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They'd been chasing him for a while already, having left all their subordinates in the dust. He was alone, too, though. Covering fire from his family would've certainly been welcome right about now, but they were too far away to do anything.

The suit could still outrun these two, however. If they doubled back to attack his family, he would have to turn and fight, but for now, at least, it seemed as though they were intent on chasing him down. Perhaps they didn't realize that he was purposely allowing them to keep up.

So much the better. It gave him time to think. Without Bloodeye and Crowe to worry about, he had confidence that his Hahl could handle the others. His sons were strong.

But this stalemate couldn't last forever. Something would have to give sooner or later.

'Abbas,' came Worwal's private words, 'our allies--'

A system alert cut him off. A bad one. "Incoming AIM," read the visor with an accompanying tracking dot.

Unfortunately, AIM stood for Air Intercept Missile.

Where the hell that thing had launched from, Abbas had no earthly idea, and there wasn't time to worry about it. The suit, even in its battered state, could probably withstand most air-to-air ordnance relatively well when accounting for his own passive soul defenses.

But he had to assume that it was soul-strengthened by someone very powerful. That was the protocol here. If it was normal, he'd be fine either way. But if it wasn't, and he didn't take it seriously, it could kill him instantaneously.

He could go supersonic, but that would only buy him a few extra seconds, because that thing was almost certainly capable of doing the same. And at this point, the suit might not hold together very well during supersonic flight.

He deployed flares and banked hard right, watching the HUD as sweat dripped down his face.

No dice. It didn't lose target lock. Contact in under ten seconds.