Two ships collided mid air shattering all at once and sending shrapnel silently in all directions. Adam felt the vibration through his feet as a large chunk of metal impacted the rock island on which they stood. Shattered bits of moon floated in a now-stable sort of orbit together, locked into place by the push and pull of its own gravity.

Bodies lay strewn and scattered across the ground.

Overhead flashes of orange and gold light discharged at intervals as ships maneuvered around each other . Ramirez was holding his own, but only barely, and there was only so much that Simon could do to help without risking the lives of her entire crew.

They had tried to get Avex or someone on the coms, but the long-distance radio frequencies they were using to send through the small micro warps were being blocked. Irus was on its own. Behind him, Sunny managed to force open the outer door to what remained of Irus's orbital weapons facility, and the three of them stepped inside the airlock door closing behind them. There was a sharp hiss as the room decompressed, and sound was suddenly back.

Inside, Adam could hear the sound of more creatures skittering over the metal.

Sunny did not hesitate to take a breath or give them time to rest, instead reaching out to throw open the door. Celexx stood waiting as the door opened blasting the entire room with another wave of anima energy cooking a hoard of Void Tvek alive as he did. They squealed and screamed running around in circles as fire and energy consumed them before falling to the ground charred and dead.

Adam felt his boots crunching over charred bodies as they hurried further into the facility.

Distantly, he could feel the walls and floors of the building rattle as shrapnel and debris collided with the exterior of the building.

Overhead lights blinked on and off with a pulsating blue glow.

A Rundi voice spoke incoherently overhead through some sort of automated system warning. Adam's translators were unable to pick up the message.

Their footsteps echoed up the small metal hallway, and just as they heard the grumbling and snorting of other creatures ahead, the void heard them too.

A shape bounded around the corner with its beak open in a silent scream. Adam ducked to the side and Sunny speared it down through the throat. When she ripped her spear back she left a spatter of shimmering void icor spatter across the wall in a line.

Adam covered her as the next one made it around the corner. He didn't have time to register this new creature as it bounded towards him, leaping to a height over Adam's head before crashing down towards him.

Adam stepped to the side, and lunged forward, meeting the creature mid air with his fist. The steel eye, and armor encased gauntlet drove into the void Tesraki's belly with an audible crunch. Adam felt bone and tissue give way under his fist which depressed almost three inches .

It was more than enough to devastate the void thing's internal organs, and it staggered to the side, falling to the ground.

Lord Celex had taken his turn, charging around the corner with an audible roar.

Adam and Sunny followed just in time to see him decimate a small group of Kree.

A void Drev waited for them at the end of the hall, charging at Sunny with ill intent, and towering over her by at least three feet. Sunny raced forward without hesitation, dropping to s skid on her hip underneath the charging void Drev . thrusting her spear upwards.

Adam winced, sure that the placement of that spear was illegal on at least three planets.

The Drev staggered and dropped just intime for Adam to cave its skull in with his boot.

They had made it to the other side of that facility without much trouble , in the low gravity they were faster and more agile than usual. Adam had to reduce the power of his own movements worried that a single step would be enough to break escape velocity and send him careening out into space.

When Sunny opened the door back out into the silence, Adam could see the Empyrean huddling behind her shields.

Simon was gone, or he didn't see her, and his heart sank.

What had he missed in that time.

Lines of orange energy blasted Ramirez's shields from all sides, rocking the ship one way and then the other like a hockey puck. Adam wasn't sure how long it would take before the shields gave out. Like the rest of the ship the shields were run on Anima energy.... It was likely that they would last until Ramirez ran out of energy.

Was that possible?

Adam didn't want to find out.

"There it is."

The two of them turned to look where Celex was pointing.

They could see the orbital gun now. It was a monstrosity of a weapon loaned to the GA by the Celzex when they were still doing peace talks. Just like the Drev the Celzex considered the gifting of weapons to be the highest form of gift giving.

Celex had outdone himself.

This was good, that meant they would know how to work it, but getting over there was going to be a problem.

A massive gap stood between them and the gun. The valley between them was wide, still glowing with cherry orange edges. Turns out space isn't a very good conductor of heat, so when things get how they tend to stay that way, but with nothing to catch fire and no oxygen to consume, it simply sat there glowing a dull red.

"What do we do now." Sunny said, I don't think we are going to make it across that."

"Are we forgetting that I am still here."

Celex grabbed Sunny by the upper arm and then linked his other arm through Adam's elbow, "Hold on tight, this isn't going to be pretty."

A beam of void light discharged and the Empyrean shuttered rolling partially to the side. The shields flickered but held.

"We have to hurry."

And that's when Simon appeared.

The Omen wasn't in great shape. She had taken some damage down one side, and the constant bombardment by the smaller lighter void fighters was taking a toll on her hull, but the Omen wasn't yet on her last legs.

When humans had first started making intergalactic ships, they hadn't had shielding capabilities, so the had been built with durability in mind. The Omen may have had less grace and less complex lines than the empyrean, but she was tough. The hull was designed to take a beating from space debris without causing issue. Her surface was pockmarked and charred, but she was still up and running.

The two void ships were caught flanking their shields down, and Simon fired.

The Celzex cannon aboard her ship erupted with light streaking across the open expanse of space. The first void ship shuttered .

It was a good shot, and she took the ship right above where the last nuclear missile had torn a hull clear through the hull with an explosion. The ship was already unstable through its center but with the Celex cannon she basically sheered the ship in half. Adam watched in awe as the void ship began to warp. Only a single sliver of metal was holding the ship in place, and the force of acceleration and changing direction made the metal warp and twist.

The void ship floundered in the water.

The other ship discharged a quick beam of light, but Simon was already gone, having micro warped away. It was dangerous, and it would be putting a lot of strain on the system. She wouldn't be able to keep those tactics going forever.

"Hold on."

Adam turned to look at Celex who had planted his feet with their backs to their destination.

"What are we-"

And then Celex shot the ground at their feet, discharging a burst of energy so powerful that they were blown backward. The sudden acceleration made Adam's stomach drop into his Pelvis, while a few other things shrunk upwards to join it. Adam felt like he was mixing intestine soup in the bowl of his pelvis for a single horrible moment as they shot across the gap.

They hit the ground hard breaking apart and spinning off in multiple directions. Celex rolled down the center line, but Adam careened off to the right rolling and spinning kicking up a cloud of dust as he scrabbled to slow himself down. His fingers scrabbled against the moon dust. He flipped end over end only becoming aware of the edge seconds before it was too late.

He felt his body pitch over the side, as he snatched at the cliff ledge.

His hand caught, and he was jolted to a stop dangling with his feet out into empty space, being pulled y another strange field of gravity.

He kicked once and clambered up, sliding onto his belly.

Overhead the massive gun lay dormant its metallic skin reflecting the blue light of irus.

"We have to get this gun working." Adam shouted, and was suddenly caught off guard by the scene before him. Celex and Sunny were being swarmed. At least a hundred Kree and Tvek surrounded them. Celex looked rather dazed, but was busy trying to fight off a swarm of Tvek that had clambered atop him and were now trying to bite his skin off . Sunny was in a similar position. She fought like a cornered together spinning back and forth between targets spreading the blood of her enemies over the ground.

And between him and her.

A hundred more bodies waited.

Where had they all come from!

Adam readied his weapon opening fire as they began to race towards him, their mouths open and ravening for his blood. He shot at least seven of them in quick succession, before being forced to deploy the blade on his right arm. He swept right with his arm, sever a Kree head from its body and sending it spinning off into space. He stabbed another through the throat, pulled his dagger out and then stabbed another twice in the eye.

Soemthing grabbed his back and began pounding at his helmet, ripping at the seams in his armor like he was a clam being pulled apart.

A jolt ran through his armor as fealty responded, but nothing happened.

Electric charge wasn't likely to work the same in space, if at all.

Adam was grabbed by another Kree that he stabbed, but he was being pulled down.

There were too many of them.

Adam's vision was being blocked by a mass of feather and bone when.

The ground shook in one concussive blast after the other. Overhead the kree pulled back somewhat, and Adam's view of the sky was restored. He watched with jaw dropping awe as the f-90 cut through the canyons of the broken moon, cutting in sharp turns and steep dives that should have been impossible.

It flew overhead, cutting a line of fire straight through the hoard.

The spread was precise avoiding celex, Sunny and Adam with ease.

The shock of the moment gave Adam just enough time.

He cut the tendons at the back of every heel he could find and then broke free with a short burst from his jetpack. It was a questionable thing to do , and he was almost jolted away by another round of gravity that had him falling and confused, but he managed to steer himself back to land in an open patch.

Probably best not to try and use that.

Overhead the dark fire pulled to a hover firing their engines in a pulsing pattern ack and forth to keep a steady location. It was an impressive act of coordination on the part of the pilot.

Gunfire rained down around them as their enemies were cut down in sheets.

Celex had regained himself somewhere along the line, and soon everyone within a ten foot radius of him was fried.

The pilot, seeing their work was done, cut around I n a tight circle.

"Darkfire, thanks for the assist.'

"Don't mention it."

Adam squeaked, and his jaw practically dropped off. For a moment he had trouble speaking, "K-kelly?"

"You can be surprised later, now get your ass in gear!"

Adam stammered but managed a, "yes ma'am." Turning on his heel and running towards the gun. It took them no more than a few seconds to break down the door coming into the control room for the gun just as the gelatinous hulking figure turned to look at them. If It was possible for there to be anything uglier than a prodigum, they had found it.

A void prodigum.

The creature was a massive glob at the center of the room, with huge forward limbs that ended in sharp clawed points of bone. Its tiny back legs were basically ineffectual at moving the creature's misshapen upper body. At its chin a thousand tentacle like filaments tested the air. Bones grew from strange locations and ooze coated the floor where it stood.

Adam dove to the side as it lifted one of its forward limbs and slammed the spike down where he had been a moment before.

Somewhere, Sunny decided she had no time for this.

The small lexplosive went off just as Adam was preparing to go in again, and instead of a fight, he got pelted with Prodigum chunks.

It took everything he had not to think about that as they ran over to the console.

Celex tried powering it up but nothing happened.

"What's wrong."

"They must have cut the power." Celex frowned and then cracked his knuckles, "Let's see them try this one for size." And then he reached out pressing the flat of his palms against the console. He squeezed his eyes shut in concentration, his lip moving silently.

And then.

Golden light lit up the console.

"Yes, Keep doing what you're doing!"

Ahead of him Celex was beginning to glow brighter and brighter with every moment. "Sunny, you control the grid, I have the big gun."

Sunny nodded taking a seat at the console.

Adam rushed up a small set of stairs and into a pod room.

A dead Rundi lay on the floor inside, but Adam pushd them out of the way. This gun could be run remotely, but there was still an open chamber, just big enough for him to crawl inside, resting on his back under the screen.

Golden energy glowed around him as he peered through the view finder and lay his hands on the trigger.

"Ready."

"Ready" He heard Sunny call.

He watched the void shield flicker, "Now!"

ORBITAL DEFENCE BACK ONLINE

He could understand that translation.

And then a golden sphere blossomed around Irus as the shield came back online. A thousand guns immediately locked onto unfamiliar targets blowing fighters out of the sky. And all while this was happening, Adam locked on to his target.

He fired, and when he did the gun rocked in its place, stabilized by a gravity cushion, The massive weapon tore into the hull of the void ship which, startled, tried to limp away under a sudden onslaught of fire from the small guns as well as the large.

Adam fired again, taking out what remained of the first void ship., which fractured into many tiny pieces.

Orbit was filled with twisted metal and bodies.

Adam fired one more time as the void ship lowered its shields for one last ditch warp.

Instead it got a blast of energy right to the engines, which stopped it in its track.

The following salvo from a multitude of other weapons, and another shot from the big cannon tore it apart.

And just like that.

The battle was over

All was silent.

Below them Irus was, if not safe than at least stable

Overhead their moon remained in a state of fracture held together only by the weight of tis own gravity.