Nori quickly recovered. Her fingers spread wide on two different light consoles, and the ship’s hull groaned as she once again limped into the air. “I’m lifting her up. Hold on down there.”

“Structural integrity is down to sixty percent,” Bulco said stiffly, nursing a bruised elbow. “Let’s not use that maneuver too often.”

Nori stared intently at her monitors as she brought the ship back in level with the fort. The Broodmother’s head rose above the walls, staring straight at them. “Noah,” Nori said between clenched teeth. “Shoot that bitch straight in the face.”

At less than fifty meters away, the next cannon shot hit the enormous Broodmother in the neck, blasting away a large piece of metal plating along with a sizeable chunk of flesh. She raised her head and bellowed another earth-tearing shriek.

The mass of charging Warped faltered. Many broke off from their formation and started charging at the human reinforcements circling the hill, exposing themselves. The farthest fighters mowed them down in seconds.

Noah fired again and again, hitting the giant creature in the center of its body, sending pieces of flesh and armored plating flying in all directions. The attacking Warped’s formation broke apart even more, and the strays were quickly picked off by the defenders. The Broodmother screamed, looked straight at the ship and opened her mouth. Nori brought the ship into a dive just as a cone of sharp blades shot out of the open maw. Unity’s hull caught the edge of the blast and the sound of metal pinging against metal filled the bridge.

“We’re okay, we’re okay,” Bulco said urgently, clumsily operating his consoles. “The hull took a little beating, but even incomplete, the new plating soaked up most of the damage.”

“NORI, LOOK OUT!” Lana screamed.

The Navigator's head snapped toward the main viewscreen just in time to see the Broodmother whipping her tail at the diving ship. Caught off-guard, Nori desperately pulled her arms up, trying to dodge the attack, but this time, she was too late.

The entire ship shuddered violently as the semi-trailer-sized tail slapped powerfully against the hull, causing a sea of red indicators to light up. Several power junctions blew out, sending showers of sparks and clouds of smoke to fill the bridge.

Unity was hurled off course, veering dangerously toward the ground. Nori wrestled with the compromised controls and pulled up at the last second, guiding the damaged vessel back to a safe trajectory.

But that wasn’t the end of it.

Noah let out a frightened cry.

The holographic controls around his arms blinked on and off as bright flashes of energy started running up his body. The Gunner managed one last stifled cry before a neural feedback hit his skull. The courageous young man went limp in his seat, his head smoking, his brain fried.

From his pod, Nathan looked up in horror at Noah's limp body. With a silent command, the Gunner’s chair turned on its own, revealing a charred skull where the young Gunner’s face used to be.