Xaleyp cursed under his breath and rushed up the stairs, bringing the rocket launcher up and readying it. No gunfire from the starfighter erupted as Thalen’s footsteps slowly receded, punctuated every few steps with a burst from his assault rifle. He was nearly to the opposite end when the ship finally turned and strafed towards the man, its gun rotating to lock onto its new target.

Taking the chance, Xaleyp aimed the rocket launcher, allowing his CAM to process some of the finer adjustments, and pulled the triggaer. A jet of fire came from both ends of the weapon, causing some of the Siatians to jump backwards, and the force nearly knocked him off his feet. The rocket flew through the air, slamming into the side of the starfighter with an explosion just as its cannon fired a flurry of shots at Thalen. The large bullets tore through the man, sending his body skipping over the rooftop like a stone on a pond before he slammed into the side retaining wall and bounced over the edge.

The starfighter listed to one side, spiraling downwards and out of sight. After a couple seconds’ hesitation, the sound of an explosion as it hit the ground reached their ears.

“Come on, let’s get moving before they send another one our way,” Xaleyp yelled back to the other soldiers before charging out of the door himself. He was not going to let Thalen’s death be in vain, just like Thalen did for Emyr.

The roof of the office building was mostly bare. A large satellite dish lay half crumbled in the center, just a small sample of the destruction that he had brought to the city with the bombardment. To their right was a radio communications antenna that was bent at an almost ninety degree angle, swaying slightly over the seventy-five story drop.

Across the city, pillars of smoke continued to rise into the sky, combining to a formless mass that blotted out the star above. All around were remnants of what had once been a great city that now lay in ruins, destroyed with just a single word from himself. To their left was a building that had once been like their own, though it was reduced nearly in half by the force of a missile that had exploded against it, leaving just a skeleton of metal framing to the top.

“We have to keep moving,” Beta said as Xaleyp stopped to admire the view.

She held her arm out and pointed it towards the ArcDefense building, which stood tall in front of them, and the grappling hooks shot out with mini-explosions. The other Siatians followed suit, and soon a flurry of hooks and ropes were shooting across the gap. The lines went taut after a few seconds, and they were almost immediately yanked off the feet almost horizontally towards the building.

Soon, Xaleyp and Rach were alone, and he looked around the roof for a moment longer, finding a large, heavy barrel that was sitting behind the door. His exosuit gave him enough strength to be able to rock it back and forth, slowly positioning it in front of the door. Not a moment after came a frenzied banging and shouting fomr the opposite side as the Arcadians reached it.

“That should hold them for a little bit,” he said to Rach as he grabbed her wrist and brought her with him to the edge.

The several hundred meter drop was dizzying, giving him a sudden urge to fall over when he stared down. Far below, the Arcadians were still swarming like ants from a destroyed hill, some of them heading into ArcDefense and others into the office building while a majority stayed near their defensive line.

With a deep breath, Xaleyp suddenly became more aware of the pressing weight on his shoulders from the exosuit. He glanced at the current of his vision where his CAM displayed the power of the exosuit and found it mostly drained of power. An indicator for the grappling hook showed a critical failure with power of one percent. He looked to Rach and let the visor slide back up to reveal his face.

“I don’t think I have enough power to get us across,” he said, the words accented by the continued banging of the Arcadians.

“We have to try,” she said, raising her fist in determination and stepping towards him. “Either we make it and manage to finish your mission and get off the planet, or we don’t and get killed by the Arcadians. Either way, at least I was able to see you one last time.”

She smiled as she wrapped her arms around him and held on tight. Taking another breath, he gripped her waist with his left arm and raised his right, pointing it towards the building. With a small explosion, the grappling hook propelled itself across the gap and dug deep into one of the glass windows of the ArcDefense building. With a jerk, it began retracting and pulling them across, taking them off their feet almost directly into the half wall surrounding the rooftop.

When they were halfway across, the line of the hook loosened, and he felt them begin to fall towards the building. He looked up and saw the line had stopped retracting, letting gravity take over.

“Hold on!” he yelled, wrapping both of his arms around Rach as they approached the building.

Xaleyp spun them both around with every ounce of his strength to put her on the outside just as they slammed into the wall. He bent his legs at a ninety degree angle to attempt to lessen the impact, though he realized it did little good when a sharp pain radiated through his body. His assault rifle, clipped to a strap around his neck, ended up smashed between him and the wall, and the glass around them with the force of their crash.

After several disoriented seconds, he looked to make sure Rach was there and found her still in his arms. Far below was the dizzying drop that made the one on the rooftop look like an anthill.

“I got you,” he whispered, his voice strained with the effort of holding onto her.

Exhaling a breath he didn’t know he was holding in, he looked up to find the Siatians pulling each other into one of the offices two dozen stories up where his grappling hook had originally embedded itself. A gentle tugging came from the rope, and he felt them begin to rise as the soldiers started to pull them up. An explosion erupted from the opposite office building, and as quickly as the tugging started, it ended and sent them several meters back to where they started.

Back across the gap, the Arcadians had broken through his makeshift barricade and where firing on the Siatians who ducked behind the glass. Xaleyp tried to shift his assault rifle to Rach, but she was already aiming hers with one hand. She fired off a flurry of shots, each of them flying wildly off with the recoil jerking her arm around.

Xaleyp sensed the Arcadians turn their arm to the pair of them before they did. With a painful push of his legs against the wall, he kicked off and flipped two of them around so that Rach was on the inside just as a barrage of bullets slammed into his back. The movement caused her to begin to slip, and Xaleyp redoubled his efforts to hold onto her.

The onslaught against them stopped again, and Xaleyp looked over his shoulder to see they had resumed firing on the other Siatians further up. He looked back to Rach and saw the fear he was feeling in her eyes.

“Hold on tight,” he said, waiting for her to do so before continuing, “I’m going to climb up to the others.”

She shifted slightly against him as he carefully released her and changed his grip to the rope. He felt and heard her breath catch in her throat with the movement, and she wrapped her arms around his torso even tighter. Hand over hand, he began to climb slowly, the rope dangling beneath them as they rose higher and higher. Windows passed by, all closed to deny them entry and apparently devoid of any sign of life.

After a jerk on the rope, he looked up to see the Siatians had resumed pulling the pair of them up, bringing the rope into the window and using the tough glass as a barricade. Xaleyp wrapped the rope around his wrist several times then held back onto Rach. She looked at him curiously, and, before she could voice the question, he nodded behind him towards the opposite building.

“They’re pulling us in and we need to take care of them shooting at us. I’m going to spin us around and, as I do, I want you to shoot at them.”

She nodded and looked at her assault rifle that was squished between the both of them. With a strained grunt, she pulled it free and gave him an affirmative look. Taking a deep breath, he kicked off the glass somewhat awkwardly as they continued the slow ascent. Using the force of the push, he spun them, trying not to go too quickly, and she fired off a trio of shots, only one of which struck their target. They continued spinning around and he put his feet against the wall to slow them, the momentum carrying them around in the circle for a moment longer before they stopped.

He looked up to find they were just a few stories away from the other Siatians, though he could not see them. A burst of gunfire came from the open window, the bullets flying across the gap and embedding themselves into two of the Arcadians.

“Pull them up faster, they’re almost here,” Beta yelled as she poked her head over the edge, her belly flat against the ground. She turned back to the inside and pushed herself back in. Almost immediately, their ascent increased in speed with the added effort of Beta.

Another barrage of bullets slammed into the glass, the slugs blunting against the hard material and falling harmlessly to the ground. Xaleyp took another breath and looked at Rach to make sure she was ready before kicking off again and spinning them around. This time, her shots were on target and all three found their mark, though two were into the same person. When the spin finished, he looked up to see the edge of the window just above them.

“You climb up first,” he said to Rach, inclining his head towards the opening. “My exosuit can handle the bullets a lot better than your flesh.”

He wrapped the rope around each of his hands and reached up to the edges of the window, pulling himself upwards in an attempt shield her. She grabbed the rope herself and used it to haul herself up and over the edge as the Siatians reached down to help her. The dull thudding of the bullets against his back were barely perceptible at first but slowly grew more and more painful as the metal of the exosuit wore down. Once Rach was safely in and around the corner of the window, he hauled himself up and over, rolling sideways after the exertion.

Beta glanced at him briefly before pulling the large pistol from her hip. As she held it in her hand, the runes emblazoned on the barrel turned from red to green and danced and spun, and Xaleyp swore he could hear whispers coming from the metal — the same whispers he heard from the Cursed Sword. He stared at it in wonder as she stepped into the opening of the window and pointed the gun at the building across the way.

As she pulled the trigger, a brief rush of air and light came from the hammer, and all sound seemed to vanish as the weapon almost pulled it into itself. At the same instant, an explosion erupted from the top of the building, ripping the uppermost floors down to their metal studs and causing a cascade of debris and dust to rain down on the streets below. The entire roof — what remained of it — was on fire, and the people who were once standing there were nowhere to be seen as it slowly began to collapse in on itself.

Suddenly all the noise returned at once, filling Xaleyp’s ears with its cacophony. Shouts of pain and anguish rang out, and the whirring of engines steadily grew louder. With a creaking groan, the antenna that once dangled over the edge of the building fell further and, with a sharp snap, broke in half to plummet to the ground.

“Well, that deals with those guys,” Beta said, stowing the gun back in its holder as the runes changed back to red. She gestured to the others and began walking away from the window. “We better get going before they send reinforcements.”

“What the hell was that?” Xaleyp asked, hardly able to hide his astonishment.

“Me saving our asses, sir,” she said without looking at him. In the glass of her visor, he could only see himself staring back. “Now, I’d really suggest we get on with the mission before its too late.”

Xaleyp and Rach’El both looked at each other for a moment before they pushed themselves up and followed Beta and the rest of the Siatians.