Emissary

"...one."

Stel felt a jerk as the mech was released from the mag-locks and the bay door opened. She took hold of the manual controls like before and pushed the mech into a forward boost, racing out of the launch bay with a shaky start but gradually getting herself under control as she got closer and closer to the explosive conflict over the planet ahead.

Racing through the orbit lines of the planet, Stel let the sensors go to work to pick out targets. She wasn't about to let this planet go undefended. Not like her home. Not again.

The problem was, her sensors could barely distinguish how many there were. They moved in clouds and swarmed the defenders like insects. She didn't see any way to make an impact, even if her mech was designed to go above and beyond in combat.

"Try hitting one of their control ships. The big ones with the two mandibles at the front. See 'em?"

Stel glanced at the communicator to see Ryn's ID signature speaking and looked at the battlefield again. Near the back of the engaging force was indeed several of the ships as described, slowly moving towards the planet but remaining ever-behind the first and second wave of assault craft.

"Slip around behind them, they're distracted with the planetary defenders. They act as a partial hive mind and their battlemasters reside on those ships, one apiece. Take one out, and you'll see entire waves of their attack ships fall from the sky, jolted by the death of their coordinator."

Stel flipped her communicator, "Thanks. But... how do I take a ship that big?"

Ryn answered with a chuckle. "They break easily, the Nalesh. Just dash in and look for smaller sections of their ships. They snap like bone if you hit 'em right. And keep moving, never hold still or they might find a way to counter you."

Stel steeled herself and moved into an intercept path with the closest of the mandible-having ships. "How will I know I got him? The battlemaster, I mean."

"They link into the ship. Those mandible amplify their abilities to communicate with their pilots. Kill the ship and the shock will kill the battlemaster. Good luck, kiddo, I'll be trying to secure the warp gate. You have fifteen minutes."

Stel glanced at her tactical map and saw that the Motherwill's signature pulled away from its pursuing course on her and redirected towards the warp gate. She took a deep breath; she was alone in this attack.

Gripping her controls a little tighter, she took stock of her weapons. The bipedal humanoid mech held two guns, one in each hand, and had a dumb-fire missile launcher on her left shoulder. The missiles could be directed to lock on to a target, but just firing them in a panic was an option.

None of the Nalesh'ka, and their ugly ships, seemed to have noticed the approaching mech suit and Stel wanted to make the most of that. Slipping into her final course with her target ship, she gave her thrusters all the power she could find for them and raced forwards, hurtling through open space. She began looking for weak points, as Ryn described, and noticed that he was right; there were thin points in the ship. Connections between parts of the ship looked like bone between larger chunks of ship. She marked each of the eight she saw and pinged the closest four for missile locks. She had eight missiles, she wanted to save four for a panic. She hoped one would be enough to snap each "bone."

Stel stared at her missile locks as the range finder counted down into acceptable ranges. She was so focused that she failed to noticed the lock warnings. Lock warnings on her. A projectile raced past her, singing the paint and setting off red warning lights. Snapping out of her tunnel vision, Stel looked for the origin of the attack and saw a swarm of perhaps twenty small one-person fighters racing towards her. Alone, they were perhaps half her mech's size. Together? She was badly outnumbered.

Bringing her main guns up, she began firing wildly at the cloud of incoming fighters, scoring numerous hits as she emptied the rounds into the oncoming onslaught. She lost track of the explosions but maybe half their number was gone by the time they were close enough to open up with smaller weapons. Their attacks were intensely coordinated and Stel heard innumerable hits scattering across her hull, thankful that the cockpit seemed to be the sturdiest part of the mech. Once past, Stel turned to pursue and got a tingling sensation at the back of her neck. She turned and stared at the command ship. The thing had turned and pointed its mandibles at her. It was like it was staring at her. Perhaps it was, Ryn said the battlemaster linked to the ship, maybe he really was staring at her.

Abandoning her initial plan, Stel turned and gunned it for the ship, aiming right between the mandibles, at a bulbous formation in the center of the ship, in between the protruding features. As she got closer, she brought the guns up and began firing, the impacts skittering away just above the hull of the ship. It seemed to be shielded. Stel hoped her plan would work. Bringing her missile launcher up, she linked four missiles to fire directly at the bulbous dome. She hoped it was the command center. She raced between the mandibles, only a few dozen meters away from her target, and fired all four missiles. As she hoped, they impacted the shield and collapsed it. Green energy fizzling as the shield retracted from her target and residual blast energy scoring the ship black. She kept her speed and catapulted herself directly into the ship, crashing through the dome which broke like glass; just as she'd hoped. Skidding through the chamber, she watched small bodies hurtle out through the new opening and trace laser fire arced up at her before those defenders were also sucked into space.

When she came to a halt, the ship lurched and an ugly, inhuman scream reverberated through the vessel. Looking for the source, Stel decided it must have come from the ship itself, or maybe the battlemaster and it echoed through the ship? Either way, she checked her chronometer and saw she had two minutes left to race back to the warp gate. No choice but to leave. She still had a larger mission.

Praying the planet would be okay, Stel raced back out of the ship and blew past the surviving fighters that had initially come after her. Oddly, they were no longer moving in a coordinated group, were moving far slower, and didn't seem particularly interested in following her. Maybe Ryn was right after all?

Guiding her craft towards the warp gate, her heart sank as she saw the Motherwill running from two mid-sized assault craft. Smaller than the mandible ships but bigger than the Motherwill. Guiding the Emissary into an intercept path, Stel raced to Ryn's side.

"Kid? Nice work, battlemaster down. Now, mount up, we're getting out of here."

Stel saw the launch bay under the Motherwill's bow slide open and guidance lights lit up. Swallowing protest, Stel tried to guide herself into it but flinched as a near miss on the Motherwill skipped off her mech's shoulder. Spinning out of control, she missed the Motherwill and was now directly in the path of the two pursuing assault craft.

"Kid!" Ryn's voice came through the communicator in a panic.

"Ryn! I-I got hit. I'll-"

"Stay there. Go towards them. Now! Start shooting. Shoot everything!" Ryn's voice answered. He was clearly stressed but sounded confident enough anyway.

"Roger." Stel answered with a waver in her voice. Getting the Emissary under control, Stel guided herself between the two vessels and started shooting. Her shots barely mattered but now both were clearly shooting at her. What little damage she could cause was badly outweighed by the damage their cannons would do.

With a racing heart, Stel kept up her attack, firing two missiles at each ship, their shields easily absorbing the impacts and fizzling their damage into nothingness. Stel's heart sank. There was no winning this.

"Kid. Tuck!"

Ryn's voice shouted through the communicator and Stel reacted before looking. Drawing the mech's arms and legs into itself as much as she could, she saw the launch bay of the Motherwill swallow her whole, the mag-locks lurching her to a painful halt as the Motherwill raced into slip space, the star lines dragging themselves back as the bay door closed.

Stel sagged in her seat, breathing heavily. She hadn't noticed the sweat stinging her eyes, staining her jumpsuit.

"Nice flying, kiddo. Get up here, we got a lot to talk about."