Time for some thrilling heroics. Here's last time.
Our heroes learn that Queen Anathraxa's armada is amassing at the fragment of Ruros! They assemble their own armada: the combined might of Avia, Simba, Nivek, Psidonia, and a strongly worded letter from Zeebor.
As they approach Ruros, they learn that Anathraxa's forces are mounting a ground invasion as well as aerial bombardment. They decide to surprise attack, but have a contingent of ships (including the Psidonians, who will almost certainly be quickly destroyed if the Queen's forces realize they're there) hang back and take shots at the Warships. The Darking itself will fly in as their flagship and engage the most powerful Warships.
With this rather bold strategy in place, they attack! Their first exchange goes well, taking advantage of surprise, but they run afoul of the sheer number and power of the Anathraxan ships. Iris Blue pilots the Darkwing into the fray, and Abbas and Zeenia jump out into the ether to board and attack directly. They decimate a crew and aim the captured ship squarely at other Anathraxan ships, causing chaos and further damage to the Queen's Armada!
The heroes' alliance takes casualties as well - the Nivekian troops pour out of ships to attack the Queen's forces, and many of them don't survive. Avian and Lion-Man ships are destroyed as the Queen's armada responds. Gruff, manning a gun on the Darkwing, takes some laser fire and is wounded, but still able to fight. The tide seems to be turning...
...and then the heroes see King Boolar's ship take a mighty hit! It flames out and starts crashing toward the fragment's surface, and two Warships give chase. Iris, thinking quickly, fires the Darkwing's newly acquired atomic cannon and cripples the Warships, but Boolar's ship has crashed and a horde of Primals is marching toward him.
The heroes can't just leave their ally to die. Iris pilots the ship down to the fragment and fires the rocket gun into the Primal army, destroyed a quarter of it. Iris, Zeenia, Abbas, Gruff, Rill, Craw, and K'ree-Kk-C'hk deploy and land in the midst of the horde.
The Primal captain hurls a grenade, and blast stuns Iris and Craw and blows Rill backwards against the burning Bird-Man ship. Abbas lays waste to the Primals with his plasma rifle, and Zeenia gets up in a group of them and unleashes her danger bling! Craw engages the Primal captain in a swordfight, but can't manage to get an opening. He spots Zeenia burbling up and goes on the defense, knowing that this fight is over. And indeed, between an aerial strike from Iris and Zeenia's tentacles, the captain falls.
It's not all good news, however. The Primals surrounded K'ree-Kk-C'hk, and while he holds his own for a while, he is eventually run through and falls. Rill is mortally injured, and so Gruff breaks off his own battle and risks his life to scamper across the battlefield to save the embattled Bird-Man. The heroes win the day, and are gratified to see that King Boolar survived the crash.
He tells them that there's no way the impulsive (and frankly kind of dim) Primals led this assault - there must be a Handmaiden nearby. The heroes consider that she might be in a Warship above them, but Zeenia figures that it's more likely that there's a land-base from which the Anathraxan invasion is being coordinated. The Ruros capital, Agricula, is nearby, and has the infrastructure and resources that such an effort would need. Boolar donates a couple of rocket sleds, and the heroes mount up and head out!
Next time: The Battle of Agricula!
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