A/N - This is the final regular chapter of this arc. There are three interludes to follow to wrap it up.

  Six minutes and thirty seconds now. I had six minutes and thirty seconds to stop everyone on the Arbalest station from dying in a fiery explosion. That stark thought was sobering. But not even close to as sobering as the warning beeps the sensors were giving as no less than four Intruder starfighters approached. They were all the Shrike versions, probably because those were the only ones fast enough to make it here this quickly from wherever they’d been docked.

  As the alarms continued and the dots came closer across the holographic sensor board in the bottom right of my dashboard area, I felt bile rise in my throat. Shrike ships weren’t the strongest Eighty-Seven vessels by a long shot. But that hardly mattered, given I had no idea what the fuck I was doing! I wasn’t the pilot, I was the navigator! I wasn’t supposed to be doing any of this. It should’ve been Rachel. I should’ve been the one who was sent through to the Intruder’s territory so Rachel could deal with this. Then she would’ve been able to save me. I probably would’ve been a prisoner for all of like an hour or something before she swooped in to take care of it.

  But she wasn’t here. I was. And I needed to do this. I had to do this. Grabbing the stick more tightly, trying to stop my hand from shaking, I used my other hand to quickly tap a request on the holographic keyboard just below and to the left of the stick. I was trying to open a comm channel with the Arbalest. That much, at least, I knew how to do. I’d done it enough from the back seat, where I actually belonged. My eyes kept darting from the rapidly approaching Shrikes on the sensor board, to the communication panel, which should have been lighting up with a response from the station by then. Except it wasn’t. There wasn’t a response. There was nothing at all.

  After the brief rush of (even more) terror that filled me, I realized the reason. The comms were being jammed. Which wasn’t great, but at least the station wasn’t already gone, like I’d briefly thought. I wasn’t an expert, but from a quick glance at the computer’s report, I was pretty sure the jamming was very strong, and coming from multiple sources, just in case I managed to get away from one. These guys really didn’t want me to warn the Arbalest about what was going on.

  Okay, well, there was only one option then. I had to get up there myself and warn them. If the Eighty-Sevens wouldn’t let me call the station, I had to sound the alarm some other way. And what better way could there be than to fly right up there with a swarm of alien fighters on my tail? That’d get everyone moving pretty damn quickly. And as soon as the actual Freestylers launched, they could chase these guys away, so I could tell them about the bomb.

  Yeah, I could do that. I could manage that much, even if I barely knew what I was doing. Just run away from these Intruder ships and get help. If any Kite out there could outrun a handful of the incredibly fast Shrikes, it was Derecho. He could do it. We could do it. We just had to stay ahead of them long enough for Rinweld and his people to notice what was going on and send help.

  It would’ve worked too. The four Shrikes were fast, but just barely too far back to close the distance before I would’ve gotten close enough to the Arbalest to pull this off. It would have worked without any problem… if there were only four Shrikes that we had to deal with. But there weren’t just four. There were five of them. And the last one, the final Shrike, came from right in front of us.

  Seeing that on the sensors and realizing what it meant, I felt another chill run through me. There was no way out of it now. I couldn't go out of the way around that ship without wasting more time than we had left. I had no choice but to engage. I had to go past, or through, that ship, which would mean it could shoot at us. It was a real fight, with real weapons, and I wasn't in the back seat anymore. I wasn't just marking targets and navigating. I was piloting, and what happened in the next few seconds was completely up to me. Whether we lived or died, whether the people on that station got the warning they needed to get out of this alive, was all depending on what happened next.

  It was too much pressure. I could feel myself start to lose it, staring at the dot on the screen. Just when I’d thought we could get out of this without fighting, without being shot at, that ship had to show up. It was right there, coming closer, almost within five kilometers, its maximum effective firing range. The sensors were already counting down the last couple seconds before we’d be on top of each other, and they weren’t exactly giving off happy noises about that fact.

  Closer. The Shrike was getting closer. It fired a couple times from that maximum distance, but the bright amber lasers didn’t come anywhere near us. Still, that simple fact, the realization that I was actually being shot at and absolutely no one could do anything about that but me, made my entire body lock up. I felt a deep pain in my chest and stomach. I was going to throw up. I was going to die. I was going to die. I couldn’t fly this ship. I couldn’t survive an actual dogfight. I--

  Cadence, you are a Freestyler, Derecho’s deep voice came then, cutting through my panic. Now fly!

  The alarms were going nuts, as the enemy Shrike lined up a perfect shot. At the last second, I jerked the stick forward and to the side, sending the Kite into a spiraling dive. We spun around and dropped instantly, so the two quick shots from the Intruder ship sailed right past Derecho’s belly, which was facing upward at that particular moment. The twin lasers came close enough to skim across the shield, cutting it down to about eighty percent. But hey, we weren’t dead yet.

  Of course, more of those lasers were still coming. The approaching Shrike hadn’t just vanished as soon as it shot that first time. And it was adjusting its aim to follow our path. The only reason the next three shots didn’t hit us dead-on (an apt choice of words) was that spin I’d put us into. The lasers went sailing first under, then over us as the ship spun around and around. Which did not make the warning alarms any happier, but I muted them with a quick couple words so I could actually focus. This was all terrifying enough as it was without making me deaf at the same time.

  Seeing the enemy fighter bearing down, already compensating for that simple maneuver, I had to swallow the hard lump in my throat, my grip tightening on the stick. No pulling back now. There was nowhere else to go. I had just over five minutes to get to that station. No time to go around, no time to do anything but go right through this Shrike. This… this was one of the people responsible for taking my sister. These guys took my sister. These guys took my sister!

  A choked scream escaped me, as I jerked the stick back the opposite way abruptly and pulled up at the same time. My other hand shoved the throttle back to cut my speed, while I pulled the trigger on the stick over and over, my scream continuing through the sound of the target lock-on.

  I missed. Well, with most of them. I sent ten shots that way, and nine went sailing past. Maybe they slightly grazed the enemy shields, I wasn’t sure. But ten shots, and nine of them were basically complete misses. No wonder I wasn’t supposed to be the Freestyler of the family.

  But that last shot, the tenth one, didn’t miss. Well, not entirely. It hit the Shrike a bit between the cockpit and the left wing, causing a small explosion right there before smoke started drifting up. The result was instantaneous, as the ship plummeted off to the side and dropped rapidly. It recovered after a second, at least enough to stop from hitting the ground, but didn’t resume coming after us.

  Not that we were lacking in other pursuers, and the four behind us were rapidly catching up after my whole ‘bring us to a near complete stop to line up a ten shots so I could miss with nine of them’ plan. With a muttered curse, I pushed the throttle forward once more, even as a few shots came in. They were still fairly far back, so none of them hit home. But it was still enough to make my shoulders try to lock up with fear. I had to shift a bit, shaking my hand out a couple times to make it cooperate before looking for the controls to shift the shield power. Wait, what? They weren’t where they were supposed to be. They weren’t anywhere! The controls should’ve been right there on the-- oh, fuck, fuck, I wasn’t in the navigator seat! What-- “Derecho, shield controls!” I blurted, even as the next couple shots from the pursuing ships came much closer.

  Less than a second later, the correct holographic display appeared just to my right. My hand snapped that way, dialing the shield energy to send basically all of it to the rear. Which would mean we were completely vulnerable from the front, but we’d be fine, right? There wouldn’t be any other enemies between us and the Arbalest. That-- that was right, we’d be fine. Totally fine.

  Realizing belatedly that I was almost hyperventilating while staring at the sensor board, I forced myself to breathe out slowly while turning my attention ahead of us. We were just exiting the atmosphere, the blue sky replaced by the infinite blackness of space with bright dots of stars scattered throughout. The Arbalest was halfway between Earth and the Moon, so just over a hundred thousand miles off. But now that we weren’t in the atmosphere, we could really open up the engines. It’d take about the same length of time to get from here to the station as it had to get from the ground to this point. There was just about four minutes and twenty seconds left.

  That was enough time, it had to be. It had to be! We just had to put everything we had into speed. Just… just had to put… oh. My eyes shifted toward the shield controls, and I hesitated for just another instant before my hand snapped out to disable them. I turned the shields off completely and put all that power toward the engines. Then I did the same with the weapons, just for good measure. Every bit of power we had, every ounce of energy, was going right to the engines.

  Rocking back and forth in my seat probably wasn’t actually making us move faster, but I couldn’t help it. I kept glancing between the sensor board and the comm panel, praying silently (and not so silently) that the people on monitoring duty would be quick enough to send reinforcements to chase these Shrikes off as soon as we were actually close enough to pop up on their screens.

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  That was the thing about both Kite and Eighty-Seven tech, they were practically invisible to most forms of long distance detection. Even with something as powerful and advanced as stations like the Arbalest, you had to be relatively close. Their sensors wouldn’t pick us up until we were within a few thousand miles. It’d be a different story if they were chasing us with larger ships, or even just more of the ones they were. Those could be picked up from much further away. The fact that they were chasing us with only four fighters (now that one had been left behind) was both good and bad. Bad because it would take longer for the Arbalest to notice us and send some actual help. Good because if there really were more ships, we would be dead already.

  The source of the jamming had to be the ships that were chasing us, because I still couldn’t use the comms. We needed the Arbalest to send reinforcements to chase these guys off. Please, god, please notice us. I needed help. I couldn’t do this. I could not do this without my sister. I wasn’t going to make it. Rachel. I needed Rachel. I needed her to be here. Why, why wasn’t--

  There was a sudden pinging sound, and I snapped upright. Ships. There were other ships coming. But this time, that wasn’t a bad thing. Hence the pleasant ‘ping’ rather than screaming alarms. There were half a dozen Pebbles, the basic Earth military fighter, coming from straight ahead of us. And behind them were two Kites! I instantly recognized the silver and teal owl-like form of Bones, with Sticks piloting and Stone navigating, and the gray and orange ‘wingless F-22 welded to a frisbee’ of Typhoon, piloted by Buzzkill as Comet navigated. They were here!

  A flood of relief rushed through me, especially when those four Shrikes immediately broke off. It was one thing to chase someone like me, but they weren’t eager to throw themselves at all those pilots who actually knew what they were doing. Not that these guys were just going to let them leave like that. The six Pebbles and Typhoon gave chase, already opening fire on the fleeing Intruders.

  Meanwhile, Bones came up alongside us. I watched the control panel in front of me, holding my breath until the jamming alert vanished. The Shrikes were too far away, we could talk now!

  More alarms abruptly snapped me out of that moment of relief. Unsurprisingly, they weren’t bringing good news. It turned out that minor hit earlier had done more than just graze the shields. It did some damage to the actual comms projector. Damage we hadn’t been able to detect while the jamming was active. So even though it was gone, we still wouldn’t be able to send any messages. We could receive just fine, but we couldn’t really say anything in response.

  There was a brief crackle-buzz, then I heard Sticks’ electronically distorted voice. “Casper? What happened, are you guys okay? Weren’t you supposed to be going home for the night?”

  That voice, saying my sister’s callsign, my sister’s Freestyler name, made me freeze up. My breath caught, as I saw her. I saw my sister standing in front of that portal, holding onto that fucking traitor. I saw her mouth the words, ‘I love you.’ I saw the tendrils yank her backward. She went through the portal, dragging Nikos right along with her. She was gone. My sister was gone.

  But these people weren’t. Not yet, anyway. And I had… just over two minutes to keep it that way. Two fucking minutes! Two minutes to warn them about a bomb, without being able to actually talk to them! Do something, say something, figure something out, damn it! Just make something happen! How-- what was I-- why would-- damn it, I had to fix this, not just freeze up! Rachel wouldn’t freeze up, she already would’ve figured out a way to get the message to them! Or just taken care of the bomb herself. Not that that was even really possible, but she’d find a-- wait.

  Sticks was saying something else, but I wasn’t listening. I couldn’t listen. All of my focus was on the thought I’d just had. A bomb. Nikos put a bomb on the station. Except how could he do that? The sensors would’ve picked up anything dangerous. If not right when he brought it aboard, then at least at some point in the hours since then. Would he really have trusted that his bomb was somehow completely undetectable for all that time? No, he wouldn’t. There was no way.

  So, he wouldn’t trust the bomb inside the station, but I really didn’t think he was lying about the bomb existing at all. The bastard was entirely too smug about that whole thing, and he was fully convinced it would destroy the place. The bomb existed, but it had to be outside. He could’ve dropped it off somewhere on the exterior of the station, right? There was a much better chance it would stay undetected out there. But where? The station was a big place, and it was invisible most of the time. How the hell would Nikos have managed to plant a bomb somewhere on it?

  Wait, the entrance to the docking bay. That was the only chance he would’ve had. Nikos never would’ve risked veering away from his normal approach vector, or doing anything at all that might have stood out. There was no way he would’ve taken the chance that anyone on the station might think he was doing anything strange and start investigating. So, it wouldn’t be inside the station because the sensors would’ve detected it, and he wouldn’t have flown anywhere else around the outside of the station because that would’ve stood out. The only place he could’ve put it, if I wasn’t completely wrong about all of this, was right outside the docking bay as he approached. Konrul could’ve dropped it right as he was going in for a landing, masking its appearance from those inside the docking bay with the ship itself, while the sensors would’ve been confused by the moving vessel and the hangar doors. That could maybe have worked.

  All of that flashed through my mind in just under ten seconds, while the voice on the comm kept asking for an update. Well, half that time was spent asking for an update. For the last part, Sticks and Stone seemed to have realized that we couldn’t reply for whatever reason, and asked us to flash our exterior lights if there was something wrong with our comms. I did that reflexively, staring ahead at the spot where the station would be. One minute, forty-five seconds left. No time to find a way to communicate this through charades or morse code or whatever. No time to fix the comm. No time for anything except-- I shoved the throttle forward, sending the ship rocketing that way. At the same time, I spoke out loud. “Derecho, flash the exterior lights! Red, then blue, then red, then blue, over and over. Like a police car, flash the lights like a police car!” They’d get the idea from that, right? They had to realize this was an emergency and we were trying to deal with it.

  I was talking quickly, almost frantically (okay a lot frantically) as we raced toward the station, time still ticking down. “Derecho, scan the front of the docking bay as we approach! Look for anything that’s different from normal, the slightest blemish, the tiniest discrepancy from how it normally looks! If he dropped that bomb off, it had to be on the approach, it’s gotta be near the doors!” No time to waste, no time to sit and explain things, even if we could communicate with anyone else. We were down to one minute, thirty seconds. One minute, twenty seconds. One minute, ten seconds. The station was getting closer. I could see it now, uncloaked and ready to let us board. The thought of all those people standing around asking themselves what was going on was enough to make my hands shake, and I could hear my breathing getting heavier.

  Time, time, there wasn’t time! God, why was this taking so long!? We were down to one minute, as the station loomed ahead of us. Uncloaked, it looked like a giant metallic version of one of those cup and ball games. The doors into the docking bay were down around the base of the ‘handle,’ most of the living and work areas were located in one of about ten decks rising through the shaft of that handle, and the actual command stations and such were in the ‘ball’ up top.

  But my focus was on those doors, and the space around them. Obviously, it was completely impossible for me to actually see anything that didn’t fit. If it was that easy to spot, the bomb would’ve been found already.

  But Derecho was better than me. With a quick beep, a holographic overlay appeared in front of the screen, showing a view of the station from the same angle taken several days earlier. A bright red circle was drawn around one spot near the bottom left of the doors, where I could just make out a square box, about ten feet wide and four feet tall. Tiny, by space station standards. It was also painted the same metallic gray as the station itself.

  That was it. That was the bomb. It had to be. The thing hadn’t been there three days ago, and now it was. We found it! And we had… about forty-five seconds left. A quick glance at the console told me it would take about fifteen seconds to reach that part of the station. Which left thirty to do… to do… what? Thirty seconds to do what!?

  Transform. I thought that, then quickly blurted it out loud, “Derecho, transform, Stomper mode!”

  He did just that. As the ship shifted around me, changing to the humanoid mecha version of himself, I muttered every possible prayer I could. There it was, right there. That box was coming right up. Meanwhile, Typhoon had returned, flanking us on one side while Bones flanked on the other. There were so many questions coming across the comm for us to tune out.

  Gritting my teeth, I pictured Rachel’s face. I saw her staring at me from that portal. I saw her watching as I shoved my hands fully inside the control goo and let my thoughts direct the mech. It was just like moving my own body. That’s what Rachel had always said. The goo linked your mind with Derecho and let you control the mech with your thoughts. I could do this, I could do this…

  Thirty seconds. We reached the box, and a thought made both hands reach up while the thrusters kicked into reverse to stop our forward motion.

  Twenty-five seconds. We grabbed the box and kept those thrusters going to pull us backwards, gripping the thing as tightly as possible.

  Twenty seconds. The box came loose with a spray of sparks. I heard confused demands coming over the comm.

  Fifteen seconds. We spun around in open space just in front of the doors, and I kicked the thrusters back to the rear, sending us forward with the box held in both hands.

  Ten seconds. We were going as fast as possible away from the station.

  Seven seconds. I hit the reverse thrusters again, releasing the box while I shouted for Derecho to change back to Streamer (starfighter) mode and gun it. The shift happened faster than it ever had.

  Four seconds, we were in starfighter mode, flying straight away from the box.

  Three… two… o--

  There was no kaboom. Not really. Oh, there was an explosion, of course. There was just no sound of it. We were in space. What there was was an invisible hand that reached up and smacked the back of Derecho, sending us tumbling end over end. The shields were gone, just flat out gone.

  But we were alive. We were intact, basically. And so was the station. The comm had gone silent, as everyone on the other end realized what had just happened. Well, part of what happened, anyway.

  The next couple minutes passed in a blur. Somehow, I took the ship in for a landing, feeling numb and empty the whole time. I’d been running on panicked adrenaline for the past few minutes, ever since… ever since. But now… now it was starting to set in. Now I didn’t have anything to distract me. Now I was starting to feel it.

  As the ship landed, I could see Sticks and Stone, and Buzzkill and Comet both come in right behind us and step out of their own Kites. The rest of the squad, clearly having just woken up, were already there. So was Rinweld, and a fair number of mechanics or other support techs. They were all standing down there, just a bit out of the way.

  “Casper?” That was Shepard-- Alicia, finding her voice first as the cockpit opened. “What’s up? Where’s Rhythm? What the hell happened?”

  Casper.

  Where’s Rhythm?

  They thought I was…

  I didn’t step out of the ship. I didn’t move from the seat. In a hollow voice I couldn’t have recognized even if it wasn’t distorted, I spoke the command phrase Rachel had so many times. “Putting on the brakes.”

  The suit disappeared. The helmet was gone. I was just sitting there. Me. Cadence. Not the one they actually wanted. As an assortment of confused gasps and frantic words started coming at me, I let my head drop.

  And then the tears came.

  JOKE TAGS

  THE THREE INTERLUDES WRAPPING UP THIS ARC ARE ALL AVAILABLE ON PATREON RIGHT NOW, BY SIGNING UP FOR THE FIVE DOLLAR LEVEL AND THEN GOING TO THE FIRST OF THEM RIGHT