“This is Samson—I need assistance immediately!”
MFrom her position, clinging to the underside of one of the Superius’ curved wings, Marissa had a near-perfect view of the battle. She swept her eyes over the ship’s hull and tried to pick out the fleeting shapes of the fighters soaring above it. There—a small form, its red-white colours barely recognizable from this distance, pursued by a larger green ship. Samson twisted out of the way of a rocket, but the Zulkar vessel followed him as if they were tethered together. Their course would take them not too far away from Marissa. She adjusted her hold on the wing, resting a hand on the grappling device on her hip. The two were moving quickly, but this shouldn’t be too hard if she led her shot a little.
Samson had become more distinct, his wings gleaming in the sunlight. Marissa fired the hook during the single moment she could look him in the visor before he shot past. The hook sailed out half a second after, rising and falling in an arc towards the empty space. In another half-second, the pursuing fighter filled that space, and the hook seized on its wing.
The grapple fed out the tether as the fighter continued on, oblivious. Marissa released her claw, and her entire body was jerked at once and pulled in the ship’s wake. She reeled herself in, using her suit’s thrusters to steer away from the fighter’s exhaust, then secured herself to the underside of the vessel.
She had to work quickly; the pilot was bound to notice the extra weight and try to throw her off. Situations like this were what Valk suits were made for, Barnes had told her, to use the dexterity of the human form to move in ways a ship couldn’t. Mid-air sabotage was one application. The most direct, brutal thing to do would be to climb up onto the cockpit, smash it open, and chuck the pilot out. Marissa had another idea.
She let the tether extend, keeping herself roughly centred below the fighter as she lowered herself down. Five feet sounded like a minimum safe distance to her, and once she’d reached it, she fired a couple of explosive rounds into the back of the fighter, where the engine was concealed. The tail end of the ship erupted into flames and the whole vessel began to wobble, thrown off balance by the explosion, and Marissa took that as her cue to disengage. She released the hook, dropped a few meters, then swooped back up and circled around to watch the fighter careen off-course. It spun into a nosedive, and a small shape ejected from the cockpit. Samson circled back around to fly beside her.
“Thanks. You’re taking to this pretty quickly,” he said, puffing into his communicator.
“Not really—I’m just winging it. You shouldn’t let yourself get caught alone like that. Where are the others?”
“Dealing with that damn cannon.” Samson nearly spat out the last word. “I was trying to keep the enemy off them while they worked. There’s a lot of resistance around that point—with both cannons gone, Corda’s ships can move in and demolish what’s left.”
Good. No, great. They were winning—they were actually winning! Even with Corda’s fleet, even with her own groundless bravado, she’d had doubts. But if Samson wasn’t overstating things, victory was within their grasp.
She adjusted her communicator to speak to all the Valk pilots. “This is Rhapsody. I’ve got Samson with me and we’re coming to help with that cannon.”
“About time,” Deltis grumbled. “We collapsed the barrel on the last one, but we’re running low on explosives. Try and think of how to plug it on your way. Where’s Black?”
Marissa hadn’t seen him in a while, come to think of it. “I think he went to help out Corda’s fighters.” With his rotary cannon, it definitely couldn’t hurt.
Another voice cut in—Orson, who had been quiet for most of the battle. “I’m over on the far side of the cannon, and there’s some sort of service hatch here. Looks like it’s opening up. I’m gonna take a look—we don’t need any more surprises.”
There was a long pause between communications, then a sudden burst of static.
“Orson, you still there?” Deltis asked. “Orson, I said—Rhapsody, Samson, I need you here now!”
That didn’t sound good. Samson shared her worry, judging by the short breaths coming in from his end. He fired his thrusters at full force, and Marissa was close behind him. They swooped beneath the belly of the Superius, steering clear of its massive heat-spewing thrusters, and rose up along its other side. Marissa frantically looked for Deltis and Orson, flying slowly towards the cannon. Samson had thrown caution to the wind and rocketed ahead.
As Marissa crested the dome-shaped base of the cannon, she felt her entire body clench. A hulking shape clung to the hull, with a broad, almost spherical upper body tapering into short legs with flat, circular feet, which rested awkwardly on the slope of the ship. Thick, bulbous arms sprouted from its body, both ending in a three-pronged steel claw. One gripped the hull, holding the Hammerfist in place, and the other clutched a limp shape.
Samson shouted incoherently, startling Marissa. As she came closer, though, and details sprang out at her, she felt a similar sound building in the back of her throat. The shape was a Valk suit, its chest plate crushed by the Hammerfist’s tremendous grip. The suit’s limbs were twisted like a contortionist’s nightmare, presenting angles Marissa had never wanted to see. The worst was the helmet, almost entirely intact, save for a crack in one lens where a trail of red leaked through.
“Wh-who?” was the best Marissa could manage.
Another Valk flew into her field of vision and fired a round into the Hammerfist’s shoulder. The giant was over twice the size of a Valk suit, and didn’t seem to notice the impact. Its dome-shaped head, almost comically small compared to the rest of its bulky body, swivelled a full one-hundred eighty degrees to face its attacker. A panel on its back flipped open and a salvo of rockets flew into the air, zigzagging towards the Valk. The attacker broke off the assault and flew low to avoid the rockets, which flew far into the distance before their fuel ran dry and they fell.
Marissa tried the communicator again. “Hey, uh, status report?”
It was Deltis who answered, her voice ragged. “Orson, he—I didn’t even see it happen. By the time I got here, it was too late.”
Marissa didn’t know how to reply to that; words had just stopped coming. She hadn’t known Orson well. He’d been on many of the practice flights with the other pilots, and they’d probably spoken to each other, but she couldn’t recall anything substantial. It still hurt to hear the reactions of the other pilots though, and she was already thinking of turning that Hammerfist into scrap.
Samson opened fire, peppering the Hammerfist with small explosions. The giant’s balance wavered from the onslaught, feet shifting for purchase. It released Orson’s body, letting it slip between the steel claws and tumble into the sky below. Marissa fought the temptation to dive after it; he was dead, no question, and she would only be putting herself at risk by trying to catch and support the weight of another Valk suit. Samson kept going, flying head-on towards the Hammerfist. He fired non-stop, but the shots had next to no effect, other than marking the silver giant’s body with black scorches. Deltis spoke quickly, telling Samson to pull away before he crashed, but he continued without deviating. The Hammerfist lifted its free arm and pointed it towards Samson. A barrel stuck out beneath the claws, not unlike the gun attachments the Valks had. Marissa made her own warning call, and that seemed to break through Samson’s enraged haze. He turned at a sharp angle, but the Hammerfist was already firing. Extra-large needle rounds sprayed into the air, clipping one of the Valk’s wings and sending it into a spin. Then the Hammerfist reached out almost casually, catching Samson in its claws as he careened by.
Marissa pushed her thrusters to full force. She had to close the distance and distract the Hammerfist pilot long enough to figure out a plan. She didn’t have an infinite supply of explosive rounds, but she fired a few to grab the pilot’s attention.
The dome-head swivelled to face her, seeming to pause for breath, or perhaps just registering the sight of another Valk flying towards him. Then it suddenly slammed Samson into the ship once, twice, three times. Each hit was quick but powerful, and Marissa could almost feel their impact herself. Samson didn’t even have a chance to speak; the communicator exploded into static on the first strike, then died completely on the third. The Hammerfist lifted the broken body one last time and threw it aside, destined to join Orson on the plateaus below.
Deltis let out a scream, but it was cut short. Suddenly lacking purpose, Marissa slowed and looked for the other pilot. She found Deltis flying low and saw her latch onto the Superius’ hull in the shadow of the cannon, beating her fists against metal. Marissa knew how she was feeling, but they had to be strong.
“Deltis, we need a plan,” Marissa said, but Deltis didn’t respond. “Deltis?”
“She can’t hear you, I’m afraid,” a new voice responded. “I want this to be between you and I—one god to another.”
“Where are you, Shodus?” Marissa asked, sneering beneath her helmet.
Shodus chuckled—an ugly snake-like sound. “Come now, Rhapsody, you must be smarter than that. I’m right here—look, I’m waving.” The Hammerfist’s free arm moved mechanically from side to side.
Marissa pulled away from the machine and flew in a wide arc around it. She began checking frequencies, but the communicator refused to switch from the current settings. “How are you doing this? Why can’t I hear anyone else?”
“Because I willed it,” Shodus replied, his smugness seeming to seep over the airwaves and directly into her ear. “If you want details, I’ve isolated your communicator remotely and tuned us both to the same frequency. It’s quite simple, if you know how.”
“Well why don’t you do me a favour and isolate yourself?” It was a weak insult, but she had never been able to find a balance between wit and growing outrage. “I have no reason to talk to you, murderer.”
Shodus laughed. “I couldn’t care less what you want. It’s my hudriss that awaits, and it cannot be stopped. I will crush you here and prove that I am truly a god.”
Where did he get this shit? He wasn’t just talking nonsense; it sounded like madness. “You’re losing, Shodus. Half your arsenal’s gone, your fighters are just a nuisance, and our ships are closing in. One Hammerfist isn’t going to change the course of the battle. Give up. I don’t want anything to do with your godhood or whatever.”
Without warning, thrusters in the Hammerfist’s legs and back flared to life, propelling the behemoth into the air, and it came at Marissa like a cannon ball. Marissa flattened her arms against her sides, her own thrusters carrying her out of the way just in time. The Hammerfist carried on, moving into a slow turn back towards her. If it hadn’t been for that difference of speed, she’d have been joining Orson and Samson.
“As I said, I don’t care what you want,” Shodus hissed. “As for the battle, it doesn’t matter. All this—the ship, the research—all of it is just trappings, decoration, unnecessary. Mere mortals cannot stop my ascension. Only another god can interfere with my hudriss, which is why I must kill you. Only we two truly matter.”
Marissa angled her wings and boosted backwards, trying to keep some distance between her and Shodus. “That’s bullshit. Your massive ego isn’t going to turn this battle around, and I’m no god.”
The Hammerfist stretched out its arm and unleashed a burst of needles. Marissa swerved to avoid it, but needles on the outer edge of the volley hammered into her leg. Most bounced off, but a few dug into the thinner parts of her armour. None of them pierced flesh, but she still cringed from the impact. She was knocked off course and narrowly avoided crashing into the side of the Superius. As she gathered her bearings, a shadow fell over her. She looked up and found Shodus flying down towards her, claws extended. She veered to the side, and Shodus struck the hull, leaving a pair of three-pronged dents.
“It’s funny how fate brought us together,” Shodus yammered. “I thought nothing of you at first. You were just another escaped slave, wife to the true object of my hatred. He represented everything wrong with your Kinship’s precious democracy, an upset to the natural order. Before I began making my plans, I watched his broadcasts, idly dreaming of ways I could destroy him. But through him, I discovered you, and I saw your strength, and it was all too familiar. I’ve seen many of your fights—you hold yourself back, I can tell, and I used to do the same. Knowing what I did about my own origins, I had to conclude that you were the same.”
“Is that why you kidnapped Arc? To get to me?” Marissa dove beneath the cannon’s barrel for cover as Shodus fired more needles.
“I captured him so I could put him in his place, and create a suitable target for the Alliance’s suspicion,” Shodus replied. “I didn’t think anyone would be able to find me. That you did proves that the hand of destiny has pushed us together.”
It was at that point that Marissa realized it was futile to try and reason with him. Shodus was fixed on this delusion, and nothing she could say would fix that. She trained her gun on the Hammerfist as it lowered into sight, finger on the trigger. Maybe this was better; after all her bluster about kicking his ass, having Shodus surrender would’ve been a little embarrassing. She aimed for the joint connecting the left arm to its shoulder and opened fire.
The round hit and exploded, warping the plating around the joint, but left no real damage. Shodus raised the arm and returned fire. Marissa kept flying, trying to keep a minimum of ten feet between them. The Hammerfist bore down on her, claws open to grab her as Shodus screeched taunts over the communicator.
An explosion struck the Hammer’s leg, and it spun off course for a brief second. Another round hit the torso, just as Marissa spied Deltis flying to her aid. They waved to each other; hopefully Deltis had grasped that they couldn’t communicate.
Shodus turned his fire on Deltis, which took the pressure off Marissa. She took the chance to unload a few more rounds into the heavy machine, hitting around the elbow joints. Again, the armour absorbed most of the blasts, leaving the Hammer charred but mobile. Deltis fell back to find cover under the onslaught of Shodus’ firepower, allowing him to resume his pursuit of Marissa.
She flew high, out from under the cannon, and turned to watch Shodus’ ascent after her. An idea began percolating in the back of her mind: she was his target above all else. He only attacked Deltis and the others because they got in his way, not because he was actively trying to stop them.
“You like to run, don’t you?” Shodus taunted. “Come and fight me, Rhapsody! This cowardice is unbefitting a warrior!”
The panel on his back slid away and a swarm of small rockets fired ahead of the Hammer. With their zigzagging flight path, Marissa found herself disoriented, unsure of which way to fly. The rockets would spread out further the more they climbed, so she had to move quickly. She picked a direction and flew, away from the Superius. The first few rounds missed her, but she didn’t have to worry about the rest. A hail of bullets fired into their midst, hitting enough to cause a chain reaction that caused the whole swarm to go up like a fireworks display. Another Valk suit flew up beside her, toting a rotary cannon.
Marissa waved to Black, then pointed to the side of her helmet in an attempt to convey her predicament. He gave her a thumbs-up, and she hoped that meant he understood. This was followed by a frantic shaking of his hand, a sort of pushing motion that Marissa didn’t grasp until she saw the Hammerfist in the corner of her visor. They split, veering off in opposite directions to avoid the speeding giant, then regrouped behind it. Marissa raised her gun arm, and saw that Shodus had left the panel to his rocket launcher open, right in her crosshairs. Three quick shots crumpled the launch tubes into twisted shapes, and small tongues of flame licked the air from the Hammer’s back.
Shodus roared over the communicator. “Keep your friends out of this, Rhapsody! This is between you and me.”
You and me. As much as she appreciated Black’s help, Shodus might have a point, although not for the reasons he thought. She motioned Black to follow her, and they dove together, avoiding an arc of needles Shodus fired as he spun around to face them. They flew alongside the Superius, following the long barrel of the cannon until they found Deltis hanging from the underside, recuperating. They landed beside her; it would take the Hammerfist a little longer to catch up, and Marissa needed that time to share her plan with the others.
She got the sense that Deltis and Black were talking, but all she heard on her end was silence, punctuated by Shodus’ shouts of frustration. She moved her hand to grab her comrades’ attention, then pointed to each of them, then at the cannon. Black gave a very slow nod, probably not sure of what she was getting at; of course they had to destroy the cannon. Marissa touched her fist to her chest, then pointed in the direction Shodus would be appearing from at any moment. Black shook his head, signing that all three of them should fight Shodus. Marissa sighed, then pointed further out, where Corda’s ships were still taking fire from the Superius. The cannon would be ready to fire any minute now, and every second they wasted made their forces weaker. She didn’t know if they got any of that, but she hoped that at least Black was smart enough to piece it together.
The two pilots were still for a moment, probably discussing their chances of victory without the pirate vessels. If she could speak to them, she would have given the answer: they would have none. She hated to say something was hopeless, but victory rested on Corda’s fleet. There hadn’t been a plan until the pirates had joined them.
Black nodded at last, with more conviction than before. Deltis gave her a thumbs-up, which Marissa returned. Shodus was getting his one-on-one. Marissa gave both of them one last nod, then dropped into the sky.
Shodus came flying in on her left almost immediately. Marissa turned towards him, then narrowly veered away before she was in reach. She needed to distract him, get him angry, and buy the other two time. Shodus might say he didn’t care about the battle, but he’d probably change his mind when he saw the others taking apart his cannon.
“Why all the fancy fleeing?” Shodus hollered. “Where’s that anger and bravado I saw before? You remember—when I killed that sad excuse for a mercenary and you charged me with your spear? I want to see that again.”
Marissa gritted her teeth; he wasn’t going to get to her. She flew in a weaving pattern to avoid Shodus’ shots, leading him away from the Superius and into the open air. If she was lucky, some of Corda’s fighters might spot the Hammerfist and shoot it out of the sky. Or he might catch up and tear her wings off.
“Why did you even come back?” Shodus asked, his own trajectory an unwavering straight shot in her direction. “You don’t really care about any of this, do you? Politics and wars—you think you’re above all this. The rest of the galaxy can burn, so long as you get to show off in the arena.”
“That’s not true!” Marissa snapped back. “It’s you Imperials who think you’re above everyone else. You just take whatever you want because you think you were born special, and you step on anyone who doesn’t agree with you. You think you’re entitled to the galaxy? You think you can just claim ownership of people you take from their homes or drag off the street?”
Shodus chuckled lightly. “Ah, that is what this is about. What did you think of my brand? You should have heard him scream when I pressed it to his skin. Like some mewling little animal.”
“Shut up!” Marissa yelled. They’d gone past the thick of the battle, leaving them with a mostly clear sky.
“You hate that, don’t you?” Shodus asked. “I tried to take your pet from you. That’s what he is deep down, a—what do you call them? Ah, yes, a dog.”
Marissa wheeled around and charged the Hammerfist, flying towards a head-on collision. She met with another spray of needles, which struck all across her suit, but she kept her head down and soldiered through it. A second later, though, she felt a very noticeable shift in her weight. She glanced back and almost cried out; her right wing had taken a beating, punctured in multiple places. Worse, the thrusters on that side had been totalled, spewing smoke and nothing else. She felt herself dropping.
But Shodus was still charging, and Marissa pushed aside her panic and set the thrusters that still worked to full power. She lifted her claw arm into position, waited until they were only a few meters apart, then cut power to her thrusters.
She slammed into the front of the Hammerfist at an astonishing speed, knocking the wind out of her as a sharp pain shot through her upper body. She worked through it, digging her claw into the Hammer’s smooth surface and bringing her head to face the giant’s dome.
“I told Arc I was going to smack that smug look off your face,” she said, her voice cold in her own ears. “This will have to do.”
She pressed her gun’s barrel against the dome and fired her last round. The force of the explosion nearly knocked her off, but the claw held strong. When the smoke cleared, the Hammer’s head was demolished, leaving a crater of charred circuitry. The Hammerfist wasn’t built like the Valk; Shodus was piloting from the centre of the spherical body, so while losing the head didn’t harm him physically, he’d been robbed of his optical feed to the outside world. He was effectively blind.
“You upstart slave!” Shodus hissed. The steel claws moved in, but Marissa was already scrambling up onto the slope of the Hammer’s back, just between the shoulders. The claws slashed at where she’d been, gouging into the Hammer’s armour, and Shodus let out another roar of frustration.
A thundering explosion rang through the air, and Marissa turned her head. The Superius’ remaining cannon was ablaze, one side of its barrel burst open. It looked like Black and Deltis had done their job in jamming up the cannon, but it had fired anyway, destroying it from the inside. Corda’s battleships moved in, firing on the enemy’s vital points. The battle had been won; the rest was just a formality.
The Hammer’s arms swivelled in their sockets, suddenly facing backwards and putting Marissa back within reach. She dropped down, seizing hold of a thick but short leg as the claws struck like a pair of vipers. One landed square in one of the Hammerfist’s own thrusters, destroying it utterly. It all happened in a matter of seconds; deprived of one of its main jets, the Hammer began to tip from its own weight. Shodus pushed the remaining thrusters, but without the extra boost and no sight to orient himself with, the Hammer went into a spin, going down.
They were falling, both of them, and Marissa had no way to escape. The plateau spun beneath them, making her stomach turn. She crawled slowly upward, fighting the building g-forces, and moved back between the Hammer’s shoulders. The Hammer’s remaining thrusters began firing in controlled bursts, slowing their spin to a manageable speed, then turning them both upright. Shodus was surprisingly quiet through this—possibly the threat of imminent death had finally shut him up. The thrusters fired all at once again, struggling to slow their descent. The ground came closer, and in Marissa’s semi-panicked state, it looked as if the ground directly below was rising to greet the two of them. They weren’t slowing down enough; if they hit at this speed, they’d both be pancaked.
She made sure her claw was secured, then dug her free hand into one of the gashes in the Hammer’s armour. Her thrusters fired, and she prayed to an unspecified god that the Hammer didn’t flip over and land on top of her. The force of the rushing air slackened slightly, but she didn’t know if even this was enough.
Then they hit, so suddenly that Marissa lost her grip. She was flung from the Hammer’s back, tossed through the air before she hit the ground hard. An excruciating pain shot through her left arm, and then the rest of her body, then all was black.