THE ship was shaking pretty badly by now. The turbines were screaming for mercy as the engine core temperature began to overcome the cooling system and climb into the high range.
"I think they're gaining on us," said Emil, from back in the troop compartment.
"I wonder how many there are?"
"I can't be sure, but the cloud doesn't look nearly as big as the time we were here before. How far are we from the city?"
"According to the satellite feed, after these mountains, we'll be crossing through the plains of Jezerit and then we'll hit the city perimeter," said Kale.
"Well, we had better hurry, this thing sounds like its going to fly apart any time," said Emil as he turned away from the side window.
He came back up to the cockpit with Kale. The ship began to pass through light cloud cover around the mountains. "Too bad we don't have really heavy clouds," said Emil. "Maybe we could lose them."
"I don't know if that would work or not, but like you said, this ship doesn't have what it takes to keep ahead of them. According to the map we're coming out of the mountains and into the plains now."
The white vapor obscuring all foresight began to part before them as the ship cleared the last peak. "Oh boy, this is not good," said Emil as they finally got a view of the plains of Jezerit.
A massive troop deployment was in progress in the distance and large Vorn warships were the most distinct objects-several of them were hovering directly in their flight path toward the city.
"Those are our ships!" said Kale.
"And our people-what do we do?"
Kale searched the control panel and said, "I don't think this ship has any decent scanning devices on board. When those cruisers lock on target we won't even know it."
"Since they're symbyte controlled, you know they'll shoot at us."
"Absolutely, but maybe we can make it a little more difficult for them to act on the urge," said Kale.
As they approached the army assembling on the ground, Kale broke his flight path and dove straight at the masses of ground troops.
"What kind of plan is this?!" shouted Emil as he struggled to fasten his flight harness.
"I figure if they want to take potshots at us, then they can take the risk of shooting their own people."
The transport groaned as the gravitational forces played against the hull. They fell to an altitude of thirty feet as Kale leveled out the ship, swooping over the heads of the symbyte controlled soldiers below.
Streams of automatic pulse fire poured upward from the soldiers as they tried to take down the aggressive ship. Many soldiers ducked for cover as the transport steadily descended upon them. The hull was taking a pounding even without fire from the big ships.
"Lower the landing skids," said Kale.
Emil smiled back at his friend. "Now, that's what I'm talking about!"
He pressed the panel button and the control motors could be heard lowering the skids. Almost instantly the ship began to quiver and shake as the extended skids pounded mercilessly through the ground troops that weren't thoughtful enough to throw themselves to the ground.
By the time they had flown three quarters of the way through the soldiers, almost all of the remaining troops ahead had flattened themselves across the ground to avoid being hit. Kale and Emil's ship left a bloody trail in its wake and the landing gear became torn and twisted from multiple impacts.
"I think we're going to make it!" said Kale as they shot away from the ground deployment and headed into the outskirts of Sector city.
Huge pulse laser blasts began to race past them, smashing into the surrounding buildings and shattering them like glass.
"The big cruisers are firing on us!" shouted Emil over the explosions.
Kale was flying erratically and fast as he fought to make their ship a wild target.
"If we can just get further into the city-" he said.
But it wouldn't happen. A blast from the big guns on the Vorn ships incinerated the corner of a nearby building as Kale managed to get the ship around it. The residual energy and debris smashed into the tail end of the transport. They were going down fast.
"Hold on, we're gonna hit hard!"