_ _ _Hiiro

"Shadow Shadow Shadow. All littles, make ready for immediate extraction. Four minutes, rear of the west wing. Powertechs, we need a hole in that air cover ASAP. Make it happen people." Alice turned from the radio and spoke to Carmen. "We'll try and take as many of your girls with us as possible. We'll take who we can…"

Celio's head maid was all mettle just them. Her face could have been an iron mask as she nodded her understanding to Alice before taking up a radio of her own.

"Guerreiro Doméstica, I have news and orders. The Savior is absconding from the grounds, escorted by the Estralas. Their máquinas morte will stay with us, but this estate will soon fall. If you are with the warriors from the stars, go with them and escape. For those of you who cannot, my final order on behalf of the Savior himself is this. Survive. Return to the land and your mothers with grace knowing you have accomplished more today than many women do in their entire lives. Vá com Deus!"

"That was a nice speech." Alice said softly.

"I hope so. That's the last kind thing a lot of my girls will hear for the rest of their lives." Carmen replied heavily, before drawing a small cross from her her blouse and whispering. "Deus me liberte."

The well-oiled machine of mercs in motion exploded into motion. In seconds flat, everything that couldn't afford to be left behind was either stuffed in a bag or had one of Princess's explosives stuck to it. I had a radio thrust unto me along with a handful of OSDs. It was a struggle for me to get off my ass and find my feet, along with the distant suggestion of pain that accompanied standing, but I managed.

Alice keyed her master radio once again.

"Judgment incoming, all heads down. Judgment incoming… NOW!"

Princess hit the detonator with FUBAR scratched into its side and the world came alive under my feet.

The world's largest firecracker chain was being set off in the next room over all in sequence. The palace floor was quivering in a way that reminded me of how it'd felt being inside a mountain as Bim was ripping it open. I looked out the remains of a window, expecting to see Celio's entire cliffside estate sliding into the open sea. No such luck— I wasn't sure if that was good or bad.

"That buys us three minutes at best. Let's move!" Princess barked.

Then we were all moving, racing in a mad dash for the back yard. Mercs were coming out of the woodworks, sliding through mouse-holed palace like ghosts through the walls. I spotted maids falling back by fireteams, plus some rare few vigia stunned and confused but joining in with the crowd anyway. The vigia weren't followers to a tee, but maybe a third of those who saw our mad lemming sprint for the cliffs came running. I would have cursed the stupid bastards if I had the breath to spare.

Our crowd hit the backyard and I thought the sky was on fire. Thin wispy clouds were exploding, seven lines of glowing tracers and burning laser strobes lancing up into the sky.

It was raining planes. There must have been dozens of planes shot down already, crashing down into the palace, ocean and even down into their allies still trying to make their approach. For every flyer shot down, there must have been another two still circling high overhead.

The Black Hound smashed into the backyard like a thrown brick, carving a furrow through grass and stone as it slid to a stop. All six engines were burning hard, swamping us all in the backwash of dry heat. Half of the engines were scorching the lawn and pealing the thick paint of the palace walls thirty meters away; the other half were just melting patio stones into a black volcanic slag. Four titans of steel jumped out of the shuttle and took up vigil.

Everyone hauled ass for the shuttle's ramp. I was falling behind, hobbling on my tortured toe and rubber legs as fast as I could but I was at the rear of the pack. Even the maids acting as the rearguard were overtaking me. Treu was the first one in the shuttle, Bim held indignantly over his shoulder like a sack of rice.

Gunfire started tearing into the crowd ahead of me. There were soldiers here. It didn't make sense! Not until I saw one of them climbing over the cliff ledge. Marines had scaled the hundred-plus meters high cliff. To a man, the marines were drop dead tired but that didn't stop them from hefting their rifles and joining the fight.

Leeroy and the other three armored giants charged marines, forcing them to choose between gunning us down as we ran or fighting off the war machines. I emptied my rifle towards the marines at a dead sprint then chucked the heavy steel once it ran dry. I wasn't fast enough and the weight was slowing me down.

The shuttle was still fifteen meters away from me as the engines flared brighter. The Hound was inching away as the last of the crowd piled in— even the merc's elderly surgeon Gerald managed to out sprint me. The dropped ramp was only five meters away and it was moving nearly as fast as I was now.

I was racing the Hound as it gathered speed, the backwash of its engines nearly blowing me away as my clothes began burning. Stray gunfire chewed up the blackened stones at my feet, driving me harder. I saw the cliffs' ledge just ahead. I was running out of ground. I wasn't going to make it.

The shuttle shifted its screaming engines more upwards. Suddenly the gale pushing me back practically vanished. I nearly toppled onto my face but I kept my footing. Kept sprinting with everything I had for the approaching ledge.

My mangled foot slammed into metal decking. I smashed into the merc's elderly surgeon a split-second after.

Gerald caught me with a blood-stained hand. His pale blue eyes played over my burning clothes and bare chest. I looked down too, thinking I'd been hit. But there was nothing there, no wounds… and no golden cross necklace either. The hand that had caught me shoved away.

Gerald pushed me.

There wasn't a flicker of doubt in his eyes. The shuttle's engines flared. Everyone caught themselves, everyone found something to grab. Everyone except me.

I slammed onto the charred lawn stones, rolling in a jumble of flailing limbs towards the ledge. The backwash of the engines caught me, stopped me and threw me back towards the wartorn palace as everyone else got away clean.

I was still blinking the stars from my eyes as the Hound sealed its rear ramp and streaked off into the dawn sky. Bullets chased after it. I spotted a swarm of drones breaking off from the palace in pursuit. It wasn't fair…

I was tempted to just lie there. The palace was lost anyway. If I didn't fight, they'd probably just capture me again, take me to a new dungeon and torture me some more. I gazed sleepily out at the ocean, to the sun as it considered cresting the distant waters.

A new day and all I felt was exhaustion. I was tired of fighting. This wasn't me. I wasn't a battle-crazed mercenary. At least Bim had got away.

Maybe if I was lucky she'd come rescue me again. The thought was like acid in my guts. I knew—or at least I thought—she could, but what kind of man would I be if I put her through that again? I'd be no man at all.

I flopped over. I wasn't sure if I could stand, with all the bullets whizzing overhead I really didn't want to. For lack of better option, I started crawling back towards the palace. A metal boot the size of my torso stomped down in front of me. I didn't recognize the armor.

"Get out of here you idiot!" I didn't recognize the tinny booming voice either.

I couldn't stand, my legs wouldn't work. The gnawing pit in my stomach was too heavy. I could hear men screaming as they fought, as they were ripped apart by flying lead and steely talons. There was nowhere to hide, the open yard was a mess of men as they charged and fought and fell. I kept crawling.

A steel fist grabbed me around the ribs, the metallic fingers nearly wrapping my entire torso, and bowled me across the yard. I flew, rolled and struck the splintered remains of a poolside mini bar twenty meters away from where I'd been launched. I shook away stars and was amazed I was still alive.

I tried to push myself upright but my forearm folded under me halfway down its length. I looked down and saw two jagged white spokes of bone sticking out from my right arm's new joint. I was amazed it didn't hurt. Just looking at it, I knew it should be agonizing.

I wondered if I was dieing. The thought made me giddy from the neck up and numb from the neck down. It almost felt like my head wasn't on straight. Whatever drugs were floating around in my veins, they were a hell of thing. I wasn't looking forward to coming down off them— if I made it that long…

I started gingerly picking my way out of the minibar, catching glimpses of the battle all the while. The mercs were in the open, smashing into clumps of marines whenever they tried to regroup. The mercs in their giant warsuits were butchering the marines but still getting the scat beat out of them in return.

It was like watching four Byakkai—the great demon tigers of my homeworld—doing battle with a tribe of hunters. Men were torn apart or flung from the cliff to their demise but still they fought, weakening the beasts by inches. If things kept up like this, it was only a matter of time until the hunters felled their quarry.

A stitch of stray gunfire reminded me that I really had better places to be; I tore myself from the collapsed minibar, found my feet and ran for the palace. I crawled through a busted window, landing in a jumble of rubble and glass shards. I found my feet again and kept moving.

I didn't know where. The enemy was all around, closing in for the kill. I had no idea how I'd escape the closing noose; I just knew I'd never make it out on foot. I needed a car, or a helicopter. Hell, I'd take a bicycle right about now.

I had to get to a garage. That should be easy enough, there were eight scattered across the compound. I was in the west wing… the mercs might still have a few crossovers stashed down there from Celio's doomed motorcades. I was hobbling through the halls when my radio hissed on, echoing with distant gunfire.

"Hero," Idris said, radio crackled weakly and lending her terse voice a tinny edge. "I don't know if you can hear this, if you're even still alive…" Boom! I heard the explosion and the accompanying pings of shrapnel on metal through the radio first, then with my own ears a second later. "If you are, we're losing ground. Find someone, anyone to link up with. We're going to break out soon. That's your best chance. Escape while we're tearing though the encirclement. The odds aren't great… But if you can't make it out on your own… I just hope you can hear this."

I keyed the radio to reply only to get a shriek of distortion.

I gave up on answering and focused on doing what I could to stay alive. I kept moving, approaching the west wing's garage with as much stealth as I could manage on legs I could barely feel with my broken arm that flopped with every step.

The garage was on ground level and it was all concrete and steel, not a bad place to dig in and fight. Not that I planned on doing either, but maybe someone else had. There were two cars left, both fragged to deny the enemy them. I knew why the mercs had done it, but right then I really hated that Princess had done such a thorough job.

I heard tools at work, steel clanking away and faint curses echoing throughout the ferrocrete garage. I kept low, sticking to the spotty shadows as I lurked closer. Someone was working on the second car, the one further from me. Had the army gotten this far already? I doubted it, but I wasn't going to bet my life against such rotten luck.

"Are you sure you know how to do this?" A man hissed.

"I watched my charge change dozens of tires. It's…" A woman answered, her familiar voice strained with exertion. "easssyyy!"

Something slipped, I heard tools clattering together. A wrench came flying in my direction. I sidestepped it, bumping into a workbench as I did.

A pair of compact rifles snapped over the vehicle, sighted on me in a heartbeat. They had me dead to rights, but they didn't plug me full of holes. I focused my itchy eyes passed the rifles that weren't shooting me dead. I recognized the women holding me at gunpoint.

"Leonor-Sammara, Ambar-Lucia." I said, nodding to the chocolate-haired workhorse of a woman and the petite blond beside her. I raised both hands to show I was unarmed. It took them a second to recognize me under all the cuts, burns and bruises.

"Your arm-" Ambar started.

"Hiiro! Graças a Deus você vive." Zoe-Esther cried in delight, rising form the driver's side tire she was working on. Her expression soured the instant she saw me. She collected herself quickly, always the diligent servant. "What should we do now?"

I limped over to join them, assessing the situation. In a heartbeat, I saw that Zoe's best efforts were in vain— she'd been swapping out the shredded tires while the engine was blown to scrap. Driving out of the estate still seemed like my best option. There was a chance that the mercs hadn't managed to sabotage all the vehicles in all the garages. Zoe was still looking at me.

I wanted to say 'How the hell should I know!? What makes you think I've got any better ideas than you do!?' I bit my tongue on that. She was looking to me for answers— I was a star-faring mercenary, surely I'd know what to do. What a fucking joke.

Instead I said, "We have to get out of here and we're not going to do that in this."

"Told you so." Leonor chided. Zoe ignored her.

I wanted to pace as I thought but my foot wasn't having that. I leaned against the scrapped car, looking far more relaxed than I felt. There were seven maids and two vigia with Zoe; I could tell at a glance that the men didn't have any fight left in them. There were also three bodies lain in the corner with rags over their faces. I didn't need to see her face to recognize Zoe's other friend lying on the ground in a pool of blood. It wasn't very respectful, but I tried to be gentle as I pulled the pistol from Khloe-Olivia-Emillia's cold, dead hands and stuffed my pockets with what little ammo she'd had left.

Zoe, Leonor, Ambar and me. Four guns and seven non-combatants. Eleven people who needed to find a way out of here. The Mercs sabotaged their wheels, the south side garage was too far away, if not already lost, the main fight was for the palace center right now. The palace was effectively a lost cause, but there were other garages…

"Do any of Celio's antique cars still run?" I asked.

"All of them do." Ambar answered with a shrug. "He liked to race them down the strip before…"

Before us. Before the fighting. Before he wanted to sit on the throne and rule the world. I wondered if Celio wouldn't be happier racing his cars and enjoying all the pleasures of wealthy living. The silence hung and all eyes were on me. I'd never known how heavy someone's gaze could be until that moment.

"Then that's where we're going." I said, trying to sound confident.

"The estate is lost." It was one of the vigia who'd spoke— a hefty man with a very clean bandage wrapped around his head. "We'll die if we go out there."

"We'll die if we stay here!" Leonor snapped back in a roar. "At least if we try, there's a chance."

"A fool's chance." He answered.

"Maybe." I admitted with a shrug that made my broken arm flop at my size. "But the gods favor fools. No one's forcing you to come with us. Stay here and die if that's what you want. We're going to try and survive— if that makes us fools then so be it."

They were all looking at me expectantly. The battle maids seemed about as pumped as they could be in the situation. They were tired, their friend was lying dead a few feet to the left and we were running away. But they were focused, shoulders back and chins up. I felt a little guilty about it, but seeing these girls a decade my junior standing defiant made me feel a little braver.

The look on their faces reminded me of something Leeroy had said. 'In the face of death, life gains a singular focus'. I wanted to live and so did they. Everything else fell by the wayside.

"Leonor, Ambar, you two lead the way to the hangars. Zoe and I will bring up the rear. Everyone else, try and stick to the center of square between us. Keep your heads down. If you're out in the open do NOT stop moving. Watch your footing and stick together without clumping up. We can do this."

I nodded to myself, trying to think of anything else to say.

My radio crackled to life again. Discordant voices raging over the din of battle. "Those fucking cowards are running!" "It's too soon, we're not in position yet." "They're gonna get slaughtered!" "The line's broken!" "Hold Fast! Hold Fast!"

I couldn't let myself think about what that meant. I had to think about what it meant for me and mine.

"We have to go NOW! While their distracting them." I said, hating myself because I knew it was the right call. Those men were going to die partially because of their own stupidity, but also partially so I had a chance to live. I hated it, but damned if it didn't light a fire under my ass.

My fighting square hit the yard and swept wide, pushing northwest to try and clear as much of the southbound forces as we could. Any other time, we would have been crossing open ground but now Celio's parkway was a blazing scrapyard of downed helicopters and drones interspersed with with craters, rubble and fallen soldiers. I wouldn't have thought it possible to create so much cover, to vary the grounds so much in less than an hour, but none the less I was grateful that we weren't crossing an open lot. As it stood, we had a chance.

Leonor and Ambar started shooting, slowing just enough to aim their shots. Airborn survivors returned fire from the twilight gloom that lay beyond the blazing wrecks. I heard shouting. I couldn't see it, but I knew more soldiers would be joining the fight the longer it took us to cross this blasted scrapyard.

"Go! Get to the hangars!" I screamed, firing my pistol with as much accuracy and control as I could manage at a hobbling sprint. My other arm was flailing bonelessly at my side, throwing off my aim even worse. I was narrowly hitting men ten feet from me.

I barely heard my radio over the gunfire. "Holy shit! Someone's making a break for the hangars." "Fuck me. It's Firebug!" "That dumbass is still alive?" "Not for long, eh?" "Shut up and Cover Him!"

From the rooftop and throughout the palace, warsuits turned their guns from the sky and the south towards us. Death raked down alongside us, ahead of us, behind us. I was in the eye of a storm of strobing lighting and leaden hail.

I was struggling to keep up. We'd gone maybe four-hundred meters and our fighting square was slowly sagging into a rectangle. Zoe was keeping pace with me, maybe five meters to my left. I wanted to yell at her, to curse her kind heart, to tell her to leave me behind. If I could manage a breath I might have, but I was sucking wind. Even though I wanted to command her to do otherwise, I was glad she was by my side.

Our fire support was getting further away, their accuracy dwindling the farther we ran. Too many bad guys and not enough friendly bullets to keep them all pinned down. Some got brave, some got stupid. A few of them caught a bullet before they could fire. But more of them managed to squeeze off some shots in our direction.

Two of our non-combatants fell. One without a head. The other screaming as she clutched at the smoking stump of her shin. The scent of cooked human flesh had my mouth watering as I hobbled past the fallen girl. I didn't stop. I had to keep moving. My radio was yelling at me again.

"Don't stop you fucking idiot!"

I hadn't. I looked to my left for Zoe. She wasn't there.

"Drop her and run you stupid moron!"

I looked further back and there she was. Zoe had her carbine slung over one shoulder and the fallen girl over the other.

Movement to my left. Rifle. Enemy. Pointing at Zoe. I stopped, aimed and put three rounds through his skull. A burst of automatic fire splattered off a burning helo ahead of me. I dumped the rest of my magazine towards its source, ducking down to reduce my profile.

"Hero! Keep running! You're surrounded. The Vigia got massacred and a whole company of troops are closing in on you from the south."

Zoe caught up to me. I threw my right shoulder under the one-legged girl's other arm and kept hobbling towards the hangar garage. We were nearly there. The entire time my radio kept chanting 'you stupid idiot' over and over and over. Somehow, it was calming. Like there was certainty in all the chaos, even if that certainty was just my own stupidity.

Zoe grunted, then staggered a little just before we reached the side access door. I nearly tripped over the threshold but I'd made it. I looked over to Zoe-Esther, she was smiling through gritted teeth. We'd made it.

There were wounded soldiers in the garage. Then I noticed the smoke curling from Ambar and Leonor's rifles. There were wounded soldiers in here. Now there was only corpses. I didn't let myself dwell on that fact. We had to survive, that was the only thing that mattered.

Under different circumstances, this garage would have been paradise to me. There must have been over fifty antique or limited run cars all parked in orderly rows. Celio wasn't a man who threw his money around half-assed. Displayed near the far wall I saw a line of chromed motorcycles and any other time I would have been drooling over them. But this was now, and right now I needed something big, tough and fast.

Most of what Celio had in this hangar of his collection were sports cars or luxury cruisers. They were plenty fast, most of them probably had more power than I'd every drove, but would they be fast enough? The bikes were plenty maneuverable, but I'd never seat eleven, no ten people on a bike and I wasn't sure if anyone else knew how to ride.

Squatting in the back past a line of convertibles and town cars, I spotted him. He was an old bruiser of a truck, ugly and imposing by design yet I'd never seen anything so beautiful— aside from Bim of course. The design was vaguely familiar from my pioneering days. It was a rugged beast of a workhorse, closer to an armored personnel carrier than a truck.

Then I spotted the snorkel intake and I had an idea. It was a stupid idea, downright moronic, some might even say it was foolish. I crossed my fingers and tossed up a silent prayer to anyone listening that the gods really did favor fools because if this worked, I'd never live it down.

"Everyone in that one." I bellowed while pointing.

No one hesitated. They trusted me implicitly and I really hoped I wasn't about to get them all killed in the next five minutes. The silver lining was if I did get them killed, then in all likelihood I'd be dead too. It wasn't much of a silver lining, but I wasn't in a position to be choosy.

My radio was crackling again. "We have to get down there!" "No! He's too far away, over too much open ground." "Let him draw the enemy west so we can punch south once their forces are thinned." "But he'll die!" "And we've make sure his sacrifice isn't in vain." "We can't hold the south wing. There's too many!" "Keep drawing them in." "How are we going to get through?" "We'll figure it out."

The chatter was constant now. The fighting was devolving into a mobbing. Leeroy was doing what he could to instill order on the chaos but it was a losing battle.

I thought about the factors involved in my foolish idea as I turned the engine over. The monstrous engine roared to life, spewing a cloud of ashy black smoke into the convertible next to us. I checked my mirrors and my passengers. Everyone was in the back and Zoe was sat beside me. The white tiger-leather upholstery was going to be forever stained blood red and ashy black but that didn't matter now. My foolish idea would either work or it wouldn't. Either way, I was committed and it was too late to change my mind.

"This will work." I told myself. I really hoped I wasn't lying. I keyed the radio and spoke, my voice full of conviction. "I don't need rescue. I'm not trying to break out. Just cover me until I reach the back yard."

"Even if you make it back to us, you won't be able to cover you once you hit the road." Leeroy said.

"I'm not headed for the road." I answered, revving the engine to warm it up. "I'm headed for the ocean."

There was a pause for a second and all I heard was the gunfire pattering off of his armor as he thought. "You crazy son of a bitch. You're either brilliant or insane."

"Neither." I answered. "I'm just a fool who ran out of options."

I gunned the engine. Eight massive ribbed wheels peeling on the polished ferrocrete floor as I tore out of the hangar. My truck was built like a torpedo and it tore through the half-open hangar door like a hydrogen-powered battering ram.

Instantly gunfire was pounding into my truck's hull. I was a steel plate at a shooting range, swerving around the burning wrecks and craters like a madman. I could barely turn the wheel with my single usable hand but I threw my entire body into it.

A squad of airborn survivors gathered ahead of me, aiming as one. Automatic fire smashed into my angled hood, my tires and my windscreen. A spiderweb of cracks spread across my dash but somehow the windscreen held on. I could barely see anything but I didn't let off the gas.

I felt some bumps as I ran something over— several somethings based off the screams that cut terminally short. I didn't spare it a thought. I was peering through the cracks in my shattered windscreen. I spotted the palace closing fast and yanked the wheel right. I cut around the outside then around the back, tearing trenches in the lawn while aiming for the cliffs in fifth gear as I redlined the engine.

I couldn't see the ledge but I knew where it was about a second after I flew over it.

Time seemed to hang, as suspended as we were right then. I knew we were falling but it seemed like we were only floating. Gravity was a suggestion in my ear and the rising bile in my empty stomach. I could sense that my front end was pitching down. If I'd had the time, I would have crossed my fingers and shouted out a prayer. If we pitched too far, the ocean would fatally introduce the battered windscreen to everyone inside; not far enough and we'd splatter all over the water just the same as if we were landing on ferrocrete from a hundred meters up.

Gravity smashed back to us as we hit the water at the perfect angle, diving down below the waves like a dart.

Metal shrieked as I felt the front axle tear away and water started pissing in through all the bullet holes. I felt the door bowing inwards once it slammed into my leg. The roof started bending down on us, but it held. I didn't know if it would hold for long but it held.

I realized we were still sinking. Sinking, sinking, sinking. I hadn't realized that this was an option, a long slow death by suffocation or drowning trapped in a sinking car. I'd figured we'd either float or die on impact. I looked down at my pistol, considering my alternatives. They weren't great.

The nagging pressure in my ears changed. My stomach fluttered and the water's crushing darkness started to brighten. We were floating now. Slowly, so damned slowly we were floating up as the water pissed in. Would it be enough? Would we surface before there was too much water weighing us down? I considered the pistol once more.

Dawn.

The most beautiful sunrise I'd ever seen. It was a pale pink glow dazzling in through the shattered kaleidoscope of my driver's side window. It made me think back to the first time I'd called up my inner fire. The world was crushing, draining bleak cold nothing, but against it all there was a single tiny light burning defiant of everything. In a word, it looked like hope.

I don't know who cheered first but we all joined in. The manic, desperate release that came from living when you should be dead. Everyone was cheering or giggling or weeping as the gentle tide pushed us to shore. Everyone but Zoe.

I looked over to my passenger seat. Her eyes were closed like she was bathing in the radiant dawn, head leaning against the window, both bloodied hands on her stomach. The pooling water around her knees was like someone had dumped a bucket of blood at her feet.

"Zoe!"

She didn't move, didn't even open her eyes.

"Zoe! ZOE! Hey come on, we made it." I reached over shaking her shoulder. She was barely breathing. "I need a bandage! Get me something. Anything!"

I grabbed at Zoe's neck, feeling for a pulse with cold fingers numb from dread. I felt one… barely. I lifted her limp hands and saw four tiny little holes in her frilly apron.

I reached for my inner fire and drew it into a single finger. I could do this! I could save her. I just had to stop the bleeding like I'd done for Malik. I forced every single spark of heat I had into my finger and despaired. I couldn't even light a cigarette with everything I had left in me.

A hand came from the backseat clutching a fat strip of white-striped leather. I bunched it up and pressed down on her wounds. The pain forced a weak gasp from her lips. Zoe's eyes fluttered open. Her gaze was swimming but somehow she found my face.

"Hiiro." She whispered.

Leeroy's words echoed in my head. 'In the face of death, life gains a singular focus.'

"I'm here Zoe." I said, forcing the words past the rising lump in my throat.

"I… I think I love you." She whispered before going limp in my arms.

The light left her eyes before I could find a comforting lie to tell her.