Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Illumination ❯ Mission 16: Crash and Burn ( Chapter 24 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Disclaimer: Dragonball Z belongs to Akira Toriyama and numerous other companies. This fanfic is only for fun, no monies are being made.

-+-

There was a cursory knock on the ornate wooden door, even though it was wide open. “Sir,” the young man in the doorway said, hoping to get the attention of his leader sitting behind the equally ornate wooden desk inside.

Noran's eyes drifted up from the paperwork in front of him. “Lieutenant Hayes,” Noran said casually, waiting for the young man to speak. Noran's office was lavishly decorated, befitting an equally decorated general such as himself.

“I just got word,” Hayes began as he walked into the room and stood in front of the desk. “The operation with the replica ship went successfully,” he said, setting down a tablet in front of Noran that had information regarding the success of the operation.

Noran glanced over the report, and was pleased that everything had gone according to plan. “Excellent,” he said, nodding in approval. “That should get the Alliance to move on the mercenary. They have no choice now,” he finished, holding up the tablet and handing it back to Hayes.

Hayes took the tablet back and nodded before adjusting the dark green hat he wore, part of his uniform. He seemed to swallow nervously before continuing. “There's something else,” he began, and Noran's eyebrows rose in curiosity. “We received a report from intel regarding Senator Ballasten,” Hayes began.

Noran's face fell into a frustrated gaze. “The senator is a fool,” he said flatly, unsurprised that the old man was up to something. “What is it this time?”

“He sent a formal request to the Republican justice department asking them to send a request of extradition to the Alliance for the mercenary, if she's captured,” Hayes explained and paused a moment. “Supposedly they are using the charge of 'war crimes' to up the priority of the request.”

Noran closed his eyes briefly and laughed. Upon opening them again, he regarded his lieutenant with a smirk. “Nice move on his part, unfortunately the Alliance won't be so willing to hand over a terrorist after she's attacked civilians,” Noran replied. “I don't think we need to worry about it. We just need to keep the senator playing along until we can get control of Virda's fleet. Once he's served his purpose, we can cut him loose.”

Noran then rose from his desk and moved around it, headed for the door. Lieutenant Hayes fell into step beside him as they left his office, headed down the hall for an unknown destination. “The senator thinks that we're going to seize control of Virda's fleet so he can take over control of the Alliance,” Noran explained. “We have no reason to help him in his attempted coup once we have the fleet, but he's too blind to his own ambition to realize that.” Several men passed by Noran and Hayes, saluting at their commanding officer as he passed. Noran nodded to them in return. He turned and headed down a large staircase, Hayes following right behind him.

“So why try to keep the mercenary out of it?” Hayes asked.

Noran laughed. “He thinks that she's his bargaining chip to keep me in check. What he doesn't realize is that I've been looking for her for decades. I have enough patience to wait a little longer,” Noran looked at Hayes, his eyes narrowing as his mouth formed a smirk.

-+-

Shine a light in the dark,
Let me see where you are,
‘Cause I’m not gonna leave you behind

-+-

Illumination

Mission 16: Crash and Burn

-+-

Laiserta took a seat in the lounge, sitting down on the bench along the wall underneath the main monitor. She had just finished cooking and serving breakfast to her shipmates and finally had the chance to sit and eat herself. Armada, Trunks, Marice and Naya sat at the table, the latter three crowded together on the long side of the table.

Naya had finished her breakfast and politely set her utensils down on her plate. She turned and looked at Armada. “I have decided,” she began slowly, “that despite the insanity in fighting a war against Rieve, that I will stay. For now,” Naya amended.

Marice smiled but said nothing. “So as a show of good faith,” Naya continued, “I will give you some intelligence I was able to gather on Rieve that includes the location of one of their major hubs along a smuggling route.”

“How were you able to get that?” Laiserta asked from across the room, her words slightly muffled by all the food in her mouth.

Naya sighed at her comrade's lack of manners. “I still have access to some old intelligence networks from Tyron,” she explained. “These are data caches that are placed in the field to assist field operatives when they cannot communicate directly with central command.”

Laiserta swallowed. “Well that's awfully convenient,” she said, a scowl appearing on her face.

“I'm not at liberty to say any more than that,” Naya replied. “Just because I'm retired does not mean that state secrets are no longer secret,” she finished with a smile.

Laiserta pouted and turned toward Armada. “Yo spider-head, you gonna let her get away with that?” she asked, clearly trying to get someone on her side.

“If the intel is good, I don't care where it comes from,” Armada replied. She turned back to Naya to follow up on this new information. “Where's the hub?”

“On a planet called Ikatsu. It's a significant distance behind the Republican border, but still within the relatively overlooked southeastern sector,” Naya replied. “I've already studied the materials and set up a basic infiltration plan,” she added.

Armada stood from her seat, moving out from behind the table while carrying her now empty plate. “I'll set a course for Ikatsu. Be ready to go over the plan once we can set the ship to auto-pilot,” Armada said, turning to walk into the galley and clean up her used dishes.

-+-

Ikatsu was a planet farther into Republican space than anywhere Trunks had traveled with Armada thus far. It took them four days to get to Ikatsu, especially because Armada slowed the ship upon entering Republican space to stay hidden. Naya had gone over the plan with the group and was leading on the mission. She would run things over the radio on foot with Laiserta while Trunks and Armada paired up to cause most of the damage and provide the distraction for Laiserta and Naya to infiltrate the facility, their goal to steal any and all data Rieve had on site before Trunks and Armada would ultimately destroy the place. Naya's intel didn't have any information regarding energy fighters, but Trunks and Armada considered it to be the same as the job on Belos, and were prepared for anything. Marice would provide radio support from within the ship, should anything show up on the ship's scanners that required the mercenaries' attention.

“Hey I'm gonna exit FTL travel now because we're close to Ikatsu,” Laiserta called out from the bridge. She was seated at the piloting console and checked a few items via the on-screen diagnostics before she began to slow the ship.

Trunks had just picked up his sword and slung it over his shoulder while he buckled the clip in front. He walked out of his room and down the hall to the bridge, Marice walking only a few meters ahead of him. Suddenly the ship jerked violently, listing to one side roughly. Marice screamed as she fell, and Trunks was able to fly forward fast enough to catch her before she slammed into the metal walls of the ship. Carrying her in his arms, Trunks flew forward into the bridge to find out what was going on.

Armada flew in with Naya running behind her from the lounge. “What's going on?” Armada shouted.

Laiserta pulled herself up from the floor, a trail of blood running down from a nasty gash in her forehead. “Fuck, I don't know,” Laiserta replied while gritting her teeth. “I just dropped us out of FTL travel, that's all.”

The ship shook again, though not as violently as the first time. Realization dawned upon Naya. “We're under fire,” she said breathlessly, looking over to Armada.

Armada floated over to the navigation console and brought up the ship's outside cameras on all screens.

“Holy shit,” Laiserta cursed as each screen showed hundreds of space fighters engaged in battle just above the surface of Ikatsu.

“They shouldn't fighting this close to the gravity well,” Armada voiced her thoughts aloud as she looked at each of the ship's main monitors.

The ship was hit again and rocked forward, throwing three women off of their feet while Trunks and Armada floated inside the ship. “We need to get out of here!” Armada shouted as various alarms in the ship began to sound off.

“Gonna be hard to do because we just lost half our engines!” Laiserta countered. She put the ship into manual mode and grabbed the controls. “I'm gonna try and land this thing, it's all we can do to get away from these dumbasses,” she declared, gritting her teeth as she pulled back on the ship's controls, trying to turn toward the planet below them.

Unfortunately another bombardment hit the ship, and Trunks leaned forward to grab Marice and hold on to her. He pulled her head in toward his chest and covered her with his arms. The ship was pushed forward again, causing Laiserta to fall out of her seat onto the main console. Naya lost her footing and fell forward, but Armada caught her and kept her from crashing into the front of the bridge like her Taydran comrade.

A secondary explosion went off, but the sound and vibration through the ship was different than the others. It only took Trunks a moment to figure out what it was, when suddenly his hair started to float up around him.

“Damn,” Armada cursed, realizing that the artificial gravity generator had been hit. “Trunks!” she shouted, turning to look at him. “Help me get them strapped in!”

Trunks nodded, immediately understanding what she wanted him to do. He flew forward, placing Marice into the chair to the right of Laiserta and helping her strap in. Armada did the same with Naya, and Trunks finished by helping Laiserta sit back in the pilot's seat and get her harness on as well.

“Thanks wonder boy,” Laiserta wheezed, sounding completely out of breath.

Armada pushed Laiserta's chair backward along its track, and locked it into place away from the piloting controls. She then stood where Laiserta had been sitting and grabbed the controls. “What do we do?” Trunks asked.

The ship was hit again, and one of the outside cameras lost its signal. Whereas the planet had been below them earlier, the ship was completely turned upside-down and now the planet seemed to be above them. “We're already stuck in the gravity well, we're gonna have to land,” Armada said as she furiously punched away at the controls. “The only problem is that Ikatsu is over there,” Armada said, pointing up at the main monitor. Trunks hadn't noticed at first, but there was another planet well within their sight.

“Twin orbiting planets, Ikatsu and Jakotsu,” Naya said, grimacing as the ship rocked again.

Another explosion sounded and the ship began careening down toward the green planet below. Armada did all she could to hold on to the controls. As the ship began descending into Jakotsu's atmosphere, it began to vibrate violently due to the friction. “We're going too fast!” Armada shouted, trying her best to slow the ship as much as she could.

“We're gonna crash?” Trunks asked over the noise. He heard a strange noise and looked over at Marice; she had vomited from the turbulence.

“Pull the manual release to close the doors into the bridge,” Armada ordered Trunks. He flew over to the door leading into the lounge first and pulled the release, causing the door to close and hiss as it sealed. He repeated the same procedure on the other side where the hallway led down to the barracks.

“Hold on to something,” Armada said through gritted teeth as she pulled back on the ship's controls, trying to keep the bow from landing directly into the ground. Trunks watched as their ship plummeted toward the surface of Jakotsu, seemingly in a nose-dive. At the last second, the ship seemed to turn up just before they hit a treeline. All of the ship's monitors went dark, and dim emergency lighting turned on.

Trunks tried to hold on to the back of Marice's chair, but he was afraid he would end up pulling her free so he let go. The ship hit the ground with an impact that made Trunks lose his breath. He and Armada were tossed around the bridge for what felt like an eternity as the ship shook and electrical fires broke out in the bridge.

-+-

After what felt like a complete pummeling resulting in him losing consciousness for a few short seconds, Trunks opened his eyes and lifted his head from the floor of the ship. Like him, Armada was just now stirring to her feet. She tried to say something to him, but all he could hear was a high pitched whine in his ears. Trunks pulled himself up to his knees before standing fully. He saw Armada using a fire extinguisher to put out the electrical fires that had broken out in the bridge.

Armada turned to him again and said something, but Trunks only heard a muffled sound, as if she were trying to speak to him through water. She must have sensed that he didn't understand her, as she pointed to their three comrades. Trunks floated over to look at Marice first; she was unconscious. He unbuckled her harness and scooped her up in his arms.

Armada did the same with Naya, and then floated past Trunks while carrying the Tyrian woman. She kicked at the door that Trunks had shut earlier, knocking it off of its hinges. She flew down the hallway, Trunks in tow behind her, and kicked open the door leading outside of the ship. Armada flew out into the light, and Trunks had to squint at first because the light was so bright. They appeared to land in some sort of plains at the base of a mountain range in the distance.

He looked down and noticed that Armada had flown down to the ground, setting Naya down to lay on her back in the grass. Trunks followed her lead and did the same with Marice. Trunks listened closely for a heartbeat and to make sure Marice was still breathing; she was and he let out a sigh of relief. Armada returned with Laiserta this time, setting her down on the ground beside Naya.

After making sure that their comrades had survived the crash, Armada flew into the wreckage of the ship and brought out a crate full of medical supplies. She used a small scanner to see if any of her allies were bleeding internally, and the results came back negative. She and Trunks took the time to bandage up any injuries, and Trunks did his best to clean off Marice's face and clothes from where she had gotten sick.

Sitting down to take a quick breather, Trunks turned to look at Armada. She was standing with her back to him, gazing over at the ship. The back half of the ship looked like it had been through a war, and he could see where the engine bay had been severely damaged. Armada seemed to be thinking for a long moment before she finally turned to Trunks. “Stay here and keep them safe,” she said before flying up and into the ship once more.

“Wait, what?” Trunks asked in confusion. What was she planning on doing? He took off after her.

Once inside the ship, Trunks followed Armada into her barracks. She opened a closet and started removing her armor. “What are you doing?” Trunks asked as she worked quickly to remove her arm guards and chest plate.

“We need parts to repair the ship,” she said before pulling the top half of her black under armor up over her head. “Jakotsu, just like Ikatsu is a poor world. We won't be able to find what we need here.” She focused on her task of removing her armor, not bothering to turn away from Trunks. She wore a black bandeau and a black pair of shorts underneath her armor, so it wasn't as if she was stripping nude in front of him.

Trunks then noticed in the closet behind Armada what looked like a dark blue spacesuit and matching helmet. His eyes darted back to hers. “Armada what are you doing?” he asked again, his voice starting to sound a little panicked.

Armada had managed to kick off her boots and pulled down the rest of her black under armor. She turned and grabbed the dark blue spacesuit from the closet behind her and began stepping into it. “We need to salvage parts from another ship. And between those rag-tag pirate fleets up there fighting one another, we need a relatively new and advanced ship to salvage those parts from. If I don't go up there now and find one,” she trailed off, pulling her arms through the sleeves of the spacesuit and proceeding to zip it up.

“No, you can't go up there alone,” Trunks argued back. Was she insane? How was she going to capture a ship all by herself?

“Can you survive in a vacuum?” she asked tersely. Trunks merely stared back at her and didn't respond. “I didn't think so,” Armada said before turning and picking up the matching dark blue helmet from her closet. She quickly donned the helmet, locking it into place and closing the seals around the neckline of her suit. “Seeing as how I only have one spacesuit and it's not your size, that means I'm going,” she added, her voice slightly distorted by her helmet.

She took a moment to turn on the HUD inside her helmet, before pressing another button on the outside of her helmet to trigger the oxygen tanks to suck in air from the atmosphere and separate out the oxygen for storage in the tank on the back of her suit. The quiet whirring sound didn't register to Trunks; his eyes had fallen down to the floor but his gaze turned inward. He was thinking of how he could stop her, or at least help her – he needed to think of something, he couldn't leave this all on his comrade.

“You told me to trust you on Belos,” Armada's voice cut into his thoughts and garnered his attention. “I need you to trust me now, on this. We don't have any other options.”

Trunks grimaced, but he didn't see another route ahead. “Okay,” he conceded. “Be careful,” he added, knowing that it was probably a useless thing to say to Armada of all people, but he needed to say it regardless.

“Make sure everyone stays safe. I'll be back as soon as I can,” she replied. “This suit only holds twelve hours of oxygen anyway.” With that said, she floated past Trunks, and he followed behind her.

Once they were outside of the ship, Armada shot Trunks once last glance. He nodded to her, and she took off straight up into the sky at what he figured was her full speed. Trunks watched her form quickly disappear into the distance, before a noise below caught his attention.

Trunks flew back down to his comrades, as it appeared they were beginning to come to. Laiserta forced herself to sit up first, looking into the sky where Armada had disappeared. “Where the hell is she going?” Laiserta asked, her typical snarky tone replaced with one that indicated she was still pretty sore overall.

Trunks took a knee next to Laiserta. “To steal a spaceship,” he answered, setting a hand on Laiserta's back as she began coughing violently.

-+-

It didn't take long for Armada to clear the atmosphere of Jakotsu and reach the quietness of space. Despite the battle still raging, the sounds of ships firing upon one another and the resulting explosions couldn't travel through the vacuum of open space. All that Armada heard was her own breathing inside her helmet.

Armada kept flying, as the distance she needed to cover was still pretty far, and she started to use the optical zoom on her helmet to get a better look at some of the ships in the distance. Both sides of the battle were riddled with random ships of all sizes and types, some even fitted with weapons that were decades newer than the vessel they had been attached to. Her head turned rapidly as she scanned the battlefield, searching for something that was new enough and large enough to have parts she could at least make fit her ship.

Spotting a cluster of larger ships in the distance off to her left, Armada focused her sights on them and flew toward them. Using the zoom capabilities of her heads-up-display, she took a closer look. The ships in question were much newer than some of the others, and much larger than her own. Seeing several good candidates to steal from, she pushed herself to take off as fast as she could. She needed to get one of these ships and take it down to Jakotsu before it took too much damage in the battle. One crash was enough for her.

-+-

“Their formation on the starboard side is beginning to fall apart,” a young man sitting at one of the battle stations on the frigate called out to the commander.

“Excellent,” Helena Novostra replied, standing at the center platform in the bridge of her fleet's flagship. “Their fighters aren't dedicated,” she continued, “so once they realize they're going to lose the battle, most of their men will flee.” She stood in her blue Rieve uniform, a nicely tailored suit, with her black hair pulled up and away from her neck in a high ponytail. With her feet shoulder-width apart and her hands casually joined behind her back, she exuded the cool and collected persona that was known throughout Rieve for.

“Command ships in the rear are starting to retreat,” a young woman's voice broke in from another console in the bridge.

“Send team Dusk the signal to pursue,” Helena coolly answered. “We need to wipe out the leadership now, and put this to bed.”

“Yes ma'am,” the young woman responded before pulling her radio headset closer to her mouth to relay the message.

Helena's violet eyes scanned the monitors at the front of the bridge, displaying varying statistics about the battle. So far, Rieve's forces were outperforming even her expectations. She suspected that her pilots were rattled by some of Rieve's recent losses and would perform poorly, but for whatever reason they seemed to be doing the opposite. It was a pleasant surprise.

“Change to long range cameras,” Helena commanded, and the floor-to-ceiling monitors in the front of the bridge changed from their statistical displays to instead show the expanse of space and the battlefield before them. Helena preferred to actually see what was happening on the battlefield, as opposed to visual representations of the action.

“The defenser Muriel is reporting they were just hit?” the first young man on the communications console spoke up once more, his voice expressing his confusion. He turned to look up at Helena, who was standing on a platform in the center of the bridge behind him.

“How?” Helena demanded, her eyes narrowing. One of the defense ships for her flagship had been hit? It was impossible, there were no enemies anywhere near them.

“Scans are showing the ship taking damage,” another man chimed in.

“Get a visual on the Muriel, now!” Helena shouted.

The display in the front of the bridge quickly changed to a view of one of the three defenser ships assigned to protect the Rieve commander's flagship. Several explosions rocked the ship again, and Helena immediately recognized what was happening. “An energy fighter...!” she hissed, gritting her teeth in frustration. Several energy blasts hit the ship on screen, but none of the attacks was enough to severely damage the ship. Whoever was attacking it seemed to be aiming to disable weaponry and the ship's shield generators rather than just outright destroying it.

“I think we've got an image of the person attacking,” another woman's voice called out. She tapped away on the console in front of her before the still image she had managed to capture was displayed on the bridge's main display.

Helena's eyes widened in shock at the image. It was a woman in a blue spacesuit, but more than that – she quickly recognized the face behind the helmet's visor, especially with the distinctive long blonde bangs. “The mercenary,” Helena said breathlessly. What was she doing here, of all places? And attacking one of their ships without just simply destroying it? What was her goal?

“Muriel now reporting that they've been boarded by... one person?” the comms lead said once again, still confused by the reports from their allies on the ship the Muriel. “Commander, your orders?” he asked, turning to look at her again.

Helena Novostra did not like unknowns. This was certainly an unknown variable thrown into the battle, with the mercenary here and now. Clearly she was trying to take the Muriel, but the motive was unclear. Helena could order her forces to fire on the ship, but that wouldn't guarantee the mercenary's death. It would, however, cause casualties on Rieve's end. She had good people working for her, and Helena was not prepared to sacrifice them for something she couldn't even remotely think had a chance of working in the given situation.

“Orders are to abandon ship,” Novostra barked out.

“A-are you sure?” the comms lead asked, his eyes widening.

“Yes,” Helena replied, understanding her subordinate's shock at her orders. “All crew of the Murielare to abandon ship. Send out all rescue squads to pick them up once their lifepods eject from the ship,” she finished explaining.

“Yes ma'am,” the comms lead nodded, turning back to his console. The bridge seemed to spark to life, as everyone started contacting other ships in the fleet to relay the commander's order.

“Get a line open to headquarters,” Helena added, her eyes narrowing. “ I need to speak to the comonstoroimmediately.”

-+-

Trunks and Naya were going through medical supplies they had on the ground near their shipwreck, organizing the crate that Armada had pulled out of the cargo bay for them. Laiserta was standing nearby, rubbing her shoulders where the straps of her seat's harness had pressed into her. Laiserta turned and looked up to the sky, but she didn't need any of her special vision modes to see what was happening.

“Holy shit,” Laiserta said slowly as she watched a large space frigate burning as it flew through the atmosphere, not very far above them in the sky. “You weren't kidding,” Laiserta said, her head turning as she followed the ship with her eyes.

Trunks and Naya turned and looked up, to see the same ship burning and careening through the sky of Jakotsu toward the mountain range they had landed near. Trunks then looked at Naya, who turned her attention to him in response. “We're fine, go help the captain,” Naya said pointedly. Trunks nodded, before taking off to the sky, the wind from his exit blowing bits of grass into the air.

-+-

Two and a half days after crashing on Jakotsu, Trunks held up a large piece of sheet metal above his head, floating while staying steady to keep the part in position while Armada flew around him and welded the edges together. Armada had said they were lucky that only the external layers of the hull had been damaged, and that none of the interior of the ship was breached. Trunks wasn't sure he considered that to be lucky, but the damage to the ship could have been worse—and he was grateful that it wasn't.

“Okay, it's done,” Armada said, raising the visor on her welding mask before looking down at Trunks who floated a few meters away and farther down the hull of the ship.

Trunks gingerly backed away from the panel, letting go slowly in case the welding didn't hold and the part fell. As he floated backwards, he let out a sigh of relief when he realized it wasn't going to fall. Even Armada had her doubts due to the speed with which they were working on repairs.

"Okay," Armada said and turned toward Trunks. "I'm going to finish up the welding on the hull, you go help Lai with the engine repairs," she directed.

Trunks nodded and turned and flew back down to the ground, landing a few meters away from Laiserta. Lai was sitting at a makeshift workshop, a metal table with a stool where each engine lay on top of the table as she worked. The individual engines used for the ship's propulsion weren't very large, but there were over forty of them, with more than half needing serious repairs. It was going to be quite a job to get them all functioning again.

"How's it going?" Trunks asked as he walked up to Laiserta.

Laiserta didn't bother to look away from her work. "Naya got the engines still inside the ship stabilized," she answered, using a small pick to brush away debris from the circuitry she was trying to get to. "This is number six for me, so if I get this one up and running with the rest, we'll have enough propulsion for flight," she finished, the red irises of her eyes turning around her pupil as she focused her vision intensely on her work.

"Good," Trunks replied. "Once Armada finishes the repairs to the front hull of the ship we may be ready to leave," he added. Two days of work on the ship non-stop had gotten them this far, he was hoping that there wouldn't be much more needed before they could leave for Bmyhad. At least back in Ute Armada would have an easier time getting materials to repair the ship.

"Speaking of spider-head," Laiserta said, finishing with one tool and setting it down on the table before looking up at Trunks. "Did you know this ship doesn't have a name?" Trunks merely shrugged in response. "Yeah, well, I asked her, and she said it doesn't. You do know that's unlucky as shit, right?" she continued, her voice clearly demonstrating her displeasure. Laiserta picked up a small soldering iron and pointed at Trunks with it as she spoke. "Once we get back to Ute, we gotta give this thing a name. It's no wonder we crashed when we've been flying around, tempting fate," she finished, giving him a pointed look before returning to her work.

Trunks laughed slightly. "Yeah, I guess it couldn't hurt," he said with a rueful smile. He opened his mouth to ask Laiserta another question when a sudden energy spike in the distance stunned him into silence. Trunks immediately spun around and looked into the direction he sensed the energy. He saw that Armada had turned away from her work as well, also looking in the same direction in the sky. She turned and looked down at Trunks where he stood on the ground, her expression guarded but stony.

"Lai, we've got incoming," Trunks said flatly, turning to look at his comrade.

Laiserta scoffed, "What, did Marice eat the shrimp again? I told her to give up, she's obviously allergic," Laiserta continued, finally looking up at Trunks. When her gaze met his, the smirk fell from her face and worry settled into her eyebrows. "You're serious," she stated in disbelief. "Ah, shit," Laiserta cursed, jumping up from her seat and running toward the open cargo bay at the back of the ship.

Naya was walking down the ramp when Laiserta sprinted past her. "What's going on?" she called out to Trunks, concern lacing her voice.

"At least two energy fighters are on their way here," Trunks explained. "And I think it's safe to assume they're not a rescue team."

"Damn," Naya cursed under her breath. She glanced back up into the ship before looking at Trunks once more. "I'll get Lai and Marice into position to defend," she added.

"No," Armada cut in, flying down to Trunks. She had taken the time to head back into the ship and put her armor on. She carried Trunks's jacket and sword with her, tossing both down to him as she landed next to him.

Armada looked up to Naya. "You three need to stay on course with the repairs. If we can get the engines that Laiserta repaired installed back in the ship then we're ready to take off. There's no time to waste," Armada continued while Trunks finished putting on his jacket and strapping his sword around his chest.

Armada turned to her left to look at Trunks. "Whoever it is, we'll lead them away from the ship," she explained.

Trunks nodded in agreement. "Right."

-+-

“ Oh?”

“What is it sis?” the black-haired man flying beside her asked when his sister suddenly spoke up.

Lazelle Delreyes smiled to herself before suddenly coming to a stop, her brother copying her action. Lazelle lifted her sunglasses up, propping them up on the top of her head. She brushed a few errant strands of her light blonde hair from her eyes before regarding her brother. “Don't you sense it?” she asked, still smiling.

Tessellus Delreyes smiled and nodded to his sister, his black hair bobbing with the motion. “It seems our targets are coming to greet us,” he remarked, removing his sunglasses from his face and folding them neatly before sliding one of the temples into a pocket on the front of his vest, leaving the lenses to dangle from the pocket. “This should be interesting,” Tessellus added with mirth.

“Don't let your guard down,” Lazelle responded, her tone still lackadaisical. “Remember, they managed to kill both Corvus andPreva,” she continued. “One or the other I could chalk up to luck or circumstance, but not both.”

“The man is the one with the power,” Tessellus replied, “but we shouldn't underestimate the woman either. She's accomplished quite a lot on her own.”

Lazelle took a moment to stretch out her arms as she and her brother floated above a wide-open ocean with no sight of land in the distance. After stretching her arms, she rolled her neck and shrugged her shoulders. “This should make for an interesting fight then,” she added with a smirk.

-+-

Trunks could tell by how far they had flown that Jakotsu was a large world—larger than Earth and Bmyhad, at any rate. Despite the distance, it didn't take long for them to reach their destination, especially since their enemies had stopped moving just a few moments before he and Armada arrived.

Trunks and Armada came to immediate stop, floating in the air above an ocean while regarding the two people waiting for them merely ten meters away. Upon seeing their forms, Trunks grimaced. Before him floated a young man with black hair parted to the left side of his face, hanging down below his jawline, and a young woman with long light blonde hair tied back into a bun on the back of her head. Their faces were similar to one another, with fine features and pale greenish-grey eyes. He could sense that their ki felt eerily similar too, and he knew they were related. Their appearances were so much like them—the cyborgs Seventeen and Eighteen who had terrorized him and the Earth for almost twenty years. He knew that these two people were not the cyborgs, but his stomach seemed keen on doing flips inside his abdomen anyway.

Armada studied the two enemies before her with a hard gaze. They both wore expensive tailored suits, but what was odd was the color; they weren't wearing the standard blue that most Rieve members wore. The man had on a three-piece light grey suit with the sleeves of his shirt and blazer rolled up to his elbows. He also had a Republican assault rifle hanging from his body via a black strap running diagonally across his chest, not unlike the way Trunks's sword was fastened to his chest. The blonde-haired woman wore a dark burgundy colored suit, with a cropped jacket almost like a bolero and high-waisted pants. She too carried an assault rifle, though hers hung across her back unlike her comrade whose weapon hung in front of his left hip. She also had what Armada guessed was a stiletto, a straight edged and thin bladed knife in a holster strapped to her right thigh.

“Oh wow,” the woman spoke first, casually crossing her arms over her chest. “I thought the descriptions of the two of you were jokes,” she laughed darkly. “You really do look like you both crawled out of the dirt on some mudball that just learned to write,” she said, breaking into a full laugh while shaking her head.

The man shook his head but for a completely different reason. “My dear sister, we should introduce ourselves first. Remember, they managed to defeat both Preva and Corvus. They are deserving of at least a modicum of respect, no?” he asked, his gaze falling expectantly upon his sister.

“Oh I suppose so,” she answered, looking to her brother to speak first.

“I am Tessellus Delreyes,” the black-haired assassin spoke cordially, offering a slight bow of the head.

“Lazelle Delreyes,” the woman interjected, gazing at the mercenaries with a haughty look.

“I would say that it's a pleasure to meet you, but since we're going to kill you that seems a bit dishonest, doesn't it?” Tessellus asked, raising his hands up beside him. “However, there isone thing I'd like to know before we start,” he continued. “I know you're Armada,” he said while looking at the mercenary in question. “But you,” Tessellus turned his head to face Trunks, “you're quite the mystery. There seems to be no data on you, anywhere. Which, considering your skill, is quite amazing,” Tessellus finished, sounding earnestly intrigued.

“Oh brother, they may truly havejust emerged from the primordial ooze,” Lazelle said, her voice still carrying a hint of sarcasm. “Are we sure they even speak Ferian?” she asked, smirking at Trunks in particular.

“Fuck you,” Armada broke in, causing Trunks's gaze to drift over to her on his left. “That enough Ferian for you?” she asked, her eyes and voice both stone.

“Lovely,” Lazelle deadpanned, clearly disgusted by Armada's foul language.

The four energy-fighters continued to stare one another down for a few more moments before Armada made the first move. Charging forth as fast as she could muster, she flew directly at Tessellus and landed a hard right punch in his face. She held on to his jacket and kept flying, pushing the Rieve enforcer backward as she directed the battle farther away from her comrades and ship they had left behind.

Trunks immediately followed Armada's cue, appearing in front of Lazelle and striking her in the chest with his elbow. He chased after her, catching her by the jacket as well and followed Armada. Within moments, Trunks could feel the air around him cool significantly. Lazelle gritted her teeth in his grip before trying to hit Trunks in the chest with her right knee. Trunks released her and pulled back enough to dodge the attack, then proceeded to spin around and nail Lazelle in the face with a kick that sent her flying backwards.

Trunks watched as Lazelle's body flew backward into a glacier, causing the ice to crack around her and crumble to the ground.. He quickly realized that Armada had led them into an icy tundra; whether that was her true intent or not Trunks didn't know. But he could barely feel Marice's ki, which told him they were a significant distance from their allies, which was good.

When Lazelle floated forward and emerged from the broken ice, she brushed some pieces of ice off of her arms and shoulders. “Well, that was rude,” she spat, before flying at Trunks to attack.

Lazelle was faster than Trunks expected based on how she had reacted to his initial attack, but he was not surprised. She threw open-palmed strikes with her hands, leading with the heel of her palm. Her movements were well calculated, but Trunks was able to block or at least deflect every attack. She suddenly fired a ki blast, a pale green in color similar to her eyes, and Trunks barely dodged it. Lazelle went straight into throwing a flurry of attacks at him again, using hands and feet. She wasn't connecting but she smirked, and the hair on the back of Trunks's neck rose.

He deflected her last hits and turned to see the same pale-green ki blast coming back at him. Trunks raised his arms, expecting to be hit and hopefully deflect some of the blast when Armada suddenly appeared and knocked the ki blast away with the armor on her forearm. Trunks turned his attention back to Lazelle, and Tessellus floated down to meet Armada at eye level behind Trunks.

Tessellus shrugged before launching another attack at Armada, but she was prepared for his assault. She ducked his blows and countered with a hard foot into his abdomen, sending him flying away. She wasted no time in chasing after him, catching up to him in time for him to stop. Armada immediately attacked, diving at him with both feet first from above. Tessellus managed to raise his arms to take the brunt of the kick, but the force of the blow still threw him down into the tundra below, his body disappearing beneath the snow while the frozen ground cracked beneath him from the force of the impact.

Without leaving the snow and ice he was buried under, Tessellus stood up and fired a large stream of ki at Armada. Armada quickly dodged, flying down toward to Tessellus to attack him. Just as she reached back to throw a punch at him, Tessellus turned toward her, breaking his arms apart, his ki breaking into two separate streams, one of which he directed at Armada who approached from his right. Armada's eyes widened at the last second as the ki exploded enveloping both of them.

Trunks had knocked Lazelle away from him again, but this time she righted herself in the air. Instead of charging back at him, she turned in the air and held her hands out behind her, as if she was reaching for something. Trunks flew at her, when he suddenly realized that one half of the pale green stream of ki that was shooting off into the sky behind Lazelle twisted and moved, like a snake suddenly changing direction.

The stream of ki moved toward Lazelle, and she turned while pointing her open palms at Trunks, the energy following her motions. Trunks changed course and flew up into the sky, the stream of ki chasing him. He charged his energy in both hands, before stopping and reaching above his head, firing down at the enemy's attack. His yellow energy collided with the green below, engulfing and disintegrating the attack.

No sooner had Tessellus's attack dissipated, Armada surged forth from the smoke and dust and tackled her enemy to the ground in the snow. She proceeded to punch him repeatedly in the face, landing several dozen hard hits before he flew backwards out from under her. She immediately gave chase, and he threw several dozen small ki blasts at her as he flew backward and up into the sky. She dodged all of his attacks easily, when one of those ki blasts circled around and hit her in the back. The resulting explosion was relatively small, but it slowed Armada enough that Tessellus had time to command the remaining ki blasts to change course and come back for her.

Several more ki blasts exploded in the same spot, and the resulting cloud of smoke grew in size. Suddenly Armada appeared halfway between the attack and Tessellus in the sky, with her own energy glowing in her hands. She pulled her hands apart in a wide arc, a line of white energy connecting her fists. Armada opened her fists and with a scream, and unleashed her energy. The entire plane between her hands exploded and fired up at Tessellus, a wedge of white energy hurtling toward him. The Rieve enforcer had no time to flee, so he crossed his forearms in front of his face and braced for impact.

As soon as her attack had dissipated, Armada flew up toward Tessellus, preparing to attack. Despite the damage to his clothes and the blood on his arms and face, Tessellus didn't appear too worse for wear. He grimaced and backed up slightly, countering Armada's punch with an uppercut of his own. His hit landed, and instead of using the opening to continue his assault, Tessellus grabbed Armada's outstretched right arm with both hands. With a quick spin, Tessellus swung Armada around and threw her down and away from himself.

Trunks was exchanging blows with Lazelle when she suddenly stopped blocking his attacks and simply dodged them. She moved backward in small leaps, and Trunks rushed forward into each gap to chase her. She was fast; fast enough to avoid him although he had yet to transform into a Super Saiyan. Trunks moved into another gap that Lazelle had left him when she suddenly turned and fled up into the sky. Before he could give chase, something slammed into his back and drove him down toward the ground.

Trunks landed on a plateau of deep snow, tumbling over himself a few times before finally skidding to a stop. Quickly realizing that their enemies weren't chasing them, Trunks pushed himself up to his feet, gulping down breaths of icy air. Armada had been throwninto him, and landed nearby. She pulled herself up and out of the snow, also rising to her feet.

“They've got better teamwork than we do,” Armada stated flatly, glancing to her left at her partner.

“Yeah, I noticed,” Trunks replied sarcastically. “They can also control each others energy after firing it,” he added.

Armada watched as their two enemies floated in the sky next to each other in the distance, clearly waiting to see what the mercenaries would do next. Armada wiped at some blood running from her mouth before looking to her ally once more.

“Let's switch dance partners,” Trunks said while looking at Armada.

“Fine by me,” Armada replied, sounding as out of breath as Trunks. She hesitated a moment before speaking once more. “You know that transformation of yours?” she asked, not waiting for a reply. “I think you should use that now,” she finished.

Trunks smirked before turning to look up at their enemies once more. “Funny, I was just thinking the same thing,” he said. With a roar Trunks unleashed his energy, transforming into a Super Saiyan. While he was clearly her ally in this fight, the overwhelming energy Trunks had still made Armada nervous. She didn't know where the hell he had ever gained that kind of strength, but in the moment she was grateful that he had it.

The mercenaries took off simultaneously, charging directly at their enemies. Armada flew slightly behind Trunks, which still impressed the Earthling. He was charging forth as a Super Saiyan, and she still had the speed to keep up? He smirked to himself; Lazelle would never know what hit her.

The mercenaries each aimed for the enemies they had been initially fighting, and then suddenly switched positions at the last second. The assassins weren't prepared for the swap, and simultaneously took hard hits from the mercenary duo. Trunks landed a powerful kick directly into Tessellus's abdomen, sending the assassin flying backward away from him. Armada nailed Lazelle in the face with a hard right elbow before following up with a flurry of punches while the woman had her guard down.

Lazelle's vision turned black upon the impact of the mercenary's elbow into the bridge of her nose right between her eyes. She wasn't prepared for the attack, and her defenses were down due to being caught off guard. She took several dozen punches and kicks to the face, chest and abdomen before she finally tried to make a move. After taking a hard punch to the left side of her jaw, Lazelle pushed herself forward and grabbed a fistful of the black suit the mercenary wore just above her collarbone.

Armada was surprised by the maneuver but not unprepared for it. Lazelle pressed forward, flying as hard as she could while holding into Armada. She aimed for a mountain in the distance, intending to drive the mercenary down into it. Armada caught on to her plan, and just before making impact with the mountainside, she smacked Lazelle's hand away from her and flew backward toward the mountain. Lazelle's eyes widened in shock as Armada threw her own back and shoulders into the icy rock behind her.

Using the mountain as a springboard, Armada pushed herself toward Lazelle while bringing up both of her feet. Lazelle couldn't stop or avoid the kit, and Armada stomped onto Lazelle's chest with both feet. The impact was too great for Lazelle, and she was suddenly silent as she clutched at her chest. Fairly certain that she had collapsed her enemy's lungs, Armada raised up both of her hands above her head, joining them into a fist that she brought down on top of Lazelle's head, sending her hurtling straight down toward the ground at the base of the mountainside.

Armada flew down toward Lazelle, preparing to stomp on her body. At the last moment, Lazelle rolled and flew out of the way, just in time to avoid being smashed into the icy rocks below the thick layer of ice and snow as Armada slammed into the ground.

Lazelle had hopped up to her feet and wiped at the river of blood leaking from her shattered nose. She was gasping for breath as Armada landed ten meters away, settling into an offensive stance. Lazelle reached down and pulled the stiletto from its sheath on her right thigh, quickly flipping it over in her hand until she held the blade pointed down along her right forearm.

Armada smirked. “I was wondering when you were to draw that,” she said, her dark gaze indicating her excitement at the Rieve enforcer's choice to use her knife.

“I wouldn't be smiling if I were you,” Lazelle replied. “I'm an expert with this weapon, and you're unarmed. You're at a significant disadvantage.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” Armada replied with a smirk.

Growling in response, Lazelle charged at Armada, swinging with both fists and the knife, even swapping which hand she held the knife in as she attacked. Armada used her forearm guards to block Lazelle's strikes with her stiletto while dodging and avoiding the rest of her hits.

After kicking Tessellus away, Trunks appeared behind the man's body as it flew through the air, planting a hard kick into the center of the gangster's back. The force was enough to stop Tessellus's momentum through the air, and he bent over forward and away from Trunks. Feigning injury for a moment, Tessellus reached into his jacket as he kept bending over, finally facing Trunks while upside-down in front of the demi-Saiyan. He immediately threw his hand out from his blazer in an arc, aiming for Trunks's face.

Trunks was confused by the movement until he realized that the assassin had thrown half a dozen knives at him from within his jacket. Unable to block the attack, Trunks reached up and drew his sword with a flash, slicing down and knocking away the knives. Tessellus immediately followed up his knife attack with a ki blast, which Trunks easily deflected with his sword, knocking it down toward the ground.

Not waiting for another attack, Trunks swung his sword down at Tessellus who was still upside-down in the air. Unable to back away in time, the assassin grabbed the black assault rifle hanging at his left hip and lifted it up, using it to block Trunks's sword. Metal clanged against metal as Trunks kept swinging with his sword, and Tessellus barely blocked in time. Sparks flew as pieces of the metal weapon were chipped away at the barrel, and the gangster knew he couldn't keep deflecting his enemy's attacks with the rifle.

Tessellus pushed the rifle forward before Trunks swung his sword, giving the gangster just enough room to charge and fire a quick pale green ki blast up at the mercenary. Trunks backed up and turned, easily dodging the attack. Tessellus rushed forward, righting himself in the air as he slammed the heel of his palm into the inside of Trunks's left wrist. The force was enough to loosen Trunks's grip on his sword, which Tessellus used to his advantage. He reached forward with his other hand and wrested Trunks's sword from his grasp.

With the sword in his possession, Tessellus immediately started swinging at Trunks. As a Super Saiyan, Trunks easily dodged the strikes, waiting for the right moment to counterattack. Tessellus put more force into a large downward swing, leaving himself open at the end of his strike. Tessellus was powerful and strong, that much Trunks could tell, but he couldn't maintain his speed when he struck with more power. After easily avoiding the swing, Trunks quickly elbowed Tessellus in the chest and then the face before grabbing the gangster's wrist holding his sword and sharply yanking it. Tessellus had no choice but to release the sword.

As the sword flipped and fell, Trunks snatched it up and with a move faster than Tessellus could follow, sliced up on the inside of the Rieve assassin's right arm and leg. The assassin was able to react as soon as he felt the attack slice his leg, and moved back enough that his arm was cut but not severed. The attack was still devastating to his ability to fight, and Tessellus immediately knew it. Without hesitation, he flew backward away from Trunks and reached behind his back with his left hand.

Trunks's eyes widened as the assassin pulled out a small silver orb that looked like a grenade. Trunks prepared to block or move away if Tessellus threw the grenade at him, but the Rieve enforcer instead pressed a button on the silver sphere before tossing it lazily into the air above them. The grenade exploded, but hardly made more than a small spark of smoke. As soon as Trunks realized what had really happened, his eyes widened in shock; he was too late to stop Tessellus's gambit.

Lazelle made another charge at Armada with the stiletto in her hand, aiming to stab the mercenary in the neck. Armada deflected the blow with the armor of her right forearm before snatching Lazelle's forearm with her left hand. With the assassin in her grasp, Armada spun the woman's arm around and slammed her into the ground, causing Lazelle to drop her weapon. Wasting no time, Armada immediately snatched up the knife from the ground and impaled Lazelle's right palm with the knife, burying it into the frozen ground.

“Aaaahh!” Lazelle screamed in pain, the blood from her hand staining the white snow. Armada leaned over the woman, looking down into her eyes while her left hand still held on to the handle of the long knife.

“Who's the expert now?” Armada asked before sadistically twisting the knife, causing Lazelle to scream out again in pain.

Lazelle glared at Armada before reaching up and firing an energy blast at point-blank range into the mercenary's face. Armada released the knife to raise up both arms and try to defend against the attack. Lazelle reached over and pulled the knife out of her hand the ground, before scrambling backward to get away from her adversary.

In her rush to get up, Lazelle left the knife behind on the ground near Armada. Blood dripped down into the snow from the gangster's injured right hand as she experimentally clenched and unclenched her fist. Armada stared at Lazelle with a stony gaze; she slowly settled into another stance, this time with her hands open.

The two women stared one another down without moving, both debating the next course of attack. Before either made their move, something shifted in the atmosphere. Armada felt a wave of somethingwash through her, and the moment it passed she realized that her energy had fallen out of her grasp. Minovsky field...!Armada realized with wide eyes.

Lazelle smirked before reaching over her head and pulling out the assault rifle that was hanging on her back. Standing ten meters away, Armada had little time to think to avoid being shot. She saw the assassin's knife still laying in the snow to her left. Just as Lazelle gripped her weapon with both hands and leveled it at Armada, preparing to fire, the mercenary dove down to the ground on her left and rolled, picking up the stiletto by the blade in her right hand as she rolled over it.

As soon as she was back up on her knees, Armada threw the knife at Lazelle. The long knife hit home and impaled Lazelle in the abdomen. She glanced down at the knife, her hand squeezing the trigger on her weapon. She fell backwards, her shots going wide of Armada before her back finally hit the ground.

As soon as Trunks realized what Tessellus had done, it was too late to do anything about. The Super Saiyan's hair faded, his aura dissipating around him as the Minovsky field took away his ability to manifest and control his ki. Tessellus suffered the same fate, and both men plummeted down to the ground below them. Trunks wasn't sure how far they fell, but he knew from the impact into the ice and snow below that knocked the wind out of him that it wasn't a trivial distance.

At some point the wind had picked up and started blowing snow that was already on the ground back into the air. Trunks clawed at the ground until he was able to force himself up to at least one knee. He looked around wildly; Tessellus was right in front of him when they fell but the assassin was suddenly nowhere to be seen. He couldn't have gone far,Trunks thought, listening hard for any sound that might give away his enemy's position.

Trunks forced himself to stand on both feet, glancing around him in all directions. The snow blowing around in the air made the area around him a white-out from twenty feet and farther out. Which meant that Tessellus would have to get close to him as well.

Hearing a click behind him, Trunks spun around to see Tessellus standing just within his field of vision, his assault rifle pointed directly at Trunks. Before Trunks had a chance to move, he heard gunshots – but they weren't from Tessellus's gun. The mobster's grey suit suddenly had several red stains in it which grew larger as he bled from several gunshot wounds to the center of his body.

Tessellus gritted his teeth as his body shook and he choked where he stood. His hands were unsteady and he couldn't keep his aim on the mercenary in front of him, but if he was going down he wasn't going without a fight. Tessellus fell backward, his right hand pulling the trigger on his weapon, firing several shots before the assassin's body collapsed into the snow.

“Trunks!!”

Trunks turned around to look up at Armada. She'd screamed his name and sounded panicked, but why? She was standing at the edge of an icy cliff, maybe thirty feet above him, holding what appeared to be the twin assault rifle to the one that Tessellus had just fired. Suddenly a pain jolted Trunks's attention from his comrade, and he slowly looked down, his right hand coming up to his abdomen. He touched his shirt and realized he was bleeding? Since when...? Trunks thought, coughing as he realized he'd been shot several times by Tessellus's weapon as the assassin fell.

Armada watched in horror as Trunks slowly fell to his knees, apparently in shock that he'd been shot. Despite her inability to fly to him, Armada didn't hesitate. She tried to run down the cliff-side, since it wasn't a straight drop, but quickly lost her footing on the ice, falling down and tumbling over herself down the cliff until she landed in the snow at the bottom.

Despite slamming her jaw against a jagged rock on the way down, which caused her to bleed from her mouth yet again, Armada scrambled to her feet and sprinted over to Trunks, who had fallen over onto his back.

“Trunks!” Armada shouted as she ran over to him and knelt next to him, sliding as she did so. She pushed open his jacket, trying to get a clear idea of how many gunshot wounds he had sustained. He had a trail of four bullet holes in his body, leading from his left hip up and across this abdomen to the right side of his chest. She reached down to her belt and opened a compartment, pulling out two small white tubes of bio-foam.

“That asshole shot me,” Trunks said as he looked up at Armada, his voice indicating his disbelief.

“I know,” Armada replied, tearing open one of the tubes with her mouth. She began pouring the bio-foam into the first of Trunks's gunshot wounds, before quickly moving on to the second. “I'm sorry,” Armada said as she finished with the first tube. She ripped open the second and began filling the last two of Trunks's wounds. “It's my fault; I didn't get him fast enough,” Armada explained, focused on the task at hand.

As soon as she finished filling the wounds with bio-foam, Armada leaped up and sprinted away from Trunks. He was going to ask her what she was doing, when he saw that she had stopped near the spot where Tessellus's body had fallen beneath the snow. After a few seconds of grabbing whatever she could, Armada ran back over to her comrade and knelt beside him once more. She had grabbed the white shirt, grey vest and jacket from the assassin's body, all three now littered with blood stains and burns. Armada began ripping the material apart, starting with the shirt.

“What are you doing?” Trunks asked as she worked. He'd never been shot before, but it hurt a hell of a lot more than he thought it would. He did his best to maintain somewhat normal breathing, but he knew it would be much harder once the adrenaline of the fight wore off.

“We have to get out of here,” Armada explained, not bothering to look at him. “You can't move though, because the bio-foam is keeping you from bleeding out. If you move around too much, the foam breaks down and falls apart, and you start bleeding again,” she explained, struggling as she moved on to tearing apart the grey blazer.

Once she had ripped the clothing to her satisfaction, Armada had Trunks sit up slowly and hold on to her neck. She reached around his abdomen, wrapping his body with the ripped clothing she had taken from their fallen enemy. “We need to keep your wounds wrapped as tight as we can to minimize the blood loss,” she explained, pulling hard as she worked.

“This hurts like hell,” Trunks said, grimacing as she pulled again, a searing pain shooting up his spine from one of the lower gunshot wounds.

“I know,” Armada replied flatly as she worked. “I'm sorry.”

“No, I get it,” Trunks replied, his voice tight. He was never a big fan of pain, but he could have sworn that injuries far worse than a few gunshot wounds hurt way less when he had control of his energy.

Armada finished her work and slowly set Trunks down to lay on his back in the snow again. He noticed that her hands were completely red with blood – his blood? He wasn't sure. He looked up at her and caught her eyes, and her expression frightened him. She was scared, and he'd rarely seen that look on her. “Can you take out the Minvosky generator now?” Trunks asked, hoping that once he had his energy it would be a quick trip back to the ship.

Armada grimaced and her gaze fell away from his, her fists clenching in her lap. “It's not a Minovsky generator,” she began, “it's a Minovsky bomb. It creates a temporary Minovsky field by flooding the area with Minovsky particles,” Armada explained, his visage still sullen.

Trunks knew what he needed to ask, but he dreaded the question. “How temporary?”

His comrade's eyes finally met his again. “Too long,” she answered. “We have to go,” she said, rising to stand next to him.

The Earthling opened his mouth to ask her what she wasn't telling him, when she reached down and pulled him up into a sitting position. While still holding on to his right hand, Armada turned her back to him and crouched, pulling his right arm around her neck. He wanted to ask her what she was doing, but she answered before he had the chance to open his mouth to speak. “You can't walk, so grab on,” she explained.

“Armada,” Trunks tried to protest.

“Just shut up and listen to me!” she shouted angrily. “There is no time, so just grab on!” she reiterated. The wind chose that particular moment to pick up and howl in the distance, as if the elements themselves were on her side. Trunks acquiesced, and wrapped both of his arms around her shoulders.

Armada stood, and Trunks's grip on her tightened as he tried to stand on his feet. She reached back and grabbed both of his legs, her hands burying into his pants, and leaned forward while pulling his legs up on either side of her hips. She struggled for a moment to get a decent grip on his legs, and eventually settled with wrapping her hands around the outside and under his thighs. Finally steady on her feet, Armada thought for a moment before finally walking forward, passing by Tessellus's body as she trudged through the snow.

Despite the pain and panic trying to creep into him, Trunks was still conscious enough to understand what was happening. He didn't say anything as Armada walked, but he noticed when her footing slipped on the ice that was undoubtedly underneath the snow that rose to her knees and sometimes higher. After about fifteen minutes and more near-falls than Trunks could count, he couldn't take it anymore.

“Armada stop,” Trunks suddenly said. “Let me walk with you,” he pleaded. He couldn't take this, he couldn't watch her struggle to carry him when he felt like he could walk on his own two feet.

“If you walk you'll destroy the bio-foam and bleed out,” Armada snapped at him.

Trunks fell silent for a moment. “How far do we have to go?” he asked, obviously referring to the range of the Minovsky bomb.

“I don't know,” Armada replied, her voice losing its hard edge.

Trunks didn't press for more answers. He could tell from her tone that she didn't have them, and his goal wasn't to make her feel bad about their situation. As she marched through the snow, Trunks slowly felt himself nodding off. The adrenaline from the fight was wearing off, and the shock from being shot was setting in. Eventually his head fell forward, against the back of Armada's right shoulder, and he was lost to reality for a time.

-+-

“Something's wrong,” Laiserta said flatly, breaking the silence that had descended between the three women as they worked.

“We know,” Naya replied, her tone morose. “We could be killed at any moment,” she added.

“No,” Laiserta turned to Naya, the retired general sitting at the ship's main console in the bridge while Laiserta stood stood off to her right. “Not that,” Laiserta explained. “If wonder boy and spider-head lost, then whoever killed them would have already come here and killed us.” Naya turned and looked at Laiserta. “But they haven't. That means that Trunks and Armada are still alive,” Laiserta finished.

“We don't know that,” Naya replied, afraid to hold out hope that after sixteen hours that her comrades would suddenly appear.

“Either way, someone comes back for us,” Laiserta countered. “Either our allies come back to us, or our enemies come to finish us off. But no one has showed up,” she said, taking a step toward Naya. Laiserta spared a glance at Marice before looking at Naya once more. “That means they're still alive, but that they can't get to us. And what would stop them from coming back?”

“A Minovsky field?” Marice quietly asked from the opposite end of the bridge.

“Exactly!” Laiserta exclaimed, smiling at Marice. She turned to Naya once more. “We gotta get the ship's scanners online. If we can scan the planet, then we can find them,” she finished.

Naya nodded at Laiserta. “Okay,” she acquiesced. “Let's focus on repairing the long-range scanners. We should be good to take off when we're ready, although we haven't tested it.”

Laiserta laughed before moving to sit at the console to Naya's right. “The true test will be that we don't blow up when we try to launch this thing.”

-+-

Trunks opened his eyes, blinking several times as he'd suddenly forgotten where he was and what was going on. It didn't take long for him to remember that he'd been shot, since the wounds still burned despite the freezing temperatures around him. Trunks lifted his head and took a look around; Armada was still carrying him on her back and they were still within an icy tundra. The scenery was a bit different though, instead of mountains and glaciers, Armada trudged on through snow up to her knees without any visible mountains in the distance. The sky was somewhat dark, however; Trunks could tell it was still daylight outside but the sun was blotted out by thick clouds and snow blowing through the air creating near white-out conditions.

Trunks tightened his grip on Armada's shoulders, and shortly after doing so noticed how much she trembled as she moved. At first he thought she was just shivering, a natural reaction in the cold and the body's defense to keep itself warm. But soon after she took a few slower steps, he realized that she was shaking because her muscles were spasming as she walked – spasming from overexertion and exhaustion.

“Armada,” Trunks said, his voice coming out weaker than he'd intended. “Armada,” he repeated with more force, “please stop. You need to rest,” he added, hoping to talk some reason into her.

“No,” she replied flatly, not missing a beat.

“You can't keep going like this,” Trunks tried to argue with her.

“There's no time to rest,” Armada replied, turning her head slightly to her right to glance at Trunks from the corner of her eyes.

“Damnit Armada, I can feel how badly you're shaking because you've pushed yourself too far,” Trunks responded, her refusal to listen to him pissing him off. She turned to face forward and ignored his words. “You need to stop and rest now!” Trunks shouted, feeling the anger well up in him at her stupid, stubborn actions.

Armada stopped walking and growled. “You dumb bastard, do you really think I'm going to take orders from you?!” she screamed, not bothering to try and look at the man she carried on her back. “Do us both a favor and shut the hell up!” she angrily spat. Without waiting for a reply from Trunks, Armada started walking, sending a clear signal that she didn't want to discuss the matter further.

Trunks fell silent, but not because she had told him to. Rather, he was stewing in his own anger at her. She wanted to walk until she passed out from exhaustion? Fine then, he thought bitterly. Have it your way. As Armada walked and Trunks retreated into his own head, he finally realized how stiff his body had become. He felt like he hadn't moved in hours, but he couldn't have been out that long, right? He didn't know how long a day was on Jakotsu, and while the sun was blocked out by thick cloud-cover and heavy snow, it was still daylight outside.

The freezing climate cooled Trunks's anger, and he knew only one person who could tell him with any reliability exactly how long he had been unconscious. Was he asleep? Did he pass out? He wasn't sure. Regardless, he knew that Armada would know the answer. Perhaps she would talk if it wasn't about him telling her to stop.

“How long was I out?” Trunks asked, his gaze and voice equally sullen. Armada didn't respond right away, and Trunks wondered if perhaps she hadn't heard him over the roar of the wind. He finally opened his mouth to repeat his question when she stopped him short.

“All night,” Armada replied flatly, her voice devoid of any emotion.

Trunks's eyes widened in shock. All night...? Not knowing how long a day was on Jakotsu, Trunks couldn't be sure exactly how long that was, but still – he was out long enough for the sun to set and rise again? He'd lost track of time before, usually back when he'd been badly injured fighting the cyborgs, but this was a first for him, completely losing himself to another day. Then again, he'd never been this injured and unable to leave to get treatment. Were the gunshot wounds he'd suffered really so bad?

Before Trunks had a chance to really form his emotions into a coherent thought, he felt Armada slip. Her left foot slid forward down a small embankment, and she was too slow to move to make up for the mistake. She fell forward, landing face-down into the snow at the bottom of the small hill, Trunks laying on her back just the same as she'd been carrying him. She pushed herself up above the snow, and gingerly pushed Trunks off of her. He let go, rolling off to the right.

Armada gasped for breath, barely holding her head above the snow. Trunks watched as her arms shook, the muscles completely spent and begging for rest. She gritted her teeth, slowly dragging her legs forward until she was at least propped up on her hands and knees. He felt sick watching her; she'd carried him for Kami knew how long and was fighting to keep going. He couldn't take it, he couldn't watch her suffer on his behalf.

“Just go,” Trunks said and let out a heavy breath, holding himself up above the snow by leaning back on his elbows. “Leave me here and go. I'm slowing you down too much,” he explained, his tone morose to match his mood. If he wasn't going to make it out of the tundra, out of the Minovsky field and off of Jakotsu alive, he'd be damned if he going to drag Armada to her death with him.

Armada's gaze turned over to Trunks, and he recognized something in her dark blue eyes but he wasn't sure what it was exactly. “Hey asshole,” she hissed, “shut up.” She was still shaking and breathing hard, but she glared at him with a determination Trunks wasn't sure he'd seen from her before.

“No point in both of us dying,” Trunks explained, letting his head fall backward into the snow. He stared up at the snow being blown around in the sky above him. “You can make it on your own. Carrying me is too much to ask,” he added, his eyes narrowing at the sky above while he clenched his right fist.

“Stop... stop talking...”

Trunks was stunned by Armada's words. He forced his head back up again to look at her. She glared at him as she forced herself to her feet, swaying a moment when she finally stood. She took one step toward Trunks before reaching down and pulling him up off the ground by the collar of his blue Capsule Corporation jacket.

Trunks barely got his feet under him to stand when Armada released his jacket and turned her back to him while taking his left arm in her left hand. He was standing slightly right-of-center relative to his comrade, and she turned her head so she could look at him. “For once in your life,” she began, her voice low but hard, “just shut the hell up and listen to me!”

Despite the high winds, her voice seemed to echo in the distance. Or was it just in his own head that it echoed? Trunks wasn't sure. But the way she had scolded him, the fiery look in her eyes, and the overall ridiculousness of the situation when he was willing to lay down his life so she could escape – it all came together in a swift moment and made him crack.

He started laughing.

Armada continued to glare at Trunks, though she said nothing. She was confused by his outburst and not sure what to say to him. He continued laughing for a moment before finally coming back down to reality. “I wish I'd known sooner how to piss you off this badly,” Trunks laughed, a sarcastic smile on his face. Armada continued to glare at him when he leaned forward and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, pulling her back against his chest and leaning forward to rest his forehead against the back of her head. “Okay, you win,” Trunks said lowly, his mood falling. “I'll shut up now.”

After taking a knee to get him hitched up onto her back again, and securing her arms under his legs, Armada began walking once more. She still struggled, and Trunks could still feel how exhausted she was, but he was exhausted too – he had already lost the will to argue with her. He wasn't sure how much more he wanted to fight her when she was so determined to get them both out.

No more than maybe a dozen steps from where she had fallen, Armada spoke. “We have come too far for me to leave your ass here,” she said, her voice stony yet tired. “So just shut up and let me handle this,” she finished. Her tone said otherwise, but Trunks understood her words to be a plea for him to trust her. He had asked for her trust on Belos, and she had given it to him. Didn't he owe her the same?

-+-

The sun had long since disappeared, and Armada stumbled forward in the dark. Whether the stars, or a moon or two above could provide any light, she didn't know. The clouds providing the snowstorm blocked out any light from above. If nothing else, at least she had cleared the mountainous region. So while the trek was slow due to the darkness and her own exhaustion, she didn't have to worry about falling off of a cliff and down a mountain.

Armada hesitated as she stepped forward with her right foot. As soon as her foot hit solid ground under the snow, her muscles gave out and she fell forward, landing on her left knee. She heard Trunks mutter something to her, but she couldn't hear him. All she saw was a tunnel of snow before her, spinning and swirling into a vortex of darkness. She wasn't sure if what she saw was reality or just her own tired mind and eyes which couldn't see straight, but it didn't matter. “Shut up, asshole,” Armada said, her voice weak to her own ears. She just needed to get up and take another step forward, that's all. It was such a simple thing, but her body started to feel like the blood was frozen in her veins.

If she keeps pushing herself like this, we're both going to die, Trunks thought bitterly. He didn't want to die, and he didn't want Armada to die either. Yet, a part of him was grateful to her. She refused to leave him behind, and there was a part of him that swelled with pride at the thought. He would never have given her that kind of credit even just weeks ago. Something had changed; something had shifted between them and he still wasn't sure what it was. Maybe it was trust. Or respect. Whatever it was, he finally believed that she was on his side; she was his ally, his comrade, his partner, and she wasn't going to leave him behind.

Incredibly, Armada found the strength to rise to her feet again and continue walking forward. She swayed slightly when a powerful gust of wind pushed at her from her left, but she didn't fall. She gritted her teeth as she walked; she'd be damned if out of all the things she had been through in her life, that the thing to kill her would be a damn blizzard. What a joke.

The burst of determination that got her back to her feet didn't last long. After moving forward maybe another ten meters, Armada collapsed again, falling onto her hands and knees. Since Armada released Trunks's legs to catch herself on her hands, the demi-Saiyan was basically on his knees behind her while his arms were still wrapped around the front of her neck and shoulders. Trunks grimaced as he realized they weren't going to make it. He released his grip on his comrade and pushed himself away from her, falling into the snow and rolling onto his back.

Trunks stared up into the darkness above, struggling to keep his eyes open. I'm sorry mom, Trunks thought, his mother's image appearing in his mind's eye. The worst part was knowing that she would never know what happened to him. He went to Ute one day and never came home. If nothing else, Trunks hoped that Neis and Lowell would keep his mother safe. The androids were dead but that didn't mean the Earth had suddenly become a safe, peaceful place. There was still a lot of work to do. Work that Trunks would never make it back to help with, or even see.

He stared up into the sky as the darkness above seemed to move and morph, and suddenly something glowed. He couldn't tell what it was, when suddenly the light shot down straight into his eyes. The burning brightness made him close his eyes, and he was lost to the world.

-+-

Trunks jolted awake, startled by the feeling that he somehow needed to get up. He gasped and turned slightly, to see black hair and red eyes staring down at him with a soft smile.

“Hey,” Laiserta called sweetly, standing at his bedside. “You're okay. We're on our way back to Ute now,” she explained.

Trunks's eyes left Laiserta's to glance around the room momentarily. He found himself in one of the beds in back of the infirmary, blankets covering him up to his neck. His limbs were heavy, almost like something was weighing him down. It took a moment for him to realize that it was the drowsiness associated with medicine. Probably something to help him deal with the pain.

Suddenly Trunks remembered what had happened and his eyes widened in shock before shooting up to meet Laiserta's gaze. “Armada,” he started but she cut him off.

“She's fine,” Laiserta answered. “She's still out, but she's in bed in her room. Marice is watching her.” Trunks wanted to say something, but his mind was sluggish and he couldn't form the thoughts into words. “We'll be in Ute in a few hours,” Laiserta added. “Get some rest. We've got you,” she smiled, preparing to step away.

“Wait,” Trunks managed to force out, his voice hoarse. Laiserta didn't move, simply looking down into his eyes while she listening for whatever he was going to say next. “How much farther did we have to go?” Trunks asked. Laiserta's eyebrows tightened in a manner that said she was confused, and Trunks recognized the action. “To get out of the Minovsky field,” he explained.

Laiserta's eyes fell and she smiled sadly. “Just get some rest, okay?” The Taydran woman turned and walked out of the infirmary, switching off the lights when she exited.

Trunks's right fist clenched as his eyes fell shut. Laiserta's reaction was enough alone to tell him that unless their comrades had showed up when they did, he and Armada would never have made it out alive.

-+-

Thanks for reading! Please leave a review, I would love to know what you think, good or bad. :] I hope the action wasn't too confusing in this chapter. It's a challenge for me to write multiple characters fighting at the same time in the same area, so I hope I did decently enough that the visuals are communicated through properly. It's actually getting harder to write these chapters as we get closer to the most important parts of this fanfic, as there are sooooo many things I want to include but there's just not enough “time.” By 'time' I mean that I would bore you poor readers to death with books of backstory and setup when the meat of the fic, so-to-speak, should be the main plot and not what character X was doing ten years ago. So please tell me if I'm dwelling too much on any one point or scene. I try to strike a balance between covering the scene and relaying all of the important aspects of the scene (including characters' feelings in addition to items germane to the plot) while still moving the story forward. I know how frustrating it is as a reader to read something and feel like the author is wasting your time and not moving the plot forward. So I hope I'm not doing that.

Hopefully I will be posting some updated character sheets to my DeviantArt soon, so keep an eye out there. I will leave a note like this on a chapter once those are uploaded, so you can get a good idea of what many of our main characters (and villains!) look like. :]

Please leave a review if you have the time, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you again!

-Silvia

Today's lyrical content courtesy of “Unity” by Shinedown.