Red mist rose around him, curling over his chest like a lover's embrace. Adam could only imagine the thick tang of iron that might have filled his nose were he not wearing a helmet. Inside his abdomen, his stomach had dropped into his pelvis. He rolled over, and his arms flailed, wind and mist roared against his helmet while his breath came in sharp gasps against the transparent visor before his face. His stomach had returned to its position, and he could feel the roar of air over his arms and legs as he fell arms and legs spread out to either side in the typical skydiving position. Red mist continued to roll around him, and despite being comfortable in his fall, he had no idea how close the ground was, or what obstacles might be waiting just beyond the mist.

Inside his helmet fealty was desperately trying to outline landmasses through the mist. Adam appreciated the thought, but he had soemthing else in mind, "Fealty." His voice was lost in the roar of the wind outside his helmet, but his thoughts were better oriented now, and fealty reacted to the neural stimulation.

There was a jolt, and a roar.

With practiced ease, Adam flipped over orienting the jetpack downward as a concentrated blue column of flame burst into being to hoist him aloft. The blowback from the jetpack was powerful enough to clear a circle of red mist below him, revealing the rocky face of a cliff ledge maybe ten feet below where he had stopped.

He tried very hard not to dwell on that fact, and wasn't given the time either way as something slammed into him from above sending him into an uncontrolled wheeling spiral right towards the cliff wall. He cursed sharply and flipped himself over just in time to brace his feet against the stones. He kicked off with one powerful thrust, and rolled over, like an Olympic swimmer during a freestyle race. Red eyes glowed at him from the mist, as the Kree came hurtling towards him. It clearly hadn't expected him to recover so quickly, and desperately opened its wings to stop its forward momentum.

Too bad it wasn't fast enough, and it ran straight into Adam's extended arm, taking the metal plating of his forearm straight to the neck. The force of the blow was so powerful it sent the Kree's feet into the air and forced its head to shoot downwards. The momentum took it into a flat spiral, and there was a loud crack as it plowed into the nearby cliff face, dropping with a wet thud onto the ledge below. Adam had no time to watch the event happen however rolling onto his back and grabbing the second Kree by the shoulders locking the two of them into a short spiral.

The Kree screeched, clawing at his face and armor, nails bouncing futilely off the metal. Adam lifted his prosthetic leg and struck hard, kicking the Kree in the chest. The power of the blow was absolutely devastating, and he felt the Kree's sternum collapse with a crunch under his boot. Even if that blow hadn't killed the Kree instantly, stopped its hear or punctured its lungs, it had certainly removed its ability to fly, and with no more than a soft choke of surprise, the kree plunged into the mist below.

But there would be no reprieve. The void infected Kree weren't simply mindless zombies, and they were starting to understand what their options were. Three of them came at him at once, hoping to overwhelm him with numbers. Adam rolled over and dived downward into the red mist stirring up a whirlwind of red behind him.

The Kree followed after him, pulling into a flat dive, their wings pinned to their sides.

Off to his right, Adam watched as the stone of the cliff face rushed past in a blur. The Kree were gaining on him now, in complete freefall, their bodies streamlined into straight arrows as they fell, wind whipping at their fathers.

Dark spires appeared out of the mist, but Adam kept his head.

A kree hand reached out towards him, and at the last moment Adam pulled horizontal.

Two of the three Kree continued to plunge into the chasm, and by sheer force of luck, one of the kree managed to align itself perfectly with an emerging rock spire. The sound that it made would have haunted his nightmares if he had time to think about it, but now he was in for the flight of his life. Red mist blocked his vision at all but the last second, and he found himself rapidly hurtling towards his own death, skirting instant annihilation every other second as pillars loomed up at him from the mist. He cut right, and then left, one of his wings shed sparks as it came in contact with a wall.

Behind him one of the Kree had pulled to a stop narrowly avoiding plowing right into a cliff-face, but there was still one more behind him. If he were in an open space, he would have simply used his superior speed, opened the throttle and left eh kree in the dust, but here in the spires, he couldn't go much faster without increased risk of braining himself on a rock, not like that wasn't already a heavy possibility.

Over the sound of his engines, he could just barely hear the screeching of Kree overhead seeking him out in the mist.

He needed to get back to those shuttles.

There was a reason he had kept five SE soldiers on the ground. They had jetpacks, and Adam knew that those shuttles wouldn't be able to make it out if the kree decided to swarm them. It didn't matter that you had big chain guns if the kree got close enough, and if an entire swarm of the Kree were to hook themselves to one of the shuttles, they could pull it out of the sky, or gum up the engines.

He needed to get out of here, not only to help, but there was only one way he knew they could escape.

Both the jetpacks and kree wings required some atmosphere to fly. The shuttles were the only vehicles capable of making it to escape velocity through the thin upper atmosphere without wind resistance.

If he missed his shuttle it was game over.

Something grabbed him by the ankle, but he had been waiting for it. He took a hard left, swinging his legs out behind him. The Kree screamed as it was flung forward by its own momentum, but controlled by Adam's legs. There was another sharp crunch as it impacted a pillar, and Adam's leg was suddenly free. He cut sharply around another pillar but paused as something caught his eye. For the moment, he was alone, but below him, the red mist was beginning to swirl.

He hung suspended in the canyon looking out into the dark, and the rolling red soup, which was beginning to churn upwards towards him. Little black dots appeared against the red, thousands upon thousands of them, and it took Adam a moment to realize what they were.

Kree.

Thousands, or what seemed like thousands of Kree rising up from the chasm below him in an ungodly swarm, like the biblical plague of locusts that had descended down upon Egypt.

"Holy shit."

Adam's momentary paused hadn't lasted more than a few seconds. He turned sharply as, below him, the cloud of locusts rose towards him, determined to overwhelm him with sheer numbers. He opened the throttle on his jetpack and roared upward. Beams of sunlight plunged down from above in rolling waves, illuminating the red mist. One beam cut over him, highlighting his armor in burning red fire before continuing downward where it fell on the army rising to meet him.

Fealty had long since stopped trying to mark targets and instead marked friendlies.

The shuttles had gotten off the ground but their movement vertical was slow and hampered by the swarm.

He knew if the army below him managed to make it to the shuttles, than they were done for.

His jetpack was at full capacity now, and his teeth rattled inside his head as he was shot upward. He held one arm before him opening the gun-port on his right arm stitching a line of bullets through a formation of Kree cutting their way towards the shuttle.

Gunfire could be heard over the sound of his engines, bright white muzzle flash illuminating the red cloud from the inside. Kree circled in great rolling swarms chasing and chased by small dark figures controlled by burning blue fire.

Adam roared, audible only to himself as he cut from the mist and slammed into a Kree that was attempting to attach itself to the top one of the shuttles. The two of them tumbled away leaving a trail of feathers behind them. As he fell past the open shuttle door, he made eye contact with the door gunner.

Sunny

The world around him seemed to slow for an instant.

The shuttle stood before him framed in rolling red mist and unpredictable beams of light. Spent brass casings hung in the air like a Halo around Sunny's bright blue helmet. Between them a single black feather hung suspended. Through the transparent face plate of her helmet, he could see her eyes, alive with the heat of battle, and then he was past her plunging downward.

Two Kree flanked him from either side clinging to his armor. He spun sharply like a corkscrew throwing both of them off just in time for Sunny to finish them off with her machine gun.

Another figure appeared out of the mist Jetpack stirring up the wind, blue and red armor dulled by the red haze around them. With each armor design customized to the individual, he knew maverick when he saw her, the feral red war paint of her design glistening as she roared towards him.

He reached out a hand, and she did to.

Perfect timing, they caught each other by the forearm spinning in a sudden violent rotation that became the unfortunate consequence to anyone who had been following too closely. The impact of one of Maverick's wings was so powerful that it liberated a Kree's head from it's body . They let go and went shooting off in opposite directions.

Adam rolled downward below a falling Kree body and then cut left. Bright white light exploded from the gun ports on his arms and two Kree fell past him. He rolled to the right and then down as the tail end of a shuttle swung around to meet him. But instead of hitting him, it hit a pair of Kree, flinging them past Adam shedding feathers.

The sky was alive with gunfire, falling and flying bodies, door Gunners were working hard not to shoot their own comrades.

All was chaos.

And then.

A fluke.

He saw it from a distance, as a confused Kree was thrown perfectly through the air and right into the open Nobel shuttle door. Instead of flying straight through and out the other door, the creature managed to grab onto Sunny, latching itself onto her helmet, clawing and biting as it attempted to throw her out the open door, tugging at her restraints.

But she didn't have a jetpack.

If she fell it was over.

Adam didn't even have to stop and think. He scythed left cutting the wing from a Kree with the retractable blade one his arm. With one quick movement, he shot upward and then oriented down. Sunny was having trouble, bucking and shaking like a bull, but the Kree was stuck tight. And then, Adam retracted his wings, cutting the engine .

The shuttle was coming up to meet him, and he was coming down to meet it.

He only had one shot, the Kree had managed to release one of her restraints.

Adam snarled like a feral animal.

The shuttle door was so close, but if he missed it would be over.

He could see light through the shuttle door opening. He caught the look in Sunny's eyes through her visor, and then he caught the kree around the throat. It was no more than a moment, but one second they were inside the shuttle and the next they were sailing out into open air, absent the sound of his jetpack, but surrounded by the sound of gunfire. The kree looked almost shocked, even more so when he looked down to find a blade slid neatly into his stomach.

Adam kept eye contact as he let go, allowing the kree to slid off the end and tumble over backwards downwards.

Down towards where the Kree swarm was rising like a black cloud to meet them.

They had to get out of here soon.

Inside his helmet the altitude gage was slowly ticking upwards. Just forty thousand feet . There was no way a Kree could fly higher than that. No earth bird had ever been recorded any higher, and he doubted the Kree would either, then again, their planet was smaller, and gravity was lower than on earth. He had no idea how that affected air density. If they could just get in the shuttles and have them accelerate, they would certainly be able to go faster, but Kree were already above them, and if they tried they ran the risk of blowing out an engine with a collision, that was already a possibility.

But the kree below them were slowly catching up.

They had to do something.

And then

"!2 o clock high!"

"Ramirez!"

There was a slow building roar in the distance, and Adam turned mid flight as one of the Empyrean's combat jets cut just underneath them. Golden energy spilled from the jet's seams, sleek and alien, red light glistened off a pearly white exterior. The move was ballsey, if he collided at speed with even one of the Kree, it could take him out, but Ramirez didn't even falter. Adam was almost jealous for a moment. He had only had the opportunity to fly the empyrean jets on one or two occasions, and the experience was almost religious. To be able to do it in combat would have been amazing.

Even more so when he realized what Ramirez was doing.

Burning white fire.

The Jet passed below them and let go a fan burst of bright white flame , which rolled downward and engulfed a huge swath of the Kree in burning white flame.

Overhead the Kree were struggling, pumping their wings faster, fighting against upper atmosphere turbulence.

Adam himself was buffeted from one side to the other by intermittent gusts of wind.

"Better hurry up." Ramirez ordered cutting into a sharp turn.

Fire glowed below them as thousands of burning Kree bodies fell towards the distant land below.

Adam flew upward to help get rid of the remaining kree. Some of the others had cut over to land inside the shuttles, strapping themselves in in preparation for the final push out of atmosphere, taking pot shots at kree from the open doors in an attempt to keep their shuttles safe.

The red mist was beginning to thin out.

He could see the sun.

And then it happened.

Maverick was caught in a sudden draft of wind as was a Kree to her right. The two collided so hard and at just the wrong angle that the jetpack was torn almost clean off. Wires sparked, failed, and then died, Maverick plunged from the sky.

Ramirez shouted, Adam shouted.

Her hands flailed into the air.

The second wave of Kree was coming up behind them past their burning brothers.

He didn't have time.

Noble shuttle turned left to intercept just as he did. Light burst through the last of the red mist, below them there was only a rolling bank of fog fringed in fire from the falling, burning Kree. Maverick was outlined by the light of the kree starlegs and arms splayed out before her. The first of the kree hoard was beginning to reach them. Noble shuttle cut below her, its door waiting and open. Sunny had pulled the door Gun aside and was leaning precariously out of the door, held by only one restraint. She reached out a hand to catch Maverick.

She wasn't going to make it.

And then Adam cut in.

He grabbed Sunny by the forearm, and Maverick by the hand. Sunny jolted against their combined weight, which even with the help of her armor was still a combined thousand pounds or more. He couldn't hear it but he watched as she threw her head back in a scream. His own body roared in pain. The armor he wore roared despite his SE exoskeleton.

And sunny didn't have an exo skeleton.

He turned, looked at the taught wire of her restraints, saw her hand gripping the doorway bent metal twisted under her hand as she held on with all she had, and then with a short burst of power from his jetpack he was able to swing maverick up and over, past Sunny into the shuttle. Maverick landed with some grace gripping onto the base of one of the seats as she didn't have restraints. The kree were almost within distance now, they were heading towards the engines, an entire swarm of them.

Adam shot in through the opening, ramming into Sunny who fell over backwards.

Up ahead the pilot slammed a hand down on the door controls, and then rotated the engine.

Their fusion engine lit up with a thrum, and below them a thousand or more kree were ignited by the sheer energy that burst from the back of the ship.

The group of them were flattened against the floor and the rear seats in one mass in a terrifying few minutes as they shot into the sky.

And then, it was over.

"SE teams sound off." He said breathlessly into his comms.

"Terminator 1 all accounted for."

"Valkyrie 1 all present sir."

"Slayer 1 bruised up, bad but alive."

Adam sighed in relief, "Noble 1 still intact, but pissing our collective pants." Off to his side Maverick began to laugh, hauling herself upright and slumping down into one of the seats. She held up a hand and even through her armor she was shaking, but she continued to laugh.

Adam turned to look down at Sunny. He was still resting mostly across her chest, having fallen there when the doors shut.

He reached up and pulled off his helmet with a sharp his taking a deep breath of the shuttle's, now filtered, air, "Sunny, are you ok."

She pulled off her helmet, but did not ask him to move. So he didn't

He saw the look on her face.

Pain.

"Sunny, Sunny are you ok?"

"Shh," She ordered, "I'm fine." He knew she wasn't fine, but by the look on her face he was at least sure it wasn't life threatening. He leaned down resting his forehead against hers, "One of these days I need to stop getting us into trouble."

She laughed hooking her fingers into one of the cracks on his armor, pulling him closer, "Please don't. How else would I get my fill of near-death experiences?"

"Aren't we getting a little old for near death experiences?'

"You're only thirty."

"Practically ancient" He muttered. She pulled him closer and he closed his eyes.

For the moment it was enough to realize that they were alive.

And he tried not to think about the Kree homeworld

Fallen to the void