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Then she turned back down to the settlement township, and looked at all of the people all around.

To them, it didn’t matter if they were from the Federation or the Hegemony. All they wanted to do was to live in peace, to build their lives and their futures.

But the powers that be decided that wasn’t for them at all.

Freya’s eyes went wide the moment she spotted a shop down below. Or, rather, an old bar. She recognized it easily. It was the very first one she had ever entered, back when she first started doing contracts in the colonies.

This was that same settlement.

It had grown from a few hundred, up to a few thousand, all in the span of a few years.

The recognition fell on her more and more as her eyes swept over the area. The very center of it was just like how it used to be – that old prefab style of building. Cookie-cutter design, easy to deploy. But the rest of the buildings around that old style were somewhat different

.....

A little more unique, but not too alienating to be different. Like they were an evolution of that old, simple style.

“Everyone in the township proper,” Freya announced through her sonic emitters, “Federation naval forces have been beaten back temporarily. This means this is our best chance to escape. Please hurry towards the harbor, where our ships will evacuate everyone out.

“Run, but don’t panic. Bring your necessities, but keep it light. Breathe, and keep one foot in front of the other. We’ll all get through this.”

Although she urged the people around her to evacuate faster, she was far from the only one. Both mecha squadrons had spread all throughout the township, and pleaded with the people to run as fast as they could.

“Don’t forget to bring some rations,” Kali told them, also through sonic emitters. “And also your medicines. Spare clothing. Datapads. Weapons, just in case. And your pets – never forget them.

“The faster we all go, the less chances we’ll run into Federation reinforcements. Trust me, they’re coming. And as far as we can tell, they wanna burn everything down.”

People all around them hurried as they fled. Most were families of various sizes, typically two parents and one or two children. All had bundles of their necessities with them as they ran, some with carts full of their belongings.

They somehow just couldn’t part with them.

Every single one ran towards the harbor as instructed, where the ships of the Republic had landed. There, both destroyers were on the largest landing pads, and every entrance they had was opened and lowered.

There, on the ground, swarms of people were led towards safety by members of the Corvus Defense Force. Teams of four ushered everyone on the ground as orderly as they could, up and into the destroyers.

Many of the teams were simply civilians in the Republic, who signed up to be part of the Defense Force during times of need. Such as now. All of them were wearing environmental rescue suits, which were brightly colored for visibility, and lightly armored for safety.

Each one was also wielding axe-like rescue multi-tools, which were equipped with lights, a plasma cutter, and an antigrav beam among other things. Which they thankfully didn’t need to use much during this deployment.

Instead, they waved them in the air, and made sure that they were easily seen by the crowds around them. They used them to point in the direction where the crowd should be moving, and helped direct all efforts in the right direction.

The people around them looked incredibly harried and stressed and worried – which was completely understandable. Who knows what the Federation would have done to them, had the Republic not arrived in time.

And it was a look that the citizens of the Republic were only all too familiar with. They had worn it as well, at some point in their lives. So they did their absolute best to minimize the fears of everyone around them.

But no matter what, there was only so much that a few could do, amidst the tide of the many. A good portion of the crowd panicked suddenly, and a rush of them began to stampede their way towards the destroyers, towards safety.

The sudden rush of people caused a mother and daughter pair to get pushed around and knocked back and forth. The chaos of it all caused the little girl to start to sob and cry – this was an experience that she simply couldn’t understand and couldn’t process.

She felt all the panic in the people all around her, and was swept up by it all. The only thing she could do was cry, loudly and openly. All her mother could do was wrap her arms around her defensively, and did her best to protect her.

But before her panic could grow far out of control, the crowd around them spread out somewhat and gave them space, suddenly.

When the girl and her mother looked up, they saw Amarok standing in front of them protectively, and physically got in between them and the rest of the crowd. But it wasn’t just the massive wolf, she was accompanied by a trio of Corvus Republic civilians in their rescue suits. They helped wave the crowd around, as all four shuffled the two of them off to the side. Away from the chaos.

Then, they escorted them personally into the closest destroyer.

In between the two destroyers were another pair of ships from the Republic. The larger one with massive cargo tanks along the side was the Stalwart Fiddler, the Republic’s frigate-sized trade hauler and smuggling ship, captained by Jax.

–

Stalwart Fiddler

Class: Hauler

Role: Trader (Smuggler)

Bridge Officer: Captain Jax

Armament

Broadside Turrets: 10x [M2]

Topside Emplacements: 2x [M2]

Topside Drone Bay [24/24]

–

Though they had long since been full, they remained on the ground to help organize the evacuation with the rest of the fleet.

Near them was the Spirit of Amelia, who was also opened up all the way. Her main cargo bay was fully lowered, which revealed the field clinic they installed on it. There, Azrael and her medtechs checked on as many of the township’s people as they could, even as they crowded around.

They also brought as many of the settlement’s patients and sick and wounded as they could aboard. Their hospital and clinics had plenty of people who were suffering from various ailments, some of whom were completely bedridden.

Although the Spirit of Amelia wasn’t large enough to hold every sick person they could, Azrael did her best to accommodate those who needed the most help, and were most infirm. A number had a few debilitating diseases, or had broken bones, or were simply too old and their bodies couldn’t handle the stress of evacuation.

The settlement’s primary physician – it was still Doctor Shan – brought in one of her patients via a hovering medical gurney, who Azrael immediately treated. His entire right leg was encased in a recovery enclosure, which was busy at work repairing his leg.

More than that, the patient looked frantic and more panicked than everyone else around him. In fact, Azrael noted that he looked crazed, and on the verge of an emotional breakdown of sorts.

She put a hand on his shoulder and smiled.

“It’s alright,” she told him. “You’ll be alright.”

He instantly found her words and her touch calming, and eased himself somewhat. But even despite that, he could feel the panic all around. It hung thick in the air, like he could scoop it out with his hands and carry it around.

Perhaps that’s exactly what he was doing, and why he was so out of sorts.

Azrael pulled out her MedGun, slid it over the recovery enclosure’s medgun port, and scanned his leg through it.

“Broken leg,” she said. “Fractured in two places. Looks really painful. Why’s the recovery time set to one week?”

Doctor Shan shook her head in regret.

“Best enclosure I’ve got,” she replied. “The others are still one-month models.”

Azrael grimaced, then nodded in understanding. Their settlement had grown, but it was still a far off colony. Their medical care was leagues behind the core system. The Federation was ignoble in that way.

Then again, this entire sector was under the Hegemony’s purview, too.

She sighed deeply as she adjusted her medgun’s nanites for the man’s genetic makeup, then injected him with one of her best recovery cocktails. A mixture of her most potent painkillers, optimized biocells, and advanced nanites flooded the enclosure, and began to work their magic.

The man instantly felt a wave of relief wash over him, as the pain in his leg subsided more and more.

Azrael gave him another smile, then withdrew her medgun from the recovery enclosure. Then she patted him on his shoulder and gave it a light squeeze.

“Your leg’ll be just fine,” she told him. “It’ll be healed up by the end of the cycle, I promise. Then the doc here can help you out of your enclosure. But for now, I’m gonna place you on one of the other ships, alright? I need the space for the ones who need more intense care. Are you alright with that?”

He nodded, albeit somewhat reluctantly.

“I heard,” he muttered to her, “I heard on the emergency comms... The other townships... They... they...”

He pointed out towards the horizon, which none of them could see where they were. But the skies were bright with the flames in the distance regardless.

“We’ll do what we can, don’t worry,” Azrael told him.

But he shook his head in response.

“It’s too late,” he gurgled. “Too, too late.”

High above the town itself, the Viridian Nautilus, Maetel’s Lament, and the Accursed Smuggler hovered stoically and watched over the entire town itself. At the same time, Xylo’s Muse squadron patrolled in a wide circle a few kilometers out and made sure nothing got even remotely close.

“Why are the Feds razing the planet?” she asked over comms. “Sensors are literally showing how much they’re burning everything to the ground. Aren’t these their own citizens?”

“Hegemony citizens, too,” Lucifer answered. “According to intel, settlers from both galactic nations are scattered everywhere out here.”

“Doesn’t justify what they’re doing!”

“It does to them. Especially since these colonial planets were deciding whether or not to declare independence. Not only that, but according to MCO intelligence, various houses in the Hegemony were pouring hundreds of millions of ducats to push them all closer towards declaring it.”

Xylo was immediately taken aback, and cursed silently.

“Wait, you’re telling me that the Hegemony pushed the colonies to rebel against the Federation?” Xylo exclaimed. “Which led to all this... bloodshed.”

“It would’ve resulted in this, no matter what,” Lucifer answered. “The Hegemony simply moved things along faster. That’s the way of galactic nations.”