Nyx’s jaw drops, “You’re doin’ what?”

  “I’m dropping an asteroid.” He focuses on the image of the asteroid in question, an oblong rock that looks like any other, “We use the grappler to snag it. Then we protect it during re-entry. The Donati will tell us the perfect time to release it and boom! It goes right into the building at high speeds.” He opens a schematic of the colonial government building, “The problem is hostages.” He highlights the basement area, “They’re being held here in the shelter from what the surviving government told me. So we clip the top of the building and try not to hit it.”

  Nyx nods, “That’s being shiny. But we’re bein’ sure they’re all bein’ in the shelter?”

  Cai shakes his head, “No, we can’t be sure. Which is why I’ll hit the command center. Should make it so they can’t control the security drones or watch the security cameras so what’s left of security can move around.”

  “I’m wantin’ to be helpin’ too.” She pats the pistol on her hip.

  Cai pauses, “If that’s what you want.”

  Nyx smiles, “Let’s sparkin’ go!”

  Cai taps his wrist computer, “Prepare for re-entry. Once I give the go ahead, those able and willing can jump to the surface and help retake the colony.”

  Roxy’s voice, “Got it, captain!”

  “Hoo ra!”

  “Twoey, I’m sending you a target. Use the grappler to grab it, then release it when the Donati tells you to,” Cai says, then hits the FTL. He turns to Nyx after the nearly instantaneous jump, “The Donati could do it better, but this is more fun, right?”

  “Mya! Yeah!”

  Twoey shoots the grappler and spears the asteroid on the first try.

  “Great job! Everyone, re-entry in thirty seconds!” Cai jumps them to Mars orbit after the asteroid fully retracts to the grappler.

  The Donati spins so its heat shield is facing towards the atmosphere and protecting the asteroid.

  Nyx straps into the second chair, “Mya! I’m bein’ ready! Let’s be hittin’ ‘em with a dum space rock!?”

  Nyx feels a nervous excitement, but also she’s pissed. These people seem to keep giving her excuses to kill them. And next time she won’t hesitate now that she’s got live rounds.

  They hit the atmosphere. Nyx has to watch the feeds on her wrist computer, as the console currently has a hole in it.

  Nyx is now mewling in fright as she watches the Donati heat. It was terrifying when it was ?normal, but now there’s a whole chunk missing from the front. She thought she’d be fine this time, but with the shaking, rattling, and, this time, air coming in, it’s even worse.

  She watches as the last of the nose cone and telescope shear off under the heat and friction.

  Cai sighs, “You know how long it takes to make the mirrors for a telescope that size? I guess it was shredded, anyway.”

  Cai opens a feed to the hydroponics deck, where Zone and Twoey are hissing and crying out even more than she is, and chuckles, “Okay. They scream louder than you did your first time. Roxy’s doing well though.”

  Nyx notices Roxy has passed out, “She’s sleepin’.”

  “Oh… she passed out. That’s why she looks calm.” He presses a button, “Twoey! It’s almost time to let the asteroid go.”

  Twoey perks up, “Got it!”

  Twoey still looks terrified as she readies the grappler to release the asteroid.

  There’s a countdown timer, and when it hits zero, Twoey presses the holographic button that releases the asteroid.

  Nyx watches as a trajectory line appears and sees it dead on to hit the command center, but not before it’ll punch another hole in the dome.

  As soon as the asteroid clears the hull, the Donati’s thrusters fire, slowing them. It then does a flip and its engines burn, slowing their descent while pushing them into their chairs.

  Nyx watches the asteroid, and she sees it punch through the dome, which shatters it and the section of the dome around the impact site. The debris then peppers the command center, sending chunks of concrete and metal crumbling to the ground as several people flee the building as the upper floors buckle, but stay standing.

  “Mya! Spark yeah!”

  Twoey and the others are cheering as they see the building, and its antenna on the roof, torn apart.

  “Everyone who can use a gun, prepare to disembark. The Donati has enough fuel to hover in Mars’ gravity for a minute or two.”

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  There’s a beep, and Cai presses a button.

  It’s a man’s voice she doesn’t recognize, “Donati, your plan worked. The security drones have lost connection to the command center. They’re still hostile, but aren’t getting new commands. And we need you to deal with the power armor as planned. Painting them with lasers now.”

  “On it! Twoey, get ready to target the power armor.”

  Nyx watches as the broken dome looms below them. The Dontati had more than enough time to slow down this time.

  The Donati clears the dome at the same place the lab’s ship escaped, and two targets appear on the map of the colony.

  Nyx unbuckles herself as she watches, “Where were they bein’?”

  Cai shrugs. All I heard is that they hid after the ship escaped. Then they came out of nowhere when the coup happened. Best guess was more secret tunnels.”

  Twoey shoots the nearest man in power armor, and after a few seconds, he falls over.

  The second jumps into action before the turret can even finish swiveling toward him, and hides behind cover.

  There are several security drones around them, and Twoey targets them instead, quickly cutting them down as the laser sweeps across the area like someone making squiggles on a sheet of paper.

  As soon as the last security drone is down, several figures in the colony’s security exo-suits leave cover.

  “We’ll flush him out!”

  Twoey shouts, “Mining laser!” as the broken concrete the enemy power armor is hiding behind melts as the laser hits it and digs through with ease.

  The enemy jumps away, but they see the laser has melted a portion of the chest armor, and they land, unmoving.

  Everyone cheers, and Twoey looks ecstatic.

  Cai is grinning, “Everyone! We have a command center to help capture! The Donati’s getting low on fuel, so I can’t provide cover or land, so good luck!”

  Nyx climbs into the drone hatch and pokes her head outside. She’s high up. High enough where she can’t jump down from here. Even at the level of the airlock, it looks like it would be dangerous.

  She turns on her magnetic boots as the Donati partially enters the silo the lab’s ship was in, letting them a lot closer to the ground without having to destroy buildings with the thrust from the Donati’s two active engines.

  Below her, she sees two of the soldiers jump from the Donati’s airlock. Zone hops out behind them.

  Nxy slides down the side, using her magnetic boots, then jumps off the Donati, landing next to Zone, “Zone, what the spark are ya doin’ out here!”

  Zone watches Nyx with a sort of awe, “Wow. That was an awesome jump!” He pauses and his face darkens, “And I’m going after Gwen and my son.”

  Nyx’s ears flatten in her helmet, and she looks at his gun, “You even knowin’ how to be usin’ that?”

  Zone looks a bit embarrassed as he fiddles with the safety, “Well… just from what I’ve seen in movies.”

  Nyx growls, “Don’t be pointin’ it at anything you’re not wantin’ to be killing and keep yer finger off the trigger until you’re ready to be firin’.”

  He nods, “Got it.”

  They follow the soldiers.

  Cai comes over comms, “Good luck! I’m off.”

  Everyone turns around as the Donati slowly climbs out of the dome, and Nyx can even hear the rumble of the engines in Mars’ thin atmosphere.

  One soldier speaks, “Just got done talking to command, they need us at the command center. The Donati’s attack on the building and the power armor really turned the tide. It collapsed the passage to the hostages, so we don’t have to worry about them. Stay behind us and only fire if you have a clear shot. The enemy has stolen security exo-suits, so ours have red marks on the left shoulder.”

  Nyx nods, but has no intention of following that order. She’s got people to find and stop.

  They jog and soon find a firefight ahead. She sees security with the red marks taking cover from security without the red marks taking cover in the command center. Several unmoving people lay in the space between, and one in the road leading up. They’re moving, so probably stunned.

  Nyx takes cover. Her pistol is useless from this range, so for now she obeys the directions of the soldiers as they creep closer, running from cover to cover.

  She notices that only the soldiers she’s come with have the rifles and all but one of the marked security has pistols.

  They soon reach the front lines and stop next to some security, taking cover behind a long row of plants half her height.

  Nyx can’t tell what they’re saying, but they’re signalled to stop.

  She obeys and peeks over the plants to see what’s going on.

  The command center is a three storied building, but wide. Around it are green plants cut short with paths coming from the road to the building, so there’s not much cover other than a few chunks of fallen dome, which litter the area. There are also trees, but they’re very thin compared to the ones in Cai’s simulation and wouldn’t provide much cover. Also, one could use the carving of a man near the front entrance for cover.

  The building itself is concrete with metal for decoration. Portions of it have collapsed, especially around the center where most of the asteroid hit it. Surrounding there are many smaller holes or chipped concrete from the impact.

  Nyx sees a hole large enough for her to enter on the second floor and focuses on it.

  The two soldiers she came with finish speaking, when they turn to her, “Can you two help with covering fire? Our rifles have longer range than your pistols, so we can hit them if we get closer, but we need to draw them out a bit.” He turns to her, “Your spacesuit has light armor, so you’ll be fine if they hit your breastplate or helmet with the stun rounds.”

  Nyx smiles, “Dum right I’ll be helpin’.” She raises her pistol, “Be tellin’ we when to be goin’.”

  “Good. Wait for the signal.”

  Zone raises a hand, “What about me?”

  “You follow after us and watch our backs.”

  Zone nods, his brow furrowed as he turns to the building.

  Nyx feels her heart rate increase as she waits.

  Then they get the signal.

  She jumps over her cover and sprints, her pistol aimed ahead as she watches for any movement. The trees are small, but she thinks they’re better than nothing, and keeps them between her and the building if she can, and uses her agility to zigzag as she runs.

  There’s movement, and a flash.

  The faint popping of gunfire starts as both sides open up.

  A live round hits the person who shot at her, and a shower of blood sprays out of their back as the round easily pierces their unarmored exo-suit. She also sees air escaping from their suit.

  A round hits her shoulder, and the stun round glances off the light armor there, though she feels a tingling as the round still goes off.

  She doesn’t stop.

  She sees movement above, and aims, firing twice.

  Neither round hits her target, but the chips of concrete exploding from where they hit, cause them to return to cover.

  Another round hits her helmet, cracking her visor, sending spiderwebs across it.

  She’s momentarily blinded as the round flashes, but it’s too far away from her body to affect her.

  A person falls out of a window nearby, but she doesn’t turn to see who shot them.

  Finally, she reaches the wall, and without stopping jumps, using her magnetic boots on some metal trim and small holes from the asteroid to make her way up to the hole she’d picked out earlier.

  Then, she’s inside. Now, all she needs to do is get her revenge.