Skyland fanfic: Kamikaze

It was the hardest thing he had ever done.

Cortes simply stared as the listing, hulking mass of the Saint Nazaire ploughed into the oncoming warship. Twice the size of the Saint Nazaire, the warship would have easily obliterated Puerto Angel.

He'd had no choice.

Of all the things he'd done – all the commands given, the choices he'd made – many of which weighed upon his shoulders and kept him awake at night, or plagued him with nightmares.

He almost hadn't given the order.

There were hundreds of people on Puerto Angel. And they would all have been killed if he'd allowed the warship to pass. Still, he had hesitated; almost to the point where it would have been too late.

But he had given the order.

In front of him the two ships creaked and groaned as their metal hulls bent and buckled together. The Saint Nazaire's left engine blossomed into flames, and the two ships began to fall slowly from the sky.

"Cortes, come in." The radio Cortes clutched in his hand, almost forgotten, crackled and fizzled.

Cortes lifted it to his mouth and depressed the talk button with a shaking hand. "Aye?" he replied coarsely.

"I did it – I stopped the warship. But I…" the voice on the other end faltered. "I'm not going to make it off the Saint Nazaire."

Cortes' eyes squeezed shut. He drew in a breath. "I know, son."

Four hundred meters off Puerto Angel's cliffs, the Saint Nazaire and wounded warship were both engulfed in a ball of flame.

On those same cliffs, Cortes fell to his knees and wrapped his arms around his belly as if he'd been shot.