Chapter 35: All or Nothing.
"Fucking firewalls! God damn, these guys love encryption!" Spike yelled as code scrolled up three different screens at once, his hands were moving so fast that not one of the others could follow him, T'Kell watched in utter awe as his attention didn't seem to be on either screen for less than a second at a time, it was like watching a master at work.
"Spike, please tell me you got good news because we are in a world of fucked over here!" Moodstone's voice came through the comms.
"This is like trying to untangle a spiders web with a chop stick while blindfolded!" he yelled without missing a single stroke of his cyber kung fu.
"Well, not to rush you or anything but we're taking fucking casualties down here! We're getting pounded by fucking tanks!" Moodstone yelled, and Spike's face went grim and he went even faster and T'Kell watched as line upon line of code appeared on all three screens at once, he was literally writing to three system all at once. it was obvious that the weight of the world was descending on the shoulders of her male and T'Kell placed her hands on his shoulders.
"I know you can do this, my beloved one, I have total faith in you," she said, and she saw his face look even more determined.
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The volley was deafening as explosions flashed and roared around them, above them, Whisper was ripping AP round after AP round into the tanks, looking for weak spots in the armor, she'd managed to blow one up by managing to punch through into the fuel cell by hitting the same spot over and over and over again, but it was chewing her ammo up, but out of any of them she was the only one with a weapon that could damage them, as even Tank's Bertha couldn't do much as the plasma 20mm wasn't AP so it just bounced off their armor harmlessly.
The multi launch platforms both exploded as Whisper managed to hit one of the ammo racks inside one, and when it blew it took the other launcher with it as it was so close but then as she turned her scope back over to the tanks she found herself staring right at the barrel end of one of the tanks and her heart froze, "T'Sall, I love you," she said, a second later everything went white and then black.
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T'Sall heard Whisper's voice through his comms, "I love you," she said, and, as he spun towards the the crates where she was shooting from, a huge explosion knocked him flat on his back but he turned over and began to crawl towards the crates on his hands and knees as his head still spun like a top, "Whisper! Whisper, no!" he screamed as every fibre of his being pulled him towards his fallen soul mate, he found her twenty feet away, laid in a broken heap, her armor was burnt and pitted with shrapnel damage.
T'Sall crawled towards her with everything he had, he pulled her in to his arms and instantly saw the blood leaking out of her armor, "Medic! I need a medic! Please!" he yelled into his comms, his voice just pure pain and desperation as he cradled Whisper's limp form in his arms, "Please, Paya, please don't take her from me! Please I don't want to live in a universe without her beauty in it, Please, Lady Paya, don't take her from me please!" T'Sall began begging as he removed Whisper's broken helmet to see her face, his mask revealed that she was still alive, but barely, her life signs were barely registering and he knew there was nothing he could do to help her as, while her helmet was broken so he could get it off, her armor was still holding so he couldn't get to her wounds.
He stroked her face and her eyes fluttered open and she took a very labored and pained breath, "T-T-T'Sall?" she croaked in a dry, weak sounding voice while trying to reach out with a paw, T'Sall grabbed it and held it tightly to his face.
"I'm here, sugar kitten, I'm here, I'm not going anywhere," he said, tears pouring into his mask.
"I-I-I feel cold and I can't see you, why can't I see you? I'm scared, T'Sall," she said in a painfully weak, labored voice.
"I'm right here, I'm right here, I won't ever leave you, my sweet one, I'll never leave you," he said softly, then an idea struck him and, using the paw he was holding, he touched it to the clasps on her armor and he heard them click and release.
"Please don't leave me, T'Sall, please don't leave me all alone, I don't want to die alone," she rasped, her breaths getting even more labored and erratic as he very gently removed her upper armor so he could see her wounds, there were three large ones on her upper torso from the shrapnel that had pierced her torso, three very nasty looking pieces of burnt, twisted metal was sticking out of the woman he loved.
"I'm not going anywhere my sweet tail, and enough of this dying shit! You are not going anywhere, you're going to stay here with me, you're going to live and one day me and you are going to have a big family, we're going to go to my world and you're going to teach our sons and daughters how to shoot and their going to be kick ass warrior snipers, just like their mother" he said in a reassuring tone that he desperately tried to bury his fear and pain inside so she couldn't hear it, after he noticed that his hands were now utterly coated with the blood of the woman who had wound her soul into his, she was dying and there was nothing he could do to stop it, "Please don't leave me, Whisper, please, don't take away my hearts light," he said, biting down the tears.
Whisper tried to cling to him and he could literally feel her trying to hold onto her life for him, she was fighting for it and through it all he could hear the calls all around him, the screams, the fear, people desperately calling for help that just didn't exist to come for them, they were all alone in this moment, he and the woman he loved for such a short time that it was criminal, he'd come all this way, fought all this evil and found his hearts light only to have it ripped from his heart with her life, he couldn't bare it.
"Please Paya, please help her, save her, please," he begged on his knees as he clutched his fallen love, he could feel her breaths fading, she was going into the darkness, he squeezed her and tried to make her fight just a little longer, to hold on just a little more.
"I hear you, my son," a faint whisper cut through the battlefield and he lifted his head.
"All call signs! All call signs, you have friendlies on approach, I repeat, you have friendlies on approach! Backup is here I repeat, backup is here!" Queen Bee's voice came through the comms like an explosion of pure joy and relief and T'Sall lifted his head to look up just in time to see fire trails streaking down towards them like a million fireworks streaking down from the heavens and suddenly a second light burst into life in T'Sall's heart, hope.
"Hold on, Whisper, hold on, my sweet sugar tail, help's coming, please hold on for me, please!" T'Sall begged before punching his comms again.
"I need emergency help, priority one, I have a Spirit down! I repeat, I have a Spirit down! She's bleeding out! Help us!" he screamed, and a familiar voice came back over the comms.
"Roger that, Seeker, we have your position and we are inbound, hold it together, Seeker, we're coming for you," it said, and T'Sall searched for where he had heard that voice and suddenly it clicked and his mouth fell open, it couldn't be, could it?
Suddenly the comms lit up like a freedom day tree, which was a celebration they held on all the Clan Mason worlds, which marked the day that the Clan Matriach and Patriach landed on their world and found their true place in the universe and gave birth to their clan, "All Spirit callsigns, please identify yourselves, we are inbound on your positions, we're taking heavy ground fire and could use your assistance in guidance," the voice said again, and this time T'Sall did recognise it, it was fucking Jack Mason himself! Their clan Grand Patriach was orbital dropping on the damn planet, and if he was here that meant their Grand Matriach was here too.
"This is Queen Bee to Guardian Core, we are providing you screamer cover to cover your drop, we'll run point on the drop and try and draw the fire away from your pods, our ship can take quite a beating so we should be able to get you guys as close to the ground as we can," Queen Bee said.
"Roger that, thanks for the assistance, Queen Bee, we'll get your people out safe and sound but if your guys can knock out that air defence it'll be much appreciated, Seeker One out," Jack said.
"Roger that, Seeker One, I'm hooked into the system right now but this thing is crazy fierce, think they got some kind of AI in here rewiring everything I take down, but don't worry I'm pitching false positives across the system, it's going to send their targeting crazy but it won't last long as this thing adapts like nothing I've ever seen, so get your people down as fast as you can, Seeker One, Spike out," Spike's voice on the comms said.
"Roger that, Spike, message received and understood, we're beginning our decent now, Seeker One to Hunter One, fast drop in, we go left, you go right," Jack said into the comms, suddenly a deep and proud Yautja voice came on the comms and T'Sall knew it instantly as their Grand Matriach.
"Roger that, my love, we'll see you on the field of the hunt!" she said.
"This is Angel One, we're detaching now, see you on the ground!" a rather mechanical voice said, but T'Sall knew a Xeno voice modulator when he heard one, it was Guardian Core tech that allowed Xeno's to speak to those that hadn't received the kiss of a queen, made building relationships easier than having to drag your potential girl or boyfriend home for your mom to kiss them and pump royal jelly down their throat.
"Go with Paya, Angel One, protect those civilians and those innocents, we'll see you soon, Seeker One, over and out," Jack said, and that's when T'Sall saw them and his heart soared like an eagle on the breeze.
"Look, my sugar tail, look! The Angels are coming! Please hold on, please," he said, clutching her like he was trying to hold her soul in her body, and that's when he remembered something, he was a Dream Warrior, he could do just that, it wouldn't last long but it might be enough to keep here with him, he didn't care if it took his entire life spark to do it.
Above them in the sky a large arrow shaped formation was gliding towards them at high speed, they were using wing suits specially designed to allow Xenos to fly into battle after riding through a planets' atmosphere in their specially designed armor, as soon as they were through they literally jumped off and sky bombed until they deployed their wings and flew in fast, hence how they got their name, at its head was a huge figure that he knew really well, the Queen of the Battle Angels.
"Seeker T'Sall, we have you're beacon and are on approach, hold on, Seeker, the Angels are coming for you," the mechanical voice said.
"Please hurry, Angel One ,I have a wounded Spirit and she's fading fast," he said, his voice no more than a whisper with the effort of using his Dream Warrior abilities to anchor Whisper's soul to her dying body, suddenly the air around them was filled with Xeno screeches as flying Xeno's in bright neon pink and white armor hit the ground all around them and began scurrying in every direction, looking for wounded to treat and innocents to protect.
"Angels on the ground, my queen!" a series of shouts came over the comms.
"Go to work, my children! Not one innocent life will be lost now that we are here! NOT ONE!" their queen roared as she hit the ground above them in the crate stack and a more glorious site he had never seen in his life than that queen in her bright pink white and gold armor, standing proudly on top of the crates, positively daring the bastards in the tanks to shoot at her children.
Two female Angels appeared at his sides, "We found Seeker T'Sall, my queen, he is unharmed but his Spirit is badly wounded, we need to operate right now!" one of them yelled, and suddenly they were opening their packs and it was like watching someone pulling a field hospital out of a backpack, a collapsible stretcher come bio bed unfolded itself and the angels transfered Whisper to it and, communicating faster than he could hear, they were cutting off her inner suit and pulling out all sorts of tools and injecting her with a variety of solutions, their hands were fast and confident as they shaved away Whisper's fur from the wound sites and began clamping and shutting off blood vessels and sealing up the wounds.
"Seeker, she needs blood badly and you are a compatible match, the human in you makes your blood 75% compatible, we can hit her with anti rejection drugs and nanites that will bind your blood together with hers," one of the Angels who had a name tag which read 'Zana' on it said.
"Do it, take as much as she needs," he said without a seconds hesitation, and Zena nodded, placing a cuff on his wrist that contained tubes that began to pump his mixed blood which, like all Yautja human hybrids, was neon purple, no one knew why that happened but it did, given that human blood was red and Yautja was green you would have thught it would be brown, but instead it was bright purple, years ago in the early days of the clan they had developed incredible medical tech that could do this sort of stuff, like make blood compatible across species, all it needed was to have certain markers, kinda like human blood groups, as long as those criteria were met their midi tech could bind it it using chemical binding and and nanites.
"As a result of the blood binding and DNA she may, ummm, grow mandibles," Zana said, and T'Sall nodded as he cradled Whisper's paw in his hands, he'd seen that sort of thing happen before, it was called forced hybridisation and was one of the risks and possible side effects of receiving blood from a hybrid, their medi tech was exceptional and would save your life, even in the most dire of circumstances, but it did carry a potential cost.
"She will still be the most beautiful female to grace this plane of existence," he said, and Zana smiled inside her mask.
"She is very lucky to have a male like you at her side," she said, and he smiled, softly stoking his fallen lover's paw.
"I'm the lucky one, I got to find a living, breathing, furry angel to call my own and she handed me her heart and asked me to keep it safe," he said.
"You did, Seeker, you did," Zana said, patting his shoulder.
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"Holy shit, there are flying Xenos now!?" Tank exclaimed as the pink and white wing suited Xenos screeched over their heads and into the camp before scrambling in every direction, looking for people to help, as he turned he saw them carrying children to safety, digging people out of the rubble, setting up medical facilities and just generally helping everyone they could get their hands on, they were like a flying Xenomorph Salvation Army dressed like candy striper, but fucking hell, were they amazing, and then he saw their queen standing on the top of the stack and his mouth fell open, "that's one big girl," he exclaimed about a second before the queen dashed forward and, with a huge jump, went over the wall.
On the other side she dropped into a quadrupedal run and, using her armoured head like a bulldozer, she plowed right through the undead, cutting a perfect xeno shaped trail right up until she reached the first tank trying desperately to draw a bead on her, without missing a beat, she grabbed it by the barrel and, like an olympic class hammer thrower, she threw the seventy ton behemoth into the next one over, smashing them together like a kid with two action figures trying to simulate how sex works, in his head Tank heard, "and that is how you make baby tanks."
Suddenly, pods that looked a lot like seed pods started slamming into the ground all around them and they burst open for four armored figures per pod to burst out and start shooting at both the undead and anything that moved, "Spirit Tank to all Guardian Core, retreat to the safe zone, I repeat, retreat to the safe zone, taking on the undead direct is pointless, they'll swarm you!" Tank yelled into his comms.
"Roger that, message received and understood, Spirit Tank, Seeker One to all Guardian Core Seekers and Hunter, defend the outpost, everyone inside the walls, protect those civilians!" a very authoritive voice boomed, it was followed by a female voice that was obviously Yautja.
"Hunter One to all hunters, I want a perimeter on that wall! Lay down heavy weapons fire on those tanks! We'll show those pauks what we Hunters do to those who harm civilians on our watch! Protect Angel One, I want covering fire around her!" she roared, and no sooner had she said it than gold suited figures of all species began leaping over the walls only to turn around and join the Spirits and their allies on the walls and suddenly missile tubes and heavy plasma weapons were appearing, the tide was well and truly turning now.
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"Reaper is still out there! We need to get him! We need to get my love out of there!" T'Shara yelled from her position at the back of the firing line where the Spirits had placed her to prevent her from going over the wall, Macha was with her adoptive children, helping protect the civilians but she was here at the front and she could see Reaper from where she was positioned and it was utter torture, she'd tried twice to go over the wall to save him, to the point where Tank had threatened to tether her to him if she tried again.
Suddenly a silver armored figure stopped right next to her, "You are in pain, young one, your heart yearns for your human love, does it not?" he said, and she turned to look at him and found herself looking into a set of brilliant blue eyes so bright it felt like they were tearing her emotions form her very soul.
"His name's Reaper, he's stuck out there in a power suit, it's about to explode and kill him and everyone else, I need to go to him!" T'Shara yelled forlornly, she felt so utterly useless and broken, this was pain like she could have never imagined and the silver suited human turned and followed her gaze and he nodded.
"Fear not, young one, I feel him, he is still alive, he is calling to Paya to protect you and Macha and to keep you safe, she has answered him, now, if you'll excuse me, young one, I have an ooman to rescue and a love to reforge," he said, and, before she could even draw breath, the human jumped over the wall and, to her sheer disbelief, began running on the heads of the undead below him, he looked like he was dancing, jumping from head to head, moving so fast she could barely track him, till he vanished from sight into the gully where her love lay stranded and alone.
"Do not worry, young huntress, my Ack will bring your ooman back to you, nothing means more to him than the sanctity of love, it represents everything we stand for," a deep but incredibly feminine Yautja voice said from behind her and she turned around and, looking down, she saw a shorter than normal Yautja female dressed in highly decorated golden armor, suddenly her mandibles fell open as she realized just who she was looking at.
"Y-Y-You're Tik Eleth! The Breaker of chains and freer of hearts herself!" T'Shara exclaimed in utter shock and awe, and the elder Yautja female smiled at her.
"Tik Eleth Mason, if you please, and that ooman wonder that just went out there for you is my heart and soul made flesh, my Ack, leader of the Seekers as I am the leader of the Hunters," she said, gesturing around to the golden suited warriors taking up positions around them while those in silver armor flashed about, moving so quick you could barely see them.
"Its an honor to meet you, Grand Matriach, your exploits and the tales of your love are legend in my clan," T'Shara said, and Tik Eleth smiled and nodded.
"Thank you, young one, and, from your reaction here, I'd say you're taking your own steps down the path of the way of the unchained heart," she said, gesturing out to the field to indicate Reaper, and T'Shara went back to worrying about her male.
"Please save him! Please!" she exclaimed, feeling utterly shit that she was having to beg someone else to save her beloved male, she felt utterly useless and helpless and she hated it, but Tik Eleth proved in one instant why she was the Breaker of chains and stepped forwards and put her hand on her shoulder.
"Head and chin up, young one, show your pride in him, not your fear for him, he fought for you, now you fight for him, with your heart and your pride, show him your pride in him, let us show our pride together!" she said, and she pushed T'Shara up to the edge and together they let out two huge roars of purest Yautja pride that shook the whole place and was instantly picked up by the other guardians around them till the whole place was a huge symphony of Yautja pride and power that washed over the landscape like hearts of fire, bringing courage and strength to those who needed it.
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"Count down initiated, ten...nine..." the system began counting in his head and Aiden felt tears roll down his face, "Goodbye my loves, please live well and don't forget me," he said sadly, when suddenly a white flash made his eyes hurt and out of nowhere, a human figure dressed in silver appeared, and he appeared to be shimmering like there were suddenly six of him and then one solid one.
Without saying a word, the man literally tore him out of the ruined mecha, breaking the armor like it was made of paper and removing his bleeding and broken body from the confines of the suit, "Leave me! It's going to explode!" Aiden croaked, but the man just hoisted him onto his shoulder and began to run across the battle field but, to Aiden's surprise, noting seemed to be moving, it was like everyone and everything seemed to be just stopped, like someone hit a giant pause button on the universe, it took him a moment to realise that he was running on the heads of the undead themselves, like an undead game of stepping stones, at the edge of the wall he saw T'Shara and another elder Yautja female and they appeared to be roaring.
He was deposited on the floor at their feet before his mysterious benefactor vanished back over the wall, but how could he see him when everyone else seemed to be just frozen solid, he tried to crawl over to T'Shara, which was kinda difficult with only one arm and half a leg, and that hit him hard, he was going to need yet another cybernetic implant, not that it was going to matter when that drive went off, he'd tried to put the mecha in place where the blast would take out the tanks and the undead without harming the compound though, given the yield, he didn't know if it would have worked or not.
He'd just managed to reach the feet of T'Shara when the silver armored figure reappeared over the wall right next to him, and that's when Aiden realized that he was human and he had the brightest blue eyes that he had ever seen, he smiled at him through his helmet, "It seems there's more to you than meets the eye, my brother," he said in a deep voice, and, with a snap of his fingers, everything seemed to go back to normal and the two Yautja females finished their roar, and suddenly, T'Shara saw him laid injured at her feet and just before she could say or do anything there was a huge explosion that turned the very air blue, just as the huge queen jumped over the wall a second before the Grim went up, but, to Aiden's surprise, it didn't harm them at all, the silver armoured guy must have moved it.
"Aiden! My Aiden! Oh, Paya, look at you! Thank the goddess you're alive!" she yelled, dropping to her knees and grabbing him in the tightest embrace of his life.
"We need a medical team at my location, we have a mortally wounded Spirit up here, get here now!" the male in Silver said into the comms with such a level of authority that it was obvious he was in charge, almost instantly, two Xenos dressed in the same pink and white candy stripe armor that he'd seen that full sized queen who had been rampaging among the tanks was wearing appeared on the wall and grabbed him, the elder Yautja female saw T'Shara's distress at the state of her beloved male and took action.
"Worry not, my ooman loving sister, your beloved ooman is in the very best of hands, our Battle Angels are the very best field surgeons in the universe, there is not a problem or injury that they cannot fix, he will receive the care he needs," she said.
"I will stay with him! I will not let him leave my side again! I will not go through this pain a second time! You hear me, my ooman!?" T'Sara yelled angrily, but Aiden knew that it was pain and relief speaking and he just smiled weakly.
"Loud and clear, my love, and I'm sorry, I just couldn't bear the thought of you being hurt, or worse," he croaked, she tried to hug him but the elder Yautja female pulled her back.
"Let our Angels work, sister, you'll be able to hug him soon enough, and smack him upside his ooman head for denying your right to die at his side, what is it with you oomans that you, in the early days of loving your Yautja, you do not realise that for us being at your side to live or die is everything to us?" the golden suited elder Yautja female said, and the silver suited male walked up to her and embraced her.
"He is young, my heart, and he is still in protective mode, you remember how I was in the early days, the longer he loves her the more he will understand the depths of the Yautja heart, just as I did," the silver suited male said, and she embraced him tightly.
"It is true, my beloved Ack, it is good to see that new Yautja ooman love comes to our universe," she said, and suddenly there was a screech and, out of the sky, Macha landed next to T'Shara and Aiden.
"Reaper! Is he ok? What happened, oh, my huntress, tell me he's going to be ok, please!" she said, panicking as she danced about, watching the Battle Angel Xenos working on him, T'Shara embraced her tightly.
"It's ok, my beauty queen, our male is safe, Ack Mason, the Grand Patriach of the Guardian Seekers and of the Clan Mason has brought back our beloved ooman male to us," she said, embracing her, and suddenly both Jack and Tik Eleth froze solid.
"Y-Y-You two...are a three?" Tik exclaimed, and both of them nodded in unison, Aiden would have nodded, but right now his system was being flooded with powerful drugs that made him feel like his head was swimming in fluffy clouds.
Jack turned to Tik, "Could it be? The ones that Paya spoke of?" Jack asked, and T'Shara tilted her head.
"Huh?" she asked, and Jack shook his head.
"Oh, nothing, let's just focus on getting your man back to health," Jack said, brushing off the question, and it worked, because Macha and T'Shara were both way too worried about Aiden to worry about anything else right now and the pair hovered around the Battle Angels as they worked when suddenly the comms lit up.
"BOOOOOM, I am a hacking fucking JEDI! Ladies and gentlemen. the air defences are down for ten minutes, this system is not giving up without a fight and it can't be shut down permanently, so, let's move, people!" Spike yelled into the comms, and instantly everything went wild.
"Queen Bee to all call signs, we are in rapid decent, be ready for pick up, Queen Bee to all Guardian Core be ready for high speed retrieval, this time we got you" she said, and the sky above them lit up as the Ghost Shadow burst through the atmosphere.
"Roger that, Queen Bee, thanks for assist, we'll have everyone ready," Jack said into the comms before he and Tik began yelling orders to the Gaurdian Core who were now shepherding the civilians around, along with the Battle Angels who were moving stretchers ready for pick up, the Ghost Shadow wasn't exactly designed for huge people transport but it could do emergency pickups very nicely due to its huge cargo bays.
Using the retro thrusters, any undead that were directly under the ship were burned to cinders as it landed outside the wall and extended the cargo ramps onto the wall where the Queen Bee was waiting, holding her weapons, "Lets go, we're getting off this fucking rock!" she yelled, and the military and police began shepherding the civilians up the ramps and onto the Ghost Shadow's cargo bays.
"Battle Angels, once the injured are secure begin a sweep, not a single trace of this curse is leaving this planet!" the queen in charge of the Battle Angels called as she helped her children to shepherd the wounded into the ship.
"Spike, hold position, once we've finished picking everyone up here we're coming to you," Queen Bee said.
"Roger that, boss, holding tight," he replied.
It took them five minutes flat to load everyone, Aiden was moved right to the med bay where the Battle Angels seemed to have set up shop and all he could think was, 'boy, Ice is going to be pissed,' as he saw all the candy striped colored Xenos running around, treating people, he was just glad that he had his spare arm on board.
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"Everyone's on board, boss," Moodstone said, heading onto the bridge with Tank in tow.
"Roger that, make sure we haven't picked up any hitch hikers and pick up Spike, don't lift the landing gear until we're sure we go not hangers on," Queen Bee said.
"Roger that, my love, everyone hold the fuck on, I'm going to do a spin cycle to make sure we got no undead on the landing gear, I'm cycling the grav plating up to full and if anyone spews in my cargo bay you will be mopping that shit up, and that goes double for the Yautja, that shit is nasty!" Pegasus said, pulling controls, and both Tank and Moodstone both dove for a chair each before he started the roll, there were not many pilots either crazy enough or skilled enough to pull off a full 360 barrel roll in atmosphere at only two hundred feet off the ground in a heavy corvette class ship, Pegasus was both.
It worked because they all saw bodies cartwheeling through the air as they were dislodged, "Holy shit, did your pilot do a full barrel roll in atmo this close the ground!?" Jack said, appearing on the bridge hanging onto a railing and Queen Bee turned and offering her hand to be shaken, she grinned at him.
"My Pegasus is the best pilot in the Spirits, which, by default, means best of the very best," she said with obvious pride as Jack shook her hand.
Jack laughed softly, "I heard you Spirits were a crazy bunch but seeing it with my own eyes is something else, but boy, you get the job done, I'm seriously impressed at what you managed to pull off here, you fought an entire planet of undead and didn't lose a single team member, color me impressed," he said.
"Same here, I've heard of how hard the Guardian Core hit anyone who fucks with them but I never imagined seeing a full on planet drop like that to rescue one operative," she said, and jack raised an eyebrow.
"Tell me, Queen Bee, is there anything you wouldn't do to save your team?" he replied, and she laughed softly and nodded.
"True," she said.
"To us, we live and die by a code, a code that I hear in the ether that you Spirits share, there is nothing that we will not do to save a fellow Guardian, because it is a sacred promise made and honored when you join us, wherever you are you carry the might of the whole clan with you, call and we will come for you, it's why we came up with the Dark Star call, it means a Guardian is under threat of certain death while protecting innocents, it means we bring down the entire weight of the whole clan to save them like a gigantic hammer, it also serves as a message that if anyone fucks with a Gaurdian what will come next doesn't bare thinking next," he said proudly.
Pegasus put down next to the hub and picked up the remainder of the team and almost immediately Ice came over the comms, "Where the hell did all these candy cane Xenos come from!? What the fuck is going on in my medical bay!? And why is Reaper missing an arm and a leg and sedated on my operating table!? Ahhhh, I can't turn my back on you guys for five minutes! And why is their armor cuter than mine!? Oh, hey, there's that cute one of Macha's lot, mmmmmm, that's a fine xeno boy, oh shit, the comms still on, isn't it!?" she yelled, making Moodstone snort a laugh as it cut off sharply, and Jack turned to Queen Bee with an eyebrow raised as she just shrugged and shook her head.
"Spirits work hard, play harder," she said, and Jack laughed.
"Evidently," he said, smiling knowingly.
"Don't judge, we spend our entire lives in bloody space fixing everyone else's shit, love don't come easy to us so we grab the fuck on whenever we get something good because we never know if we'll get the chance again," Queen Bee said, looking at Pegasus knowingly, and jack placed a hand on her shoulder.
"I'm a human Dream Warrior who killed a god, is nearly a thousand years old and is married to the very first Yautja woman to marry a human and live who, with the help of her and his children, started not only a clan based on interspecies love but started a love revolution among a whole species, trust me, the one thing I never do is judge the love of others," Jack said with a laugh, and she looked a little guilty and laughed.
"Sorry, forgot who I was talking to for a moment," she said, and he nodded.
"Ok, I think we need to discuss what needs to happen next, so I'm here to invite you all to our homeworld, we need to discuss how to proceed here, this threat is very serious and we need to discuss how to proceed and how to combat this threat," he said, and Queen Bee nodded in agreement.
"Hold on, I'm going to do an atmo skip to heat up the hull and burn off any fuckers hanging on the hull," Pegasus said before spinning the ship through the atmosphere to heat the ship up and burn off any undead that survived his rolls.
"Mind if we handle the next part?" Jack said, indicating the retreating planet, and Queen Bee nodded.
"Saves me a shit ton of paperwork, so, please, be my guest," she said, and he opened his comms.
"This is Seeker One, fire," he said, and both the Guardian Core ships fired torpedoes straight down and, thanks to the fact that the air defences didn't stop the nuclear torpedoes, the whole planet turned into a scorched and dead world as a wave of nuclear fire swept it clean.
"And so dies humanities last true jewel," Pegasus said, sounding genuinely saddened.
"Come, I'll get my people back on my ship and we'll take the wounded civilians with us as we have space for them in our medical bays so the Battle Angels can take care of them, but myself, Tik, and my children will remain here, we have much to discuss," Jack said, and, with that, he turned to head out.