Chapter 7

"There was never a thought in my mind to what I saw to be true. I'd seen a great many things, but that was something new to me. I don't wanna see something like that again. Never again. Never. You hear me? Never!" – Transmission relayed from Viper to Barnette.

Barnette awoke in a cold sweat and out of breath.

Fuck.

It happened again. The nightmare. No matter how long it had been, it was still coming back. The crash. She was forced to watch it from time to time in the dreams. Sometimes she was back in the seat, controlling it, making changes. But nothing changed. It still happened and she was left with the despair that she was living a lie. She was dead. And this was just her hell.

Thankfully, this time had been different. The dream had been something she had experienced and was more focused on something from her earlier life as a pirate. The story she had told at the bar two days ago had been returned to her. She was a spectator, watching from outside her cockpit.

It had felt real. Far more real than the crash that ended with her arrival here. There were things that she felt were wrong with it, but then again, the mind was an unusual thing, creating objects and lies to fill in the gaps of the missing information. She didn't know how Meia got hurt, but she remembered seeing her hurt. She never saw the state Meia's Dread had been in either, but it had a melted form to it now.

The mind was terrible, and it was now making her feel more irritable than normal.

Lazily she glanced at the clock and swore inwardly to the time.

5:29

I just can't catch a break.

Throwing the blanket off and slipping into some clothes, she walked into the kitchen to start cooking. A note was left on one of the cupboards.

Barnette

Went out for a run. Be back in an hour or so.

Trig

Could have told me when you went running.

Not having a real time for when her handler would return, Barnette started cooking anyways. It was relaxing for it. She'd favor a gun range over it, but cooking helped her relax.

Knowing that it was just the two of them, she pulled out four eggs, some cheese, bread, bacon, and sausage to start cooking with. She started the burners and got to work, all the while returning to her thoughts on the Nirvana and what she had ultimately left behind.

Jura wasn't useless, but should couldn't help but wonder what her friend was doing right now. Was she trying to con someone else into working with her to do her unusual gimmicks? Did her Dread ever fuse with Hibiki's. And if so, what did it create? Was it something beautiful or ugly? Was it powerful or weak?

And what of Meia? How was she handling training another Squad Leader to replace her? Who else could do it? Dita? Sure, she had begun to show improvement, but her insane antics towards Hibiki would obviously cause problems?

What of Gascogne?

That was the low point in her thinking.

Gascogne had been everything to her as well. Sure, they argued from time to time about stuff, but it had never gone anywhere. It was more like the younger sister arguing with her old sister about something stupid or just something she couldn't understand. Gascogne had been the one thing that had held her together before she became close friends with Jura. And sure, Gascogne probably had her hands full with Hibiki as part of the crew and the other girls who ran it, but Barnette still wondered if she ever stopped to think about her?

She liked to think she left them on a good note though. Did the crew miss her? She was sure they did, but did they really miss her? Barnette wouldn't delude herself into thinking she'd never caused problems for them with her actions or words. She'd caused a lot of problems in the past. Some of them were worth it, others not so much. Did they give her a good funeral, like the one they gave for Heather when she passed?

Am I just another photo in Magno's room?

The smoke alarm began to go off and Barnette swore as she pulled the bacon off the other skillet. It wasn't completely burned.

She finished up and set the table while sticking the food in the oven and turning it on low. It'd keep it warm for a bit.

As she shut the door, she closed her eyes and wondered what the Harvest Fleet was doing right now.

(-)

"Alright everyone. Stay close. Glitch, Wood, Bolt and Lightning, scout ahead. We'll be on your six if something pops up."

Lighting toyed with the joystick in the cockpit of her Attacker as she looked over her left shoulder to see a jagged black bolt on an identical Attacker. "Understood, Viper. Moving in for recon. Bolt, you go my six?"

"Of course."

The other two remain quiet as they broke off, taking a wide turn to come around for a pincer maneuver if anyone was behind the cluster of asteroids. Viper was bringing up the rear-rear with Angel, Wildcat and Whiplash in their Hybrids. The other four members were to stay behind near their ship in their Sentinels to protect it.

Asteroids this far out weren't mine-able like others had been that were closer to home. They were classified as asteroids but in all actuality, they were really just explosives that had never gone off. Too much gas and liquid nitroglycerin made up most of them. They had water and other things in them, it was just that if you hit the wrong thing the whole place might go up.

Terrible for mining. Great place for a hideout. Nothing like having your own minefield to protect your base from unwanted guests, like them currently, that you could blow without problem. Of course, you had to arm them via explosives, and then hopefully set them off with said explosive to do the real thing. And even then, setting them could be tricky just because you had to do a little mining anyways.

Not enough good to outweigh the bad, but to someone just trying to make a living by doing illegal and stupid things, it wasn't that much of a stretch for them to do it and save a few credits.

She kept her eyes glued to the radar for movement.

Two For Flinching was a large and heavy ship. It was once nothing more than a cargo ship that had ferried people from one world to another with their goods on it before it was re-purposed for combat some twenty years ago. With Pirates and Raiders out there causing problems, ships like this one were known for going down. Outfitted for war didn't mean it'd survive a fight. It just meant it'd go down swinging.

Port Stanley was a different kind of ship. It was their ship – well actually Captain Senna's ship – and was classified as a special-off-the-books-kinda ship. What was so special about it, Lightning had a bad idea on what it might be. Bad ideas sometimes lead to fun times. Some bad ideas, however, didn't need to exist. Like her radar not showing their ship that they just launched from no more than ten minutes ago.

All ships had a way of showing up on a radar. It was simple how it all worked. A ping went out and anything that came back would show up. Old and simple tech, but it was probably the hardest to fool, despite being older than dirt. And even if it were hidden behind debris, it would still show up from the noise it made. That noise would come from its engine.

If you didn't want to be seen on a radar of any kind, you simply killed the engine, hid behind debris of some kind, and prayed no one decided to head out to find you. Radiation might still ping you, but it was rather hard if you maintained and scrubbed everything correctly. Even with the engines working at thirty-percent power, you'd get a radar ping. Port Stanley wasn't a large ship either, so that meant that finding a radar ping would be rather hard. But it was still large enough to make noise. And that noise was currently the thing on her mind.

It wasn't showing up on their radar.

Stealth seemed too stupid a large ship, even one like Port Stanley. It was kind of an oxymoron kind of thing. Anything over ten kilometers in length and nearly a full kilometer in width would make noise and show up. In order to hide such a thing, you'd need more buffer than normal to make the thing hide. More noise buffer and thermal insulation meant bigger ship. Bigger ship, meant more thermal and buffer.

Oxymoron.

A ship that couldn't exist was the thing they launched from.

And that same ship was now going to play hell with a group of Raiders that might not know they were coming. Lightning would feel a lot better if they knew they were coming. They'd already be scrambling. Noise would out there. The radar would be lightning up like Christmas. Which it currently wasn't.

So, either they knew they were coming and were playing smart and waiting for them to get in a spot where they could surprise them, or they didn't know they were here and were sitting on their bums in their hideout that they had no way to find without a radar ping.

Greatest needle in a haystack hunt she'd ever been in. And she wasn't pleased at all.

"Bolt. You see a trailer anywhere?"

"Negative." There was a long pause over the radio. Lightning looked around as she maneuvers the craft around a few space rocks and spinning halos of debris. "Thermal scanners got nothing. This place is dead."

"Clearly."

"Plenty of radiation though. Lots of it, actually…"

Lightning furrowed her brow in thought. Why was there radiation here? She switched on her scanners for radiation and gave it a look. The whole thing was red with wisps of blue and yellow where it was thickest. She turned the thing back off and started breaking for the central cluster of asteroids where a base might actually be located.

"I got something!" Glitch cried out. "Viper, something hit these guys first. Something hit them hard."

Lightning looked over her shoulder to Bolt. She could see his helmet turning to look at her. He was just as confused. What else would hit them? Baelish Raiders were almost an unspoken group for "Do not target" because of this location here. What would hit them in their own base, unless someone was simply stupid and set off one of the rocks.

They broke off for Glitch's location.

"Lightning! Above us!"

Lightning looked up and spied something moving in the dark void of space. It was small and fast. And heading right for them.

They spit and let the object pass between them. She put a hand on the canopy as she angled her craft so she could look down at it. The thing was still moving, but had started heading back up for them. She checked her radar. A single, tiny blimp was now on it. It was heading back for them.

"Break off!"

They moved further apart and broke for the safety of clear space where the rocks wouldn't cause them problems.

"Contact!"

Lightning gunned it. Bolt was right behind her. The black-haired woman could already see fighting in the distance. Glitch and Wood had found something. "Glitch. Wood. We'll be there in thirty seconds!"

"All units move up around the asteroids. Guys, we'll be there in two minutes." Viper's call but a fear in Lightning. Two minutes wasn't thirty seconds. Whatever they were fighting could end them or be ended in two minutes.

Bolt was right beside her. She couldn't see him. But she didn't get a chance to look over at him before it happened. Something hit him. Something from below. Red beams of metal shot up through his craft and speared it. The nose and part of the belly of the craft came out from the wreckage and flew sideways.

When she looked over, it was too late. His craft exploded before her eyes.

"Wood's been shot down!" Glitch cried out. There was a scream and then silence over the radio.

"Bolt's been shot down!" Lightning added. She looked ahead and saw what had done it.

Red objects half the size of her craft was hovering over the broken remains of Attackers and other craft, releasing smaller versions of themselves to rummage through the remains. They were hauling out the bodies. It was impossible for her to see who it was, but they had ripped someone from a craft of some sort and were taking him up to a dumpling shaped craft.

The mouth of the craft opened, and a red light poured out as the tiny figure was flung inside it. The mouth snapped shut on the craft and it looked at her with unseen eyes.

"Lightning! Break off!" Viper's voice came over the radio. She did as she was told. She broke off and flew over the wreckage of other crafts as she burned the thrusters to max to make her escape.

Her radar suddenly screamed and she looked down at it for a brief moment. Something large was near her. She tapped the radar with her free hand since she had maxed the thrusters and shook her head. The other objects weren't following, but the massive one was right on top of her.

She glanced up and stared into a sea of blackness.

Blackness?

There were no stars above her. No planets.

She looked down at the radar and then back up to the darkness above. Her mouth hung open as a dozen tiny red lights came to life. A bright flash hit her. Her machine rocked as something hit her. Klaxons began screaming to life. Collision, fire, oxygen, and damage warnings popped up on her screen and helmet.

Copper filled her mouth and hot liquid streamed from her eyes. Her craft flipped end over end as it hit something unseen by her before it finally came to a hard stop. The visor of her helmet was cracked and her vision was blurry.

Lightning reached down and started sending information back. Whatever hit them, hit her, wasn't going to get away with this without some kind of information being sent back on them.

Wrenching metal was heard in front of her. The klaxons were silenced and the power started to flicker. She withdrew a pistol from under her seat and loaded it. Like it'd do any good.

The front of the cockpit was wrenched off and a metal pincher reached forward for her. She screamed and fired at it. A single red eye came down in front of her. She shot it twice. Nothing happened. The pincher moved in and crabbed her. Her mouth filled with blood and she let go of the gun.

The dumpling shaped carrier came down and its mouth opened up. She stared it down as the thing that held her moved to it and flung her inside. She saw only darkness before something reached down and cut into her helmet. When the helmet broke off, she tasted stale air for a moment before something sharp cut into her head. For that one single second she screamed louder than she'd ever screamed before.

Her life flashed before her eyes. She was sad, tired, angry, happy, and confused for the entire second. It was an eternity, but it ended in one second. Lightning's eyes rolled back into her head as she passed from the world.

(-)

"Viper. Pull your squad back. We're leaving the area." Captain Senna gave the call and stared out at the unknown object that had made itself known to them no more than five minutes ago. Whatever that thing was had showed up without so much as a bleep on their radars. It was large. Two hundred kilometers in length at best.

How did we not see it until now?

The Sentinels lowered their machines down to the bridge, weapons at the ready.

Senna looked down at the radar and saw Viper and Angel's IFF's on approach. They were close. Not close enough for her liking.

The Sentinels began firing on something. The command deck came alive with information being given out and received. Senna stood up from her chair, her eyes narrowing on the objects that were nothing more than red pinpricks in the distance to her. But for the pilots, they were closer. Long-range weaponry made anything seem far away close to them. Close enough that they could simply touch.

Senna chewed on her lower lip as she looked back down at her personal radar. The massive object hadn't noticed the ship… or at least it seemed that way. It had certainly noticed the massive Sentinels that were now firing in its direction.

"Fall back!"

The bridge became silent with those words.

Senna sat down, her face calm. "Fall back. Pick everyone up as we go. Give the order." She put her back against the chair and closed her eyes. We came out here to find pirates and raiders. Instead we get… god damn aliens. …Mori ain't gonna like this.

As soon as the engines heated up beyond forty percent, the unknown vessel noticed them and thousands of tiny red lights winked into existence. The Sentinels turned as they made their approach for the hanger and opened fire. Turrets and railguns charged and fired without hesitation. The entire black void of space was suddenly alive with fire and thunder.

Senna checked the radar again to see how far out it was and the rest of the team. They were close, but not close enough.

"Get a pod ready!" Senna began typing on a personal pad while the crew worked on her request and relaying orders to the remaining craft. "This is Captain Senna of the Port Stanley. We have found unknown crafts and a large ship. Destination is unknown. We will lead them away in the hopes that they will follow us. I'm sending all available data on the unknown crafts." The ship shook violently. Senna uploaded the data from her pad to the pod as preparation were finished. It launched, though she didn't see it.

"Ma'am! Viper says to go on without him. They've been pinned down and aren't able to get to us!"

Senna shut her eyes. "Understood. Tell him we'll leave the light on for…" Her words died in her throat. A Sentinel was floating lifelessly passed the bridge. It was shot to pieces and the cockpit had been ripped open.

The power suddenly flickered out. There were no alarms or screams. Nothing was happening for what seemed like an eternity. The power returned and alarms screamed loudly. Senna was flung from her chair and thrown down to the others as they too were thrown from their seats. Wrenching metal sounded and the alarms stopped. Darkness took hold of the craft.

Though unseen by Senna, she could feel what was happening outside. Port Stanley had been ripped in half. She knew because she just knew. Call it intuition or fear, but she didn't have to wait long for the answer to be clear. Port of the engine flew by the bridge and slammed into something, exploding on contact. The asteroids that they had taken cover by were now going to kill them.

A single Sentinel flew down in front of the glass canopy of the bridge, turned its back to the debris field, and braced. The explosion was blinding and deafening. If they had power, nothing would be working at the moment. The force of the blast ripped through them and the glass cracked in protest.

Senna felt blood spill from her ears and nose. She blinked tears from her eyes and was left with only a dull ringing in her ears. Her eyes were drawn to the crew as they lay on the ground writhing in pain.

The Sentinel turned around, showing damage to its main thrusters as it presented weapons to something unseen. It started firing.

Senna got to her feet and yanked the closest person up as well. She started a chain and moved to the door once she had enough people up and waved them over. The ringing hadn't gone away yet, but words weren't needed. The power was coming back. The crew moved out and into the hallway to start evacuating.

Her pad vibrated in her hand.

She glanced at the radar and blinked when she saw an unknown IFF come up. It was behind them, closing in fast and heading directly for the large unknown craft.

The ringing died down enough for her to make out words that came over the radio. "…go down without…" It was a male voice, but not one she recognized. The unknown IFF flew over their craft. "Ignore them…" "…back immediately!"

"What the hell is that thing?" Viper's voice came over the radio. Senna jumped into a life pod and gave the clear to launch. "They're following it? What the hell is going on?"

"Viper!" Senna snapped her hand to her ear. "Listen to me! We launched a pod to our planet to warn them. Port Stanley is dead. She's not gonna make it back. Head back as soon as you can. Relay what's happened here!"

"Viper. Get out of here. I'll hold them off!" Shadow said with a tired voice. He was the last Sentinel standing. "I'll be right behind you guys. I promise."

Static hit the radio a moment later. Senna shut her eyes. If she looked, she knew she'd see his machine in pieces. So, she didn't. She lied to herself in the belief that he was fighting them off.

A red light drew her attention to the front of the craft where a small, blocky red machine floated in front of them. So… that's it then… Her final thoughts were on her mother as the unknown craft fired on the life pod.