The cockpit tore off in a spray of molten metal and shredded debris. A sustained blast of red laser fire straight down the gullet will do that, weakening the connecting struts. For a ship designed for space, the sudden rush of atmosphere was enough to rip the entire front half away. If there was a Dulox in that scatter of wreckage, I didn’t see it get flung into the void. Pilot to pilot? I hoped it was quick.

Faleun looked a little green, even more so than her usual emerald hue.

“Remind me to add a co-pilot seat next time we hit a ship bay,” I said, leveling out and scanning the console. “We’re clear for now. You can let go.”

“You do this on a regular basis?” Faleun asked, finally pulling her hands free from where they had embedded themselves.

“Oh, heck no,” I laughed. “That was actually my first time! Did a stint testing some in-atmo ships, played pretend fighter pilot for a bit, but never saw any actual combat.”

“Not a good idea to test yourself for the first time against five unknown enemies.”

“You’re right,” I said, a bit more thoughtfully, “but I bet whichever Slipscale was about to meet that bomb probably appreciated it.”

She opened her mouth to reply, then thought better of it. I let it go, no need to push further.

A pling echoed in my head, followed by a notification:

Your ship has reached level three!

I quickly scrolled through the menus as we soared through the ever-lightening skies above the spiraling islands. The options were pretty limited compared to what I had when leveling up myself. For now, I could only distribute points between weaponry, armor, and hull, so I kept it even, adding two points to each. Curiously, I had six unused skill points but no skills available to spend them on. Maybe I needed a higher level to unlock more options?

That reminded me: I still had unused skill points for myself. I quickly pulled up my personal menu. After bringing Adrenaline Boost and Combat Opportunist up to level two, I had just enough left to upgrade one of my existing skills and snag a new one. Given my current situation, flying a laser-equipped spaceship, it seemed obvious…

The ship felt noticeably more responsive under my hands, probably a combination of the upgraded Pilot skill and the ship’s boosted stats. It wasn’t a massive change; I hadn’t dropped a Lamborghini engine into a Corolla, but it was definitely an improvement.

I banked the ship, adding just a little extra juice to the turn. Faleun squinted at me, unsure if that maneuver was standard or if I was just having fun. She didn’t need to know.

“There’s, uh, some cargo netting along the back wall,” I hinted, keeping my tone casual. “Might be easier to hang onto that instead of hovering over my shoulder.”

“I’d rather be here. It’s terrifying, yes, but at least I can see what’s coming.”

“I feel you,” I nodded. “Even if some ace pilot with a hundred confirmed kills was flying, I’d still want my hands on the controls. It just feels wrong otherwise. I’d give up the seat, but it would hurt.”

We flew in silence for a few minutes before a few faint pings appeared on the radar-slash-proximity sensor. I tapped the screen, causing it to flicker in a strange array of colors, then glanced at Faleun.

“We can keep this up for a bit, but we’re outnumbered and quickly losing the element of surprise. Soon, they’ll either wise up and bunch up, making guerrilla tactics useless, or one of them rolls a nat 20 and strikes a lucky shot. Either way, we won’t last long up here.”

She stared out through the cockpit glass, deep in thought.

“Any ideas?” I asked, adjusting our course to keep the patrol ships just at the edge of the sensors. “We could head back to your village, grab a couple more villagers?”

“No. What use would it be to take a few more Slipscale aboard this little ship?”

“No beau you can’t live without?”

She shot me a look. “Even if I had one, I wouldn’t abandon the others to die.”

“Fair enough. Any soft targets we can hit to draw them away?”

She shook her head. “Nothing but the conveyors. Early in the invasion, many tried. They were repaired quickly, and the attackers were dealt with just as fast. The Dulox retaliate hard and without mercy.”

“Like now,” I muttered, “except they don’t have easy access to the ones responsible, so they’re taking it out on all the Slipscale.”

She nodded solemnly, staring at the horizon, now a soft blue instead of fiery orange. We snapped our heads toward each other as the same thought hit us both.

“So we give them someone to direct their fury at,” she said.

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“I get to be loud, annoying, and shoot at a bunch of slaving Dulox?” I grinned, excitement building.

She shook her head, a small smile forming. “We get to be loud and annoying.”

----------------------------------------

“Yeeeeeehaw!” I whooped as we made another pass at a group of Dulox ships, this time deliberately targeting the bombers' control surfaces instead of blowing them out of the sky. And yeah, maybe it wasn’t some random technician that loaded those cheesy westerns into my databanks, everyone has their weaknesses, okay?

“Wish there was more for you to do than just hang on!” I grunted as I spun the ship into a sharp dive, pulling up just in time to skim across the ocean waves. I cut it a little too close, my breath catching in my chest as we barely cleared the water. I could almost picture the Strommäsk engine dipping just enough to touch the waves. In reality, we were probably twenty feet off, but it felt like inches.

We shot upward at an angle, tracers cutting across our path. I twisted the ship through the fire, letting most of the rounds hit our underbelly. I hadn’t configured the armor to be thicker in any specific spot, so I’d rather not risk the engine or our one and only weapon. A holographic representation of the ship flickered to life on the console, showing the armor underneath turning a pale green. We’d taken a bit of damage. She wasn’t as fragile as the Dulox patrol ships, but she couldn’t take much more abuse.

“There!” Faleun shouted, pointing straight into the sun.

“I see ‘em. Classic trick,” I said. I wasn’t even sure if they meant to approach with the sun at their backs, what with sensors making old dogfighting tactics pretty useless these days... but considering the heaps of junk they were flying, it might actually be a valid strategy.

I pushed the throttle further, and the ship began to rumble in protest. We weren’t even at half throttle, but in atmosphere, there’s only so much speed you can handle before you either burn up or rattle the ship apart. I veered away from the group coming in from the sun, keeping just enough distance ahead that only the occasional, ineffective burst of rounds came our way.

“It’s working,” Faleun said, leaning over my shoulder in the most annoying display of backseat piloting possible. “There are at least twenty following us now.”

“Looks like the bombers are breaking off, heading into space,” I noted. “Too easy to pick off without an escort.”

“Do you think they’ll come back?” Faleun asked, her claws tapping nervously at the back of my chair.

“Nah. If that Solas guy is pulling the strings, it’s not a good idea to kill off your entire, uh, workforce. Now that they’ve got us in their sights, he’d be smarter to lick his wounds, take out the invader, me, who caused the mess, and get back to status quo.”

“Do you think we have enough?” she asked, the tapping growing more insistent.

“Not yet. It’s all about the show. We’ve got to rile up the hornet’s nest, get them angry enough, and then fly off into deep space. Once we’re out of their reach, there’s no reason for them to keep hammering on the locals.”

“You really think they’ll just give up and let us escape?”

“No chance.”

“Then what-”

“Ah, look,” I interrupted, gesturing out ahead, “bask in the glory of your sabotage.”

The space elevator came into view again as we sped toward the horizon. What had once been a bright yellow shaft of light piercing the sky was now a towering column of thick, black smoke, shooting upwards before getting caught by the high-altitude winds and streaking across the troposphere like charcoal on a canvas. Every so often, the yellow light flickered back on, pushing smoke and debris higher before sputtering out again.

“Crash,” Faleun said softly, her voice tight, “I don’t think that’s a Dulox ship.”

I narrowed my eyes. “That is definitely not a Dulox ship.”

There, hovering ominously at the scene of the crime, was a massive, hulking ship. It looked like a cross between an armadillo and a porcupine, its segmented bulk covered in overlapping armor plates that shifted slightly as it hovered, almost like the armored skin was alive. The ship was bristling with twitching spines, each one constantly scanning the area, ready to strike. Some of the spines glowed faintly at the tips, like charged weapons on standby. It loomed in front of the column of black smoke, a menacing silhouette against the sky, almost daring us to come closer.

“We aren’t going to-”

“Oh, fuck no,” I said, “getting any closer to that thing would for sure be a 'Hey, let’s see what this button does' kind of bad idea.”

I adjusted course to stop our approach, while also keeping our tailgaters at distance.

“Let’s just make a show of this, zap a couple of these jerks, and then we’ll head off into the sunset.”

“Good idea… except, I think the large ship is beginning to lose its quills.”

“It what?” I looked out at the hulking ship, now resembling a robot porcupine in the throes of a midlife crisis, probably a week away from buying a sports car. My sensors lit up as the large blob indicating the ship splintered into hundreds of smaller icons.

“Shit,” I muttered. “Somehow I forgot this guy is into drones. You might want to hold on.”

Plumes of bright orange began to glow behind the spikes as the drones shot toward us in formation, closing the distance fast. Without waiting for a written invitiation, I flipped the ship over, the hull groaning in protest. I even heard a crack as some poor strut gave out under the strain. I slammed the throttle forward, racing back toward the group that had been chasing us, hammering the laser and spraying fire in their direction.

Through a mix of great piloting and definitely not pure dumb luck, one of the drones exploded. We blasted through its debris cloud, the ship shuddering as chunks of metal and debris slammed into the hull. The holographic display on my console flashed red at the nose, while the rest of the ship shifted to a worrying shade of orange as more fragments pinged off the armor.

“I think it’s about time we got off this wet rock!” I called out, even though Faleun was practically riding the seat behind me. I pulled the control stick back, and we shot upwards, the ship shaking and bucking so hard it felt like we might rattle apart at any second.

Explosions rang out behind us.

“They’re fighting?” Faleun asked.

“Nope, the Dulox ships are just unlucky enough to be in the way of those spikes. Took out a few drones, but we’ve still got a couple hundred heading our way.”

After a few more harrowing moments, the atmosphere thinned enough that the threat of self-destruction finally dropped to mildly probable. You know, progress.

“Are we fast enough to get away?” Faleun asked.

“If we had about twenty minutes' head start, maybe. But unless we want to get splattered across the rear bulkhead, they’ll outpace us any day.”

“So what do we do now?”

“Evasive maneuvers.”