To Walk the Constellations Pt. 11

"Watch your six!"

We caught up with our missiles.

PANDEMONIUM

Two Hegemony fighters flew straight past me and I grabbed onto the stick and twisted. My wings groaned as I threaded between two streams of railgun fire, then let the fighters try and bank around. I swung my nose around -- and swept cannonfire along one of the Hegemony fighters. The depleted uranium slugs stitched their way from matte black engine to nose and I released the trigger, my fighter sweeping past the exploding fireball that had been the Hegemonic pilot.

I risked a glance and saw that one of my wingmates, S-2, was threading their plane back and forth, trying to evade the Hegemonic fighter behind them. I slammed down the areobrake, cut the engines. My wings caught the air and for a second, I slewed through the atmosphere. The enemy ship flew right past my nose and I blew his wing off. He started to spiral out of the sky and I kicked the engines back on, the jets groaning as they tried to restart.

I nearly stalled -- but the XD wasn't a primitive jet. It was the last, cutting edge of what jet tech could do.

Alerts squealed and some of my wing started to explode into puffs of smoke. Lasers were burning me. I twisted the stick and felt my head mashing back against the headrest. The smoke puffs skittered from wing to fuselage to wing to fuselage, leaving behind streaks and puffs of ablative armor. I alternated my movements, jinking wildly, but the computer-aimed laser turret was able to keep up with me. There was only so much time before they burned through and hit something vital.

"Need help!" I snarled.

"I'm there!" Techne's voice bloomed in my ear.

I craned my head up and saw the bastard who had been lasing me crumple and explode. Techne wiggled her wings as she shot by.

I got a breather then. I swept my gaze around -- hearing the panicky shouts of Alliance pilots and the battle language of the Hegemony, buzzing through my senses. The Victrix was slowing its descent, and firing into the furball with a fraction of it's point defense weapons. The tracers they used streaked the air with orange and white, and the misses threaded along the ground -- sending up miniature dust storms as they struck the white surface of Gem.

Alliance XD planes burst apart as Hegemonic lasers found fuel pods, or as Hegemonic railguns tore them to shreds. Hegemonic fighters flew in ungainly circles towards the ground, their intakes or their outtakes shot to shit by depleted uranium slugs. Flack and chaff and distraction flares hissed through the air, while the Victrix continued to lumber, slowly, towards the ground.

"This is A-Squad!" A voice spoke, sounding grim. "We're making a pass on the first agrav generator."

I nodded. "S-5, I'm coming in to assist."

THE FIRST PASS

A-Squad streaked out of the furball. This was not obvious to anyone at first -- the furball was a wild, confused mess of planes and shells. But after a few seconds, their course was clear as fuck, and the Hegemonic point defense began to rake the air ahead of them.

A2 took a hit directly to the cockpit and crumpled.

But I was there a second later.

I swept my nose along the hull of the Hegemonic worldkiller, ripple firing my thermoberics.

The missiles were in dumbfire mode, barely better than rockets.

Didn't matter.

They hit the side of the ship and flared a white so bright it was almost blue. When the heat wave was gone and the smoke was whisked away by the winds, I could see that they hadn't even scratched the hull. But they had melted the barrels of dozens of PD guns into slag. But to avoid the other PD guns, A-Squad, the surviving A-squad at least, had to thread their planes close to the skin of the ship. Then PD guns began to swing towards me. Bullets and tracers filled the air and I banked hard and away. I nearly blacked out.

But when my eyes cleared, I could see two squads of Hegemonic fighters trying to break away from the furball. I shot at them -- and from behind, other Alliance fighters shot at them. The squad broke apart.

And then A-squad's leader barked. "X-rays in the air!"

The thermoberics were brighter, but that was because all the energy from the nukes was focused at one of the agrav emitters.

The eight beams was barely visible -- it was more like just seeing the sky itself streak. The beams overlapped into a single sear, and their contact point exploded outwards with a spray of smoke and molten metal. And then the agrav emitter went up. The explosion rippled along the edge of the ship and the Victrix shuddered like it was a human being who had just been flicked real hard in the temple. I felt the wash of communications from it- calls and cries from the entire ship.

I grinned.

And then the entire Hegemonic fighter-group disengaged at once.

SECOND PASS

The fighters shot towards A-squad. They didn't care if they got shot down by the surviving Alliance fighters -- they streaked towards the agrav emitters that ringed the back of the Victrix' hull. Their railgun slugs hissed through the air and A-squad crumpled into fireballs. I winced -- and then saw that there was a bare fraction of Alliance fighters left. Every squad, it looked like, had been winnowed and hewed and slashed. And I could see that in the sudden gaps left by the Hegemonic forces, the damage dealers were the corvette and Thale's silvery ship.

"This is S-squad, form up on me," Snap's voice came through my com. I saw Techne and I saw two other S-Squad planes soaring to meet Snap. I joined in, and we formed up, the lot of us heading for the Victrix. The Hegemonic fighters were using their VTOL engines to bank around the agrav emitters, and the point defense guns that were left started to fill the air with streaks of weapons fire.

"We're not getting through that," Techne muttered.

"We have to try," Snap said. "Fire support, we need fire support."

Several other still intact squads of Alliance fighters started to fly high, trying to get above the Victrix. I took a moment to glance at the ground and bit my lip. The Victrix's slow decent was bringing her closer and closer to the invisible line where her crash wouldn't be damaging enough to put her out of the fight.

Cannonfire started to lance through the air. A sudden hole appeared in the enemy formation -- stitched out by the gunfire from our fellow pilots. I hit the afterburners and slammed back into my seat, pressed down by the muffling weight of my on bones. I gritted my teeth as Hegemonic fighters tried to keep pace with us. Snap's plane drew ahead of mine and he flew so close to the skin of the Victrix that I was shocked he didn't throw up sparks.

"I've got a laser lock on my tail!" Techne shouted.

I looked back.

Thale's ship was right behind us, the silvery hull shifting its shape to contour to the atmosphere just so. It made it move like quicksilver, and I saw the emitters on the wings line up with Techne's plane. Techne jinked -- but then one of her wings sheered off with a spray of metal and plastic.

"Techne!" I shouted.

Her plane whirred and whirred and whirred, tumbling through the air. But then an explosion at the cockpit set my heart plunging. Then...soaring. A narrow rectangle of white fabric bust into the air -- and I saw the slender, black suited figure of Techne, holding onto the straps of her parachute. But then all I had time to focus on was the murderous assault of Thale's ship. The emitters on the wings kept doing firing -- what I had no idea. They tore S3 and S4 into pieces.

"Snap! Pull off!" I shouted.

"Missile's away!" He shouted.

He banked -- but not away. He twisted to get his plane between Thale's and the missle.

The invisible impact smashed his plane in half. The fireball of his igniting fuel tanks roared outwards and Thale's ship shot through, leaving behind black contrails of smoke.

The missile detonated.

Eight X-ray lasers smashed into the agrav emitter. This time, the Victirx didn't simply shudder. It heeled hard to the side, dragging its nose through the air. I could almost hear the groaning, stressing sound of its thousands upon thousands of tons of weight, straining against the agrav fields that was now dangerously unstable. But then point defense fire began to lash the air around my jet. I pulled up and away, hearing the rattling and cracking sounds of impacts, bouncing and jouncing off my armor. And then...

Target lock.

Thale was on my tail.

CHASE

My eyes closed.

One moment...there was a distance between me and the plane.

The next.

I was my plane. My arms were swept backwards and I felt every caress of the wind on my bare skin. The adjustments I made were the same minute adjustments I'd make while swimming, while running, while balancing. They were deeper than thought, more complete than understanding. They were instinct.

I rolled onto my belly as whatever Thale was using as a weapon shot past my nose. He hadn't even been trying to hit me. Just heard me away from the fight. I flew on my back, craning my head down. He was soaring behind me -- a silvery presence. I saw the shape he was in shifting, his mind merging with the tech of his plane. And at that moment, the world around me seemed to fade. I could see him, sprinting after me, his face set. Determined. But he had ducked his head forward. I could only see his jaw.

I couldn't see his eyes.

I looked forward and saw that we easily two miles away from the main fight. I thrust my arms forward and put on another bust of speed, angling towards the mountain range that thrust from the desert -- bloody teeth, waiting to gnash on anyone who got too close. As I flew forward, I felt the flicker of laserlight as Thale ran his targeting lock on my body. It lingered on the swell of my breasts, skimmed along my belly, caressed my thighs. I shivered and felt an excited bloom between my thighs. Disgust and anger and lust and love warred inside of me.

Thale was fighting, tooth and nail, for the Hegemony.

For everything that he hated.

"Why!?" I shouted. It bust from my lips -- and was carried through my jet's communication systems directly to his ears. He clenched his jaw and then thrust out with one technological hand. Another concussive wave shot past me, and I darted hard to the side. It impacted on the mountain side as I veered into a canyon, cutting down my speed -- shaving things to fractions of seconds, banking furiously to keep from smashing into the walls.

"I have no choice," he snarled.

"You always have a choice!"

I banked upwards, emerging from the canyons. Thale nearly overshot me. Anger exploded through me and I ran my own targeting laser over him. With our minds and our machines so closely merged, it felt like rubbing my fingers along his chest. I could feel the scars -- not only his physical scars, but also the parts of his ship that hadn't been repaired properly. My fingers caught on the small knot of scars on his side, feeling them. The urge to run my lips along them hadn't abated, and in the maelstrom of our fight, I breathed out a desperate, longing sigh.

Thale banked out of the canyon system and flew straight for me. I fired.

I missed on purpose.

He shot right past me and the bow-wave of his gravitic engines nearly knocked me tail over snout. The impact slammed me out of the immediate closeness of the machine-mind interface. I shook my head, confused and disorientated by suddenly being in a cockpit, not flying through the air, my skin caressed by wind and the heat of engines.

Thale's ship, taking advantage of its agrav engines, stopped dead, then flew straight at me. It would have been impossible in my jet. But...I felt his mind touching mine. The sudden contact was so intense, so overwhelming, it jerked another gasp from me. Thale was terrified. Of me. For me. Of himself. My eyes brimmed with tears...and I hated...

I hated this moment.

The needs of this moment.

"I'm sorry..." We whispered the words, at the same moment.

FIRE

I twisted a knife.

I turned my targeting computer back on.

The targeting solution, as if it had been pre-programmed, flared to life and I didn't even need to press a button. My five X-ray lasers missiles shot away from my ship. The concussive wave from Thale's ship sheered off both my wings. It felt like a physical sensation -- my arms screamed out and then went numb and I sagged in my cockpit. I started to fall, and where I had been jarred from my fusion before by acceleration, now, I was chained to it by pain.

I tumbled from the heavens. My wings were gone, and I was falling in a shroud of ceramic feathers and silvery shards. I clutched my chrome arms to my chest and sobbed in the reflected agony -- not just the pain of my jet being shot to pieces. It was also knowing I had taken our connection and used it to kill people Thale was fighting to protect.

As bad as they were...

That was bad too.

"Eject! Venn!" Thale's voice exploded in my ears. He was flying after me, reaching out to me. "Eject! Eject! Eject!"

I tried to feel the ejection functions of my jet. Of my body. But it felt so wrong, to cast my body aside. I gritted my teeth. Thale's laser-light fingers caressed along my shoulders, cupped my face. His eyes looked into mine -- telescopic sight to telescopic sight. They were the most astounding shade of purple.

"Venn," he whispered.

His fingers cupped my jaw and found the catches. Then another disassociation. I was in my body again -- screaming as I was torn by acceleration and wind. My head slammed back and I tumbled -- and then my eyes snapped open as drugs hit my system, designed to keep me conscious enough to not die in the next few seconds. I grabbed onto the controls of the parachute and managed to align it. A thousand thousand memories, fused into my mind by my djinn, showed me how to land. The impact still almost snapped my ankles. I rolled along the flat plateau of rock as my jet impacted on the distant white plain beyond.

I skidded.

Rolled.

Dragged.

The parachute dragged me further and further, still belling outwards as the wind shoved at it. I grabbed onto the catches, trying to yank it free. But the unintelligent straps and the stupid chute refused to listen as I was dragged closer and closer to the edge. I yanked my threshold blade from my hip and swung it wildly, whipping it above my head. The monomolecular edge severed the parachute as if it had never been -- it blew over the side of the mountain.

Behind me, the Victrix began to tumble.

I staggered to my feet.

IMPACT

The Victrix struck the ground with enough force to make me shudder, even from miles and miles and miles away. The billowing cloud of smoke that bust from around the impact site was entirely black, but then it became streaked through with brilliant reds and oranges. It rippled outwards as the conical shape compacted under the impact. I tensed, a sudden mental image roaring into my head of the antimatter containment systems failing and blowing a chunk out of this world that would make what happened to Malachite look safe and sane.

Then the roiling smoke started to fade and the Hegemonic fighters began to drop from the skies. Not in the tumbling, smoking patterns of the killed. Rather, they flew down, flanked by slow moving Alliance fighters. Escorted to their surrender. The Alliance holdfast opened and skimmers started to emerge -- what ground forces the Alliance had were getting set up around the wreckage of the Victrix.

I didn't have the breath to cheer.

But in that moment, I did close my eyes. I let myself sag faintly in relief. The Alliance had just, for the first time in decades, struck a blow against the Hegemony. A Hegemony that had been so terrifyingly potent for so very long had just lost one of their Worldkillers -- and it was a Worldkiller containing the Quantum Forge.

What would that provide for us? I had no idea. But it gave me hope.

The low whine and crunch behind me made me turn. I knew what I was going to see.

LORD THALE

Thale was still astonishing to see. He wore the gloves that I had pulled off his fingers. His mask was still on his face -- but it retracted and slipped away as he tugged it away and tossed it aside. But despite showing me his face -- his beautiful, sad face -- he was still in that uniform. He was still killing for the Hegemony. He...

He still owed me a goddamn answer.

I still owed him an apology for what I'd done. Guilt and anger roiled in my belly as I looked at him across the dusty plateau. The battle was so distant that the sound of screeching jets was only a faint violin song underneath our meeting. The wind kicked up by the Victrix's impact was beginning to reach us. It was a hot wind. An ashy wind. Black grains flew through the air and I wondered how many people I was breathing in.

"Why?" I asked. Croaked, really.

"I have a future," he said, stepping away from his craft. "I had a future."

He started to walk to the side, watching me. His eyes were haunted. His tail lashed from side to side as his gloved hand dipped closer to his threshold blade.

"What future?" I choked. The future I had dreamed of, sometimes. Before I had known. It was hanging in the air and it was blowing away on the ash-winds of a killed Hegemonic worldkiller. Thale didn't look away from me as I continued. "What about our future, Thale?"

"It was just a dream, Venn," he said. His voice was a raspy growl.

It struck me like a knife to my guts. Twisting.

His threshold blade ignited. Golden light shrouded the monomolecular wire. His hand tightened on it and my hand shook as I drew mine, triggering it with a thought. "Don't do this, Thale," I whispered.

"Surrender to me," he said, lifting his blade. "And I might have...I might be able to..." He clenched his teeth. "Just do it, Venn. You can't win. You've knocked down one worldkiller. The Hegemony has hundreds and can build more. You can't win. The Hegemony can't..."

"It can!" I said, stepping closer. "We can leave it, together! We can-"

"No, we can't," Thale snarled. He glared at me. "You're coming with me to the Emperor, Venn. Whether you want to or not."

I shook my head. "No."

Thale closed his eyes. The tip of his sword wavered, then dipped. It touched to the reddish stone that made up this mountain range. The ashy smoke was getting stronger. Flickering embers smelling of burned synth and crushed dreams filled the air. A single black smudge drew itself along his cheek. He didn't lift his hand to touch it. He opened his eyes and they shed not a single tear as he looked right into my eyes. Thale didn't speak. He didn't declare.

He simply advanced.

THE DUEL ATOP THE MESA

Thale didn't try to be pretty. He advanced, then stooped. He moved in a twisting, pirouetting motion -- his sword flashing at my face. My blade met his and the crackling electrical interference between our swords filled the air with sparks -- but then Thale was standing and bringing his other hand up. I lifted my arm to stop his claws from slashing across my eyes.

Instead, it was a small cloud of dirt and rocks. It struck my arm, but some still got into my eyes. I staggered backwards, and Thale grabbed onto my ankle with his hand and dumped me onto my ass. I hit the ground. He caught my threshold blade and kicked it away from my hand. It skittered away -- and I realized something there, in that moment.

Thale stood above me, his sword point aimed at my chest.

And I could have fought him.