Fokienia and the others swarmed around the monitoring ring. Ripshot had filled the screen to the max, but even with twenty-five camera angles, there was no sight of the intrusion. The only evident signs that there was conflict were the thirty-odd Concord ponies scrambling to finish fortifying their positions: from the security checkpoints, to the hastily furniture-piled hallways, ponies leaned up and awaited the appearance of any hostile force.
Commander Gale’s forces had spent the better part of an hour in preparation, and the control room ponies had spent that in discussion.
Fokienia was used to patiently-paced operations. She realized now that time was not on their side.
“Do you have a plan?” Ripshot asked. He spun about in his chair to look at the ponies all watching over his shoulder. “Do we have a plan?”
Another officer replied first. “We have minutes at most.” They briefly glanced back. “The grav-tunnels have been lifted out of lockdown. Somepony’s coming up.”
“There’s nothing more we can do here,” Ravenwatch answered. The dryness in her throat was evident. “Our options are thin. We have no way to defend against further system intrusions. We only have weapons to fight. But holding here does nothing. And leaving is worse than nothing.”
“Specialist...” Cold let her title hold in the air. “There’s nothing we can do here in Cypress. But in space, we have a chance.”
She pursed her lips. “Are you suggesting a full-fledged evacuation?”
“No chance,” Ripshot nearly shouted. “I’m not giving up.”
The other Concord officers agreements laid in heavily.
Ravenwatch continued. “You know we can’t do that, captain. It’s impossible to warp out of system.”
“No. I’m not suggesting we leave. I’m saying we go on the offensive.”
Fokienia blinked, and the room with her: an offensive kirin? She stepped close to Cold. “Just tell us what you’re thinking.”
“We need to send a message for help. We can’t do that here. But there is one place in system that we can.”
Ravenwatch’s line of thinking was visible in her eyes. “Possibly.” She rubbed her muzzle with a hoof. “The blackout is only system-wide so far as the local Cypress polity is concerned. We can’t send or receive signals from Motherlode, even though they’re just on the other side of the giant, so it’s safe to assume they’re as jammed as we are.”
“That leaves us with our one unknown. The FTL comm-relay.”
The specialist nodded, and her inquisitive hoof fell. “The relay... it’s an entirely isolated installation.” Ravenwatch raised her eyes back up to the camera-displaying widescreen. “That may very well be our only hope.”
“The system-comm relay?” Ripshot’s voice was both curious and appalled. “Are you suggesting somepony has to fly out there and make a direct upload? That’s our only hope?”
Ravenwatch’s energy continued to dip into more somber affairs. “It’s not a guarantee, either. It might be incredibly unlikely that their signal jamming can reach the inner-system, but we have no way to confirm its range.”
“Why is this an issue?” Sundown asked calmly. “That’s a sound plan. The more distance you can put between you and Cypress, the longer it’ll take for modifications to their transmitters to affect our signal. We can definitely get out there and do it.”
Ravenwatch was pleased by the response, though that didn’t last long. “You’re right. That makes breaking through the frequency block easier, if it were able to reach that far in the first place.”
“But?”
“That’s why we need to go on the offensive,” Cold said quietly. “There’s at least one deployed starfighter in Cypress’ space, and they are not our friend.”
Sundown paled, and went silent.
“It’s not Concord?” Holly was aghast. “Where are the other patrol craft? Where are the other ships? Surely somepony has to be wondering what’s going on.”
“The nature of our star regularly interferes with cycle-to-cycle operations. An important piece of Cypress Station’s infrastructure are the flight-alert packets that get transmitted to the system relay and the fuel outpost.” Ravenwatch paused to collect herself, then nodded. “With comms down, that information isn’t getting sent. Anypony looking in from out of system would only see a default system-lock warning. Nothing out of the ordinary by our standards. Barring a permit override, not even an exploratory vessel could make a blind jump in. A ship’s navigation systems would need to be illegally modified, or officially-sanctioned. Civilians who would’ve been here are either annoyed and waiting, or turning around. A formal investigation would take another day at least, because it’s only been a couple of hours since the interference began.”
“In other words,” Cold interrupted, “we need to send a declaration of emergency through FTL. A payload that requires a direct upload to the system-relay. We don’t have time to wait for help. We need to take action.”
“But we still need somepony to deliver it.”
“And...” Cold paused. Fokienia watched him carefully. He only continued after meeting her eyes. “...We’ll need a ship.”
“What ship?” a Concord pony responded. “The only proper starships around are at one of the docking bays, and Cypress Central doesn’t have one. The closest thing we’ve got are our patrol fighters, but our hangar’s compromised.” They nodded to Ripshot. “Bring up the cam for the bay. It’s bad.”
It only took a moment for the unicorn to pull up.
Surrounded by the views of hunkered down Concord officers, the interior of the hangar bay was a sorry sight. The camera’s field of view was restricted, but Ripshot had the control to swivel it around for everypony to see. There were seven fighters in the hangar, with an eighth and empty docking pad. Red, strobing lights flashed along an open expanse. Where there should have been a wall, there was... nothing.
For the first time, Fokienia saw the vast blackness of space.
The cameras had no visual noise, but the little depth they had left Fokienia lusting for more. The sight was vivid and all-engrossing: she could scarcely tear her eyes away from the speckled canvas of black. Yes, there were little spots of light in the black, no doubt brighter were she to stand there. And how she wished to stand there. She barely took notice of the damaged steel around the frame of the hangar door; space was all she could take in.
Sequoia sucked in a breath: his eyes instead roamed the damaged hangar. “That’s a lot of firepower.” He almost sounded envious.
In return, Ravenwatch produced a solemn nod. “Concord starships use variable beam weapons, but they’re rated for vacuum use. Using it in a magically saturated atmosphere results in... more explosive consequences.”
“That’s still a usable exit.”
The Concord officer went on again. Fokienia’s ears folded in reflex. This whinging pony was ruining the view. “The hangar is in vacuum—”
“Shield veil or not, you can get a pony in there, board a fighter, and take-off.”
“How?”
Cold gave the pony his trademark deadpan. “They’re fighters. Life support is minimal. You get a suit, you depressurize, you board.”
Ripshot held a hoof a hoof up before the irate officer could reply. “Captain Cold knows what he’s talking about.”
He nodded. “And I know well enough that I’m going to be flying one of those fighters.” He raised a hoof and stopped Holly before the pegasus could fully flare her wings. “How many pilots do we have here?”
“Cold,” Holly budged, “you can’t.”
“I can, and have to.”
Ravenwatch shook her head. “It’s too dangerous, captain. We—”
“I asked you a question, specialist.”
The mare looked at him in surprise. “Well... I...” She looked around for help. Nopony stepped forward. “This is Concord HQ. We’re guards, controllers, the ponies out in the hall are QRF. But we’re not CSO.”
“You have a hangar. Where are your pilots? Where’s CSO?”
“Nopony expected to fly today, captain. Everypony’s all over Cypress. It’s an achievement in itself that your friends managed to get here. There are no pilots here, and the best of the best are out of reach.”
“Then who here can fly? We don’t need the best. We just need ponies who can give their best.”
Finally, one pony spoke. “Some of us can fly, but... we’re watch-and-report. We’re not patrol pilots. And we’re not on interstellar permits.” They took a moment to collect their swelling emotions; Fokienia could hardly believe how jaded, and remorseful the pony felt. “There’s at least one fighter out there, captain. Flying Concord colors. The same exact fighters in that hangar. We can do scans, spool up skips, call in real pilots, but not engagements.”
Specialist Ravenwatch chewed the inside of her cheek the whole time the pony spoke. When they were done, she threw in the rest of the conundrum. “And with signals jammed, our IFF transponders will be entirely in flux.”
The Concord officer nodded. “Exactly. We wouldn’t be able to distinguish between fighters. Target analysis isn’t what we’re trained for. And again, we’re not even combat-rated.”
“We wouldn’t have to fight,” Cold responded. “We just need to break through, evade their fire until one of us transmits the data, and wait for help to arrive.”
“They’d interdict us,” a fresh face argued. “After that, it’d only be a matter of how long our shields can hold up.”
“You—” Cold stopped suddenly, then breathed sharply. “You can avoid an interdiction. But I can see now that none of you have experienced that.”
On the other cameras, a great stir erupted between some of the Concord ponies. Moments later, klaxons filled the control room again. The lights flickered and spat, but power didn’t drop completely. A few of the officers in the crowd ran off to tend to their terminals once more.
“We’re running out of time,” Sundown noted.
“I’m a pilot.” The remaining ponies turned to the red unicorn seated at the terminal: Ripshot repeated himself. “I’m a pilot, Captain Cold. You know that.” Fokienia noted that Ripshot’s tone was awfully tame. Cold had said that Ripshot had saved him. The unicorn, from what little she’d heard and seen of him, was bold and boisterous. But he was deadly serious as he finished. “You flew fighters. You flew Telfire. There’s no doubt in my mind that you can move like a pegasus, even in our birds of steel. If you’ll have me, I can be your wingpony.” His eyes moved away. “That is, if Commander Gale gives this plan the green light.”
The silence that followed his statement was as black as the view of space: if it weren’t for the screaming alerts behind them, a hair from Fokienia’s mane could’ve dropped, and everypony would’ve heard it.
“...The commander gave me my orders.” Ravenwatch shivered. “This very well could be a one-way mission. But, if this is our best chance—” she closed her eyes “—we’ll do it.”
Cold glanced at Ripshot, then back to Ravenwatch. “I’ll take him.”
Holly broke out of Cold’s grip and pressed a hoof to him: she dove right through the wreath of mane hung below his neck. “Cold, you don’t need to prove anything. You can stay.”
Fokienia sidled up beside them. “You’re right, Holly.” Her eyes moved to him, and the words she invoked, no matter how true they were, still hurt. “But I don’t think he’s giving us a choice.”
The stubbornly brave kirin leaned forward, nuzzling into the crook of the pegasus’ neck. “I’m sorry, Holly.”
She clung to him with her wings.
With Cold occupied, Sundown dragged Ravenwatch’s attention to her. “Can you monitor local space? If we had a better idea of what we’re facing, we could plan accordingly.”
Ravenwatch shook her head. “Sensor arrays went dark. All we have access to are in-station readings. And even those are shoddy at best. Maybe if we were at a local control station, at a different sector of Cypress entirely, we’d have a better picture. But we don’t have that liberty.”
“Guys...” Cascade interrupted. “I think we’re out of time.”
Just as he spoke, one camera on the monitoring screen erupted with a flash of white. When it faded, the view of the Concord officers and disabler beams was unmistakable. And following that, the distant echoes of their fire came soaring down from the hallway past the control room entrance.
Specialist Ravenwatch backed out of the crowd. “I’ll prepare the data.” She waved an urgent hoof as she retreated. “The captain and officer are going to need escorts. Figure it out.”
That was on the backburner for the two pilots: Ripshot flicked through several camera angles, and Cold leaned in close, dragging Fokienia and Holly with him. “There,” the commanding kirin muttered.
“Yeah,” Cascade murmured. “That’s them, alright.”
The cyborgs were nothing like Fokienia expected. They looked... just like normal ponies. They wore jumpsuits that were near identical to her own, but she could tell they didn’t have the connection ports like her bio-pod suit. They stood out in contrast to the properly uniformed Project operatives around. There was a stiffness to their movements, too: perfectly rhythmic strides, and demonstrably efficient reloads. Hardly any action and movement was wasted, so far as she could tell; the momentum of one movement carried into their next. So smoothly did they move that they appeared frictionless on camera.
By far the scariest quality was the way they ducked and dodged through the disabler beams they received in return for their own onslaught.
Fokienia turned to Sundown. “We can escort them. Me, you, and Sequoia.”
“I don’t fancy our chances, seeing... this.” The bat pony shifted her weight from one hoof to the next. “But we’ve got training on our side.” She looked to the remaining Concord officers. “We still need one of you to lead us.”
On screen, one of the officers was hit directly in the neck by a disabler beam. They tumbled over their cover, unconscious. The frantic yelling that followed hurdled through the corridor and right to the control room.
Almost all of the officers gave their unanimous agreement.
“Cascade,” Fokienia said next, moving to the horror-struck bat. “You need to stay here with Holly.”
“What?” Holly crept off of Cold. Her shock sent tremors through her voice. “Fokienia—!”
“I can do that.” The bat pony shined his fangs. “No sweat.”
“Coward,” Sundown grunted.
“It’s safe here. From the speed of their advance—” Fokienia tilted her head to the screen for emphasis “—we might not make the trip back from the hangars.”
The pegasus mare sputtered and spat, trembling. Her eyes flicked between Cold and Fokienia. “B-but I... I can help.”
Ripshot leaned back in his chair. “Look, the big mare’s right, ma’am. We can seal the bulkheads here and hold-out if need be. No disrespect, but you’re the most civilian-looking pony here. You might have a nice wing-pistol on your side, but that’s about it.”
The withering glare Holly sent Ripshot had him quickly ease off.
“Knowing that you’re safe is all I want to think about when I’m up in that cockpit in the next few minutes.” Cold stepped back over to her. As he pressed into her, the mare’s trembling gave out to a few bitter tears.
“Cold... I don’t want to think about losing you anymore. I-I was so terrified.” She looked at Fokienia, then back to Cold. Her feathers were ruffled something fierce. “I’ve been trying so hard to be strong for you...”
“You are, Holly.” He wrapped his foreleg around her head, and pulled her into his neck. “You’re the wonderful mare I love. You give me strength. And I can’t bear the thought of losing you, either.”
While the moment deserved some respect, Ravenwatch came back from behind. Held in her magic, a tiny blue square bobbed forward. “Captain.”
“A moment, specialist.” He held Holly until her shaking stilled. Then, patting her one last time, he lit his horn, and exchanged telekinetic grips with Ravenwatch. He pulled the square toward him.
“That drive has the codes you need for sending a distress signal through the relay. I’d have sent you on your way already and transmitted them to the fighters, but...”
“I’m aware of the situation now, specialist. Thank you.” He pocketed the miniaturized data-bank and looked around. “We need to be moving.”
Ripshot stood from his seat. “Let’s go while we still can.”
“Before you do,” Ravenwatch interrupted, “are you sharing a fighter?”
The pilots looked at each other, then back at her. “Are two fighters not better than one?” Ripshot asked.
“Unless you choose to engage and shoot down the fighter, you’ll be attempting an upload under fire.” The mare pushed her glasses up, showing a great deal of unease. “Transmitters have a broad cone of range, of course, but most ships are usually at low speeds or close to a stand-still when uploading. The upload could take too long and need another attempt, or you might not get a proper lock. The only way to guarantee a transmission is having somepony act as a guidance system, and keeping the transmitter locked on.”
“Then he’ll be my co-pilot,” Cold responded with finality.
“Yes, captain,” Ripshot replied. “I could take over a hardpoint and give them some fire to worry about. I’m definitely not as good at maneuvers as you are.”
Fokienia knew Cold had a joke he could crack, but he didn’t so much as smile. “Then let’s get out of here. Time’s wasting.”
“Thank you for doing this, captain.” Ravenwatch bowed her head. “I’m sorry things have come to this.”
Cold didn’t say a word in reply; he pressed close to Holly and whispered something in her ear. It was enough to make her ear flick, and bring her a smile. They shared a tender, full kiss. When they separated, his voice shook with determination. “I’ll be back, Holly.”
“You better,” she mumbled.
Fokienia’s heart was pounding in a place it shouldn’t have been. But she knew it wasn’t from dread. “We all will,” she said firmly.
As the team slipped from the control room, they left in their wake three officers, and the specialist. The garrison paid their respects in hurried wishes, before turning back to the consoles.
The last thing Fokienia saw before rounding the corner were the flashes of white from the cameras on the widescreen.
Sequoia led the team with an officer by his side. His steel wings were flared protectively over the tight crowd behind him. The corridor was wide, but his wings still covered almost all of it. Fokienia knew he could take at least one shot to his wings—it was one of her favorite sparring tricks to use against him. While she was used to seeing it as a weakness to exploit, she realized now that it was a strength he could use against most ponies. Nopony expected to go up against a pony who could take several shots, given that they were properly aimed.
Just as the sound of disabler beams and further flashbangs grew close, the guiding officer turned them down a right turn.
The hangars, mercifully, were only a distant minute. But Fokienia knew they were still cutting it close on time.
The corridor cut into two subsequent rooms. As an officer sealed the door shut behind them, Fokienia looked through the plastic-white door ahead. It was nothing like the pneumatic doors around Cypress. It seemed more reminiscent of the doors she’d seen on Cold’s ship: sliding, and interlocking. The light in the room beyond it flickered. And further out, she could see the hints of black. Her heart hammered again. Space. A world beyond Cypress. She shook herself, and checked back on the busy officers.
To the side of the room they were stood in, various cylindrical tubes jut out from the walls. There were some steps leading up to them, and a small panel with a few buttons beside them. There were sixteen of the cylinders total, eight on each side. One had opened: the odd curved door was more like a shield than anything. The interior was bathed in bright white light and pure steel.
She heard a sharp hiss behind her, and when she looked, she instinctively stepped back. A great white mist flowed out from below the shielding of the pod as it rose.
“Cold!” she gasped.
The kirin held a hoof to stay her. The mist pooled around his hooves, before settling on the floor. “I think this is cleanest spacesuit I’ll ever wear.”
Beside him, Ripshot pressed a hoof to a different panel. The shielding on his cylinder began to rise in turn. “You’re not exactly clean yourself, captain.”
To Fokienia’s surprise, Cold laughed into the mist.
When the shroud descended, and a savage chill with it, she realized that the cylinders were meant for some sort of cold storage.
The black and white ‘spacesuit’ suspended in mid-air was something to behold. It was a bulky uniform, but it didn’t look armored at all. The bagginess didn’t do it any favors; in fact, the suit looked entirely impractical. There was some kind of metallic glint, even beyond the metal bands at the joints of the equine-shaped suit.
Cold’s magic lit. The data-bank hovered out of its pocket, and settled on the panel beside the pod. He threw his jacket to the floor.
Fokienia’s voice was quiet. “Cold?” Evidently, he hadn’t heard her. But she didn’t know what to say next.
Cold turned around, and backed in. He hummed in satisfaction as the remaining mist swirled around him. A tiny smile lit his face. “Just like the airlocks in Telfire.” He easily slipped a hindleg into one cuff of the uniform.
“Excuse me...” Fokienia stepped out of the way almost immediately. The officer who’d spoken up took her place with a respectful nod, then turned to Cold. “Captain Cold?”
He grunted as he continued to climb into his suit. It sank to the floor with his weight, but it still bobbed in the air where it could. “Yes?”
Two more ponies sidled up beside the Concord officer. “We have a proposal.”
At the front of the room, Fokienia could see Sundown and Sequoia tense up. They’d been keeping watch of the entrance with their respective pistol and long-rifle, but now they turned their gaze inward. The remaining officers beside them shuffled nervously: did they know what this proposal was?
Fokienia herself tensed. The disabler in her chest holster suddenly felt heavy.
“We’ll fly with you, captain. Give them more targets to worry about. And we’ll take as many hits as we can.”
“A diversion?” Cold murmured more to himself. “Full power to shields... That could work.” He shook his head, and gave the officers a hard look. “You’d be risking your lives.”
“So are you,” the officer responded simply. “We... we aren’t real pilots.” His companions nodded. “I’m not stupid enough to claim otherwise. But we can still fly. They won’t know your mission, captain.”
“We could take some pot-shots,” the second officer added on. “Throw them off track. Draw their fire to us. You can focus on getting a head-start on the relay.”
The final officer spoke warmly. “We’re not throwing our lives away. We know our limits. And we’ll give you as much as we can, captain.”
Cold stared at them for a moment. When he spoke again, he reached down with his magic, and started tugging the seals on his suit closed. “Then suit up.”
With three snappy salutes, the officers hurried over to retrieve their own spacesuits.
Cold and Ripshot stepped down from the pods in their new attire. Fokienia was surprised to see how well they fit them, now. It was as if they’d somehow sucked in the bulk of the uniforms. They were as form-fitting as the Facility-made uniform she was wearing.
After placing the data-bank in a foreleg pouch on his suit, Cold stopped. “Helm test,” he uttered flatly. He pressed a hoof to a stud just below the collar of his uniform. There was a strange sort of pop and hum. An aura, like a very transparent facsimile of Cold’s magic, suddenly founded an existence around Cold’s head. It was barely a hooftip away from his body, and as he craned his neck left and right, the shimmer followed. It even traced a perfect outline around his mane and horn. The only discrepancy to its pattern was where the aura flared out to end at the inner collar of the uniform.
For a few seconds, Cold strained his eyes, inspecting the aura for his own self. Then, he tapped the stud again, and with nary a sound, it was gone. “Not the sturdiest field I’ve seen. But it should be safe enough for canopy use.”
“Helm test,” Ripshot repeated. He took barely five seconds to look it over. “Well cap, we don’t usually perform EVAs in these things. So take that as you will.”
Cold didn’t bother with a reply. He hurried over to the white door, and peered in. “Airlock still looks good. It probably cycled after the breach.”
Fokienia stepped over. She wanted a better look at the view through, and she got it: space didn’t seem so far at all, now. On the fringes of the battered hangar exit, she could see bits of rock jutting outward. She’d seen some of it in the hallway ceilings of the HQ, but seeing it juxtaposed against the speckled black of space sent shivers riding along her spine.
“That’s where you belong,” she said softly to Cold.
She was surprised to feel a hoof around her. She lowered herself so Cold didn’t have to strain himself as much—she was a big mare, after all—and leaned into his leg. She continued to look out through the airlock door.
“When I get back,” he promised, “I’ll be the first one to show you what being out there’s really like.”
Her voice was a scant whisper. “I think... I’d love that.”
Cold was going to come back. He had to. He’d promised her.
Cold reluctantly released Fokienia. The large mare slipped off like a meek little filly, stopping to stand by the others guarding the door. “We’ve got it from here,” Cold announced.
Nopony moved.
After waiting just a little longer for the last three members of their apparent flight team, Cold cycled the airlock.
The airlock hummed fiercely with magic and energy. The other door slid shut, and the hiss of air filled in after the vacuum. The process didn’t last long, perhaps owing to the magical elements supporting the airlock—Cold was used to purely mechanical airlocks—but when the door before them opened, they quickly surged in.
“Helms on.” When Cold turned his helmet on, four others followed him. “Are we ready?”
“As we’ll ever be,” Ripshot replied.
With one last look at Fokienia, Cold set the room to cycle one more time.
The hiss of air was more akin to a roar as magic and machine worked to depressurize the room.
Cold placed a hoof on Ripshot. “Sound check.” He felt his voice waving through the suit as they approached near vacuum.
The unicorn laughed for a moment, then stopped. “Oh. This is because we’re not gonna have short-wave radio, isn’t it?”
Cold pat him reassuringly. “Smarter than you look, officer.” Leaving him frowning, he gave a quick wave at the other officers.
No, not mere officers. Brave pilots.
“We know what we have to do,” Cold muttered. They couldn’t hear him, but they nodded anyways. Just to be sure, he checked the sleeve of the uniform for the radio. He found it exactly where it should’ve been, but hitting the switch did nothing but fill his earpiece with static. He cut it out and sighed to himself; he should’ve just taken it off.
The airlock pinging as it opened assured him that he wouldn’t have that chance anytime soon.
The gravity was still present in the hangar, but Cold could tell that a depressurization event had occurred: unsecured fixtures on the walls had been ripped from their holdings; and heavy crates and containers had ground and toppled over a fair distance. Debris was scattered all over the landing platforms, but he could feel the strong magnetic locks as he approached one of the fighters. The fighters had no interior beyond the canopy, and the boarding platforms that led to them were thankfully designed as a part of the station superstructure. All that was left to do was extend them to the canopy, board their fighters, and let the platform sensors order their gangway components to retract.
He felt the metal shaking beneath him. When he looked to his left, he saw Ripshot pointing meaningfully at the fighter.
It was time to go.
Cold gave their accompanying officers a check, and was glad to see them quickly ascending their boarding platforms. He followed after Ripshot, and scampered quickly up the steps.
The fighters were about three ponies tall, thick with steel, and sloped in perfectly symmetrical patterns. They were shaped quite like a trapezoid with a flat top and bottom. The only outlier to the design was the spherical dome canopy that capped the nose. It didn’t extend above or below the rest of the hull, sitting more like an inset gem on a crown. On the sloped armor, Cold could see the white lines painted around the edges of the ship’s hardpoints: the square weapon-bay doors were closed, but it was clear this ship was fit with weapons. The design wasn’t what he was used to, but Cold knew there would be a third hardpoint on the ship’s underbelly. What it was fitted with was a mystery: he could be certain that the top hardpoints were fixed beam weapons, but the ventral hardpoint was usually a turret, and that could be anything from a smartbomb launcher, to a projectile-based weapon.
For once, Cold regret not spending more time learning about ship weapons at the outfitter: knowing what the fighter’s weapons were capable of—if they came down to fighting—would be helpful.
From the top of the boarding platform, a look through the canopy showed a standard cockpit configuration: the pilot and co-pilot seat were placed side-by-side, and a third seat behind them at a curved terminal was no doubt intended for a gunner. The seats were placed on a platform that hung in the middle of the dome. The hatch to the cockpit sat above the hull, and the airlock beneath turned out behind the seats.
The airlock was just a nicety: in most circumstances, fighter pilots would keep their cabins depressurized. They’d lock their suits into the seats, and get their air that way. A canopy breach was unlikely, but not impossible.
With no proper way to communicate with Ripshot, they’d need the atmosphere.
Cold followed Ripshot down the ladder of the airlock, closing the hatch behind him with a button. In the red-lit airlock, a quick pull of the manual switch had them inside the cockpit.
Before Ripshot could make his way any further in, Cold grabbed him. “I’m going to pressurize the cabin. Don’t be surprised.”
The unicorn nodded. When Cold let him go, he moved toward the seats.
Cold had the atmosphere regulator running before Ripshot had even locked his suit in place. It beamed a positive blue, and a light in the collar of his suit flashed on to a pleasant green.
The ship was already faced toward the hangar. Where the shield veil had once been, space awaited them. The sight of the burnt out veil generators made Cold twitch, but just seeing space again made him giddy. He put his emotions in check, and joined Ripshot at the controls of the ship.
Ripshot turned his helmet off as Cold seated himself beside him. “Nice to have you aboard, captain.”
He grunted. “Keep your helm on. You can still talk through it.”
Ripshot rolled his eyes. “The canopy’s not gonna get breached.” Regardless of his attitude, he engaged his helm again.
“Alright.” Cold’s suit locked in with a satisfying click. “Let’s keep this sys-check quick. Raising his hoof to the terminals, the holographic interfaces waved to life. ”Starting boot sequence...“
The ship delved to darkness, taking the holographic control panels with them. The ever-present hum died, only to return with the lights a moment later.
“Power plant online.” Ripshot’s voice echoed.
“Critical functions online.”
“Tertiary functions online.”
A rumble sifted through the ship.
“Thrusters online."
A blue light flashed across the canopy.
“Shields online.” Ripshot looked away from his own interfaces. “We’re good to go.”
Cold’s hooves went to the controls by his sides: he rested one hoof on the tiny panel to his left, and his right rested on a button covered control column. “Flight assist off.” The terminal before him flicked with a satisfying click at his vocal command.
Ripshot’s neck shot to him. “Don’t show off in the hangar!”
His words fell into his gut as Cold lifted them off the platform.
They sat there hovering, turning ever so slightly as Cold manually kept the ship oriented. “I’m not.” He looked to his right. Through the canopy, he could see two of the ships follow in his takeoff. The last one came up after a few more moments. On the holographic interface to his left, he could see three white indicators flash on the radar. It worked, but it was thoroughly scratched out. It would prove to be mostly useless in the expanse of space: the furthest of the three ships on the scanner was practically faded to nothing. “Whoever’s waiting for us out there isn’t going to be expecting us to come out FAO.”
Resigned to his fate, Ripshot just tucked tight into his seat.
And Cold boosted the ship forward.
Cutting the thrusters, he rolled them vertically until they faced the on-hoof entrance to the hangar. While in the station’s gravity, the movement left Ripshot groaning. Cold just leaned into the motion.
The inertia carried them right out the hangar doors and into space.
Boosting again, Cold pushed them as far as they could away from the station. The rocky and metal surfaces on the outside passed in a blink as they rapidly accelerated. Holding steady, he kept them pressed as close as they could to the station. A faint sweat started on Cold; it was good to be back in a fighter.
Cold lit his horn. The data-bank floated out of the pouch on his suit, and over to Ripshot’s station. “Get this plugged in.”
He felt Ripshot’s magic invade his grip, and he let the package go without looking.
Cold’s eyes swarmed to the radar. The officers were already well out of the scrambled scanning range. “We’re on our own from here, Ripshot.”
“Do I need to deploy hardpoints?” The wooziness in Ripshot’s voice made Cold frown. The exit hadn’t been that bad...
The panel before Ripshot pinged with a ‘station proximity’ confirmation alert.
“Cancel!” Cold shouted over. The panel fluxed out, and he left his ire for Ripshot. “No. Leave that to the officers.”
“But I’m... oh, whatever.”
Their craft skimmed along the edges of Cypress. The lights of the many viewing surfaces for the outer cities poured out and into space. Cold tried not to think about the fact that there were likely a lot of ponies watching his piloting in action. He really wasn’t a show-off. He was aware of his skill, but he had been loathe to even share it with Ripshot in the moment.
If he made it through this, and anypony found out who this fighter was flown by, everypony in Cypress would know a kirin could fly a fighter. And that wasn’t a thought he was comfortable leaving in legacy.
“Data’s in. I’ll get the transmitter prepped.”
“Good. We’re coming around to the hangar-side.” He took a quick glance at the interface before returning to the viewport. “Skip drive has fifty-five seconds left on the charge.”
“Roger... Keep it steady—” A yellow proximity alert flashed on both pilots’ interfaces. “TARGET!”
Pulling around the station in his first complete circumnavigation, Cold veered off in shock. The ship inverted over the view below.
A Concord fighter glowing red-hot glided into the hangar, and the second one behind it lased two blue beams right where Cold’s craft had just been.
Beside Cold, Ripshot gripped his control column in a vice. “Cold—“
“Do not deploy.”
His co-pilot swallowed his nerves, and loosed his controls. “H-he’s right on us, Cold.”
With his left hoof, Cold slid power from engines to shields. The ship rapidly lost a good deal of its acceleration. He thrust backwards to slow, and the vessel flew by, sending its next two beams into the void.
The rogue was real.
Cold grimaced. “That’s a Concord fighter.”
“I was really hoping they’d have better things to do.”
The fighter, now not too far away from their front, flipped over and turned back to them. The telltale glow of its two top-side hardpoints glowed. Despite the pace of the moment, Cold had the foresight to lock on and keep track of the fighter. The beam weapons were gimbaled: even with the significant distance the overshooting ship had put between them, he could see minute movements of the turret adjusting. An alert on his panel warned of a target lock.
“IRCM!” Ripshot shouted.
The three hull-thudding puffs that followed left a trail of triangles on the radar. When Cold flicked their ship back to start their next skim of the station exterior, two of the bright countermeasures in their wake were suddenly pierced by twin beams.
Ripshot shouted the princess’ name in disbelief. “I flared! I’ve never actually flared!”
“Stay focused,” Cold warned, his voice cool. “Keep him locked.” Truth be told, his heart was pounding. Ripshot’s quick response had just saved them from tanking a beam. He threw power back to engines in full, and lowered the shields recharge to account for the resetting flare mechanism. Having dropped out of full speed, the time on their skip charge had slowed: Cold had to keep them moving. “Thirty seconds.”
Mercifully, Ripshot didn’t shout any further. He clenched onto his panel in tense shock, and watched the system readouts as they slung themselves around Cypress.
“He broke off again.”
When they came around to the Concord HQ hangar-side once more, they weren’t treated to an ambush.
“No... Get outta there!”
Cold kept them flying low and fast. But overhead, the dogfight in progress was high, and practically dead-slow.
The exchange of beam fire and the scattered confetti of flares lit the no-fire zone of Cypress Station. Two Concord fighters circled one another, though it was clear only one of them was a real fighter: the shields of the weaker pilot flickered as they absorbed lance after lance from the rogue fighter. It was made worse by the fact that the poor maneuverability kept Cold and Ripshot’s ally in the firing cone of the rogue’s third hardpoint: a fixed lance. The third fighter swirled around them like an orbiting moon, but it made no attempt to engage.
The friendly fighter was red-hot by the time Cold and Ripshot zoomed out of sight.
“Cold, we’ve got to do something!”
“He’ll make it, Ripshot...” the kirin muttered. His right hoof gripped tighter to the side-stick, and the muscles in his foreleg tensed. “He’ll make it.”
With a heavy breath, Ripshot read his interface aloud. “Fifteen seconds.”
Coming through on what would be his last fly-by of Cypress, a sharp spike on the radar caught Cold’s eye. It was an explosion of light, and it quickly faded out. His heart leapt into his throat. But he couldn’t choke or move. His coat prickled as he pulled on the stick. A sickness brewed in his gut.
And Cold almost thought he felt the insides of his suit warming.
“He...” Ripshot paused, then cheered uproariously. “He dropped a heatsink!”
They pulled to the hangar-side one last time, and relief flooded them both.
The fighter was clearly without shields, and its hull was darkened near its thrusters, but it slid into the hangar without anymore hits.
Pulling away from the station, however, the radar flashed with two signatures. Cold pushed to get them away from Cypress. With the flares recharged, he drew power back from the ship’s systems, pumping it completely into their thrusters and shields. His left hoof tapped quickly through the navigational side of the holographic interface. He locked the bookmarked location of the system relay in, adjusted his angle just right, and boosted as fast and often as he could. “Ten seconds...”
Ripshot strained to look at the very bottom of the canopy as Cold spoke. “Cold...”
Two Concord fighters flew past the front of their canopy. Cold didn’t stop boosting, even as he very nearly clipped the firing fighter. And not even when he saw the arcs of blue wrapped entirely around the craft.
“He...” Ripshot slowed, turned back to his panel, and sifted swiftly through his interface. “His subsystems are offline. Power plant included.”
Their last friendly had been disabled.
“Five seconds,” Cold managed, though it was hardly with the energy he hoped for.
There was nothing more they could do.
Just when the fighter appeared on the edge of their scrambled radar’s range, Cold’s interface pinged with a dash of hope.
He announced their skip with a quiet click from under his left hoof.
The world turned inward as the building magic in their warmed skip drive fired off in a relieving cascade of energy. The space in front of the canopy flashed with purple as they dove forward, lurching in their seats despite their secured suits. The ship’s velocity soared to an unreadable measure.
And then, they slipped out of skip.
A teleport was just that. A blink of an eye. And what a blink it had been. If Cold pivoted the ship back now, they might’ve been lucky to see a glint of light from where Cypress was.
In more earthly times, to walk back to Cypress now would take not even close to a dozen lifetimes. Even on the wings of alicorns, decades would pass before they reached Cypress from the section of space Cold and Ripshot now occupied.
Cold kept the ship moving forward at full tilt. After the first skip, the drive would charge their next teleport faster. But they were still at least a few skips away.
Cold leaned back. Said nothing.
Ripshot shared in the silence.
Then, Cold’s ear crackled. And his earpiece spoke with the voice of a mare. A young mare. A far too young mare.
“This is... Motherlode RF... requesting... Concord assistance. Connect.... FTL-relays...” The static fell in, then out. The last of her call came clear. “Cannot attempt repair alone. Message repeats.”
When the word of the mare repeated in full, Cold’s ears folded against his head.
“Cold, you hear that, right? I’m not dreaming that up, am I?”
The kirin breathed, and flipped the receiver for the fighter off. “Yes, I heard her.”
Ripshot didn’t complain about turning off the receiver. Like Cold, he was unfortunately happier to not hear the mare’s plight. But his quieted thoughts did not leave him uncaring. “...A lot of ponies are relying on us. And they don’t know it.”
“I’m getting us there as fast as I can.” On cue, another skip was ready. “Watch the scanners. We’re clearing the interference field.”
“Yes, cap.”
Cold boosted them forward, and fired off the next skip.
Fokienia had tried to fight peacefully. She’d tried. It wasn’t why everything had gone wrong, however.
The assault was in full-swing by the time they’d shown up at the checkpoint where the worst of the fighting was taking place. Commander Gale had barely spared her, Sundown, and Sequoia a glance as they went to work returning fire. They had fought hard enough, but they’d lost many, and pulled both them and their casualties back as the fighting pushed away from the corridors and into the various side-departments of Central Command.
The elevator was closest to the administration side of the complex. The hangar they’d arrived from were somewhere in the middle between the control room and the grav-tunnel. It had been a shorter sprint to get to the commander and her forces than it had to get to the hangar, but every little bit of ground counted for something. While Sequoia stayed on the frontlines, Fokienia kept Sundown with her; she made excellent use of her vision to keep stragglers from flanking them.
The art of vent warfare was something all Project ponies were trained for. But the cyborgs only fought in the open, and stopping them from successful flanks was a true trial for Fokienia, even with Sundown’s assistance.
So she’d tried to talk to them.
“My name is Fokienia! I’m augmented like you! We don’t have to fight!”
Sundown pulled her back into cover as a disabler beam sizzled through where she’d been standing. “What do you think you’re doing?” she hissed. “They’re not going to listen.”
And they hadn’t. They hadn’t even tried to lull her into a false sense of security, or any tricks of that nature. They’d just kept fighting.
It was horrifying to think that there were ponies even more emotionless than she’d been.
She wanted to believe she could free these ponies somehow. But all they knew were commands...
Fokienia had trained to take care of enemy VIPs.
After further losses of the complex, she’d left Sundown, and taken to the vents her own self. Slipping behind the enemy lines, she swept up those she could. And she did make a dent in their numbers, knocking out several operatives by the score.
But after not even ten minutes, that changed.
She’d been in the process of holding down the elevator in the hopes that reinforcements would come, and then Sundown had come.
Fokienia crawled back into the vents with her, and they scrambled their way back the way they’d come.
Sequoia was waiting for them. Since Fokienia had last seen him, he’d taken several shots to the Concord vest he wore. And the officers he’d been meant to be escorting were nowhere to be seen.
“Sequoia, what’s going on? Sundown just said we need to fall back.”
“The retrieval unit came through. They took the commander.”
Fokienia swung her head around in a panic. There weren’t many ponies standing nearby: the fighting had slowed to a crawl as numbers thinned on both sides, and the efforts of her vent-to-vent engagements took effect. The operatives were moving as tactically and efficiently as they could, and they’d even reigned in the aggressive pushes from the cyborgs. Somehow.
“How long ago was this?”
“A few minutes,” Sequoia replied. “I wasn’t sure if they had—they flanked from behind—but I told Sundown we needed you back.” He couldn’t fit in the vents, so of course he hadn’t gone his own self.
In other words, she shouldn’t have tried flanking them in turn. She should’ve just stayed in place...
Her heart sank. “Where do you think they took her?”
“Somewhere close. But they couldn’t have gone back toward the elevators.” Sundown nodded her head back in the vague direction of the control room. “I need you on point, Fokienia. If they set up another ambush behind us, I want your eyes.”
She nodded. “Of course, Sundown.”
“Let’s go. Luna knows where they took her.”
“Who’s Luna?” Fokienia had heard Sundown say it before, and in fact, she could vaguely recall something the governor had said... right! “She has an ‘armada’? What’s that?”
Sundown did a double-take—if the moment was less critical, Fokienia would’ve been proud to have surprised her mentor—then shook her head. “Now’s not the time. We need to go.”
“Right.” With a breath, Fokienia hefted her disabler pistol. She’d been scavenging what charges she could, but she hoped she had enough left.
Keeping her optical implants busy, Fokienia pushed them safely across the corridor and back toward the control room.
The corridors were devoid of personnel, though the occasional sound of disabler fire echoed behind them. She lamented having to fall back like this, but at this point, there couldn’t have been more than ten officers left. And the Project had come in with a force just as large, if not larger. Still, she tried her best to remember what the commander looked like in her unavoidable gaze: she’d been getting better at taking note of the unique silhouettes ponies made, and with enough time, she was sure she could accurately pin down who a pony was based off of her vision... Cold was the only one who stood out to her.
Similarly, a horn was what she was looking for. The glint of wings caught her eye instead. She stopped them at a familiar place in the Concord side of the complex.
Sundown looked down the corridor, then back to Fokienia. “Did you see somepony on the deck?”
“I saw somepony flying.” She paused. “That’s probably where they flanked us from.”
“So you don’t see anypony, now?”
“No.”
“...It’s an ambush.”
“No doubt,” Sequoia said. “And they’ll know we’re coming.”
Fokienia teetered in place for a moment. “I’ll go first.”
“No, you won’t. You might be able to take a few hits, but so can I. And you’re the better shot.”
Sundown huffed. “There’s no point in planning this out. They have our VIP. We’ve already lost.”
A weight settled across Sequoia’s withers, and he shook his wings out. The pinions sliding against each other was a hollow, metallic sound, like dull knives crossing one another. “Fine. But I’m going first.”
They stacked on the door. Fokienia held them for a moment. But there was no further movement from beyond. “Go.”
Sequoia opened the pneumatic door, and the three of them pressed out. They were prepared to sweep the corners of the hangar, but they didn’t expect a target to be right in front of them.
Or rather, the commander.
And the governor.
The door shut behind them. Sundown twisted suddenly to look, but Fokienia and Sundown kept their eyes on the unarmed ponies. Sequoia didn’t lower his weapon, but Fokienia did: the governor was a civilian...
“Hello, Fokienia.”
“Golden Graham?”
He hummed. “I was hoping to see Captain Cold with you. I’ve been waiting to speak with him. And now, I need to speak with him more than ever.”
Sundown turned back around, advancing to stand beside Sequoia. “What in Tartarus are you doing here? How’d you get here?”
The governor frowned. “Sundown Periapsis. You’ve been helpful to us so far—”
Sundown fired a beam, and it landed right at the governor’s hooves. “Shut it.” To his credit, the governor only flinched a little. “Answer me.” When the governor didn’t speak, she aimed at the commander. “What? Did that little specialist of yours tell you something?”
Unimpressed by her bravado, Commander Gale raised a brow. “Tell me what, exactly?”
Sundown was silent. Her tufted ears twitched, and her muzzle scrunched in annoyance. Fokienia could see the hint of her fangs, and that was a sight you never wanted to see from Sundown...
“I’ll give you one chance to answer me, operatives.” Fokienia couldn’t help but notice the way the governor postured toward Sequoia and Sundown; he wasn’t paying her attention anymore. “What were those four unauthorized starfighters doing? And where did the last one go?”
“There were five,” Fokienia answered. All eyes turned to her.
“Fokienia!” Sundown hissed.
She couldn’t help herself. “Four of those fighters took off to help Cypress. The fifth was rogue.”
“That’s right,” Graham said. “You’re a very smart mare, Fokienia. But that doesn’t answer my question.” She withered as his eyes pierced her. “I will not lie, Fokienia. I like you. You willingly gave up the name of the pony beside you, a close friend by all accounts, and you did it for Cypress. I can see the good in your heart.” His eyes lost their edge, and his voice grew soft. “So help me help Cypress. What were those starfighters doing?”
“I...” She chewed the inside of her cheek.
“You manipulative... Shut it! Don’t listen to—” Suddenly, Sundown’s ears twitched harder than before. She spun around, crouching into a firing position as she went.
Fokienia turned with her. They looked up just in time to witness the harnessed Project pegasus drop their cargo: a brown unicorn fell through the air from the rafters of the hangar. His metal horseshoes glinted in the orange light of Cypress Central’s artificial night.
Sundown fired, and the shrieking blast knocked the pegasus straight in the head.
And for her troubles, the falling unicorn planted a disabler beam right in Sundown’s muzzle.
“SUNDOWN!” Fokienia screamed. She fumbled for her disabler as two shots lanced overhead from behind. One shot planted itself in Sequoia’s wings, which started to fall limp.
Sequoia turned again, and his long-rifle whined as he fired as well. There was a thump behind her and a panicked yell from the governor.
Still struggling with her holster, Fokienia looked up to see the retrieval unit team lead aiming right at her: the brown unicorn bore a sharp sneer. His eyes were planted right behind the sights of the pistol he levitated before him. One one was covered by a strange single-lense eyepiece that was hung over his ear.
Fokienia flinched as Sequoia slid in front of her. He toppled to the ground, firing his disabler as he went.
Fokienia turned and ran for the closest cover she could find: the patrol craft. As she went, she heard the thud of metal hooves hitting the ground—a sound she knew all too personally. Sequoia’s angered yell fell silent after the sound of three energy-filled impacts.
In cover, she finally managed to pull her disabler from her holster. She crouched behind the patrol craft, watching the movement of the unicorn, and the outline of Sequoia’s once-moving body slowly erode.
“Quit running, Fokienia!” the team lead yelled. “You can’t hide from me, not anymore!”
Suddenly, her foreleg gave out. She gasped as she tumbled forward. Another shot flew out as she tried to stand, taking out her second foreleg.
Like the first, the beam came from the space beneath the hover-craft.
She dropped her disabler in shock: the sensation warping through her forelegs was terrifying. The only times she couldn’t feel her hooves was after the engineers had come for her...
Her heart wrenched in terror, and she screamed.
“Stop hurting her!” the governor’s voice yelled from nearby.
“Let me do my job! I’ve been waiting to use this scanner all day!”
With her hindlegs, Fokienia pushed back into a limp sitting position. She pressed her spine into the cold metal of the patrol craft. She stared at her limp forelegs: the only movement she could make was at the point where the muscles met her artifical nerves.
The team lead came stomping around the corner of the craft. He was breathing heavily, and his sneer replaced by a triumphant grin. He heaved another breath, and leveled the disabler pistol with her.
Fokienia looked up into his eyes. “Why?” she whispered.
“Because...”
For a moment, the unicorn lowered his disabler to the ground. His eyes looked past her, out of the flight deck.
And then, he smiled.
“It’s past your bedtime. Goodnight, princess.”
Cold shuddered as they came out of the last skip.
“You good, captain?”
“No.” He whispered. He tried again, louder than before. “No, I’m not ‘good’, Ripshot. Let’s upload this and get back to Cypress.”
The FTL comm-relay was visible. But beyond it, the bright star of Cypress peered at them. Cold basked in the little bits of warmth that slipped through. For a brief moment, it pushed the shudder right out of him.
He targeted the relay, and looked over the info on his display. “Four gallops off. Get on the transmitter.”
As Cold brought them in closer, he couldn’t shake the phantom feeling creeping up his spine, even with the aid of the sun watching over them. “It feels like we missed something.”
“Transmission’s starting. It’s a small package, so it shouldn’t take too—”
The sound of a ship skipping in was unmistakable. The hull groaned as the close teleport clashed against their systems.
Cold boosted them suddenly, well aware that he was knocking Ripshot off target.
“I’m—!”
“Just do your best!” Cold yelled. “Cypress is counting on us!”
“I am! I am, captain!”
The whine of the engines hummed through the hull, joining the phantom force crawling up Cold. He ignored it, and forced himself back into his muscle memory. The same maneuvers he’d mastered in the ‘roid fields of Telfire flooded back to him. His eyes tracked the radar as he cut the view outside the canopy outside of his peripherals. The only thing that was important was avoiding hitting the relay, and dodging the fighter hot on his tail.
He cut the acceleration, bleeding speed to veer off and dodge three sharp beams from the fighter. “You’re gonna need to do better than that,” he growled.
“Cold, I need it steadier! The upload restarted!”
Steadier? Oh, he could do steady. Cold drew up another growl, and it forced the phantom force on his hindleg back down. Slowing for a moment, he took pleasure in watching the fighter take a long turn to reorient, and re-lock.
He watched the fighter for a careful moment, then spun sharply to orient himself toward them.
“Just like mining lasers,” he muttered.
“What did you say?”
His left foreleg clicked into its panel.
His growl was joined by the sound of the three hardpoint mechanisms.
“Oh—Cold?! Are you actually...?”
“Full power to weapons...”
The fighter, which had been charging its beams, suddenly pulled up. But it couldn’t avoid the fresh lock from Cold, and the fresher prisms that were aching to be used.
“Gotcha.”
The roar of the beams was tremendous. The beams sank deep into the shield, and on the other side of where his hit had landed, Cold saw arcs flying from the canopy. The fighter flittered off in a scramble, and the sight of the weapons powering down and instead shifting to engines made Cold one very happy kirin.
“Is he disabled?”
“Focus, Ripshot.” Cold knew the blow would take the pilot inside the canopy a moment to recover: the EM properties of the beams could be fixed through a reboot. But he wasn’t about to try and fry the fighter completely. “How much longer?”
“Forty-five seconds, captain.”
They were going to take some hits on the way out when the pilot of the enemy fighter rebooted his systems, but they would at least get the upload done.
And then, the phantom force returned in full.
Cold’s eyes widened as the shockwave of a second skip drive brushed against the ship’s magical components; it was slight, but it was there. His eyes shot from the fighter in front of his canopy and over to the radar.
The new target had made a longer skip than either of the two fighters already at the relay—they were more than seventy gallops out. But they were fast approaching. Too fast.
Ripshot was gripping hard with both hooves. “T-Thirty seconds!”
Cold pressed all the power he could into the shields, leaving the engines dry save for the lightest maneuvering thrusts. Quickly, he looked at the interface for the subsystem readout. The transmitter was at the front of the ship. With the direction the fighter was coming in, he had to keep their engines in the line of fire to minimize any EM effects on the transmitter, and that meant exposing the underbelly of the ship.
He locked onto the incoming fighter, and popped flares.
But this fighter only had one hardpoint deployed. One placed on its underbelly.
Cold closed his eyes when a scan revealed the enemy’s subsystem target.
A full power, fixed shot, directly at his powerplant. And one unhindered by movement, or the failings of an automatic targeting system.
“Ten!”
The phantom had crawled up to his neck by now. But a strange peace settled across him.
“Five!”
A warning beep. The fighter was in range of their weapons.
“Brace,” Cold said simply.
Ripshot’s mouth was open when the beam hit.
Heat flooded the cabin. The interfaces snapped offline, and the lights fled. The rest of the ship groaned.
Then, it was quiet.
“...C-captain?” His co-pilot’s voice was faint.
With no shield, and only the tint of the canopy, the warmth of Cypress’ sun could be felt in full.
The rumble of magitech engines slid across their hull. And the fighter slid before them. Cold didn’t have to look to feel its shadow: the fading touch of the sun was enough.
“It was an honor flying with you...”
There was nothing to protect them as the final beam plowed through the canopy.