Ochako resisted the urge to puke.

Her stomach still couldn't handle returning from stasis to full function after Light Road travel. She swallowed the bile. Tapping her fingers around the controllers, she waited until the wave of nausea passed. Outside of her Orca's windscreen, a vast asteroid field spread around the reddish-green planet like an impregnable wall. Ochako noticed little sparks of light glinting between the huge space rocks seconds before a shrill noise echoed through the intercom.

"Welcome, Fighter 2-7-3," The unemotional, computer-like voice said. It used to give Ochako the chills but the feeling had died down over time. "Are you in position?"

"Yeah," she said. "What's the plan?"

"Eliminate all targets."

Even if Ochako had never met the person talking to her face to face, she could swear they always smiled when they gave orders like this. It was a gut feeling she couldn't shake no matter how hard she tried.

"Roger that."

Her spaceship glided between the suspended space rocks, looking for a secluded spot. Head-on attacks weren't Ochako's style. She preferred ambushing the unlucky fellows who would cross her path. When the field covered the spaceship from every side, she halted the engine and leaned back in her seat.

The hunt had just begun.

"Where are you?!" Kaminari cried out.

The Marlins swarmed around Katsuki like a school of hungry piranhas. His shields were keeping him safe for now as he flew through the asteroid field.

"Don't know. Can't see a thing with those fuckers on my tail."

"I'm barely getting your signal, dude. You have to get back here!"

Katsuki took a sharp turn around a big asteroid. Some of the Marlins crashed on it. He grinned despite anger burning hot in his chest. How these douches had lured him so deep into the asteroid field still escaped his understanding. The Peregrine's radar was going bananas the closer he got to the planet. Katsuki couldn't pinpoint where the fuck he was or how many enemies were out there. Such a classic move from the Alliance to set the game on their own terms. It pissed him off to no end.

"Bakugou!" Kaminari shouted through heavy static.

"Quit yapping, Drooly! I'll be there in a few."

He just had to make them lose him first.

Katsuki turned right, heading straight for where the concentration of the field was thickest. The Marlins followed; their iridescent wings shining under the light of the closest star. Two of them were orbiting the planet, which was twice the size of Earth as much Katsuki could tell. He had seen simulations of the Union's first home-planet, but never the actual thing. It was several light years away from this war to be concerned with it.

A blast ricocheted on his right wing, pulling Katsuki back to the fight. His shields were down. The Peregrine flew over and under asteroids, his pursuers always a step behind. Katsuki clenched his teeth as he avoided laser shot after laser shot. Ahead, two space rocks were on a collision course with each other. Katsuki zoomed between them but the smaller ships didn't follow. The other side appeared quiet. He slowed down the engines just a click, trying to catch his breath. His radar continued showing gibberish. The ship tilted left due to a strong pull from the planet's direction.

Damn the Alliance and its fucking ambushes, Katsuki thought, hardening his hold around the controls.

The intercom was dead. If someone decided to strike, this was the perfect opportunity. A sense of foreboding dropped on Katsuki like a bucket of ice-cold water. He spotted the irregular shadows on the nearby asteroids seconds before the other spaceship attacked.

Ochako ignored the feeling of blood rushing to her head. The Orca flew towards the Peregrine like a killer whale rising to catch an unsuspecting bird flying too close to the sea's surface. The pilot of this 'bird' dodged just in time. The Orca's bottom scrapped the other ship's hull. Ochako turned her spaceship around, activating her guns; their barrels pointing at the Peregrine.

The onslaught started with the flick of a switch. Ochako heard and felt nothing more than a low rumble under her feet as the shots were fired. This distance made things less personal. It was just a job, and all she had to do for this to count was destroy the ship. With the signal gone, the Alliance thought they had one less pilot to worry about. But these pilots could survive for an hour in outer space and the Union never left soldiers behind. Ochako always counted on that fact. Killing former comrades was a line she would never cross; no matter how much was the payment.

Something glinted outside. Instead of avoiding her firing shots, the Peregrine flew towards the Orca.

Are they insane? She thought, horrified.

Her hands danced animated over the controls. The asteroids were packed closely together and the navigator was out of commission. It'd be hard to maneuver with her bigger ship. But she wasn't going to fall victim to a suicidal pilot. Not when she hadn't reached her goal yet.

Pulling at the controls, Ochako forced the Orca to retreat. Bullets ricocheted against the golden surface of the Peregrine as it filled her entire windscreen. She tried to dodge. Her body lurched forward from an impact. Lists of data started overflowing her side screen, indicating that half of the ship had been destroyed. The oxygen levels dropped rapidly. Ochako didn't want to leave the ship. It had served herlike the best of comrades. But with a heavy heart and out of breath, she activated the emergency protocol. The pilot's seat tilted intohorizontal position. Ochako pressed her arms on her sides as the seat dropped under the cockpit. Fluorescent bulbs flickered alive, illuminating the walls surrounding her with a purple light. The protective glass slid into place and the escape pod was launched into the void.

Katsuki's sole objective had been to scare off the other pilot so they'd crash. He hadn't expected getting caught in the explosion or the Orca's remains to clog his engine. Without a way to battle the pull, the Peregrine started plummeting to the planet. The alarm screeched. Every light bulb inside the cockpit blinked red. Katsuki's fingers around the controls were going numb. But the controls didn't budge.

Blue, so bright it hurt his eyes, replaced the darkness of space as he passed through the stratosphere. The cockpit was overheating and his spacesuit clung on his body like second skin. Pressure glued Katsuki to his seat. The wings had bent in front of him as if the ship was a real bird free falling. He had to open them. Katsuki steeled his feet against the front of the cockpit and pulled. The spaceship twisted like a spindle. When he faced the ground below, Katsuki pressed the buttons on his controls. The wings unfolded like a real falcon's followed by a loud groan. The ship started leaning more to the right. Despite his attempts to fix this, the Peregrine continued to balance like a seesaw in the air.

For an instant, he looked up from the control panel. Some sort of red area spread over the horizon. Katsuki darted past its border without problems, but he kept losing altitude. The ship dropped under the plates beneath him, revealing them to be trees. Branches and trunks pounded on the hull like it was raining stones. Something struck the ship from below and Katsuki's head crashed on the control panel. It left him in a daze, the rows of trees before him blurring the more he stared at them. The view cleared and the ship nose-dived. Metal screeched as the 'beak' dug a line into the ground. Vibrations shook the cockpit like an earthquake until the stern settled down with a thud several meters later. Dust covered the windscreen, harsh light obscuring the view outside. His helmet's filters picked up a foul smell but Katsuki's body felt too heavy to move. A monotonous tune ringed in his ears. Black spots danced in front of his eyes. They covered his entire vision, and he was falling all over again.

Stars twinkled at the sky above when Katsuki woke up. He lay on his back, something soft supporting his head. The stench of smoke filled the air along with sounds of burning wood softly crumbling. Heat washed over him from the left. He turned his head. Someone had kneeled next to a small fire. It spurted flaming specks when the other person threw one more log inside, illuminating briefly their exposed arms and their bulky metallic boots.

Anti-gravity boots, Katsuki's tired brain concluded. Thieves and mercenaries were fond of these; a crowd he was better off dead than get caught mingling with it.

Whomever that person was, they hadn't noticed Katsuki was awake yet. It gave him the advantage of a surprise attack. He only needed a weapon. At an arm's length lay a belt like a dormant snake, the handle of a gun peeking from one of the pouches. Katsuki dragged the belt silently towards him. The Alliance's open palm insignia adorned the clasp. Propping himself on his elbow, he pointed the gun at the enemy's head. His entire body was shaking from the effort, but Katsuki clenched his teeth and cocked the safety.

The stranger turned abruptly. It was a woman. After the initial shock, her dark eyes zeroed on his face; her chest rising and falling in controlled breaths. Strands of hair from her side bangs clung on her round face like vines. Producing a knife out of nowhere in her hand, she raised it to defend.

A weird feeling rushed through Katsuki's chest, and for a moment he thought he'd pass out again. But he didn't break eye contact. It wasn't just her appearance. The way she was ready to strike without the slightest hesitation brought something from the depths of his mind; the memory of a girl who didn't back out from any challenge, and who had almost killed him once already.

"Uraraka?"

She furrowed her brows for a moment before recognition flashed in her eyes too. "Bakugou?"

He steadied the hand holding the gun. "Just my luck. Of all the assholes in the universe, it had to be you."

"Glad to see you too," she mumbled.

"So, you're making deals with those Alliance dicks now? What an upgrade."

"Oh, really? How many people you had to threaten to make it into the fleet?"

Katsuki gritted his teeth. "For your information, I landed this spot with my skills alone. Which is more than you can ever hope to land. Say, what's the score now? I bet it's at least ten ships you've crashed so far."

"You're one to talk." Uraraka scoffed. "Did you forget how you tried to ram into me just a few hours ago?"

"That was an evasive maneuver. Did you forget how you crash-landed a Sparrow right into of the Academy's freaking entrance?!"

"I had it under control! It barely reached the front steps anyway."

Katsuki still had a hard time believing this. No one amongst the crowd had noticed the spaceship emitted a trail of smoke until it started falling. Trained pilots or not, they all scattered like frightened children. The Sparrow's turbines raised every blade of grass and stone in its vicinity as the ship skidded on the courtyard. When the terrible whine stopped and the dust cloud cleared, Katsuki had found the wing a breath away from his neck. He backtracked; glaring daggers at the cockpit as the Sparrow's pilot unfastened their seatbelts. After they had scrambled down from the ship, he approached them to demand an apology. But Katsuki had never expected Uraraka's defiant stare when she took off her helmet. His heart, already beating wildly from the near-death experience, skipped a beat. The effect only lasted a moment because she melted into a mess of apologies right after.

The present Uraraka sighed. "Can we forget about this for now? You shouldn't be moving. Your wounds haven't healed yet."

Despite every joint of his body protesting in the process, Katsuki managed to stand. His head felt woozy, but his grip on the gun remained steady.

"I'm fine," he said.

Uraraka carefully stood up, keeping her hands visible. "You busted your head hard. The control panel of your ship had a decent dent on it." She paused. Her eyes flickered to the gun for a second, seemingly contemplating over her next words. "From what I managed to see in the smoke."

"Smoke?"

"Fortunately, the cooling system put the fire under control before anything exploded."

"Exploded?!"

Uraraka pointed somewhere behind him. Katsuki looked over his shoulder. His spacecraft lay like the carcass of a sea creature washed-up on an Earth's shore. The flames barely cast a light on it, but the charred front of the 'beak' was visible.

Katsuki glared back at her, rage beating in his veins. "My ship."

"What about mine?" After thrusting her knife back to her boot, Uraraka placed her fists on her waist. "The remains are still floating up there."

"Not my fault you can't fly straight to save your life. No wonder they kicked you out."

She gasped. "I saved you and that's all you have to say?!"

"It's your fault I was about to die in the first place. That doesn't make us even."

"Ugh… You're impossible!" Uraraka marched past him and scooped up the thing Katsuki's head had been resting. Flapping her jacket like freshly washed laundry, she put it on and stomped back to the fire.

"What do you think you're doing?" Katsuki asked.

"Leaving." Uraraka picked up a box from the ground. "I've had enough. Find someone else to blame for your shortcomings."

"Don't go playing the victim," he said. "Traitor."

"You don't know anything," she said. Her eyes were rimmed with tears when she looked up again.

The sight unnerved him, but his expression didn't falter. "I know enough to not wanna see your face ever again."

"Fine! Rot in your misery for all I care."

"Don't threaten me, you third-rate pilot!"

Uraraka held her head high, not bothering to give him another reply. She walked away until the darkness around them swallowed her form.

The minutes came and passed, but she didn't come back. All the rage and adrenaline Katsuki felt evaporated from his body, leaving behind a hollow husk that ached everywhere. He holstered the gun.

The waning moon rose from behind a rock complex on his right, shedding light into the hollow he had landed. Lanky trees grew out of the harsh ground behind the Peregrine, which was revealed in all of its destroyed glory. Scratches and bents marred the ship's golden surface; some of the hull's guiding panels were gone, exposing the mechanism underneath. The right wing was tilted in a weird angle too. Katsuki climbed on the 'beak'. His muscles screamed in protest, but he balanced on the smooth surface without fail. Inside the broken windscreen, the cockpit was a mess of melted polymer. Sparks flew when Katsuki probed the control panel with his foot.

It could be worse, he thought.

The main engine was located in the middle of the ship, so it should have been out of harm's way. If it was still operational, at least he would have a slightly bigger chance of getting off this planet. But a closer inspection could wait.

Exhaustion dropped on his shoulders like a heavy blanket. Katsuki grabbed one of the windscreen's exposed bars, ready to slide down. But he caught sight of his reflection on the remaining glass. A rectangle shape was shimmering on his forehead. He leaned closer and poked the edges of it. Pain stung him like millions of needles.

"You busted your head hard."

Apparently, Uraraka had patched up his wounds along with getting him out of the ship. And what Katsuki had done in return? Called her names, demeaned her and stole her gun. He didn't like owning people, especially someone who had seen him vulnerable like this. Still, he didn't know where all this anger had come from. Was it because she was with the Alliance or because she had disappeared without even a goodbye? Words had always come out wrong when Uraraka was involved even in their Academy days. Whenever she was around, Katsuki would get this restless energy he didn't know how to handle. As if she lightened up a fuse inside him and if he didn't release it in some way, he would explode.

He dropped his hand. Next to the fire, his cracked helmet stood glinting like a lonely star.

A/N: It's already the ninth in my timezone so I went ahead and posted this. This was written back in July but with everything that happened RL wise since then and the launch of The Better Hero, I procrastinated into publishing it. But hey, it's the Kacchako Bittersweet Week and I'm going to upload the two chapters I've written so far of this Space Pilots AU for it. This chapter is for the theme of Fall.

On a kinda unrelated note, the scientist part of my brain is always sabotaging me whenever I write soft sci-fi. For example, the moment the Peregrine opens its jammed wings as an actual bird would probably be impossible to pull off by any real spacecraft. Still, it looked cool in my mind's eye and wrote it down either way. XD