“This bastard is better than the rest! Brute, give me a hand over here!”

Brute’s voice came back over the tac-net almost instantly. “Righty-oh, boss man. Inbound on your nine, high.”

Stephanos looked sharply to his left and spotted the twin burn of Brute’s fighter as it angled around toward him. “Roger, Brute. Rope-a-dope?”

“You got it, boss man,” Brute’s voice came back.

As the Drasin moved in for another burst at Stephanos, Brute blasted in from above with his guns blazing. The Drasin was fast and skipped to the left to avoid the shells. While his attention was diverted by Brute’s attack, Stephanos flipped his plane around, killed his momentum with a long burn, and rocketed down the enemy fighter’s throat.

The Drasin was taken by surprise, angled his own thrust, and skipped just above the barrage of rounds that Stephanos sent his way. A second later, he was rocketing off at an angle from the fight and circling for another move.

“Damn!” Stephanos cursed. “Is it just me or does anyone else notice something different about that bastard?”

“Other than the fact that he’s a competent pilot?” Brute answered.

“Yeah. Other than that.”

“Nope.”

Stephanos shook his head. “Something about this one is familiar…”

“Worry about it later, boss man! He’s coming around for another pass.”

Stephanos checked, and sure enough, the fighter was coming in for another try. “Peel out, Brute. I’m gonna bird-dog him.”

“Got it.”

As Brute’s fighter peeled out of the area on full burn, Stephanos checked his displays and found what he was looking for. The Drasin was coming in tight on his six as he let out the throttle and showed the enemy a taste of what an Archangel was really capable of.

Surrounded by towering buildings on all sides, Con. Tsari Reme depleted her small laser’s charge into the thing that had just finished murdering no less than three of the people in her community. It wasn’t a big community, actually, just a close-knit subsection of the capital. She had grown up here. Constable Tsari knew everyone here by their first names, and they all knew her.

As the laser whined dry, she tried to swallow, but her mouth was too dry. Her throat worked continuously, without any real function, as the thing turned its gaze on her. Some movement to the creature’s rear shook her attention and her heart dropped.

Oh God, she thought in shock, there are more of them.

Five more of them, to be precise. And they all turned on Tsari and her junior partner, a young man named Nethan.

“Do you have a charge?” she yelled.

He shook his head wordlessly, his worthless laser held limply in his hand.

She growled, though not really at him. It wasn’t his fault; the local constabulary wasn’t supposed to be faced with this sort of thing. Hell, most of the time, they gave directions to lost people from Central Systema and the rest was spent on domestic calls. A ship crashing into their little community and disgorging six lumbering beasts with a taste for carnage wasn’t in the handbook.