Before any of them could act, the entirety of the Ulminhan fleet found themselves surrounded by the Coalition’s troops. So quick and effective was this encirclement that the additional soldiers may as well have appeared out of thin air. Perhaps many of them did.

  Skycraft rumbled overhead, keeping a watchful eye from above.

  “What?!” Gahn exclaimed incredulously. “This is not as we—!”

  But General Hiau had already turned away, giving the next orders to her subordinates.

  “The subject must be captured alive,” Lym could overhear her saying.

  For a moment, every Ulminhan awaiting orders was unsure of how to respond to being surrounded by the troops of the Coalition, when suddenly, a devastating sensation to the nerves brings every one of the Ulminhans down to their knees. It suddenly appeared as though every one of them had begun vibrating, their image verberating at a high frequency.

  The sensation was simultaneously entrapping as much as it sent Vertan’s biological instincts into a confused frenzy. He desperately felt the urge and need to run away from a constantly impending doom, and yet with every nerve shot, he was immobile, and writhed with the burning pain. Above him, stood Lym, the only individual to remain standing out of them as the Coalition’s soldiers calmly moved in to restrain and bind the Ulminhans.

  “...L…Lym…!” Vertan struggled to wring the words out of his mouth.

  Lym slowly turned towards Vertan, and he could see that she too was struggling to an extent against the invisible weapon.

  “...Kgh…kgh…g—go—!” he desperately heaved. “R—un—!”

  The Coalition’s operations continued to play out smoothly and in order around them.

  Slowly, but surely, Lym’s body began to reconfigure itself at the atomic and cellular level. Vertan could almost make out her skin subtly shifting in different ways as it adapted to the circumstances. An aura of distorted light and air began to develop around her. Her first step was a hard-won struggle, but her second was near-perfect. By the time several specialized operators had approached to restrain her, she was back at full capacity, and brushed them aside with ease.

  Suddenly, something seems to launch itself with a great velocity from Gahn’s flagship. Mentally controlling her powered armor suit, Lym sends the thing flying straight into a large projection device mounted on an armored vehicle, destroying it instantly from the sheer speed and mass. Everyone felt an immediate relief to their senses upon that impact, and began to stand back up and resist against the Coalition captors.

  A second attempt with a different vehicle is likewise quickly shut down, and a massive struggle ensues between the two militaries.

  “Gahn!” Vertan called out. “Gahn!”

  “I’m here!” Gahn shouted back. “I’m alright! Everyone! Retreat back to the ships!”

  “What?!” shouted Vertan. “We’re this close to getting Lym home! Her gunship is somewhere—!”

  “We came here to negotiate!” Gahn yells back, exasperated. “Move! We’re going—!”

  As the Ulminhan troops rush back up to the ships, some shots ring out, and several casualties are incurred. Noticing this, Lym rushes to push back the overwhelming number of Coalition soldiers, but she begins to be stretched increasingly thin. As mighty as she and her suit are, more and more equipment continued to be brought out or used hidden across the base, hammering them all down and hampering her efforts in the midst of the chaos. For every sonic projector destroyed, two more are deployed, and her body struggles to keep up with adapting to each changing amount of frequencies.

  In the middle of the struggle, much to Gahn’s protest, Vertan picks up one of the rifles dropped by an Ulminhan casualty, and begins to shoot back at the Coalition soldiers. Years of training in secret combined with his experience in the Expeditions has made the fisherman an unusually deadly tactician and marksman. Some troops soon followed his lead and example, allowing some alleviation to Lym’s efforts.

  One of the ships begins to take off as the rest were still being boarded, but is blocked by one of the larger skyships loitering above. After a tense moment between the two, the larger skyship opened fire onto the smaller Ulminhan ship, whose projected shields struggled to hold up against such overwhelming firepower.

  In a desperate attempt, Lym turns from her current focus, and with a motion of her arm, sends the previously havoc-wreaking suit jumping straight through the Coalition skyship. It manages to peek through the skyship’s projected shields, and punches a clean hole through the vessel. Although it didn’t take the ship down, the damage was substantial enough to deviate its operations for a moment, allowing the Ulminhan ship to carry on its way.

  Even as the dead lay strewn about, much of the Ulminhan troops had managed to make it back onto the ships, injured or not, and the fleet began to take back off for the atmosphere. Coalition cannons from the ground and air attempt to saturate them, but the struggle is far from coordinated and clean now that much of the infrastructure on the ground has been destroyed by Lym.

  In the distance is the inbound arrival of another fleet.

  Sniped from afar, one of the Ulminhan ships takes a devastating blow, and falls back down from the sky, the mountain of machinery thunderously crashing into the earth below in a great ball of flame. It soon became clear that they could not keep up with the ongoing struggle forever; the sheer numbers are too overwhelming to deny.

  As soon as the last stragglers made it onto the ships, Gahn gave the order for the vessels to jump into superliminal travel the moment their doors closed. Doing so whilst still within a planet’s atmosphere and without the added infrastructure of a gateway is highly risky and dangerous, but in the heat of the moment, improvisation under desperation for survival took prevalence over protocol.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  In the distance, the massive base continues to be razed by Lym, and for a moment, Vertan once again feels the awe-inspiring terror he had once witnessed on Thoma.

  Suddenly, it felt as though the air collapsed before resetting itself, sending everyone knocked down. For a moment, it felt as though Vertan’s heart and lungs were about to burst from the impact of a freighter hitting him, and he struggled to recover.

  One of the smaller ships had jumped up and out of the planet’s atmosphere, into the void of space, blasting a tremendous shockwave down to everyone below.

  Far ahead in front of him, Vertan could see Lym appear again, now donning her suit. It was an impressive spectacle, watching her fight nearly beyond the physical constraints of the universe that everybody else had to abide by.

  Yet as massive as the damage she had managed to cause is, he could tell she was struggling. The big guns were being brought out. As he watched from the still-open walkway of the ascending ship, strangely ironclad figures had come out to directly deal with Lym. They were far physically superior than the ordinary soldiers he had just gunned down. They were far faster, stronger, more agile, and more perceptive than any normal being. And even if they couldn’t yet match Lym’s potency in combat, there were far, far more of them.

  Lym is slowly drowning.

  “Lym!” Vertan shouted, his voice struggling. “Lym!”

  Pointing his rifle at the super-soldiers, he fired several shots only to find that they held little effect.

  “Help me save her!” Vertan shouted to some of the surrounding troops.

  “Vertan!” Gahn shouted towards him. “We need to go, now! Get inside so the door can close!”

  “We’re not leaving here without her!” Vertan shouted back. “They are going to kill her!”

  Another Ulminhan ship strikes the ground, and likewise explodes into a ball of flame, the shockwave sending them off balance.

  “We stay here and we’ll get ourselves all killed!” shouted Gahn. “Get the fuck inside, now!”

  “Lym!” Vertan shouted. “Lym! Get inside!”

  A well placed shot distracts the enemy just enough to allow her some breathing room, and she immediately makes a sprint for their ship. As fast as she was, it had become a far cry from her original speed, and Vertan could tell that she was limping in great pain.

  “Everyone, get inside!” Gahn shouted. “That is an order!”

  But, in a seeming act of defiance, one of the troops comes to stand by Vertan, and without a moment’s hesitation, begins to fire back with his rifle. Glancing over to him, Vertan finds that he has been joined by Yulo. And then Guee. One by one, more and more until it was several of them came out to assist Lym’s dash. A few manning the ship’s guns on the side facing the battle began gunning down the Coalition’s army on the ground.

  With a great final leap, Lym jumped up the equivalent of several buildings’ height to the ship, about to land herself directly inside.

  But this attempt will not be successful.

  Something from above slams her straight back down to the ground in a near-instant in a pillar of scorching blue-white light.

  The doors of the ship begin to close, and everyone watches as Lym is encircled.

  She continued to fight through every last breath, utilizing every cell, atom, and molecular structure to the sole purpose of combat to its maximum and fullest extent. But here, it was different. Not only were the numbers overwhelming, so was the enemy’s strength. A constant barrage of beams, both visible and not, hammered at her body, sending it into an endless shock of pain and agony. Slowly, she became immobilized. Every time her body was able to adapt to the new condition and work its way around it, it found itself reset back to base in the next instant. The circumstances were changing too quickly for her adaptability to keep up.

  Worse, the enemy seemed to know this. They came in planned and coordinated, their strategy and operations systematic in how they were carried out.

  The Coalition’s ships are closing in on the remaining Ulminhan fleet.

  In a final, almost despairing attempt, she manages to wrestle free for a moment, and casts off her suit, sending it leaping up to the ship above.

  But just as the suit made it up to the same altitude as the ships, they came under fire, and Gahn’s flagship is hit with several devastating blows before it leaps off into superliminal travel, taking the suit with it. A shockwave hits the ground following its absence.

  A singeing, searing pain grappled at Lym. A web of glowing barbed chains in combination with the constantly changing frequencies came in to wrap around and restrain her, and the Happian soldier now stood still in silent agony. Several of the Coalition supersoldiers surrounding her pulled the chains back, further tightening their chokehold, and the shifting and sizzling barbs and spikes managed to rip and tear at her flesh, which struggled to close its wounds back up. Her body raced incessantly to find a solution it can’t currently perceive.

  It took all mental concentration to remain stoic and without a display of weakness.

  It was at this moment that General Hiau returned to the scene, calm, collected, and civilized. Upon closer inspection, it became apparent that the purple-skinned woman possessed four eyes, and another two arms hidden within her coat, adding up to four total. These details, somehow even Lym had missed.

  General Hiau looked down on the shorter Lym, with an expression almost as if conveying that she was disgusted with what she saw, if not pleased with the successful execution of her operations. In that moment, it mattered less to General Hiau that her status will be legendary in downing the traitorous Zviedal and that she had successfully captured such a live demon perhaps for the first time in the history of ever. What mattered was that the peace and security of the Coalition, and by extension, the stars of the Myriad Worlds, had been preserved yet another day.

  Yet, it was still surprising to her how small and pathetic such a grave and ancient threat looked in front of her. The demon opposite of her almost looked wretched with half of her face distorted. How anyone managed to gain an ounce of sympathy for such a symbol of destruction and demonic wretchedness was beyond her.

  Grabbing Lym’s face, General Hiau inspected the Happian in ruthless fashion. Her strength was surprisingly enormous, even to the weakened Lym. Finally, General Hiau is satisfied with what she saw, and throws Lym’s head back, almost as though she was disgusted with herself for letting her hand even graze the woman.

  “Very good,” she muttered to herself, before turning to everyone else. “Bring it in, and have this place cleaned up.”

  *****

  In the dark and vast emptiness of space, the damaged and remaining survivors of Gahn’s fleet hung suspended in the void, almost invisible against the blackness. Remaining low on power and communications usage, they just barely manage to elude detection as they watch the planet from afar.

  A furious argument breaks out in the midst of despair. Some sided with Vertan, pushing for regrouping and to find a way to retrieve both Lym and her vessel. Others sided with Gahn, who would rather not take the risk and simply return home, for she is now officially off of Ulminh’s hands, as initially requested.

  Just outside the ship, Lym’s suit has managed to cling onto the exterior.

  The rest of the cosmos remain oblivious to the incident.