The Starlight Lancer

Chapter Eighty-Four: The Daily Bombing Run

"The second you give the corpos access to military hardware, you open the door for exactly this type of long-term escalation. They see the projections and they can't help themselves—they never can."

—Zolfreg Qualtic, Historian of the Corpo Wars

"So, what? You're going to go back to Ondor, ask for a ride home?"

Xyrthe took a deep breath with her eyes closed. "You know what—no. I'm going to stay right here. I want to see how badly you fuck things up. And if you don't, well, I'll have my ride offworld then, won't I?"

The heat of Frustration rose from Zaina's chest into her throat. Her hands clenched into fists. Between clenched teeth, she said, "Well if you're going to sit here and do nothing, could you at least contact the Order and ask about a rescue ship? I doubt they'd give it if I ask."

"What part of, 'no part of this,' do you not understand?" Xyrthe asked with a dismissing wave of her hand.

"Please," Zaina said, trying to hold back the anger in her voice. "I would really appreciate it."

As if sensing the opportunity to further annoy her pupil, Xyrthe grinned and asked, "Are you asking me for help, then?"

Zaina sighed. "Yes."

"Really? Because that didn't sound like you were asking me."

By now, Zaina's hands were trembling with searing-hot rage. With so many lives on the line, she managed to put her feelings aside. Mustering as calm a voice as she could, she asked, "Could you please help me by contacting the Order and asking about a rescue ship—maybe ask about an ETA? I'm going to go into town to talk to Fell."

Xyrthe leaned back with a smirk plastered on her lips. "Yeah, sure, kid. I'll get right on it as soon as you leave."

Zaina lingered, unsure of whether to believe her mentor or not. "Please, Xyrthe, this really is important—"

"I said I'll do it, so I'll do it," Xyrthe snapped. "You're pissing me off. Go away before I change my mind."

Without another word, Zaina stormed off toward Freewater—oddly enough, most of the colorful blankets and tapestries had been taken down. As the sun cleared the horizon behind her, long shadows stretched out to either side of her; she turned—two atmospheric ships were in the sky. They were long-bodied and winged, with large, rotating turbines for directing thrust housed within each wing; both were too small to carry cargo or soldiers—these were fighters.

Her heart skipped a beat. No.

She turned and ran toward Freewater, hoping to warn the people in time; there was no chance—her shouts were drowned out by the ship's engines as they soared overhead, overtaking her and descending toward the town.

Before the ships opened fire, Reister Fell, fully dressed in his warsuit, stepped from the shadows. The ground shook as he got down to one knee and angled his shoulder. One of the turrets mounted on his pauldrons fired off two missiles with deafening pops—the darts left trails of pungent smoke as they streamed through the sky, swerving and changing direction to follow their targets.

The fighters broke off, their turbines helping them rapidly pivot to avoid the missiles; one doubled back immediately, pointing the lens of its focus cannon at the town of Freewater—with a flash of light three houses were instantly incinerated, blasting chunks of debris and sand hundreds of feet into the air; gleams of light reflected from the fresh glass.

Staring in disbelief from the edge of town, Zaina shouted and then raised a hand to cover herself as sand pelted her face; Fell took notice, his distorted voice cutting through the breaking chaos.

"Zaina!"

She made to run for the town again, but another burst of light struck, and the houses closest to her exploded—the force threw her twenty feet. Sand burrowed into her hair, nose, mouth, ears, and eyes as she rolled through the desert and came to a stop on her stomach. Pain refracted through her body, immobilizing her.

All she could do was weakly stare up at the sky—as her vision un-blurred, she made out one of the fighter's rear-mounted defense cannons shredding a missile with large scrap beads, then twisting around. The lens of its cannons fixed on Zaina as she lay helpless in the sand.

Unable to reach her hex-guard, Zaina weakly held up a hand to block out the sun. Then, at the last moment, something huge blocked it out—her eyes jammed shut as an ear-splitting boom erupted, accompanied by a swell of heat. Her brain felt like it was going to rip into pieces as she waited for the end—it never came.

Instead, Fell's modulated voice, much closer now, said, "Whew, close one."

Zaina opened her eyes—the warsuit was kneeling before her, both arms outstretched to cover her sides; smoke was rising from its back, but it appeared to be unharmed. Her mouth dropped open.

"I—I—uh—"

Fell said, "They're here early today, and they're being awfully aggressive—means I've got 'em where I want 'em. You get into one of the shelters with everyone else, now. This is about to get a whole lot uglier."

Still reeling from the pain, Zaina nodded and struggled to her feet. Fell turned back toward Freewater and fired off another batch of missiles, then pulled a heavy scrap rifle from his waist. The warsuit was big enough to wield the oversized rifle with a single hand—the gun's rhythmic cracks stung at Zaina's ears.

As she limped toward the shelter a deafening boom rocked the other side Freewater. A wave of sand rushed past her, making her cover her face. A cluster of sharp, echoing pops broke out in the sky. Zaina yelped as a massive, flaming hunk of metal—one of the ships—crashed into the desert nearby, spewing flaming oil and metal fragments into the sky. The canopy was burnt out, with no trace of the pilot left.

Zaina stumbled toward Freewater—she was still twenty feet from the edge of town, and at least a hundred from a shelter. With sharp aches still surging through her insides, she stood little chance of making it in time.

Her lungs heaved, and she dropped to her knees to cough blood up into the sand; after a few heaving breaths, she turned back—the second ship was flying low, swerving to dodge the ballistic scraps while its rear cannons tried to fend off the closing missiles. The ship was screaming toward Freewater—if there was such a thing as flying angry, this was it; it appeared ready to strafe half of Freewater and turn everything in its path—including Zaina—into glass.