Okay, this took a little longer than expected. Still haven't heard back from all my beta readers, but I decided that you guys have waited long enough. I don't want to keep you hanging any longer, and if there are changes that I need to make, well, I'll fix them with the next update.

Thanks as always to Swordsman, Boondock Jake, Atlan, and Captain Orsai for their assistance. Couldn't do it without you guys.

So, without further ado, here is Chapter Four of Ratchet and Clank: Legacy.

Chapter Four: Complications

"Biological and genetics analysis of Angela Cross with regards to unknown alien specimen discovered in ruins," Angela said into a recording device attached to the side of her helmet. "Room and myself are sterilized, and it's approximately 6:24 A.M. local time." She walked around the corpse as she stared down at it, activating a number of machines hovering about the slab that it was on.

A needle drove down, piercing the dull green scales of the alien and extracting some purple colored blood.

"Specimen stands about one-point-seven meters tall, masses about a hundred and fifteen kilograms," she said, eyes darting over readouts as the machines scanned the body. "Specimen is a carbon based life form that has both reptilian and mammalian traits: scales, hair, etc., possesses a heavily muscled tail about three quarters of a meter long and," she blushed a bit, "was apparently male. Time of death unknown. Rigor mortis hasn't set in, but some species do not enter that." She looked over at another screen as displays of bone and muscle structures popped up. "Musculature appears to be of slightly above standard density, and his bones appear to have been artificially reinforced, as I'm guessing that this species probably wasn't born with composite alloys covering them."

She paused, hands flying over the keys of her PDA. "Not that they seemed to help much. Cause of death appears to have been massive internal hemorrhaging caused by some sort of sonic-overpressure, consistent with close proximity to extremely high density explosives. May have been a grenade, demo charge, or something more exotic, but whatever cooked off, the shockwaves pulverized the poor guy."

There was a beeping noise from the blood analyzer and Angela stepped over towards it. "Hmm, strange. Hemoglobin is cobalt based, DNA is levo-protein based." She looked at another readout. "Metabolic rate of surviving cells indicates that this individual was probably warm-blooded and…" the female Lombax blinked once, then shook her head and looked at the readout again. "And the subject's tissues and blood have traces of nanites in them… Some are inoperable, others appear to still be active, and they appear to be trying to repair the damaged cells." She made a quick note of that as she made certain that her data feed was recording the information. This could be big. Functioning bio-compatible nanites weren't exactly uncommon and Megacorp itself produced several brands, but they tended to be very expensive, and she wasn't aware of any military that injected them into their infantry on a regular basis. "Judging by the fact that the specimen is deceased, there's a clear limit to what they can do, but this is unusual nonetheless."

She looked over the rest of the data readouts. "Specimen appears to have two hearts, metabolic process suggests an oxygen breather, large brain, and possesses four standard, three jointed, digits on each hand, with a two jointed opposable thumb on the inner side of each hand. Specimen also appears to have some type of low-grade cybernetic link located at the base of the skull, seems to plug directly into the cerebral cortex. Purpose unknown at this time, but it might have something to do with the specimen's armor."

On and on it went, as she took stock of its traits. Everything else was fairly standard, and the only other thing that was particularly noteworthy was that skin samples seemed to indicate that the specimen would have been capable of changing its skin color. It took her about an hour to make note of it all, before placing the specimen in stasis and cleaning up. Before she left, she compiled the data and sent it via secured extranet link to Megacorp's Board of Directors. The information on a completely new species was probably important enough to warrant bypassing the traditional channels.

Then she headed out, cleaned herself off, and made her way over to where Arden and the others were. They were going to be analyzing the armor and weaponry of the alien. The room that her supervisor and his associates were in was slightly larger than the one where she'd done her biological report, and the armor could be seen lying in several distinct pieces at various stations.

"Ah, Angela, glad that you could join us," her boss said with a smile as he beckoned her over. "Finished up your report?"

"Yep," she said with a nod. "They should be getting it shortly. What have we found out over here?" she asked, walking up towards the main chest plate of the armor.

"Well, the weapon, from what we were able to examine was a very interesting bit of technology. Rather crude and old fashioned, but interesting nonetheless," he tapped a finger against the faceplate of the suit that he was wearing. Angela gave him a confused look behind her own facemask and he shook his head and shrugged. "Well, it took us a while to get it working, the gun has some sort of smart-technology built into it, possibly biometric."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Simply put, there are some sort of sensors built into the gun's grips that were actively searching for something, possibly a genetic sample, or maybe some bit of technology," he nodded towards the gauntlets on the armor, and then walked back over towards the weapon. "It's an acceleration rifle, an electromagnetic-gun, in the common parlance. And without that bit of whatever it was searching for, the capacitors for the accelerator rails refused to engage. We couldn't get the gun to fire."

"How'd you get past that?" she asked.

"A bit of complicated open-heart surgery as it were," he gestured over to the weapon, and looking closely, Angela could see where the weapon had been cut into and apparently operated on. "A bit tricky, and it took us nearly an hour, but we got it working. I'd wager it's a failsafe to keep the weapon from being used against its owners in a combat situation. The funny thing is that I'm confused as to why someone would go to such lengths for such an old-fashioned piece of technology." He looked up at her and shrugged again. "EM-guns are considered obsolete in most of the civilized regions of the galaxies, and haven't seen widespread use in centuries."

"So it's harmless, then?" a new voice spoke up, and the two of them turned to see that Captain Fidas had walked in. The Raxian was clad in the same sterilized clean-suit as the rest of them, and was staring at the weapon with an air of mild curiosity.

"I said that it was crude and obsolete," Arden sounded a bit indignant and planted his hands upon his hips. "At no point did the words 'harmless' or 'not dangerous' cross my lips." He turned back to the weapon. "It has a tremendous amount of stopping power, from what we've seen, more than enough to kill." He gestured over to a duraplast wall that had been set up. There was a massive, half-meter wide hole through the wall, blackened around the edges from where the material had been superheated and liquefied.

"If it's so potent, why did these weapons fall out of use?" Angela muttered out loud.

"Primarily? Because they're one stunt snagglebeasts." Arden crossed his arms over his chest. "They've got power, lots of it, but they're heavy, they kick like razorbacks even when loaded down with recoil dampners, and their ammunition supply is extremely limited." He gestured to an object set into the stock of the weapon. "This is the charging mechanism, the battery," he pulled it out. It was about eight centimeters long, maybe half as wide and thick. "If this were a Megacorp laser rifle, I could easily fire off a couple thousand shots from a cell this size. Here, all you've got is the means to power this gun, and on top of that, you've still got the solid ammunition, and that weight adds up very, very quickly, to say nothing of the size of the slugs limiting how many you can cram into a magazine. And that's also to say nothing of the fact that the weapon's already pushing nearly twenty five kilos as far as its mass is concerned."

He sighed. "Acceleration rifles are also incapable of doing some of the fancier things some of our modern weapons can do, such as firing around corners, locking onto a target, and matters like that." He shook his head.

"What about his armor," Angela nodded over towards it.

"Now that's a bit more interesting. His weapon was rather crude, and belied the sophistication that his armor has," Arden moved over towards where it had been laid out. "As I suspected as soon as the weapon's nature was revealed to us, it's self-supporting, powered combat armor. There are two primary layers. The composite exo-skeletal plating elements that you see here," he picked up a gauntlet and held it out for them to see. "And underneath that is a body-suit type mechanism composed of as of yet unidentified nanotube materials. Not sure what the enhancement factor is, but given that both layers appear to act as a powered performance enhancer, it's probably pretty impressive."

Angela let out a whistle. "Lot effort to go to to protect a soldier."

"That's not the half of it." Arden shook his head as he spoke. "It had other protective measures as well. Thermal, particle, and kinetic barriers, non-Newtonian fluid layers for impact absorption, and a host of sensor arrays, motion scanners, and geographical mapping capabilities. And that thing on the back turned out to be what we think is a thrusterpack."

"Defensive threshold?" Fidas spoke up.

"Without having tested it? I don't know," Arden said quietly. "But I'd wager that if they went to this much trouble to sleeve our 'specimen' up, whoever was equipping him probably expected it to be able to withstand fire from his own weapon or something of similar stopping power for at least a brief period of time." He shrugged and looked back over at the weapon, nodding towards it. "That was actually one other factor about the acceleration-rifle that we found to be interesting. A large portion of its mass and weight seems to stem from the fact that it's covered in the same material as the secondary power-armor, and some of the more delicate components appear to be isolated within a similar non-Newtonian shock-absorption chambers."

Angela blinked for a moment and looked over at Fidas. Then she stared over at the partially dismantled gun. It was a bulky, ugly thing, a mix of straight sections held at slight angles, with more rounded edges towards the barrel. She'd been skeptical of the idea that the gun had actually weighed as much as Arden had claimed, and had assumed he was exaggerating slightly. But if what he said was true… but…why?

"Arden…" Fidas broke the silence, the security officer arching an eyeridge slightly. "Are you saying that the alien's gun is literally armor plated?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying." The Skirathi held up a hand to hold of the question he knew was coming next. "As to the why of it, I don't know. I'm just as confused as you are. Perhaps it's to make it more robust and lessen the chances of the operator damaging it when using his power suit." He shook his head. "Very little of the alien's equipment actually seems to make any sense." He gestured to the weapon. "You have a very old fashioned, crude weapon, coupled with what appears to be a very high-end suit of quality, shielded power armor. You've got all the gadgets and bells and whistles on this thing, but if you look closely," he gestured for them to come over, and then pointed to sections on the exterior of the chest plate, thigh coverings, and greaves. "You can see the remains of magnetic holsters and what appears to actually be combat webbing. Combat webbing," Arden held his hands out, at a loss. "Even the most dirt-poor PDF forces can usually afford storage decks for their grenades and power-cells. I haven't heard of anyone outside of a third-rate colonial militia actually using tactical webbing in centuries!"

He sighed and threw his hands up, before shaking his head one more time. "The only thing we can confirm right now is that the weapon appears to have quite a bit of stopping power behind it, and for the time being, we should probably assume that the armor has similar defensive properties."

"So in short, if we find more and they turn out to be unfriendly, don't bother trying to stun, just go for full power, automatic, maybe use anti-material weaponry?" Fidas said.

"Most likely that would be the best course of action if we encounter any of his friends and they turn out to be… well… not nice." Arden nodded his head. "Mind you, I hope it doesn't come to that. I would hate for us to have discovered a brand new species, hell, potentially a brand new civilization, only to realize that they'd come halfway across the known universe to pick a fight."

Angela remained silent and frowned behind her mask. It wouldn't be the first time that someone had come to Bogon, Solona, or Polaris for the express purpose of stirring up trouble. She shook her head as an image of her home on Greblin came to mind, flames licking at it as Drophyds followed her through the frozen wastes. Now was not the time to get overly cynical. They'd discovered a new species, some new technology that Megacorp might be able to use, and she might have just helped redeem this project in the eyes of her superiors. Furthermore, even if the project was still scrapped, within the next forty-eight hours, she was going to be seeing an old friend for the first time in years. It was time to take some joy where she could.

Ar-Zel leaned back against his command chair, putting his helmet back on and locking it into place. The medic that had been tending to him stepped away and cocked his head, and the Laxor nodded in response. A combination of injected painkillers and medigel had dulled the pain in his head and was dealing with his concussion. Now he could devote his full efforts to what lay ahead of him. His rag-tag "fleet" was beginning to slow down now, approaching the planet that their sensors had picked up earlier, and in just a few minutes, they'd be transitioning out of faster-than-light travel. Did another battle lie ahead of him and his troops, or was the universe going to cut them a break for once?

He shuddered for a moment as he thought about the potential consequences of failure. With so many of their power systems damaged and their fabricators offline, there was no way they would ever be able to effectively search for other surviving forces. And if any of their enemies survived…

He shook that depressing thought from his head as he looked over the planet's details. Type IV, appeared to be densely populated, though not near the density necessary to turn it into a Hive World. Scans indicated that it did possess orbital defenses. The Laxor clenched a fist and growled softly. Damnit, he was flying blind here! There was no telling what the natives would be able to do if things turned ugly. For all he knew, they were in for nothing other than a bloodbath.

"We are ready if it comes to that, Sir," Elbron spoke up, and Ar-Zel looked over at his second in command. "But… do you really think that it will come to violence? By all indications, these entities are neither Imperial nor Tribunal, it is possible…"

"It would be the first time Tesarect,"Ar-Zel shook his head as he spoke. "I will not complain if they are open to parlay, but I doubt that we will receive any greetings other than a salvo from their orbital defenses."

"Switching out of FTL, powering sub-light engines," the navigational officer spoke up, looking towards his superiors. Both of them nodded towards him, and the Dreadnought rumbled as it decelerated.

The planet was nearly invisible at this distance, just one more glistening dot among the stars. Ar-Zel looked over at his tactical display, noting the swirling clouds the patches of green and brown, blue and white, broken by the gray metal splotches of megacities. He highlighted and zoomed in on the area where they would be heading. He looked over a few of the data readouts, life form scans, ambient power levels, that sort of thing, before he pulled the view back out and examined the more pressing matter: the orbital defense platforms. There were dozens of them, each one about a kilometer or two across. His eyes narrowed and he clacked his inner jaws together.

"Send hailing signals to them, try to explain who we are and what we want," he ordered his communications officer. His subordinate nodded his head and set to work.

The planet in question, known as Arcadia, was rapidly scrambling its own forces. Planetary chairmen barked orders across comm. arrays and world defense assets were scrambled. No one really knew exactly what was about to happen, but what could not be ignored was that nearly a dozen heavily armed ships had dropped out of FTL approximately three light-minutes away from the planet, and had moved steadily towards their world. Sentiment was that it would be far better to be safe than to be sorry.

And so pilots scrambled to their fighters and orbital defense platforms went to general quarters, while civilian populations were hastily ordered into shelters. Still the ships came onwards, closing the distance rapidly. Attempts at radio and holocommunication failed. Nervous glances were exchanged before it was agreed that fighters would be launched. Hundreds of them rocketed up into orbit and took up station around the orbital defenses. Down on the ground, weapons were hastily checked and armor quickly buckled on.

Back among the Shartan fleet, this activity did not go unnoticed. Ar-Zel tapped his fingers together, his jaws twitching as he blinked his six eyes. "Are they responding to our hails?"

"That is a negative, Laxor," His communication officer said. "It is entirely possible though, that they are using a band wavelength or other type of communication that is incompatible with our own systems."

"Shall I order the attack?" Elbron asked, his shoulder-limbs twitching as he stared at the growing swarm of local defense assets and the number of defensive platforms that surrounded the world.

"No… not just yet. Their reaction so far is natural. Let us wait until they take a more definitive course of action. Slow our fleet down, and bring us to a holding position here." He brought up one of his primary hands and gestured to the holographic display in front of them and rubbed the front of his helmet with a secondary limb, feeing his pulse quicken and a bit of sweat start to form on his exoskeleton. He had a sinking feeling he knew how this was going to end. What was the phrase that the Tribunal used to describe it… prisoner's dilemma? He was already pushing the boundary of what would be acceptable to his superiors. Sensor readings from the planet indicated a flurry of activity, ships rising into orbit, increased power among the orbital defensive platforms. Every second that passed made the Laxor fear that the next would involve a hail of weapons fire tearing into his ships.

After all, wasn't that what had happened with the Tribunal? With the Dregtor? With any of the dozens of species his people had run into? An encounter with a new species, only for the Shartan to discover that they intended to destroy or enslave his kind and take control of the Hive Worlds' resources?

A minute passed, and then another, as the ships moved to the point that Ar-Zel had ordered. The ships came to a halt, and the Laxor actually found himself tapping one of his fingers against his command chair in agitation. Then an alarm started to blare on the Dreadnought's bridge.

"Energy pulses detected! The defense platforms are charging weapons and pivoting to target us!" A bridge officer shouted. Warning sigils and alerts screamed across Ar-Zel's command screen and the ship's defensive A.I. highlighted enemy weapon's fire: missiles and energy bursts of an unknown type.

His shoulders slumped a bit and he let out a soft, hissing sigh. "So be it. I will not have our fleet shot out from underneath us. Charge primary weapon systems! All ships: fire at will!" He clenched his right primary hand into a fist. "Once their defenses are dealt with, I want the destroyers to move in and support ground operations. Cruisers are to launch fighters and transport craft are to launch immediately. Ground forces to engage in attack pattern theta." He slammed his fist into his command chair. New galaxy. New civilization. Same old game, it seemed.

The Laxor's orders were carried out to the letter, and within seconds, hell was unleashed.

Watching from the primary control room of his space station, Doctor Nefarious felt his mechanical eyes try to bulge from their sockets as he watched the alien ships open up on Arcadia's orbital defenses. His claws dug into the command chair he was sitting in hard enough to leave scratches and his jaw dropped open. He shook his head and looked down at the numbers before him.

"Lawrence, are my optics malfunctioning, or are these range readings correct?" He said when he finally managed to locate his voice.

"Your mechanical systems are functioning as well as ever, Sir," Lawrence said, looking back over his shoulder at his boss. "Our enigmatic newcomers seem to make up in weapon ranges what they lack in FTL travel speeds."

Nefarious rose up out of his chair and advanced to where his butler and his other underlings were sitting. His crimson optics remained fixed on the ranges that the probe droid was feeding back to them. Over thirty light seconds, nine million klicks. The Phoenix, pride of the Galactic Federation, could barely manage a tenth of that with its cannons and missiles. He watched as the missiles and torpedoes that the alien fleet had launched streaked towards their targets. The alien ships fired again and again, until there were hundreds, thousands of warheads zooming towards Arcadia's defenses.

At the same time, the second largest ships, the ones that were about seven kilometers long, began to belch out hordes of smaller ships. The largest one, apparently the flagship, also began to spit out swarms of smaller craft. An impressive hidden arsenal, numbers wise. However, did the power match up to the range, Nefarious couldn't help but wonder.

He looked back over to the primary readout, watching as the weapons fire streaked in towards Arcadia's defenses. He could see the local fighters starting to accelerate, moving about in an effort to both evade the incoming missiles and to assist the defense platforms' point defense networks. The seconds that passed seem to take hours, and he watched on the strategic display as the point defense grids intercepted some of the incoming fire, before the sheer number of targets overwhelmed them.

Intercepted communication transmissions allowed him to hear the growing alarm among the members of Arcadia's planetary defense forces.

"Defense network targeting computers are being overwhelmed, there's too much to freaking shoot at!"

"Shields to full power, all hands brace for impact! Repeat, brace for impact!"

"Where the hell's our fighter support?"

Then the first salvo struck. One of the PT-7's read over its data console. "Sir, energy readings analyzed, consistent with high-density plasma and anti-matter detonations."

Nefarious nodded as he watched the carnage; the battles stations shields intercepted hundreds of the missiles and torpedoes, but they had a limit. With the foremost station, the shields crumbled and dissipated, the energy-sinks overwhelmed by the raw power of the enemy salvo. Scores more struck, the glowing plasma torpedoes boiling away massive sections of armor as they impacted and detonated, while the anti-matter warheads slammed into their targets and exploded with a burst of light that reminded Nefarious of an ancient camera flashbulb.

Armor slabs half a dozen meters thick were vaporized or slagged into uselessness as the tail end of the salvo slammed into the first station. The warheads detonated by the dozens, vaporizing interior armor bulkheads and setting off secondary explosions. Malfunctioning thruster systems pushed the station out of its geosynchronous orbit and caused it to float off sideways, venting atmosphere and a blistering sheen of explosions.

The second and third battle stations suffered similar fates as the alien fleet closed in and fired off another swarm of missiles, and then a third. Nefarious rubbed his hands together in glee as his command chamber was filled with the sound of distress calls and screams. He was tempted to dance a little jig as he watched the planet's defenders die. The newcomers had something worthwhile after all, something that he could use against his enemies. Already, his mind was beginning to formulate plans that he could use to manipulate these beings into being his newest set of unwitting pawns. And of course, there was the joy of watching a large number of organics get blown to smithereens, which always brightened the day.

"Lawrence, I think that if things continue to unfold like this, these newcomers and I are going to have a very fruitful relationship," he chuckled as he gazed around at the various datascreens.

"True sir, their weapons, if nothing else, are fairly impressive," Lawrence muttered as he rubbed his chin. "Not the most advanced I've seen, but what's the saying… brute force is a quality all its own?" His gaze drifted upwards and to the right, and his body language seemed to suggest that he was frowning. "Of course, we're going to have to try and study them carefully, see what we can offer them in return for an alliance."

"You think I don't know that?" the Doctor hissed, glaring over at his second in command. "What do you take me for? A garden variety idiot?"

"Oh, no, Sir," Lawrence shook his head back and forth. "Perish the thought. You're certainly not a garden variety idiot."

If Nefarious was aware of the implications of Lawrence's emphasis of the words 'garden variety', he let no sign of it show. Instead, the Doctor continued to watch the battle unfold. The two fighter swarms began to head towards one another as a fourth and fifth battle station were knocked out of the fight. One of them was completely obliterated as a swarm of missiles penetrated it and detonated inside of it, the other one was blown out of orbit, streaming trails of fire and vaporized metal as it spun about helplessly like a child's top.

Then the fighters were upon one another. At ten thousand kilometers, the two sides engaged one another, proton torpedoes and other missile fire swarming through the void. Between the chaos and the host of electronic-counter-measures that both sides began to employ, it became nearly impossible to watch the unfolding battle as it raged. Occasionally he caught a bright flash and there would be a radiation spike as one of the smaller space craft were destroyed, but that was about all that Nefarious could make out.

All the while, the capital ships continued to press forward. As they closed in on the surviving battle stations, other weapons besides missiles began to join the fray. Sensor readings started to detect pulse lasers, particle beams, and ion cannons as hundreds of weapon emplacements opened up. The battle stations finally started to return fire on their own, sending out volleys of energy weapon fire that slashed across the shields of the attacking vessels. Their shields held and they continued to fire relentlessly at the orbital defenses. A swarm of Arcadian fighter craft raced in to support the stations, but as they drew closer rapid-fire point defense weaponry shredded them. Surviving flights quickly scattered as the capital ships closed in with a speed that belied their bulk.

The flagship, at least Nefarious assumed it was the flagship, given its massive size, pressed forward to the front of the pack. Torpedoes and missiles that made it past the point defenses slammed harmlessly against its defensive barriers, while its own weapons carved a bloody swath through everything that dared to stand against it. The robotic Doctor grinned savagely as his mind contemplated the implications of this. Rip out those pathetic FTL drives that they were using, get a good look at those targeting computers, reverse engineer some of the missile propulsion technology… the raw power that these aliens had, combined with his own genius and his own, much more advanced weaponry…

There wouldn't be a thing in the known universe that would be able to stand against his forces. He could sweep them from the proverbial field and blast every single foe to free floating atoms before they could ever get close enough to fire a return shot. He started to chuckle gleefully as the ideas turned and tumbled in his positronic brain. For a moment, he imagined Admiral Phyornix, surrounded on a bridge awash in fire, choking on the smoke as her fleet disintegrated around her.

Wait, too soon for that, he growled inwardly. He had to dupe these newcomers into letting him get a look at their technology first. He needed time to analyze them, find out what their weaknesses were, what their strengths were, and how he could best use them to further his own goals. He'd been fortunate in the past, the Tyrranoids had been willing enough pawns, highly aggressive and adaptive, but just stupid enough not to realize that in his quest to rid the galaxies of organic life, that Nefarious wasn't about to make an exception for them. Likewise with the Great Clock debacle, he'd found no end of willing servants eager to use its power for their own ends.

He had no guarantee that these newcomers were as idiotic as the Tyrranoids, and the aliens lacked the personal vendettas that his earlier allies had. Further, he had no artifact to tempt them to work for him against their better judgment. He hastily checked around, making certain that the other probes, the ones that he had tracking the other rifts and the forces that had been emerging from them, were still operating properly. There might yet be something in that mess that he could learn that could help him here.

He turned his gaze back towards the battle. Arcadia's local orbital defenses were in shambles and most of their fighter craft had been overwhelmed. The larger ships were pulling in a bit closer now, and the second swarm, the one that had held back behind them, now moved forward. Transports, perhaps? A surface attack, most likely.

"They're after something, but what," he gave voice to his thoughts, rubbing his chin and looking over to Lawrence. "What does this planet have that interests them so much?"

"Who knows, Sir? Perhaps they just decided to stop by for a quick bite to eat and to see the sights, and this is the way their kind says hello." The sarcasm in Lawrence's voice was thick enough that this time even his superior caught it.

Nefarious merely glared at his butler, before doing a double take as he watched the ships open up a second time, turning their lighter weaponry on the surface of the planet, striking planet-side defenses and military bases around the edges of major population centers. Classic invasion stratagem. Pound the enemy from the ultimate high ground; soften them up for the troops that would be going planet side.

"This is shaping up to be a very interesting day," the Doctor said, that tone of impish glee returning to his voice as he watched the invasion begin.

Ratchet was beginning the final course changes that would bring him in on the approach to Ichar III when Aphelion's alarms began to warble. His adrenaline spiked as he checked over her readouts. Everything was solid.

"Alert! Planetary distress signal detected; general distress, alpha level," the self-aware ship announced, and Ratchet quickly reached down to the vid-screen on the console, bringing up the intercepted transmission.

"GDA, GDA!" The picture came into focus and it was hard to tell what species the speaker was, due to the face-covering mask. "This is General Omedron of the Arcadian Planetary Defense Forces! This is an Alpha Level General Distress call. We are under attack by unknown hostiles, orbital defenses are failing, and local PDF troops have been overwhelmed. Any forces receiving this, we need assistance immediately. Repeat, anyone receiving this message, please assist!"

There was a moment of silence before Ratchet looked over to Clank. The two friends nodded to one another and Aphelion off auto-pilot. "Plot a course for the source of that transmission, and get me a line to Sasha," Ratchet growled out.

"Understood, I am dialing her up now." There was a pause. "Course corrections made, ETA three minutes."

It took a few seconds before Sasha Phyronix's face appeared on the console screen.

"Ratchet, what—" she started to say.

"I think your old man might have made a good call for once in his life," Ratchet said, punching a few buttons on the console and ignoring the glare that Sasha shot him. "Patching this through." The distress call repeated itself to the Admiral, and Ratchet swore he saw her skin go pale underneath her fur. "We're en-route now," the Lombax said.

"Understood, keep this line open," Sasha said, turning to her own computer console and calling up other ships in the fleet. "I want to know what in the world is going on, and I'm going to need visuals."

"Gotcha."

"And for gods' sake, don't get yourselves blown up!" she shouted.

"Don't worry, I like life." Ratchet murmured, licking his lips behind his helmet. "Aphelion, how're we doing?"

"Powering up weapons, bringing shields up to combat specs," the A.I. stated. "Approaching Arcadia's MSD, switching to STL engines." There was a shudder as the ship transitioned back into realspace and then screamed towards the planet. "Long range sensors obtaining feedback, vessels of unknown origin and profile detected." A series of readouts appeared before them, holograms leaping up out of the center console.

Ratchet's eyes roamed over the specs and he was tempted to whistle. The ships were massive, ranging in size from three kilometers in length to the better part of twenty-five. There was a lot of jamming in the area, and his ship was having trouble getting anything more detailed on the ships, such as energy readings and the exact nature of their weapon systems. However, all Ratchet had to do was look at the sensor grid and see the burning remains of dozens of orbital defense platforms to know that they had to be potent.

"I am also detecting swarms of smaller ships, probably fighters and transport vessels, but I am unable to get details on their exact nature and the number of them." Aphelion spoke up. "However, I do suspect that the attackers have gained almost complete orbital dominance over the battlefield."

"Try and find something friendly in all this mess," Ratchet growled as he accelerated the ship towards the battle. He pushed the gravity diffusion system up to its maximum as Aphelion rocketed towards the conflict.

"Searching…" his ship responded. There was a moment of silence and then the ship locked onto an Arcadian radio communication. "Found one, patching it through to you."

"Blue flight, regroup on my wing, look for any fighter or transport groups trying to make a break for it." The voice crackled over the radio, distorted and out of tune due to all the ECM in the battle.

"Blue flight, this is callsign Aphelion," Ratchet spoke over the radio. "Responding to your GDA, what do you need?"

"Aside from a miracle?" Came a sardonic response. "Unless you're bringing an assault fleet to back you up, you're not going to make much of a difference here…" there was a pause, and he heard the other pilot give a disgusted sigh. "Still, I'm not about to turn down an extra ship."

"What's the situation?"

"Hostiles came in about half an hour ago. Attempts to communicate failed, and once they got inside the MSD barrier, our battle stations armed weapons and went hot. That's when they started shooting." Clank suddenly pointed to a spot on the sensor grid, and Blue Leader was highlighted on it. Ratchet nodded to his friend and then oriented the Aphelion towards the Arcadian squadron. "From there, it's been pretty self-explanatory."

"Understood." Ratchet nodded his head. "Hang on, I've got your location, I'll move in and link up with you."

"Gotcha. There's a few more partisans in here with us, we're looking pretty rag-tag right now. We'll wait for you, just for gods' sake, watch the big ships. Their point defense weaponry is nothing to sneeze at."

"Sir, could you perhaps be a little more specific?" Clank spoke up.

"You get within thirty thousand klicks of the bastards and they'll turn you into space dust." Blue Leader growled.

"Thank you." Clank said, his voice calm as ever, and then looked over towards Ratchet.

His companion made no verbal response, but gestured over his shoulder. Clank nodded his head and clambered into the rear seat of the ship, bringing the tail-gun online. It was about thirty seconds later that Ratchet linked up with the fighter squadron. There seemed to be a half dozen or so sleek, angular vessels that he recognized as "Vipers", a Megacorp produced orbital superiority craft. Black against the void, nearly invisible except for the glow of their ion engines, he noticed one of them that had a blue strip on it. Blue Leader, no doubt. The rest of the ships seemed to be a motley assortment of various different types of craft. Some were older generation fighter craft that looked as though they'd have been more at home in a museum that fighting it out in the vacuum, Star Explorers and those sorts of things. Others looked as though they were what were often derisively referred to as "scrap jobs"; ships that were put together from an assortment of different components by individuals who couldn't afford to purchase new ones.

"Okay, Blue Leader, what's the plan?" Ratchet asked.

"Right now?" the Arcadian pilot responded. "Plan's to try and slip in underneath the hostile capships. There's an almost constant stream of transports running to and from the surface, ferrying troops and supplies to the ground battle. They've got fighter escorts, but we're hoping that if we get mixed in there with them, the capships won't fire."

"Worried about a blue on blue?" Ratchet asked.

"That's the idea," the other pilot said. Ratchet supposed it made sense. Blue on Blue was the standard military phrase that referred to a friendly fire incident. Get mixed in there enough and with all the ECM, the bigger ships might not fire their point defense weaponry out of fear of fragging their own fighters.

"So, our task is to disrupt the enemy transport and logistics supply lines?" Clank spoke up. "I simply wish to clarify."

"That's correct. Expect those fighters to swarm all over us, so stay on your toes, keep your head on a swivel, and watch where you're maneuvering," Blue Leader said.

"Phyornix, you getting all this?" Ratchet asked over the long-range comm.

"Your signal's getting messed up by all the jamming in the area, but I could make out enough," the Admiral said. "I'm going to get on the horn with some of our allies in the area, see if I can get some capship support over to you."

"Who are you talking to?" Blue Leader asked.

"This is Admiral Sasha Phyornix of the Solona Galactic Federation," Sasha said. "We've got contacts in your area of Bogon, I'm going to see if they can scramble an assist."

"Captain Avery Michaelson, ma'am, and much obliged." There was a pause. "Okay, everyone move to combat spacing, and let's get this over with."

Ratchet flexed his hands against the control stick and looked back over his shoulder towards Clank. His robotic companion gave him a thumbs up and nodded his head. He shifted his control stick and the maneuvering thrusters on the Aphelion twisted to match, swinging him out until there were a few hundred klicks between him and the next fighter over. Another day, another space battle.

-00-

Okay, hope that was decent. It's been a long, long time since I did a space battle or anything like that, so if you have any advice or constructive criticism in that regard, I will more than welcome it. As stated above, this chapter may be subject to a little bit of revision once some more of my beta readers get back to me, and I'll let you know if that happens. Thank you, everyone, for taking the time to read this story, it means a lot. I hope it was worth your time, and until the next update, everyone stay safe.