“Time to go!” Natalya said, and fired. She joined her shots with Co’s, but even with both of them on auto-fire Pul deflected every shot.

The emitter-implanted man stared wide-eyed fury at Natalya, and thrust his pistol-clad hands toward the captain. Jasper deflected the blasts with his sword, swinging his golden blade in an arc that shoved Pul backward.

Natalya knew it was just a matter of time, a mathematical calculation, before one of the man’s vengeance-fueled blasts struck her. She stepped back, feet on the edge of the window. Sisi had just cut the transmitter free and clutched the yellow device against her chest as she looked out the window in sudden shock.

“Uh… here, take it!” Sisi said, holding the transmitter out the window.

Natalya turned and saw a dozen black Zhou Guard transports, their rectangular bodies hovering like dark blocks. Twin blasters, positioned on either side of each vehicle, aimed at Natalya.

At the same time, Pul shoved Jasper in a shield-laden grip at the edge of the building, threatening to send the Prophet tumbling eighty stories to the ground. Natalya knew there was nowhere to run. So she picked up the rocket platform, directed its boosters at Pul, and turned it on.

Natalya blasted out of the window right before the transports opened fire. The platform’s boosters sent Pul flying backward, and propelled Natalya off the building. But on the way, she grabbed hold of Jasper.

Pul leapt after Natalya through the blast-erupting building and landed on a transport, giving chase with crazed bloodlust.

Natalya clutched the side of the still-falling platform. With seconds to spare, she turned off the boosters, angled them downward, and set her feet on the base. Jasper lay prone at her feet as Natalya turned on the boosters.

The platform burned a black stain on the low buildings as Natalya leveled out a handful of meters above the roofs. Then she rocketed back into the air.

“You okay?” Natalya shouted.

“Yeah. Thanks,” Jasper said, gripping his sword and the unsteady platform with white knuckles.

“Just so you know, I only pulled you with me in case I hit the ground and needed healing!”

“What if I hit the ground?”

“I was prepared to take that chance.”

Natalya flew high enough to see Qin’s office once more. Sisi had found cover behind Qin’s heavy desk, and Co leapt out of the office before the transports blasted it. Instead of falling like Natalya and Jasper, though, she used her robotic arm to hook onto the side of the Zhou building.

Co leapt away from a volley of blasts from the swarming transports, firing her gun at the ships in mid-leap. One of the transports exploded as she landed, Co leapfrogging her way to the Zhou’s roof.

Some of the transports, however, noticed that Natalya and Jasper had survived their fall. These gave chase to the rocket platform.

Blasts flew around them. Natalya piloted the platform like a surfboard, zipping away from the transports and back toward the office.

Natalya spared a little hope that Pul had fallen and hit the ground. She realized this was wishful thinking, however, as she spotted the man crouching on top of a transport.

With a hateful roar, Pul leapt at the rocket platform. Only a swing of Jasper’s sword kept him from shooting Natalya point-blank.

Pul continued to fall, but a pulse from his shield emitters sent him into the side of the Zhou, where he fired his shields again, ricocheting into the air for another swipe at the rocket platform.

This time, Natalya shot at Pul while Jasper swung a golden wave of energy. The attacks sent Natalya into a tumble, and Pul landed once more on top of a transport as Natalya struggled to maintain control of the barrel-rolling platform.

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“Get the transmitter! I’ll hold them off!” Jasper said while Natalya held onto the platform upside down.

“What?” Natalya shouted. “Jasper!”

The Prophet let go of the rocket platform and fell out of the sky. Natalya was about to scream after the foolish man, when she saw him stab his sword through the hull of a passing transport. Jasper held onto the blade like the pommel of a horse, riding the transport through the air.

With the Prophet no longer throwing off the platform’s stability, Natalya leveled out its flight. She saw Sisi standing in Qin’s office, her welpro shoving a line of hoppers that had amassed at the door. Natalya steadied her flight and aimed her carbine, shooting the bottlenecked robots.

Sisi turned and saw Natalya, then turned her welpro back out the window. She fired a gravity well at Qin’s desk and sent it hurtling through the air. The ballistic office furniture collided with a transport that had risen behind Natalya and sent it tumbling out of the sky.

The hoppers were getting thicker, however, so Sisi ran toward the window, screaming as she pointed her welpro onto the side of the Zhou. She slid several stories before coming to a halt, the transmitter slung beneath her shoulder.

The transport pilots didn’t know how to respond to what was happening. Between the rocket platform, the leaping Prophet, the girl using her welpro to ride the side of the Zhou like a rollercoaster, and Co blasting them from the roof, they swarmed in chaotic confusion, searching for a target.

Pul, however, was laser-focused on taking out Natalya. He leapt from one transport to the next, his shield pulses acting as powerful springs to send him flying through the air. He leveled both pistols at Jasper, guns blazing as he sailed over the Zhou, and landed beside the Prophet on top of a transport.

Jasper didn’t wait for the man’s feet to come to a halt before he swung a wave of energy at him. Pul flipped away from the golden shockwave and landed behind Jasper, shooting him in the shoulder before Jasper swung his sword back around.

The two dueled atop the zooming transport, its pilot chasing Natalya as Co shot down other transports and Sisi led the spider-crawling hoppers on a chase up and down the Zhou.

Natalya knew she needed a distraction, and had just the thing a few billion kilometers away. She flipped the safety lid off her detonator, and hit the switch.

Far in the sky, so far away it was invisible to the human eye, but lighting up every defense scanner in the solar system, a neutron bomb exploded.

It was less than the energy of a solar flare, but it was a man-made explosion within the system, and every single Prosper defense network turned their attention that direction.

The transport chasing Natalya stopped. The other transports froze as well, orders streaming in from panicked commanders.

Jasper and Pul didn’t stop their duel, however. Golden energy from the Prophet’s sword flared as it struck Pul’s shields. Jasper shrieked as pistol blasts hit his fast-healing body again and again.

The transport they fought upon hovered immediately behind and below the one that had been trailing Natalya. She turned her rocket platform one hundred-eighty degrees, riding the air like a wave as she surfboarded straight at the unmoving transport.

Natalya kicked the boosters up to full and leapt off at the last second, the platform slamming into the front of the transport. Momentum carried her onto the roof of the vehicle, and Natalya ran across the flat, black metal surface and leapt into the air.

The transport she leapt from exploded behind her as Natalya slammed into Pul on the transport below. It was a less than stellar kick, more like a body slam, but the sheer force of her impact knocked Pul off the side of the transport.

Natalya felt her arm and several ribs crack, and she cried out in pain.

“Natalya!” Jasper shouted as the transport once more began to move. “One second.”

“Take your time,” Natalya choked as Jasper stabbed his sword through the transport’s roof. He swung it around and cut a hole in the vehicle, pulling Natalya painfully inside.

The Prophet grabbed the two surprised pilots from behind and bashed their heads together, tossing them into the rear of the craft.

“Sorry for the delay,” Jasper said, and touched Natalya’s arm. He closed his eyes and Natalya felt warmth spread through her.

“I guess I can let it slide this time,” Natalya said, wincing as she felt her bones mend. She tested her arm, took a deep breath, and exhaled pain-free.

“Tie them up,” Natalya said, referring to the dazed pilots as she took the controls.

Of the dozen black Zhou Guard transports to initially arrive, only four remained, including the one Natalya now piloted. Some had disengaged upon the neutron bomb’s explosion, conflicting orders sending them to the other side of the city. Co or Natalya had dealt with the others, and as she grabbed the twin sticks that controlled her stolen vehicle, Natalya leveled up behind a transport and opened fire.

Banking away from the smoking craft, Natalya leveled her flight and spotted Sisi running up and down the sides of the Zhou. She used her welpro like a magnet, increasing or decreasing the strength of her gravity wells as hoppers chased her along the rectangular building.

“Get on the roof,” Natalya said to Jasper.

“She can’t slow down, they’ll shoot her,” Jasper replied.

“That’s why you need to get on the roof, now go!”