As if in slow motion, Seth brought the gun down to aim at Xaleyp, but, before firing, turned to Eve and directed the barrel in her direction. Xaleyp’s heart leapt to his throat as he realized what was about to happen, and he brought his rifle up and fired off two shots before his CAM even had time to properly mark any targets. Three gunshots echoed in the hangar in quick succession, and Seth screamed in pain and released the pistol, letting the gun clatter to the ground with a bang. One finger was missing where a laser tore through it, and the middle of his palm had a gaping hole that oozed blood with each beat of his heart. The one shot Seth was able to get off ricocheted off the ground directly next to Eve’s foot, bouncing into the side of Eve’s Nova, where it embedded itself into the metal plating.

Eve flinched at the sudden gunfire, especially the one closest to her, before she ducked to the side and hid behind a crate. Xaleyp followed suit, throwing himself to the ground and crawling to the nearest crate before sitting up with his back against, breathing hard. Volleys of bullets impacted around both of them, riddling the ground with the pockmarks left by the impact of metal on metal. Shouts erupted from the Hyperions as they moved into formation, slowly escorting their Emperor towards the door and leaving droplets of blood in a trail behind him.

Xaleyp peaked from around the corner of the crate and allowed his CAM to assist in firing off half a dozen more shots, the lasers arcing through the air and tearing through three Hyperions while the other three beams struck the wall. Eve followed suit, though her volley was more concentrated and precise, lancing two of the soldiers with just two shots.

Max continued standing in the middle of the fray, dodging around the different bullets and lasers with inhuman speed. The sword seemed to allow him to become something of a blur, moving faster than should have been possible. Each of Xaleyp’s shots seemed to be in the spot Max was less than a second prior, never being able to pin him down. With determined downward swings, he brought the sword in swift arcs, sending gouts of flame towards both Xaleyp and Eve, and they had to quickly duck behind the crate again before it singed them or worse.

Another rumbling ran through the ship, causing some crates to tip and fall onto the ground with a raucous clatter, followed by a creaking emanating from somewhere in the vessel. The hangar door closed shut with a whir and slam before the Hyperions made it out, cutting off their only escape route. One of the crates fell directly towards Max, but his arm brought the sword in a brilliant flash to meet it, slicing through and cutting it in clean half. The ammunition inside spilled to the ground, clattering as it went, and the crate crashed with a resounding bang.

Xaleyp took the moment to aim once more at Max, and he took deep, slow breaths as time seemed to slow just as he pressed the trigger. The laser arced through the air towards the man, who was still staring in the direction the crate came from. When he eventually turned and tried to dodge out of the way of the bolt, it was already too late. The millisecond he had to dodge the laser allowed him to turn his body in his attempt to avoid it, but it only served to lesson the impact as it ripped through his arm, slicing the tendons and forcing him to drop the Sword of Razeph. If he could just get the sword away from Max, it would all be over.

Only two Hyperions were still firing at Eve and Xaleyp with half a dozen crowding around the Emperor and carefully making their way around the room in a wide circle towards one of the ships. The rest lay on the ground unmoving, either dead or too injured to continue fighting. In the moments before Max began reaching for the sword, Xaleyp looked to Eve, his eyes asking an unspoken question. With a sort of silent agreement, she nodded before standing and firing a barrage of lasers towards the standing Hyperions.

He popped out from around the crate and charged forward, releasing the assault rifle and letting it hang from the strap and bounce at his side. His arms and legs pumped with each movement as he pushed himself to reach the blade before Max recovered. Bullets pinged off the floor and whizzed by his ears as the Hyperions fired from behind their cover, trying to stop his reckless charge. It did no good, however, as Eve’s distraction allowed him to reach Maxwell, leading with his shoulder and crashing into him at full speed and knocking them both to the ground.

Xaleyp, though somewhat dazed, recovered first this time, kneeling on Max’s chest and drilling him in the abdomen with his fist before bringing the assault rifle up and slamming it into the underside of his head, knocking him unconscious. The cracking of bones resonated in the area under the impact, leaving a palpable silence for a moment, which he used to aim the rifle towards the fleeing Hyperions and firing off a slew of lasers. They mostly missed, lashing into the metal walls at the opposite end of the hangar, but a few struck, tearing through skin and muscle and slowing their escape.

He looked to his right and saw the two Hyperion soldiers that had been firing at him were on the ground nursing their wounds inflicted by Eve, who was strolling over to him with her rifle aimed towards the group around the Emperor. She fired off a trio of carefully aimed bolts, taking out two of them with ease. Only one more and Seth Drake were left escaping. Xaleyp aimed for the soldier, allowing his CAM to assist in the precision, and let loose the laser, which tore through the man’s shoulder and caused him to jerk backwards with the force. Seth, meanwhile, hid behind a stack of crates twice as tall as him and dozens of meters away from the closest transport.

Yet another rumble ran through the vessel, and the room was suddenly bathed in red light. Klaxons blared from unseen speakers throughout the hangar, filling the room with their shrieking and piercing their ears. Xaleyp looked down at the sword, its runes now glowing their calm blue and the voices within quietly beckoning him to grab it.

‟How the hell did we just pull that off?” Eve asked, looking around the hangar. Her voice sounded shaky despite the amount of confidence she attempted to put behind the words.

‟I don’t know, but we don’t have much time before this place is just a pile of rubble and space debris.” Xaleyp stood, pulling Max up by the collar with him. The pain in his hand from hitting the robot on the surface throbbed sharply, almost causing him to drop the other man. He gestured vaguely to the sword with his head, trying to get Eve’s attention. ‟You take it, because I don’t know if I’ll be able to handle the voices.”

‟What voices?” she asked, completely confused at his words. Nevertheless, she picked it up, albeit somewhat hesitantly, and placed the flat of the blade against her shoulder as Max had.

‟It’s a long, hard to explain story, and we really don’t have the time for it right now, Eve.” He threw one of the unconscious Max’s arms over his shoulder, half dragging him towards the nearest transport. ‟Do you have anything we can use to bind these two?”

Eve shook her head, tossing the sword into the far corner of the transport—a Helios-One Dropship, with the major distinction being its lack of a forward mounted autocannon—before moving away to approach where Seth had disappeared. Xaleyp strapped Max into one of the seats as another rumble ran through the ship, followed by another sickening creaking sound of strained metal.

Shouts came from outside the transport, immediately succeeded by a sickening thud of flesh on metal. Xaleyp rushed to the door and scanned the hangar, aiming his assault rifle towards both the far corners and near crates. Where Eve had gone, Seth was laying on the ground, semiconscious with his head lolling from side to side as she dragged towards the transport. A trail of blood from his hand was left in his wake, and Seth’s face was unnaturally pale.

‟He thought he could get a drop on me,” Eve called out, her voice echoing in the hangar.

Xaleyp jogged over to help her, and they carried the Emperor together, climbing into the transport sideways and strapping him in opposite from Max. Seth muttered something incomprehensible as Eve closed the door and Xaleyp moved to the pilot’s seat, starting the ignition sequence for the transport. Despite never flying one, he quickly found it wasn’t too different from the Nova or the virtual starfighter he flew during his training at Vertyn.

As Xaleyp primed the engines, he suddenly realized that there was no way out when he saw the blast doors closed to lock them in. Eve appeared to reach the same conclusion, looking at him with a quizzical expression on his face.

However, their worries were unnecessary: The ship, surviving for so long against the onslaught, could hold out no longer, and the metal framework holding it together buckled as the frigate’s engines finally exploded.