Asteroids seemed to fly past as Meia maneuvered deftly through the foggy asteroid field. The slight atmosphere afforded by the tightly packed waste rocks allowed the smallest of times in which Meia could divert as the harsh sound of high-caliber rounds ripped through the air.
Small red darts zipped past, one smashing into the wing of her birdlike Dread. Meia strafed to the side, taking cover behind an asteroid that quickly detonated as more bullets smashed into it.
Meia flinched as small fragments of nickel and granite pinged all over her Dread.
She ducked behind another, larger asteroid and executed a neat U-turn. She came out on the other side of the asteroid and fired a stream of blue plasma particles into the river of cubes that followed her. No less than five cubes exploded, and she roared upwards doing a hard barrel roll that pressed her into her seat.
She ducked into a trench in one of the asteroids, a thin one that required only the slightest of mistakes to crash. As she saw three of the cubes drop down behind her, the others roared ahead and scattered as a hail of teal shots were fired into their midst. One was killed by the shots, three others veered into asteroids, two escaped. A silver blur passed overhead.
With a sick squealing sound, Meia’s left wing dug into the side of the trench. She gritted her teeth and corrected, stopping millimeters from making her right wing hit the other side.
Red bullets from the cubes behind her flashed past, blowing great chunks of rock and an explosion of smoke and flame from the wall. Meia pulled hard on the joystick, veering up as soon as she passed halfway through the debris.
She kept the stick where it was, concentrating on fighting the immense g-forces that threatened to crush her to her seat. Then the turn was over, and she fired at the rears of the cubes that had passed underneath her.
After those three were mopped up, she pulled out of the trench and tried to get a bearing on where she was in relation to the Nirvana. Goddamn asteroid field contained slightly ionized dust particles floating in it, diverting solid and plasma rounds alike slightly and fogging the sensors and communicators with the harsh buzz of static. The static was irritating, but was easily tuned out.
After checking that there were no other cubes in the near vicinity, she veered towards a break in the clouds of dust where the slowly twirling planet below was visible.
As the sleek silver dread burst through the dust at the edge of the field, bringing a trail of smoke with it, Meia noticed something strange about the planet. The Northern Hemisphere was completely barren. Golden deserts, red oxide flats and massive craters could be seen through the cloudless atmosphere. The top third of the planet was completely covered in ice.
The Southern Hemisphere was extremely green. Huge oceans and sprawling sections of forests could be seen from orbit. There were only a few cities, and these were small lights embedded deep into the jungle. The Southern Hemisphere had an atmosphere unlike its counterpart, and also there was hardly any ice on the southern Hemisphere.
In orbit above the planet was a massive ship. It resembled a huge black bar, deeply incised and with many turrets bristling along its sides, top and bottom. A swarm of fighters zipped around, trying to stave off the flow of cubes that were unleashed from the two gargantuan mother ships that were just coming through the asteroid field.
Another ship emerged from the field, but the asteroids came with it. Meia zoomed in on it, the computer readings telling her that this thing had such a large mass that it had a weak atmosphere. As Meia finished surveying the data, she looked at the actual visual of the thing
A small fleck next to the ship represented an average-sized Dread.
It couldn’t really be called a ship. It was more of a creature. Vague impressions of pulsating machinery could be seen through the translucent bilious yellow... muscles that covered its surface. A massive hatch could be seen on the ship’s underside, circular with many twisted conic sections that would slide away. But what was inside?
With a gigantic heaving of its putrid ‘muscles’, the ship-creature started to move surprisingly quickly towards the peacefully twirling planet below.
Common sense warred against urgency. Meia knew that she couldn’t have a chance of success on her own against that.... thing; she had to wait for the others. But who knew where they were? And by the time they arrived, there was a good chance the ship-creature would be in orbit above the planet by then. They could arrive in time or not.
Crap. She’d have to do it on her own. There had to be a weak spot in that thing just like any other ship. With that she pushed the throttle to the limit, leaping off through the cold void.
A pair of cubes veered off the main battle to intercept her, just as she saw the blue dread of Dita break through the asteroids and veer into the battle.
"Leader!"
Crap. No time to answer. The cubes got in her face. She didn’t have time for this! Full throttle, straight at them. A twist at the last moment brought her between them, with scarcely a meter to spare on each side. She took the straight line through the battle instead of skirting the edges. Ignoring anything that got in front of her, either the planetary fleet’s fighters or the cubes of the enemy, with split second turns and dodges saving her from a flaming death.
A lucky shot caught her flank, but with iron hand and will she kept the Dread straight. Sparks shot across the cockpit, singing her hair. Finally she came in front of the enemy ship, and went in for a strafing run, aiming at an almost-transparent ligament.
The glowing blue bolts lanced straight through the sickening thing, lacerating it and setting the corner of the disgusting muscle free. The entire structure trembled as if in pain, but not stopping. She arced around, spotted a group of six cubes heading on an intercept course for her, and fired at another ligament on the other side of the muscle. The shots connected, again destroying a ligament.
The entire muscle just fell off the ship, tearing away from the more minor ligaments holding it in place. The six enemy cubes apparently didn’t recognize the giant muscle on their sensors, and they flew right into it. They were instantly trapped, and made vague attempts to get away. Then they shut down in defeat.
A secondary hangar opened on the flank of the creature, spewing forth another twenty cubes and then closing. Meia instantly recognized that this was hopeless. She couldn’t hope to seriously damage this ship without the help of the Nirvana and its forces.
She began evasive maneuvers, putting the spinning muscle between her and her new foes, but as they roared into the giant organ, it just disintegrated, spraying into thousands of tiny pieces that flew away and crystallized in the airless void.
"Meia! Dita!" sounded Jura’s voice over the communication link. She had found her way, along with another six Nirvana dreads, into the battlefield. Hopefully with their battle experience they could tip the battle in the favor of the defenders..... currently being overwhelmed by the huge numbers of cubes allied against them.
Meia swerved around, moving behind the enemy mother ship. Ten cubes followed closely, while the other ten, seeming to be equipped with some sort of long-range rifle, hung back and took pot shots at Meia.
Before she could adjust to this new tactic, her Dread, although going extremely quickly, had taken five glancing hits on her flank.
Her control of the Dread wavered for a moment as a flying spark singed the back of her hand, and then the Dread seemed to take control. It veered away in a sickening loop, and the next volley of shots missed her. Rather than fight the erratic motion, Meia drove into it, making it go no less faster but far more controlled.
She was about to hit a muscle with her left wing-tip, but turned at the last moment and cut away at a right angle to the Harvest ship.
Suddenly a great, corroded wall rose up in front of her, and at the speed she was going there was no hope of dodging. The wall had spurted directly from the Harvest ship.
Her sensors updated, and she could see another four spires had sprouted from other places equal distances away from each other around the ship’s bulk. The central hatch was beginning to open, and they five extra... limbs, arrayed around the ship, made it look like a sick parody of a flower. During Meia’s frantic battle, the the ship had moved into direct orbit around the planet.
As the huge appendage reared in front of her, and she tried to swerve away even though there were but scant meters to spare, the same silver flash swooped in front of her cockpit framed by the icy blue of thruster flare.
A moment later a glancing impact sounded on her right wing and the massive gangrenous appendage was swept away from in front of her. The icy blue glow enveloped her Dread, but didn’t damage anything.
Then whatever it was that was hauling her away dropped her, and she flew out another few dozen meters before coming to a halt with a screeching of thrusters.
Her Dread, having completed three U-turns to halt, was pointed at the oncoming twenty cubes.
The thing that had saved her was a vanguard, a shiny metal thing with black trimming and several black bands around its left arm.
It raised a slick black rifle held in its right hand and blasted away five shots at the heavy-weapon equipped cubes with their ludicrously large energy beam lasers strapped to their backs. Five heavy cubes detonated as the deadly bolts entered their hulls.
Over general frequencies, Meia said, "Thanks" to whoever that was - probably another male - and then took the outside line and flew off to come around to the rear of the enemy fighters. "I’ll finish off those heavy fighters, you take the others."
"No problem" came the reply over the same frequency. Definitely another male.
With that, his energy rifle folded into a small pod on the back of his wrist and on his left wrist a similar pod unfolded to become an extremely long rod. At either end a relatively small spike of energy came into being.
He charged into combat, and several covert thrusters all over his body came to life to perform several extremely tight maneuvers.
As Meia and the five remaining heavy cubes starting weaving around and trading shots, the other guy charged into combat, sticking his spear through a cube and tossing it into another. Both exploded. He then leveled his spear and killed two cubes that were coming at him from opposite sides; they exploded still impaled. He then swung his spear into a spinning circle atop his head, and threw it out. The spinning rotor blade of death sliced through a pair of cubes, and forced the rest to scatter. It then straightened by itself and returned by way of a single small blade energizing into a thruster. It landed in his outstretched hand.
The remaining four cubes spread out and attacked from four sides all at once. He simply accelerated towards one, forcing the others to pause, correct their path and then move, killed the first, turned and smoothly drew a concealed energy pistol in his thigh. Held up, three shots turned the remaining cubes into floating husks.
Meia returned to his side after observing from afar, and the Bangata’s head turned in her direction, "Hurry! We have to destroy that thing"
"Does it have any weak spots?"
"To be honest, I don’t know. But we should try to blow one of those pylons off. Get your buddies over here and we’ll try to blow that thing apart."
"Calling all Nirvana crew members! We have a situation, move to my coordinates now and call back so I can get a bead on how many of you there are."
Instantly Dita and Jura responded, with the other six of the Dread pilots present acknowledging a second later. Then Gascogne came on one of the vid-speakers, "Meia, the Nirvana is inbound with Barnette, Hibiki and the rest of the Dread pilots. Try to hold out till then." Meia responded and Gascogne shut the screen off.
Hopefully, if Dita and Hibiki united, it would give enough firepower to seriously damage that thing. If things went badly, at least Jura and Hibiki could shield the Nirvana and the rest of the pilots until a successful withdrawal could be made.
Suddenly a nearby section of mucle quivered. Then throbbed. Then, it started to grow, seemed to form into an egg. Then it hatched.
Whatever was inside emerged, covered with ichors that burst off in clumps to drift away and solidify. Its massive arms seemed to spin around, clearing away the rest of the ichors.
Another Bangata emerged, but it seemed to be covered in red slime and skin, stretched across the corrupted surfaces. It was larger than the good pilot’s vanguard, but had the same pods on its forearms.
Right now the pods unfolded, one into a serrated, red energy katana, the other into a multi-barreled solid shot weapon ..... a gatling gun it seemed. Spotting the friendly Bangata, it fired several quick bursts of shots.
He did his best to avoid, but three of four red streams of shells dug into his Bangata’s body.
His scream echoed across the cluttered mess of the general transmitter comm. Unit.
The silver Bangata hurtled backwards, clipping Meia’s bird-like dread with its flailing arm. She felt a strange tugging and the lengthening of the second, and then the moment passed.
Meia fired a stream of shots at the weird mecha, only a few dealing any damage the others deflected by the ultra-tough ‘skin’. It sighted her and in less than a second released a cavalcade of reddish bolts at the fast-moving Dread.
Meia gritted her teeth as her already-damaged Dread took several more hits on its right side. She exhaled in pain as the Dread rocked harshly and she was thrown against the side of the cockpit, her right side restraint snapped.
Thankfully, at that moment the six Nirvana Dreads came into action, strafing the monstrosity of a Vanguard that was just beginning to get its thrusters in gear. The blue bolts pinged all over its body, most deflected but some got in. The most notable result was that the katana arm was blown away.
"Spread out!" shouted Meia over the comm., "Spread out or you’ll all be killed!"
"Ryokai!" they shouted as they broke all in different directions instead of making another combined run at the seemingly immobile foe.
"Hideki!" shouted the friendly Bangata driver over the frequency.
The evil vanguard tilted its head in the speaker’s direction.
"Why?" he said. It sounded like a burning hot poker was being shoved through his thigh.
Author: ‘sup. You are supposed to be confused as to what’s goin’ on because you’re seeing it from Meia’s point of view. So don’t come and piss all over me k’?
"Answer me!!!" He practically screamed. This was unusual. Had the Harvest adopted actual organisms to pilot more advanced craft?
"Why did you take her?"
pause
"WHY DID YOU TAKE HER TOO!"
"Because," stated the emotionless, metallic voice of whatever controlled that thing, "Because you were always the better one."
This was very confusing, but it did make sense that Harvest would make use of humans to not only control better vessels but also to distract the enemy. To underscore this another squadron of cubes roared overhead, and although outnumbered four to one, the Nirvana dreads moved to intercept.
"What the fuck kind of reason is that you bitch!!!"
"You would never understand. You would think that you would become guilty after a while, confess, but no. You had your pride. Your stupid, goddamn pride. Look what your pride did to you. You would never admit to your flaws, and look where it got you!"
"At least I’m not a raving lunatic like you!"
"I knew it! I knew it! You could never take it! You could dish it out, but you couldn’t take it!"
It raised its gatling arm.
"WELL TAKE THIS YOU PIECE OF......"
But as Meia hurtled away into the void, her engines damaged by the heavy caliber gatling rounds, her Dread spun around to view the friendly Vanguard standing in space. Its right arm was badly damaged, a round had gone through its forehead, its left leg’s thruster and actuators were damaged, the spear torn in half.
"No. That would be too easy. It needs something a little more...."
A massive energy katana unfolded.
"Personal!"
And at the ends of the pylons, lightning crackled. And as the hatch began to open, a dark red light could be seen within.