The Helios-Two Dropship hardly slowed down as it neared the Starkiller, using the momentum to quickly spin and head for the landing pad across the top of the carrier. Xaleyp’s CAM lit up the invisible laser fire as it streaked past them—missing the dropship by meters at some points—and slammed into the shields of the carrier. As the hangar lift door closed, a missile erupted against the shields of the Starkiller a few dozens meters away, a blue shimmer rippling out from it as the impact was dispersed over the surface.

As the lift reached the bottom of its shaft, the door opened and a drone latched onto the front of the transport pulling it forward and out towards the main hangar. Ardus disengaged his straps and stood, moving to the door and opening it as the dropship continued moving towards its designated bay. A frenzy of activity met them as shouts rang out from technicians and pilots rushing across the smooth metal floor, heading for different fighters and bombers to meet the Hyperion threat.

‟Feel like getting back in the pilot’s seat and right into the thick of things, Xaleyp?” Ardus asked, a slight smile on his face.

‟I thought you’d never ask,” Xaleyp said, unlocking his own seat and rushing to the door. Ardus tossed a laser assault rifle to him, which he barely caught with his one good hand.

‟Make sure you get one of the flight suits before you leave,” Ardus said, placing his hand on Xaleyp’s shoulder. ‟You never know what you might need.”

Just before he jumped out, Eve stood and called out to him, drawing his attention. She ran the couple meters to him with a determined look in her eyes.

‟You’re going to need some help out there, and someone needs to make sure you don’t do anything stupid or get yourself killed.”

With a smile on his face and saying nothing, Ardus walked over with another rifle and handed it to her. Xaleyp started to argue, to try to tell her that it would be safer inside the Starkiller, but he knew it would do no good. He nodded to her, and they jumped off the moving transport together, taking off at a run towards a pair of the Nova starfighters being prepared by technicians. A medic met Xaleyp before he had a chance to get into the ship, wrapping a thick bandage around his injured hand as Eve donned her flightsuit in a small machine and climbed into her starfighter.

Around the hangar, other starfighters and bombers were being cleared to leave, their engines roaring as they primed and launched from the other side of the bay doors. He was almost dancing as he hopped from foot to foot, silently hoping that the man would hurry up and finish covering his hand as Eve’s engines whined loudly with their ignition. She smiled and waved from the cockpit, her Nova slowly crawling its way forward to get in position for takeoff when the medic finally nodded and let him go.

Xaleyp stepped into the machine, which pressed into him to fit the flightsuit to every curve of his body. Once it released him, he took the ladder several rungs at a time leading up to the cockpit, tossing the rifle in the backseat, throwing himself in, and pressing the ignition to start the starfighter and close the cockpit glass. He felt the gentle purr of the engine vibration run through his body, and the soft, plush seat almost enveloped him in its embrace. With a sudden feeling of peace, he felt as if he made his way home after being away for years.

A jolt went through his body as the starfighter began working its way to follow in Eve’s trail, coming to a rest in the launch bay next to hers. She looked at him, her head now fully covered by the helmet, and gave him a thumbs up as he put on his own. A voice came through his CAM, verifying that the he was ready for take off, as the doors opened in front of him and revealed the familiar launching tunnel. The pair of starfighters moved into it, and the voice gave him clearance to prime his engines. Xaleyp moved the throttle forward, feeling the purr crescendo to a roar as the vibrations went up and down his entire body, sending a chill down his spine.

Before he knew it, the doors at the far end opened, and the starfighters streaked out, bursting free into the wild, open expanse of space. His Nova responded to each of his thoughts, curving as it exited the tunnel and heading for the nearest frigate a few dozen kilometers away. Eve fell into formation behind and to the side of him before he could even give a command, following in his wake.

Swarming the frigates were dozens of ships—some were fighters chasing down one another in fierce dogfights and others were bombers attempting to unleash their deadly payloads. Each of the large ships bore the Hyperion symbol of a ‘Y’ with triangles at each side of the intersection. The grid in the corner of his vision filled with dozens, if not hundreds, of the dots, mostly red—especially the large icons for the frigates—with some blue interspersed.

Over the closest frigate were some fires breaking out from breaches in the hull, and it seemed to list to one side. Xaleyp steered his Nova towards it with a thought, subconsciously dodging the barrage of bullets the turrets sent towards him with the help of his CAM. A few times his shields lit up with an impact, and he pushed the warnings away, silently cursing himself.

Eve’s voice said through the CAM as she broke off to head in their direction.

He fired off a salvo of missiles at the frigate at random, hoping for but not expecting them to actually do any damage. The starfighter swung in Eve’s direction, and he saw the group just as she charged into them at high speed, causing them to scatter in different directions. Xaleyp quickly spun his Nova in a barrel roll as one of them fired a volley of lasers at him, and he answered it with a few of the disc-like missiles. The projectiles whizzed through space, impacting the side of the fighter before the pilot had a chance to avoid them, and it disappeared with a flash, leaving nothing but a small cloud of debris in its place.

When he turned to catch the other two, he found that they were already gone, destroyed by Eve before he even had a chance to engage them.

Eve said, and he could see her smile through the CAM message. As she sent the message, another came through from Ardus Kaine, marked as high priority.

As Ardus said the word, a dashed circle surrounded the frigate in question, which also conveniently had the most fighters swarming around it in relentless contest. With a thought, his Nova spun in the direction of the frigate, and his vision seemed to blur as he realized how close he was to capturing the man who hid his parents from him for eight years. Eve followed closely behind him, but not before sending a message warning him to be careful.

Xaleyp said as he pushed his Nova harder, dodging and weaving through the missile fire being exchange between the two fleets.

An explosion erupted beside him, causing him to jump from the suddenness, and he looked just in time to see some of the floating debris vaporized against his shields. A quick query on his CAM told him an enemy fighter had been just meters away from him before blowing up.

The sass was evident in her voice, even over the virtual CAM message, though there was an underlying seriousness to it.

Xaleyp said nothing, but he felt his face turning red, and every beat of his heart felt painfully conspicuous in the silence. Instead of words, he simply sent her some glyph of an image answering in the affirmative, which seemed to be good enough for her. Her Nova streaked up alongside him, and she gave him a wave before screaming forward in a spiral and unleashing a barrage of missiles towards the frigate. Xaleyp watched his grid and saw just in time as two Hyperion fighters attempted to circle around. He fired his retroburners, coming to almost a complete stop as he brought the nose of his fighter up in a tight spin to turn around and let loose one of the small discs at each. They both erupted with a burst of flames, their momentum carrying the debris hundreds of meters forward and scattering as gravity took hold.

Confident there was no lingering threat—in the immediate vicinity, at the very least—he spun back around, dodging more turret and missile fire to rejoin Eve as she launched missile after missile into the hangar doors before finally they burst open. The metal cracked into two large chunks with many smaller pieces around it, and the sudden loss of pressure ripped out scores of unsuspecting pilots and technicians—as well as much of the equipment that had not been bolted down—leaving them to float aimlessly through space.

Together, they pushed their Novas forward, flying almost full speed into the hangar as the blast doors to close off the depressurized area began to slide shut. Eve was slightly ahead of him, soaring smoothly through the opening, but Xaleyp felt the door clip the back of his starfighter, sending him careening towards the wall and barely recovering in time to gouge the left wing against the metal side. It dug in, part of the Nova breaking off under the stress of the impact and tearing a deep gash through the wall. In front of him, dozens of crates hit the front and cockpit, some leaving cracks in the glass with the force and others just bouncing harmlessly off in the zero gravity.

With blood roaring in his ears, he fired his retros again, slowing down and spinning in place as he sought any place to land in the still crowded hangar. Half a dozen fighters and transports still remained—though they were knocked askew from the sudden change in pressure—as well as many crates, some stacked and others lying in piles or rotating slowly in midair. A few bodies hung carelessly in the hangar, looks of shock covering their faces. Catwalks ran along the outside walls, and the fasteners keeping them attached began to fail with the force of the loss of air, leaving them hanging crooked and at odd angles.

Eve found a clear spot first, putting down the Nova gently among a sea of wreckage. His starfighter limped lazily to one side, hovering sickly through the air with one wing completely destroyed. Somehow, he managed to squeeze his in just next to hers as she was getting out, though some of the crates were knocked aside, floating in the zero gravity. She floated briefly before activating the magnetic soles of her flightsuit and firmly latched onto the metal of the starfighter. Xaleyp powered down his own, and the glass of the cockpit hissed open, allowing him to stand, grab the assault rifle in the backseat, and join her on the Nova as he threw the strap of the weapon over his head. It was an odd sensation of walking with magnetic feet, each step taking feeling as if he were walking through waist high water.

At either end of the hangar to his left and right were large doors, and a lift directly ahead and opposite the entry allowed access to the different levels of the bay. The shiny metal floor of the hangar showed the reflections of everything else, acting as a sort of mirror. In the corners of the room was thin white clouds of vapor as the room was slowly repressurized. Xaleyp looked to Eve to see if she had any idea where to go when a message came through from Ardus to both of them.

His voice sounded as if he were reading off a script, which was very possible.

Xaleyp didn’t answer, and instead gestured to Eve to follow him as he carefully stepped down off the Nova and plodded across the room to the hangar door. With each step, his movements grew heavier and more distinct as the room continued to be filled with air until it was finally how it started, and the crates and bodies fell to the ground with clanks and thuds. He stumbled with the sudden return of gravity, and, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Eve stagger with a similar misstep.

As they looked at each other, an echoing whir filled the hangar, seeming to emanate from the walls. Ahead of them, the door Ardus guided them to was slowly grinding open—the middle splitting diagonally and each half disappearing into the corners—revealing the bright interior hallway beyond. Xaleyp and Eve did nothing but stare as a dozen Hyperion soldiers stormed into the room, their helmets resembling gas masks with piercing red eyes easily visible. They took up defensive positions just inside the hangar, some hiding behind crates and other simply kneeling on the ground but each aiming their assault rifles at the pair of them. Walking slowly and purposefully towards them with his hands clasped behind his back, each stride resonating loudly on the smooth metal floor, was Seth Drake, his tarnished white mask luminous in the light.