Three formations of sleek golden Talon spell fighters cut as direct a path to OrbCommOne as they dared without setting off any perimeter defense weapons. Luffa and her crew of runaways had been in discussion with the station about surrendering when Cenine’s pack of Golden Knights dropped into real space and went full Afterburn. That left the crew of the Indra with precious minutes to deliberate a response. Did they fight? Or run?
Nestled in the heart of Brotherhood space at the Lagrange 1 point of New Eden, the Brotherhood’s capital world, OrbCommOne served as both the naval command position and port of call for any vessels entering the system. Suffice to say, Cenine’s squadrons were less than accommodating of the Brotherhood’s comm policies. An act that wasn’t winning them any favors from the local government.
The lead units loosed bolts of golden light magic that slammed into the wards of the still stationary Indra. That was Cenine’s freebie. Loofa immediately put the Indra into motion. The Brotherhood would just have to wait a moment while they dealt with more immediate concerns. Cenine’s fighters continued to close, opening fire again. Their attacks struck the station, scouring the hull and leaving glowing pock marks behind as the craft raced along.
“Get me some distance from those fighters!” Luffa growled on the bridge of the Indra. Amara obliged, twisting the corvette into tight, impossible turns thanks to Amara’s use of the ship’s spell drive. A flurry of spell bolts light up the space they previously occupied as Amara gave them a grand tour of the station’s hull a little closer than most of the primals were comfortable with. Her radiant eyes scanned back and forth rapidly like REM sleep, only she saw everything.
The dagger shaped Indra twisted, rolled, and looped as it sought to evade and mitigate Cenine’s Talon assault. Eventually the Emerald Knight’s reckless assault against the Indra forced retaliation from the Brotherhood. Point defense turrets swiveled and opened fire against the golden Talons. The airspace soon choked with weapons fire as Amara poured everything she had into piloting while the others focused only on defenses.
Two fighters blossomed into explosive balls once enough missiles and magnetically accelerated cannon (or MAC for short) MAC Fire riddled the Talons to explosions. A few MAC rounds struck the Indra as it swerved wildly to avoid a cluster of Light bolts that slagged a large chunk of the station. Keeping the station close was proving difficult as the Brotherhood emplacements began to slowly include the Indra in their targeting calculations.
“We’re starting to attract more fire.” Luffa announced.
Amara maintained a tight grip on the controls as she wove the Indra about like a precision fighter and not the corvette that it, actually. Chalk that one down to the mass reductive abilities of void magic. She swung the Indra about in a 180 swing and dumped several rounds out of each of the spell canons, then swung the Indra around the rest of the way and dumped the engines at full. Everyone grunted as the ship sped up hard, matching Amara’s input into its own magical reserves, mixing in with the aureolium.
The fighters were difficult to shake, though. Amara begrudgingly had to give them that. They were committed pilots and skilled warriors. The exact people Akamori would have enjoyed being pitted against. She could only wonder at what kind of cosmic nonsense he’d gotten himself into now. No doubt he was off fighting some pitched battle for the future of some world he’d only been in as long as he’d been fighting on it.
“Surrender now, you traitors!” Cenine growled through the coms.
Amara tucked the Indra into a tight roll as a volley of light rounds belted the rear spell wards. The ward lattices discolored from the strain and she fed them more magic to reinforce them. She could keep this up for a little bit, but those fighters could keep coming. Something had to change.
“Luffa, you have to convince the Brotherhood to give us asylum or they’ll wear us down.”
Lufa, the First Prime of all free primals regarded her friend for a moment. The weight of that leadership pressed in on her now more than ever that they were facing their existential issue. It was a problem she’d created the instant she’d chosen to take Ominek up on his offer of freedom. She went in, eyes wide open, knowing he’d try to leash them. But trading one master for an even worse one was not what she’d envisioned for her people.
She wove a the fire and mind signs to create a missive spell and flicked it towards the station. The Brotherhood station admin popped back up.
“We need Asylum now. These lunatics are going to keep shooting until they either shoot us down or crash into us.”
“That is strictly a Mage Federation issue that the Brotherhood is disinclined to get involved in.”
“You will be if those light bolts detonate the magi-nuke in our hold!” Luffa growled.
The Brotherhood administrator shifted uncomfortably. “That’s not how it works,” he said with a distinct lack of confidence.
Luffa wasn’t ignorant of that and pressed on. “It is too. And the yield on this specific device is enough to reduce not just us, but your entire station and a sphere several hundred kilometers in diameter. I don’t need to remind you just how bad that would be.”
“We’ll take your counsel into advisement. OrbCommOne Actual out.”
Luffa slammed her fist down into the spell console as Amara cursed silently, continuing to take the Indra in a madman’s dash for survival against the onslaught of the Erynian Talons.
“LUFFA! SURRENDER!” Cenine howled. She was in a blind rage.
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“I can’t Cenine. Nor could you if you were in my position. My people had no future under your people’s boot. I’m sorry you feel like I’ve betrayed you.”
“How could you just turn your back on all those innocent people? You bled for them! They gave you a home, training, and a purpose!”
Luffa’s eyes glowed with magic as her rage boiled, threatening to burst out. Nostrils flared as she spoke. “And you think I needed enslavement for that? That we needed that? We were fine until your people came along and stole all of that from us, supplanting it with your own purpose and home. I’m just trying to go back to mine, or make one of my own.”
The mental incongruity Cenine was fighting was too much. Cultural programming won out. They’d never been good friends, and barely associates at that. Luffa wanted to think that in another lifetime, perhaps, or different circumstances, perhaps they could have been friends. But here and now, Luffa had bigger things to worry about than how Cenine was handling this.
“I really need you to get over yourself, Cenine because if you keep pushing, we will finally start fighting back. I’ve been doing you the favor of just running, hoping you’d back off some. But if it’s a fight you want? Then I’ll give you a God’s damned fight!”
Amara glanced over to see Luffa clutching the spell controls in white knuckled grips.
Cenine could only answer in a wordless snarl as she continued to charge after them in pursuit, the fighters belting out round after round of spell bolts. Several impacts struck the rear wards again, discoloring them and shattering patches across the Indra’s rear flank. Amara cursed as she continued to do her best but their size was a prohibiting factor.
“Amara. Give them hell,” Luffa said as she pressed the button to disengage Amara’s collar.
Amara gasped as power raced through her veins like she’d just jammed an iv bag full of bottled lightning in. With the color no longer restricting the spells and aether flow, it opened the floodgates. All of it came pouring back in. Even Nemesis. Gold radiant light spilled out of her eyes. Veins of golden white traced their way out along the ship’s hull, starting at the front and etching their way along like small snakes of caterpillars working their way down a big juicy leaf.
Reality became surreal for Amara. Time stopped. In that instant, she realized she wasn’t herself anymore. Whatever had been changing in her, had continued to do so, she was just now feeling those effects. Brilliant light exploded from the aft of the Indra as it shot ahead, outpacing the shots from the Talons. Everyone in the bridge of the Indra suddenly shot a concerned looks at Amara, who looked completely neutral about the whole process, despite the radiant aura and magic pouring out of her golden eyes.
The Indra banked about and thrusted again hard, this time burning hard at the incoming Talons. All four spell cannons primed magic in their barrels. She willed a missive to Cenine.
“Child of the light. Because you are a child of the light, I will give you one last opportunity to disengage. Fail to do so and proceed at your own peril. I won’t repeat the warning. Failure to break off in the next minute will signal the forfeiture of your life.”
Cenine continued to rave maniacally. Anger warred with pain and won out as the Emerald Knight failed to maintain a steady head. She was here for revenge. How dare the stupid priestess threaten her and her men? They should be surrendering.
Only Cenine was blind. She didn’t realize she was charging headlong into an immovable object. Nemesis was a goddess of fate and luck. She rebalanced the scales of justice. And Cenine had failed to be just by standard of metric. For a moment, Amara bowed her head, and whispered a soft prayer, seeking forgiveness. Luffa caught it but said nothing at the moment.
When your pilot acts weirdly in a life and death situation but it’s a good weird? You leave them alone and let them be weird. When Amara glanced back up, Luffa could physically feel Amara’s will pulse out and into the ship, as all four spell cannons fired. Four beams of light magic cut paths through four Talons, resulting in four blossoms of fire.
Fire and debris belched out into the void as the Indra lanced clean through one plume and banked hard. By this point, the weapons of the Indra were recharging. So Amara fired the spell missiles. Tracers of red launched from pylons on each wing that snapped open, then shut. Another three fighters fell. It was just Cenine and her new wing mate now. Luffa watched, partially in shock, partially horrified with the ease that Amara was making this look.
The Indra swept about, using a short range blink spell to teleport away from a volley of fire that had it dead to rights, only to appear behind the fighters. Amara cut forward thrust, whipped the controls hard and spun the Indra around one eighty to face the fighters and fired. Cenine and her wing mate blew up the same as the rest, but everyone was sure they heard her rage filled screams for an instant longer than was normal.
“Amara…” Luffa said, her voice tight with the emotion as the moment was finally calming. Amara started to face her, but a system ping from the station drew their attention.
“We have taken your request for asylum. Proceed to these coordinates to disembark your vessel.”
Luffa turned to Tanak and found the dragonborn with a mild expression of shock, awe, and panic. “We made it,” Luffa said with an exhausted sigh.
“That we have. Thanks to everyone’s efforts. But most especially, Amara.”
When they turned to face up front again, she was looking at her hands. Luffa knew that look. The revulsion. The horror. She’d just done something mortifying, and she wasn’t sure she’d be able to live that down. Slowly, Amara gripped the controls again, fed the ship some magic, and maneuvered them again.
This time, the feel of the magic was very different. It was like someone else was at the controls entirely. Even Amara’s aura felt different now. Something had changed, and Luffa wanted to know what. She wondered if this was related to the issues she’d been telling them about at that station they picked her up on. Had she been running from this? Worse still, she couldn’t help but wonder, had she unleashed some kind of monster?