From a far distance, Gahn watches the disaster unfold with paralyzing horror.

  Three of his ships have deserted him to join the battle, with internal struggles seemingly taking place onboard each vessel right now. General Hiau, for whatever inexplicable reason, has decided to commit strategic suicide. Her warship has been turned into a battering ram the size of multiple buildings, breaking apart the Coalition’s flagship into two as the pair of vessels began to be torn apart both externally and from within.

  Left with no options, he leads his and the one other ship still following his command back to the other side of the planet, where they will retreat back through the gateway of which they came.

  *****

  General Hiau marches with a specialized squad down the halls of her currently besieged warship, every single one of its alarms and sirens screaming out as though in agony.

  She needs to make her way to the containment bay where Lym and Vertan are held, if they are still there. Already, this is a monumental challenge, given that the rest of the ships in the fleet are either bombarding her warship or attempting to forcibly board it.

  Coming down to one of the main chambers, she is met with a grisly sight. A bloody battle unfolded between her troops and the others of the Coalition’s. Amidst the massacre, the air grew increasingly thin; the ship’s systems were struggling to contain its atmosphere within the vessel, as it slowly leaked out into the void of space.

  Making her way through, masses of armed individuals attempted to hold her back, but were no match. She dodged nearly every shot fired upon her, and brushed off every otherwise mortal injury. With ferociously fast and equally brutal strikes, she either incapacitates them immediately or flings them away altogether. A clear path is continually opened in front of them in a messy but quick fashion. Her squad here and there would provide supporting fire and cover, though they too struggled to keep up with her capabilities.

  Stepping out onto the exterior of her ship, General Hiau looks around at the sight. Every one of her accompanying squad members have now sealed themselves within their suits to protect their bodies from the vacuum of space, leaving her to be the only individual without need for one.

  The macrocannons of her ship continued to fire back upon its besiegers, but it was clear that it was a great struggle to hold back the inevitable. The shockwaves of the explosions can be seen being dissipated across the projected shields just above the ship like massive raindrops in a heavy storm. Every now and then however, a fireball manages to burst from the vessel, the system too overwhelmed to prevent every single shot. Out here, the battle carried on in eerie silence, the absence of an atmosphere carried no sound or shockwave of every blast, and there was no air to feed the fires that may be raging at the moment from within.

  Instead, a seemingly countless, infinite amount of debris seemed to spread across everywhere, splashing against each other, flying endlessly off in haphazard directions.

  They must move quickly. She can only hold her breath for so long.

  With haste, she and her squad made their way down the bow of her ship to where it intersected the opposing flagship, narrowly dodging battlefield hazards along the way. As they came up closer and closer to the vessel, they could see that it appeared to be slowly disintegrating from whatever was going on from within.

  Just as they made it towards the end of her ship’s damaged bow, Lym’s gunship burst out from one part of the opposite flagship, taking with it one of the heavy macrocannons, and for a moment, explosions burst out from its ammunition stocks being triggered. Some haphazard pieces of flying debris shot in their direction, taking out a few highly unfortunate individuals in her squad, immediately smearing them across the vacuum of space. Faced with little time, they nonetheless immediately pushed on thereafter, finally entering the eviscerated vessel through its gaping wound.

  Immediately, General Hiau takes a deep breath amidst the rapidly thinning atmosphere. Each breath felt like a struggle, even to her, but she continued to push onwards. Now that they were all within range, Lym can be reached, given that they all came equipped with Daero Counters. The tricky and dangerous part then would be how to communicate to her of their new intentions.

  Here, the alarms and sirens of the ship seem to have all gone quiet. The sprinklers attempting to put out the fires increasingly dried up. The once mighty vessel now lay feeble, lame and severely wounded as its structure groaned in pain and suffering with each subtle shift.

  It all seemed to be eerily quieter than it should be. Terrifyingly quiet, even. Now and then as they attempted to make their way closer to Lym, they could hear the commotions of distant battles and struggles that would be cut off into silence thereafter. The voices of thousands upon thousands of troops and crew are all going dark, one after the other.

  Suddenly, an overwhelming instinctual premonition takes over her. Without even realizing what it is, she abruptly ducks down preemptively, as though expecting a strike.

  In the immediate instant following this, a beam of energy sweeps through, cutting that entire section of the ship. Had she remained standing, she would meet the same fate as every single one of her squad members standing behind her. Their remains are nearly completely unrecognizable, all of them were cleanly bisected in half.

  Panting heavily with rushed adrenaline and abject terror, she looks back up to the now opened and gaping scene before her. This part of the ship was now entirely opened up, just like how many of the people lying around appeared. Even for a person as cold as Lym, for just a moment, it was too much of a scene to grasp, and she grew light-headed amidst the already thin air.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  That’s the moment that she saw her. Can it be called a her?

  In that moment that slowed to a near standstill for her, Hiau remembered why the Coalition does what it does. The destructive carnage caused here was so overwhelming and thorough despite being caused by a single individual. Before her, she once more witnessed the true, unrestrained power of what one of these demons, no, Happians, could do. Everything appeared ripped completely to shreds, as if the entire process was an effortless motion for her.

  And yet, oddly enough, upon closer inspection, it didn’t appear barbaric. While Hiau is often messy in the brutality with her own powers, here, it somehow appeared highly refined. Highly disciplined. In that instant, Hiau recognized that they were in a particularly vital part of the ship. Every single thing had been systematically dismantled with ferocious efficiency, taking down the entire vessel in record time. No wonder the thing looked like it was disintegrating completely from the outside.

  In the next instant, Hiau could feel Lym turn towards her before she even fully made the movement. Her glowing red eye immediately caught Hiau’s presence in that micro-instant, and before she knew it, in the next moment, Lym was already up against her face, having covered the massive gap within a blink.

  A threatening aura pounds against Hiau.

  Suddenly, Hiau finds herself in the air. She attempted to clutch at the grasp on her neck to no avail. Lym’s grip was unimaginably strong, and Hiau found herself entirely helpless in that situation. Slowly, the air emptied out of her lungs.

  “You,” Lym said coldly.

  Fear began to overtake Hiau. The fact that she isn’t dead by now meant that this was a very personal encounter. She is about to suffer the slowest and most agonizing death to an individual with the power of the gods. Something had to be done, now!

  “L—gkh—gkh—L—ym!” Hiau mustered.

  For a moment, there was a glimpse of hesitation from Lym.

  “What did you just call me?” she asks.

  “L—Lym!” Hiau chokes out. “Th—That’s your—gkh—name, r—right?”

  “What do you want from me now?” demands Lym as she slams Hiau down, taking even more air out of her lungs upon impact. The floor buckled, cracked, and cratered as Lym increased the pressure of her downward force. Hiau could feel her vision narrowing and blackening.

  “I—I—gkh—augkh—want to—to—gkh—help you!” Hiau barely manages to communicate.

  “You think I’ll fall for that?” Lym responds coldly, increasing her pressure.

  It was now or never. With all of the strength she had within her left, with all of her four arms grabbing Lym’s, Hiau just barely managed to lift Lym’s grasp off of her throat, enough for her to finish what she intended to say.

  “I crashed my ship out there for you!” she gasps. “I’m defecting! I know things that will help you! Please!”

  With this last bit of strength gone, agonizingly slowly, Hiau finds herself once more choked out by Lym’s grasp.

  Lym looks down at Hiau beneath her. She could just crush her right now, and get out of there. She could instantly smear her brains all across the entirety of the ship if she wanted to.

  She found that she hated Hiau. She hated her with every fiber of her being for what she did to her. She still remembers the terror she was subjected to, the unimaginable torture she endured at her hand. She still remembers being bound up, helpless, powerless against the violently systematic and institutionalized violations against her mind and body. The trauma of what happened made her want to reflect it manyfold.

  It was because of her.

  It was perpetrated by her.

  She represents the system that has made a profit and living off of the farming, exploitation, and culling of her and her people.

  But something wasn’t right.

  Lym releases Hiau from her grasp. Hiau chokes, coughs, and gasps for air, clutching at her throat. She first attempts to stand up, but instead simply falls back to her knees.

  Soon, it became clear that not only was she in no capacity to fight, there was no intention of it either.

  The two stood completely alone together at that moment.

  Lym reanalyzed the situation. Something was very different. She could no longer sense the original person that Hiau was when they had first met. Something had irreversibly changed deep within her. What was it? She couldn’t tell.

  What she could tell, however, was that by her actions, Hiau made full acceptance of the risk that she could be instantly killed by her at this moment. There is no trap, no greater plan laid out. The entire thing was a gamble, just like what she had done with her ship.

  Is it true, then? Is this a defection?

  “Lym Alzie-Rugen,” Hiau manages to gasp out. “I need you to get through that gateway.”

  Lym finds herself in a moment of shock. Hiau remembered her full name. Addressed her as a person. But most of all, somehow, she knows the importance of what she was trying to do.

  And she’s trying to help her fulfill it.

  “Get up,” Lym says quickly.

  Extending her hand, Lym helps Hiau to her feet, who staggers a bit. Even though the latter is taller, for the moment, Hiau found herself stooping in pain, and the two women found themselves at equal heights.

  “There’s no time,” Lym continues. “We need to move.”

  Nodding in solemn agreement, the two women acknowledge each other in that glance. Whatever happened before can be dealt with later.

  What matters now, is the now.

  *****

  “Look! There he is!”

  Spotting Vertan, the Ulminhan ships make a daring dive through the chaos towards the disintegrating flagship. Vertan could be seen attempting to wave them down with a flare.

  Pulling in, they board the ship, and likewise give Vertan a suit, who takes a deep breath inwards after barely making it by with the thinning air.

  “Mr. Zviedal!” one of them exclaims. “We’ve defected and committed mutiny from Admiral Gahn. We seek to be under your command, now! Please come with us for your safety—”

  “Not yet!” exclaims Vertan. “I’ve lost contact with Lym. We need to find her!”