Werner smiled as he approached. “I’d say you put up a good fight, but being honest, you didn’t. Not that it matters. All this will be irrelevant once Killswitch comes online and—”
Something big and gray came hurtling down from above. The crowd screamed and parted as engines roared and the vehicle spun around and slammed into Werner with a loud thud. He was launched backward, tossed down the street. His health bar went wild as he landed, took fall damage, and rolled into the side of a building. His HP had taken a massive hit, but he wasn’t dead.
It was only then Kaiden could make sense of what happened. He looked up to the thing that had hit Werner. It was a shuttle. But not just any shuttle. The Borrelly.
“Hold on boys, we’re doing a fast extraction here,” a familiar voice said, broadcasting through proximity chat.
“Is that... Ellenton?” Titus asked.
It is!
“Where did you come from—oh god, what are you doing?”
The shuttle was faced away from them, its rear loading ramp down, but the whole thing was backing up at speed – right toward them, the lip of the ramp scraping along the ground and shooting sparks everywhere.
“Fast extraction,” Ellenton said. “I already told you.”
Kaiden tried to dive out of the way but then the ramp was beneath his feet. Nova’s physics freaked out for a moment, jerking this way and that as he and Titus were swept off the surface of the street and slid tumbling into the Borrelly’s internal gravity grid.
“Ha! Perfect shot!” Ellenton called from the cockpit. “Now hold on. We’re getting out of here.” The ramp rose behind them, whirring mechanically as it closed and sealed them inside the shuttle.
“I’m thoroughly confused,” Kaiden said as they rocketed upward, the shuttle groaning from the strain of the engines pushing at full force.
“Last place I logged off was in here,” Ellenton said. “The game saved my spawn point. So when Thorne sent me a message in the real world about ten minutes ago saying y’all were in trouble, well, I guess you got lucky you brought me with you. Intentionally or not.” She gestured to the open space of the shuttle’s main compartment. “Dawson’s here too, or he will be once he logs back in. He wanted to help too, but he wasn’t near his pod when Thorne called.”
Kaiden staggered toward the cockpit, then finally walked in a straight line and at a reasonable speed as the effects of Improved Paralyzing Shot wore off.
“Thank you,” he said, mind still reeling from everything that had just happened.
“I didn’t even know you could scoop someone up like that,” Titus said, still staring back at the now-closed ramp. “Is the game even meant to handle that?”
“Uhhh... not really,” Ellenton said. “But it works most of the time. I’ve only killed a couple players doing it.”
“We’re not out of this yet,” Kaiden said, then pointed out of the cockpit window. Two shuttles were approaching. Warden shuttles, from the looks of them.
“Now who’s that?” Ellenton asked, leaning forward and squinting.
“Werner’s friends,” Kaiden said, remembering the power wardens who had disappeared during the chase on foot. “They must have gone to get their ships to head us off.”
“Let’s take ‘em out!” Titus growled, then paused, a look of confusion spreading across his face. “Oh, right. I keep forgetting this thing isn’t the Veritas II. It doesn’t have turrets.”
“The Veritas II?” Ellenton asked, looking excited at the mention of their light cruiser.
“We’ll explain later,” Kaiden said. “Let’s deal with those shuttles first!”
“Oh, them? They’re no problem. They’re wardens,” she said. “They won’t fire ship-sized weapons in an urban area like this.”
Shield Integrity: 96%
Shield Integrity: 90%
Shield Integrity: 85%
The whole of the Borrelly rocked and jumped as a hail of laser fire slammed into them. Many of the shots missed, though, and exploded against the surrounding buildings and streets. The NPCs down below who’d been watching for sport earlier ran for cover now, and Kaiden swore he saw a few of them go up in puffs of flame.
“These guys are a different sort of warden,” Titus said.
“Yeah,” Ellenton said with a growl. “An insult to the name, mostly. Getting real tired of Moran and his personal goons.” She slammed the throttle forward as she said the last part and Kaiden found himself clutching at the walls of the cockpit.
The Borrelly’s engines groaned and the hull shook, but Ellenton knew what she was doing. The pilot they had on the Veritas II, Sias, was a good NPC pilot. Ellenton, however, was no NPC.
The other two shuttles continued firing, streams of lasers pouring out, but Ellenton dodged and strafed, always staying ahead of their fire. Kaiden found himself transfixed. He’d forgotten what it was like to fly with her. Terrifying, for starters. But also exhilarating. A masterpiece to behold.
“Wardens are supposed to avoid collateral damage, you morons,” Ellenton said as she hit the afterburners and the shuttle’s engines went into overdrive. The two attacking shuttles followed as they climbed out from among the buildings of Boyd City.
They continued to climb through the clouds, rising into an orange-pink world as the sunset appeared over the distant horizon. If this was a retreat, though, it wasn’t working. The pursuing shuttles were fighting to keep up, but managing it.
Flame erupted against the windshield of the Borrelly as it broke through the atmosphere of the planet. The engines were increasingly released from the pull of gravity and now, with no wind resistance, the shuttle’s engines were given free rein.
Ellenton checked to make sure the pursuers were still behind, then smirked and flipped a switch on the dash.
Decoupled mode activated.
A shudder went through the Borrelly. Looking out of the window, Kaiden noticed the engines of the shuttle, which were usually locked in tandem, always moving the same direction at the same time, were no longer doing anything of the sort. Instead, they appeared to be moving independently, adjusting ever so slightly to keep the ship moving in the direction Ellenton desired.
Then, all at
