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Mission No. 48

Cerinia
Altaira Valley

"New Gods"

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A blanket of storm clouds draped across Altaira valley the next day. They loomed so thick and low they swallowed the surrounding mountain peaks with gloom.

As Mother Namah padded up the gravel path path to the summit, she walked through a sea of suspended droplets; the cloud dampening the folds of her blue and purple robe. The broad peak at the top stood crowned by a circlet of sharp rocks, resembling a crown of shards. The villagers had hollowed out a small area in the center for private meditation sessions, where an elder and her pupil could escape to be alone.

When the matron came to the top of the ridge and looked down, she saw Krystal already waiting for her on one of two stone seats, legs crossed and tail flicking restlessly behind her.

"Mother Namah," she greeted while nodding her head.

The climb left her a bit short of breath. "Sorry to keep you waiting." The elder took her place across from her on the second stone seat. Carefully she folded her legs and arranged the folds of her robe. "Have you kept up your meditation sessions since last we met?"

Krystal nodded. "Yes Mother, as well as the mandalas and stretches—every day like you said!"

"Good: you have much to be proud of. But today we will dispense with those habits and focus on the mind. Even in the midst of great physical adversity, you should be able to find peace within."

Krystal looked around the meditation hallow. The oppressive storm felt miserable as it saturated their clothing and fur with chilling mist; it even blocked out the normally picturesque view of the village below, obscuring their entire surroundings in a veil of uncertainty. The ground lay strewn with sharpened rock fragments, and their bumpy seats weren't exactly carved with comfort in mind.

"Is that why you brought me up here?"

Namah smiled. "Yes. No matter where you are throughout the day, whether safe in the village, or in the hands of the enemy, your mind is a safe haven to retreat to. So please, forget that I am here, and let us both be at rest."

The elder closed her eyes and folded her hands in her lap, touching the tips of her thumbs. She could feel Krystal do the same, but… she hesitated at first, which Namah took note of.

For the moment they meditated in silence. The wind picked up as the storm drew closer, whistling over the gaps in the rocks and ruffling their pelts and clothes, and with it came an unrelenting coldness. The distant village disappeared, leaving the two alone in the gray void.

In the silence, Namah focused on her breathing, but also attuned herself to Krystal's feelings. She sensed loneliness, even though the girl shared her presence. Beneath that, unrest. Confusion.

"Is something bothering you, my daughter?"

Krystal shifted almost imperceptibly on her stone. "Oh no, it's nothing."

The matron could feel her suppressing the darker thoughts for a while, and the hushed whispers ceased to leak through. Then Krystal broke the silence again.

"Mother Namah, have you ever been… one with someone?"

The question completely caught her off-guard. There were two ways Namah could interpret it, so she had to tread lightly with her response.

"You are… inquiring about the mauri: the universal soul common to all Cerinians?"

At this point both women opened their eyes, giving up the façade of meditation.

"Yes… in a way. If the walls we can touch and see are just an illusion that separates us from one another, is it possible for two people to cross them and… become one again?"

Namah was worried Krystal had been getting at this. "Krystal, you can… never truly become one with someone else. That would be to forsake your own identity, your thoughts, your memories, and everything that makes you, you. While it is true our people shares one soul—which outsiders can never be a part of—there are still pieces of our being that even we Cerinians need to hold onto, and parts we need to protect each other from. It simply isn't possible; we will only ever experience a taste of it in this life, but a taste is enough to achieve peace and harmony."

Krystal looked at her with earnest eyes. "But-but I don't understand. What you said earlier—it's so confusing. How can people both be one, but separate at the same time? How can you know it's not possible? Haven't you ever… tried?"

That gave Namah pause. She stared down at the carpet of shale and rubble, remembering how things had once been. She sighed deeply; there were things even she tried to forget.

"There are some questions in life that… we will never find the answers to. I understand that you are new to this world and inquiring is how you learn about it—but entertaining such questions will cause you naught but confusion and unrest, so they are best left unasked."

Krystal's shoulders slumped and her head tilted down. "Oh…"

"Please, use this opportunity we have to seek peace. Whatever it is that's troubling you; lay it aside. It is only a burden weighing you down."

"Yes, Mother." Krystal closed her eyes again and Namah followed suit—but no matter how hard the girl tried, her tutor sensed she couldn't concentrate. Whatever lay at the heart of the issue was eating her up inside.

Carefully, so as not to alert Krystal to her advance, Namah brushed up against her mind. She eased herself in so slowly as to be unnoticeable, not even causing a ripple as she slipped in. She had to know what was at the core of Krystal's troubles, and how deeply its roots ran.

As Namah expected, the girl's mind broiled as dark and as cloudy as the storm about them. On just the surface, she could feel coldness seeping from her soul. She saw visions of maze-like tunnels that twisted in on themselves in never-ending fractal patterns. Some sort of bonds locked her in place, cold and metallic. Chains…

Yet she sensed another presence, as if it were its own separate being. It slunk in the shadows, far away in the wastes of her mind where the light of recollection seldom touched. Though it tread far from them, and mountains of protection stood between them and the beast, with every moment it wandered a little closer…

The current of Krystal's emotions surged unexpectedly, plunging Namah deeper into her troubling thoughts—they were practically tearing her up from the inside out, and close to overflowing. The darkness—the creature—was coming closer. It was coming for her, and there was no way she could run; not with these heavy chains strapping her down. She was powerless to escape, and it was coming—!

Namah gasped and pulled herself back out, opening her eyes again. The storm clouds were coalescing around them, swirling in a spiral shape over the mountain peak. Krystal appeared immune to the effect she was having, though her brow furrowed worriedly and her breathing became louder and more erratic with each passing second.

Yet there was more than wind and fog in the air. Namah could sense a tension rising as well, invisible to the eye alone. A violent force pulled taught between the very atoms it permeated. As her mind screamed danger, she placed invisible hands all along her body, protecting her vitals from being torn asunder.

Then, in an instant, it all came to a head. A flash of light and a peal of thunder shook the entire mountain beneath their seats. Every rock on the peak split into tiny shards, exploding outwards in clouds of dust. Namah instinctively threw up a protective shield of force around herself, turning away the brunt of the rubble just in time. The roar echoed across the valley, dying out as the rain of rocks—now less than pebbles—fell to the ground like hail.

The matron slipped backwards off her seat and onto the gravel, staring at Krystal with opened jaw and fearful eyes.

But her expression was mirrored on the vixen's face; Krystal was just as shocked as she.

Clutching at the stones behind her, but keeping her wary eyes on Krystal, Namah retreated a few feet back.

Who was this girl?!

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"Tashich höku kanosie."

Bill looked up at the sensory deprivation chamber. Those were the first words 19 had spoken in the past hour, but he didn't want to get his hopes up. He looked at Dr. Makepeace, who had scooted to the edge of her seat in anticipation.

"19 says she 'hears her,'" she translated, excitement in her voice.

Both captain and scientist rose from their chairs to huddle around the tank. Miyu, Fay, Baines, and every other officer in the bridge breathlessly stole glances as well, though they didn't abandon their posts. Makepeace pressed the talk button on the exterior comm and asked a question in Venomian, with 19's boxy voice returning an answer through the speakers.

"She says 28 is in pain. She heard her cry out…"

"Where? Where is she?!" Bill demanded, allowing hope to finally shine through.

Makepeace relayed the question and observed a thermographic feed of the chamber's interior. She saw 19's red outline lift an arm and point.

"That direction. She says we're closer than we've ever been before," Makepeace told Bill. "I can't be any more specific than that—she only heard a single outburst, but it was definitely her."

"Thirty degrees to port!" Bill ordered. "Decrease altitude to seven hundred feet and pull in low—I don't want Fox spotting us till the last moment."

The horizon outside the windscreen shifted to the right as the Justice came to bear. They descended to cruise several hundred feet above a desert of black sand that stretched for miles into the hazy distance. While a hopeless malaise had descended over the crew in past weeks, the discovery of the trail reinvigorated them with new energy. Bill knew his men well; their excitement was so palpable he could sense it in the air. It felt good to be on the hunt again.

"Captain, geologic formations dead ahead! They're directly in our path," the sensors officer reported.

Surprised, Bill looked out the window along their present course. As the officer had warned, several strange formations blocked their path. Midnight blue crystals towered above what once had been nothing but rolling dunes. The shards were monstrous—nearly as tall as the first skyscrapers in Corneria City.

"Full stop!" Bill ordered. "Why didn't you warn me about those sooner?!"

"They didn't show up on any of our scanners sir, at least—not until now."

The bulldog furrowed his brow. "That would suggest they were cloaked—or they simply weren't there a few seconds ago…"

All eyes on the bridge turned to the crystalline formations. The teeth-like shards exuded an eerie aura, unsettling Bill along with everyone else.

Makepeace grabbed his arm, her fingers tightening around his wrist. "Turn the ship back."

He shook her hand off. "We can't turn back now—not when we finally have a lead—!"

"NOW!"

Gritting his teeth Bill called out, "Reverse engines!"

But right as the Justice began to drift backwards, the entire ship shook. A high-pitched, metallic grating pierced their ears like claws on chalkboard, coming from beneath the ship's hull. Within a few seconds they slowed to a complete stop.

"We seem to have run aground," Bill forced through his teeth.

The sensors officer hurried to display a view from beneath the ship's keel. The hologram revealed several of the spires had risen from the desert like fingers to sink into the underside of the Justice, locking her in place. Bill crossed his arms and scratched his chin, studying the camera feed.

"Gunnery Sergeant, try blasting us free."

"Yes sir!" The sergeant aimed the underside turrets at the dark crystals holding them in place, then primed them. Once the cannons built up enough energy, he released it in twin beams of blinding yellow light—but the lasers reflected off the crystals' facets and ricocheted away, bouncing into other spires till they reflected back onto the Justice itself. The ship lurched slightly, but the blast wasn't powerful enough to pierce a cruiser's armor.

"No good sir; they're made from a reflective material."

If we keep up a steady enough stream we could melt them, Bill thought to himself. Though explosive ordinance might do the job more efficiently—

"Sieka seinsu koher," 19 warned.

Makepeace's ears perked, and she frowned.

"What?" Bill asked. "What did she say?"

"It's too late. They're here…"

Before either of them could inquire further, two distinct jolts rattled the ship.

"Harrison, that wasn't us. What hit us this time?"

The bridge engineer quickly scanned the hull diagnostics for a report of the damage. "Unknown, sir. Two blunt objects—most likely kinetic projectiles—appear to have struck our forward keel: starboard side. Bringing shields online now."

The lights in the bridge briefly flickered as the energy shields started up, accompanied by a whine that climbed in pitch till it escaped the hearing range of normal Lylatians.

"Point of origin?"

"All we know is the attack came from below us. Preliminary scans haven't identified aircraft or ground-based AA guns."

After his men failed him, Bill turned to Makepeace. "What the hell's going on, Doctor?"

"If I had to guess, Captain, I'd say two Cerinians are now outside the ship."

Bill's heart plunged into his stomach—they'd finally been noticed by someone with a bone to pick. Now was their first true test as the crew of the Justice.

He spoke to the sensors officer again. "Scan for smaller heat sigs: person-sized."

The crewman directed his attention down at the monitor and repeated the scans, this time picking up smaller signatures. He looked back up at Bill and nodded. "You're right; two heat sources at five o'clock, six hundred feet off the ground."

Miyu rushed over to the officer's monitor, eyeing the minuscule pair of rainbow-splotches. "So do they have fucking jet packs or…?"

Makepeace shook her head. "No. They simply figured out how to fly with telekinesis."

The lynx's eyes grew wide. "They're flying?!"

"They're just mosquitos," Bill insisted. "Baines, order a missile volley on those shards. If we can't use lasers, maybe we can blast ourselves free."

"Yes sir!"

They waited breathlessly till they felt a series of muffled explosions beneath the hull, followed by the Justice lurching forward—only to be pierced anew seconds later.

"No good sir, they're reforming the crystals. We can keep at it—"

A third thump sounded, but this time the shield shrugged off the mystery projectile.

"They're knocking…" Makepeace said.

Bill set off marching for the bridge door. "Then it's time we answered them. Lieutenants Lynx and Spaniel: bring flight group A from each of your units. We're going out there. Baines: you're in charge of the ship while we're gone. Makepeace: get 19 back to the cargo hold. The bridge is no place for her during an operation."

Before he could leave, Makepeace grabbed his arm again. "Captain…"

He paused and turned to look at her, heart pounding in his chest.

"Never underestimate a Cerinian. Your ships will not keep you safe from them."

Bill searched her green eyes for a moment, discerning that she wasn't exaggerating. The danger was very real.

"Noted, Doctor."

A few minutes later, Bill's tan-and-green painted fighter passed through the atmospheric forcefield and dropped into open air. He pulled the ship back up to fly just beneath the Justice, but was surprised to see a veritable forest of crystal spires now surrounding the immediate airspace. It reminded him of some of the unexplained geologic armaments Andross deployed during the final battle; more and more sprang up the longer they stayed. The midnight blue crystals pricked the Justice from multiple angles, skewering her hull in place. He could initiate breaking the ship's bonds now, but for the moment that wasn't his objective. His target was a pair of minuscule, Lylatian-sized figures floating in open space not too far from the cruiser.

Following behind Bill emerged Fay, Miyu, and eight of their squadrons' best pilots. He assumed his place in front of Fay's group. "Lieutenant Spaniel and Husky Squadron A, follow me. We'll begin a counter-clockwise rotation around the Cerinians. Lynx's squadron, fly beneath us in the opposite direction."

The pilots did as he commanded, circling their enemies like vultures. Bill zoomed in on the pair of targets, magnifying their image several times from afar. It was fuzzy, but it confirmed they really were just people flying hundreds of feet above the ground—all on their own. Their rag-like clothing hung off their bodies, billowing like capes in the wind. The two of them turned left and right, visibly confused by the swarm of Cornerian fighters and their whirlwind-like flight pattern.

"Ah, shit!" one of Miyu's men exclaimed. His wing clipped the side of a crystal, but cut right through. The pillar splintered into a billion sparkling pieces from the top down, raining to the desert below like hail. Though jostled, the pilot recovered. "Whew, I'm fine. The crystals seem fragile enough."

"Be careful," Miyu urged. "They may be sturdier from more direct angles—and remember to avoid hitting them with lasers, or they might reflect into friendlies."

"Watch it Husky Leader, incoming projectile!"

Fay nosed her ship up just in time. A boulder whizzed underneath her ship and smashed into a spire behind her, disintegrating the top half.

"Thanks, Husky 2!"

"Now we know what hit us earlier," Miyu pointed out. "They've just been chucking rocks at us. Fucking rocks!"

Bill looked at the magnification screen again, identifying a swarm of levitating boulders and stones directly beneath the Cerinians. They'd certainly come supplied; every second they raised more projectiles up from the desert below, increasing their supply.

"Begin attacking in shifts," Bill commanded. "Fly off in pairs. Pull back through the forest before turning inwards and buzzing them at the same time—and be careful!"

"Roger that."

"It'll be like shooting fish in a barrel!"

"Don't let your guard down!" he warned them. After his earlier talk with Makepeace, he feared their confidence would come back to bite them.

Two ships from opposite sides broke formation and disappeared beyond the crystals before momentarily returning to cross the open space. Their green lasers flashed downwards at the Cerinians, but Bill saw the dark specks hover to the side, effortlessly dodging them.

"Damn it. They're too small! Targeting can't hold a lock. Better pray you get lucky when it's your turn."

"Next pair!" Bill barked.

Two more fighters buzzed the Cerinians at the center of the clearing, once again raining fire on them. This time they were ready—the boulders rose up to provide a protective shield on either side of them. The Cornerians' lasers merely glanced off or shattered the rocks into puffs of dust, harmlessly. When one of the pilots passed right by the pair, a boulder rose up and smashed his wing, denting it.

"Ugh, one hit me!" His ship wobbled for a second, but managed to regain altitude.

"Let's one-up them," Bill said. "Husky 3, Bulldog 3, we'll all go together. Now break!"

"Copy that, sir!"

Their three ships broke off from the twin circles of rotating fighters. Bill wove easily between the towering crystals till he pulled around one in a tight loop, coming back in above the circling squadrons.

"Beginning attack run!"

Each of the Cornerians approached at 120-degree angles from each other, strafing their enemy during partial dives. The intent was to attack from more sides than they could handle at once. Bill picked one of the Cerinians out and concentrated his fire on them—but they were nimble and not much of a target to hit. He grit his teeth and clenched his hands around the control stick, but his shots always fell just behind them, glancing off the stalks of crystals and landing in the desert below. If only they were Venomian pilots this would be so much easier…

The sound of the firing cannons in his ears was so loud that a sharp crack barely registered with him. "Bill, watch out above you!" Miyu exclaimed.

The canine tore his attention from the Cerinian target in time to see a shadow fall over his ship. His eyes widened: the top half of one of the spires had broken off—or was snapped off—and plummeting directly towards him. But Bill forced his control stick into an even faster dive than the falling javelin. Before he reached the blackened dunes he pulled up, and the monstrous length of the crystal plummeted past him. It flew so close he could see his own ship's reflection in its facets before it struck the ground and shattered into glistening flecks.

"Watch it! They're controlling the crystals. They can bring down any one around you without—"

Before his very eyes, the grains of sand ahead of his flight path kicked up in a frenzy. They collapsed in on themselves, burning white hot till they formed a needle-shaped structure, solidifying into yet another crystal when they cooled. Bill veered off from the spire, but it wasn't made for him. It shot straight upwards like a lance, spearing through one of Fay's fighters.

"Husky 2!" she cried.

No response came from the skewered ship. As the engines petered out and gravity kicked in, it simply fell with the crystalline spear to the ground below.

Bill heard Fay's growls over the comm. "Husky 4, with me!"

The pair of ships turned from opposite sides of the clearing and strafed the Cerinians a fourth time, now with vengeance in mind. One of the Cerinians seemed to hide behind the other, a fact not lost on Bill as he spectated the attack. But as Fay closed in, the wings just… snapped off Husky 3's fighter.

"What the—?!"

The pilot's channel erupted in a horrific metal screeching sound as a pair of invisible hands seemed to crush the ship. What was left of the mangled, wadded-up carcass abruptly changed course and veered for Fay, who had to break off of her run at the last second.

"NO!"

Bill cursed; they'd already lost two men, with a third nearly decommissioned. He was struggling to come up with ways to defeat a foe the likes of which no one had faced before: an enemy who could potentially do anything they wanted with a single thought.

"Bulldog unit, launch missiles—manually set target type for drones."

Flashes emitted from all sides of the circle as five missiles simultaneously left Bulldog unit's ships. They raced towards the center of the circle leaving trails of white smoke in their wake. This time the other Cerinian took point, raising a sea of rocks and boulders in a protective shield around them. Each of the five missiles exploded upon impact with the debris, and the resulting waves of fire unnaturally directed themselves upwards and away from their targets.

Cursing, Bill let loose a missile of his own, directing it manually towards the fading explosion. They shouldn't be able to see it through the brilliance of the previous fireworks display—there wasn't time. Bill held his breath as his missile darted into the scattering flames… but there was no second explosion. Instead the smoke cleared to reveal his missile violently quivering in place a few meters away from the pair of Cerinians, still spewing fumes. Then his heart sank as it slowly turned to face him, pawing at the air like a bull ready to charge.

"It's coming back!" he warned.

Instead of shooting for him, it raced back to where he'd fired it from—directly towards Miyu's fighter.

"It's on me!" she cried while trying to evade.

Bill hurried through a number of context menus on his dashboard before locating the manual detonation option. He slammed his fist on the control screen and looked back at Miyu, praying he was in time. The missile burst directly beside her fuselage, seeming to engulf it in flames.

"MIYU!"

For a frightening second, he was transported back to Venom's dark tunnels, watching helplessly as similar fires swallowed up a russet-furred husky.

He'd failed again.

The smoke eventually rolled off Miyu's ship like a dying phantom, revealing its blackened and mangled right half. The fighter began to nose into a dive.

"I… c…n't pul… u…!" Miyu's radio crackled.

It was enough to give Bill hope. "Eject!" he exclaimed. "Ditch your ship now!"

But he couldn't watch to see if she made it. Her ship fell out of sight below them, and he had to keep his eyes trained on the Cerinians for their next attack. He needed to stay calm for the rest of his men, as much as he hated losing Miyu.

"Enough messing around; we need more space to safely maneuver without running into the crystals—or each other. Use your missiles to knock down the crystals, but whatever you do, don't give them time to take control of them. We still have the numbers; let's overwhelm them."

The remaining fighter craft did as Bill commanded, using their missiles to shatter the crystals and clear a wider space around the Justice—but it seemed like every time they leveled a spire-shaped tower, the same Cerinian would form another one to take its place. In the meantime the other alien grew restless…

"One of them's moving! They're headed straight for us!"

Bill watched in horror as the miniscule figure landed directly atop Bulldog 4's ship and ripped his canopy clear off.

"Help me! He's—" But the Cerinian grabbed the pilot by the scruff of the neck and tore him right from the cockpit, severing his radio connection. The empty ship blindly continued on its course till it rammed directly through a spire, tumbling nose-over-tailfin to the desert floor. The Cerinian carried the flailing pilot hundreds of feet up to the top of the crystal forest. For one breathless moment he hovered in place, watching the ships below like insignificant gnats as the hapless soldier flailed his arms and legs. Then they simply dropped him… onto the waiting spire below. The needle-thin crystal impaled the pilot's torso as his momentum carried him several feet down its length, painting it red. Bill's stomach churned as the Cerinian perched atop the crystal, as if gloating over his prey.

That left them with seven ships out of their original eleven…

"Fay," his broken voice began, "we need a new plan. I think our enemy is playing different roles. The Cerinian up above is the sword, while the one below is the shield. If we can kill the one forming the crystals first, we'll rob the attacker of their defense. Then we might stand a chance."

"Sounds like a plan," Fay breathed heavily, tiring of evading the Cerinian on the offensive.

"They're separated for the moment, so now's our best shot. Husky and Bulldog units, I want you to keep it that way. Take turns buzzing the Cerinian up top—keep 'em busy, but don't let 'em get close to you. Lieutenant Spaniel and I will eliminate the other one, then we'll have the Justice destroy the remaining crystals and clear the battlefield."

"Roger!"

While the other five ships gained altitude to pester the attacker, Bill explained the rest of his plan to Fay.

"The other Cerinian is no good on their own. I want you to go after the attacker like everyone else, but use it as a cover to get between the defender and the sun. I'll attack from below."

"But I might hit you!" Fay protested.

"It's alright, my ship can take a few hits—the Cerinian can't. Now off you go, Lieutenant!"

"For Miyu?"

He swallowed.

"…For Miyu."

Bill and Fay separated, with the spaniel pursuing the rest of the pilots towards the attacker. Bill meanwhile dove low beneath the other Cerinian, positioning himself so that the sun glared directly behind them. When he began climbing up from the desert, proximity warnings alerted him to something behind his six. Glancing at a rear-view feed, he noticed several molten-hot tornadoes of sand beginning to form spear-like crystals beneath him. When they lanced skywards at his ship he jammed his control stick to violently dodge left and right, avoiding each by the skin of his teeth.

Closer and closer he flew towards the Cerinian, but his ship suddenly came to an abrupt halt. The stop gave him whiplash; Bill momentarily rose from his seat before being flung back into it. Then his fighter began rising on its own, lifted slowly the rest of the way by some invisible force. Bill jerked the stick in every direction he could think of—he even set his reverse thrusters to full, risking tearing the ship apart himself, but it didn't stop his ascent.

Fay…!

He switched to targeting control and fired his ship's cannons point-blank at the waiting enemy, but both of the barrels inexplicably bent back until they snapped off.

The Cerinian brought him up so close that he could see their face—her face. The vixen's fur was dirty and as dark blue as the sands below them. Filthy rags that had once been a dress now covered her, and a sheet billowed from her shoulders like a makeshift cape. Her sapphire eyes gleamed as she taunted him, the rest of her figure silhouetted by the blinding sun.

A voice spoke in his mind, and it wasn't his own. Bill had never felt anything like it before—not even with 19. He couldn't understand the woman's words, but he knew their meaning all the same:

'So you're the captain of this force: soldiers for the nation that destroyed my planet. Perhaps I should curse you, but then again I wouldn't be a god without you. As a show of thanks, I will make your death swifter than most.'

The pressure in Bill's cockpit sky-rocketed, as if he were being crushed thousands of feet beneath Corneria's oceans. It felt like his bones would snap, his ribs would cave, and his skull was about to split in two. But Bill stared into the Cerinian's mirthful eyes, turning the air crushed from his lungs into a defiant scream.

Then she noticed something in the reflection on Bill's canopy, and her hold on him loosened. He looked over the woman's shoulder to see a black shadow separating from the blinding rays of the sun.

As if reading his mind, the Cerinian turned and shielded her eyes with an arm to look.

She was too late.

A spray of green lasers struck her, smattering bloody bits and pieces of her body down upon Bill's canopy. The force crushing Bill vanished, and he fell back into his seat, gulping in air. When his ship began to fall, Bill shook off the aching feeling in his bones and took control again. As he climbed back to a safe altitude, streaks of blood and clumps of fur blew off the sides of his windscreen. He'd been that close to death himself, but he didn't feel much better seeing the vixen's remains lost to the wind either.

"Bill, are you alright?!" Fay cried.

When he finally recovered the ability to speak, he gasped, "You were just in time Fay! Looks like they aren't so immortal after all. But I can rest later; we're not done yet." Bill switched channels to hail the Justice. "Alright Baines, shatter what's left of the crystals—they won't be re-growing anytime soon!"

"Aye-aye, Skipper!"

Panels on the sides of the Justice flipped open, revealing rows upon rows of missile silos. One after the other, the projectiles ignited and took flight, racing towards the nearest spires. As each missile struck its target, brilliant orange bursts reflected off the facets of the remaining crystals, till those too shattered. Soon all that was left of the forest were sparkling flecks of light, raining down to the sand they came from like clouds of confetti.

After the debris cleared, Bill looked around to count his men. They'd lost one more to the Cerinian, leaving only four ships besides himself and Fay—barely more than half the number they'd started with.

"Well, did you get the other one?" Bill asked.

"No sir: we played a game of cat-and-mouse the whole time. They got Bulldog 2 since his ship was damaged…"

The canid searched all around them for the missing Cerinian. But when the dust settled, they were nowhere to be found.

"You mean you lost them?!"

"Y-Yes, sir! I don't know where it went. One moment it was chasing me, then the next it just… vanished—right around the time when you got the other…"

Bill's knuckles trembled as he gripped the control stick. He wanted to make both Cerinians pay for the deaths of his men, but that chance was robbed from him.

Suddenly the comm channel to the Justice opened, emitting the frantic voice of the bridge communications officer. "Captain Grey, one of them's on the ship! He made it on the ship! He's in the bridge right-ACK—!"

Bill was horrified to hear a succession of choking sounds escape the officer's mouth, then nothing else. In the background he could faintly hear a voice yelling in a language he didn't understand, as well as the raised voices of the bridge crew. Then, static.

"He's on the ship," Bill informed his fellow pilots.

"Oh god," Fay breathed.