Chapter 9 - Making Omelets

Nova Terra Secunda.
Landfall, Capital City. 
FC Fleet Base, Command-Grade Residential Zone.
1310 Hours, Planetary Capital Time.
Sable Residence.


Sunlight divided the room in half. On one side, the door to the rest of the apartment was shut, and various shelves and a desk stood against the wall. On the other side, a wheelchair waited by a cozy bed made to accommodate bodies larger than the average human. In fact the whole apartment was, and without that particular body, the woman standing by the window felt terribly alone.

The doctors had told her, that day, she might never walk again. That the bioweapon had been in her system too long, and it was a miracle that her son had been spared from any ill effects.

Gian Das'Rama-Sable knew they were wrong. Her body was no humble 'shrine' to her Goddess but a Citadel. It had come under siege and protected its holy treasure. It might have taken time to rebuild after such agony, such strife, but she had nothing but patience. Patience and the love of her family. The love of her family, and the Faith.


So the years had not been lonely ones, nor without progress. All across the room were pictures of her wife and their son. From his earliest moments, all the way up to his graduation from the Officer's academy, and some from his first posting. She remembered how the room had stood up when her wife had arrived, fresh from the port, with an MP at her side for busting through the checkpoint.

"Damnit, Ma, again?" Her son had sworn from stage where he stood to receive his commission scroll. A similar event had taken place when he'd graduated high school, but that time she'd had a pair of state troopers with her.

Of course Gian had invited them home for coffee and tea afterwards and it was all settled out in an amicable way. They even took the photo of that Graduation day, her wife had kept the handcuffs.

Gian shuddered as she began to move back toward the bed. Anger only briefly kept her upright, these days. It was a start in the right direction. The worst of it, waiting for her body to rebuild itself; was over. Now she just had to work the materials back into shape.

As soon as her Love returned, Gian would make her sore for leaving her alone for so long. There was a courteous knock on the door and it was opened a moment later. 

The woman in the doorway stood a normal height for a human, even if the color of her eyes, the streaks in her hair, gave away her Thildin heritage. Her long wavy black hair fell loose to her ankles, combed smooth by Gian earlier in the morning. Her soft curves were almost girlish, but belied the steely muscles under the nurse's skin. 

"Gian?" She asked. "Lunch is ready."

The Thildin woman inhaled deeply and smiled. "Smells great, Nora. I'll be out in a moment." Nora nodded, and left the bedroom door open for her charge. Gian looked in the mirror that stood above the bedroom desk. For at Thildin, she was still young. By Human metrics she would been in her 'fifties' but she wasn't even half that by the years of the Thildin homeworld. Long orbit, long lives, it was a strange phenomenon.

Still, she looked good for her wounds. The scars that wound up her legs like cross hatched edges didn't detract from their feminine curves, but the old sprinter steel wasn't there anymore. Her physical therapy was keeping her in shape, but not up to par from where she'd been.

 She frowned as her green and violet fingers traveled up her body, and over her lower abdomen. Twenty years, in twenty years she hadn't menstruated once since her baby boy had been conceived. The doctors had written it off as a side effect of the bioweapon, but Gian wasn't convinced.

Twenty years of trying very hard to give their son a sibling had yet to yield dividends, besides many broken bedframes and shredded sheets. 

Her abs were still strong, and she knew her back was still as defined; They had to be to carry the girls. All the sitting around she'd been doing after becoming a mom had meant she didn't lose any of her motherly 'meatiness' as her Dearest liked to call it. She held her breast in her hands and pressed a fingertip into her recessed nipples, working it in a pattern Amanda enjoyed using on her to great effect.

She stopped her self before she got to far, black backed eyes open to see her hair fall about her shoulders in blades, the defined, regal, features confident, even while confined to recovery.

Gian sat down in the wheel chair and sighed as she let the rudimentary thing carry her weight. Amanda had rejected all the modern floating or even old electric motorized wheel chairs. She insisted that those kinds of chairs would make her placid and content with being stuck where she was. Having to move her arms every day would keep her strong.

Damnit if her Love wasn't 'right on the money'. Gian hated that chair, hated how for all her son's life he'd never gotten to see her move like she had before the attack. He'd always groused at how people treated him at the academy for being the Son of Sable. Oh if you knew what Mama was up to before the war even started. She'd think and smile. 

She rolled into the large suite and up to the table where Nora had prepared a lovely spread. Her attendant sat down, not across from Gian but at a place beside her, after Gian had brought her self up to the table. She reached over and held Gian's hand as they closed their eyes and Gian led the two in a prayer in the language of the Thildin. 

<"Lady of Swiftness and Protector of the Home; 
we thank you for this meal, this shining day, 
and for the warmth in our hearts and bodies.

Thank you for guiding us through our hardships,
and presenting us with challenges, 
that we may grow stronger, wiser, and braver.
With these virtues, the impossible is nothing.

Thank you for watching over those we love.
though we are apart in mortal distance,
no span can break the love we fee-">
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.

--------------

"That's bad." The Halum Captain growled as she saw the results from Pix's 'brain jacking'. She rolled her shoulders, restless as Pix was sizing up the hatch for demolition. Now that the 'ring' had been cleared, and sealed off from the way above, the group had the time to reload, assess the situation, tally kills, and take a breath. Pix had worked with the various Harrik's she'd spiked to build a coherent picture of what was ahead of them. 

It wasn't good.

"Took the words right out of my mouth, ma'am." Hoss sighed. It showed that the larger entrances were simply barricaded at a single point, layers of security had been rerouted and variously blast doors had been shut, then fused in place, to build a labyrinth of metal passages.

"Darling, I joked before," Raven asked from the center circle of Officers and NCO's "but kitted this well; how many doors could you tear through?"

"All of 'em, Raven." She answered, "but look at how they're nesting, they seal up some of these things," She points at the curled metal balls, "In each section. We don't know what they are, what they do, and how hard they hit. All we know is that even curled up they're almost four meters across. There's bravery, sir-"

"-and there's stupidity. I know." He looked at the map Pix had compiled. "There is a long, winding path with fewer rooms, but they're longer and with more of the shells. Shit."

"So a bunch of little rooms, filled with a ton of enemies, or a bunch of long rooms, filled with even more enemies." Sarge sighed. "It felt like Monday when I woke up this morning." She laughed.

"Well if you'd pulled lots with Sable instead of Hoss and her snoring, you might have had a better wake up call." Verily joked and eyed the one finger Hoss was holding up for her inspection. "You need me to help you stick that somewhere, Specialist?" She smiled behind the presently transparent helmet panel.

"I don't like our odds either way." Doc crossed her legs as she floated in the zero-g. "These balled up bastards could be anything. I've got enough to rebuild most of us from 'pretty bad' and back to 'field ready'; but Lieutenant, no offense that work you did was sexy as fuck, but those fliers were scouts and you are still very squishy and I've seen what Harrik due to humans in CQB." Sable nodded. It wouldn't be pretty if even on of those got past Darling and the other Valkyries or came up under their feet.

"Adapt." Sable spoke the phrase like it was and order, but to himself. He looked at the pictures of the first rooms for both pathways. THe metal discs and their hidden Harrik hunters. He zoomed out. He saw the two paths, one a straightforward gauntlet, the other a winding maze. He zoomed out. He saw the civilian section of the station, sitting like a top balanced on the rest of the station just above the section they were sitting in. Connecting the section to the rest of it was a, relatively, small span of hull, bulkheads, conduits, and supply elevators. 

Most of them had been shut down and disassembled, very little was holding that section to the rest of the station.

"OH." Sable's eyes went wide as it clicked. "Oh. Fuck." He smiled, even as his eyes dilated.

"Oh shit." Geravine swore. "I know that look." 

"What look?" Sarge asked as Pix looked up from her arm console and the rest of the chalk titled, floated, or turned to get a look at Sable's face through his helmet visor.

"Last time I saw that look, we had to scrap a squadron of test drones because the test didn't account for firing on the 'false-friendly' dummy ship."

"I don't believe in no win scenarios, and Rhokum don't take prisoners." He snapped out of his reverie. "Okay, so the Harrik are waiting for us to hunt them. Because it's what they expect. It's what they are for."

"Correct." Geravine nods.

"So fuck that." Sable laughs, and receives silence in response. "Why are we giving the enemy the fight THEY want, the fight THEY are prepared for?"

"What are you suggesting," Darling cocked her head, "Sir?" She added with a pinch of caution.

"We blow the whole section right off the station, after we give the thing a little 'bump' toward the giant. Bump, blow, then brakes to keep the rest of us here."

Seven pairs of eyes looked at Sable like he was out of his mind, but the mad smiles that spread under those eyes told him he was in like company. 

Darling fought and held back the laughter. "I fucking LOVE you, Sir." She growled with fire in her voice.

"It goes against everything we're taught as Hunters, destroying a hunting ground in this way." Geravine whispered, as if she was contemplating blasphemy. "They'll never see it coming." She smiled with that contagious, mad, glee.

"But they will see it in action." Hoss spoke up. "They'll try and bind the two halves together, from the outside." 

"It's more like a third," Pix corrected, "And well, we've all got these lovely suits. Why not take a walk?" She smiled.

"This is crazy." Doc suggested, "But I'm all for material taking the damage, rather than us. I'm in."

"I'm in?" Verily laughed. "Doc you're ass is going to be back with Pix and the LT, while they're flying the station."

"The hell I am." Pix spoke up and drew looks. "We're gonna need all guns on deck for this fight."

"You're absolutely right." Sable nodded. "Which is why you're going to program the station to lurch in the giant's direction, then: When splice a prerogative that if it loses contact with the habitat module, it lurches back. You can do that from here?" She nodded. 

"Sir." Sarge spoke up. "I really don't want to have to do this, especially after that last fight." She nods back at the scrap piles Raven had left in his wake. "But that armor is not rated for the kind of shit storm that's about to go down. Those flyers were stunted and clustered in here. Out in the black, they will be a whole different kind of fuckery and I don't want your seals popping because of that one lucky shitbird, or whatever else pops out of those." She pointed at the disks.

"Are you pulling Experience, Sergeant Nolan?" Lieutenant Sable asked, challenge in his tone.

"Yes, Sir, Lieutenant Sable. I am." She stood her ground.

Everyone looked between the two.

"Granted." Sable finally said. "It's no good if the squad loses the only pilot who knows how to fly us out of here," He conceded. "And if we hey, if you get your ass cut up by a bunch of crazy robots. I can dress up in my cute little nurse number and help Doc stitch you back together."

"Nurse number?" Doc wondered aloud. Captain Geravine pulled up a picture from her suit's memory and it projected in her palm. She held and arm out and six pairs of eyes craned to get a look.

"Nobody better let themselves get hit on account of this," Doc growled with more lust than ire. "Or I'll... I'll put a blindfold on you."

"You're evil, Doc." Darling whispered, eyes on the image.

"If we could all refocus." Sarge pulled her eyes from the image. "Raven, I'm going to suggest you bunker in security. It's got all the controls you need to do this, and do it right the first time. Pix, I trust your hacks, but I don't want your focus else where if the station acts up on you."

Pix nodded, she closed her console and hefted her plasma cutter.

"Do we even have enough explosives to get this done?" Captain Geravine asked, looking at the neck passage they were intent on scrapping. 

The chalk turned it's eyes to Darling and Hoss, the latter of whom was pulling explosives from where they were stored on the former's back.

"She don't know us very well, do she, Hoss?" Darling looked over her shoulder at the other Valkyrie, who shook her head, the mad grin still on her face.

---

Sable stood, alone, in the control room as he finished punching in the commands. The station, like others, had emergency seperation protocols for dire situations. Unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, the Harrik had reinforced their position and parts of the station that should have slid apart with ease.

These reinforcements, however, were made of metal girders and lines of welded metal; exactly the sort of things Marines in general, and Valkyries especially, were trained in deconstructing very, very, quickly.

"Nothing out here, still." Sarge reported as she was part of the overwatch team. Verily was doing close orbits of the neck, watching for anything. Most of the Harrik must still be geared for an internal siege, tossing the whole civilian sector into the black wasn't in their playbook. 

Sable didn't like this. He didn't like standing at a console watching while his crew, his friends, were surrounded by vacuum and with hundreds, maybe thousands, of hunter bots waiting over their heads for something to stab at. Once things started, it was going to get back.

They'd modified the demolition into three stages. First Sable would orger the station to move, quickly, and after he did, he'd release all the clamps holding the infested section to the rest of the station. Second, There'd be the first, 'Soft' detonations that would demolish the stubborn pieces of material holding the station together, and once it was clear, Sable would reverse the command and thrust the station back into it's proper position.

Lastly, a second, larger, ring of explosives would go off, further speeding the section toward the gas giant and frying anything coming out of the section at the moment.

All of this, likely, while the Valkyries and Captain Geravine were fighting flocks of Harrik birds and whatever else came out of that section.

Sable didn't LIKE being here. But he acknowledged that dying wouldn't do anyone any good, and here he could keep an eye on everything.  The worst part, was the feeling of being watched. He'd gotten shortly after he'd left to backtrack to the control room. He hadn't turned when he felt it, expecting Pix or maybe Doc to slide up beside him and inform him they were his backup. 

Nobody had appeared, his helmet was showing nothing but walls on his sensors, and before he'd reached his destination he'd actually stopped to check in with Sgt. Nolan. Everyone else was at the section. He was on his own, but he was not alone.

The creaks in the metal started shortly after be began prepping the station for the maneuver. He'd heard a clank, spun around with his gun drawn but saw nothing but an open door. A door he'd closed after entering. He'd ordered it closed again from the console and it slowly, quietly, slid shut.

So he was one his own, but not alone, in the room with whatever had sneaked in. Great. His gun was drawn and he was typing with his kukri's on the console in easy reach.  He sent Nolan a simple text: "Not alone. Continue as planned. We've got this." Hers was as brief, and as full of emotion. "Stay alive, Max. We're with you." A minute later, all business, she signaled all were ready to begin.

The creaking of metal came again and Max sighed with his helmet mic live. "You can come out now." He turned as he hit the button to start the program. The station lurched and Sable took up his blades. 

It uncurled from the shadows, its metal form shifting from a dark matte color to a glossy chrome. It slowly elongated as the partitions of the armor stretched like a stair descending coil toy, but within was a body that shifted more like water or ooze. Sable didn't relax, but his blades flipped in his hands, so the blunt edges would strike first, if need be. 

The being stood tall and with poise, a surprising amount giving that it was clearly missing one of its arms, a jagged wound and patchwork repairs covering a stump.

"I greet you, Maker's Child." A mechanical and androgynous voice emitted from the machine-being's helmet, "I am.. Tox... of the Melech Communion." The Melech bowed its head in respect. "I am in need of your assistance, and you are in need of my information. The Harrik infestation here is more severe than evidence has permitted you to calculate."

--------

As the Valkyries stood on the upper edge of the ring, behind substantial cover, the first line of explosives went off and the infested section began to slide away.

"The fuck did that clanker just say?" Darling swore on the channel the Valkyire were using to commentate on the feed Sable was sending them. Of course he wasn't about go without a lifeline, or at least a way of letting them know what was waiting for them. Sarge still had him linked into her command suite and Pix's own Comm unit added clarity to the signal.

"That shits about to get worse." Hoss sighed as she aimed her rifle at the section as the breaking thrusters erupted like geysers around the edge of the ring and stopped the station. The section began to slide further away, but then movement began to break out over its underside. Panels were ripped out and soon a stream of the metal birds came pouring out. Then another, then three more, until five flocks broke out of the underside,\. Each the number of the one the squad had split in between themselves inside the ring.  

The Flocks spread out in a five point spiral as they began to surround the ring. Verily was flying free and had Geravine on her shoulder for close support. 

The rest of the marines started to move back toward the inner section of the station, all the explosives spent without a hitch; and waiting for the attack. The birds didn't charge. Instead they formed a barrier, caging them in. Suddenly the burnt out connection to the civilian section cracked apart as disks of metal began to charge through the cold fires and the debris.

The disks landed hard around the blasted opening into the greater part of the station. They were heavy enough to dent metal meant to endure cannon fire, and as they began unfold Nolan heard the Halum swear profusely. The machines began to unfolded and were, in actual fact, much bigger once they did. They looked like eight meters of metal scales and destructive intentions. 

They looked like Zegatal beasts. A dozen had landed and began to move outwards to flank the Valkyries.

"Time to earn that hazard pay, Valkyries!" Nolan roared. Rather than her rifle, she drew a metal staff from her hip, it extended into a pole that was near as tall as she was, and from one end, a burning blue spear point erupted, melting the surface of the station as she swept a line between her Valkyries and the Harrik-Zegatal.

There was a horrible rattling movement from their teeth, and broadcast over an open channel, a hideous, growling, hateful noise. It was in the Halum language, it translated into a filthy and shameful word:

"CHEATERS."
  
-----

"You're certain." Sable asked, as through his camera feed he saw the first HarZeg lose its head to Nolan's spear. "There's worse than this."

"Your Valkyrie lovers are well trained, experienced, equipped for the task as it stands, and aligned as a team." Tox observed. "The mechanical beasts that charge now have numbers but they will still fall to intelligent will and determination."

"Lovers?" Sable didn't sound like he was doubting Tox, just surprised at the assessment. 

"I'm I mistaken? It seemed the most probable relationship, given the data observed."

"No, but I'm going to want to check your math, once we get through this."

"I am always open to peer review." Tox managed to make the autotoned voice box sound coy with a bit of flair of the hips and hand. "But the Core is of pressing concern."

"The Harrik Core. Their factory-" Raven started,
"-and their Queen. It has incorporated a body around itself and become aware."

"That is terribad." Sable muttered.

"It gets... horriworse?" Tox stumbled to match the improper grammar. "It's a very combat capable body." Tox gestured at the stump. "I learned this the hard way; further it was then impeded by the structure and was waking from a rest state, when I attacked.

"You went into that place, alone?" Sable asked, shaking his head at the recklessness. Tox was still, and gripped the stump in a tight, almost fearful grip. "Oh. Oh I'm so sorry."

"We knew the risks. Organic life regulates organic life. Mechanical life must do the same for its own." Tox's body shuddered with every word. An organic being might be able to shut out their memories or cloud them in doubts. But a being like Tox could remember every horror with damned perfect clarity. "This Harrik Core has become too advanced, it has survived too many hunters of inadequate skill. It desires a greater foe. It will grow to draw such a foe to it."

"How big are we talking?" Raven asked, concerned.

"BIG." Tox assured.

-----

"Sounds like we've got a boss fight after this, Sarge!" Darling swung a double headed battle ax of blue plasma flames, bisecting a mechanical beast, then spun the ax and took the arms of another while Nolan speared its face.

"Join the Valkyries,  they said. Fuck hot alien men, they said." Nolan growled as she twirled in the minimal gravity to dispatch another mechanical mega beast. They might have been horrors for infantry in conventional armor, and even more so to civilians, but they could be beaten, and were falling one by one, even if they replaced their numbers just as steadily. 

"Well they were right about that second part!" Verily laughed as she fired bursts of fire into the maws and eye sockets of any HarZeg she could see, leaving them blind to follow ups from the rest of the chalk. 

"Raven's one of us though!" Hoss grunted as she swung a blue broadsword through two blinded HarZegs and rolled forward to dodge the blinded swings of a third. "They can guess where we are from where their buddies die!" She turned round to kill the fumbling mechanical, and dodged a further forth which proved her guess correct.

"On it!" Pix called from the back of a HarZeg she'd just decapitated. Her console flipped open and she found the signals bouncing between them and cracked a smile inside her helmet. "Hope you bastards like metal remixes miniature equine theme music!" What played over the Harrik communication channels was a horror unfit for organic ears; noise pollution quite possibly of the worst kind.

"That's evil, Pix!" Doc Hona laughed as her plasma blaster melted the face of a HarZeg. "I love it!" She laughed.

"These Humans are fucking crazy." Captain Geravine observed as her tendrils ripped into a HarZeg, piece by piece.

Then, suddenly, there was a great and terrible roar, and it tore through all radio frequencies as it saturated the communication spectrum. 

---

Sable rocked backwards as the shriek friend the wireless comms. Tox fell and Sable instinctively moved to catch the Melech. He regretted it, as the Melech weighed quite a bit more than Sable could hold and only accomplished in padding the Melech's fall, and getting pinned.

After a moment, the roar ebbed, and Tox regained composure and, recognizing the uncomfortable position, moved off of Sable. 
"I apologize, profusely, Lieutenant." Tox offered and arm to help Sable up, he took it and shook his head. 

"Fuck was that?"

"The core is attacking." Tox pointed at the screens and Sable's jaw fell so fast it triggered the chin protection inside his helmet. 

"Is that a fucking-"

---

"DRAGON!" Geravine couldn't hide the glee in her voice as she saw the sight of it. The head snapped at the end of a long neck. Powerful reptile arms pushed aside decks and bulkheads it began to push out of the falling section. Very much a beast breaking out of its own egg, the Core Dragon stood in the ragged gash of its former nest, and spread its wings.

"I'm gonna need a bigger spear." Nolan shook her head as her left bracer unfolded into a paper thin, steel strong riot shield. The last HarZeg had been dispatched, and now the big mother of all these fuckers had appeared.

Then, the swarms of Harrik birds began to attack.

----

"Oh fuck me." Sable swore aloud. Tox raised a hand to say something clever, but stopped and coughed into the hand instead. Sable turned, more because Melech don't 'cough'; than anything else. "You okay, I mean, besides... everything else." He gestured at Tox's absent arm, but was sympathetic to what must be going through the Melech mind.

"I function, but you understand now my concern."

"Fighting that thing in closed quarters would have been a death sentence." Sable affirmed. 

"Fighting it at all, is." Tox corrected. "The Core is unstable, because it has dedicated so much fabrication to its armor, it cannot ventilate properly. 

"It's shaped like a Dragon, Tox." Sable stated.

"I recognized the shape from the over-myths, but I don't understand-"

"What do Dragons breathe, Tox? What do the exhale?" He clarified. 

"Oh."

------

A pillar of horrible green flame cut straight through the bulkheads where Darling had been standing before she unassed the position and began barreling through birds to grab Doc, who was being harried on all sides. The Dragon turned its head and the green light was building up in its neck as it prepared to vent again.

It floated in the growing space between the sections of the ship, content to stay far enough out of reach, but still be able to rain fire down on the shrinking remainder of viable space atop the station.

"What's the plan for Dragons, Sarge?" Verily asked as she fired at the creature's eyes, allowing the Captain to keep her safe from any bird bots attacking them. Pix had restored their channels using laser comms, they flickered in and out because of all the birds flying between them, but it was better than nothing.

"Hit it till it dies?" Sarge offered. She was out of her field on this bastard. Still, how many Valkyrie Marine actually get to say they fought a robot space dragon. It was coup to count when they got back alive. "Cap?" She asked the Hallum.

"It's a Core! A factory core gone mad and given itself a body! It's armor would require heavier railguns at this point!"

"Damnit!" Hoss swore. "Darling, why didn't you grab something your size from the armor?" She fired at the glowing belly of the beast, but a wall of birds took the rounds for it. 

"I didn't think it was wise to put holes in the station we might have to live in!" She looked at the damage around them. "Kinda moot now." She batted aside the birds bothering Doc who had scrapes and scratches all over her armor, but no penetration; and she was pissed.

"Fucking Clankers!" She roared and fired hot blue plasma through a gap in the birds, and scorched the metal under the Core Dragon's eye. It turned its gaze down to focus on the two marines. Darling's shoulders shook in a short laugh as she patted Doc on the shoulder, before scooping her up and dodging the next bolt of green flame.

-----

"So we need a ship that can blast it apart. Our launch is unarmed." Sable pointed the general direction of 'out' of the room.

"Mine is armed for defense, it cannot deliver this attack." It clicked that if the Melech were here, they had to have some means of arriving, and it meant they all had a means for leaving.

"Is your ship's FTL functional?" Sable asked, he had to be sure. 

"Of course."

"Okay, I need your help. I'm about to do something incredibly stupid."
----

The Dragon spread its wings, and fired a barrage of black metal blades into the surface of the station.

"Hol-fu-shiiiiiiiit!" Pix couldn't swear fast enough as she rolled and dodged, and fell into the station's normalized, though failing, gravity. She was a full deck into the station now and there was venting and damage everywhere. "Oh this is fucking ridiculous. We don't have the guns for that thing."

"No shit!" Verily landed through hole in the wall that had glowing green edges. Captain Geravine alighted from her and held to a wall, her eyes on the dragon as it spouted flame at some of the other marines. It turned its head far enough that ridges on its neck were visible, the looked like weaknesses, places a blade, or a bomb could do a lot of damage. She saw something moving and her jaw dropped into her helmet's chin strap.

"You human's are fucking crazy." the Captain swore.

--

"Left." Doc whispered, and Darling dodged left. "Hard Right then leap." She was watching the Dragon as it continued to spit smaller blasts of green fire from its maw. It was shooting faster now, and the glow in its gut was dimmer. It wasn't running out of power, it was venting.

"Don't lead it over here!" Hoss howled as she cut her breather short and ran perpendicular to the pair, and the Dragon paused as if making a choice on who to shoot at, and it swept its vision over the battlefield. Many of the birds had been destroyed by its own fire. Few remained. Those that did kept eyes on the group hiding below decks, but the leader.

The leader had gone missing. Fled? Coward.

--

Sergeant Diana Nolan held to the drifting piece of scrap as it covered her armored from, head to toes, as she curled up behind it. It was a thick piece of anti-radiation insulation that was probably the only thing keeping her from being seen by the Dragon, if there was anything giving it extra eyes, she might be fucked.

Her HUD caught sight of the bird before it began to turn. She bite her lip and gauged the distance, not close enough.

Then the bird exploded as a round obliterated its face.

She smiled with some blood on her tongue as the Dragon moved closer to the station, and suddenly was, 'below' her. She roared in her helmet, glad that space allowed her a battlecry without losing the element of surprise. Her EVA flared hard and she kicked off the scrap and flew with both hands on the haft as she went for the base of the Dragon's neck.

She was a meter away when it rolled its head to grab her between its maw, She howled in pain and brought her spear down with both hands. The leverage was terrible, but she still managed to pierce the beast up into its eye. It howled in pain, shaking her once before tossing her out into the black.

--

"DIANA!" Moira howled. Doc kept her eyes locked on the Valkyrie as she arced over the side of the station. "Verily! Catch her!" Corporal Angela took command. "All units fall back, we get to the launch, maybe we outrun this bitch!"

Verily dove out the hole in the wall, Captain Geravine on her back once more. Pix swearing under her breath trying to restablish radio comms to assess what the Sergeant's vitals were.

She succeeded, and found two signals she had not expected to find, flying up from the bottom of the station.

--

"Nox?" Sable's voice was tense as the Launch detected Nolan's floating body.

"I have her locked. I can catch her, and rally with your Doctor." Tox's voice managed to carry urgency and calm and Sable would have marveled at that kind of technological subtly, if he wasn't absolutely livid at that monster that just ate and spat out Diana.

"Good, I have a vector. Wish me luck." He accelerated and saw Verily and Geravine diving after Diana. "Should think of something witty to say." Sable wondered aloud. His eyes caught Pix standing in a hole in the station, Hoss beside her as they moved back from the edge. 

As he passed, he saw the mass of Darling's armor, Doc in her arms as they dove for cover as another green blast exploded behind them. He narrowed his eyes at the Dragon as it turned its head toward him, all this happening in seconds, but all in his mind at a careful pace. "I wonder if they'll let me paint you as a kill mark on my next ship?" he smiled as he drove the launch straight at the Dragon, right inside its brand new blind spot, courtesy of Sergeant Diana Nolan.

Launches were made to endure entry into planetary atmospheres, land on everything from hard ground ro choppy waters, and carry those aboard to safety. They were the lifeboats for the brave and honored souls who swore themselves to serve and protect the innocents from harm. Push something that durable, that solidly built, fast enough, and it was quite a fucking thing.

Metal plowed through metal. In the moments between seconds, the laws of physics rolled the dice and did the math, and found the Core Dragon's durability did not match the sheer kinetic force wailing through its neck. The head was sheered straight off, and the rest of the core clamped down, reflexively, on the bottom of the launch.

Sable cut the thrust, but they still were flying toward the falling piece of station, then flipped the thrust so that the Core was now between the launch and the wrecked station module. Sable unhooked from the Launch, patted the roof once in respect, ran out the open door and into open space. The EVA pack he had strapped to him kicked on as he commanded it and brought him to a stand still. 

He turned and watched the launch bodily slam the core into what was left off the module and then the fireworks started. The launch overloaded and Sable deployed an emergency shield panel as he began to fly backwards towards everything he'd just sped past. The light from the launch set fires what remained of the atmosphere inside the station fragment and smaller flashes went off as bulkheads failed and various compressed gasses vented and exploded.

Still the green glow of the core remained. Suddenly he felt something under his feet, and looked down to see the saucer shaped Melech Scout ship.

"Get in!" Tox's urgency was not lost as the green began to glow bright in the wreckage.

"With my last breath, huh?" Sable scoffed as he quickly dove into the airlock and sealed it after himself. The ship sped away, precious cargo aboard, as the Core exploded in a green fireball.

--

"You. FUCKING. MORONS." Moira Angela growled as she crossed her bare arms over her breasts. Sable looked over from his chair to where Nolan was laying; battered bruised and blistered from her burns. "Don't you EVER do some crazy shit like that again. DO YOU HEAR ME?" She roared. Nolan nodded, and so did Sable.

"Good," the Corporal leaned back. "Because now that we've got that wringing out on record, I can go off the record and say how fucking crazy and amazing that was."

"I fucked up, Corporal." Nolan shrugged, "It saw me coming." Sable shook his head at her words.

"Yeah, and it didn't see me coming," Sable said and point at her, "Because you stuck a fucking spear in its eye, Blinder." He dubbed her nickname and she shook her head. The drugs and the pain giving her no small amount of distraction.

"Are we heading home now, Tox?" Nolan asked, knowing the Melech was listening. 

"Yes." the voice that came from the speakers was sad, yet hopeful. "Yes, your injuries, and absences, are more pressing than the needs of my crew, at present."

"I'm sorry for your loss, Tox." Nolan said.

"Loss, Sergeant?" Tox repeated, confused.

"Sable said you went into that module with a crew, and I've only seen you, so far." Nolan looked between Sable and Angela, the latter of whom shrugged.

"Ah, You did not explain, Maker's Son?"

"Is it my place to?" Sable asked in turn.

"I suppose not. This is not 'classified' Sergeant, but it is not openly publicized. Melech are not simply 'goomachines' as some might suggest we are. We do have solid cores that centralize our beings, much like your brains do. Ours however can be, in emergencies, removed from our bodies."

An image of several strange metal spheres of various colors appeared on one of the walls. "All my crew are intact and in a resting state. They will not mind if they miss a few deci-cycles because I was giving our friends a ride home." Tox's voice had the lingering tone of jest, and Sable had to laugh.

-------

Nova Terra Secunda.
Landfall, Capital City. 
FC Fleet Base, Command-Grade Residential Zone.
1319 Hours, Planetary Capital Time.
Sable Residence.

"I'll get it." Nora offered, as she walked toward the door, she picked up a shawl from a stand nearby and wrapped it around her naked body. Gian smiled as she pulled one from the sleeves of her wheelchair and let it hang over her body.

The door opened, and Nora's scream of joy put tears in Gian's eyes. The voice she heard next had those tears falling in streams. Still, she was smiling. 

"MOM! I'm home!"