Well, Cho-Lan's daughter was more impressive than Neil gave her credit for, he had to admit. Taya reminded him of how others must have seen himself. Never to be underestimated.

As the wind resistance caused the [i]Highlander[/i] to buck, Neil felt the pain in his side deepen and he coughed from the sensation. He was glad it wasn't bleeding too freely. What was more concerning was the spores that seemed to drift from above them. A parody of spring pollen, wafting down like solid snow toward the planet. If Neil had to guess, they had aspects about them that helped switched the biochemistry of the ground to make the planet more habitable for the Xenos. 

Too bad for them, the planet was already half industrialized, and the other parts were mountainous and rocky. Very little jungles or forests to alter for them. But it still boded ill for the defenders. It meant the Xenonids were here to stay if they had anything to say about it. On the sensors, he saw there were fast approaching larger organisms on the horizon. Those had to be the bioships. One look at the display monitor confirmed those suspicions. 

The beacon above the console began to blink rapidly, and the display monitor showed multiple projectiles streaking towards their position. 

"Hold on ladies." Neil quipped, flipping open the maneuvering display and typing out a quick algorithm to give him better control, before he banked the ship in a spin to the east. If it wasn't for the artificial gravity, they would have been tossed around the cockpit like a salad. 

The sky and ground of Fornax spun, and Neil began to spiral the [i]Highlander[/i] downwards, before churning the freighter and banking again, back upwards. The projectiles had flown too far off course by now, or had exploded among one another, showering light acid to the ground below. A few droplets hit the [i]Highlander[/i], but thankfully the shields were up. 

The sky went from light blue to navy in color as the ascended, before it deepened into near blackness as they exited the atmosphere. Unfortunately, they were just getting into the danger. 

"Well either the good Duke made an orbital wall, or that is a fuck load of Bioships." Neil said. He was somewhat exaggerating, but there was a staggering amount on the horizon, approaching the atmosphere in a horde. Mockeries of life and simply hungry for human hosts to inhabit. Neil pushed the throttle full tilt, making the [i]Highlander[/i] a veritable missile among the slower moving Bioships. On the display monitor, Bioships passed and turned and fired at them, but for now Neil kept them at bay with his expert piloting. The pain of the bullet in his side keeping him very awake, though a grim laughter entered his throat from the tall odds they were facing. 

On the monitor, Neil caught a few newer signals on the horizon. One was loud and abrupt, almost like a whale on sonar, but far creepier and eldritch in the noise it created. The other was a very quiet signal from another very large source, near the western edge of the outer orbit. "What the hell?" He breathed, calling for Lonney to pinpoint the smaller signal. He could guess what the large one was.

"Oi, not even a live signal. Or an active one, sir." Lonney replied. "Looks like a big freighter back o'er tha' way."

"Where is it heading?" Neil asked, flipping the auxiliary power on. Lonney replied with. "Looks like Vesuvius, one of the moons, sir." 

Bleeding, sweating, and about to shoot his pride and joy of a dual owned ship into the endless void on a hope, Neil glanced Sayeeda's way. "You thinking what I'm thinking?" He asked, black hair matted and wild. At some point he must have bit his tongue too in all of the spinning, for a trickle of blood was caked by the edge of his mouth. "Cover me on the guns, will ya?"
[@Penny]