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  Tev and Derreck were in a wide hallway, big enough for both suits to run side-by-side. They encountered their first opposition a few corners in, a lance of suits that was preparing itself for an assault on the hanger.

  Tev came around the corner at speed and brought his arm up instinctively. His first shot was rushed, the adrenaline coursing through his system. He hit the arm of one of the suits, spinning it around. His second shot was better, punching through the back of the suit and exploding out the front.

  The lance was turning around, caught by surprise. A third shot was clean, killing the second pilot. The remaining two suits were coming to their senses, bringing their own weapons up. Tev’s fourth shot went clean through the center-of-mass of a third suit, and Derreck, finally turning the corner, peppered the fourth suit with rounds.

  They paused for just a moment to check to ensure the pilots were dead. They didn’t want anyone coming up behind them. Derreck couldn’t resist a moment of good-natured ribbing. “Four shots for three targets, Tev? You’re getting sloppy.”

  Tev didn’t respond, his mind focused.

  They kept going, sprinting as fast as Derreck could run.

  The hunter heard their next opponent before he saw it. The unmistakable footfalls of a heavy exosuit reverberated down the hallway. Tev sped up and passed Derreck, rounding a bend and coming face to face with the heavy. The hulking machine was closer than he expected.

  Tev snapped off a shot, but he missed the cockpit, and even his high-powered rounds wouldn’t do much damage anywhere else on a heavy suit. He dove to the side as the heavy swiped at him with an enormous metal hand. The blow passed harmlessly overhead, almost hitting Derreck as he approached.

  Derreck sprayed the heavy with armor-piercing rounds, but even those did little against the monstrosity. The heavy unleashed a barrage of fire, driving Derreck back and out of sight.

  Tev came to his feet and leaped on top of the heavy, noticing for the first time that it had an extra layer of armor over the cockpit. Tev grasped the layer of armor and pulled. His focus, narrowed for just a moment, didn’t catch the arm rotating up and around, slamming into Tev’s torso and tossing him from the heavy as though he were a child’s doll. The action did have one unintended consequence, though. Tev’s grip had been firm, and the additional force had ripped the armor off the cockpit, remaining in Tev’s hands even as he crashed to the ground.

  Tev gritted his teeth against the bone-jarring impact. As he started back to his feet, he saw the heavy level its cannon at him. Instinctively, he yanked the armor up in his hands, and less than a second later, shells pounded against it. Tev guessed the armor wouldn’t hold out long against the onslaught, and he was right. Shells started punching through, fortunately passing overhead.

  The barrage paused for a moment, and Tev could hear the softer sound of Derreck’s rifle. Tev didn’t have long. He kicked the armor at the heavy and watched as it bounced off without effect.

  He scrambled to his feet just as the heavy resumed its fire. The pilot had labeled Tev as the threat and was after him first. A heavy could ignore Derreck’s rifle for the few moments it would take to finish the job.

  Tev couldn’t give him that chance. He sprinted straight at the heavy, leaping as its cannon fired, deadly shells passing underneath him. Tev fired his own rifle, drilling a hole through the now-exposed cockpit. Unfortunately, he missed the pilot.

  Adjusting in mid-air, he drew his right fist back, driving it forward into the cockpit of the heavy. The enemy pilot, acting on instinct, threw himself backward, taking the heavy with him. The action wasn’t enough to save him. Tev’s fist found its mark, and he landed on top of the heavy as the machine crashed to the ground. Tev drew out his fist, staring at the blood on his armored hand.

  Derreck’s commanding voice broke him out of his reverie. “Tev, it’s got a self-destruct!”

  Tev’s eyes widened, and he leaped from the heavy, following Derreck around the bend in the hallway. The explosion came seconds later, fire chasing them down the hallway.

  The flames quickly subsided, finding nothing on the ship to burn.

  Tev and Derreck stopped to catch their breath. Tev was surprised to find he was exhausted. They had been pushing so hard for so long, he hadn’t had time to consider the toll the constant combat was taking on his body. Eventually he was able to stand up straight. He didn’t have much farther to go. He just needed to stay alive for a while longer.

  They were just about to continue on their way to the bridge when Eleta opened a channel to them. “Hey, you two, someone just broke into Captain Nicks’ personal office. He’s on his way there now with two of his best soldiers.”

  “Kindra and Alston?”

  “I would assume so.”

  The two warriors glanced at each other.

  “Show us the way,” said Tev.

  Tev ran, fear and anger mixed in his heart. He didn’t want Nicks to get to Kindra before he could come and help. He also wanted to be the one to kill Nicks. As he ran, he glanced at his hand, seeing the blood there.

  He rapidly outpaced Derreck. In the straight hallways, their speed was nearly equal, but Tev could take the corners much faster than Derreck could, and there were a lot of corners in a jumper. Eleta kindly put direction markers on his display, and Tev ran with reckless abandon.

  He came across Nicks’ bodyguards first, but he barely paused for them. They heard him coming and turned around, but by the time they completed the turn, he was already there. He lowered his shoulder and ran into them, knocking one into the other and sending both of them tumbling to the ground in a pile of arms and legs. Somehow, he managed to keep his feet under him, and he kept running, following the arrows.

  “Derreck, I left you his two bodyguards.”

  He could hear Derreck’s labored breathing. “Thanks.”

  With Derreck’s confirmation, he put the two soldiers out of his mind. He trusted his friend and commander to handle them. His focus was only on Nicks.

  He turned yet another corner, and there his enemy was. Tev knew immediately that it was Nicks. There was something different about his suit of armor, but Tev didn’t have enough time at full speed to figure out what it was. He crashed into Nicks, sending them both to the floor and into a line of fire coming from the end of the hall. A few rounds pinged off Tev’s armor, and he knew it was small arms fire he could ignore. If they were firing at Nicks it had to be Kindra and the remaining crew, anyway.

  The two fighters got to their feet, and Tev got a real look at his opponent’s suit for the first time. It wasn’t a heavy, but it definitely wasn’t a normal suit. There was far more armor than Tev had, but not so much that it wasn’t agile.

  A quick snap of Nicks’ left arm brought up a cannon Tev hadn’t seen before. There was a small whomp, and Tev sidestepped as something large shot past his face. He turned to watch as the projectile traveled down the hallway, far past the open door where Kindra was sticking her head out.

  The projectile impacted and exploded, filling the hallway with fire and shrapnel. Fortunately, the fire didn’t reach them, and at this distance, the shrapnel bounced harmlessly off Tev’s armor. He worried about Kindra, but he didn’t have time. That cannon would tear Tev apart unless he got close.

  Tev raised his own arm and fired, but Nicks must have seen the motion, because he rotated his left arm, displaying a small shield. Nicks’ prediction was accurate, and Tev’s round buried itself in the shield, not even penetrating.

  Keeping the shield up, Nicks raised his right arm, where a typical rifle was mounted. Tev sidestepped again, and Nicks tried to track him, bullets passing off to Tev’s side. Unfortunately, Nicks’ arm moved faster than Tev, and eventually the bullets struck. Tev felt a flare of pain as one tore through his side.

  He needed to move faster. Tev leaped towards a wall, bouncing off his planted leg to drive himself towards Nicks. Nicks had his shield up in time and tossed Tev further down the hallway. Tev didn’t even allow himself to come
to a stop. He rolled over his back to his feet and snapped off another shot, but Nicks’ shield was there to absorb the impact.

  Tev had to try something different. Nicks wasn’t doing anything fancy, but his suit was strong, and he was calm, predicting Tev’s movements. Still, as Tev saw the left arm rotate and display the cannon again, he knew he had to stay close. He could take a few shots from the rifle, probably, but the cannon would certainly tear him apart.

  He closed, dodging to the left and right to keep Nicks’ aim off him. In a moment he was close enough to feel confident that Nicks wouldn’t use the cannon. He jumped at the wall, and he heard Nicks’ voice for the first time since the bomb was dropped.

  “Old trick.”

  Except it wasn’t. Tev planted one leg on the wall, as he had before, but he grabbed Nicks’ shoulder as he did. Using his arm as a plant, he kicked, twisting and landing behind Nicks, still holding his shoulder. Tev pressed his other hand against Nicks’ back, firing his rifle point blank.

  Nicks twisted, trying to drive his armored elbow into Tev’s helmet. Tev ducked and sidestepped, firing again into Nicks’ armor at point blank range. He wasn’t sure if his shots were penetrating armor, but he was scoring hits.

  Nicks continued his rotation, and Tev caught the incoming left fist with his right arm, driving his own left fist into Nicks’ torso, collapsing the armor at that point.

  With a growl, Nicks redoubled the power in his caught left arm, and Tev experienced the full force of Nicks’ suit. He was forced to use both arms to protect himself, and he was still driven into the ground.

  For a long, terrifying moment, Tev was pinned against the ground, Nicks pressing down with incredible power. Nicks’ right arm came over and the rifle hovered over Tev’s helmet, Tev staring into the endless blackness of that weapon. He panicked, struggling desperately against the strength of Nicks’ suit.

  Nicks enjoyed the moment of victory a second too long, and Tev had an idea. He stopped resisting Nicks, moving his arms out of the way. As Nicks’ left fist came crashing towards Tev, he managed to push himself slightly to the side. It wasn’t enough to get out of the way of the falling fist, but he took the punch in the shoulder, screaming as he heard the bones in his left shoulder shatter.

  Nicks opened fire with his rifle, but he had lost his balance, and his rounds dug deep into the floor next to Tev’s head. Ignoring the flare of pain, Tev forced his suit to rotate, using his injured arm and shoulder as the pivot point. He drove his right knee up with all his ability, and the two of them started rotating. Nicks fell onto his back, Tev on top of him.

  For the first time, Tev got a prolonged look at the cockpit as they rotated. As soon as Nicks landed on his back, Tev made a fist and powered it towards the cockpit, aimed directly at Nicks’ head.

  His punch crashed through the cockpit, and he got his armored right hand around Nicks’ head.

  At the same time, Nicks brought up his left arm, the cannon still attached.

  Nicks stared directly into Tev’s opaque helmet, and Tev closed his hand, trying to leap away from Nicks and his cannon as soon as the job was done. He heard the soft whomp again, and his world spun out of control before blackness swallowed him in an instant.

  Epilogue

  Today felt like the end of a very long journey, thought Tev. Months had passed since they had taken control of the Hellbringer and killed Nicks. Most of the time had been used to make repairs, both to the jumpship and to the last remaining dropship. When this journey had started, two jumpers and five dropships had left central space. The loss of so much valuable material still shocked the remaining members of Fleet who were with them.

  Tev felt the loss as well, but not the loss of ships. He felt the loss of hunters. Of the almost thirty that had started training with him, only six remained. Those six were battle-hardened veterans now, survivors of both land and space warfare. They would become the leaders of a new group of recruits, new hunters who would stand on the divide between worlds.

  Tev felt like he straddled the divide every day. Some days, he could almost convince himself everything was normal. He sat around campfires at night and enjoyed the company of other hunters. But at night, hazy memories of his final battle with Nicks became never-ending nightmares.

  He had been knocked unconscious by the final explosion. His final strike had killed Nicks, but it had almost cost him his life. Some injuries, like his shoulder, could be healed. Others could not.

  Up in space, Hellbringer hung lazily. After Nicks died, the rest of the ship had surrendered in short order. Fleet possessed the jumper now, and the rebellion was effectively dead. The capture of the ship had changed everything, again.

  For one thing, they had no lack of suits. Alston and Eleta hadn’t slept for months, constantly working on repairing the damage they could. The pilots inside might have died, but the suits could often be salvaged. They had suits from the rebellion, including three heavies and Nicks’ own hybrid suit, in addition to all the suits from Fleet that were still intact. Derreck was taking back two in case of emergency. Otherwise, everything was being left with Tev and his people. They would continue to build and prepare, readying themselves for the day Fleet came again. When Fleet arrived, as it inevitably would, they would be ready to bargain on a treaty.

  Tev was making a last inspection of the suits, lined up in rows. Alston and Eleta had set up some equipment on the planet to make repairs to the suits, but Tev suspected the motley assortment would never look better than they did today. Both Alston and Eleta were leaving, and with them, most of the experience needed to repair the suits. They had tried to teach what they could, and left behind all the information needed, but there would still be a sharp learning curve for those of Tev’s people assigned to maintain the suits in the absence of Fleet.

  He heard a noise off to the side and turned his head. Derreck was approaching, a sad smile on his face. Tev came to a stop, momentarily losing his balance before finding it again. He cursed his artificial leg, which he wasn’t sure he’d ever get fully used to.

  Nicks’ final act had almost doomed them both. The cannon had torn off Tev’s leg, but it could have been much more. Tev had seen the images of Nicks’ suit after the battle. Even if Tev’s final blow hadn’t killed Nicks, his last shot was suicidal. If not for Tev’s quick reflexes and suit’s healing tools, he certainly would have lost his life. On his darkest days, he wondered if that might have been better.

  There had been days when he considered giving up and taking his life. The practice wasn’t uncommon among hunters who felt themselves a burden on the clan.

  Kindra and Derreck had stopped him. The entire team of the Vigilance had worked together to create the best artificial leg possible. It wasn’t the quality of limbs available in central space, they told him, but it was the best they could do.

  His greatest blessing was that he could still pilot suits. They operated on two levels: muscular and neural control. Tev couldn’t use muscular control of his right leg anymore, obviously, but his neural control was strong enough that he could still pilot. He wasn’t the best these days, but he was still good enough to beat most others.

  He wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to hunt again, though. His artificial leg was silent, but unwieldy. Walking wasn’t usually a problem, but the dexterous movement required of a successful hunt was beyond him.

  A year ago, such an injury would have destroyed him. Now, he wasn’t so sure. He felt the loss, keenly. But he was more than a hunter now. Because of that, he was able to return Derreck’s sad smile.

  There was a slight awkwardness between them, possibly a last meeting between two people who had become more than friends. They had fought side by side, and fate had driven them closer together than either of them had ever expected.

  “Everything look good?” Derreck asked.

  “Yes.” That was the truth. The power arrayed in front of him would change their world forever, and he was hopeful they would guide that power well. “Derreck?”
>
  “Yeah?”

  “Have you had any luck decrypting the pod?”

  Derreck shook his head. “No. Hellbringer’s AI isn’t the most powerful, but it should have been strong enough to decrypt something within a few months. The fact that we’ve completely failed worries me, but we’ll get to the bottom of it, you have my word.”

  The pod was the last mystery. Tev and some of the other hunters had finished the excavation Nicks had begun, finding a small, perfectly spherical pod embedded deep in the walls of the valley. It wasn’t from their planet, but beyond that, there was little they could determine. It had successfully resisted all attempts at unlocking its secrets. Hellbringer’s AI reported that it could communicate, at some level, with the sphere, but that was all. Eleta was certain the pod opened, but even with months of attempts no one had gotten any closer to breaking through. Derreck was taking the pod back with him, so some of the planet-wide AIs could have a chance at it. Tev was simply grateful for the pod to be off his planet. His gut told him it was better off far away.

  They stood there in the clearing, looking at the mixed assembly of suits before them. Tev didn’t know what to say any more than Derreck did.

  “Tev, I just want you to know, I will do everything in my power to keep your planet safe.”

  Tev didn’t have any doubt about that. He was certain he knew Derreck’s heart, and he knew the captain was the best defender his planet could have asked for.

  “The jump technology we found gives us a powerful bargaining chip. I’ll make sure that everything here goes public, and I won’t stop until there’s a guarantee your planet will be protected.”

  Tev turned slightly and put his hand on Derreck’s shoulder, meeting his nervous gaze. “I know, Derreck. I trust you. If I didn’t, I would have chosen to go back with you.”

  Derreck took a deep breath, accepting Tev’s statement.

  “I’ll watch the elders, too.”

  Tev laughed at that. “Now, that task I’m not sure you’re up to. I think peace between our peoples would be easier to accomplish.”