Three Square Meals Ch. 100

The armoured vehicle was yanked upright so that it was vertical, the Plasma Cannon barrel pointing straight down at the muddy ground. Alyssa was searching around for another tank to bludgeon, when she felt a disorientating wave sweep over her, scattering her thoughts and leaving her mind feeling stifled. Her grip on the tank wavered and it plunged barrel first into the ground, just as her telekinetic wall of weapons dispersed like swirling wisps. The Reaper Cannon ceased firing as her ethereal hands disappeared and she swayed with the debilitating effects of whatever had just disrupted all her active psychic abilities.

"What the fuck?!" she gasped, turning to look at the two girls beside her.

Tashana's angular eyes were wide with shock. "My barrier cut out! And my fire tornado's gone!"

"I felt it too," Rachel muttered, her voice tense. "Something's blocking us!"

"Baledranax!" Alyssa hissed, feeling a sharp pang of fear. "That fucker did something to us and John!"

Tashana pointed across the last few trenches and battered walls at the Citadel. "John's duelling the Emperor!"

Alyssa glanced that way and saw the huge dragon leap at John, clawed hands grasping for his white armoured form. She was shocked to realise she couldn't hear anything from her lover. Whatever was blocking their psychic abilities also seemed to be blocking her telepathy with John too.

"He needs backup!" she cried out, activating flight mode on her Paragon suit, the thruster on her back blasting her skyward.

***

Sakura grinned as the wingless Kintark fighter spiralled out of control and slammed into the battleship Darkan'tok, where it broke apart into thousands of pieces and left a big crater in the hull. The Valkyrie's Pulse Cannons had been firing non-stop, making deep inroads into the Kintark strike craft that were frantically trying to protect the doomed Praetorian fleet. Despite all their best efforts, the mech was still in fighting shape, although its pockmarked armour gave a dramatically different impression. Although she'd taken dozens more hits from Heavy Plasma Guns and splash damage from Plasma Cannon fire, the Valkyrie's runed armour had proven stubbornly resistant to the plasma's corrosive effects.

The Praetorian fleet had been whittled down to just two remaining battleships and Sakura knew it wouldn't take her long to dispatch those as well. She stifled a yawn as felt herself tiring, her energy reserves severely depleted after using so much to maintain her speed and the ice on her weapons. *I'm nearly done here, Alyssa. Please could you give me a bit more power to finish the last two?*

Sakura smiled as she waited for the blonde's playful response, expecting some joke about the audacity of a thrall using her Matriarch as an energy battery. To her surprise, there was no reply...

*Alyssa?*

Still nothing...

*Hey! Alyssa, are you there?!*

Unable to maintain her psychic speed any longer, Sakura let it drop, but she was far more worried about Alyssa, suddenly fearing the worst. The blonde was indomitable, but maybe something dreadful had happened to her down on Terra? Distracted by her frantic thoughts, Sakura tripped over a burning plasma crater, the Valkyrie sprawling across the Darkan'tok's top deck.

"Fuck!" she swore vehemently, twisting in the anti-grav field to flip the mech back to its feet.

The Valkyrie groaned in protest, the mangled actuator in its thigh making the self-righting manoeuvre far less graceful than it should have been. A wing of heavy fighters capitalised on her stumble, plasma bolts slamming into the scarred mech's hull and rocking her backwards with each impact. Sakura snarled in anger, aiming her Photon Lasers at the four Kintark vessels and atomising them with a quad volley of pulsed beams.

She was still exposed to Plasma Cannon bombardment by the second of the remaining battleships, so she set off running again, conscious of how much more vulnerable she was without her psychic speed in effect. The plasma blasts were getting closer now as the Makarn'tok's gunners tried to get a bead on her. One of their shots landed just by her right foot and the Valkyrie lurched violently as the blast tore off the entire leg below the knee.

Sakura wrestled with the mech's controls as she cartwheeled off the Darkan'tok's deck, just managing to activate the main engines in time before spinning off too far into space. The Valkyrie lurched forward and crashed into the flank of the Kintark battleship, the impact strong enough to cause severe injuries if Sakura hadn't been suspended in an anti-grav field. She jammed the mech's huge sword into the hull, using it as an anchor to hold herself in place as she cut power to the engines, hugging the green armour plates as she regained her breath. At least now she was out of the Makarn'tok's direct line-of-sight.

As she hauled her mech up into a crouch, Sakura glanced at the Photon Lasers and saw they were still cooling down. Activating the comms interface, she called the Invictus, desperate to know what was going on.

Faye's anxious face appeared in the holographic display. "Sakura! Are you alright?"

The Asian girl paused then gave her a quick nod. "The Valkyrie's banged up, but I'm okay. I'm more worried about Alyssa! I've lost contact with her... has she been hurt?"

"We don't know!" Faye replied, her eyes darting to the right. "Calara wants to speak with you!"

A second later the Latina appeared onscreen, her expression revealing how worried she was. "I can't contact her either! Irillith and I are both tapped out and the Invictus has taken some bad hits; we need you to get back to the Terran lines as fast as you can, to help intercept Kintark bombers!"

"Alright, I'll be there as soon as I can!" Sakura replied, turning her attention back to the battleship she was riding.

Sakura gazed at the Darkan'tok through the superimposed targeting overlay. The crash had damaged the tracking system, so she did her best to ignore the distracting flicker in the glowing holographic image. She'd already executed ten of the Praetorian battleships, so she had a pretty good feel for the location of their Bridge. Trusting more to instinct and experience than relying on the scattered overlay, she opened fire with the quad Photon Lasers, painfully aware that she wouldn't be able to just slash the beams back and forth until she hit her target.

The Darkan'tok shuddered as she bored a glowing hole through the thick armour plating, pulsed beams neatly dissecting the side of the ship. The shots lanced deeper into the hull, piercing deck after deck and sucking debris and Kintark crew out into space. Praying that she'd hit the Bridge, Sakura glanced along the hull, then deflated when she saw retro-thrusters firing as the Darkan'tok executed a roll. Looking up through her clear-crystal cockpit, she could see the Makarn'tok looming into view, the two ships working together to expose the Valkyrie to another broadside.

Shoving her Heavy Quantum Gun into the deep pit she'd excavated in the Darkan'tok, Sakura used the last of her psychic energy to freeze the weapon's barrel. When she pulled the trigger, a storm of slugs battered the interior of the battleship, explosions blossoming with each impact as she hollowed out the Darkan'tok. This time the battleship's retro-thrusters puttered out and large sections of the hull went dark as it lost power, convincing her that even if she hadn't totalled the Bridge, she'd still crippled the vessel.

Twisting around, she got ready to leap away from the lifeless hulk and take on the last battleship, when she saw energy impacts blooming on the rear shields of the Makarn'tok. A second later the Kintark capital ship was flayed by bright blue Pulse Cannon fire and the Raptor swept into view. Faye slowed the nimble white craft so that it tucked in directly behind the battleship, dodging the flurry of plasma bolts from the Makarn'tok's point defence weapons.

Some of the shots hit home, but the Raptor's shields stayed strong, harmlessly dissipating the energy of each bolt. Faye struck back by pouring an unending torrent of laser bolts into the battleship's shields, which quickly gave out, letting her hail of fire ravage the engines. They detonated one after the other, with the Raptor hamstringing the capital ship and leaving it intact, but marooned in space.

Dana's face appeared on the holo-interface a moment later and she gave Sakura a wan smile. "We better get a move on, Calara needs us."

"I'll follow you there," Sakura agreed, but she was worried about the sadness she saw in her friend's forlorn expression. "What's the matter, Dana?"

The redhead didn't reply for a long moment, then said softly, "Do you remember I used to be envious of all the amazing abilities the rest of you had? How happy I was to have my own powers?" When the Asian girl nodded, Dana sighed then continued, "After today, I almost wish I could give them back again..."

The Raptor and the Valkyrie turned and raced towards the Terran lines, rushing to catch up with the Kintark bombers before they could engage the Federation capital ships. They left a starship graveyard behind them, the dozen Praetorian battleships little more than battered derelicts, the remains of over a hundred heavy fighters shattered around the capital ships they'd failed to protect.

***

Stunned that his powers were blocked, John did his best to shake off his sense of shock, well aware that he had a far more pressing concern to deal with at that precise moment in time. Baledranax barrelled towards him, the huge dragon moving far faster than he would have expected for such a colossal creature. An enormous set of jaws as big as a hovercar snapped down at John as he spun away, and he narrowly avoided being chomped in half by those terrible teeth.

As the dragon swept past, John saw a black-armoured forepaw lash out, claws longer than his leg raking across his back. There was a horrible tearing shriek as the thruster on his back was ripped from his armour and it came as another shock to realise that Baledranax's bite had just been a feint, setting him up for the claw attack. Luckily the Paragon suit's power core was still intact, otherwise the anti-grav generators on his arms and legs would have cut out, leaving him to fall to his death. That was obviously what the Kintark Emperor had been expecting, so John felt a brief glimmer of satisfaction that all the surprises weren't totally one-sided.

Baledranax swooped past, huge leathery wings buffeting John with turbulence as the 200-feet-long dragon flew through the air. The sheer size and power of the colossal creature was terrifying, and John felt an aura of dragonfear sweep over him, a natural reaction for anyone in the presence of such a gigantic predator. However, after facing the dreadful abominations in the astral plane, it was relatively easy for John to shrug that off, and he gripped his sword with greater determination as he watched the dragon circling.

"John! We're on our way!" Alyssa cried out, her frantic face appearing in the holographic comms interface.

"No!" he replied sharply. "The Emperor's blocking my psychic powers somehow, I don't want you coming anywhere near him!"

"It's too late for that... we've all had our powers knocked out!"

John glanced down at the Citadel and the valiant Terran defenders trying to hold off the Kintark army. "The Maliri are down there. Help them protect the Terran troops defending the Citadel, they're about to be overrun!"

"Watch out!" she screamed in fright.

He snapped his head around to face his opponent as Baledranax rushed towards him again, propelled through the air with powerful sweeps of his wings. John used the anti-grav generators to levitate himself upwards, moving at a painfully sedate pace. The Emperor bared his fangs as he lunged in on the attack, jaws opening in anticipation of a quick and easy kill.

John reversed the grav-fields and accelerated downwards, dropping much more quickly than he'd been able to rise. The sudden change in direction caught the dragon by surprise, his bite and claw swipe both narrowly missing this time. Acting mostly on instinct, John lunged at Baledranax's huge left wing as it swept overhead, and it felt like his arms were going to be ripped from their sockets when his sword dug into that leathery surface.

His razor-sharp Crystal Alyssium sword sliced through the scaly membrane, tearing a jagged rip all the way through the wing. Baledranax hissed with pain as the blade bit deep, then tore its way out the other side. John tumbled through the air as the dragon swooped by, hearing a whistling noise over the rushing sound of the dragon's wings. Before he realised what that sound was, Baledranax smashed him with a passing tail slap, the impact like being run over by a freight train. His Paragon armour saved him from being instantly crushed to death, but he felt battered by the blow and knew he'd be covered in bruises.

Shaking off his disorientation, John saw that Baledranax was struggling to stay aloft with a crippled wing, and was now spiralling down towards the battlefield below. The dragon's left wing looked like a torn sail, flapping and fluttering as the air rushed by, the vast draconic monster gliding with some difficulty as the Emperor looked for a good place to land.

John sheathed his sword across his back, the magnetic field locking on to the bands around the hilt. Pulling out his Quantum rifle, he lined up a shot on the descending behemoth and squeezed off a round. The hyper-accelerated slug was deflected by a shimmering green field that surrounded the onyx-armoured terror, leaving the dragon completely unscathed. John had expected Baledranax to be shielded, just as Kindralax had been, but it was worth a shot... literally in this case.

John grimaced as he cut out his armour's grav-generators, then dropped earthbound with ever increasing speed. Simply shooting the Emperor out of the sky would have been far too easy; it looked like it was going to have to be the hard way...

***

Commander Madison Wessex sat slumped against the charred wreckage of bunker 187, her mangled arm a bundle of searing pain. Sergeant Gibbons knelt beside her, his face twisted with worry as he rushed to apply some hasty first aid with the trauma kit he'd managed to scavenge. Wessex was vaguely aware of him asking her something, but she wasn't paying attention, her focus entirely on the pair of Lionesses fighting at the wall.

And they were glorious...

Barking curt orders at the Maliri who had formed a firing line at the battlements, the two Lionesses prowled along the fortifications, overseeing the battle. They paused occasionally to fire their long-barrelled pistols, and Wessex could see the devastating results through the scorched cracks in the battlements. She'd been so proud of her Gatling Laser, considering it the pinnacle of Terran weapons technology with all the upgrades she'd had installed, but those elegant pistols put it to shame. Bright blue laser bolts sizzled through the Kintark's green armour like it was made of butter, burning big glowing holes through soldiers and Royal Guard alike.

It wasn't just the Lionesses' guns that were better, their armour was so sleek and refined, it looked more like a figure-hugging bodysuit than personal armour. Wessex had often wondered just how resilient Paragon armour actually was, but even she'd been stunned when an incoming plasma bolt was harmlessly absorbed, a shimmering blue field appearing around the white-armoured woman. To have a portable shield generator in a suit of personal armour that size was absolutely unheard of, the Paragon suits making her Sentinel Armour look like a child's costume in comparison.

A few moments later, three more Lionesses dropped out of the sky and into the fray, two of whom Wessex actually recognised from the award ceremony. Alyssa and Rachel stood brazenly atop the battlements, then pivoted around and aimed a pair of huge underslung cannons at the approaching Kintark. The Lionesses unloaded on the onrushing enemy, mowing down troops with effortless ease and even blowing apart an iridescent green hovertank which dared to try and oppose them.

To see a portable laser coring glowing tunnels through a heavily-armoured vehicle like that came as a real shock and Wessex realised she'd never be satisfied with conventional Terran equipment again. The guns and armour the Lionesses were equipped with made her own gear, which was supposedly state-of-the-art, look like a pathetic joke. But it wasn't just their equipment that made these mysterious women so fascinating, they seemed to move with a bold confidence that filled her with awe. She was astonished by their bearing and presence; it was almost as if these women were so used to being around the gods, that mere mortals no longer seemed like a real threat to them.

Wessex had longed to join their unit with every fibre of her being, but now that her hopes were dashed, she was filled with the blackest sense of despair she'd ever known. To get so close to seeing her fondest wish realised; to actually have a chance to speak with the Lion and his Lionesses... only for her dream to be snatched away at the last moment. Wessex glanced down at her crippled right arm, her eyes gazing in mute horror at the charred stump... Who knew fate could be so cruel?

"Commander, I'm giving you some more painkillers," Gibbons said, pressing the hypo-syringe to her arm. His voice was gentle, kind, and full of sympathy. "Let me know if they help."

Wessex turned away, so that he wouldn't have to see her eyes filling with tears. She knew those painkillers wouldn't do anything for the heartache she was feeling right now.

***

The decimated Terran Federation fleet limped towards Saturn, connected to their Kintark pursuers by a forest of orange beams and a hail of green plasma bolts. Several of the original battle groups had effectively ceased to exist, with the forces commanded by Mishra, Turner, Poznanski, and Dimitrov wiped out almost to a ship. The rest continued their retreat, sailing towards the battlestations and turrets that surrounded the planet.

In humanity's early years of planetary exploration, the huge gas giant had served as an excellent source of hydrogen, and many orbital mining facilities had been established to harvest and convert that element into fuel. Saturn had also long been a focus for scientific research, with dozens of bases set up to study the planet, its many moons, and those spectacular rings. To protect such valuable facilities, the defensive emplacements were extensive and had largely been kept up to date. Despite Nexus' ravaging of the Sol System, the orbital defences around Saturn had survived unscathed, as they weren't in the rogue AI's path during its assault on Terra.

As the Terran ships retreated towards that bristling wall of turreted gun batteries, the Maliri fleet seemed to be drifting, heading further out to the starboard side of the formation. At the same time, Dacres' fleet was fast approaching the port side, their shields now fully regenerated, the ten battleships and twenty cruisers all eager for action. The Invictus was still located in the vanguard and protecting the centre of the Terran lines, obliterating any Kintark battleships that got too close with a combination of Nova Lance and Singularity Driver fire. Holding position like that was taking a heavy toll on the Invictus' armour and the white battlecruiser now had hundreds of plasma scars over its pitted hull.

"We can't take much more damage, Calara!" Faye squeaked, her eyes wide with fright.

The Latina watched as the Raptor, Valkyrie, and squadrons of Maliri fighters blazed through the Kintark strike craft. They had already helped hunt the bombers to extinction and were now turning the green Batakos-class fighters into an endangered species. "We just need to hold the line a little longer..." Calara replied, eyes locked onto the Tactical Map. "Keep clearing out any Kintark fighters that get within Pulse Cannon range!"