In the distance and from above, a soft, ominous thunder is heard
.

Tirana looks to the sky shielding her eyes from the brightness. "There are fighter ships coming. Hurry, we must all make it back to our ships."

The whole group begins to run to the ships that brought them to the surface.

Marshal and Tosha are following up the end of the group to see where they might fit in.

Marlin runs to the shuttle and as he reaches its side, he stops, knowing he cannot possibly pilot this craft. A helpless look crosses his face.

Marshal glances at Marlin then stops running. He Calls to Tosha "We don't have enough people to get everyone and everything out of here."

Tosha stops running also and after looking around for a second, answers "Sure we do. Tirana and her copilot are in one fighter, we will man another, the Delta and Beta crews are in theirs and Mar…." she pauses as the shocked look of realization crosses her face. "Neither you nor Marlin know how to operate one of these do you?"

Tirana reaches her ship as her copilot / gunner is settling down into her seat. Her hands are trembling; buckling into her safety equipment and connecting cables from the consul of the weapons control into the helmet she is wearing as Tirana begins to climb into the cockpit. "This is not a drill is it? I mean this is going to be a real fight…" Her voice is a bit edgy as if trying to hold back the sudden wave of fear.

Tirana looks back at her copilot, smiles and replies. "Yes, my lover, it is going to be a real fight. But we will make it through this. Our plans have not changed." She settles down into the seat then glances around seeing that the other ships are being manned and powered up. But one is not; quickly she looks around for the Princess and the rest of the prisoners.

"Where are they?" Panic is in her voice.

Then she spots the trio standing by the shuttle; she clicks on the button that activates her loud speaker and shouts "What are you doing? The enemy is closing in. We will just barely have time to lift off now and defend our own escape. Hurry and get to a ship!"

Marlin looks to the sky and then back to his friend and the princess.

"I am old and useless, but you two have a purpose. Hurry and escape while you can. I can hide here and wait for you to come back for me. Or defend you as best as I can from here. Maybe I will get lucky and kill one or two of the scoundrels for you."

Marshal pats the old man on the shoulder.

"You are not useless and I am not leaving you behind." He looks into Tosha's eyes. "Think we can make it off the ground and home in this?" pointing to the shuttle.

Tosha looks into the sky, the tiny dots of a few minutes ago are now large enough to make out as fast moving fighters.

Tirana shouts into the loud speaker again"Beta and Delta lift off now!" She then looks at the three on the ground. "We have to go now! Get into the shuttle we will try to defend you! Gods be with you and good luck!" Tirana closes the canopy and ignites the engines. Waving to the others she lifts off and hovers.

Tosha takes Marlin by the arm and begins rushing him up the gangway of the shuttle.

Marshal waves to Tirana and runs up the gang way too.

Inside the shuttle, Tosha begins the set up for engine ignition. As the switches are thrown and the checklist called off she begins explaining the weapons system aboard.

"We are armed, Marshal. There are actually 4 photon cannons on board. But we can only arm two of them."

Marshal looks at her a bit puzzled and asks "Why only two of them, Tosha?"

Tosha continues to make ready.

"We can only arm two of the gunnery cannons because there are only two of you on board."

Marshal looks at Marlin then to Tosha.

"Yes, this is true. But we can also move from gun to gun if needed. Light them all up love, we will make them think we are fully armed."

The controls to the guns are fairly simplistic and Marshal teaches Marlin how to be fairly accurate in no time. Both men seem to have a flair for this.

Tosha moves the control stick of the shuttle and types in the basic destination on the keyboard. The shuttle lifts off the ground. And hovers for a second.

Tosha shouts back to Marshal and Marlin.

"Hang onto something, we are leaving in a hurry!"

She flips a little switch and the force shield is activated. She then presses the tiny joystick control slightly forward and with her left hand types in a speed ratio. The shuttle begins to slowly turn and lift.

"Come on, you piece of dagbet, move already!" she thinks out loud in her almost panicked voice.

A streak of bright light passes the windshield of the shuttle then explodes on the ground, leaving a large hole; another soon follows. Marshal moves to a gunnery position and targets one of the fighters. He lays out a lot of fire but totally misses the fast moving vehicle.

Fuck! That thing is fast!" He shouts as he continues to try to follow it with his sites.

Marlin watches as one of the invading fighters maneuvers for its strike. The old man tries to remember what button Marshal said to push. Was it the yellow one or the red one. He cannot remember so he presses both and closes his eyes. The auto sighting system whirrs to life and the photon bolt fires out in a blinding fury, striking its intended target and sending it into so many pieces of debris.

Tosha pulls back on the joystick and again types in a speed vector. The cumbersome shuttle lags for a few more seconds then surprisingly jumps forward, almost throwing the two men down.

Tirana and her copilot are right in the midst of things, flying in and out of the enemy formations, dog fighting with all the ferocity of a demonic warrior. But with the skill of one blessed by the Goddess herself.

Tirana calls to her copilot "Misha, good shot! Let's cover the shuttle one more time and check on Delta."

Misha laughs loudly and with confidence.

"They cannot touch us! We are the greatest!" firing her cannon at yet another victim.

Tirana swings her ship wide of the debris field and homes in on Delta's signature. There are two enemy ships following Delta and closing fast.

"They need our help!" she shouts to Misha. Then she keys up her communicator. "Delta we are right behind you, back left on…. " her voice cut short as one of the enemy ships lays waste to the Delta team, tearing their ship to bits. Tirana fires her own weapon, a torpedo, at the enemy ship that fired the deadly burst into the Delta ship. The ship makes a sharp turn but not in time; the torpedo strikes it in the wing sending it into a hard sideways spiral and going into one of its own. Both ships disintegrate as Tirana flies past the blast, headed to look in on the Beta team and the shuttle.

The Beta team is also looking in on the shuttle. They fly by closely and fire a bolt at one of the ships that are attacking the shuttle.

Marlin notices, but he cannot get the photon cannon to fire as the Beta team passes his side of the ship.

"My weapon is busted, milord! It will not do anything."

Suddenly, as the Beta team is passing, the weapon fires again.

The sky is lighting up from firefights and other dogfights, as the shuttle and its escort steadily climb higher and higher away from this earth. The battle cruisers are closing in.

Marshal notices there is a brilliant beam of light coming from one of the ships and striking the ground. He wonders what it is all about.

Suddenly, there are six enemy ships closing in on the shuttle again as Tirana and the Beta team desperately try to defend them.

Tosha uses all her skills to avoid the attack, but the shuttle does not respond as quickly as a fighter. If it were not for the force shield and the repulser beam, the shuttle would have been dust along time ago.

Marshal and Marlin are too busy trying to shoot down the enemy fighters to notice the first of the large explosions in the now ever-darkening sky. But the second one, and the shock wave it causes, are impossible to miss.

The sky lights up and everything stands still for a few seconds as if the entire world suddenly held its breath. The light spreads out too fast for words to describe; blinding white and with a searing heat of its own, it seems to make the air outside burn as it passes. The light itself seems to carry a force as some of the smaller fighters are thrown together, exploding into what now seems to be tiny fireballs in comparison. Then, as the force wave radiates from the apex of the explosion, even the air can be seen moving as it strikes the shuttle and the remaining fighters. It hurtles Beta teams ship through two of the enemy ships, destroying them both. Luckily for them, one, the gunner had just fired a photon bolt at the ships and two, the pilot just re-engaged the repulser. It allowed the out of control ship to cut its way through without any problem. The shuttle, three of the enemy fighters, Beta team and Tirana's ships are physically thrown hundreds of earth miles away from the area they were in.

Once it regains some sort of control, the enemy fighters break off their attack and fly back in the direction of the blast to try to figure out what just happened.

As the shuttle and the two remaining fighters escorts group up there is another massive explosion in the sky. Again the light wave followed by the force wave push the tiny ships further away.

Tirana shouts into her communicator "Power up!! We are on an 8 percent climb now. We need to get off this planet before the whole thing comes apart."

The ships climb higher into the atmosphere in the formation that would best protect the shuttle and their princess. The Beta team leads the group, the shuttle with Tosha, Marshal and Marlin aboard, then Tirana's ship.

As the ships break free of earth's atmosphere, once again the sky below them ignites with a blinding light. Marshal watches as the blast of light spreads across the sky, how even the air seems to burn for an instant. He wonders if the group of heroic warriors he witnessed battling for their lives survived the blasts. How could they, these blasts must have destroyed every thing.

Below on the ground the warriors and the army assembled to rescue them scramble for cover. Debris from the massive and once thought invincible alien ships rains down on them as they retreat to a distant meeting point. Aliens as well as earthlings join temporary forces to escape the raining death. Although the blasts for the alien ships of war are destructive to anything above the surface, they do very little damage to the people or structures below.

Tosha announces "We are free of the earth's gravity. And no one is following our group. Looks like we can relax a bit." She types a few words on the keyboard the flips open a covered switch. The auto-pilot engages and she turns her chair away from the view screen.

The two fighters position themselves directly above the shuttle. They roll over in opposite directions and then join at the belly pans forming one ship.

Tosha motions for Marshal to come to her. He walks slowly up to her chair, dropping the heavy coat he wears to the floor. Marshal kneels at her feet opening and pulling back her coat as well. He lays his head against her chest listening to her heartbeat. Thanking the Goddess for this chance at love.

In the distance, there is a bright light in the sky growing ever larger as the ragtag group head to their home.

What of the charges against Tosha, Marshal and Marlin?