The shielded man fired at Natalya, but Jasper leapt in front of the dual-pistol blasts, taking a shot in the shoulder but deflecting the others.

Co opened fire and the black-eyed man made a punching motion at the woman. A shield pulse flew out of his forearm, knocking everyone but Jasper off their feet.

The Prophet held his ground, the pulse glancing off his golden sword.

“Nice tech,” Jasper said, and swung his sword, delivering a shockwave of his own.

The shielded man darted away from the golden shockwave, moving impossibly fast as he punched with his pistol-wielding hands and fired at the Prophet.

“Nice speed,” Jasper admitted, as the other objects that had peeled off the intruder’s spacecraft landed all around them.

They were hoppers, gray in color. Natalya blasted one before it could get to its feet and Co got a couple more, but black hoppers were fast closing on the other side of the square. Jasper did all he could to keep the black-eyed man busy.

“Sisi, the ship!” Natalya said, running to Dana and scooping up the child as she raced to Chimera. “Co, give us cover — Auggie, get ready to blast!”

Hoppers were already climbing onto the spacecraft. Natalya riddled one with holes, the robot collapsing and falling from Chimera’s wing.

Natalya was just about to the gangplank when the shield emitting man leapt in front of her. She fired a shot before the man set his feet on the ground. Natalya had to drop Dana to unleash a stream of blasts at the man. But he raised his hands to each shot, shields glowing blue across his fingertips as he struggled to get his pistols aimed at Natalya.

After an exchange that lasted half a second but felt like an hour of furious fire, the black-eyed man punched with a shield pulse that forced Natalya to duck down and sent Dana hurtling backward. Sisi tucked and rolled, but she lost her welpro, the device rolling out of reach under the bus at the center of the square.

The black-eyed man leveled his pistols at Sisi, grinned with satisfaction, and fired. But Natalya got a quick shot at his shielded side, throwing off his aim. The man turned a deadly glare at Natalya, and his grin transformed into tooth-bared fury.

“You!” he said, his voice full of recognition and wrath.

Natalya dove for cover from her attacker’s punching pistol blasts, ducking behind the fallen safe, thankful Sisi had insisted it was blast proof.

“Dana!” Natalya shouted, spotting the screaming girl lying prone on the ground, her hands over her head. The welpro lay on Natalya’s left, under the ruined bus, Dana on her right, screaming in the open square.

“Captain, the Key Core is tantamount!” Ptolemy insisted. “We must get it onboard before the other ship—”

“Shut up!” Natalya shouted.

She fired at the black-eyed man.

She listened to Dana’s screams.

In the time it took for her to shoot at the black-eyed man a second time, she’d made her decision. She ran toward the bus.

“Co, get my back!” Natalya shouted, trusting the woman to pin the shielded man down while she retrieved the welpro.

With blasts flying all around her, Natalya dove beneath the ruined bus, retrieving Sisi’s chunk of tech. “Jasper, get Dana!” Natalya shouted as black hoppers leapt into the square.

Three black-painted hoppers landed near Dana. Jasper chopped the first, knocking the second to the ground with a golden shockwave. The third, untouched, leveled its guns at Dana.

Natalya’s heart leapt into her throat, but instead of witnessing the little girl’s death, she saw the hopper fly backward with a devastating shield pulse.

The black-eyed man stood in front of Dana, the girl frozen with terror as he deflected blasts from the black hoppers.

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Jasper finished off the hoppers around him, and Natalya shot a hopper about to land on top of Sisi, tossing the woman her welpro.

“Watch it, that’s fragile!” Sisi said.

“Get the Key Core onto the ship!” Natalya insisted. “Co, with me!”

Co fired a cannon-slug into the only building adjacent to the square that hadn’t been reduced to rubble, a tower-laden structure with spear-like decorations bristling its walls. Her blast started a domino of towers that collapsed into the square and churned up a concealing cloud of dust.

In one leap, Co landed in front of Natalya, opening up with her gun to blaze a trail to Chimera’s gangplank. Sisi reached the ship as fast as she could, Ptolemy standing just inside the cargo bay with a pistol at his side. He fired into the open space, blows glancing off hoppers firing at the side of the ship.

Ptolemy waved Sisi onboard and helped her bring the Key Core inside.

“Captain’s here, Augustus, take off!” Ptolemy shouted.

“Wait!” Natalya insisted, turning back to see Jasper dueling the black-eyed man.

Co continued to obliterate the hoppers, but more kept coming, and it was clear they’d be overwhelmed in moments.

“Out of time. Again,” Co pointed out.

“Get in the air,” Natalya said, backing toward the gangplank. “Give me one shot — be ready.”

Natalya ran toward Dana as Jasper and the black-eyed man’s contest moved into the debris-strewn parts of the square. She reached the girl and knelt to pick her up.

“I’ve got you,” Natalya said to Dana, when a gray hopper landed in front of her.

She didn’t have time to raise her gun when it opened fire, a blast striking her in the shoulder and side.

Dana, however, screamed and fell on the hopper’s leg, plunging the electro-stick Natalya had given her into the robot’s body. The robot twitched as sparks erupted out of its joints. Natalya fell to the ground, bleeding.

Natalya continued to fire from the ground, blasting at hoppers coming in from all directions, when she saw Chimera hovering toward her. Augustus guided the spaceship like a shuttle, crunching debris beneath the hull as he moved the gangplank toward Natalya.

Co stood on the open gangplank, her gun on full auto just to keep the hoppers from leaping inside.

“Come on!” Sisi insisted from the cargo bay.

Natalya had just enough strength to roll onto the gangplank, its metal surface tearing bricks out of the ground. She got to her knees and looked for Dana.

“Dana!” Natalya shouted, watching as grey hoppers knelt on top of the girl, the screaming child disappearing beneath the enveloping robots.

“Shot’s over, Captain,” Co said.

“No!”

Natalya got to her feet. She blasted away at the grey and black hoppers while Co rained blasts into the square. Jasper must have seen the robots cover Dana. The Prophet disengaged with the black-eyed man, running toward her. He didn’t get far, though, and took a shot in the back. Chimera hovered between Jasper and Dana, trying to close the gap. Jasper leapt onto the gangplank.

“Captain! The other ship’s near cannon range!” Augustus announced.

Co was right. Natalya had played her hand, and lost.

With tears in her eyes, Natalya said, “Take off!”

Chimera started to ascend, but before they could close the airlock, the black-eyed man fired a shield pulse that sent him flying at the gangplank. He blasted at Co with his pistols and forced the woman to duck out of the way.

Jasper was struggling with the pain of his bleeding back, so Natalya was forced to block the black-eyed man’s attempts to get the Key Core.

“Look at what you did!” their shield emitter-wielding foe screamed in fury, pistols blazing.

They were too close to shoot each other with any amount of accuracy, so Natalya jabbed her carbine into the man’s stomach, his blasts ricocheting against the ship’s hull.

“Traitor of Farbind, look at what you did!” the man said, head-butting Natalya then striking her wounded shoulder with the butt of his pistol.

Natalya shrieked in pain, but reciprocated the head-butt, connecting with the man’s face and shattering one of the black lenses over his eyes.

She hadn’t recognized him before, but with those pale, brown eyes a flash of memory came to her. A video of a ship’s bridge, a smiling young man standing with dozens of other family members behind an old woman who pleaded asylum. She knew who this man was.

“Pul. How—” Natalya muttered as the man roared with fury and shoved her away, raising his pistol.

Before he could fire, Jasper swept his sword at the man’s legs, knocking Pul off the gangplank in a golden shockwave. The man fell out of the sky, landing with a shield pulse on the hopper-swarmed square as Chimera accelerated out of the atmosphere.

“Seal the cargo bay,” Natalya commanded as she rolled away from the closing gangplank. “Secure the Key Core.”

A soft hum echoed inside the cargo bay as the shields flicked on. Sisi placed the Key Core inside a compartment near the airlock.

“Let me get that,” Jasper said, standing upright, his wounds healed.

Natalya shoved him away and took a step toward the bridge, grinding her teeth through the pain in her side. When the ship shuddered from an impact, she stumbled and would have fallen if Jasper hadn’t been there to catch her.

“Captain, the ship’s cannon are on us,” Augustus said, this time over Chimera’s loudspeakers.

“Get us out of here!” Natalya shouted.

A stiffness came over her, followed by a cold energy, like she’d been dunked in ice water and downed a pot of coffee at the same time. A warm soreness replaced the pain in her shoulder and side, and she rose to her feet with Jasper’s help.

Natalya stared into the man’s eyes, a mix of anger and gratitude making her face turn red.

“Time to get to the bridge, Captain,” Co said, pausing at the cargo bay’s aperture hatch.

Natalya ran toward Co, saying, “Jasper, plot us a course. Co, get on our guns!”