The Highlander rose out of the sea of flame by only a few dozen meters, trailing whisps of smoke from the tips of its wings. With the instinct of a combat commander Junebug slapped the weapons lockout circuit taking the Highlander’s guns offline before the enthusiastic marines could continue firing. A dozen red warnings blasted across her screen but she silenced them with a tap of her fingertips. Neil wove them among falling torrents of ejecta, keeping them masked from the sensors of their pursuers. Junebug’s instinct told her that the enemy fighters had written them off as dead, particularly as there was a real battle to fight with the November Sky and her squadrons. 

For a few seconds there was relative silence save for a few alarms which couldn’t be easily silenced, the steady ping of gravel and rocks against the hull and surviving shields, and Niel’s music. Junebug took her hands somewhat gingerly from her controls and heard Woods blow out a breath that they were all feel.

“That was fucking insane,” the Marine said with a look of incredulity at Niel. THe pilot was whistling along to his music and had put his feet up on the console, lazily flicking the controls to put the Highlander into a slow spin the slid her past some falling debris.

“You aint seen nothing yet,” Neil responded with a smirk.

The atmospheric debris thinned as they streaked south towards the south pole, though the seas below still roiled with the seismic shocks that the planet had adsorbed. The planet, according to the sensors had enough airborne debris to send it into a moderate to severe nuclear winter. There had been no new impacts since the Terran warship had jumped in system however as all the Chalcedon ships had turned their attention to the newcomer, content to finish their bombardment once the threat had been neutralized. 

It was hard for Sayeeda not to feel anger at the Chalcedons for such a tactic but then she had certainly firebombed forests, called in artillery with lethal payloads of defoliant chemicals and other environmental catastrophes and she had no doubt that if York thought bombing Saavran would fulfil Terran aims he would do the same thing. Except it wasn't the Terrans doing this. Why were the Chalcedons doing it? And if they were willing to go this far to deny whatever secrets where here to the Terrans, should she really be helping them.

“Coming up on Site Beta boys and girls,” she said unstrapping and standing up. She pulled her helmet down and adjusted the fit, thumbing the familiar settings into place to give herself a 20 percent tactical overlay. York was smirking as though some cosmic joke were about to unfold.

“Lets lock and load.”