Activating the hypermagnetic discs beneath their android skin, they each clung to the hull of the Saberhawk. The ship’s shields did not prevent them since they were designed only to repel energy weapons. The two androids avoided any attempt to cut through the hull with Barudii blades as it would cause a repulsion charge from the shields and vaporize them. They crawled across the hull on their bellies, as the shields snapped back energetically above them at the incoming pulse blasts from the battle.
Vale recalled the entry code for the outer hull hatch and keyed it in. The outer hull door obeyed, and both androids entered the ship without incident. Vale recognized the cargo hold as the place of his defeat at the hands of the Barudii warrior.
The robots walked to the doorway of the cargo hold and found it locked. Vale-two used his blade to cut a portal through the metal door. The pair proceeded down the corridor toward the bridge, even as the ship shuddered under enemy fire raining upon it from all directions. The android’s heard voices beyond the locked bridge door-a man and a woman. They sliced through the door with Barudii blades.
Dorian whirled around in her chair at the weapon console, hearing the crackling of molecular bonds bursting. She threw a spicor disc toward the android coming in through the cut hole. Vale-one caught the spicor disc in the upper torso. The tightly controlled burst pattern vaporized all but its arms above the waist and left the lower body hanging in the door.
Dorian pulled her blade as the second robot moved in fast over its fallen twin. She felt the pressure and pain building in her fractured arm as she brought it to join her other arm on the hilt of her sword.
Millo looked back from the controls, as he heard the spicor explode behind him. The ship was taking a beating from the sporadic weapons fire erupting from the battlefield below them. There was no way he could leave the controls. The android grabbed a pulse blaster with its free hand and sprayed laser fire in all directions across the bridge. The electromagnetic shield on Dorian’s forearm repelled the incoming blasts.
Millo held the controls of the Saberhawk as the firestorm swept across the bridge. Several shots pierced his flight chair and his body. He arched in pain for a moment then slumped forward over the controls.
The ship lurched upward and back, causing Vale to stumble a moment. As he brought the blaster back toward Dorian, it met her blade in flight. She sliced through both the weapon and the android’s hand. With no notion of pain, Vale brought his own blade down upon Dorian’s shoulder, only to find her weapon barring the way. With Millo slumped over the controls and many of the flight controls destroyed by laser fire, the Saberhawk turned backwards from its course, descending clumsily toward the battlefield.
Tiet saw the Saberhawk under fire from both the battlefield and the sky. Millo drove the ship hard away from the fight. Soon Dorian would be safe. In his heart, he urged the ship on. He and Orin had been separated by a small distance and were furiously battling clone soldiers as they tried to get through the congestion.
The entire valley before Mt. Vaseer blazed with laser fire. Overhead a multitude of aerial combatants tore each other out of the sky. Wreckage dropped onto the battlefield at regular intervals as the Sphere drones and the Vorn attack fighters with clone pilots exchanged weapon’s fire in a chaotic dogfight.
A Horva warrior strafed at Tiet with his pulse rifle. He deflected several blasts with kemsticks as he spun them around his body then Tiet let one stick fly toward his attacker. It caught the Horva’s gun and proceeded to swipe across his chest and cut him down. The kemstick rebounded back to Tiet’s waiting hand in time to block an incoming battle staff in the hands of another clone warrior. He dispatched his opponent and kept going.
Tiet kept a visual on the ship. Its path was leading it off the battlefield to the east and he was glad Millo was getting them out. The ship slowed, arching nose up then it came back around from its present course. Something was wrong. Tiet’s heart sank when he saw laser fire flashing repeatedly through the bridge windows. “No!”
The ship fell back from its escape run and began descending onto the battlefield. If they didn’t recover quickly they would crash for sure, and Tiet was too far away to do anything to help them. Several men approached Tiet to attack. He repelled them all with a blast of his mental power.
Tiet reached out in desperation with his mind, trying to seize the ship and keep it aloft, but the Saberhawk’s engines fought to drive it downward into the valley floor. The ship slammed into the ground, crushing several of the sphere robots and dozens of clone warriors caught in its path. The Saberhawk burst into several large pieces as it tumbled over twice. Tiet felt his strength slip away as he watched Dorian going down to her death in a fireball.
He burst away from his position, running as hard as he ever had. Tiet closed the distance between himself and the wreckage. He wasn’t sure why, but he knew Dorian was not dead. Tiet sensed her location in the wreckage as he drew near. He could feel her pain.
From the wreckage before him, a familiar adversary emerged with the majority of its synthetic skin burned away. The android was here-it had caused this. It had hurt her. Before the robot even spotted him, Tiet hit it with a mental burst fueled by pure rage, sending the robot flying into a large section of the Saberhawk’s hull. Before the android could recover, Tiet leaped through the air and came down on top of it. He pinned its head to the wreckage with his blade, driving the weapon in all the way to the hilt. The android body jerked with mechanical aftershocks then moved no more.
Tiet backed away and went searching for Dorian. He found her pinned underneath a metal support pillar. He pulled underneath the edge of the metal trying to move it. Using his mental power for added strength, he got it off her and let it fall a few feet away. Dorian looked at him, barely conscious. She tried to speak, but did not have the strength.
Tiet sat next to her speechless as tears welled in his eyes and escaped down his anguished face. He held her hand and felt it grow cold as life left her body. Dorian reached to touch the donjarr on Tiet’s wrist then she touched his lips. Her fingertips lingered there only a moment. Her arm fell limp as the focus of her gaze faded. Tiet’s mind raged apart from any coherent thought. He became numb to his senses.
The one who had loved him and chosen him above any of her clan was dead. Sorrow filled his mind and despair gripped his heart. Tiet only half heard the battle raging around him. Then he heard familiar heavy footsteps running across the wreckage, too heavy for a man. He looked at the robot. It was still lifeless and pinned to the hull by his sword. Then he looked toward the approaching sound and saw another android running at him, its own blade ready to strike.
Tiet reached out for his sword, still lodged in the other android’s metal cranium. It obediently dislodged itself and leaped through the air to his hand in time to meet the second android’s strike. He wondered only a moment why there were so many of these things running around. The fight was on. Tiet slashed furiously at the deadly android, finding every strike countered. He exploded with rage as the thought of Dorian lying here dead on the battlefield tore through his mind. He screamed out in fury at the robot. “Die!”
His rage burst forth as a wave of psychokinetic energy hitting the third android with astonishing force, sending it flying through the air into a pile of the Saberhawk ‘s wreckage. Tiet had never felt so powerful. His anger fueled his mental power and he could not contain it. The Vale android regained its composure and attacked again. Tiet lowered his father’s blade to his side and let the power flow freely. The Vale robot came closer, ready to kill its target. Then the Barudii blade it was carrying was torn from its grasp.