"Marg, are you sure that what you are doing is right? I mean all the consequences...", Roy asked.
She looked back at Roy. His stay at the dungeons already started to have its impact on him. Not only he stinked worse than a pig but his psychic must have suffered too. Still he behaved as if nothing has happened. Yes, this guy was worth it.
She smiled and replied: "Stop talking nonsence and come on. Do you think I just made it for fun? Hurry, we need to get out of here before another guard comes to replace this one. Poor boy, he recognized me and we have to prevent him to talk soon. Sorry again, mate.", and she doped him with 5 potions of Cardamine. He should survive it but he will be delirious for at least a day.
"Where are we going? What are we going to do?", Roy was still confused.
"Shhhh. Calm down, we're gonna get out of here, I promise. I have a plan but first you need to take a shower before you can enter my Sabre with me. Let's go to my place, hurry."
...An hour later...
Roy was toweling himself and Margarita pretended she's not watching him. "Roy, we need a cover. My plan is that you hijack me and use my fighter to escape in which case we'll have our ships following us wherever we go. And there is no other way you and me could enter our hangars. So we need to distract them once we take off. Can you send a message to your fellows?"
"Let me try, Marg. We have a special S.O.S. frequency to use in this case. Hope it works." He sat at the terminal and typed the message:
#SSO SOS FRQ#
Message to: Mandy Payne
Comm ID: Margarita
Mandy,
Sorry I didn't send a message sooner. Long story, but if I tried to shorten it - I was searching for a certain girl I once met. Unfortunatelly an outcast one. I was getting close and then I was betrayed by Bernard Fokke. He first pretended he's going to help me, took the 20 mils I was offering for his help and then destroyed my ship and jailed me in the horrible Dungeons of Malta.
Anyway, she is helping me to escape but we'll need you to cover our escape to our Rostock Base in Omega 15 and we are sure a great fleet of outcast ships is going to pursue us. We'll be flying a Sabre. Please bring me another Manta and help us run!
Roy Batty out.
#SSO SOS FRQ#
Roy turned back to Margarita, and said: "Let's give them an hour and if they don't respond, then we are alone."
As soon as Mandy sent the three separate transmissions to the Ashers, the rest of the Shadow stalkers, Stuart and Roy, she ran on to the landing pad and jumped into her Manta. It had recently been fine tuned with all sorts of different weapons and armour, ranging from the conventional to the down-right wierd.
She flicked a archaic silver switch and the cockpit window lowered. Simulateously, she hit the big red button, and the craft began to auto-pilot towards the docking ring in Cambridge's outer atmosphere.
The Manta exitted the docking ring and the neural interface headset dropped down from the ceiling of the Manta cockpit. She shoved it on her head, ruining her hair. She didn't care. All she wanted to do now was save Roy. It was true that he had gotten into it, but she felt a responsibility and guilt for Roy, who she felt she should have protected.
Mandy brought up the nav map in the neural interface and selected the Omega 5 jump hole. The cruise engines started charging for what felt like an eternity.
For the first time, she felt genuinly worried. Never before had she doubted her ability in combat, on the ground, or swiftness to act. But now, with one of her closest companions in mortal peril, she began to question herself.
She put the thoughts to the back of her mind, and waited patiently for the craft to reach the jump hole to Omega 5. The waypoints to her final destination were set, all she had to do was wait.
"We're out of time, you know," Margarita sighed. She leaned over and placed her head in Roy's lap, her hand
rubbing gently against his knee. "We have to go soon."
Margarita picked up a view screen up from the floor in front of the couch. Holding it sideways--to read it
easier--she pressed a few buttons, "Your friend Mandy responded. She's on her way." Margarita let the screen
slowly slide back to the floor.
"What do you think is going to happen to me? You?... Us?"
"Marg, it's time", Roy sighed, gently holding her hand.
"Yes, Roy. Take my gun, this wouldn't look real with your bounty hunter Magnum we took back from that guard."
Roy checked the last message from Mandy again, she was hiding nearby Hispania and she even managed to bring a fresh new Manta so he can defend himself instead of sitting in Margarita's cargo hold like a duck. But how Mandy did it, remained secret. She will never stop surprising him. He helped Margarita in her leather jacket and they both left her home heading towards the hangar.
Once there, he took out her gun and pushed Margarita with it, calmly watching shocked faces of nearby Outcasts. Very good, they still don't know she helped him out. The usual rush in hangar dropped and there was absolute silence. They entered Margarita's Sabre and started the launch sequence. Even now, the life in the hangar was frozen as if no one there believed what they just had seen.
After they took off, they set the course towards Hispania immediately. Mandy was waiting there as she promised. Roy entered the empty Manta, leaving Margarita alone in her Sabre with his kiss on her cheek.
Shortly after, a large fleet of outcast fighters appeared on scanners.
"Mandy, lead us!", he shouted in the comm system and they all engaged cruise engines. He wanted to thank her, but there was no time...
The dazed guard, in a dark corner of the hangar, recognized Margarita. Still to weak to shout, he tried to draw attention to himself. As someone drew near, and as he heard the guard's story, his eyes visibly widened. It wasn't long before the whole hangar was a spur of activity again, but this time, there were many calls going out to the elite pilots of the GoR.
---
As the wing of Outcast pilots bared down on the sabre and two Manta's, it was clear that this was no ordinary fleet. All of the ships had the GoR marking on them. Two destroyers and a wing of attack fighters.
The odds were not good. Even as the three engaged cruise, the whole fleet came in weapons range. In a short space of time, they severed the left wing of Roy's Manta and severely damaged Margarita's Sabre. However, before long, the speed of cruise had worked its magic and they were out of weapons range. Nanobots were applied at this stage by all three combatants.
Mandy then smiled at the futile cruise distruptors floating towards the group. There was no way that they would hit, she thought.
The fleet of hostiles, a scant three klicks away, was hovering at around about this distance. The three knew that the jump would be the hardest part. The GoR wouldn't overlook their cruise distruptors a second time, and it looked as if they would fight, and most likely die on the field of battle together.
None of the three pilots spoke as they jumped into Omicron Theta. However, all three were stunned when they saw a Corsair fleet on the other side. In their awe at their seemingly unforgivable luck, the three were forced to engage as wave upon wave of cruise distruptors headed into their engines. The markings of the Osiris, gunboat and two fighters indicated an attack group of the brotherhood. The three were hopelessly out-gunned.
Then, the two Outcast destroyers and three fighters of the Outcast fleet arrived in system. Torn between shooting the fleeing foe and the new threat, the commander of the Altaneria ordered the fighter wing to pursue the two Mantas and the accompanying Sabre while the Osiris and gunboat stayed behind. The Destroyers were forced to engage the capital ships of the other side, and before long, both sides had done considerable damage to each other. The armour of the Altaneria had been pierced on several decks, while the gunboat Canonera had lost the use of two of its guns. The Outcast destroyer .Eidolon had suffered major damage, as a battlerazor shot through the top of the severly weakened hull. The .Almada was fairing better, recieveing less attention from the Corsairs.
The three were cruising outside Corfu, towards the Omega 41 jump hole, when Roy had an ambitious idea. He reasoned, that with five fighters in tow, two of which being Corsair and three of which being Outcast, that the other parties would shoot each other as well as the trio of escapees. Both Margarita and Mandy saw the reason in this. The three disengaged cruise, and concentrated on the Outcasts, who were specifically gunning for them.
It would have been a hard, grinding battle had it not been for the Corsairs. A Titan shot by Margarita's viewport, and started a hail of fire on the Outcast in the centre of the formation. The pilot was motionless in his cockpit as his shield was dropped and he saw a sunslayer torpedo heading his way. The emblem of the incapacitated sabre indicated a Jose Diablo as the pilot, while the markings of the Titan showed that the pilot was Pedro Maniaco.
However, The Outcasts loss here was not the end of it. Maniaco was quickly disabled by the Outcasts, and they then turned their attention to the trio. However, now that they were outnumbered, the tide of battle started to shift in favour of the two hunters and Margarita.
Despite the flying skills of Margarita, she was targeted by the two Outcast pilots, Miguel Marron and Fidele Castro, and her fighter was destroyed. Roy was stunned, but she was ok, apart from a minor injury to her shoulder. Safe in Mandy's cargo hold, the two stalkers continued the fight.
Seeing that his place wasn't at this particular field of battle, the last Corsair Titans offered on open comms to stay out of the fight. After all, the Outcasts were not after the Corsairs at this time. The Corsair recieved a response from the Outcasts, which seemed muffled, and the Corsair pulled out of the fight and retreated to the Capital ship battle raging in the cloud.
Two bounty hunter Manta's verus two Outcast Sabres. The fight was hard, but Fidele Castro was incapacitated after a time, eating his own cannonball as a cruise distruptor hit the launcher. This left Miguel Marron out by himself, but Roy's Manta had lost all of its wings and was sparking badly. It wouldn't survive the trip though Omega 41, let alone a few more shots from Miguel....
Miguel's Sabre wasn't in a best condition either. He was sure that taking Roy down would be just a matter of time now, even with the support of the other Manta whose shots he could dodge. But he couldn't be sure that no more corsairs show up today and he decided to turn back to Alpha, picking the lifepods of his fellows carefully.
Mandy and Roy made a quick stop at Corfu base. The mechanics did an amazing job in fixing the biggest hull breaches in Roy's Manta in such a short time so they could try to finish the escape through the radiated Omega 41. In the meantime Roy brought Margarita to the infirmary where her wounded shoulder had been taken care of. She then joined Roy in the cabin of his ship and they leaved the base.
The rest of their escape proceeded surprisingly easily, no more surprises took place. They safely arrived to Rostock Base in Omega and finally had some time to rest. Mandy had to leave, a lot of things had to be arranged. Those two needed spending some time alone anyway.
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