Rhys hurried to the other side of the door frame and peered outside. His heart sank as he saw troop carriers descending low over the city. The angular, menacing craft were screaming toward the dilapidated buildings of Chatham Station; their engines roaring as they prepared to land, kicking up mud and debris. The sight of the alien invaders sent a ripple of panic through the bustling market.
"They're here." Silas said, his voice tight with urgency.
"More raiders?"
“Maybe. Maybe worse. We need to move. Right now.”
The cantina erupted into chaos as patrons scrambled for the doors. Rhys caught a glimpse of Soren glaring at him before he disappeared into the back, no doubt to some secret backroom or another. Knowing the greedy bastard, he would certainly be among the living tomorrow. Rhys and Silas pushed out into the crowded street, already a scene of pandemonium, with people running in every direction.
"Follow me," Rhys shouted over the din. "We need to get to the Kestrel!"
“Where?”
“My ship!”
The two men dashed through the rain-soaked streets, their boots sliding in the mud. They ducked into a narrow alley, far smaller than the one Rhys had found Silas in, hoping to avoid the main thoroughfare where the raiders were landing. The snap-hiss of laser fire echoed through the city, punctuated by screams and the occasional explosion. Rhys’s mind was whirling. How many ships had landed, and how many raiders were they carrying? It made no sense for a second attack so soon after the last one. The people here had been ready and waiting for any sign of trouble. A pitched battle like this made no sense to him.
As they rounded a corner, they came face to face with a group of bizarre, inhuman soldiers; one of which was not wearing a helmet. They were lizard-like, most of them nearly as tall as Silas, and definitely as muscular. Their scales were violent, burnt-red, with yellow slit pupil eyes and mouths filled with rows of sharp teeth set in broad, heavy jaws. Without breaking his stride, Silas tackled the closest around the middle, sending them both crashing to the ground. Rhys, who had been running full tilt, slid in the mud nearly falling over himself trying to stop.
It was in their favor that they had run into the aliens the way that they did, as they were just as shocked to see Rhys as Rhys was to see them. Their reactions began to kick in and they raised their weapons, but Rhys was able to draw his pistol faster. Before he could even get it properly level, he squeezed the trigger and burned a hole through the nearest lizard-man. The rest dove for cover, firing wildly in his direction yet hitting nothing but concrete and thin air. Rhys returned fire, pumping adrenaline making his aim hardly any better than theirs.
Rhys bent down and did his best to haul Silas to his feet. The larger man was frantically punching his opponent about the face and chest in a wild flurry, the fallen creature flailing and shrieking. Being half covered in mud didn’t make Rhys’s task any easier. Silas was heavy.
“Come on, let’s go!” he bellowed in the Silas’s ear, fighting down fear and panic. They tore back down the alley the way they came, and began making sharp turns in a new direction.
"We can't fight them all," Rhys said, breathing heavily. "We need to find another way around."
Silas nodded, clutching a stitch in his side. "The sewers. We can use the sewers to get to the hangars."
"Lead the way," Rhys replied, and they took off again, making their way to a nearby sewer grate.
Silas pried the heavy metal grate open, and they dropped down into the dark, foul-smelling tunnels below. The sewers were an unnavigable maze to Rhys, but Silas moved with a purpose, leading them through the twisting passages. The sound of the battle above was muffled, but they could still hear the chaos and the distant cries of the wounded. They walked in silence for a while before Rhys asked something that had been bothering him.
“Hey.” He began.
“Yeah?” Said Silas, keeping his eyes on the narrow walkway separating them both from a river of sewage.
“Why’d you tackle that thing back there? How come you didn’t shoot it?”
“Don’t have a weapon.”
“What? Why not? What kind of soldier goes into a fight without a weapon?”
“I’m not a soldier. Those men that I was meeting with insisted. ‘Come alone with no weapons, or the deal is off.’” Silas shrugged noncommittally, and kept walking.
“That’s crazy.” Rhys said, doing his best to think of anything besides the stench filing his nostrils. “Any idea what those things were?”
“Vexari.” Silas said flatly.
“That’s not possible.” Rhys said, without confidence. “We beat them like, I don’t know. Forever ago.” Silas didn’t answer, and Rhys was left to his own thoughts and the gentle echo of their footsteps.
After what felt like an eternity, they reached a section of the sewer that ran beneath the spaceport. Silas climbed up a maintenance ladder and cautiously lifted the grate, peeking out to survey the scene.
"We're in luck," Silas whispered. "It looks like the garrison is here. We’ll need to help them if we’re going to get to the Kestrel."
Rhys nodded, and they climbed out of the sewer onto the mercifully solid ground of the port itself, emerging behind a group of at least a dozen imperial soldiers who were using a barricade and assorted debris for cover. The soldiers glanced at them in surprise but quickly recognized the parts of Silas's uniform that he had retained. The sound of fighting was overwhelming. Overlapping laser fire, incoming and outgoing, was practically quiet compared to the deafening sounds of ships taking off over their heads and explosions going off periodically.
"Are you our reinforcements?" one of the soldiers asked, her face streaked with dirt and sweat that did nothing to hide her intense gaze. She had a rich contralto that was growing hoarse with shouting.
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"Not exactly." Silas replied, firing his pistol over the barrier in the direction of the Vexari. His voice barely projected over the cacophony around him. "But we're here to help. Silas Fier. What's the situation?"
"Staff Sergeant Wulf. Fuckers showed up out of nowhere and started pushing hard from the city," the soldier replied, ducking reflexively as laser fire seared overhead. "They hit us with rifles, some grenades, no heavy weapons so far. I don’t even know what these things are."
“They're Vexari.” Said Silas, his face grim.
“What?” Wulf shouted. She looked like she was going to protest more, but Rhys cut her off.
“We have to get to my ship. Silas needs to get off-world, and it looks like you do too. Will you help us?”
“We can’t just leave, civilian.” She said sharply, pausing to return fire at something Rhys couldn’t see before continuing, “ We have orders to hold the port.”
The words were hardly out of her mouth when one of her men, as she seemed to be the one in charge overall, dashed over and slammed his shoulder hard into an empty space on the concrete barrier next to her. He was wearing a heavy pack and seemed to be listening to someone talking to him through his helmet earpiece.
“Orders came down to withdraw! We’re to commandeer anything that can fly and bring civilians with us if we can!”
If looks could kill, the glare Wulf shot both her radioman and Rhys would have been instantly fatal. She took the barest hint of a pause before barking orders at the top of her lungs.
“Get the wounded ready to move! Dandridge, Henderson, I want you bringing up the rear. Step lively people, we are leaving!” She punctuated the end of her sentence by grabbing her radioman by his collar and nearly throwing him off his feet in the direction of the rest of her men. It was probably Rhys’s imagination, but the man seemed to run faster from his Staff Sergeant than the enemy. To their credit, her troops were clearly well trained. They moved with speed and precision to pack up wounded men and women on litters. With the same sinking feeling he had when he first saw the Vexari drop ships, Rhys realized that what he originally thought was a dozen soldiers was actually more like twenty. With the little time he had left before they were ready, he tried to get his bearings and think desperately about how he was going to fit so many aboard. The number of ships launching over their heads had faded and the number of Vexari appeared to be growing rapidly. The time to move was now or never.
The entire city was built on grassy, rolling foothills below a gray mountain range. The landing bays and control decks themselves were built into the base of one particularly rocky and eroded specimen. It would be simple enough to retreat down the long row of stairs and tiered landing pads until they reached the Kestrel.
And so they went. The troopers pulled back, leapfrogging from cover to cover behind whatever solid object they could put between the enemy and themselves, raining murderous fire on the invaders the whole way. Rhys had just enough spare attention to think to himself that this was the dumbest thing he had ever done.
He reached a stack of crates, once piled high and now left tipped on their sides. He signaled to Silas, who nodded and motioned for the soldiers to follow. As they neared the Kestrel, Rhys spotted a group of Vexari engaged in combat with some unseen opponent, their backs turned to the approaching humans. Rhys didn’t have to see what was going on to know that they must have run into Rex, his friend and copilot. He signaled to Silas, who nodded and motioned for the soldiers to follow. As they watched, one Vexari trooper lunged out from his cover, tried to make it up the stairs to the platform, and was hit twice in the chest for its trouble. The sound of armor fragmenting and sizzling filled the air as its body dropped heavily to the ground. Rhys stopped and opened his mouth to call out to Rex when laser fire screamed from over his shoulder, cutting down the remaining Vexari standing between them and the ship. He guessed that nobody else was in the mood to wait for him.
"Rex!" Rhys called out between ragged breaths, leading the way up and hoping he would be recognized before he was shot.
"Captain! Is that you?" Rex replied, his robotic voice unnaturally calm, stepped fully into view at the top of the stairs leading up to the ship. "I’m afraid I must insist that we leave immediately." The old droid's brown and white armor was dented and scorched, but he looked none the worse for wear. For nearly as long as Rhys had known him, Rex had worn a pistol on each hip. Pistols had seen good use today, if the knot of dead Vexari littering the ground was anything to go by. As Rhys passed him, the droid spun and casually holstered his weapons.“This neighborhood has gotten rougher since the last time we were here.”
Behind Rhys the group of humans came thundering up to the landing platform and up the waiting ramp of his ship into the cargo hold. Wulf appeared halfway up the ramp, seemingly stepping from thin air.
"Let’s go, let’s go! Sometime today would be nice!" She shouted, her voice barely audible over the sound of boots on steel.
Rhys and Rex sprinted to the cockpit, the raucous sound of the Staff Sergeant directing the movement of the wounded and the boarding ramp slamming shut fading behind them. Rex dropped into his seat and prepped the ship for takeoff. Rhys followed suit, his heart pounding as he powered up the engines and double checked the movement of the controls. The Kestrel shuddered as the engines roared to life, and the ship lifted off, blasting away from the now empty spaceport.
Rhys guided the Kestrel up through the atmosphere, his hands steady on the controls despite the adrenaline coursing through his veins. The ship's sensors screamed as they detected Vexari fighters closing in.
"Hang on!" Rhys shouted, pushing the engines to their limit. The Kestrel shot through the clouds, breaking free of the planet's gravity well and hurtling into space. The Vexari fighters pursued, their weapons lighting up the void with deadly beams.
Silas stumbled up to the cockpit, his limbs shaking with the effort of preventing himself from being thrown around the ship like a rag doll.
“We need to get to Elysium!”
“You’re telling me this now?” Rhys practically shrieked.
“Yes! Elysium!”
"We're almost clear," Rex said, his eyes fixed on the navigation console. "Just a little longer…"
Rhys groaned. “You heard the man! Set course for Elysium.”
The Kestrel's engines flared as they reached the orbiting hyperspace ring. The ship shuddered for a moment, then the view outside the cockpit resolved into the swirling black and white kaleidoscope of faster-than-light travel.
Rhys slumped back in his seat, breathing a sigh of relief. "We made it."
Silas, who was suddenly on firm footing, clapped a hand on his shoulder. "Good flying, Rhys."
"Thanks," Rhys replied, glancing at the readout on his console. "We need to figure out our next move, though."
"Captain,” Rex began, “I suggest we make contact with the nearest imperial outpost to report the Vexari incursion."
Rhys nodded, letting a deep breath out through his nose. "Agreed."
Silas leaned back against the wall, a thoughtful expression on his face. "You know, I never got to properly thank you for everything."
Rhys shrugged. "No problem. Just in the right place at the right time. Or something."
"And I appreciate that," Silas said. "But there's something you should know. This attack wasn’t random. I think the Vexari are the ones organizing the raiders here, and in other systems as well. They have a plan. We need to find out what it is and stop them before it's too late." There was something in his face, or maybe his voice. Rhys considered him for a
Rhys met Silas's gaze, the big man's words sinking in. "I can get you as far as Elysium. You have my word. After that, this war is all yours. I’m sorry, but I’m no mercenary."
“I can agree to that. You’ve done good work for the empire. You should be proud of the lives you saved today.”
Rhys said nothing, and Silas turned to head back to the hold. The Kestrel and her crew continued their journey through hyperspace, the stars stretching out before them.