Chapter 35: Battered Prowess — Part 7

Lives. North corrected, as his ship fell the forward position. Rhombus and I have discussed the Emperor. Our lives are unimportant when considering the corruption that man represents.

Showing honor, so late in your life . . . You’re almost making my thought of your dying an unpleasant one. Shadow teased.

Anything to be a thorn in your side one last time, Queen leader of the Chran. North’s thoughts were filled with laughter.

Shadow wondered why North had come to such a change of conscience. She wondered why the symbiont had let him live. He had been wanted on several planets for atrocious, heartless crimes against nations and individuals. She wondered why, after nearly fifteen years of alliance with Grison, the alliance had turned sour. Of course, she should have wondered the same about the Chran. Why would they choose the one person who’s family they’d slaughtered, the one person who had killed more Chran troops, individual squadrons, and no small number of Chran War birds, than any other single person alive, and make her their Leader. Such considerations would have to wait until after the battle, Shadow knew. The Queen of the Chran took the forward guard, right behind North. Her ship, still damaged from the previous fights, still self-repairing, was now in a position to take the brunt of the damage from the upcoming confrontation. Small clusters of Chran fighters took front and rear positions, adding to Shadow’s defenses. North found himself cushioned to some extent as well. The time to strike was now.

Let’s go! Shadow’s thoughts screamed, throwing her thrusters into full burst.

North fell back, providing cover from the rear, the Queen acting as a forward shield, and hundreds of brazened Chran soldiers flew in with her, keeping to her course, which was a bluff toward a smaller juggernaut. They swung back at the flagship before they were within range of the juggernaut, screaming toward the Emperor, who realized, perhaps too late, that Shadow had chosen him for a death match. North flew forward into the curve, positioning his ship to shield Shadow from the flagship. The flagship, responding to their intentions, opened fire on the Mercy and her allies. The Queen and North took the brunt of the blows, and the Chran fighters countered by sending a deadly stream of plasma out in all directions. The Plasma had the effect of hazing space around them, of giving the Flagship less accuracy in its attacks, and of keeping advanced raiders from entering the space around Shadow’s ship. North’s ship took several direct hits, and Shadow could feel the suffering of North and his crew as they struggled to keep speed and push through the jolts. A final psionic blast to the forward hull stopped North dead in his tracks, plasma fires erupting across its hull.

Pull Back North. Shadow ordered.

Only because I have to. North countered, desperate anger in his words.

Still he drifted along by her, his engines, apparently, too damaged to respond. The Chran Queen took North’s position as he drifted slowly back, but now she had twice the firepower focused on her. A mass round launched from a nearby fighter caught the Queen’s ship hard in the underbelly. The ship’s belly was stripped of armor, and where the mass round had hit it, the jagged metal edges still glowed with friction-induced heat. The Queen’s ship would not survive another hit, and she would not survive a retreat without her troops. Shadow would not allow the woman to sacrifice herself when Shadow could not guarantee her own survival. The Chran would need a Queen if Shadow died.

Go back and pull North’s ship out of range, Queen. Shadow diverted power to her pulse deflectors and pushed on violently.

The Queen obeyed her Leader’s orders, worried at Shadow’s overconfidence. Catching North’s ship with tethers, her loyal troops guarding them both, The Queen of the Chran pulled back from the fight, back behind lines, where repairs could be made. The Mercy whined as violent shock waves of psionic force shook it and buffeted its pulse deflectors and armor. The ship’s exterior angles, however, were designed to deflect psionic energy. The Mercy held steady, the precision efforts of the crew keeping her in one piece. Xeti fired on any ship they passed, keeping Grison’s smaller vessels out of the way so they could focus on taking the Flagship. Almost before they realized they were there, the Mercy slammed into the first deflector field, bursting it. Two more fields tried to break the Mercy’s momentum, each time failing. Shadow could feel the death her attack had caused, her stomach churning as a result. The mercy slammed into the last psionic barrier, then bashed straight into the flagship’s exposed underbelly. The Mercy’s nose struck dead into the cargo bay door, metal tearing and rivets popping as the ship ripped its way through layers of previously damaged armor. The Mercy slammed to a stop against the far wall, knocking its own power offline.