading the Mavericks. He would have a ball crushing their spirit with what he knew, just before he killed them.

            It would be just like old times, Chartreuse thought with a positively sinister grin.