The shattered edge

[arvg]

Alvarez was, for his part, hardly idle.

The XKR was hammering at maximum speed towards the source of the alien signal. He was using his time in the only practical way he could think of. Without intel, they were sitting ducks. They had no chance as long as they played by the drone master's rules.

"Si, hermanos," Alvarez stated in the flight ready room aboard the Havana, "we fight on our terms, never on theirs!"

It was a mantra that had kept him alive, and had turned him into an effective and deadly battleship Captain.

It was a mantra he was repeating mentally, as he rocketed through the darkness, towards a massive shadow.

The monstrous wreck of twisted metal had once been a great and mighty starship, and the XKR was tiny in comparison to the mammoth vessel. Black and gray hull plates that were shadows in the void of the desolate system.

Some kind of alien CIWS activated, spitting laser fire after him, but the XKR was simply too agile for the ancient weapon. The fighter accelerated as it streaked along the hull, the sensors trying to penetrate the dark hull, trying to gather more information as the Coalition Captain studied his enemy.

"Si, pussy gato, now I have you," he murmured as the XKR curled upwards, banking about to make another pass, this time of the ventral hull. Looking for anything that would constitute a drone control array.

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