As Jack fought back with the remote turret, two orange lights appeared from the right side of the screen followed by two explosions coming from the left side of the mantis; lastly a huge red explosion that rocked the Ursa. The comms of Ursa rang, and Fiddlesticks' voice came over the speakers, "Hey guys we drew enough attention over this way," Jack sighed it was fiddlesticks that saved them, "landing and loading up the ship isn't going to be an option. I'm going to put the back ramp down, you're going to need to drive up into the ship when moving."
Jack looked over his shoulder and out the cabin, "Guys, people in seats buckle up, guys on the floor… grab something and brace I guess!" Jack depowered the remote turret to give more roof clearance incase of a jump. The Valkyrie slowly flew into view above the Ursa and gently coasted in front of them. Once the ramp lowered down it kicked up rocks into the Ursa's windshield, Jaxon used this to make sure he was in the approach window. "Alright here we go!" Jaxon sped up so get into the Valkyrie, as they went up the ramp Jack saw that Fiddlesticks put up the flap to stop them from smashing into the actual ship. "Everyone braces!!" Jack yelled.
The Ursa hit the flap and settled, and the back ramp closed. Everyone was silent with a sense of ease sweeping over the group. But the sound of shots hitting the shields of the Valkyrie shattered that calm. Jaxon and Jack jumped up from the driver's seats and ran out to the side of the Ursa to get turrets. As Jaxon went up the ladder to get to the remote turret, Jack showed everyone where the jump seats were and then headed to the bottom manned turret. As the seat slid down into place for the manned turret, the view below him made him extremely nervous, Jack was always afraid of heights, and seeing the glass below him did ease those nerves. Flying a ship sure, no problem, but nothing but glass under him, no thank you.
The ships that were chasing them snapped him out of his spell, he couldn't let his fears keep him from defending these innocent people. Both Jaxon and Jack started lighting up the enemy. Fiddlesticks' voice came over the internal intercom, "They are quantum interdicting us, focus on the mantis first!" Both turrets located the mantis and opened fire. The explosion that followed was beautiful, the red mixed with the cyan, "absolutely gorgeous" With that obstacle out of the way, they aimed the ship towards the Pyro gateway's location and activated the quantum drive. Both of the gunners sigh with relief, they got out of there with relatively zero issues. They heard cheering from the jump seats, they did it, they got their people out of there.
Jack open comms with Jaxon and Fiddlesticks, "Guys, so since we weren't on the registry for being prisoners, we didn't receive a crime stat for escaping. However, everyone in the back did, so we will probably have the UEE and or bounty hunters after us when we get to the gateway." They would probably need to fight when they get there. They were mentally preparing for the fight ahead, Jaxon and Fiddlesticks went to go hug and see their families. The silence in the bottom turret weighed on Jack, his actions and emotions swelled up.
He took his helmet off so he could wipe away the tears, Jack didn't want to kill that man, but he was just defending himself, right? But what if he went for the leg rather than the chest. What if he just shot in the air to scare them. "Why… why did I kill him…" after hearing the quantum drive spool down as it got closer to the target, he decided to cry about it later. He had a job to do.
Everyone got seated and strapped in again, one last push before being home free. When they exited quantum Jack told fiddle sticks to just punch it until they got to the gateway. "You know kid, since we have literally gone to a different universe together you could just call me by my first name."
"Well, to be honest fiddlesticks, I actually don't know your name."
"Oh, well its Cris"
"Gotcha, well, let's do this Cris!"
As they approached the gateway, someone was opening the gateway as they approached. As long as they made it in, they were good. Two fighters came up behind the Valkyrie and targeted them, and missile alarms started blaring. Cris lit up a ton of flares, but they did nothing, "Shoot, they must be EMs!" Both turrets tried to shoot them down to no avail. Jack's eyes widened as he saw one of the 5 orange lights grow closer to him. The last thing he saw was a white flash before hitting his head on the back of the seat.
Jack's eyes fluttered open, his head was pounding. He could hear people talking over the comms, but he couldn't make out what he was hearing. He looked around and saw the turret he was in was beaten up and the glass was gone, he was exposed. He frantically hit the button to send him back up into the ship, but nothing happened. Looking up he could tell that the mechanism that brought up the seat was damaged. "Guys, the turret is banged up, and the glass is gone, I'm completely exposed." Jack could barely make out what Cris said, but it sounded like he asked if they should abandon and head back. "No, don't turn back, if this is our window, take it!" He yelled over the engine noise.
The quantum drive roared to life as they entered the gateway just before it closed. The ship began to shake violently. That wasn't abnormal, but the shaking that the turret was experiencing was concerning to say the least. It began to rattle so hard Jack's head began to hurt. He felt a snap and a drop, after that everything went into slow motion. The Valkyrie above him began to slowly lift away from him, He could tell his seat got pulled out of the broken turret, his heart felt like it was lifting out of his chest. His life flashed before his eyes, within that millisecond amount of time he came to terms with it. He moved his eyes over to the right to see a chunk of the hull that was now sticking out, he was heading right for it.
"Mom… I'm sorry I couldn't make it back home"
Then there was nothing, everything blinked black, feeling gone.
Klescher Rehabilitation Facility:
Joker walked out of the facility's entrance to the burning and rubble ridden outer exterior. "Well, the bombs were a success, what a fantastic showing" He looked down at his mobiGlas to see a beeping blue light, Joker answered the call. "Howdy boss!" The voice on the other line said one word,
"Report"
The tone of the caller made Joker lose his joking tone. He looked back towards the entrance to see the lines of people going to the waiting cutlass steels. "Yeah, we got some new recruits, probably thirty to forty."
"Losses"
The scene in front of the facility had multiple ship carcasses, most from the security forces, some from Joker's crew. "I would have to say probably around ten losses, seven being fighters, and three being ground crew." The sound of ships exiting out of quantum above the facility. "Sorry boss looks like we have more company-" before he could finish his sentence the caller hung up.
Looking up into the cloudy sky, Joker could see UEE navy reinforcements, they were here to aid in the recapture of Klescher. After a deep sigh, he opened the comms for the crew, "get everyone into the ships post haste, we have company. For my personal cutlass, we have room for people on it, load them up too."
Shorty all the cutlasses flew low and fast traversing the landscape elegantly away from Klescher. Joker sat there quietly thinking as they flew, one of his subordinates walked up to him, it was one of his "Hands". "Sir, when you were making your opening speech, I noticed that someone was watching from one of the ventilation shafts. Shortly after I noticed him, he went into the vent and the fan turned on after him. Joker looked up the Hand, "Eh, its fine, one less body for the pile. He escaped death this time, thank you for the report." As the Hand walked away Joker thought to himself. This mystery person knew about the broken vent and the tunnels to escape. Only experienced criminals knew that way out, maybe this person could be of aid to the crew one day. The sound of the Cutlass' quantum drive spooling brough him from his thoughts. He stood up and looked out the cockpit's window. "All pilots, activate QT drive when ready."