Pale, sickly streams of steam cut through the gold sky, creating a pattern of uneven stripes that burned Marcus's eyes.
“Fuck this planet's a pain to look at.” He turned towards the pilot of the dropship. “We get any of those goggles, or are you just gonna hoard 'em all?”
“Sorry man, they didn't issue any extras. You still got natural eyes?”
“Yeah. I ain't about to let some creepy suit put a bunch of metal and shit into my head.”
“Body enhancements are mostly synthetic, carbon fiber tissue, not metal.” Marcus tensed at hearing Throne. She wasn't even looking at him. Just standing in the open bay door, watching the horizon. In this form, her figure was encased in red, angular, mechanical components, which didn't do much to alleviate the uncanny quality to her voice.
“Hey,” the pilot called back, “you ever wonder if you get these kindsa missions 'cause you won't take enhancements?” Marcus pulled his gaze away from the blue glow of Throne's halo.
“Every damn day. I'm not giving in, though.”
“We go down, you're gonna wish you had,” the pilot chuckled.
“Then don't crash,” Marcus said pointedly. “'Sides, that's what she's for.”
“What even is she? An Angel?”
“Yep. New model.” The pilot glanced back at Throne with clear skepticism.
“You sure they didn't just send a robot with us?” Marcus eyed the tiny, dark patch of skin visible around Throne's jaw.
“Yeah, she's human. Or, neo-human, whatever.”
“We should focus on the mission.” Her command reverberated throughout the ship. Marcus couldn't help but wonder if she'd remotely accessed the comm system just to effectively shut them up. He wasn't sure if Angels had enough emotion left in them to care about something like that.
Throne disconnected from the dropship's comms before the pilot could notice it'd been overridden. It was one thing for them to gawk, but openly discussing her humanity while she stood there was too much.
Her grip on the metal case she carried tightened. She could cause severe damage to either of those pricks just by setting it down on them, and if she set it on their chests and left it there, they'd suffocate. No fully natural human could lift it, and even fewer would want to be near it. Throne was sure that Marcus Keyton and Jeffrey Bridge had no idea what was in it.
Or, they were a lot braver than she gave them credit for.
“We're coming up on the drop zone,” Bridge called back to them. Keyton stood up and moved behind Throne.
“You ready?” She didn't give him an answer. “Probably a dumb question.” Throne wanted to snap at him, to tell him to just hurry up and disengage the locks on her chassis. “Still not sure why they even need guys like me. Don't see why you can't just fly out of here yourself.” For the first time, she agreed with him. The very existence of Angel Handlers was insulting.
“We're here,” Bridge announced. Finally, Keyton activated her external systems. She didn't let it show, but the sudden sensation of feeling extensions of herself reattach to her senses was intoxicating.
“Go get 'em.” Keyton patted her on the back. It strained her will to not turn and glare at him, and she was sure he noticed her pause, but she swallowed the urge and instead leapt out of the ship.
“What's with the name?” She heard Bridge over the comms. “Throne?”
“What, you not well-read on obscure Christian mythology? Just watch.”
Throne hated them for making her moment the object of their spectatorship, but not enough that the moment itself wasn't utterly exhilarating.
Her chassis split apart, forming five rings that spun and shifted around her. The cameras along the rings activated, granting her complete, 360° vision. She wiggled the cannons in between the cameras, desperate for a chance to feel their firepower.
The rest of her chassis formed a propulsion system along her back and limbs, giving her jets to adjust her flight. At the end of the transformation, the last of the components slid down from her head, releasing a shock of black hair that waved wildly behind her.
“Goddamn, what even–” She muted Bridge and Keyton. She didn't need to hear them.
She was free, and she was in control.
Silver pulses of energy started to sear the sky around her. She rolled to the side to avoid one that flew straight up at her. The planet's inhabitants, colloquially dubbed Chamils by humanity. She grinned under her faceplate.
Gliding down at incredible speeds, flitting back and forth between blasts from the Chamil defense cannons, never letting her speed drop, Throne felt a mindblowing flood of energy. Her body, her rings, every molecule that made her up was drenched in adrenaline and ecstasy.
When Chamil airtroops began to approach, using the geysers to propel themselves up before engaging the thrusters on their synthetically-enhanced wings, she only smiled more.
Her ring-cannons swiveled and began tracking targets. She had to readjust a few times after dodging their oncoming fire, but the nanosecond the airtroops were in range, she let loose.
Spears of billowing fire shot through the Chamils, consuming any of their blasts that were in their path and incinerating their way through wingsuits and flesh. Every time she fired, a pulse of power rushed through Throne. Eager for more, she ceased fire, waiting for the Chamils to close in on her. Once a hefty crowd was circling her, their own blasts becoming difficult to avoid, she unleashed a swirling torrent of flame, sending a spiral of corpses back to the sulfuric ground.
The nearest AA-gun caught her attention with a shot that only nearly missed. She sped towards it, shifting all her cannons to aim at the Chamil gun. At the center of her forward-facing vision, a sphere of silver energy appeared and quickly grew in size as it approached.
Her rings fired in unity, at full power, blowing the sizzling silver ball apart. She flew through its sparkling remains without even slowing. The gun below didn't have time for a second shot before Throne was upon it.
“Holy shit,” Jeff muttered as he watched the live feed of Throne shredding the Chamil defenses. “That there's why they have guys like you. I'd never fly again if I had to do it with one of those on board, nothing holding them back.”
Jeff wasn't even sure he could consider what he did as flying anymore. Seeing the Angel sweep through the Chamil airspace with such smooth poise and precision, he couldn't help but think of his own piloting as little more than pushing a clunky box along. There was as little in common between him and Throne as there was between a gnat and a hummingbird. They both just happened to move through the air.
“Ain't you ever seen an Angel before?” Marcus moved up to stand behind Jeff's seat, chewing something. In the corner of his eye, Jeff saw Marcus slip a pack of non-regulation tobacco into one of the compartments on his pants.
“Of course I have, but nothing like this. This is...” he trailed off as the feed followed Throne slicing through an entire building.
“Seventh Choir, man. Tech gets fuckin' crazy that high up the chain.”
Neither said anything more, enraptured by Throne's path of destruction.
A massive clang rocked the dropship. Both men yelped and jumped, Jeff accidentally twisting the ship towards the ground for a moment.
“The hell was that?” he shouted. Marcus drew his pistol and ran to the back of the ship. Switching over to the ship's cameras, Jeff searched the feeds for what had hit them. It didn't take long to figure it out. “Chamils! Airtroops, three of 'em!”
A notification on his dashboard let him know that Marcus had manned the ship's gun. He focused on swerving away from the Chamils and giving Marcus a clear shot. No matter how fast he went, though, or how quickly he turned, the airtroops' wingsuits kept them at pace with the ship.
“Aggh, these shits are too slippery!” Marcus had resorted to firing with wild abandon without bothering to aim.
“Knock that off! You'll waste our ammo!”
“Just get us out of the atmosphere! No way they can follow us into space!”
“Our orders are to stay in the area to pick up the Angel when she's finished. We can't leave without her.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? She'll be fine! We'll come back! Just get us out of here!” Marcus was right, but Jeff knew that they'd have a hell of a time convincing command of that. To the right of his viewport, something caught his eye that gave him an idea. “Marcus! Get ready to start firing in a sec!”
“What do you think I've been doing, asshole?!?”
“I mean stop firing and wait. I'm gonna try to give you a clear shot.”
“I stop firing, they're gonna get real damn close to the ship.”
“That's what I want,” Jeff said as he flew the dropship into a canyon. The space was nearly too tight, and as he swerved around an outcropping, the ship's side screeched against the rock. He yanked the ship away from the canyon wall and threw it forward, directly into the geyser at the end. Various alarms started beeping about the damage the scalding acid was doing to the hull, but he was out again within a couple seconds.
The Chamils, instead of plowing through the geyser, were launched up, their speed ripped away from them by the force caught in their wings.
“Oh, hell yeah!” Marcus whooped as he shot them each down with ease. Jeff finally slowed the ship and eased back into his seat. Marcus came back down and clapped him on the shoulders. “Dude, fuckin' sick!”
“We might not be Angels, but we can still give those scaly bastards a run for their money.”
“Damn straight,” Marcus laughed. He fell quiet and furrowed his brow. Jeff turned and followed his line of sight. Ahead of them was what could only be a Chamil city. Round, twisted buildings with pointed ends rose above arrays of interconnected structures, all of them a mixture of dark metal and some rough, tan substance.
As they looked, a red figure zipped across the skyline, blasting down Chamil airtroops as it went. Throne stopped and floated above the city.
“Hey, look.” Jeff pointed to a convoy of ships taking off at the opposite side of the city from Throne. “Why didn't they use those against her?”
“Yeah,” Marcus mumbled, “they only sent airtroops, didn't they?” The ships made no attempt to approach Throne. Instead, they sped away from her and the city at impressive speed. “Are they... evacuating?”
Jeff pulled up the feeds from Throne's camera again. She was holding the case out with one hand and opening it with the other. As the cool metal slid open, her outstretched arm paused, then the feed went dark.
“Jesus Christ,” Jeff said under his breath.
“What happened? Why'd the feed–”
“She turned it off.” Jeff could feel himself shaking. “She did it too late, though. We weren't supposed to see that.”
“See what? I didn't see jack.” Jeff swallowed and grabbed the flight controls.
“That case had three Ragnarok-class nuclear missiles in it.”
He gunned the engines, turning the ship around, rising above the canyon behind them, and desperately begging the thrusters to push them as fast as possible. Streams of gas, geysers, and rock formations whipped past his line of sight. No maneuvers, no turns, no tricks. Jeff was flying in a straight line, full throttle.
He glanced at the ship's rear feed just in time to see a tremendous flash of light utterly fill the screen, accompanied by a deafening, unending roll of thunderclaps. The sky went from putrid gold to almost sheer white. The entire dropship started to rumble.
Jeff was forcing the ship forward out of instinct and desperation, but deep inside he didn't have any misgivings about what was about to happen. Their orders had been to stay in the area, but at a certain distance. He'd thought it was just to keep them out of the range of Chamil guns. Now he knew better.
He wasn't terribly afraid anymore, which surprised him. The idea of going out in a literal blaze while flying, or flying as best as he could, wasn't half-bad. He even got to enjoy a sort of peaceful quiet, with Marcus seemingly struck speechless by the whole matter.
Jeff hoped the other man wasn't panicking, or suffering too much. He almost considered letting the engines die, or even turning around altogether, just to get it over with quickly, but his hands were firmly, immovably clamped on the controls and wouldn't budge. His body was going to ride this out to the very end, even if his mind had given up.
The rumbling had intensified, and by now every camera feed was gone. Jeff closed his eyes, catching one final glimpse of red and blue light washing over the viewport.
