Distant wastelands of the Amorfati galaxy. Right next to the notorious dark galaxy.
Wielding her dual swords, Hannah swept through the Thelarian soldiers and ninja cyborgs like a blind fury.
Jack's heavy plasma gun sent torrents of wrath as he stood atop of the humvee and Kai drove. Kai's five drones guarding the vehicle. Right beside Jax's, Anya provided cover fire for him. Vayne also kept up, shooting through the side window. Zara covered the rear.
Axel's precision shooting spotted and neutralized rocket launchers and grenades coming from rooftops and ambushes before they could strike.
The mission had also recruited Aura from team alpha. She ripped through jet-bikes in the sky with her outwardly sword that could cut through ships' hulls as if they were wax.
"The flying Valkyrie makes your drones look like background noise," Vayne screamed to Kai amid the chaos.
Kai grinned, replying, "My drones are too busy watching her bodysuit twisting around." Zara and Vayne burst into laughter.
They reached the ruined town's center, hemmed in by hundreds of Thelarians surrounding the mall they were meant to infiltrate. Inside lay a fusion bomb — the mission objective.
The mission seemed simple. Squad insisted they would take care of it on its own while Eve and Cesna sisters could fight another behemoth that had just cropped up amidst a bustling city on an Intergalactic Committee allied planet. Eve agreed only if they would take Aura with them.
Hannah jumped through the rooftops, through the streets. Her sprinting speed, no gasoline humvee could match. Now they all stood at the gates of the mall.
Hannah broke the ice, swinging her sword through the frontline. The mayhem started. Aura dived down and rose up again after putting a dozen soldiers to eternal sleep. The whole team came into action.
Hannah was trying to get to the entrance. Hostiles were shooting each other as Hannah blurred through them and between them. She steadied her swords for a second. Saw ten guards lining the entrance perimeter. Poised her swords and zoomed again.
Punch, slash, kick, dive, slide. There were many lethal cyborg girls, none of them as polished and refined as Hannah. In her bounty‑hunting days, she rivaled Eve in collecting the galaxy's most formidable prey — and that's how they'd met.
Hannah punched a cyborg girl sending her to meters high in the sky. Punched another. Collapsed. Slashed another. Halved. Then she landed a powerful punch on the face of an iron masked cyborg woman. A loud thud. But that woman didn't flinch. A kick sent Hannah flying back bouncing through the soldiers like a bowling ball rolling through pins.
It sent Hannah some twenty meters back.
Hannah rose, fist bruised, eyes blazing. She looked at the masked woman. "Guys… you seeing this?"
From the sky Aura confirmed, "looks like an enhanced one. Highly evolved."
"Her eyes though," Kai saw through his one-eyec visor HUD as one of his drones rose up and focused on her face.
"I noticed too," Hannah comm-ed.
Axel didn't need drones or HUD. He had built in radar and scanners. "Almost looks like the commander. Except her hair is different and the body…"
"No one's got a body like the space commander Axel," Vayne intervened.
Strangely. The soldiers had ceased fire. Squad came out of the humvee.
The woman walked forward. Her eyes blazing electricity dominated daylight. Her stance was lethal, fierce, feminine but feral. Wielding a gun, she stood right in front of Thelarian soldiers. Daring the squad to step forward.
The squad looked at each other.
Hannah takes the lead. "Axel."
He came forward and stood next to Hannah. "Her energy readings are off the charts, it's almost like looking at Her!"
Hannah instructed again, "Just me and Axel. Rest keep your eyes peeled if the crowd goes ballistic again."
Kai: "Be careful."
Hannah: "I am going to show this bitch she messed with the wrong squad."
Aura came down and joined the rest of the team. Her huge metallic wings coiled and disappeared behind her like it was nanotech. It wasn't. Aura and her species were born like this.
Brutal face down began. Hannah and Axel fought furiously. The masked woman was powerful, but Hannah showed her she's dealing with no less than Eve's squad. Thelarians and squad alike watched in awe.
Both team leaders kept sending each other to the walls. It was like havoc reigned.
Coordination of attacks between Hannah and Axel was unmatched but every punch the Thelarian warrior landed was leaving less room to recover from. Hannah fought, blurring speed, Axel would intercede and block Thelarians' attack. But she was overpowering them.
Eventually there came a point when Hannah's punches and kicks caused no effect. The masked woman swung a final kick, sending both squad mates back into the humvee.
Anya and Zara rushed to Hannah. She was bleeding. Her skin ripped off at multiple places, cybernet veins peeking out. Jax and Vayne tended to Axel. His metallic armor is broken and dented. Hannah tried to get up, "I'll get this bitch." But consciousness left her and she fell down again.
A masked woman laughed.
"Take your injured home. Come back for another fight another day. I will be right here."
Aura tried to step forward when Kai intervened. "No. Let's head back to Nomad." Aura wanted to say something when Kai looked deep into her eyes, "I'll tell you on the way back. We are done here."
The team loaded Axel and Hannah into a Humvee. Kai opened the driver's door, then paused at the sight of the masked woman.
She spoke. "Tell Eve there's a new sheriff in town. She better keep IC dogs off my turff."
Vayne's drone recorded her words. He got in and started driving. Vayne sat next to him.
"Who was that woman?"
"I don't know Vayne. Thelarians just revealed their Ace."
"I could have handled her," Aura said from the backseat as Anya was patching up Hannah with her medical kit she always carried in her backpack. And Anya always carries her backpack.
"Let's get to Nomad first, Aura…she knew Eve. They were waiting for her. Somehow I think it was fortunate she didn't show up," Kai responded as the humvee drifted, zigzagging through the corners.
"Kai is right. We don't know what waited for the commander. Maybe she was a perfected soldier equipped in every way to kill the queen," Zara noted as she held Axel's head on her lap.
Vayne turned back, "how come we never have any Intel on her?"
Axel spoke out struggling, "The recent Thelarian exaggerations amounted to some help. There was no way to know a new weapon was behind them."
"She was that weapon." Kai clenched his teeth.
Suddenly everyone's comms buzzed with a voice they feared and felt hesitant of, "Eve squad, report!"
It was Mira.
Mira was back at Nomad. She had already seen footage from Kai's drones.
Vayne reported, "we are heading to the Soul Drifter, two down. The bomb is hot. The mission was a failure."
"Roger that. Head to new coordinates. Sending extraction vessels. I am sending another pilot to have Soul Drifter picked up."
"New coordinates confirmed." Kai comm-ed.