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In a move unexpected by every world and organization, the hackers had staged a full-force attack in a disputed area of space. Even worse, it was under Fallen Sky's protection, so they had no choice but to send out a massive force to defend any ships in the vicinity. The Albatross was one of the ships on the front line, although Wendy, Cratis, Jill, and Miss Star were in headquarters.

Isa had sent out most of the battle-ready Fallen Sky vessels to intercept the hackers, "How is everything going? Reports?"

Marie scanned through screens and screens of data, "Nothing too surprising. In fact, it looks like we haven't lost a single ship..."

"Impossible." Mira furrowed her brow, "In any large-scale conflict, there will always be casualties on each side, no matter how small. And since that was the majority of their fleet..."

Isa took off her hat and set in onto the table, "Something isn't right. Send the order to get the rest of the ships we have ready. Have we heard anything from our people?"

Marie shook her head, "Not a peep... I don't like this."

The Goddess was silent, "I cannot sense... wait... there! Look, on the scanners!" She brought up a hologram and just as they were beginning to suspect, a suspicious signal was interfering with communications. For how long they couldn't say, "We need to get everyone ready!"

Wendy and the rest of Zero Unit burst in, "What's happening? Everyone is sitting on their asses out there!"

The order had been sent for everyone to be on high alert over an hour ago, not a single Fallen Sky mercenary should have been sitting, unless it was in a cockpit, "We've been had..."

"Re..rt. R...ort. Al..tr...s.. down... Albatross down!"

The first report to come in was scattered, and yet sent a chill down everybody's spine. It echoed throughout headquarters, and the chill was followed by a pause in time. The Albatross had been shot down, the invincible ship captained by Dante.

"Impossible... that can't be..."

"Isa... we need a ship... there may be survivors..." Wendy growled, "Come on!"

Isa put her hat onto her head, "Wendy, take a ship. Everyone that can hear me! Listen! Find a ship and get up to the battle immediately! Tear apart everyone in sight! Marie, shout the damn orders to them, I don't want that signal to interfere. Goddess, Mira, Rachel, I want you to find the source and punish whoever is responsible!"

Captain Isa's prize was the Siren, an enormous battleship that could hold hundreds of crew mates, housed cannons ranging from small anti-aircraft to destroyer cannons that could decimate colonies and countries alike. The only problem was that it took hours to be fully ready for combat, though the mere presence was usually enough to deter enemies. She made her way to the hangar and ordered her people to get it ready.

...................................................

Wendy and around thirty other cruisers flew full speed towards the battlezone, fearing the worst yet hoping for the best. The flight was quiet, even communication between the ships was minimal. Losing Dante was a major hit to morale, and the thought of fighting on without his leadership was almost too much to bear, so everyone agreed silently to not talk until the facts were certain.

As though someone was looking out for them, a flaming missile the size of a ship whizzed by, "What the hell was that?" Wendy hit the button to open a channel with headquarters, "Hey, something weird is heading towards you, maybe a stray projectile, or a ship that didn't survive..."

"Wendy, look..." Each of the ships in the fleet used all of their warp fuel reserves to get to the battle faster, but when they arrived they found nothing but scraps of metal, glass, weapons, and bodies. Miss Star and Jill typed frantically on the unfamiliar computers, while Cratis kept her eyes peeled for anything amiss.

Suddenly, a text transmission came in. According to the console, it was sent to all Fallen Sky ships and computers, both military and civilian, "You morons!" and like that, it was gone without a trace.

.................................................

The Siren was taking fire from every direction. It had just left orbit, and a secret fleet of attack ships was waiting. The battle was a distraction, the hackers were throwing everything they had at Fallen Sky, "Status!" Isa was panicked. The Siren was the only ship left at the base, and the ground-to-air turrets weren't the most accurate.

"Shields at 50% and falling slowly, small cannons online. Dammit! A generator just blew! Sabotage?!"

The Siren hosted five generators. Each worked in unison to bring every system and weapon of the ship online. With one down, The Siren would go into emergency mode and focus on life support and shields first. As the shields had no time to recover, it meant that the bigger weapons would never function, "Dammit! Fire with what we have! We need to hole them off!"

An explosion rattled the ship, "Captain! Two more generators blew! Shields are dropping too fast! We're at 30%! External fins and towers are unprotected!"

She hated to admit defeat, she had to a while back and nothing good came from it until Dante entered the picture. And now he was dead, there really was no hope. The red lights and emergency buzzing pierced the ears of the crew, "EMERGENCY. SHIELDS CRITICAL. EVACUATION RECOMMENDED."

"Dante... do we really have control over our own fate, or are we slaves? I wish I could see things your way for once. Everyone... abandon ship..." A single tear fell from her eye. It was her duty to see The Siren to her final resting place, even if that happened to be in pieces.

"Hull breached! Life support failing! Captain, get to the escape shuttles!"

"It is my duty to go down with the ship... all of you go now." Isa was defeated in mind and spirit. That made it all the more surprising when the crew in the cockpit grabbed her by the arms, dragged her down the hall, and tossed her into the escape shuttle, "What are you doing?!"

The door shut and a radio transmission came through, "Captain, you're more important than this ship... you have a responsibility for the entire planet and for Fallen Sky. Please, don't give up!"

She was speechless as the shuttle shot off and rocketed towards the surface. Her last sights of The Siren were nothing more than flames and explosions. And a strange fiery projectile crashing onto one of the hacker's ships. A voice transmission boomed through the shuttle, "I'll tear you all limb from limb!"

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"Dante! Life support stable, all power directed to the cannon and shields!" Titus was mashing on the console in front of him, "Fire at will!"

Chey smashed down the big red "FIRE" button as quickly as she could, "Think they could take us out?!"

Sere monitored the ships resources, "Everything stable, Angel, anything strange?"

Mere minutes ago, during the Albatross' triumphant though costly victory, Angel intercepted a message from the hackers asking for a report in addition to announcing their attack on Fallen Sky headquarters. As the fuel reserves were low and power was limited, Dante sent a message. Angel replied that something was jamming the messages and therefore they couldn't get through. In a quick and reckless plan, Dante ordered his remaining crew to get to the cockpit and strap themselves in. He directed Angel to cut off any non-vital use of energy, including but not limited to: gravity, food storage, general communications, and processing power. That small bit of conserved energy was enough to give the Albatross the kick in the pants (Dante's words) to get in gear and rocket towards headquarters. With only weapon shields, the sheer speed and cutting through atmospheres caused the hull to overheat just enough to melt through a hacker ship.

"Everything stable. Minimizing resources."

Ratchet typed on her personal computer, "We have maybe an hour before we all suffocate, better make that time count!"

Dante took a calm and collected breath, "They wanted a fight, they found one. Leave no survivors!"

The hackers had calculated this attack, making sure that their most powerful ships directly attacked Fallen Sky headquarters. The problem was, those ships had little in the way of shields and the Albatross' unique cannon cut through them like warm butter. Unfortunate for the hackers but very fortunate for the Albatross, the cluster of ships was positions so that a single blast from a cannon took down multiple ships.

In the chaos, communications among the hacker ships were confused at best, and when a few tried to escape they usually collided into their other ships or into the Albatross' beam, "Chey, can you slow down? This is getting kinda sad..."

In ten minutes, they had wiped out the enemy fleet, "Uh... should we... land?"

Angel took over and was able to land the Albatross near to Isa's escape shuttle. She was on her knees, gazing up at the sky. Chey and Ratchet fell out of the door, while Titus leaped over them to vomit onto the grass. Sere shortly after collapsed onto the pile. Dante meanwhile stepped out, jumped over the women, avoided the vomit, and stood in front of the broke Isa, "Stand up."

She gazed upon him and saw the myriad of bruises, cuts, and the exhaustion in his eyes. The reserve fleet of Fallen Sky ships had finally arrived and began to land in rushed and dangerous ways. A distant shout of "Dante!" broke the silence and footsteps approached.

Wendy was about to hug Dante, but he slapped her. Hard. She fell to the ground, "I'll deal with you in a minute. You. Stand. Up." A crowd had gathered, and Isa found the strength to stand on her own two feet. She was greeted with a right straight to the face.

"Dante! What are you-"

"Stand up."

Isa was stunned, but did her best to return to her feet. Once again, she felt Dante's fist against her face. This time she wasn't so sure she would recover.

"Stand up!"

Fallen Sky mercenaries were unsure of how to react. Some started to raise guns, but they weren't sure if they should shoot. Or even if it would kill Dante at all, "Hey, she's had enough Dante!" Marie came running out from the main headquarters building, "Lay off!" Dante raised his pistol and aimed it at Marie, "What the..."

"This is between me and her, her and me. Stand aside."

Isa was standing up, not of her own will, but due to some unseen force. She lost her crew, her ship, and now she was being humiliated in front of her soldiers, her people, her friends, her family. This time she reached up to grab Dante's fist.

He wasn't a fool though, her weakened self couldn't have stopped his punch, but his intention wasn't to hurt her, "Good, I needed to know you had that fire in your eyes." Isa's expression was one of pure hatred, "Now listen closely, because I won't repeat myself. You lost your crew. You lost your ship. You almost lost every life here due to your poor decisions. That falls onto your shoulders, nobody else is responsible. You can either lie down and die, or pull your shit together and make things right."

"Isa! We found the spy!" Mira and the Goddess had tied up a young, nervous man, "He had been changing messages and putting out that signal. What should we do?"

"Well Isa? Grow a pair or run off and rot in a ditch."

Isa growled, not at Dante, not at the spy, but at herself. She whispered, "... thank you..." And walked over to the man, "Keep him tied up. Feed him scraps and dirty water, force it if you have to. Just enough to keep him alive until we make our move.

"And what will that be?" Rachel was busy tending to the obvious wounds of the crew of the Albatross.

Isa nodded, "I will not forget those that died today, not my personal crew nor the lives of any Fallen Sky warrior. We will build a monument for them, but first... make repairs. Dante, reinforce the Albatross any way you see fit. Marie... send the order. I want her up and ready."

Marie smirked, "Oooohhh... I think she'll get her grand debut and a wonderful first target."

"Mira, we found their planet... I want you to open a diplomatic line with the hackers. Tell them that there are two options. They surrender and we obliterate them all, man woman and child, or they fight and we do the same."

Mira was the perfect person to intimidate, as Dante knew from experience, "Care to fill me in on who 'she' is?"

Isa balled up her fist, "The Siren II... outfitted with the largest cannon in existence. She was to be a symbol of Fallen Sky... but now she will be an icon. A messenger of death and destruction. Their fleet was essentially annihilated but we have many ships still able to fly. This is an order! Get ready! We have a slaughter to get to!"

Some cheering rose up from the crowd and the mercenaries scattered. Even a few civilians offered to help out with whatever they could, "About damn time."

"Dante... I'm sorry. For that moment of weakness. I needed those hits. I'm just a bit relieved you didn't shoot me."

"I was going to if you didn't get up." He stretched his limbs, "Zero Unit is always ready, but first..."

Wendy looked ashamed, "I'm sorry..."

"You're demoted. I don't know what rank... but you're lower than that now. You need to be calm and collected in any situation, running off will only cause problems. I don't care if you see me in pieces, you make decisions with logic, not emotion. Understand?"

"Yes sir."

"Cratis. Jill. Star. You three and Wendy are responsible for ship maintenance, repairs, reinforcement, and security. I don't care if you're stuck in a tiny room for months, that's what you will do. None of you stopped Wendy, so you're all just as guilty."

A collective, "Yes sir..."

"Now then, where was I before the attack? Right... Ratchet, we have a date right? Let's get drunk."

She raised an arm, still crushed by Chey and Sere, "You got it..."