Page 63 of Ravaged By the Reaper

I charge across the grating, vision narrowed to the only thing that matters: my bird. My shuttle. Fresh out of repair, gleaming with patches of weld-scars and vengeance.

“Systems green!” a tech yells as I vault the ramp.

Amara’s right behind me, no hesitation. “You’re not flying into that alone.”

I don’t argue. Just toss her a sidearm and punch the canopy release. “You shoot. I fly.”

Her smirk is feral. “Deal.”

The cockpit seals around us with a hiss and a whine. She slides into the gunner’s seat like she was born to kill at my side. I don’t look at her—not because I don’t want to—but because Ican’t affordto. Not now.

I slam the ignition sequence. The shuttle hums beneath us like a beast waking up. My hands dance over the console, tuning grav boosters, charging shields, toggling weapon ports hot.

"Power to forward shields," I bark.

“Done,” she replies without missing a beat. "Rear thrusters charging."

“Good. Time to make some art.”

We blast out of the hangar like a punch through glass.

The void hits hard—black and raw and full of teeth. Coalition fighters whirl in clouds of metal and fire, and the Widowmaker’s silhouette flashes through plasma bursts like a predator in blood-tinted fog.

I dive low, skimming the underbelly of a disabled cruiser.

Amara’s already firing.

She doesn’t wait for lock-ons. Sheknows. Her hands move like fire and instinct, sending volleys into engines, cracking canopies, turning sleek Coalition craft into tumbling wreckage.

Bloodfont.

It’s what they call that first mist—the red smear that bursts inside a sealed cockpit when the pilot catches shrapnel mid-scream. I see it twice in the first minute. Then again. Then again.

“Six o'clock!” she snaps.

I twist. Barrel roll. A scythe-wing screams past, too slow. Amara paints its targeting array with EMP and fries it before it can loop.

It spirals off, sparking.

“Nice,” I grunt.

“Don’t compliment me. Kill something.”

My grin’s all teeth. “Yes, ma’am.”

We carve a path through chaos—me threading needles at breakneck speed, her painting the stars red. There’s no need for orders. No wasted motion. Just pulse and breath and ruin.

She sees what I can’t. I react to what she fires at.

I cover. She finishes.

We’re a rhythm.

We’re one.

The ship rocks from an impact, but we ride the spin like a dance step. She adjusts mid-gimbal, re-aims, blasts a missile clean out of space with a scream that’s half rage, half laughter.

“Did you justlaugh?” I shout.