“This is Persephone,” I said.
“This is Lieutenant Kirosawa with the City Four Police Agency. Two suspected criminals seemed to have come aboard your ship.”
The voice paused as he waited for me to either admit or deny the accusation.
“Negative, Lieutenant Kirosawa,” I finally said. “We have no criminals on board.”
“Our video surveillance shows a man in heavy armor and a blonde woman in a black dress entering your security gate. Are they members of your crew?”
“Hold on,” I said as I motioned Mikhael to get ready to mute the line. “I’m going to go check. Be right back.”
“You are muted,” Mikhael said.
“Do you have the location of the arrays?” I asked.
“Persephone’s scanners identified eight possible missile arrays during our descent to Ganymede, and Zea already marked them in the system.
“Ohh, she’s smart. On screen.”
Mikhael hit a few buttons on his control terminal, and the bottom left of the main screen shifted to show an aerial view of City Four. I knew there were missile silos on the corners of the spaceport, and I knew there was one next to the central government center, but the other three locations made sense to me.
“Nikki, think we can hit them all before they fire on us?” I asked.
“It would depend on if they are currently set to see us as an enemy,” she said. “We’d have to hit them all before they knew to switch over our systems and attack us.”
“Lux!” I shouted over my shoulder, and the Valkyrie was instantly standing next to me.
“I need to destroy all of these silos before they target us,” I said as I pointed at the screen.
“Feed the targeting info back to us, and we will do it,” she said, and even though her face was emotionless, I could feel the dark-haired woman’s excitement.
“Done,” Mikhael said as he nodded to her.
“I’ll leave you to it, Lux.” I turned to Mikhael and nodded. He gave me a thumbs up, and I cleared my throat.
“Persephone?” Lieutenant Kirosawa asked.
“I’m here,” I said. “We have captured the man and woman you are looking for in one of our rooms. We’ll have them out to you in ten minutes.”
“Excellent,” the cop replied with relief.
“Stand by,” I said, and then I nodded for Mikhael to mute the line again.
“I am surprised you lied,” Sivaha said.
“Any other answer would have probably led to them trying to storm Persephone, and then I would have killed them. The lie was to protect them as much as us. Nikki, are you ready to go?”
“Yes, Adam,” she said.
“Lux?” I called as I turned around. Lux, Calisto, Josefinna, Hegeia, Uma, Waiola, and Kuroda were occupying all but three of the ten seats, and I guessed that Milda was still getting my mother situated.
“We are ready,” the black-haired woman spun her head to look at me, and her twin pigtails whipped around her neck.
“Sivaha, you are on front guns,” I said as I attached my chest strap and tucked my shotgun between my legs. “Nikki, get us the fuck out of here.”
“Gate tunnel is unattached,” she said. “Preparing for liftoff in three, two, one.”
There was a slight tremor as Persephone’s atmospheric engines engaged, and then she lifted off the ground like a ballerina leaping. For some reason, the cops on the ground didn’t expect us to actually try and run, and they shouted to each other as they waved their small firearms at us.
“Head to the southern two arrays,” I said, and Nikki banked Persephone right a bit so that we’d make a straight line to the closest launchers. The circle of cops and drones almost instantly disappeared behind us, and I could see us quickly approaching the missile arrays.
“They will probably think this is an act of war,” Sivaha commented nonchalantly.
“Yeah,” I said as I watched our dot get closer.
“Once your fleet is solidified, you should return here and conquer them,” she said. “It would be deliciously ironic.”
“I might just do that,” I laughed.
“Adam, we are within range!” Lux called out.
“Fire when ready!” I ordered, and then a flurry of plasma fire flew from Persephone’s wings.
“Nikki, head north, don’t stop!” I commanded. “Gunners, you have to hit them on the move, we’ll only have a few dozen seconds to take them all out.”
“Yes, Adam!” the crew shouted, and Nikki increased Persephone’s speed with a sudden surge. More plasma streams left my powerful ship, and the other pair of missile arrays were destroyed.
“City Four just went on red alert,” Mikhael said.
Nikki continued northward, and I felt my chest press against my heart from the g-forces. The next two arrays were some five kilometers away, but that only took us a few seconds to travel, and Nikki banked over them as the gunners destroyed the platforms.
“The last pair is in a residential district!” I shouted. “Nikki, slow down once we get there so the gunners don’t accidentally kill innocents.”
“Yes, Adam,” Nikki said, and then I felt Persephone start to slow.
“Fire when ready, gunners!” I yelled when it looked like we were close enough in range, and then another flurry of plasma destroyed the launchers.
“Let’s hope that is all of them,” I said, but the Persephone’s alarms blared, and I saw the map in the corner zoomed in to show four ships entering the atmosphere.
Persephone’s scanners said the vessels were smaller gunboat class ships, and they were about three hundred kilometers away.
The scanners also said that they were Jupiter Navy ships.
“How long until they get here?” I growled.
“A little over five minutes,” Mikhael answered as he tapped on his terminal.
“Nikki, get to the government center,” I ordered, but she was already turning in that direction, and the kick of Persephone’s engine made us all gasp.
I counted down in my head as the city blurred beneath us. It took us four seconds to cover most of it, and then my armor strained against my straps when the starship braked. For half a moment, it felt as if my face was going to peel off the front of my skull, but then Nikki dropped Persephone straight down, and the starship’s insect looking legs clutched the road right in the middle of the main avenue through City Four’s downtown district.
“Zea? Eve? Madalena? Paula? Kasta? Do you copy?” I spoke into the transponder and hoped that the proximity to Persephone would aid their transponders in picking me up.
“Hey, Adam,” A voice that was either Paula’s or Kasta’s came on, but I couldn’t tell which with only the two words and the terrible amount of static. They must have been deep in the stomach of the building.
“You all need to get out of that building, and we need to leave.”
“What’s wrong? We just got here and Zea’s found a terminal that she can use to--”
“Abort mission,” I said. “We’ve got the Jupiter Navy chasing us along with every single cop in the city. Persephone is parked in the street right outside the building you are in.”
“Uhhh, this building? The one filled with cops that we sweet talked our way through so we could sneak into the basement and get to this computer?” I knew it was Kasta now, and I heard Madalena ask her what was going on.
“Yes,” I said. “You all need to leave now. Walk very calmly, but quickly out the--”
I heard a siren sound through my transponder, and Kasta shouted.
“Ugh,” Sivaha said. “They are attempting to thwart us.”
I glanced up to to the building and saw that sheets of armor had fallen in place over the windows and doors.
“Adam?” I heard Madalena shout through the transponder over the sound of the siren.
“You need to get out!” I shouted back. “Hurry!”
I heard the siren end, and but there was a voice speaking in Japanese.
“Ahhh shit,” Kasta
said.
“What is the voice saying?” Madalena asked.
“It says that the city is under attack, and they are closing off all important government buildings until the threat is dealt with.”
“Wait, what?” I heard Zea shout.
“Fuck,” I groaned. “We only have a few minutes before we are sandwiched between four Jupiter Navy ships, and it looks like every exit is sealed.”
“We will run to the ground floor,” Madalena said. “However, that won’t help us get out the front door.”
My mind spun as I tried to think of a solution. Should we take back to the air and try to evade the four ships? I couldn’t think of a way we could escape them without destroying them, and I chilled at the thought of killing men and women who had once served with me.
Maybe we could just flee, and then I could grab another ship and return to pick up my friends. That would take days, maybe even weeks, and I didn’t have time for that.
I thought about asking for Sivaha’s advice, but then Kuroda’s words came into my mind, and I knew what I had to do.
I was Tiger, and I attacked my problems until they were dead.
“I’m going to use the plasma bazooka to blow the door,” I said. “You get to the ground floor, and I’ll make sure you can escape.”
“We are on our way,” Madalena said, and I jumped out of my seat.
“Sivaha, you are with me,” I ordered. “Everyone else, stay put. Lux, I don’t want to destroy those Jupiter Navy ships, but if it looks like they are going to fire, take them out first.”
“Understood,” she said, and then Sivaha and I dashed into the elevator.
I had a hundred different worries spinning in my head, and even though my muscles didn’t feel tired, my head throbbed as if I hadn’t slept in two days. I was starting to smolder, but I didn’t have a choice. I had to get everyone on board this ship so we could get the fuck out of here.
“Switch to a rifle once we get into the armory,” I ordered Sivaha as soon as the doors closed.
“Yes, Husband,” she said.
“You can call me Adam,” I said.
“If you wish, but I’d rather call you husband,” she said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Names and words have power.” She smiled her Cheshire Cat grin, and I realized that she’d been playing the long game with me the whole time.
The more she called me husband, the more I thought of her as my wife. Madalena had called me that in front of Zea and Eve to show she was elevated above them, but Sivaha had sidestepped the whole ordeal by hammering me with the frame of mind that she wanted me to believe in.
“You are clever,” I said.
“I am,” she said with a nod. “And I’m yours. I hope you will take me.”
The door to the elevator dinged, and I ran out of it without answering her.
But even not answering her was an answer. She knew my emotions, and I wasn’t upset with her.
We reached the armory and I bent down to unlatch the footlocker where we kept the plasma launcher. I really had no idea how to use the weapon, but I’d fired thousands of different guns, and they all pretty much functioned the same: Make sure it was loaded, point it at what I wanted to die, and squeeze the trigger.
The plasma bazooka was about a meter and a half long and half a meter wide at the barrel. It looked as if it could have been mounted on a starship, and it weighed about twenty kilograms. It would have felt like a feather if I was in my tiger-man form, and it would have felt light if I was fully rested. I was fucking tired though, and the thing felt every gram as heavy as I expected.
I still lifted it onto my shoulder with a fluid movement and turned to Sivaha. The silver-haired woman had grabbed one of the longer pulse rifles off the wall, and she threw a belt of their energy mags over her shoulder before turning back to me. Her feet were still bare, but I figured that her aegis would protect her from any damage once she turned it on.
We ran back into the hold without speaking, and the doors lowered as we approached. The main doors to the building were on the starboard side, so I made a right when we ran down the ramp and then flipped a switch by my thumb to turn on the weapon. It hummed, vibrated, and then the holographic sight indicated that I had three shots left in this magazine.
I had seen this weapon in action before when Mikhael shot it, and I guessed it would only take one blast to melt the door.
There were no cars or pedestrians around, but I could hear the air-raid siren blare through the streets and the distant sound of police cars coming. I also spotted a nest of camera equipment over the door of the building, and I paused for ten seconds with the bazooka pointed at the door so that anyone inside could have a chance to get away.
Then I fired.
It was a chartreuse glob of power, hate, and sun plasma. The weapon kicked harder than I had expected, but I’d kneeled on the ground before I fired, and my back leg was able to keep me upright. The blast hit the door right in the center of the metal cover, and the entire front of the building began to melt as if it was made of wax.
“Madalena, I just blew the door!” I shouted in my transponder, but I couldn’t hear her answer over the sound of Sivaha’s pulse rifle spraying.
“Drones,” the silver-haired woman replied, and I turned to see three of them falling out of the sky.
“More will be coming,” I said as I turned back to the front of the building. There was no more barrier, or door, and the front of the building now had a horrific looking maw some four meters tall. Metal and concrete dripped from the top rim, but then it all cooled and solidified so that it looked like long shark teeth.
“Madalena?” I asked.
“We have reached the elevator,” she replied. “We should be out in less than a minute.”
“Cutting it fucking close,” I said, but then a group of armored men appeared at the new entrance of the building and aimed their carbines at Sivaha and me.
We both dashed up Persephone’s ramp as bullets sprayed behind us.
Then she gasped in pain, and my heart leapt into my chest.
“Are you--” I turned around to see her stumble up the rest of the ramp. She had her armor on, but her left hand clutched her stomach.
“I’m fine,” Sivaha pulled her hand away from her armor, and I didn’t see any blood. “The aegis deflected it, but the pain surprised me.”
“Madalena, we’ve got a group of armored guards at the entrance. You’ll be coming out right behind them. We’ll provide cover fire, but let us know when you want to run out.”
“Understood,” she replied, and I set down the bazooka so that I could pull out my pistols. They wouldn’t be as effective as Sivaha’s rifle at the distance, but I wasn’t trying to kill these guys, I just needed to buy a window for my women to escape.
I crouched down at the top of the ramp and fired both pistols at the guards. My arms were tired, my head was throbbing, and my eyes felt as if they weighed a dozen kilograms, but I’d always been a good shot, and both of my bullets traveled the hundred or so meters to hit one of the guards in the leg. He fell with a shout of surprise, and then one of his friends pulled him out of the way. He’d live, and now there were only five of them guarding the exit.
“Try not to kill anyone!” I shouted at Sivaha as she went prone next to me.
“Very well,” she sighed, and then her pulse rifle sent out a drum roll of blue rain at the guards.
Before I’d met Madalena and her crew, I’d never seen a weapon like the one in Sivaha’s hands, so I wasn’t at all surprised when the guards collectively dove away from the door. Her shots didn’t hit anyone, but they were close enough to convince me that it wasn’t for lack of skill.
“The elevator has reached the ground floor,” Madalena said. “We will need to sprint through a hallway and then out the lobby. Eve will use her powers to distract the guards. Hold your fire.”
“Got it,” I said as I nodded to Sivaha.
The guards were trying to retur
n fire, but we rolled up the ramp so we were out of their line of sight. I didn’t like the idea of not being able to cover my friends’ escape, but I knew the women could handle themselves. Especially with Eve’s magic and Madalena’s marksman talents.
Sivaha swung her rifle upward and let out a quick shot. There was a drone hovering some three hundred or so meters away from us, and her bullet hit it dead center. It spun down to the ground in a smoking spiral, and I raised my pistols to target a group of three more that were swinging over the top of Persephone.
“Damn good shot,” I said as I let my own pistols sing.
“Thank you,” Sivaha replied as she fired again at another distant drone.
A swarm of them were approaching, and while none of the ones I saw had weapons mounted, I knew for certain that the next wave would be armed.
“Adam, the Jupiter Navy ships are within Persephone’s cannon range,” Nikki said over our transponders. “They will be able to fire on us in half a minute.”
“They might not fire,” I said. “Since they could risk damaging their buildings, but then again, I don’t want to risk it. Get ready to run as soon as they--”
I saw Paula, Kasta, and Zea run around the bottom of the ramp. The trio had their blonde heads down, but they sprinted up the ramp as soon as they hit it. Eve and Madalena followed them, but the darker haired women had their attention turned to the guards.
“Hurry up!” I shouted at them as soon as they hit the ramp, and they turned so they could sprint up toward us as bullets pinged off Persephone’s metal.
Sivaha and I crouched low at the top of the ramp and aimed our weapons under Persephone’s wing again. We both sprayed bullets across the opening of the building, and the guards below ducked out of the way.
“We are on!” Madalena shouted.
“Close the door!” I yelled as Sivaha and I rolled back into the hold.
The ship’s bay door closed instantly, and Madalena hit the button for the ramp to retract.
“Nikki, get us out of here!” I shouted as I scooped up the bazooka from the ground. I had a feeling we would need to take some evasive action, and I didn’t want the weapon flying around the hold.
“Yes, Adam,” she replied. “It’s going to be rough. Please secure yourselves.”
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