Renegades (The Slingers Trilogy, Book 3)

Chapter 5

Howren looked at the two Resistance fighters flanking his shuttle on either side. He was panicking, wracking his brain and looking for any possible solution to the conundrum he had found himself in. Then, as he was about to finally surrender, he saw something appear on his radar. Looking in close, he saw that it was two friendly GDF craft approaching them. He looked at their identification numbers, then a smile slowly crept across his face. It appeared that he had the upper hand after all. As Saul looked up towards the clouds, he hailed the Dreadnought on his communicator. "This is Vulcan 1-2, we have the package, and are 2 minutes out. We need an escort to take us all the way to the ship, over." Before the Dreadnought could respond, a hail of bright orange laserfire started to pour down from the sky over Saul and Mayla. As Saul grabbed his flightstick to dodge the unexpected attack, he noticed that the stream of plasma seemed to only be affecting the two Vulcan fighters, completely missing the shuttle. Then, the two hidden attackers dropped out of the cloud cover, giving Saul a clear look at them. They looked like GDF Interceptors, but were instead painted with a terrifyingly jet black sheen that seemed to absorb all light around it. Compared to the silver and chrome of the regular GDF fighters, it was a powerful contrast. The two fighters seemed to turn on a dime, stopping and hovering in midair almost instantaneously. They aimed their weapons at the Vulcans. "Mayla! Evasive maneuvers!" Saul shouted into his comm, but it was too late. The two Interceptors shot concentrated blasts at the Resistance ships, clipping their wings and sending the both of them into a nosedive. Both pilots struggled to keep control, until both of them activated the Vulcan's ejector seats, launching them into the air and activating their parachutes and protection bubbles safely. As they two slowly floated down, they activated their emergency beacons, wondering what exactly had just hit them.

The Renegade and the Swift flew upwards as fast as they could, with Andress pushing the large cargo ship as hard as it could go. Then, behind her, Trace spoke up, breaking her concentration. "I just picked up two distress beacons beneath us! They belong to Vulcan 1-2 and 1-3." Andress heard Koil's sigh of relief over her mic. "We'll go back for them later. Right now that shuttle is our priority." Andress said. After a long trek up through the atmosphere, they finally broke through the upper levels of the sky, and the inky infinite of space filled the front window of the main cabin. But, that blackness soon was broken as they got closer to the conflict that was in front of them. Lasers and artillery were flying everywhere, and Vulcan and GDF Interceptors were zooming past left and right. At the centre of the battle were two large ships. One was the Dreadnought, the Resistance mothership, with it's hulking and patchwork features. It was currently positioned above a large chrome and silver battleship, the Eden Omega, a member of the GDF fleet. From the looks of things, however, the Dreadnought appeared to be winning the battle, with the Eden Omega being heavily damaged and battered, but still returning fire. Still as stubborn as always. Andress thought. "Trace, find that shuttle!" Bunker shouted to the back of the main cabin. Trace began to type out frantically on the keypad, scanning the area for a signature that matched the shuttle that Howren had taken off in. "It's difficult. A lot of ships in this area." Trace said, shaking her head. "At least they aren't shooting at us for a change." Nolun muttered. Dante had been looking through his scope, and surprised everyone when he suddenly shouted. "There! Focus over there!" Trace aimed her viewfinder, then perked up. "There it is! The shuttle's being flanked by two GDF Interceptors." "I got this." Koil said, and the Swift banked left and flew towards the shuttle. "Koil, wait!" Andress said, and turned to follow him.

Koil focused on the ship that was coming up close to him, and throttled the boosters on the back of his ship, then folded his wings into attack mode. As he got closer, he noticed the jet-black Interceptors that were around the shuttle. After the initial confusion, he saw that one of the Interceptors had turned right and started to unload his weapons onto him. Dodging the initial wave of lasers, Koil managed to right himself and returned fire with his chaingun, aiming for the cockpit, trying to make it a quick encounter. But, oddly enough, the Interceptor turned quickly and banked over Koil's ship, showing impressive maneuvering. Clearly, this was no ordinary GDF pilot. Koil began to have flashbacks to the skirmish on Nimentia almost 7 months ago, when he had fought against Mister Zero in a dogfight for the first time. Pushing the memory out of his head, he turned his ship around, and began to fire back, this time switching out his chaingun for one of his newest weapons. A scattershot cannon, which the Resistance had recently installed on all of it's fighters, would project lasers in a rapid-fire wave pattern for as long as the pilot held down the trigger. Koil began to strafe, extending the scattershot's radius of fire. Incredibly, the Interceptor managed to weave through the laser bolts, and got close to Koil before scoring a direct hit on the Swift's hull with it's precision fire. Koil felt his ship shudder, and corrected himself quickly. As he was about to retaliate again, he saw a third wave of lasers come out of nowhere, and looked to see the Renegade flying in fast from the right side towards the Interceptor. The Interceptor was surprised by the new addition, but then flew straight upwards over the fire from the Renegade's cannons, and began to shoot back. But Koil was ready, and began another round of shots from the scattershot. Soon, the barrage of fire from both ships was too much for the Interceptor, and it finally was unable to dodge anymore. A laser bolt pierced one of it's wings, which made it list into the path of another bolt. After that, it took every bolt that was shot at it, and it finally exploded. The Renegade flew back towards the Eden Omega, and the Swift followed suit. "How about not rushing in next time, eh Koil?" Andress said over the mic. Koil sighed. "Yes, Captain." Dante spoke up before Andress could reply. "I tracked the shuttle. It made it into the Eden Omega." Nolun spoke up across the channels, and they could all hear the smirk in his voice. "Well then, we'll just have to knock on the door."