Adam threw himself into the engines as the others piled on. Celex and Ramirez came last, Celex holding Ramirez around the chest as he struggled and kicked to break the former emperor's grip.

"WE HAVE TO HELP HER!" The doors hissed shut, and only then did Celex finally let Ramirez go. As soon as he was free, Ramirez ran to the door, but Adam responded by locking the hatch for takeoff.

"Stop." Celex said, reaching out a hand for Ramirez's shoulder, but the marine was not having that. He turned on Celex, his teeth clenched into a snarl and swung at him. Celex looked surprised, and only just managed to duck at the last second, missing a blow that would have knocked him back into the wall.

"Ramirez!" Adam shouted, but he couldn't do anything from the pilot's seat.

Ramirez snarled again and went for Celex, but this time, Sunny responded by grabbing the marine around the chest with her lower arms and pinning his hands behind him with her upper arms. He kicked and struggled, "We can't just leave her!" His voice cracked, "You bastards!" His anger came in full force now, "HOW COULD YOU! She's our friend, and you'd just leave her behind! Do you even care!"

Adam tried to understand where Ramirez was coming from, how he must have been hurting, but he couldn't deny that the comment struck home, made him bristle, "Stand down marine!"

And when he spoke it wasn't Adam that spoke, but Admiral Vir, his voice deep and resonant as it boomed through the small shuttle. He kept his eyes trained ahead on the starfield, his hands gripped hard upon the controls , jaw set in a tight rictus teeth acting as a cage to all of the angry words he was holding back.

Ramirez went quiet, giving Adam time to close his eyes and take a long, slow breath.

The shuttle was quiet.

Krill sat in the copilot's chair, white knuckling the seat, eyes wide behind his orange tinted spectacles. Celex leaned against the wall Ramirez had backed him into, his hands down calmly at his sides though he eyed the marine warily.

"We aren't abandoning her." Adam said, his voice soft, bur stern. And you of all people should know that. I know you love her Ramirez, but so do we even if its not in the same way." The shuttle was still quiet. Sunny did not let go of the marine sensing the tension that was still stored in the taught cords of muscle.

He glowered at Adam from the back stumbling with Sunny only once as Adam rapidly course corrected, following the beacon back to the Empyrean

"You heard what she said, and you heard what we've been told about her." They had been doing their best to collect new intel over the past few weeks and days, and some of that intel had been centered around Kazna's new pet general.

Rebel/renegade/the architect's first warrior.

"Renegade is dangerous, she's billions of years old, and has just as much combat experience."

"Maverick is still there!" Ramirez protested

Still keeping his eyes forward, Adam nodded, "I know that, and if you didn't notice she fought Renegade off just long enough to get us in the clear. How do you think she would have felt if we stayed behind and gotten ourselves killed because we didn't take her opening."

Ramirez stayed quiet, but Adam continued.

"How do you think she would feel if she let Renegade kill us? Do you think she'd ever forgive herself?" More silence, "We are going to help Maverick, I swear by the architect but we aren't going to do it by needlessly throwing our lives away." Behind him Sunny did her best to gage Ramirez's reaction through the trembling lines of angry muscle.

He was still pissed.

But maybe now he would have some time to think.

"She was never as important to you as everyone else."

This time, when Ramirez spoke, his voice was quiet, harsh. Sunny wasn't much of a mind reader, but ast the waves of pain and anger radiating off the man she could sense the sudden and reckless desire to hurt, to wound someone, anyone. It wasn't really personal, but at this moment, it was directed right at Adam.

"What Did you say?"

She tightened her grip on Ramirez's arm.

This was not good.

Adam was doing his best to try not to feel hurt, to try not to rise to the accusations, but she could sense the anger, and frustration boiling up inside him as well, moving towards a breaking point when.

"Um, not to interrupt this stupid and pointless argument but you might want to look behind us." When Krill had first been introduced to humans, he had never bothered to chance his translated voice setting from the standard default human, a middle aged Mericandian Male.

For whatever reason he had chosen to keep that same voice as a human.

But never in all her time interacting with humans,and that common default translated voice had she ever heard it become so high pitched. If his larynx squeezed any tiger together they were going to explode.

Together, they all turned their eyes to view the rear camera, following Krill's bespectacled gaze to the origin of his concern.

Ramirez shouldn't have worried they were leaving Maverick behind.

Because Renegade was on her way.

Glowing with competing orange and gold light warring across her sin like a metaphor, she had only just exited the derelict hydro storage station, and was gaining on them fast. She wore no space suit, but that didn't seem to concern her, and her overgrown platinum hair swirled around her head like the halo of a destroying angel.

IN her eyes, "there was murder."

Adam cursed, eager to take evasive maneuvers as she approached.

"Celex, Open a com to the empyrean, let them know we are coming, and to prepare warp."

Celex nodded, squeezing past Krill and grabbing the radio to call in for backup.

Sunny, still holding Ramirez lowered her head, "If I let you go, are you going to do something stupid?"

She could feel him thinking about it.

"You''re my friend ramirez, but if you put my husband in unnecessary danger, I will punch you in your stupid skull, and make you kiss metal."

He knew she wasn't lying, and though anger still boiled underneath the surface, he nodded reluctantly, and she knew he wasn't going to do anything.

Renegade was pulling up on them fast, light streaking out behind her like the tail end of a comet. And she didn't seem to be slowing down.

Adam for his part didn't want to fight her. Ramirez's words had hurt as much as they did because he felt that they were partially true. He was leaving her behind to fend for herself, and he hated himself for it. He wanted to help her, but knew that saving the universe from the impending arrival of Appolyon was more important than that, as much as he hated to admit it.

But just because he had to leave her behind, didn't mean he wanted to hurt her.

As she approached, Adam kept their course steady, planning to lull her into a false sense of security before springing his plan. He adjusted his course slightly away from the Empyrean and out into the debris field.

She didn't seem concerned about either fac almost before he had time to react, she had begun to execute her own plan.

It was only another warning from Krill that saved him.

"ADAM LOOK OUT!"

Adam spun to the side just in time for a massive piece of debris to go shooting past them, coding with a multitude of other space garbage which began a chain reaction resulting in the entire field around them to morph into a meat grinder of space garbage. Adam dove and tucked and rolled, but even so a piece of debris did manage to tear a sizable rift down the side of their hull.

Warning indicators blinked on over the control panel. Sunny and Ramirez were thrown into a huddle as the ship rocked back and forth.

Ramirez's lip came away bloody after smacking his face against one of Sunny's suit plates. They quickly strapped themselves in as soon as there was an opening, and it was a good thing they did as Renegade loosed another volley of debris at them. Pieces of metal flew over them, and under them, and through the space where they had been just moments before as Adam threw the shuttle to one side and pulled them into a tight roll.

Krill screamed in terror, while Celex shouted in exhilaration only possible from a mandman.

Renegade was on their tail now, almost close enough to touch.

And that is when Adam made his move.

Finally, he spotted a brief opening and pushed the shuttle to full power.

Plenty of people can fly, but it takes a special kind of pilot to time it right.

Adam shot through the remaining debris field through a minute opening just as two hulls of a torn derelict came smashing together. Renegade tried to follow them but was caught up trying not to die as the massive metal behemoths smashed together in violence and silence.

Adam pushed as hard as he could, shooting into the place between debris, and initiated a micro warp at the last second.

The shuttle was less than a D class warp core, technically not capable of warping at all.

The instruction manual noted that it was possible but inadvisable and would most certainly fry the ship's engines if done..

A sacrifice Adam was willing to make.

The micro warp was incredibly unpleasant, without warp dampeners, or any of the luxury equipment designed to mitigate the effects that folding space tends to have on the body, the warp came in full effect. Adam was lucky to be prepared as they shot forward instantly, appearing a few thousand kilometers away from their original origin point, the others were not so lucky.

It was only a miracle that none of them barfed into their helmets even as they shot through the open bay grid and into the Empyrean, smashing into the deck and rolling four or five times before coming to a complete halt, the engine fried and smoking.

The second warp, performed by the Empyrean seconds later was much easier to stomach. And when they finally crawled their way out of the wreck of a shuttle, Sunny had only just managed to regain her ballance, Krill was lying on the food groaning, and Celex hadn't bothered to move at all.

Adam was the first up followed by Ramirez who stood next to each other for a few moments before.

Ramirez threw the first punch