A confused commotion develops amongst the rest of the troops, watching as the planet pulls away from them, the battle continuing to rage on the surface below.

  Could they not be helped? Are they doomed to be left down there?

  “Where are we going?” Lym asks, alarmed. “I thought we were going to rendezvous with them?”

  “We just got word from the bridge!” one of the troop members answered. “There’s no winning that battle. We have to cut our losses!”

  An outrage breaks out between the troop members, each with differing perspectives on the matter. All, however, were equally of intense despair.

  “We have to go!” the voices around Lym jumbled into a blur. “Either one of us goes down or both of us do!”

  “Alright,” said Lym, now with a calm conviction. Cutting a path through the crowd, she made her way back outside onto the open deck, much to everyone’s confusion and protest.

  And with a leap off of the deck, she launches herself in the direction of the battle.

  Flying ahead of the carrier ship, she soon comes back into contact with the atmosphere, and the air begins to glow bright and hot around her as her speed causes overwhelming friction. The woman soon appears as a burning streak across the sky, traveling at an incomprehensible speed.

  A Coalition ship soon moves into her way, obstructing her direction. For a moment, she could see the ship laying hellfire on Vertan and his troops below.

  Adjusting her body to brace for impact, she flips through the air, so that she is now heading towards the ship feet-first, her left leg preparing to kick the entire vessel. Some of the automatic defense cannons on the ship detect her far too late, attempting to fire upon her and thwart the incoming projectile.

  Slamming into the top side of the gargantuan ship with tremendous force, Lym pierces through several buildings’ worth of metal, machinery, and ammunition. The overwhelming ordeal eventually forces her leg up halfway through, turning the stab into a burning slash. She soon comes out the other side, having wrought catastrophic damage to the ship, and it soon falls out of the sky as its own ammunition stocks betray itself in enormous explosions.

  The hellscape of annihilation below has swelled to engulf a city’s breadth, leaving a deep scar in the planet’s surface that bled industrial fire.

  Down on the ground, Vertan looks up to momentarily watch the spectacle. Thus far, the struggle had been intense, and if not for the assistance of Lym’s suit, they would never have been able to make it this far at all. But if the suit is up here, then what could have possibly caused such a—

  Coming out the other end of the ship, the bright streak continues its trajectory, and slams straight down onto the ground, the impact sending bits of earth and any Coalition soldiers unlucky enough to be caught in it flying in all different directions.

  From the clearing smoke, stood the silhouette of an individual.

  “It’s her!” Vertan called out with a sudden realization. “Everyone, move up!”

  With the addition of Lym to the frontlines, the tide of the battle soon turned in favor of Vertan and the present Ulminhans. Ahead of them, the suit by itself continued to wreak its usual havoc, while Lym would blink in and out of vision, rushing around the battlefield to directly take out various vehicles, platforms, and other strategic points. Hell has been brought straight to the Coalition’s doorsteps.

  But the struggle was far from over. As they approached closer to the location of the supposed gunship, defense and resistance became ever stronger and more challenging. The Ulminhan troops began falling under fire. The modified supersoldiers that became increasingly deployed, even in their experimental nature, proved to be an ever increasing threat.

  Suddenly, an orbital bombardment comes from Gahn’s carrier, suspended up above. Some of the troops there have decided to take matters into their own hands, providing strategic assistance to the situation down below.

  The ordnances shook the earth, and finally opened up an artificial cavern. Looking down below, one would be able to see a highly specialized and secured containment facility. And in the midst of it, restrained in all manner of ways, is something large hidden under a tarp.

  The operation was almost complete. Yelling at everyone to retreat, Vertan led the way back towards the damaged carrier, with the suit still covering them autonomously.

  Meanwhile, Lym leapt down into the abyss, her descent uninterrupted for several seconds before she finally landed on her feet at the bottom. The area has since been evacuated due to the ongoing crisis, and like the chamber previously containing her, this one is now without power as well. That is, almost evacuated.

  Approaching the tarped object, she knew it could only be one possible thing. Grabbing the tarp, with a strong yank, she uncovers her dormant gunship, a small vessel of robust form armed with a multitude of weapons that appeared advanced simultaneously as it was archaic. It appeared damaged, yet still functional.

  “Noc iwo,” she said to the vessel. “Jem nséedd ifòor.”

  (My child, mother has arrived.)

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  The gunship’s internal instruments blink on, and its engine roars to life with an untempered fury.

  *****

  “Did she make it?”

  “There’s no time to check! She’ll pull through, come on!”

  Vertan felt a crushing and anxious uncertainty in spite of his reassuring words as he helped drag the injured back onto the remaining carrier. Looking around at the damage sustained, he wondered if the thing could even take back off at all.

  Suddenly, something flies out of the cavern. And without a second doubt, a wave of relief washes over Vertan. He has no idea what that thing is and has never seen anything remotely like it before in his life. And just from that fact, he could tell that Lym has successfully retrieved what is rightfully hers.

  “She did it!” he exclaimed. “Let’s go!”

  However, this relief would be short lived. Reinforcements had arrived, and they were soon woefully outnumbered once more. Gahn’s ship above them has now come under fire from the other Coalition ships, sustaining heavy damage.

  And then, in a sudden development, that ship comes under overwhelming firepower as well.

  Looking around at the scene as their carrier took back off for the skies, Vertan struggled to follow the movement of Lym’s gunship. One might have an easier time trying to track a fly in their room. The vessel seemed to zip from one place to the next, instantly changing speed and velocity, with no adherence to its mass or the laws of physics that should apply. One moment it may be near the ground, and then the next, the thing had already zipped up a mile into the air. Such forces would liquify any other being piloting it. It laid havoc on everything in the vicinity, and even as overwhelming as the numbers were stacked against them, the Coalition struggled to deal with such an adversary.

  A lucky shot manages to strike the carrier, and the ship begins to sink back down out of the sky. Sirens and alarms began ringing throughout the ship. The remaining surviving troops began to make their way over to the escape pods, launching themselves away from the doomed vessel, shooting towards Gahn’s carrier higher up in orbit.

  But Vertan remained on the sinking ship for a while longer. Not just to ensure the evacuation of everyone aboard, but to also make sure that whatever Lym was dealing with could be handled. Soon, he found himself to be the last one alive remaining on the doomed ship. Watching from afar, he hoped that Lym got the message that it would be time to leave soon.

  Another shot rocks the ship, sending it falling faster. But even this was not of focus for Vertan. In the distance, he could make out the sight that Lym was indeed, once again, struggling with the ordeal, only now, on a much larger scale.

  And he would have found something to come to her aid, had he not been suddenly grabbed by the scruff of his collar.

  Alarmed, he turns around to find out that it was Lym’s suit that was doing this. It had still stuck by his side the entirety of the time. Severely damaged as it was by this point, after having held up on its own under heavy sustained fire for so long, it limped as it dragged a protesting Vertan over to one of the escape pods with its enormous strength.

  “Stop!” Vertan shouted at it. “What are you doing? She needs help! I’m not done yet here—!”

  “Go,” its synthetic voice said, now weak and distorted. “Be safe.”

  Shoving Vertan into the pod, it quickly shut its door as the man on the other side continued to knock and yell at the thing. But the autonomous suit had already decided. Any more lives remaining at risk here is a further risk to its user, prolonging the battle for her. It was also too damaged anyhow; protocol demanded complete destruction to prevent any Happian technology from being captured and replicated.

  Still shouting, Vertan watches as the burning carrier ship pulls away from him, the suit watching Vertan from where he departed.

  Several more shots strike the doomed ship, and the suit disappears into the inferno.

  With a stunned breath, Vertan is met with an isolating silence for a moment, before forcing himself to carry on, piloting the pod to the surviving carrier.

  *****

  Through her mechanical eye, the suit’s signal finally cuts off. After centuries of use, it has finally met its fate.

  It has been a very hard day’s work, but once again being seated within her cockpit, it only felt as natural, even comforting, as ever. It has thus been challenging, but ultimately successful work in getting as many out alive as possible. With a final strike on a Coalition frigate, surveying the land, she found the entire region to be in ruins.

  In the distance, the fourth and final ship scheduled for its jump slams into the planet at sublight speeds. This seemed to break the last thread holding the world together, and soon, the whole place started to come apart.

  “Naad cjoot ioot, nix ufàac njeeyugn fwòig csác ifwòwgn cjwowdd jwt od,” she whispered to herself in a sort of prayer. (My people, may you all be free now.)

  Making a break for it, she thrusts her gunship up towards the atmosphere, following the sole surviving carrier, one of the two last ships out of Gahn’s fleet. The last escape pods that didn’t get hit or shot down earlier have been recovered, and the troops soon reunite with each other. Flying up from underneath its open belly, one of them notices her approaching, and begins to wave out towards her. Soon, her gunship was within reach of the carrier, and brought itself into the hangar as the doors shut underneath her. As soon as confirmation of her arrival was relayed to the bridge, the carrier immediately jumped back into superliminal travel, away from the planetary devastation, and once again invisible and undetectable against the dark void of space.

  Coming out from her cockpit, she could hear roaring cheers, as tired, shell-shocked, and traumatized as the troops were. Stepping down from her gunship, she was immediately met for the first time with an overwhelming sense of collective gratitude. Even as much as they have endured, they were all going to make it out of this alive, thanks to her.

  “Lym!” a familiar voice calls out. “Lym!”

  “Vertan?!” she calls back out in response. “Vertan!”

  Seeing each other on opposite sides of the hangar, the two began making their way through the crowd, closing the gap. The masses of the survivors soon recognized the urgency and preemptively moved out of the way for them as they ran towards the other.

  Suddenly, Lym trips, and her mechanical leg gives away. Ironically, shortly afterward, Vertan suffers the same fate, and the two nearly fall into each other.

  But this didn’t matter at that moment.

  “You’re alive!” Vertan cried, squeezing her tightly. “You’re alive, thank goodness, you’re alive!”

  An almost overwhelming sensation floods over Lym as well. What was this feeling?

  “I almost thought you were gone!” she cried out. “I’m so glad you’re alright!”

  Relief.

  So the feeling is relief.