PART I

ESCAPE FROM CHAINS

CHAPTER 1

FREEFALL

Review Corner

The Colonel: You will see her every now and then. So don't miss a chapter.

longbowchris50: I hope you like what you see.

jdoug4118: I'll try to go easy on any of these two universes so the fans of one universe can also enjoy the other. It may get rough in the beginning but I promise it'll get easier along the way.

Rose City,
Eastern Continent, Planet Zi,
December 19, ZAC 2128

The rude rang from Saskia's personal comset virtually destroyed her plan to sleep in.

With an agonizing groan Saskia rolled on her bed, shielding her eyes from the morning sun. It was a typical mundane morning, with nothing particular in her schedule. She could only recall her morning routine with her zoid, flying to the edge of the world, breaking clouds or thunderstorms, dancing around thunderbolts, but she could always do that in the afternoon. Her zoid didn't care what time of day they flew anyway. So she was hoping she could spend the better half of the day lazing on her bed, but her comset decided otherwise.

Nothing much changed since she returned to Rose City. The first two months saw her cleaning up and fixing her hangar, plugging holes, dusting the entire place, and selling unused stuffs. Then her savings ran short. She didn't bother to come back to ZOITEC. She figured the company had fired her for not showing up without notice. So she started a Zoid team. It was not as easy as she thought; Kenny needed a license and zoid, meaning she needed more money just to set the team running. Fortunately her old acquaintance Dagonet joined her at the last minute and was able to take odd jobs to cover Kenny's license, and the front payment of a pawned Arosaurer. Now that Kenny could work, money started flowing in, although most of them were used to clear the Arosaurer from lien.

The comset continued to blare annoyingly until Saskia couldn't stand it anymore. She thumbed the receiver button and lazily grunted onto the speaker, "What?"

"What does it take to wrest you from slumber?" Laeta's voice pierced her ears. "The sun? Money? Zoids battle? Swollen cock?" She paused for a while, revisiting her last remark. "Are you with a man?"

"No," Saskia stretched languidly on her bed. The morning breeze caressed the soles of her feet, slithering between her toes, giving her an uplifting sensation. "Does the thought spur intent, disrupting morning still young?"

"You're with a man, aren't you?" Laeta pressed her curiosity.

"I told you, I am not!" Saskia started to get irritated. Laeta had been graciously supplying odd jobs for her team to stay afloat, but Saskia was not in the mood of playing jokes at this time of day. "If you have words of purpose, tongue them toward my direction. Otherwise let me return to dreams."

"Backdraft recon team ceased form in radar," Laeta explained. "Two Raynos, with pilots of skill and good standing. They last strode toward an anomaly, never to return."

"Anomaly?" Saskia cringed. "In what regard?"

"An energy surge, still obscure in nature. See it investigated, and the two Raynos returned to Backdraft. I shall send you the coordinate presently."

"And this job will reward how much in return?" Saskia rose slowly from her bed.

"A reasonable sum, enough to inflate purse and pay off Aurosaurer," Laeta replied halfheartedly. "But the urgency weighs a pressing concern. Stand a failure and see team crashed unnoticed. One more thing: keep words between us. Deny Kenny and Dagonet any knowledge of this."

"What reason do you have that my teammates are not to be made aware?" Saskia stripped her negligee and put on her tank and cut-off pants. "Is mission illicit?"

"Don't press beyond state," Laeta grumbled. "You are briefed but necessary things. And you are not the only Backdraft sub-contractor. Overstep mission parameters and see employment forfeited."

"Lips are but sealed," Saskia said uncomfortably. She had seen how Backdraft operated in the past; there was always something hidden beneath Backdraft seemingly innocent briefings. She hated it to have to submit to Backdraft's suspicious requirements, but this time she had no choice. She needed the job to finance her operation. "You can expect nothing less from me."

"That's why I came to you first," Laeta summarized the call. "Sending you the coordinates. Good luck."

Saskia slipped on her worn-out moccasins then rushed toward the hangar. She struggled to put on her jacket as she called for her zoid, "Gilvy! It is time to fly!"

The Gilvader only cared for one thing: to fly. It stretched its wings in high anticipation as Saskia climbed its neck and jumped into the cockpit. The canopy lowered and pressure-sealed the cabin, giving Saskia sharp jabs in her ears, forcing her to wince.

"An unknown energy surge had appeared in the horizon," Saskia muttered as she brought her zoid out of the hangar. "Backdraft believed it caused two Raynos to vanish. We are to see them saved, and the energy surge pressed to discovery. I know not what we are up against. Stand vigilant and let me take control. Please, Gilvy?"

The Gilvader never yielded control willingly. Every time Saskia took the rein, it always threw a fit. Today was no different. It grunted and growled in displeasure as Saskia put the zoid in manual control. Saskia never understood what attached her to the Gilvader, or it to her. They rarely agreed on anything. Saskia approached things with extreme caution, while the Gilvader only wanted to dive headlong and obliterate everything that moved.

But despite the pain of dysfunctions, they had been partnered for 5 years, and Saskia couldn't think of a better zoid partner than her bloodlusty Gilvader.

"I shall see control returned after job," Saskia armed the rocket boosters. "Yet presently, my head stands better chance than your teeth. Now come, let us fly to business."

The Gilvader's rocket boosters shot jets of hot air to catapult the 330-ton zoid to the sky. At the edge of stratosphere Saskia cut off the rocket boosters and let the Magnesser Field take over. The Gilvader steadily glided through the stratosphere. Saskia leaned back on her command couch and just enjoyed the flight. There was nothing more engaging and relaxing than to look beyond the horizon, and see only the blue sky. And she knew her Gilvader was in the same state of peace as she was.

But as much as she wanted to take pleasure in the flight, Saskia was aware of the Backdraft job. She input the grid coordinates into the Gilvader's computer, and set the course to the designated target. It didn't take her long to see two plumes of smoke coming from the ground. She descended to get a closer look at the sources, and sure enough, the smoke pillars came from two zoid wreckages half a kilometer apart. Raynos body parts were scattered almost two kilometers in radius, a sure sign of violent crashes.

"Laeta, this is Saskia," she reported to the Backdraft rep. "I have laid eyes on Raynos, scattered upon sand. The location is 30 kilometers due east of Rose City." She took several low passes to examine the wrecks. "Mind has come to conclusion, the Raynos were ambushed. See their remains accrued; they may yet shed light on the hands behind their fall." She toggled her radar to find any sort of energy surge, but aside from the sun, she couldn't see anything that could be regarded as an anomaly. "Energy source does not yet reveal itself. I shall take another path to discovery."

Saskia took a steep left turn but the Gilvader let out a series of short growls. Saskia had known her zoid well to acknowledge the urgency in its voice. She followed the Gilvader's direction to turn right instead, and indeed, there was an object hovering at the edge of the atmosphere, far above the ground. Its long cylindrical hull prompted Saskia to guess that it was just a Whale King, but she knew well that no Whale King was capable of exo-atmospheric flight. Either it was a highly modified model, or something she had never seen before.

"What do you make of that, Gilvy?" Saskia muttered, almost like talking to herself. "Do you think it ambushed the Raynos? Let us have better eyes on it."

The Gilvader snarled enthusiastically as Saskia flew toward the object. As they got closer, they started to get a better perception of it. It looked much like a Whale King, only 3 times as long and 10 times as massive. When the Gilvader's radar picked it up, Saskia ran it through the database, but it returned no match.

"What faction built zoid like a stiff cock? I have never laid eyes on such thing," Saskia pulled up identification cards of all zoids in existence, only to come empty handed. She started feeling nervous about it, and she quietly put the Gilvader on autopilot. She knew from experience that in a pitched battle, she could rely on her Gilvader's sharp instinct and combat prowess. "You have the rein, Gilvy, but hold weapons. Do not cause grieve. Let us see its intention first."

The Gilvader glided slowly toward the alien object until about 3 kilometers away. Suddenly a number of smaller zoids busted out of the object. Roughly the size of a Storm Sworder, these smaller zoids did not have body parts like typical flying zoids. Rather, their large wings were integrated into their cylindrical bodies. The cockpit lied on the front edge of the body. No head, no neck, no limbs. Saskia had never seen anything like them before. She ran through the database for ID, but she knew she wouldn't find anything long before the console beeped in vain.

The Gilvader, as expected, responded with arming all weapons in its inventory.

"No, no, no, Gilvy, I told you not to cause grieve," Saskia manually turned off the weapons. "We know nothing of them. Hold fire, but keep weapons hot." She opened all communication channels and spoke, "Hello? Who is there?"

The smaller zoids, if they were zoids at all, regrouped in a staggered formation. The comm screen burst into static, then an image of a face appeared. The face was cocooned in a white helmet with a red wolf insignia on the forehead. But it was the two disproportionately-large eyes peeking from behind the visor that Saskia paid attention to the most. The stare was sharp and cold.

"This is Star Captain Benten of the Wolf, Gamma Galaxy. I claim your aerospace… dragon… metal beast for my own. I bid 10 aerospace fighters to the trial. What force defends your possession?"

Saskia could only give the man a blank stare.

"Have the sharp claws of the Wolf muted you in awe, freebirth?" the man spoke again. "State your force!"

"What in Zenebas' name?" Saskia cringed. "Tongue produces inconceivable words? Who are you?"

"For the final time, surat! My name is Star Captain Benten of the Wolf Clan. I claim your aerospace fighter for my own. I bid 1 star of Jagatai aerospace fighters for the trial. What force do you bid to defend your possession? State your strength, or die by the claws of the Wolf!"

The only part Saskia understood was 'I claim your aerospace fighter for my own'. She didn't know what 'aerospace fighter' meant, but she could guess that the strange man in the helmet referred to her Gilvader. "Do you intend to wrest zoid off hands? Over my dead body!"

Unfortunately, the Gilvader misinterpreted Saskia's statement of defiance as a clearance to fight. The metal dragon hurled its battlecry and fired its entire forward cannons at the lead Jagatai. The lead Jagatai broke formation and executed evasive maneuvers, but the Jagatai behind it was caught completely off guard. The particle bolts stripped the front armor and the ballistics slammed into the unprotected nose. The front part of the Jagatai disintegrated in a violent show of fireworks.

"Freebirth! You disregard zellbrigen!" the man in the helmet screamed over the comlink. "I will make it my business to see you rot as my bondsman!"

"Gilvy, look what you've done!" Saskia lamented exasperatedly as more Jagatai aerospace fighters came out of the large ship. "I told you to hold fire! Now they are 20 of them!"

But the Gilvader was looking forward to the fight. Disregarding Saskia's whining, it pounced forward and quickly latched onto a Jagatai's rear. The Jagatai was every bit of the Gilvader, swaying and twisting left and right in speed and agility matching those of the much bigger zoid. Particle bolts and ballistics from the Gilvader zipped past the Jagatai but the aerospace fighter crisscrossed its path, missing every single one of them.

Three Jagatai fighters lined up behind the Gilvader and peppered the zoid with razor sharp shots. Energy bolts and missiles strafed the leg armors of the Gilvader. The zoid screamed in agony as it was forced to disengage the other Jagatai and deal with the attackers.

"Laeta, we are engaging hostile units!" Saskia reported. "One gigantic transport belching fast zoids, with more to come! Their hands possibly wet with blood of Raynos! Send immediate support!"

The Gilvader engaged a vicious maneuver and destroyed two of the Jagatai that had been tailing the dragon zoid. But the rest of the fighters had the zoid boxed in and shot up from every direction. Molten armor sprayed into void every time an energy bolt stabbed the Gilvader. It was clear that the bloodthirsty dragon had instigated a battle it could not win, and the course of the conflict quickly swayed toward the Jagatai fighters.

The Gilvader kept its head cool, confident that it would lift the pressure off its back soon. But Saskia started to panic when she watched the armor level dropping like bricks. "Damn you Gilvy! Always spills blood at a second's whim!" she cursed under her breath as she tried to find a way to get out of the battle. And her heart jumped to her throat when she saw the large ship hovering at the edge of atmosphere.

"Arm Gravity Cannons!" she took control and yanked the joystick as hard as she could. "We make attempt at their Mother Zoid!"

The Gilvader roared in delight, knowing that it had a chance to fire its favorite weapons. Saskia floored the pedal, bringing the Gilvader to make a run at the large ship. The Jagatai lined up behind it and unleashed a blinding salvo of lasers and particle bolts, but Saskia tugged and shook the joystick violently, missing most of the shots. The large ship fired a smorgasbord of missiles but they were slow and easy to dodge.

"Hit broadside, center mass!" Saskia swerved to take a firing position. She lined up her crosshair with the large ship, and as soon as it burnt gold, she thumbed the trigger. Four Plana Tellasite bombs whizzed at hypersonic speed and hammered the armored hull of the ship. The thick armor stopped most of the punching power, but was virtually powerless against the localized gravity field that ensued. The hull caved in in a sickening twist, and tongues of fire belched from multiple fractures on the port side of the ship. The big ship staggered; smoke and sparks bled out as burning parts sizzled every which way.

Saskia's gambit paid off. Realizing their mother ship was in trouble, the Jagatai fighters broke engagement with the Gilvader. The ship turned away from the battle slowly, painfully, as the Jagatai rejoined the large ship one after another.

"I told you, my head stands better chance than your teeth," Saskia smiled smugly. "Or guns, for that matter. What do you say we leave them something for their trip home, whatever hole they crawled out of?" She armed the Gilvader's tailblade. "Rip hull open!"

The Gilvader hurled a series of enthusiastic roars, almost like a demonic laughter. It blasted its jets toward the ship with its tail pointing down like an anchor. The tailblade at the end of the tail glowed in purple glory. The ship made a last-ditched attempt to take down the Gilvader with thick missile salvos, but the Gilvader easily sidestepped the assaults.

Just as the Gilvader's tailblade bored into the hull of the ship, a white energy surge appeared and quickly devoured the ship, starting from the front. Saskia watched in horror as the pure energy inched closer with increasing intensity.

"No! No! No! No! Gilvy get out! Take us out of here!" she yanked her joystick as hard as she could, but the Gilvader's tailblade was trapped inside the ship's structure. She realized they had no chance to escape, and she could only cover her face as the pure energy swallowed her and her zoid a whole.

Saskia didn't know how long she was out. The next time she opened her eyes, she was trashed about in every direction. If it wasn't because of the safety harness on her command couch, she would've been flown out of the cockpit. The Gilvader was spinning uncontrollably, and Saskia had been in this situation many times to realize that they were flying toward the center of a gravity field….

… a massive gravity field.

"Gilvy? Gilvy?!" She pressed all buttons within her reach, but her zoid was knocked out cold. All screens on her console were dark. She reached under her command couch and hit the emergency power button. It sent a jolt through the Gilvader's body, finally bringing the zoid back to life.

"Stabilize! Stabilize! We need to stabilize!" Saskia rerouted all power outlets to the rocket boosters and gunned the engine. The sudden jerk made her stomach churn. The Gilvader let out a strained roar as the rockets slowed them down.

But something was wrong. The Gilvader didn't stabilize the way it normally did. It never regained control of its flying, instead continued to spin uncontrollably. The entire cockpit shook, and all sorts of warning signs rang in a convoluted blare, some of which Saskia didn't know existed. As it continued to spin, the Gilvader emitted a panic roar, almost like asking Saskia for assistance, which never happened before.

"What is happening? Why are we not in control?" Saskia put the control in full manual and tried to stop the spinning. She fired the boosters in staggered sequences, a trick she learnt during her tenure at Helic Military academy. The spin slowed down, but never ceased. She stretched the Gilvader's wings to get a lift, but it never came. Her hope to get a hold of the Magnesser Field shattered in a rude awakening that the Gilvader still drifted toward the center of the gravity field.

Running out of options, Saskia looked outside the canopy to see where they were going, and her throat clenched when she realized they were actually falling down. The terrain beneath, to her dismay, was not familiar at all. It was a dark brown desert with black rocky structures. Saskia had been everywhere save for The Dark Continent, and she had never seen any place like that. To her right, she could see a body of water, but it was greenish blue instead of typical deep blue of the oceans of Planet Zi, with brown streaks all over the place.

"What in the name?" Saskia sighed exasperatedly. "Where are we?"

The Gilvader's proximity alert made her realize that they were getting too close to the ground. Desperate, Saskia pumped her jets to slow down the descent, but the Gilvader was going down too fast. As a last ditch effort, she turned the Gilvader around, hoping to catch some aerodynamics. But the Gilvader was not designed to use such effect. The wings strained in sickening metal screech. The Gilvader managed to get stabilized, but there was no doubt they would end in a violent crash.

"Brace, Gilvy!" she gripped her joystick as hard as she could, as the view of a city became closer and closer.