“How are we doing Farrah?” Rett asked as he used his hips to hop up in his seat. The liquid-filled chamber allowed him to float up and down as if he was deep underwater. Here, he could faintly feel his partner movements. Her senses, however, were great enough to sense his very heartbeats through his suit and the liquid between them.

She always said it was comforting, to hear that erratic drum beat. The difference between a sensor and a pilot was a night in the day in this way. One was the support, and the other the fighter.

“Squad is synchronized. We are to launch 10 seconds after we loop back into real space,” Farrah replied as her direct neural connections to the system were interpreted faster then Rett could physically do anything.

Rett nodded as he rotated his neck, letting it pop and crack as he settled down into his seat. With a thought, the magnetic system locked him down as the dive system spooled up.

With practice ease, Rett simply let go. No mind. Nobody. Just him.

His senses were dull as he knew that the entire ship was now prepping for the loop-cast drive. The ability to jump through physical space via quantum folding. Thus it would cause severe interference with the quantum link with the humanoid-tank.

Thus it was the reason why he was currently wired in, and on standby.

“Final countdown. 10… 9… 8…” Farrah said, but her voice sounded far away. Like she was speaking through a wall of water.

Then the world stretched, and everything was crushed as reality itself was altered.

—

The world popped back into sharp contrast, but Rett’s world was filled with a green light.

The floor was opened, and the vastness of space laid before him.

The cable connecting him to the ship, and the ship to him was disconnected. The various safety protocols were also released.

Everything became sharp. His vision. His senses. Farrah’s voice.

Rett immediately dropped down. The winglet support system was arrayed into wings, granting him incredible propulsion and maneuverability.

The ten-person squad fell out of their starship hanger. All across the hull, dozens of other squads were also deploying their

The Highwind. An assault carrier that measured a clean 1000 meters long.

“We are hooked into the graviton field. Power, gravity, and communal AI all green,” Farrah said as Rett began to enter the flying V formation of his squad. As one, the hundred humanoid-tank force began their advance.

The Highwind paved the way. Lances of brilliant light flashed into the enemy formation. The smaller ship’s shields flickered to life as the impact began to quickly hack away at their energy reserves.

Though they had more ships, the Highwind was designed for war. Brutal, close combat fights while dispatching an array of support fighters.

Rett watched as the Ascii forces responded.

They began to send out their own laser fire, and missiles. A veritable cloud of drones was also released.

Farrah watched. She locked into one drone and used Rett’s systems to support the Hightwind’s communal AIs. They were simpler, beings. Designed to process inputs and present an output.

“Drones identified. Level 12 drones. Be careful,” Farrah said as she began to reconfigure the HT’s systems. The mix of energy weapons and ballistics meant that there would be fewer shields, but not dying to a random, lucky bullet was also good.

The winglets also changed over. From 12 pairs making wings to half and half. 6 wings for mobility, 6 armlets for weapons.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

The winglets were not huge, but their contribution was what made the HT so versatile in war.

“Contact in 5 seconds,” Farrah warned as the world quickly turned red. Each drone and ship had a nice, thick outline. The issue was simply the sheer volume of enemy numbers.

“Weapons free. Good luck, and stay focused,” Farrah said. Her voice was soft in his ears and he nodded as everything faded away.

What Rett lacked in sheer mental prowess, he made up for in reflex, and the ability to fully synchronize with the humanoid-tank.

Rett flew in. The armlets allowed his hands to glow and with a thought, he unleashed his own beams of light.

The drones were arrayed into their own squads. Barrier drones. Battery drones. Laser drones. Ballistic drones. Missile drones…

The list went on. They were like a knife. Small, simple, and direct.

HTs, on the other hand, were made for their versatility, and their ability to perform both long-range, and short-range combat.

With the modern HT design, each hand shot was enough to pierce through anyone's shield drone. With 6 armlets proving additional power it was enough to pierce into a ship’s hull. It would take over ten shield drones, overlapping, to stop a single shot.

Which is what came up next.

With the first pass causing explosions as dozens of small squads simply blew up. They quickly began to reorganize.

The second line sacrificed itself. Assault drones moving forward on suicide runs, while the defensive line took in additional drones. They formed bigger groups. Which resulted in stronger shields.

Rett frowned as he cleaned up the front line, and the second line was buffering his attacks. The Wing part of winglets helped shield his unit, but that meant that he had less firepower.

At 6 armlets, he could perhaps blow up on drone with each attack. When there were now dozens in a swarm, it meant that he would have to start strife runs.

“Support fire vectors confirmed,” Farrah chimed in. The simple 3d lines of the designated fire path were soon chased by an overly large beam of light.

It wasn’t as large as the Highwind’s main cannons, but for HTs it was big.

Just as drones could regroup for combined offense and defense, so could the biologicals.

Rett sped into the hole along with half of his squad. From there he simply had his energy attacks form flechette rounds, letting out hundreds of smaller energy pellets fly forth.

Without the shield drones to protect them, the assault drones were quickly shredded. In their valiant effort, the surviving shield drone’s tried to stop the five of them, but it was useless.

Within fifteen minutes, Rett touched the hull of the transport ship. His squad was bombarding the superstructure with supersonic vibrations. These would in turn be recorded and the entire deck would be mapped out.

They needed to find the main databanks. It would be deep inside, but it housed the local Ascii consciousness. Once that was either taken or destroyed, the ship would simply stop functioning.

The follow-up orders were simple. There was a maintenance corridor used for quick, efficient repairs. HTs could fit and they were to go in, and then establish a bulkhead for infantry to board.

Rett wondered what was so important that they would try to capture, but he shrugged. He was a grunt, and high command had found something.

Rett had all winglets in armlet mode. The sheer power was enough to cut into the super hull, but it was slow going. He had to pause often as the Highwind wasn’t close enough to provide full support, so he often had to stop and let his HT’s reserves refill.

The job sped up immensely as the Highwind was able to move in closer.

With a hissing pop, the section of the hull was ejected via grenade and the thick plate began to float off into the void.

The next order was to go in.

With a whistle, Rett hopped into the breach.

———

Rett coughed. Even though life water, he could taste blood.

“Ssssshhhhhh,” Farrah whispered. Her mental connection to him was strong enough that he could only feel her. She was suppressing his brain again.

“Hwhmaha?” Rett asked. He had taken great care to annunciate this time.

“There was an entire defensive grid. You fell in and it activated. The upside is that your HT’s resulting explosion actually knocked out the defensive grid somehow.” Farrah said as she fiddled with the emergency lock.

“Inlutlheis,” Rett exclaimed.

“I am sure the captain will be more than happy to explain to Claire why the HT will not be returning to the hanger,” Farrah said as she carefully wrapped half of her tentacles around her partner, and the other half began to move them up to the chamber’s entry on top.

“Gdnt,” Rett sighed as his eyes closed.

“Goodnight,” Farrah whispered and she gave her partner a kiss. Well, it was more of an eyebrow to eyebrow bump.

The suit said he was fine physically, but the recoil of forced psychic disconnect sucked for humans.

Farrah whistled a small tune as she dragged her partner up, and into the many armed, metal tentacles of the mobile medical unit.

Farrah used her own arms to slide up the side of the unit, and she rode it to the medical bay.

There, nearly a dozen other pilots, and their octopus partners.

The medical unit docked with a more sophisticated unit, and Rett was scanned. The results were that he was just unconscious.

Farrah sighed. Her people’s minds was a blessing and a curse. They were able to replace the required AI support for HTs, but she was a person. Rett’s well being was her well being.

She settled down on his chest, and the suit reacted to the weight by becoming rigid.

She wrapped two tentacles around his exposed neck. His warmth was soothing and her species found human body temperature enough to get lightly drunk off of. The cold seas were what her people preferred, but for those that joined the military, human warmth was a very nice bonus.