Ultraya: Origins

Chapter 26: Orbit

28/05/4013 AD – 17:16 – Open Space – Near Earth's Orbit – Shutenghen Outer Hull

Dracolast steadily crawled out from the fiery wreckage of his Mylialta. Luckily, he had managed to switch to his Wyperian form just before the crash. Bits and pieces of the Mylialta floated around him; the cockpit was in tiny shards. Dracolast looked back at the spacecraft; the computer was still spouting on about damage reports, although Dracolast couldn't hear her. He also could not hear the bronze-coloured turrets of the Shutenghen firing laser bolts up into space, no doubt trying to shoot down the others. Suddenly the turret in front of Dracolast exploded, sending a pulse across the surface of the base-ship, and knocking him backwards. The nature of space made this entire event silent. The artificial gravity the ship created was, barely, keeping him on the hull of the Shutenghen.

"Dra...ast! Draco...st!" someone was trying to talk to Dracolast over the communications. "...can see... fix... helm... ou... idiot!" The downed pilot felt around his helmet and sure enough, the left-most spike on his helmet was dislodged. This was the spike in charge of communication; a spike so essential that even the most basic of combatants in the Ultrayan Alliance could freely equip. Dracolast sat up, rested his back against the wrecked Mylialta and attempted to snap the communication spike back into place. After a few seconds of fiddling with it, Dracolast eventually managed to put the spike back in, albeit loosely.

"Dracolast! Fix your damn helmet!" the communication cleared up; it was Hyperzio.

"I'm here!" replied Dracolast.

"About time!" shouted an angered, yet very relieved Hyperzio. "Imma swoop 'round and pick you up. Be sure to take out the turret behind you before I get there!" Hyperzio's fighter was flying overhead, chasing a Duacrit and desperately trying to avoid the flurry of murderous lasers from the enemy Shutenghen's secondary cannons. The two lower engines of Hyperzio's Mylialta dropped down, revealing five missile tubes in each one. One small rocket came out of each tube and spread around the Duacrit Hyperzio was aiming at. Two of the ten missiles hit, and the enemy fighter was blown to pieces.

Dracolast poked his head over the burning corpse of his Mylialta; sure enough, a double-barrelled turret, about the same size as the average Wyperian, was shooting short laser bolts at Hyperzio. Dracolast held his right arm over his Mylialta, aiming his arm at the turret. One by one, the three rockets on his arm shot forward and hit the turret, causing a silent burst of flames which quickly fizzled out into the dark void. Hyperzio's Mylialta changed direction and headed towards Dracolast; the wing was tilted downwards.

"Jump on!" cried Hyperzio. Suddenly, a group of Wyperians appeared from a small hatch from a small block atop the Shutenghen's hull. One of them was carrying a large object, mounted over his shoulder. Upon further inspection, Dracolast could see it was some kind of rocket launcher; box-shaped with four metal spires holding the missile in place. The spires swung around to the back of the launcher, acting as the firing hammer, and hit the detonator. This launched the cylindrical rocket that was sitting in the chamber. The missile sped towards Hyperzio and struck the right engine of his Mylialta which then started to spiral out of control. The fighter crashed close to Dracolast's Mylialta but was in nowhere near as bad of a condition as it. The glass cockpit blasted off into the abyss of space as Hyperzio got out of his downed craft. He flew over to Dracolast's side before taking cover.

"What should we do, Hyperzio?" Dracolast asked.

"You know, I'd really like to chew you out for using the Type-Two flares as opposed to the Type-One", Hyperzio complained as he drew and unfolded his claymore. "The latter would have meant we could have avoided this situation. But right now, we need to focus on getting off this Shutenghen".