Hot pursuit

[Narrator]

The three shuttles, to be fair, looked pretty impressive. Sleek, armed to the teeth, and agile-looking, they were like great birds of prey waiting to take flight. In a row sat the Silent Messenger of Armageddon, the Graceful Eviscerating Raptor, an the Golden Feather of Death.

Apparently, Shi'ar names weren't as impressive or flowing when translated to English.

The arrangements were set, as were the teams. In the larger Messenger, Rachel, Cal, Valdis, Daniel, Melody, Taliyah, Bobby, Kevin and Ashlie were set up. Captain Britain took Bear, Derek, Kyra, and Tommy in the Raptor, while Ryan took Onyx, Rob, John and Alison in the Feather.

Their Shi'ar pilots regarded them warily as they took off from the ship, in hot pursuit of the ship that the Skrulls had stolen.

[Tommy More]

"Can't you go any faster? I've seen Spitfires faster than this thing."

[Melody Martens]

"Thank god I'm not on his ship; I'd probably throw him out the airlock," Melody mumbled to herself, hearing Tommy over the comm link.

[Ryan Gabriel]

((FOR CLARITY: Please put which ship this his happening in at the start of your post))
[Feather]
Ryan watched through the viewport as space engulfed their little ship. "I guess there weren't any chances that I'd get into space and it'd be under, y'know, good conditions," he mused beside Rob.

[Daniel Uriel]

[Messenger]
"Is that supposed to make me glad you're here?" Daniel smirked to Melody. "I mean, I am but, y'know."

[Melody Martens]

[Messenger]
"I say it because it's true. If that makes you happy too, then I'm glad," she smirked. "Glad to be back in action with my partner in crime," Melody held up her hand for a high five.

[Janice Gilbertson]

[Raptor]

"I don't know if you were aware, but we're going faster than the speed of sound, Tommy. There's just no sonic booms in space."

[Robert West]

[Feather]

"The last time I was in space, I had a much better ship," Rob says, "Fucking crystals."

[Derek Scott]

[Raptor]
"Is it wrong for me to be upset that people haven't been hurt yet? Just... y'know, trying to justify me being here." No, Derek didn't look uneasy at all.

[Narrator]

The two smaller ships streaked ahead, with the Messenger taking up the central rear in the formation. Ahead, they could see the Skrull shuttle heading for a warpgate at the edges of the system.

[Kyra Raphael]

"I could hurt you, if that would make you feel better." Kyra said, joking to cover up her own nerves.

[Derek Scott]

[Raptor]
"Really? Thanks. You're all heart."

[Rachel O'Brien]

(Messenger)

I love you. Rachel sent to Ryan, their minds linked up.

[Ryan Gabriel]

I love you too, babe, Ryan thought back. Just hold onto your seats back there. Those guys won't know what hit them.

[ASHLIE]

[Messenger]

ASHLIE is sitting in the back, seeming somewhat detached from what#s happening but she's hooked into the shuttle's sensors and watching through the sensors. And while she does she seems to be tinkering with her former shell to gauge if anything useful can be salvaged from it.

[Narrator]

With the sensor feed routed through her, Ashlie would be well aware of everything that was going on with the three ships.

And thus she would be increasingly aware as in the cockpits of each of the ships, an energy buildup was beginning to form near the pilots.

[ASHLIE]

[Messenger]

"I am detecting an energy anomaly in the cockpits of our shuttles." she says, sounding unexcited as ever.

[Calvin Strong]

"What?" Cal said, blinking out of his thoughts as he looked up. Frowning, he let his vision slide through other detection modes until he could find what she was talking about.

[Narrator]

Their pilot glanced back at the noise, narrowing his eyes at the mutants. He muttered something darkly as he reached under his seat, pulling a sidearm as the energy charge under his seat began to grow exponentially and destablize.

[ASHLIE]

[Messenger]

"Anomaly is growing unstable. Immidiate action is recommended." she points out, trying to find it's cause in the scans.

[Kevin Gravis]

[Messenger]

"Umm... alien guy? Yeah, you should... Be. Very. Still," Kevin urged, guessing really.

[ASHLIE]

[Messenger]

"Aggression imminent." she points out at Kevin's reaction and gets up to block the cockpit with the relative bulk of her frame, reaching out to grab the pilot's weapon.

[Melody Martens]

[messenger]
"Hey!" Melody cried out. "Keep your hands on the controls where we can see them, fucker, or I'll blow them off."

She glared at the pilot, waiting for him to keep moving.

[Calvin Strong]

Cal got up the same time as Ashlie, grabbing his staff and his gun as he charged forward, a bit behind her, to get to the cockpit. HAL, prepare a containment field with the staff.

[Narrator]

The pilot didn't hesitate a second, never stopping as he drew his rifle, shouldered it, and opened fire. The first blast caught Cal, sending him flying back across the passenger cabin and hit hard against the rear wall. The rest of them went right into Ashlie as she blocked the door, obstructing his fire and really leaving him with no target to aim at but her. He ketp himself pressed against the far end to stay out of reach as he fired frantically. "No stopping us! He loves us, He will not let us be defeated!"

[ASHLIE]

The blasts fry some of ASHLIE's plating and circuitry but she doesn't seem to particularly care, trying to reconfigure her frame so she can reach the barrel of the rifle to rip it away from the Skrull.

[Kevin Gravis]

Kevin raced in, armoring up before sliding between Ashlie's legs into the cockpit and precisely slashing at the Skrull's arms.

[Narrator]

The skrull seemed a bit shocked as it found Ashlie yanking the gun from him, along with the arm that was holding it. It didn't lose a beat, though, rapidly shifting into a bulky stone-skinned monster and charging at the two of them, plowing them back into the passenger cabin.

[ASHLIE]

ASHLIE is slammed into the wall with a loud metallic 'Clank!' that she proceeds to ignore in favour of studying the rifle she took from the Skrull for a moment. As well as removing the remaining organic matter from it's handle.

[Narrator]

The Skrull disregarded Ashlie, as she seemed to be not inclined to attack, turning its attention (and a powerful punch) toward Kevin.

Meanwhile, Ashlie's sensors would show that the bomb, which their pilot had prematurely set to ignite, was reaching critical mass rapidly.

[Kevin Gravis]

Kevin ducked under the punch and slashed vertically.

[ASHLIE]

Remembering the ship AI's threat from earlier she checks the shuttle's system for emergency ejection protocols to seperate the cockpit from the rest of the ship.

[Narrator]

The shuttle, unfortunately, was made with the intent of keeping the passengers and pilot safe from explosions in the aft engine compartment. The cockpit COULD be jettisoned, but it would take the passenger cabin along with it... and that was kind of pointless when that wouldn't separate them from the bomb. She could see from the protocols that their options were to either evacuate the passenger cabin (which wasn't recommended, since the passenger cabin was the only pressurized part of the ship, or to get the bomb out of there. And very, very fast.

The Skrull roared in pain as Kevin slashed through its thick hide, but managed to move back enough that it wasn't a lethal wound... only removing an arm. It countered with a feint that turned into a kick at his gut that would be devastating if it hit.

[Daniel Uriel]

Daniel, surprised as hell despite himself, was out of his seat and flying up to the front of the ship, landing a hit on the Skrull to knock its balance off as it kicked.

[Kevin Gravis]

Not wanting his intestines ruptured, Kevin scissor-chopped at the other leg as Dan distracted it.

[ASHLIE]

ASHLIE's old shell jerks to live as the AI remote-access it. It grabs it's face-plate, detaches it to reveal the sensor arrays behind it and hands it to the shell the AI is actually running on. Then it pulls the bomb from under the pilot's seat and runs off towards the back of the ship.

Meanwhile her main-frame lowers the rifle at the Skrull and almost curiously pulls the trigger.

[Madrox Saavedra]

[Raptor]

Madrox's sensors at last picked up the energy spike from the Messenger. After a quick adjustment, he detected a weaker anomaly in their ship.

He leaned of over to Cap. "We have a problem. I believe there's a bomb in the cockpit."

[Rachel O'Brien]

(Messenger)

Rachel was in the back of the shuttle, passing on warnings to the crews of the other ships.

[Ryan Gabriel]

WHAT!?

Ryan didn't give the others any warning. He just raised a hand, and blasted the pilot point blank. "John, Rob, help me check the ship, we've got sabotage going on."

[Narrator]

[Messenger]

The door to the passenger cabin slid shut behind Ashlie's body as it hurried back to the loading ramp with the bomb. Not that anyone would know it in the rest of the ship. All that they, and the passengers of the other two ships who could see it, would know was that the ship was suddenly rocked by an explosion that took half of their engine section with it. And Ashlie's old body, in case that was in question.

[Feather]

The pilot slumped to the ground in mid-movement under the brain-scrambling effects of Ryan's blast, its last attempted movement giving a rather good indication to where the bomb was.

[Raptor]

The pilot of that vessel, cued by the explosion everyone could see on the Messenger, spun as it reached under its seat to trigger the bomb, opening fire on its passengers without preamble.