Ono remained inverted inside of the StarForger with her eyes closed. That was some crash she had just survived. She felt gobs of liquid saturating her head up to her eyebrows. She opened her eyes. Her helmet had been filling with her blood. The crash had crushed the StarForger all around her. Under normal circumstances this would have frightened her—but Theriac and the AccuHomi’s potency had eradicated that weakness from her mind. Even the near severing of her neck wouldn’t be enough to keep her from heeding the cull.
She attempted to turn the fighter back on, but it simply sputtered and sparked. She scoffed. She would have to be extra careful now. The Yellow Rover would be her only ticket to space travel from here on out. She detached her harness and fell head first onto the damaged canopy. It had held up pretty well from what she could see.
She groused—repositioning herself inside the constricted space. She took a brief respite to allow her blood to coalesce back into her body and thus heal her multiple wounds. She began kicking the canopy over and over again in an attempt to loosen it. A part of the canopy broke off. She slithered her way out and rose to her feet.
Ono removed her helmet and looked back. There was a pool of her pinkish blood still inside. She rubbed her free gloved hand across her face and looked at it. It was covered in her blood. She chuckled. A lesser person would have died a few moments ago. But not Ono—she had been galvanized by the AccuHomi. This was the most powerful she had ever felt in her entire life. She looked around the cavernous space. The loading bay was void save for the last remaining drone.
Do it Contessa. End the suffering.
Theriac was still guiding her consciousness. She nodded.
“Yes, I shall.”
She checked her hip with her free hand and noticed that one of the sidearms had become untethered. She looked back inside the StarForger and saw it amongst the wreckage. She reached inside and grabbed it. She held the sidearm up and smiled. Kalayjian, Moore and Komatsu had displayed quite a bit of elusiveness thus far, but now there was nowhere left for them to run. Their souls were going to be assimilated and she was going to enjoy every minute of it.
She began walking towards the corridor exit when all of a sudden, the Yellow Rover made a sharp course correction, sending her flying towards a side bulkhead. She crashed into the secured metallic rods and fell to the floor, dropping both her helmet and the untethered sidearm.
⧖
Kalayjian was thrown to the floor for the second time by Moore’s erratic navigation. He struggled back to his feet to see that they were now headed straight for the unknown pink planet. Its’ radiance was altering the color of the mission control.
“Jesus Christ. What the hell do you think you’re doing, Delly?”
“What does it look like?” I’m going to this planet.”
He made his way back towards the front with his sidearm in hand. He looked over her shoulder and noticed that she had deactivated the autopilot.
“At this rate, we’ll never make it to the other one. We just can’t afford to have a battle with Tess in here while we’re still in space. These controls get damaged and you can kiss our asses goodbye.” She said.
“Shit.”
He rubbed his forehead. Moore had made a compelling argument. Their options were pretty limited and slimming with each passing second.
“Ugh, okay. Just try to keep it steady.”
“I’ll do my best. In the meantime, you might wanna think about putting your helmet back on. Lord only knows how bad the atmospheric pressure is about to be.”
“You read my mind.”
Kalayjian made his way back to the command post. He grabbed his helmet and secured it to his spacesuit. He tapped his telecommunicator and activated the channel to Roko.
“Roko. You okay in there?”
“Yeah, what the hell just happened?”
“Oh, just a little improvisation by our lovely, green-eyed pilot over here, you know how it goes. Standby soldier.”
“Yes sir.”