(Miiora)

We move towards one of the docked human ships escorting the civilians between us. Even some of the UEC soldiers decided to help us evacuate the helghast civilians from the stations. I sweep my scavenged M-66 riffle to the left before firing shooting the siren between where its eyes would have been. A scream reaches my membranes wrenching my attention from the siren I had just killed to another.

The marine that had been across the hallway from me struggles with a siren on top of her. I am about to turn my rifle to help when my tail twitches. The sensory organs on its underside picking up a vibration, quickly I shift my knee joints and crouch into spin. Turning a full three hundred and sixty degrees, she is rewarded with a meaty thud followed by a screech of pain as her tail slaps the offending target. The siren slams into the bulkhead and crumbles to the deck. It scrambles back to its feet before turning to look at her.

“Command squad!” Lieutenant Fick yells before backpedaling leading Trombley, Gunny perkins and myself through the closing blast door.

https://youtu.be/oBQ68x54RQA

“That guy almost had you there.” Trombley says keeping his weapon trained on the door.

Another side hatch opens up in the hallway we are in, and the scent of my dear one Avery Fallon wafts into the hallway. Three MOTH’s in power armor and one of the Helldivers enter the chamber backpedaling firing their gatlings and rifle respectively. The MOTH’s aren't marked in any way their ID’s only showing up as MOTH, on the HUD. But the Helldiver is marked Helldiver “Steal” by her helmet's internal computer. Lieutenant Fick is about to say something when a weight slams into my side sending the rifle flying from her claws.

She slides across the deck with a writhing mass on top of her before managing to shift her knee joints enough to allow her legs the leverage to kick the weight off. She shifts her thigh joints, and the amor’s more flexible design allows her to go to all fours. The Siren that she had previously slammed with her tial must have come through the door before it closed. The siren launches itself at Miiora on all fours making me jump to my left.

The Siren slams into the bulkhead in a heap, while I bound off of the now closed blast door and land back on all four claws. I begins sprinting across the hall lowering my head and headbutting the siren in the ribs or where one would think the ribs would be. The impact sends the almost recovered siren sprawling, screeching its wail as it slams back into the wall. My helmet clatters to the ground with an empty hollow thud having been jared loose by the impact.

“Fuck, I can't get a clear shot!” I hear someone shout, Trombley probably.

She lowers opens her maw and lets out a guttural hiss as the siren manages to right itself. The almost human anatomy of the siren gives it a very eerie appearance as it to crouches on all fours. It lets out its whale as it charges again. The monster rakes at me with its claws and I drop back allowing its claws to glance off of my shoulder pauldron, before lowering my body even further and swinging my tail up. Its head follows the tip of my tail as she launches herself into the siren.

The beast’s hide is no where near as thick as a regular lanky’s and one of her horns sink into the beast's stomach. It whales and begins thrashing as she slashes its stomach open with her claws. An arm appears coming towards her head and she shifts her weight allowing the claw to pierce her leg, before using the same leg to pin the offending limb to the wall.

Now entangled with Miiora the siren bites down into her armor, its innards begin falling out from the gash in its mid section but it doesn't stop. She can feel its powerful beak like mouth working the armor over. Seeing her opening she opens her maw wide two fangs unhinging before she sinks her fangs and three centimeter long razor sharp teeth into the siren’s exposed neck. The result is immediate, the siren let's go of my shoulder pauldron and begins to attempt to bat her off only succeeding in having its other arm pinned. Miiora begins thrashing her head back and forth, tearing and ripping echoes and the siren’s movements become more lethargic, as both blood loss and venom begin to take their tolls.

“Damn, I feel like I just watched a dog fight.” The Helldiver says. Black and magenta blood mix on the floor before with one final shake she lets the beast go.

“Hey Miiora I think you dropped this.” Dear one says as I get back to my claws.

Looking up I see two of the three MOTH’s standing over me. My helmet lands on the ground in front of me and I nod my thanks. Do to the scent of the blood I can’t tell which one of them is my dear one, an effort made doubly impossible thanks to their metallic black visors. I can't wait to get this over with and spend time with my dear one, but more importantly get to a shower and wash this black blood off of me it smells horrid.

“Let's move people, You, take point.” Fick says to one of the two MOTH’s who nods.

I look down faintly smelling my dear one moving away as the two special forces soldiers wade through the crowd, their bulky black power armor making the civilians part. We follow the MOTH’s and Helldiver as they near the door. The MOTH’s told to take point stops just outside of the second blast door and lowers his arm gatling to his side.

“WATCH OUT!” one of the UEC soldiers shouts a moment too late. On the other side of the door stands the largest Wendigo I have ever seen, at least half the size of an ATLAS mech.

Loombing at least three feet over the MOTH it tilts its eyeless head down at him, letting out an excruciatingly loud chirp like sound. The special forces trooper staggers backward as the other’s scream warnings, but before he could bring up his wrist gatling. The creature reached out its enormous bone collord claw and wrapped it around his helmet.

Wiping the blood off of my snout I catch a whiff of my Dear one’s scent. The MOTH grabs the beasts wrists as it plucked him off the ground, feet kicking. The two other MOTH’s and the helldiver move to the side and fire a few bursts from their weapons into the monster's chest.

It let out a frenzied raur and squeeze its hand together. Every muscle flashed and flexed as it pushed in on the MOTH’s helmet. There was no scream or cry. Just the crack of metal, glass, and bone as the power armor’s helmet is caved in like a tin can in a vice. It all happened so fast that her world seemed to grind to an agonizing halt. As the Moth’s limp body collapsed to the floor in a heap.

Miiora could hear screams and she could now see the rounds cutting through monsters flesh but the bullets weren't from her rifle. She seemed unable to move as one of the other MOTH’s fired its gatling and the pony was emptying her auto shotgun’s magazine into the beast. Shell casing fell into the puddle of her dear ones blood as it spread across the floor. The monster slapped the Pony’s auto shotgun away and picked her up by the waist by one claw. There was a sickening crunch as it began flexing its hand.

Her screams continue before the hand falls, cut off at the elbow. “YEAH!, I’VE GOT SOMETH’N FOR YA, COYO!”

The two MOTH’s land back on the floor their strange Melee weapons extending from arms on their backs almost like a wing. They both have their visors depolarized and a deeply selfish relief hits me like a railgun rounds as I see my Dear one wasn't the MOTH who had died. The line re draws itself, but as It does I catch glimpse of a crazed look in both MOTH’s eyes, as their L-blades refold. The two then in unison turn and raise their left arms and fire two ALHO rounds from arm mounts, blowing the Lanky’s chest wide open.

======================================================

(Charlotte)

‘Human hostile fighter on your seven.’ one of the new arrivals fighters says, sending green streams of tracers towards the trident.

“I see them.” I report I before shifting into infantry mode while inverting my fighter. The trident flys by and begins banking to come around for a killing blow but is met with a burst of grenades from my wrist gatlings. With a smirk I shift into Valkery mode before looking over to my port side.

“Nice shot Icequeen…” Snow reports his avenger fighter flying tight formation. I look over and see him giving my a thumbs up, before rounds begin raining down onto his fighter.

There is a chaos of movement inside of the NAC fighter’s cockpit before it flys off of the fighter. Snow’s ejection pod has just enough time to get clear before his fighter explodes. Looking up I see something out of a nightmare. Another NE Gungnir is coming straight at me in valkyrie mode firing its gatlings. I swing my legs to starboard banking and avoiding the stream of tracer allowing the fighter to streak passed.

++++++Nordic Empire: Mary “Love” Dorson. NES- Queen Marie. Status- KIA+++++++

“Thats impossible, the queen Marie was destroyed.” The fighter destroys an NAC shrike, before my computer zoomed in on an anomoly. The valkyrie in question looks wrong. Its engine wash is red, and its hull plating is black as night. Zooming in I can also see that it is firing bone spikes instead of grenades from ports where the gatlings should be. The entire thing looks like a mixture of a Lanky trident fighter and a Valkery.

“Control are you..”

“Icequeen we see it. Destroy that fighter. The Station is evacuating.”

“On it.”

I won't lose anymore friends today.

==========================================================

(Rarity)

The white and ice blue human fighter streaks down towards the hostile . Almost like it senses her the fighter and somersaults without breaking momentum and fires a burst from its sensor gun. Juking her fighter to the right the pilot rolls and returns fire with her own gun.

“Sensor operator. Scan that fighter, why are they fighting? The two human fighters shoot past one another, the one with the red engines turns and follows its prey. With any luck I will be able to persuade the pilot of the black and red fighter to join us.

Disappointment doesn’t begin to explain what I feel. I had forgotten that the Germaneigh tart’s sister served on my ship as well. Kyrie Wahresblut might have the views of her sister, but she is a Pegasus by nature through and through. She’s attempted to rally several of the crew around her in an attempt to aid the humans, save those of our crew left behind, and of course undo all that I’ve attempted to do here. Currently she’s locked away, bound, and suffering the torment that only a Pegasus could understand.

“It appears to be a mixture of what the humans call Lanky and human technologies, like the alien tech was added to the existing frame.”

I laughed at that. I would have to thank Rainbow Dash for telling me about a shared claustrophobia that all Pegasi suffered from. A part of me would like to submit her as a slave and gift her to some of Blueblood’s associates. Still, even now, at this moment, some of my own crew has glared at me. It’s only my most trusted officers that have managed to keep things from getting out of hand.

“Senseors, what is the status of the old breed changeling fleet?” I ask clasping my hands behind my back.

I glanced toward a small group of Earth Ponies. I could hear their whispering, and I knew what they were planning. I glanced toward Coco. Bringing her was a mistake. I wanted to make sure that she would be fine, taken care of, and that stallion that had… No I won’t think about that. I won’t remember finding her, curled up into a ball, crying, whimpering, seeing that wretched stallion beside her. Of course, being a noble’s son we couldn’t simply do away with him. So, instead I was informed that his reeducation would remove those impure thoughts from that deprived brain.

“They are not in weapons range yet, but are sailing hard to close the distance.”

“Set the shields to maximum, and tell the fleet to move through the vapor cloud. Firecontroll target the stations drum, fire a pulse low yield, we don't want to destroy the station.”

I simply am not the most skilled at spellcrafting. Oh, I’m more than acceptable when it comes to the bread and butter of most unicorns. I can levitate objects, control a second pistol or rifle with my telekinesis, and of course I do know a healing spell or two, but compared to somepony like Twilight’s friend Moondancer, or even the traitor Lyra Heartstrings. I’m afraid that I’m sorely lacking in more articulate spellcrafting. But that said, I have learned some spells along the way that have helped me maintain command. One is a simple spell, something I learned by accident.

“That way the humans wont detect us, in the residual heat and light from the explosion, and by the time they do…” Captain polar says from my side.

“We will already be out of their weapons range. Very good captain. This will then present them with a choice, chase us and leave their ponies behind, with the dying station as well as run the risk of being shot in the back by the alien ships. Or staying and fighting and allowing us to get away.”

Of course casting it means explaining why I had to make an example in front of my crew. What possible reason there was for killing a pony, but sometimes we have to explain these things. I sigh as I look at the group. It is a shame. Some of them served with Big Macintosh, at least one of them is an Apple, and I have absolutely no doubt that this will damange my friendship with Applejack, but sometimes there are no good answers.

“Admiral Rarity, what you are doing?”

I look at Coco and gave her a small smile. I really must thank Primerose Propers for editing Coco’s memory of her… ordeal. I gently patted her hand.

“Nothing at all. I am just considering what should be done. Captain?”

“Right away ma’am, Helm take us out speed full.”

“Yes sir.”

=============================================================

(Fallon)

There is absolutely no way that the Space Port is going to hold. The Windegos were able to get through the blast doors with little trouble, and with the Sirens it is a whole nother ball game. I glanced toward Miiora who was currently helping to get the civilians toward the docked ships. When we got out of here, when we left, there was a thousand things we were going to do.

I will make it back

I heard the sound of the steel being shredded on the other side of the blast door.

"Everyone, drop back! Escort the civilians toward the ships!" echoed through my helmet.

https://youtu.be/C25PpgEJLHQ

“Steal, on point, Big dog with me tactical retrograde.”

“Got it./ sure.” Helldiver Steal, and Big Dog responded, then the station is rocked with a titanic explosion.

I watched as Fick rushed toward the downed Equestrian that had first started fighting the Lankys. No sooner had he made it there than the door began to give way. He picked her up, her crushed legs dangling uselessly behind him, and I opened fire on the first of those monsters that was trying to get inside. We moved back, heading toward the next blast door. We had a time table now. Each one of those doors lasted about ten minutes. It wasn't much time, but if we could keep the civilian's organized it should be more than enough to get them out.

The blast door begins to dent as the “Sirens” slam into it. Making my way towards Miiora as I backpedal, shaking my head I rest my hand on her shoulder and gesture her forward. The black blood of the lanky has stained her armor, and her magenta blood oozes from the hole in her leg, where the siren pierced her armor. There is another bang as the door dents in even more and I activate my L-blade.

She looks at me her visor hiding her face. “Move, now.”

Miiora nods and limps her way forward, before Trombley moves and supports her.

“Here they come bro.” Big dog says from my side taking a crouching stance, one that I echo as the door bursts open. We let loose with our gatlings as we begin a firing retreat. The two of us begin a kind of skipping motion as we retreat.

“Just like that time in Brazil!” Big dog says over the squad channel. His L-blade swings up and around his shoulder and cuts down a siren.

“I know right, only in Brazill we had Atlas units.” Another siren gets close to me, and I use my power armored fist to bash its skull in, with a back hand.

“MOTH’s we are clear, move.”

“You heard the man, lets go.” The two of us deploy incendiaries, before using our jump packs to give us more speed as we sprint down the chambers separating us from the rest of our group, behind us the blast doors slamm closed as we pass them.

As we enter the new chamber we see that it must be some kind of observation deck. Because through the window we can see the interior of the now mostly empty station. In the distance I see the spot where our temporary base had been. The empty space speaking volumes to the efficiency of automated support. I catch some movement in the spot where watchtower six had been set up. And zoom in to the spot with my visor and see one of the humanoid machines carrying a bag towards the escape hatch. Its metal body going unmolested by the Sirens around it.

The room then shakes and my visor darkens to protect my vision, as a shape shoots passed the view port. When my visor clears I can see what looks like a gungnir fighter only wrong like it is a mixture of a wendigo, one of those lanky fighters, and a gungnir. The fighter shifts into that weird mid transformation and aims its wrist weapon towards us.

“BRACE!” Big dog shouts using his helmets external speaker. The angled maw of the weapon glows red slightly before the fighter’s sensor bulb shifts and the whole thing abruptly jinks to the lift as a stream of blue tracers stream down towards it.

Through the window Charlotte's white and blue fighter appears in its alt mode, and begins strafing around the other one. The other one shifts back and forth juking left and right before abruptly turning into fighter mode and shoot at an angle towards the area behind us. Charlotte swings her legs around and using the momentum and thrust to turn her fighter one hundred and eighty degrees before following.

=========================================================

(Charlotte 3rd person)

(30 minutes earlier)

https://youtu.be/gYHgH68Trz0

The NE pilot breaks her fighter and maneuver around a piece of debris the missiles following close behind before slamming into the chunk of ship and exploding. Satisfied she shifts into infantry mode and attempts to closeline the Lanky fighter. The alien Valkyrie comes around in valkyrie mode and she manages to catch it by the hand and attempts to fire her gatlings into its cockpit module, only for the lanky to fire flares blinding her, with red light.

Once the light clears she scans for the fighter and finds it in fighter mode and coming around for a gun run. Shifting her fighter from infantry to fighter she gooses the engines narrowly avoiding a hail of bone spikes. Her computer picks up two regular trident fighter closing on her position.

“Merde!”

Charlotte spirals her fighter into a port bank intent on using the closest ship as cover. Soon the three alien fighters are on her as she hugs the hull of a COG ship. Closing fast she sees her chance, one of the ships PDC’s is aimed towards her. The blond pilot has to act quickly as vector lines make themselves known on the tactical plot. She half barrel rolls her fighter avoiding an oncoming volley of PDC rounds.

Realigning her fighter with the deck she smiles slightly as one of the red triangles on her tactical plot blinks out. With another maneuver a second blinks out and it looks like the alien Valkyrie is about to be next when it abruptly makes a ninety degree turn and rockets towards the station. I Flip my fighter and follow seeing that the station now is sporting a decently sized hole, the edges of which spark do to shoring electronics, and glow with molten metal.

She gooses the engine and follows the bulk of the armored station growing nearer by the second. The inner ear sensation changes from flying towards the station to falling into it as she draws ever closer. A pearl necklace of tracers follows flies up towards her from the station's exterior and she zooms in to see five ATLAS mechs as well as eighteen Siafu units spaced across the face of the station. The incoming friendly fire abruptly stops and shifts as the mechs’ pilots register her as friendly and begin firing at the alien gungnir.

Scanning the surface she notices four ATLAS mechs near an evacuation umbilical. Her HUD marks them as “Iceman ap”, “Rocket man ap”, “Crab killer ap,” as well another ATLAS unit marked as “Helldiver 5 ap”. The sign AP meaning Auto-pilot meaning the pilots of those mechs are inside the station. In Fact the mechs are inside the station if the reading is correct. Yes they are on the opposite side of the umbilical, linking the station to the NAC cruiser James Holden.

There is a flash of light to her starboard side and she sees one of the seed ships disappear. Her computer telling her that the shot was from an unknown ship. The ship is so far away that it its is marked only with a green dot, and an SRA tag.

Beside this COG fleet’s flagship two midnight blue ships that resemble giant wasps float. Their insectoid design giving them an ominous feel. Around the two ships green shields shine absorbing incoming fire and protecting the Manitoba from molestation. The two insectoid ships then shift and from what would be their thorax a dish appears to be draining something from the Manitoba before two chin mounted cannons on the ship's heads fire two beams of green energy towards the damaged ships.

The alien fighter abruptly turns and hugs the deck before transforming to valkyrie mode and firing a volley of penetrators into the chest of a siafu mech before flying into the station. Charlotte flies over to the downed mech and on a whim snatches the rifle.

After checking the ammunition counter and and satisfied that it is sufficient, the blond jetsons one of her spent missile pods on her left wing places the autocannon on it. With a nod she takes a deep breath and transforms into valkyrie mode and follows the alien fighter into the station’s interior.

Charlotte follows the alien gungnir around what appears to be an observation deck and is surprised when her HUD signals two MOTH’s and a helldiver inside of the structure as well as NAC troopers. She signals the NAC troops the location of the James holden, and upon receiving an affirmative she goose the engines.

Pulling back on her flight stick and pushing the accelerator she follows the alien fighter up the interior of the station's massive drum. The alien loops around and begins firing penetrators towards her fighter. Acting quickly she shifts into infantry mode and uses the buildings as cover. The alien fighter shifts from fighter to valkyrie mode as it hovers in the air firing penetrators towards her fleeing form.

Without breaking lateral thrust charlotte takes a cluster from one of her missile racks and primes the grenade before throwing it sidelong towards the hostile gungnir. The lanky fighter julkes to the left to avoid it, but the grenade stops and along its surface hatches slide open. Sensing danger the fighter shifts and retreats from the grenade, as it begins spewing shrapnel towards it.

The alien flies straight down before landing and firing a series of spikes towards the shifting human. Charlotte feels a sharp bang as her HUD tells her that her right arm has been damaged. Looking she sees that her wrist gatling has been destroyed so without a second thought she jettisons the weapon and retrieves the Siafu rifle from her wing.

“Icequeen the Last evacuees are now entering the James Holden, move to cover.” Manitoba flight control reports.

“Affirmative.” she sees the Alien fighter flip and burn towards its ingress point.

“Merde!” charlotte shouts before turning and dumping two of her empty missile racks. She hugs the ground as she follows the alien fighter before scooping up an ammo cylinder from a destroyed Siafu and reloading her scavenged autocannon.

Charlet flicks the transformation switch and her fighter begins to transform out of its valkyrie mode. She places the rifle on the belly mount as the hands begin folding into the arms. The engines now fold back into place and the fighter shoots after the hostile.

======================================================

(Space)

The James Holden retracts its umbilical. As in the stations docking bay four damaged Atlas mechs on auto-Pilot defend the retreating ship as two MOTH’s are thrown by their mechs towards the retreating ship. Once the two Moths are clear the mechs inside the bay set their self destruct codes. Red lines begin drawing themselves along the mechs frames before the entire bay disappears in a massive explosion.

In the distance the three of the four remaining Mars ships begin retreating, the black seed ships acting as a rear guard. The mars ships deploy six squadrons of trident fighters to stall the human’s patterns. The flayed fighter flips and returns fire on the humans fighter, it is intent on killing the human ship, but this ice blue fighter has become a problem. The remaining Mars ship and its seedship escort move in and close on the Manitoba.

“Helm angle on mars 7, charge main gun, fire for effect.”

“Manitoba, this is the Carson we have returned with back up. Sorry we’re late for the party.”

The shot sails straight but misses its target scoring only a glancing hit on bug 4. The seed ship is split in half by the force before it explodes. In the distance the newly arrived SRA ship’s massive main dorsal and ventral guns swivel on their mounts. The two massive gauss cannons arc with electricity before firing with a plume of expanding accelerant gasses.

Tungsten rounds tear chunks out of the big 5 and Mars 7, before the SRA fires its main cannon. There is a flicker of pseudo motion and Mars 7 disappears in a flash. When the light dies down the place where the mars ship had been is now an expanding cloud of gas.

“This is SRA admiral Kim, attention COG, Helghast, and unknown vessels your window is open, make your run. The The Lanky's will feel the might of the Nostromo as you retreat.”

The massive ship marked SRA-375296 SB/BS-002 Nostromo measuring four kilometers long, by five hundred meters high, and four hundred meters wide lets loose with a volley of penetrator missiles and nukes. Along her hull railgun batteries swivel as she begins to close the distance. Each battery is an enclosed structure consisting of three or four “barrels” resembling the turrets of an old world battleship. There are a series of flashes along the ship's hull as its railgun batteries fire.

Railgun rounds begin faster than the missiles slam into the hull of the ship tearing small chunks out of its hull, before the missiles land into the damaged section of the seed ship before detonating. There is a flash of light and the seedship is gone, reduced to its component atoms by the high yield nukes.

“Bogys down.” Admiral Kim reports.

“*Tch* this is scholars blessing, We are *tch* detecting more Lanky ships entering the system, count four Claw *tch* ships.”

“Then that is our cue to leave.”

“All ships begin retreat.”

=========================================================

(Dogfight 3d person)

Across the COG and Prowler fleets two Valkyrie fighters burst out of the station and back into space. The two fighters circle one another in space one following the retreating fleet and the other following the first. Charlotte's body is beginning to feel the strain of constant high G maneuvering, combined with the mental strain of a prolonged dogfight. And ever since the destruction of those three ships this damn fighter had been getting better. The thing now feels like it is being piloted by another human pilot.

The two fighters begin circling the larger ships in the fleet in an attempt to shake the other and use point defence cannons against their opponents. Eventually this ceases begin viable as the two begin to intertwine, spiraling around one another. Mirroring one another's movements as they burst in zig-zagging patterns. One avoiding blue tracer rounds and the other white bone spikes. The flayed gungnir detects a wing of three enemy fighters heading its way, and fires a spread of bio missiles towards charlotte.

[Missile verrouillé, Missile verrouillé]

https://youtu.be/zAc0Nwtbryc

“Merde!” she shouts goosing the engine and spiraling around a piece of errant debris. To her port side one of the Manitoba’s PDC’s targets and destroys the missiles.

‘Missile verrouillé, Missile verrouillé’ The flayed fighter, swivels and targets the three introducing fighters. The entity in control spirals and burns its engines towards the three fighters. Completing its third spiral the flayed fires two missiles towards the intruders.

The first intruder a midnight blue organic looking fighter with green shields is turned to scrap by the first missile. The second an NAC Avenger suffers the same fate as the first, the third intruder an SRA Torkov promptly turns and attempts to flee. But it dies as the flayed fires a salvo of penetrators into its cockpit module. With the threat now gone the flayed turns its sensor bulb back towards its original opponent. The flayed senses the danger and from its firing maws it lets loose a volley of twelve of missiles towards the white and blue Valkyrie.

[Missile verrouillé, Missile verrouillé]

“Pas assez bon!” The blond flipps her fighter to face the fighters while deploying flares and ECM. Charlotte pushes in the thumb selector on the accelerator, before rotating it vertically and flipping the Infantry mode selector. Outside a group of twelve missiles sail passed her following the flairs, before abruptly flipping and lazily running towards her.

Charlotte winces as her acceleration couch pumps her full “The Juce” as well as a cocktail of focusing and adrenal drugs. The thrusters unmount and snap forward passed the cockpit, while the arms begin to swivel into position. Inside the cockpit Charlotte is rotated ninety degrees to a position where will be in the chest of her mech, as the wings fold back like that of an insect.

The siafu auto cannon is jettisoned from belly mount as the clawed hands of the machine unfold from their positions in the forearms. The gun is about to sail passed when the clawed right hand snatches it out of space, as the machine gun hardpoint on the sensor bulb retracts.

Now in infantry mode Charlotte releases the flightstick and takes the second control stick into her right hand. With the missiles nearing the NE pilot depresses the foot pedals prompting her foot thrusters to fire. She is slammed down into the seat as the thrust gravity makes itself known commanding her to yield to its desire.

As she is slammed down by her own body weight at twelve G, her eyes are drawn to the picture she keeps. Smiling at the memory her helmet begins tracking her retinas with a tracking laser as she begins targeting the individual missiles.

On the outside the fighter marked Icequeen begins to violently jink around every axis as it begins using its sensor mounted gun to destroy missiles. Two missiles are promptly destroyed before the fighter swings its legs to the side and uses its rifle to destroy another group of three. Three more from the port side are too destroyed when the fighter “Backflips” over them before shifting into fighter mode. The fighter destroys another missile before bursting relative down and sends a burst towards the flayed fighter and shifting to valkyrie mode and destroying another group of three, with its left wrist gatling.

Catching movement to her relative down she cartwheels her fighter around another missile destroying it with her rifle, before deploying flares as the computer markes a missile at her six o’clock. She rotates and destroys it with her sensor gun, before using all three weapons to destroy the third and final missile.

Icequeen dodges and sweeps her gatling across the hull of a trident fighter. The armor piercing grenades chew through the lanky ships hull and the ship tears itself apart, as she destroys a second fighter with her rifle. The flayed moves in seeing its chance and shifts into infantry mode and attempts to strafe the human with its firing maw.

Looking up Icequeen spins her fighter around backwards and the two valkyries begin circling one another in infantry mode. The Alien closes the distance and fires its right maw sending a slow stream of white bone spikes towards the human. The human dodges most of these but one strikes its leg which begins belching and billowing smoke, signaling an internal fire.

Icequeen deploys flares and extends her wings, as her computer trills its damage report. She releases her two remaining missiles, forcing the alien to dodge. With a smile she is hit once again in the arm the limb exploding off of her fighter, followed by half of her right wing. But now she has her chance, with all remaining power she gooses the engines as far as they will go and shoulder rams the alien fighter as it destroys the second missile, and turns back towards her.

Stunned the alien attempts to reorient itself firing maneuvering thrusters, in an attempt to find its target. Now wide open Charlotte slams the barrel of the siafu autocannon into the sensor bulb of the flayed gungnir, and empties what's left in the magazine. After the twelfth shot the HUD reads empty and she retracts the weapon and shifts her damaged fighter into Valkyrie mode and burns for the distant Manitoba which is currently at maximum safe burn with dropships being exchanged with the James Holden. Behind her the Lanky fighter explodes with a brilliant red explosion.

============================================================

(Charlotte)

I have to bite the bullet and use the net to land my fighter this time as I enter the hangar bay the flight crew are in shield vac suits, with the mesh net and I somewhat gently slam my fighter into it. There is a blur of motion and pain as I am brought to a controlled stop. Behind me the fighter bay door closes and a team of techs swarm my fighter. Six of the NAC’s automated fire suppression units trudge forward and spray my fighter down.

The suppression units resemble what someone would expect a center to look like with a horse like lower body and a humanoid torso. But that is where the similarities end, they are maybe 2.5 meters tall, and possess fire suppression units on one of their arms. The centaur robots finish their task as the hanger is repressurized. The hanger bay door opens and when I attempt to exit the cockpit I am surprised to find that I can't.

Four NAC automated security drones move forward followed by two MOTHs enter in power armor. The six circle my fighter before entering my blind spot and I am meeted with the sound of flechette fire before one of the MOTHs reappears. The MOTH’s faceplate draws a line upward revealing Fally’s smirking face.

“Charl, You had a passenger!” he yells banging on the cockpit hatch. I notice that the hatch is now unlocked and I open it exiting the cockpit. Fally walks over as I take a shaky step and almost fall off of the latter.

I let out a breath and give him an awkward hug as the events of the day come flooding back to me. My arms barely wrap around his bulky power armor, and I can feel the cool metal and of the armor through the thin fabric of the flight suit. A cold hand rests itself on my back as I feel an origin shift back into place.

“What do you mean I had a passenger?”

“Well, if you look over there, you will see Big Dog poking the Siren with his foot, like an asshole.” my friend says making a hand movement towards another MOTH. Said MOTH is beside the port engine and is prodding what I assume is a siren. Half of its body, its torso mainly rests on the deck spreading black blood on the deck, while the rest is connected by a string of something to the port cargo hatch. The MOTH doing the prodding seamlessly gives Fally the finger before one of the automated security drones walks forward and brings its metal foot down on the alien's head with a wet crunch.

“Come on Charl, let's get you to sickbay.” he says before I feel a sharp pain in my arm.

“Sounds like a plan. Where’s Miiora any way?” I drone out as I feel Fally pick me up, followed by the sensation of being carried somewhere.

“Sickbay.” my child hood friend says before I fall asleep.