Vae victis, Deus Culpa

Jojo stepped off the edge of the airlock and floats towards me. I've already got the P4 trained on her head while she switches to Archantha's stolen P8-SC.

"I'm guessing you know how this is gonna play out?" She says, voice full of glee.

There's a deep sadness in me, and I hate knowing it has to end this way.

"I can blast you now or you can go back and self-destruct that whole ship. It's your choice, Joanne."

She laughs over the comms. "You're the only one who knows my actual name, Out of all of us I'm the only one you figured out."

The tears are coming...

"You sent Kathrine to her death, tried to stab me before Ravja put a bullet in her head..."

Jojo stopped dead with her suit thrusters.

"Arcantha's name stays with me, Kite is a massive mystery but I accepted never knowing it. Where is Fareeah and Brianna?"

"I don't...Grendel and Boink?" She asks absolutely stumped. "Uh...Grendel refused and went home to Tanga and Boink vanished before the Xenos picked us up."

Tanga...hoo boy that's a blast from the past. There's a small outer colony ship that circles the planet I was found in hopes of finding more kids, eventually they accepted that there was nobody left but just stayed there and grew.

"Why did you do it?" I growl over comms. "Why did you turn on us? Why did you talk Pearl into killing her girlfriend?"

"I didn't, she never wanted to be with her but was too kind to reject the advances."

We were meters from each other and I put my foot forward to keep her away and to stop myself faster. It meets her chest and she instinctively grunts as my momentum transfers.

"Why did you do it? You didn't answer me."

She sighs. "The Idris incident put things into perspective, and the Xenos offered a lot of money for revenge. they hated the Slicers but they saw you as a threat and we were their way in."

I point my gun at her head point blank. I know these rounds won't stop her quick but we also know I'm a big fan of mag-dumping.

She taps her mobi and the Polaris doors slam shut, a couple of grunts lose their feet.

"Hey, Ra...Rav...Ravioli" She nods behind me. "We can talk like adults on our own."

I turn around to see nothing, dropping my guard for just a second and hear a thud in vacuum. I spin back around and there's blood coming from the bottom of her jaw and top of her head, red coda floating away.

"CAL THAT SHIP IS SEALED AND SET TO SELF-DESTRUCT, GET BACK HERE NOW!" Arcantha screams over comms. I grab the multi-tool from Jojo's corpse and see it has a tractor-beam attachment.

"Lucky break..." I whisper as I lock the traverse onto the Galaxy and begin zipping back. The Polaris is covered and filled with blinking red lights, alarms muffled in vacuum and the Galaxy's side hatch opens up. I fly through with enough momentum to fling myself at the wall and hit a hard stop. "It's got a one-fifty meter radius, but there's still torps on board so punch it!"

The ship jolts and I slide into the wall gently as the hatch seals shut. Two-hundred. Four-hundred. Boom. My second-in-command is now space dust and there's a hail coming in from the station. When we jumped and they followed, two Idrises came in and it was a bloodbath.

"Set course for the station, we need to look for survivors. I hate grumpy-fuck but we owe him for the hospitality." I call to the pilot who nods. Arcantha is standing at ease by my seat on the bidge and I take a seat after removing my bag and helmet.

"Callie. Are you okay?" Arcantha says upon seeing my tears.

I don't answer, I can't. Kat is dead and in a box on the lower deck, my backup is vaporized and Ravi is in her room having a mental breakdown because of the other corpse in the hold.

The quantum drive whines as the drop comes, and we pop in to see two dead Idrises, three Polarises, a Javelin, and a Bengal with a beaten and battered station.

Guess they didn't want me in this fight.

"VESSEL IDENTIFY YOURSELF IN TEN SECONDS OR WE FIRE."

That Bengal is PISSED.

"This is the captain of the the BMF Mom's House, I am-"

"Get onboard and find survivors, NOW!"

They don't ask for much, do they?

"We have a single Origin 300-series ship, do you have a few Pisces to spare for transport?"

Silence for a few minutes.

"We have twelve Pisces Rescues, two Terrapin Medivac and three Cutlass Reds. The station hangars are blown open so we can get people to you quickly if you use the docking port, GET IN THERE NOW IT'S A BLODDBATH!"

"Roger that." I say. "We have some of your officers and grunts onboard here, we'll take your guns and leave the suits to help with the effort."

"Copy, Over and out."

I stand up from my seat and ping the temps not in the bridge. We pull the Galaxy to the tow port we were at that miraculously survived, and the medical ships immediately start bringing people onboard.

I grab my bag and helmet then take Arcantha with the grunts onboard the station to see it really is a bloodbath. Just after the airlock door that was blown in is mountains of dead grunts, officers, civilians and staff. Some are crawling around and few are managing to move around and administer medical treatments where they can. They see us and their faces are why I love my job so much.

Murumurs of "It's Callie." or "Spacemoms are here?!" and you can feel the morale improve instantly. We're not a massive, famous org like Medrunners but we do what we do for free. We want life to continue and lives to be saved, we return beacon fees and even arm the newer citizens.

The grunts roll in and start running people back to the ship on stretchers, fireman carries, and one guy took Jojo's multitool to carefully carry bodies back to the ship.

But a well-dressed elderly woman at the end of the lobby looks terrified and is feverishly banging on the bulkhead leading to the elevators. I walk over and tell her it's time to go and she fights my attempts to move her.

"My husband is still in there with those monsters! I can't leave!"

"What monsters, ma'am?"

"The ones in black and red! They took him and locked the doors!"

Xenos...fucking Xenos...

"Ravi, are you okay, honey? I need you right now."

"Cameras are in your feed, do what you have to and you have the master codes to the station..."

Her voice sounded broken and defeated. The loss of a loved one and I had lost Arcantha once before. I know how it feels...

A mass of UEEN grunts, piled up almost neatly in the corner and civilians in another. Some doors are welded closed and others are blown off entirely.

Then I see something that catches my attention, a Grunt with a purple coda, and two people in standard Spacemom Heavies.

They looked like Grendel and Boink, this had to be...

I code the door in and it hisses open slowly. I signal grunts to follow and grab a medlife gun off the ground and we walk through with guns drawn until Arcantha comes hustling through. I turn and tell her to turn back to take care of Ravi.

"I'm fine, boss. I promise, I'm not a threat to myself..." She says before snapping the channel closed.

Arcantha codes the door to stay open and we now have a team of eight. Arcantha, six grunts and myself.

I say "stay open" before a light Xeno comes around the corner and Arcantha lights him up with her suppressed P8-SC. Firerate paired with the suppressor it sounds like a kitten purring. Except somebody fucking dies.

She spins back around and locks the door shut. We keep flares on hand to mark survivors, places of interest and with our in-eye lenses modified to give medical stats on-the-fly we start tagging bodies, incapacitated survivors and whoever isn't getting regenned. Another grunt comes around the corner and in a purr his birth certificate is revoked.

We scan the lobby on the way to the elevators to catch up to the survivors and find three naval grunts in working order. We patch them up with meds and tag them with a blue flare: Injured but capable to fighting.

We have a small army developing as we pick up more and more, even a light Xeno cowering in a corner because he never knew what he was signing up for. Arcantha knocks him out cold and we tag him with a purple: possible defector but a criminal.

We get to the elevators and split up. Four senior grunts take the wounded back and start grabbing people for the Galaxy and I see something that catches my attenton out the spaceport window: my docked Carrack. My serial number, pink and blue paint, that's my boat.

Why is it here?

No hostiles onboard, but a line of people outside the medbay. I hail the moms chat and Boink responds with gunfire in the background. "NOT NOW! CALL BACK LATER!"

My heart flutters and I'm filled with happiness for the first time today aside from leaving the beach.

"Where are you?! We're coming to help!"

"GALLERIA!"

Click.

Arcantha and I nod at each other and our new frineds pile into the elevator with us. We hit the galleria button and prepare for one helluva firefight.

Our door opens and it's Xenos on the top floor and Navy at the bottom while retreating into the food courts. Without hesitation we start unloading our mags into everything that looks like a Xeno...