Lightning crackled overhead, splitting the velvet of the deep purple midnight sky, illuminating the battle field further as bolts from the defender's laser batteries poured on the heat, trapping the air support in a deadly net of energy. Smaller laser beams streaked flat across the field at head height, the Lishni defenders having been rendered almost blind by a perfectly executed orbital flash-bomb and the breaking of the storm, crashing their computer systems. With only their helmets' and goggle's perfectly shielded night vision capabilities, did they have an idea of where to look for the invaders.
     Tess 'Thorn' Redhart, her active camouflage running flat-out, crouched behind the wreckage of a half-track mobile gun platform. It had scored a direct hit from  Heavy Gunner Jax Morsan, the wielder of Geist Squad's shoulder mounted beam weapon. A beam of concentrated exotic particles had been shot through the open muzzle of the giant bore anti-aircraft laser to detonated the powercore with such ferocity it had left a half mile crater ten feet deep and Jax up to his eyeballs in alcoholic I.O.Us from the rest of his squad.
     The Red Deer ran a hand along the scorched, half melted chassis of the half-track. The Lishni may have been petty thieves and murderers, pilfering and cloning the technology of other more advanced civilisations as they slaughtered their way through them, but they certainly knew how to build their home-brewed vehicles. And Jax certainly knew how to destroy them. A flash of light and a dull thump in the distance put a stop to her admiration of the rugged machinery she was hiding behind; a bunker had just been lit up fifteen miles away. One of the heavy laser batteries firing into the sky had ceased working suddenly, and Thorn instinctively flattened herself to the dusty ground as the blast wave washed across the kill zone. The secure squad channel squealed with the electronic fallout of the death of an AAL, then cleared up almost as fast as it had started, leaving a dead silence in its wake.
     'You still there Thorn?' A deep female voice queried softly in her ear.
     'Aye, Chief, just about. Who scored the hit?' She grunted, rolling to her side. Her ribs felt bruised and her ears were ringing, but she was still alive and remained unnoticed by the now floundering Lishni bunker guards.
     'Tyrant Squad. That battery was in their corner of the map.'
     'They take down another battery and we gotta be buying 'em drinks...' Thorn muttered distractedly. 'I'm going silent again. I need to get closer.'
     'Copy that, Thorn. Stay safe.'
     Thorn cut the comm, watching as the AAL ahead of her was brought back online. A trio of fat barrelled guns started pumping streaks of white light into the sky. A red and blue Candaran atmospheric fighter found itself in the wrong place at the wrong time and disappeared in a ball of blue tinged fire, pouring flaming shrapnel down on the area. The guards ducked for shelter in their concrete dug-outs as the burning debris rained down on their heads. Thorn seized the opportunity and used her compact flight pack to boost over the wrecked half-track, six thin blades of matte black metal fanning out at her back as the energy crystal power core pumped energy through the prongs, propelling her forward on wings of pale blue light, the only thing to give away her position.
     She skimmed across the ground nimbly, kicking up a rooster tail of dry soil in her wake. She double checked her helmet was recording what she was seeing as she looked around, scanning the barren, cratered field with its loops of razor wire and concrete pylons. She flexed her fingers, half sinking into a trance as she willed her magic to coalesce. Her palms tingled, the feeling quickly tracing down into her fingertips. A soft, green aura hung around her hands like loose-fitting gloves, sparks of deep emerald flashing against her palms like tiny fireflies caught in a net. Holding the offensive magic in place, she angled herself towards one of the concrete lined dug-outs that encircled the AAL mound and its bunker, twisting at the hips as she pulled her shoulders back for a landing. 
     The metal wings at her back snapped back and she dropped silently into the hole, slapping her open hands against the sides of a heavy-set guard's partially helmeted head. The green aura immediately spiked at a thought and the guard thrashed in her tight grip. His gurgles were silenced by the thorn coated vines that poured out of his nostrils, eye sockets and mouth, dripping ichor and bone fragments, blood spilling down his front. She lay the heavy corpse on the detritus covered ground and lept out of the hole and into the next. The other guard, wearing identical, dark brown BDUs and goggles suffered the same fate, thrashing hard as the vines wrapped around his head, trailing globs of brain  matter and scaly flesh, popping a yellowed eyeball free as a small pink flower bloomed in the socket. She grunted with effort as the Lishni soldier went limp in her grip and let him slide to the ground.
     Thorn risked a look at the nearby AAL battery. More fighters and a heavy bomber succumbed to it and its remaining brethren along the defensive front; by this point, the Lishni were indiscriminate with who they shot down. The deep pounding of the triplet guns heaving energy into the night beat rythmically in her chest and the loud whine of the capacitors clicking and buzzing were harsh to her ears even through her insulated helm. Regardless of the auditory and physical discomfort it was causing her, she climbed out of the dug-out and crawled forward on her belly, towards the larger, central-most ring of dug-outs, not for the first time giving silent thanks to the designer for giving the Scout Class armour the same soft reactive armour plating that was shared with their pilots. It was malleable enough to let her get her job done, but also went instantly as rigid and almost as hard as the heavier plate armour the rest of her squad wore.
     The AAL battery was bigger up-close than she had anticipated. She pressed hard against the ground, hidden by a thick tuft of scrub between the larger dug-outs as she looked up at it in awe. The noise and vibrations from it were unbearable, even from four hundred yards away. She could barely hear herself think. No wonder the guards and crew didn't realise she was there. They were propbably so numbed to their environment she could probably tap them on the shoulder and they wouldn't even turn around. She adjusted her helmet's sights, zooming in on the structure and studied the layout, recording everything she saw from a fracture in the spike encrusted berm she had climbed atop; the trio of guns sat in a heavily fortified nest atop a reinforced steel and concrete mound thirty feet high and fifty feet in circumference at its base. A large oval blast door was set deep in the side of the mound she was looking at. There didn't appear to be any control panel to accompany the heavy wheel at its centre. She counted five guards all in the same heavy armour and half-helms as the last two, patrolling its base, large assault rifles hung in the crook of their arms.
     One of the AAL crewmen - a heavy set Lishni female in ragged BDUs and ear defenders crawled up the side of the mound, towards a trio of thick cables that ran into the back of the guns as they rotated, tracking their targets. She squinted at the cables, trying to gauge whether they entered the bunker or disappeared into the ground behind it. Drawing a blank she turned around and silently made her way back to her squad.

'Tristan weren't kidding when he called it a big bastard.' Derron muttered as he watched Thorn's footage play over the squad's TacNet.
     'What's the plan, Chief?' Jax asked, crouching against the wall of the crater they had taken shelter in, his tail wrapped loosely about his ankles.
     'Simple. We go over the berm and rain hell on anyone we see, and we continue doing so until we're inside that bunker and that AAL is quiet. Demo, you got your packs?' Bonnie looked to the silent armour-clad figure crouching beside Jax.
     Demo nodded, patting his hip. 'Got one more pack left, Chief. More than enough.'
     'You know what to do when we get inside.' She said and surveyed her squad, knowing full well that none of them needed telling what to do. This would be their fourth AAL. They looked ready; crouched, ready to spring up, their dark armour turning them into more shadows in the night. 'Get your asses over that berm and clear out the bunker. I want this thing silent in ten minutes or less.'
     Geist Squad hauled themselves silently out of the crater and shouldered their weapons, sprinting across the stretch of wasteland that seperated them from the AAL bunker. They fanned out, keeping pace with Thorn as she hurtled ahead of them on nimble feet across the shattered terrain. They charged up the berm, lightning splitting the sky. Rain hammered down, soaking everything in an instant, turning the dirt into mud. The guards, startled by the sudden crack of lightning and the rain it brought, looked up and came face to face with Geist Squad. The guards fell under the relentless fire of the squad's railrifles, the solid projectiles tearing through them with such force, the extreme close range blew the startled Lishni apart.
     'Split up, people. Lemur, Shadow, Rook, Corey, Mar, and Rep; take the right. Jax, Vin, sit tight and wait for my signal. The rest, you're coming with me.'
     'Uh, Chief? I just got an FTL message from the Jinx. The Boss says we're going home!' Rep shouted over the din of the AAL thumping crackling energy bolts into the sky. Everyone stopped in their tracks, looked at each other and then fanned out around their commsman and Bonnie, forming a defensive semi-circle in the large dug-out they had dropped into. The AAL and the mound it sat atop was four hundred yards away, the ground between littered with craters and shattered lightweight vehicles.
     Bonnie stared at the T'rayke for a moment, her back pressed against the wall of the dug-out.
     'Say what? We ain't got anywhere near the stacks yet! What the hell's goin' on up there?!' She demanded angrily.
     A Lishni soldier dropped into the dug-out with them. Bonnie punched him in the throat with a snarl and then stamped on his chest, just to make sure he wouldn't be getting back up. Rep swung his railrifle up and the next Lishni soldier's torso vanished in an explosion of gore and shredded armour.
     'It's legit, Chief! We gotta get back to the evac point [i]now[/i], because the Banshees're already on their way!' Rep declared, bewildered.
     Bonnie stared at the Ant for a moment in stunned silence as Shadow and Derron downed three more Lishni soldiers. Jax bludgeoned another to death with the stock of his beam weapon, splitting the soldier's skull open and knocking chunks of brain matter to the ground. She opened her mouth to say more and was cut off by a beep in her left ear. It was Tyrant Squad, breaking radio silence.
     'Geist Squad, Major Coltan speaking, how may I direct your call?' She said, shifting her tone from angry to secretary polite in less than a second.
     'Did you just get the call to retreat?' Tristan's deep voice rumbled over the link. He sounded less pleased than Bonnie did, and she found herself slightly amused by this for some obscure reason.
     She also heard distant screaming over the squad comm. Lishni screaming. [i]Good, the little bastards.[/i] 'Yeah, we've got Banshees coming in hot and they ain't gonna linger, so hurry up! Last one home gets the drinks in.' She said. She opened the intra-squad link and relayed orders to fall back to the evac point.
     As one swearing mass, Geist Squad pulled themselves out of the dug-out, finding themselves face-to-face with a mob of angry Lishni soldiers that were up to their knees in mud, with laser rifles pointed at them. The lasers the Lishni preferred to use burned against the squad's armour plating as they charged forward, firing into the enemy group, downing as many Lishni as they could. Blood sprayed, ichor and unidentified chunks splashing to the ground, adding to the ever increasing boggy conditions the storm had brought on. A Lishni bomber stooped from the thick clouds above, fire trailing from its fanned tail, one wing crippled. The bomber listed hard and plummeted to the ground, striking with such force that the ground shook and rippled as a garish orange fireball rolled skyward. The force of the impact had everyone off their feet and sprawling in the mud. Bonnie coughed and rolled to her side, fighting to keep her grip on her assault rifle. She wiped her visor clean with one hand and checked her HUD's TacNet display.
     Corey was offline and when she looked about, she saw Derron hunched over the listless form of Lance Corporal Vincent Delgass. The others were staggering to their feet, sliding in the mud, their grumbles and curses filtering to her over the squad's channel. The fire of the downed bomber highlighted their black and green armour with hues of flickering reds and oranges.
     'Doc, how is he?' She asked as she slid forward, struggling to get upright. A Lishni soldier, caked from head to toe in mud lunged for her from a cloud of smoke. He squealed in agony as she pulled her combat knife free and slashed out with her left hand, slicing his arm deeply in the folds of canvas at his inner elbow. She used her forward momentum to shove him to the ground and bury her blade in his throat, tearing it free as quickly and savagely as it had gone in. Dark blood spurted, adding to the mess that coated her armour. The Lishni clawed at her cuirass, gurgling what she assumed to be insults before going still, a final, rattling breath bubbling from between thin, blood-stained lips.
     'Half dead, Chief. We need to get him into an EHP fast.' The Black Jaguar said. 'He's got an armour breach and some real nasty shrapnel wounds. I've done what I can, but I can't heal him without his body fully growing over the shrapnel that I can't get to.'
     Shadow hurried over to Derron, using her smartweave-clad wings to flit nimbly across the mud. She slung Vin's arm around her shoulders, helping the stricken Ferret struggle to his feet. Together, they slid and stumbled towards the evac point, the Dragon firing her  railrifle from the hip with Derron leading the way.
     Lance Corporal Judon Hass and Corporal Mar Ashwright carried Corporal Corey Jesan's lifeless form between them. Rook and Thorn hurried ahead of them, defending them as best they could from the Lishni soldiers as Jax shouldered his beam weapon, bringing it back online. With a warning shout, a line of bright energy stabbed out into the night and he swept the front lines of the small Lishni advance, slicing enemy soldiers in half, severing limbs and removing heads. He made a second pass, guiding the beam lower, hoping to score some hits on those who had ducked, before the beam thinned, started breaking up and fizzled out.
     'Gotta re-charge now, Chief. That's all the juice I got.' He said as they continued forward, wading through the deepening mud and picking their way through the steaming, writhing carcasses of Jax's victims. 
     'Half mile to the evac point!' Someone panted.
     Bonnie checked her HUD once more. Rep. His icon on the TacNet was pulsing green; a sign that his armour had been badly damaged. She queried the TacNet and a brief, in-a-nutshell medical report was provided. Rep had taken a well aimed laser shot to the shoulder where his spaulders met his chest plate. She checked the others as they moved forward, gunning down as many Lishni as possible as more dropped from low flying troop carriers, others popping up out of foxholes and running as fast as they could across the bog to join the fight. A pair of heavy rotary laser cannons had been set up in foxholes either side of their retreat and Bonnie swore. [i]Where in the ever living fuck are these assholes coming from all of a sudden?[/i] She thought acidly.
     Thorn was wearing down, having expended most of her energy on scouting. Shadow had a twisted ankle and a dislocated shoulder, resulting in one wing trailing low and Rook was having a laser wound healed on the run by Derron.
     'The hell are all these bastards coming from?' Shadow growled as they dropped behind a half-sunk APC to shelter from the heavy fire of the rotary cannons. Vin groaned softly as he lay in her arms. She settled him down gently in the mud and set to work popping her arm back into place and checking her wing.
     Derron hurried over in a low crouch, placing his hands over the seeping wound in Vin's side. A soft green mist, bright blue sparks glittering at its heart formed around his gloved hands, soaked into Vin's wounds. They sealed a little more, the blood slowing to a trickle. Then he pulled a small vial from an armoured pouch that hung from his belt and pressed it into one of the hypodermic dispenser slots in Vin's armour.
     'There, a shot of H-Bac should go a long way to helping his suit keep him alive.' Derron mumbled as he added a self-sealing strip of medical gauze across the wound.
     'Time?' Shadow asked, not really wanting to know the answer.
     Derron shook his head and shrugged. 'Twenty minutes? Maybe thirty if we're lucky and he stays strong. But I can't do anything else without jeopardising him further or getting us all shot to hell. The med-links on the Banshee should help stabalize him, but I really don't know...'
     A chunk of the APC they were ducked behind melted off, molten metal running down the frame in glowing rivulets that hissed in the slashing rain. Glass shattered and rained down on their armoured heads as a streak of red sizzled into the night.
     'Someone take those damn guns out!' Shadow growled angrily over the squad channel as she leaned across Derron and Vin, her smartweave-clad wings spread out over them protectively.
     'Get me a location for them both, then I can do something about it.' Lemur's voice sighed over the comm. She sounded as if she had gone into a trance.
     'What've you got planned, Sarge?' Bonnie asked curiously, recognising the soft cadence to the Ringtail's voice. She was resting, crouched, back to the withered tree they were sheltering behind, gathering her magic about her like a thick cloak of raw energy. 
     Bonnie couldn't see the witch's golden eyes behind the dull black of the metallic masks they wore, and the green, glowing slanted strips of optical scanners they looked through gave nothing away either. But Lemur was crouched low, her assault rifle resting upright between her knees, up to the trigger in mud, chin against her chest with her long tail wrapped loosely about her ankles. Her posture said everything and the feel of the power that rolled off of her in waves said even more.
     'Co-ords on the TacNet now.' Rook announced.
     'Appreciated, Rook.' She said softly and stood up, freeing her feet from the thick mud.
     She took a deep breath, twisted and leapt out into the open as far as she could from a standing jump in thick mud, spun around and flung her right hand up, fingers splayed. The ground erupted and the air groaned as a cone of magical energy was released with a hissed word. Everything standing in the path of the spell was tossed aside and broken; trees, shrubs, abandoned vehicles, wrecks and bodies alike went sailing through the rain thick air. Mud pattered down around her and she watched in some glee as flailing Lishni bodies slammed back to the ground with bone shattering thuds. The rotary cannons had been dislodged by the violent outburst of energy and thrown far away from their foxholes and two-man crews, to lie useless in distant puddles of muck.
     'The way is clear.' She announced harshly, swaying on her feet a little. 
     The casting of such a spell always drained her energy reserves, and having six hours of constant fighting in a single night had not helped her at all. She tongued one of her back teeth, dislodging a small, hard pill that she had glued there earlier that morning and bit down on it hard enough to release the sugary paste within. She felt a sudden burst of energy and rejoined the squad as they ran forward. Bonnie tossed her last grenade into one of the foxholes as she passed and Rep did the same for the other. A pair of dull thuds and puffs of smoke and fire marked their path as they ran for the evac point.
     'Banshee's incoming!' Rook called.
     Bonnie glanced up to see a sleek, hunch-backed shuttle descend through the clouds, a crack of lightning illuminating its black painted, green marked hull. The sound of turbines whining greeted them very quickly as the Banshee swung around, lowered its landing struts and settled gingerly into the mud, ramp extended. The shuttle's chase guns, mounted on gimbals either side of the two verticle stablizers, swung to and fro, searching for targets. One of the guns opened fire and in the distance, something exploded. Bonnie slid to a halt next to the lowered ramp, counting heads as Geist Squad ran into the darkened interior and strapped in. Once the last of her squad ran up the ramp, she followed, stowing her gun and strapped herself into a seat.
     'Geist Squad ready for evac!' She shouted.
     Comm or not, she was in no mood to worry about whether she had just accidentally deafened the pilot. One of her squad was dead, another was seriously injured and their mission had been scrubbed at its tipping point. She had no idea what had happened to Tyrant Squad. She hadn't had a ping or heard a peep from them since the message had come in from the [i]Jinx[/i]. She looked around the troop bay as the Banshee lurched, turbines screaming as it lept back into the night sky, climbing hard for orbit. Shadow was helping Derron plug Vin into the shuttle's med-link, the pair of them crouched on the deck, fighting the g-forces the shuttle's aged inertial systems couldn't cope with under such stress. Finally, they managed to secure the stricken Ferret and stabalise him before they broke atmosphere, clawing their way into their seats and securing themselves.
     'What's his condition?' The Horse asked.
     'Worse than before.' Derron said, 'He's lost too much blood. I'm really hoping the Banshee can buy him some time, but I honestly don't think he'll make it to the medibay.'
     Bonnie leaned back, bracing herself against the shuttle's shaking as it violently broke through the atmosphere and hurtled into space. She had her suit's systems connect to the Banshee's systems. Chief Chris Leibniz was at the controls. She pinged him, leaving the Arctic Wolf a priority message. A minute later, with a starscape replacing the storm clouds of Hadras-6, she got confirmation.
     'Copy that, Major. The message is en route via FTL tightbeam. You'll have a medical crew on the landing strip waiting for your guy.' He said.
     'My thanks Chief. I owe you guys a couple of beers for getting us out of there so quick.' She replied.
     He chuckled, a rich, velvety sound rolling over the comm. 'Just doin' my job, but me and the boys'll gladly accept some ale when we hit Mid-Space next.'


'Lishni corvette coming at our coreward flank, Captain!' K'narlas said.
     'Ari, adjust course by fifteen degrees rimward, four negative.' JD ordered, watching his primary tactical monitor come alive with icons.
     'Aye Captain, adjusting course.' Ari said.
     'Si'ronn, prepare our coreward railguns and fire the moment the Lishni are within killing range.'
     'Railguns are primed and enemy corvette is tagged.' The bird-like Ishinn said.
     The [i]Jinx[/i] dipped and showed the Lishni corvette her flank. The corvette's forward beam weapon lanced out, burning against the [i]Jinx[/i]'s shields, an electric blue and violet honeycomb of protective energy flickering under the force of the attack. Missiles were launched, the [i]Jinx[/i]'s point-defence lasers striking five of the eight from existence. The remaining three broke through, one detonating against the shields, weakening it enough after the beam weapon's assault for the remaining two missiles to make it through. They slammed into the matte black hull, a missile battery erupting in shrapnel and flame, smoke and atmosphere venting into space. The second missile missed its mark and the warhead hammered a deep dent in the thick armour plating.
     The [i]Jinx[/i] rolled away, diving hard for Hadras-6, point-defences beating back more missiles as the corvette gave chase, a flock of Lishni starfighters coming up from its rear and swarming around it. The sleek starfighters settled at the bow of the corvette and formed a protective screen that did very little to defend the corvette from the [i]Jinx[/i]'s railguns. The explosive rounds tore through the fighter screen, slamming into the bow of the corvette, the penetrator rods of the heavy railgun rounds doubling the damage to the shields and piercing the enemy ship's armour plating beyond, delivering the explosives to the ship's occupants.
     The corvette listed in space under the storm of railgun fire, its shields flickering out  as fire bloomed down its length. The [i]Jinx[/i] only ceased fire once the corvette had stopped shooting, leaving only the lingering starfighters to be picked off by the point-defences as the remains of the Lishni fighter squadron harassed the [i]Jinx[/i] as best as they could.
     'Damage control has brought the fires under control and are now setting about patching us up. We've lost two point-defence lasers and one missile battery. Drives're good, shields're good and only a couple of fatalities that we currently know of.' Spirit said as she busily helped to direct the damage control teams around the ship to the most damaged areas.
     'Banshee One and Two are on the grid!' Rojam announced. She tapped away at her controls, 'They're twenty minutes out at our current course and speed, and both shuttles are requesting emergency medical  assistance.'
     'Understood, Rojam. They'll have a medical team waiting to greet them.' Spirit said, passing the message on to the medibay.
     'We seem to be being stalked by a Lishni frigate, Boss.' Rojam added.
     'Light them up.' JD replied grimly, looking from one tac monitor to the other.
     The pursuing Lishni frigate hung back at what was considered a safe distance in its captain's opinion and his considerable training. The distance increased when the [i]Jinx[/i]'s chase guns started beating at its forward shields, whittling them down quicker than the Lishni captain would have liked, until the laser batteries had eaten away enough of the shield's charge for the aft beam weapon to eat its way through the rest to slice through the frigate's bow plates. The frigate ballooned outwards in a fireball the moment the beam of energy lanced through the length of the ship to hit the ship's drive core, leaving an expanding cloud of molten debris in its wake. The [i]Jinx[/i] pressed forward, the [i]Reaper[/i] running a parallel course a thousand kilometres off its rimward flank, towards Hadras-6, shunting aside any who opposed their trajectory.
     One of the original Lishni dreadnoughts remaining in the fight bore down on them, the [i]Eclipse[/i] hot on its heels, as the two smaller Stalker ships tracked down their retreating Legionaries, picking off any smaller vessel that came within range. The two deep space multi-role detroyers closed the distance between themselves, the [i]Jinx[/i] rolling and dipping beneath the [i]Reaper[/i], so that the two formed a wall of fire. Together, they hammered at the Lishni dreadnought's shields, the combined firepower of the two destroyers just enough to give the raging giant pause for thought about its current quarry. 
     'Lishni dreadnought is turning and showing us her flank.' K'narlas said, anxiety underscoring her otherwise calm tone.
     JD looked at his main tactical monitor, studying what the information his tactical and sensors officers were giving him. The dreadnought was indeed turning to bear flank, the weapons hot and the shields running at double the capacity. JD frowned, wondering why the Lishni had shunted most of their power to those particular shield generators when the [i]Eclipse[/i] was almost within optimum firing range.
     'I don't think they know the Eclipse is there...' He muttered thoughtfully even as anxiety gripped his heart. He glanced at the latest update from the [i]Eclipse[/i]. 'Ah. That explains a lot.'
     The [i]Eclipse[/i] had shut down its sublights and was cruising foward on momentum alone, towards the Lishni dreadnought, it's cloaking systems at maximum capacity. The only reason JD or anyone else on his ship who were paying attention knew where the [i]Eclipse[/i] was, was because of the secure FTL updates they recieved every ten minutes. The last update declared that the [i]Eclipse[/i] was going stealth to persue the MT - the Main Target, which was the Lishni Commodore's ship, with intent to destroy it in hopes that it would break the Lishni chain of command, thus easing the pressure on the invading forces - themselves and the Candarans. He watched as the Lishni vessel rotated, ice steadily filling his gut as he thought about all the guns and missiles a dreadnought was capable of fielding.
     [i]Atleast it's a dreadnought and not a superdreadnought...[/i] He thought drily as he sought out a silver lining for the situation.
     'Enhance the rimward shields! Launch all countermeasures and go to full sublight!' He snapped, gritting his teeth as the Lishni ship launched a full broadside at the [i]Jinx[/i] as they pulled away from the [i]Reaper[/i] to try and gain some space and divide the dreadnought's attention.
     The destroyer's shields flickered and wavered, quickly stuttering out as missiles, lasers and hard rounds pounded into the ship's flank. Explosions tore open the rimward flank, klaxons wailing all across the ship as the [i]Jinx[/i] shuddered and moaned. Crewmen slammed their helmets on over their heads and grabbed any firmly set handhold they could as the outer decks violently depressurized under the firestorm. Those who were not so lucky were pulled into the vacuum, left to flail in the hail of firepower from the Lishni dreadnought as it tore open the [i]Jinx[/i]'s rimward flank. Blast doors slammed shut and emergency shielding came online, the interior forcefields holding what atmosphere remained within the stricken decks and compartments that the blast doors could not. The sublight drives were ran up to full, their readings hitting the red in a matter of seconds as the powerful drives forced the [i]Jinx[/i] deeper into Hadras-6's gravity well, leaving the dreadnought behind as it made for the recovery of its Legionaries. The outer launch bay doors slid open, the inner pressure doors an iris giving the fleeing Legionaries and the Banshee crews the feeling that they were seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.
     The Banshees roared back into their respective launch bays, the doors sealing up and the order for the [i]Jinx[/i] and the [i]Reaper[/i] to make best speed to the nearest exit sent out from the [i]Eclipse[/i]. The Lishni dreadnought, having turned hard to pursue its wounded prey, continued its hailstorm of fury upon the [i]Jinx[/i] and the [i]Reaper[/i], continuing to tear into the two retreating Shadow Stalkers ships with wild abandon, utilizing its forward weapons with cruel tact and efficiency, even as the two smaller ships continued to peel away from each other and inch out of the big ship's range. 
     Forty thermonuclear seeker missiles sliced through the black and slammed into the exposed rimward flank of the Lishni ship. Explosions blossomed down its length and the ship made to roll defensively as the [i]Eclipse[/i] de-cloaked, firing another broadside into the enemy vessel from her own damaged weapons. The battered and scarred Stalker dreadnought cruised alongside the Lishni dreadnought, easily keeping pace as it fired off its railguns into the exposed spine of the ship. The Lishni dreadnought continued to roll, its shields flickering madly and its guns firing blindly as its crew fought to save themselves and their ride home. Acting Commodore Blacktip, however, had bore full witness to what had happened to the [i]Jinx[/i] and the [i]Reaper[/i], and he was having none of it, his choler well and truly up.
     The Railguns fired again, followed up by a wave of missiles and the fortress-like Lishni dreadnought blossomed into a fireball that was bright enough to rival the local star. The Shadow Stalker dreadnought, though badly damaged itself, cruised easily through the carnage, its powerful shields shoving aside the high-speed debris and coping easily with the intense heat of the fallout, its remaining point-defences picking more debris off. With everything back online and the ship out of a full cloak, the [i]Eclipse[/i] hurried after its stricken smaller sisters to the nearest jump point, watching their backs as their bedraggled forms vanished in blue flashes of light.