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? Everything should have been on its way to being a peaceful couple of weeks of shore leave, but instead, it seemed the devil himself was out to get him.

“As soon as we land on the spaceport, there will be dozens of bounty hunters ready to jump us. It’s how I would do if I was in their place,” Sinclair pondered. “The whole of the Spaceport is considered interplanetary jurisdiction; any registered bounty hunter will have a free shot at us the moment we step outside.”

“Not all of it,” Velvet offered. “They have a Sphinx embassy on the inner ring, they can’t touch us if we get asylum.”

“That still leave us with the problem of the bounty,” Josh paced nervously around the room. “The sphinxes won’t be able to save us from a direct request of extradition from the Equestrian planetary forces!”

Love Bite stepped back; this had nothing to do with her.

“If we talk with the sphinx’s ambassador, I can explain everything,” Velvet said. “The Society will back us too!”

Love Bite could run away, there was no bounty for her, they didn’t even know she was on the ship.

“That’s not certain, not even the Society likes to go against the Equestrian Defense,” Josh pointed.

Somehow, they would be safe, Love Bite told herself.

“It’s all the chance we have,” Velvet replied.

Josh nodded. “Stay behind me.”

“Don’t you dare to die to save me!”

He turned to Love Bite, a somber look in his eyes. “It would be better if you got away first, we don’t want to drag you into this.”

“That bad?”

He glanced back at her. “Yeah.”

Love Bite shook her head, “Where is your arsenal?”

Josh was shortly stunned by the question. “What? You don’t need to do it…”

“It sounds like you need some help,” Love Bite replied. “Now, where are your guns?”

“Do you even know how to use a gun?” Velvet asked.

“Father was a defense contractor, mother was part of the Planetary Defense Forces, they taught me how to defend myself,” she replied. “Now, about those guns?”

Josh guided the two mares to his personal room, hidden behind one of the walls, locked through a retinal scan there was a reinforced safe of crystallized steel.

Love Bite had expected a couple of handguns and a couple of knives, with some luck a long rifle, but when Josh opened the safe, she gasped.

One-half of the safe contained hard drives and tightly packed bundles of money from several different species, at least two dozen golden coins, and a couple of treasure bounds written in an alien language. The other side contained a collection of magnetic pistols, laser rifles, plasma carbines, shard-guns, and a collection of different tasers, some discreet and elegant, while others seemed fit to tame giant animals. There was body armor stashed to the back, impact resistant jackets and even a couple of magnetic-shield generators.

Love Bite looked from the arsenal to Josh with a silent question in her eyes.

“What?” Josh asked with a smile. “I travel through dangerous places!”

Sinclair and Love Bite quickly donned some of the armor and strapped in their chosen guns to clips and holsters on the armor. Love Bite had to improvise a bit to make the armor fit right, since the suits had been developed for humans, not ponies. For last they helped Velvet put on some armor, since the bat pony had no experience with firearms she would be carrying extra ammo for the two, but Sinclair made sure to give her a couple of tasers.

The Errant Venture approached port with the low growl of its ion engines rattling the entire ship, warning sounding off and almost immediately fizzling out, a small crowd of dock workers and technicians were attracted by the state of disrepair of the ship.

From his position on the bridge, Sinclair inspected the crowd through cameras and sensors, mixed amidst the curious there were a good number of bounty hunters, most of them seemed green, barely more than kids with guns.

“The skimmer is loaded and ready,” Velvet called from the lower cargo bay.

Sinclair turned from the bridge, tapping a few commands on his captain’s chair. “I’ll be there in a moment, continue as planned.”

“[i]Venture[/i], turn off the gravity compensator,” Josh spoke the commands as he walked in a brisk step.

The still frayed communication system replied in garbled binary bursts. The generator pitch deepened and lights flickered all over the ship before Sinclair felt the gravity field fluctuate as they were caught by the Spaceport’s own gravity field.

A jarring shudder ran through the deck plate, felt in the bones more than heard.

“On my signal, divert the residue back into the auxiliary thrusters, and burn port retros at full for fifteen seconds,” Josh took one of the magnetic pistols in his hands as he walked inside the cargo bay.

Velvet and Love Bite were already waiting for him on the Skimmer, the anti-grav vehicle was supposed to help move cargo around, but it didn’t take too much fidgeting to replace its ionic battery with a couple of magical crystals. It had a small cabin for a driver and a passenger, with a large, flat bed on the back that could carry around a single container.

The [i]Errant Venture[/i] shuddered violently as the portside retro thrusters ignited, the infusion of residue into the main fuel line caused the thrusters to spill noxious smoke more than flames, covering the dockyard in a thick, choking smoke that drove most people away from the ship in a hurry.

The cargo bay doors were blasted open by its emergency release bolts and the Skimmer fell to the ground with a jarring impact, the anti-grav plates kicking into action to make it float a few meters out of ground, whining anxiously as Sinclair pumped more power into them and stepped down on the accelerator.

The skimmer darted ahead, quickly clearing through the dispersing crowd before any could react and dropping into the traffic lanes that criss-crossed the spaceport. Josh held tight to the controls as the engine roared sickly, pressed harder than it had ever been expected to perform.

Velvet was at his side, clutching tightly to her seat belt as the small skimmer drove around the giant cargo haulers. Love Bite was on the back, she didn’t have any safety belt, but instead she tied a rope around her waist and to the skimmer’s bed, she focused her arcane energies and summoned almost forgotten incantations.

The entire skimmer was enveloped by her spell, a simple illusion that mirrored the giant cargo haulers around them.

“It’s working!” Velvet exclaimed happily. “How are you holding, Love Bite?”

Too focused on her spell, the hybrid replied with only a grunt and a nod.

“I’ll bring us down on the tunnels as fast as I can,” Josh added. “Then you can relax for a while.”

“It’s only half an hour to the embassy,” Velvet consulted their planned route. “We can go…”

There was thunder and Sinclair threw their vehicle as hard as he could to the side. The vehicle jerked, knocking them around at breakneck speed. All around him the road descended into chaos as the giant cargo haulers lost control and crashed into each other and the road.

Love Bite didn’t have it in her to scream, bracing herself against the wall with two hooves as Josh guided their skimmer out of the path of two crashing cargo haulers. Her illusion was disrupted by the disruptive blast of the first explosion, she felt the sting of dark magic in the air, a disruption spell mixed in with the explosive one. She thanked the humans for building their machines with those weird electronics instead of arcane components.

Sinclair barely dodged a second explosion, those weren’t regular explosives, but arcane disruption bombs, wreaking havoc on the spells that guided the automated cargo haulers.

Josh pumped all power into the elevation thrusters, throwing their skimmer high into the sky as one of the giant haulers flopped in front of them. Their skimmer dropped back hard to the ground with a skidding shower of sparks.

Velvet’s eyes widened with a muted scream when she saw the nightmarish creature coming for them, jumping out of one of the overpasses. It looked like a pony, but wrong, distorted by fiery rage, with a crooked horn, a furious mane of blue fire crowned its head.

“What the fuck!?” Josh roared.

Love Bite turned fast, her magic reaching for one of the tasers and striking the creature before it could land on them, the fiery beast was taken mid-air by the impact and thrown to the road.

They were hit again, Sinclair braced the controls as hard as he could, but the skimmer was thrown by the force of the explosion against one of the heavy lifters that surrounded the docking zone. Love Bite took one of the pistols with her magic, cocking it and scanning their surroundings anxiously.

The window next to Sinclair fractured, as another of the fiery beasts jumped them, the creature punched through the glass with its hooves and almost hit Sinclair’s head. With barely a thought, the human took out his pistol and fired two shots against it.

“We need to go!” Velvet screamed, seeing more of the fiery beasts moving towards them. “They are Nirins!”

“What the hell is a Nirin?!” Josh yelled as he blindly shot against the approaching creatures, struggling with the controls of the damaged skimmer.

“They are bad news,” Velvet explained as she kicked open the control panel, pulled out a couple of burned out wires, and connected two of them directly. “Corrupted Kirins, extremely dangerous.”

The skimmer shot up just as nirins came upon them, Love Bite fired wildly towards them to slow their approach. The skimmer darted ahead, leaving them behind with angry growls.

“They are still coming!” Velvet screamed. The nirins had taken over one of the automated haulers, their corrupted magic overwhelming and dominating the spells that once guided the machine.

“Fuck,” Sinclair gritted out, as the nirins breathed hot on their necks, darts of warp fire coming towards them. “I’m as fast as this thing will go!”

Love Bite dropped the pistol and took the shard rifle with her magic, they only three shots with that gun, she would need to make each one count.

“Keep driving,” she took careful aim at the corrupted creatures and, with her magic, squeezed the trigger. The weapon roared and launched a shard of energy crystal at high speed against the nirin, the beast still tried to protect himself with magic, but it cut straight through the magical shield, hard flesh, brittle bones, and splashed its soft brain matter all over its companions.

“Nice Shot!” the human growled.

Love Bite swiped her hair off of her face and loaded another shard in the gun just as one of the nirins jumped towards her, propelling itself with a magic push. She dropped the large gun and caught it with three bullets from her pistol before it even touched the skimmer.

“We have more incoming,” Velvet pointed towards more nirins coming towards them in hijacked haulers.

Love Bite dropped the spent pistol magazine and reached for another one, but more of the nirins were jumping towards them.

“Get down!” Josh screamed and she pressed herself down on the ground when Josh reached over her and took down the closest nirin with two well placed shots.

Love Bite let go of her pistol and took her taser just as the nirin came towards her with its head lowered, the flaming horn pointed to her neck. She caught it in the neck with a full charge, putting all her power behind the strike and launching it out of the skimmer.

She turned to face the other, but too slow, the beast was upon her with two flaming hooves hitting her back with a sickening crack. The hybrid cried out loud, but grasped her pistol back, and even though it had no ammo, she bludgeoned the nirin with it, hitting its eyes with the handle.

Velvet took the controls in her hooves, “Go help her, I’ll drive!”

Sinclair squeezed through the cracked window, pulling himself to the side of the skimmer and graciously jumping onto the back of the bed just in time to punch a nirin before it could hit Love Bite.

Love Bite felt something loose on her chest, probably a cracked rib, she couldn’t be sure, but it would be a problem for later anyway. Sinclair threw her a new pistol and she took it in her magic.

The skimmer dipped into a tunnel, the nirins glowed amidst the darkness and kept coming. Gunfire rang out like music as Love Bite and Josh stood back to back, covering each other against the beasts.

Velvet took a lower route, making a tight turn to the left.

And right into another nirin.

The nirin was in front of them, horn lowered and glowing with sickening magic. Seeing that she couldn’t dodge, Velvet accelerated and crashed into it before the beast could have unleashed whatever spell it had prepared, she ground the creature against the craft’s heavy metal frame.

“Yes, yes, yes,” Love Bite screamed as she brought down another nirin, throwing the empty magazine and punching a full one. Sinclair, at her side, dropped a jammed pistol and unsheathed an old-looking, high-caliber revolver.

There was a crack, another explosion that almost threw them out of the road, but this time there was something different. Josh felt the sting of ozone in his mouth.

Velvet’s hooves dug into the control panel as error reports flooded the console, and the simple computer blared error messages in three different languages. She tried to restart it, screaming and cursing it all the while.

The skimmer skidded to a screeching stop, the nirins coming closer, death in their eyes. A hand gripped her arm.

“Time to go,” Sinclair urged, pulling her out of the seat.

Love Bite turned back around to face Sinclair and Velvet.

Something snaked across her mind. [i]Something’s wrong. Something’s very wrong. [/i]She could feel it in the air, the sting of dark magic.

“We are not too far,” Sinclair growled as he took the shard rifle in his hands and slotted in a new shard. “Start heading up. I’ll be just behind,” he lied.

Velvet knew he was lying, her mouth slightly open in shock, but she refused to move.

“No,” Love Bite said. “We stick together.”

He looked at the two mares and chuckled. “Fine. I’ll...”

Sinclair felt it moments before it struck him. A lightning bolt, brilliant white and warped greens. His skin smouldered as the jolt of corrupted magic ravaged his body, burned his clothes, charred his skin.

He heard a scream through all his pain. [i]Sweet Velvet.[/i]

He saw the hooves of the nirins coming closer, three shots were fired, but then silenced with a disturbing crush.

Then came darkness and the agonizing unconsciousness as he clawed with all his forces to remain awake.