“Bank left Cho, bank lef-”
“Three new contacts! FoF pings pending!”
“They’re all over-”
“Seraphs, sir! Breaking through our left fl-”
Hundreds of voices all crying out for help.
It would never come.
Talm was already lost.
It was the evacuation with which they now concerned themselves.
At least since it was the gods instead of the Black Armada the citizens wouldn’t be slaughtered outright.
“Commander?”
Yorke’s voice called them back from the sea of voices, as Alfred stepped in to filter out the chatter beyond a certain radius. It helped with focus. Dangerous for a Commander in the field to spread oneself too thin whilst taking gunfire. Alfred could handle scale, One was better at scope.
“Go ahead, Lieutenant.”
Yorke’s voice was tinny across the comms, strained. The background was filled with alarm klaxons and the rumbling of engines.
“We’re back on the Fair Pygmalion. Guardian Navy pushing hard up here. We don’t have much time. The Pyg’s already taken some glancing hits off the plasma shielding. They have more heavyweights and the rear guard fleet from Petronova is still hours out.”
The pair raised their spike rifle, leading the shot as they listened. Alfred, the A.I. half, had already highlighted and bolded the red square around the sprinting white form. A holographic firing line materialized across the internal display of the robotic eye, mirrored on the helmet HUD, linked to the sight of the rifle. One merely had to line it up. Fish in a barrel.
“We know.”
The trigger clicked once, and a high-velocity spike soared from the barrel, spearing through the side of the helmet and mask of the Guardian Shocktrooper sprinting between concrete barriers. Her body jerked sideways, spinning in midair as fragments of skull, brain, and blood ejected outwards in an arc along the exit wound trajectory.
Her body dropped limply, splashing heavily like a rag doll into the ankle-high water of the tidal flat. The ejected shrapnel plopped into the shallow water in a fan behind her crumpled body.
How many batteries do we have left?
“Not enough.”
Alfred could read his thoughts, of course. The Class 7 A.I. was a true partner – one of a kind. He could feel his feelings, min-max biometric data, and adjust everything from hormone levels to power output in the cybernetic components of their shared cyborg body. Having a copilot made lots of things much easier. Freed up a hundred tiny inconveniences at any given moment.
“That bad, huh?”
“The last coastal batteries are being targeted one by one. Our G.R.A ships are holding the line in orbit above the archipelago for now, fending off fighters and boarding craft while exchanging volleys ship to ship. But the enemy is holding outside the kill zone in geolocked orbits. The Guardians of Destiny are waiting for the last of our ground batteries to go. While the Navy waits, Army forces are picking our ground forces apart and then setting charges on each railgun array as they work their way down the coast. The inland tidal flats are almost entirely G.O.D. controlled. Firebase Ghost here is one of our last holdouts.”
The Guardian Resistance Army was losing. It didn’t take a one of a kind artificial intelligence to know that.
Please don’t tell me I have to give that order.
“Tarnos already did.”
Gunfire and plasma bolts crackled all around them, as the last few remaining drones fired upon the oncoming waves of Guardian soldiers. The mechanical humanoids dropped around them left and right, as the Class 2 A.I. were rather poor at taking cover. The few rebels that remained were slowly peeling back towards the Firebase.
The pair could see another flight of Sophies approaching across the tidal flats, spearheaded by a wing of Justices and several Agathas outfitted as gunships. The bulkier Sophie transports lagged behind the impossibly fast Justice fighter craft, with the Aggies running interference against the last few remaining Skyjack drones attempting to intercept. Anti-air fire streamed outwards from the base – seeming to have little effect as the formation broke and became a looming wall of enemy air support. The gods had the advantage on all fronts. As per usual.
We’ve lost Talm.
The organic pupil dilated as Alfred injected a combat stimulant.
But we’ll get it back, right?
“Right.”
They stood, firing the last two spikes from the needle rifle at a distant Chayot – splashing slowly towards the line of concrete barricades. They dented the heavy armor with two powerful glancing blows. One threw the empty rifle aside with a splash.
“Fall back to the base!”
The order felt dirty, even as most of the survivors were already acting on it.
We’re down to 50% charge on our Hazard Gear plasma.
More than enough.
They stood, raising both arms and extending the twin blades nestled between the stubby dual-barrels emerging from the forearm mounted Hazard Gear. Alfred began highlighting Friend or Foe tags, one by one. Red squares flared in varying thicknesses and size, determining threat.
“All drones, on me!”
They were good at pulling fire, being such a juicy target for most Armada and Guardian troops at the worst of times. It was second nature to draw the ebb and flow of a battle. All four barrels began thumping in unison, sending white-hot bolts of angry plasma outwards across the tidal flats – shimmering with each outwards roiling through the plasma shielding, faint as it was.
The first salvoes succeeded in peppering the variety of G.O.D. troops taking cover behind hedgehogs and dragon’s teeth, even as many of the bolts blossomed out in orange haloes two hundred steps out. The range was marginally better than that of a regular metal and plastic printed plasma rifle, but not by much, as each shot still slowly faded to blue, then blossomed into an orange haze as the plasma came apart. A few wayward bolts burned bright orange holes in concrete barriers and metal blockades strewn across the shallow water on invisible sand bars. Only two connected, and only glancing blows at best.
Worse, the oncoming Chayot’s armor merely superheated at this range, failing to punch through with the added kinetic force of velocity.
It was more of a distraction than anything.
The last few Resistance soldiers continued falling back towards the reinforced concrete walls of Firebase Ghost. Within remained the last few deploying A.I. piloted Skyjacks and the smattering of remaining transports, struggling to load the most personnel possible before fleeing the hot zone. The A.I. piloted gun batteries on the walls chattered mindlessly above, desperately trying to stem the neverending flood of Guardian forces. For each gun that exploded from the Chayot’s volleys of high-explosive canisters, more Guardian forces swarmed forth. The age-old grinding of G.O.D. infantry was legendary against the endless tides of The Black Armada. Faceless shock troopers, backed up by powerfully armored Seraphs and Chayots. The angels of legend in biomechanical form. Only four granted the names of the Archangels themselves, truth of hierarchy be damned.
Thank fuck no gods had joined this rout.
The drones were still converging as One took returning fire – their plasma shielding flaring to life amidst spackles of blue and green that slowed or stopped each projectile enough to fail against the rust-colored Hematic Plates projected through and across the bodysuit.
“Hold the line!”
The drones took up firing positions, many in already haggard states – missing limbs or sporting numerous pock-marks and bullet holes. The last few flesh and blood soldiers several hundred meters behind them were scrambling up the ramp to the firebase deck, ducking and weaving to avoid the gunfire that followed their retreat.
Soon enough, just One, some scrapped drones, and The G.O.D. attackers were left upon the tidal flats proper.
The pair took the opportunity to retreat. The thrusters across their bodysuit and armor flared, propelling them as fast as any rabbit-limbed Seraph. The ankle deep water erupted upwards and outwards with each heavy step – the salty water stained and murky in many places with blood, clay, and debris. One tried not to get sidetracked by the bodies.
“Commander’s incoming! Close the gate after them!”
“Covering fire, left side!”
An explosion erupted from the left, as the Chayot’s explosive round pummeled into a jersey barrier and showered the duo in concrete and a spray of water. The force sent the partners tumbling forwards onto their stomach, hematic plates scraping against shell casings and shrapnel hidden below the shallow water.
They scrambled up and sprinted towards the looming firebase ramp, as a Seraph closed in, taking potshots with a slug-throwing semi-automatic. The shielding flared to yellow, then orange, and finally red before losing integrity and dissipating in a haze of gasses. Crushed ammunition scattered with a tinkling across the ramp.
Just the hematic armor plates left to protect them now – until the fusion engine could recharge the shield’s micro-generator.
The Chayot was still pressing forwards, stout bulky form trudging forwards through the waves. Canisters thumped from the launchers on each forearm with a rattling of the steel chain canister strings as each was loaded.
The pilot within the mechanical suit still had half their canisters to burn, from the HUD note Alfred threw up. Plenty.
Small blessings. The Seraph closing had ruined the Chayot’s shot. Drones were no match for such high firepower, and what few remained were soon broken in pieces across the barricades with the rhythmic thumping of the pneumatic canister launchers. Each thump was percussive-twin to an ensuing concussive explosion and spray of water, concrete, and metal.
“Commander, on your right!”
One rolled back just as the blazing white partisan blade sunk deep into the clay of the tidal flats, water hissing, bubbling, and boiling around it. The Seraph pulled the weapon back as the Commander splashed frantically, crawling backwards up the first few feet of the ramp and unloading a free forearm gun into the enemy suit of armor. Both barrels. Point blank range. Each white-hot bolt connected with varying degrees of success, leaving a cluster of molten orange impact points that punched through layers of armor and more glancing blows where the armor shrugged off the damage entirely or failed to superheat to failure before the velocity dropped.
The gaudy and rather ornate silver halo held aloft by two rabbit ears above the helmet fell victim to one of these potshots, making the four slitted eyes of the helmet much less intimidating somehow with a missing ear.
“FOR THE GODS!”
Fucking rabbits.
The spurs strained with a whine, moving the Seraph forwards again. The next swing of the partisan met a pair of wrist blades, unsheathed from between the plasma barrels of the Hazard Gear. Each hummed with their own ionized gasses, criss-crossed to catch the falling blade before it sank to the steel razor-edged blade beneath. The partisan flared with the tightening grip of the Seraph – and the Hazard Gear barrels warped and hissed as it melted them. Sparks and the hissing of crossed-plasma fields filled the air alongside the chattering of guns and the thumping of bombs.
Alfred marked the Hazard Gear guns as useless thereafter.
The lock held only for a second, before One twisted both arms into a spiral and used a blade to knock the weapon engulfed in energy sideways. The Seraph moved to adjust, but too slowly – as the free wrist blade sank up to One’s knuckles just below the breastplate with a hissing. The broken barrels crushed and pressed into semi-molten slag.
There was a tinny gurgling, before the curved wrist blade twisted savagely and the Seraph collapsed face-up with a splash and a hissing. The four glowing red eyes of the helmet went dim with the death of the pilot, severing all connections and deleting all the suit’s drivers and data.
There was a cheering from the Blue Flame soldiers atop the walls and parapets.
One rabbit down, hundreds more coming.
The duo commandeered the partisan as well as the assault rifle clamped to a magnet lock across the small of the back, before risking a glance back at the Chayot, now dangerously close and taking potshots at both them and the walls of the firebase.
Several A.I. guns belched black smoke, sparks, and flames upwards into the blue sky.
The heavy thumping of the Chayot’s canister launchers continued, permeated with the blasts of canister explosions. The covering fire from the ramparts above – what few soldiers and drones remained, was too low caliber to do much other than ricochet off the heavy armor’s ballistic plating.
Chayots, most devoted of servants – both zealous and stupid enough to wear a walking artillery suit.
One stood, dashing the last few feet up the ramp as the heavy pneumatics began to lift it upwards to seal access into The Firebase. Comms spackled voices in the background, turned down. Alfred picked one direct transmission out of the crowd from a local channel, amplifying it to an audible volume.
“Your Exoskeleton is jury-rigged, sir. And we’re almost ready for the third flight of transports to launch. Mechanics and Engineers are on the first few flights into orbit.”
The weapon’s cybernetic eye zoomed in as a picture-in-picture on the approaching G.O.D. air support.
“Get this flight in the air. Do it fast.”
The Chayot continued its lumbering advance, canisters cycling. One was forced to spin left as a canister sailed through the air where their torso had been atop the wall moments prior. They returned fire, of course – via a hailstorm of plasma bolts from a hastily borrowed plasma rifle that peppered the frontal plates of the enemy suit. Each bolt either glanced off, dissipating into a boiling orange mist, or melted a hole – orange-hot. The clean shots that did connect barely pierced the first layer of armor.
Any ideas? Jackhammer is out there in the flats, banged to shit. We need higher caliber kinetic rounds to pierce that bastard’s shell.
“Got two. The first is to fall back to firebase defense and hop out on the last bird. There are more specialist units closing from the west in addition to that air formation bearing down on us. Seraphs and Armor. The second idea is to get that Exoskeleton moving – it’s our last piece of working resistance equipment that can’t get itself into orbit.”
One turned and sprinted, just in time for the Chayot to drop to one knee and pivot a shoulder-mounted railgun into a firing position. Large pneumatic-piston recoil struts slammed into the clay behind the suit.
And yet the sonic boom of the railgun firing still bowled them over, splashing into the shallow water long before the concussive blast rushed over the walls – cooking air and smoke clouds revealing the new hole in the wall of the firebase. Concrete continued to crumble.
From this short hundred meter distance, even the reinforced concrete of the firebase couldn’t hold up to a miniaturized railgun round. A smoking hole in the wall of the firebase brought the weakened top above it crumbling down. Debris was still splashing into the shallow water all around them as the section of wall continued to collapse.
“FOR THE GOD OF FIRE!”
The Chayot’s tinny bellow from his armor’s loudspeakers emboldened the G.O.D. troops, and they began pressing the advantage, working towards the sagging ramp now covered in pieces of rebar and concrete.
We need to fall back, One.
I know.
But not before that walking artillery was dealt with. They couldn’t risk any more damage to the aircraft beyond the walls.
“Do you trust me?”
Alfred’s voice was wry.
“We’re chained together. Don’t have much of a choice, do I?”
One rose from cover, and began sprinting headlong at the Chayot, mimicking the loping springs of a Seraph suit with his own thrusters.
“HEAVEN AWAITS ME!”
The Chayot took the charge as a challenge, and rose from the semi-prone knee to its full eight foot height, raising both arms to fire more canisters at the threat. Erupting geysers jolted upwards with the displacement of each explosive detonating against the clay and salt water.
Bodies and drone remnants rolled in the lapping waves.
Forty. Thirty. Twenty.
The last canister thumped out from the compressor on the Chayot’s forearm.
One was still midair, and it was already far too late to dodge.
Alfred tried to form the plasma shielding with what juice had recharged. Yet the generator sputtered and failed.
Out of options.
So the weapon did the only thing he could, energizing a wrist blade and bringing it down in an arc to sever the canister vertically before it could connect. At first it seemed to work, as the canister bisected and split outwards in trajectory. Then the two halves exploded, hematic plates breaking and scattering in all directions as One’s shared body dropped the final few feet and ragdolled past the Chayot in a spray of water.
Multiple systems down, and the nanites can’t fix it all quickly enough. You’re bleeding heavily from punctures to the lungs, abdomen, and left calf. Both primary and secondary organs.
Not the first time, of course.
The brick-tinged black hematic armor plates were all but shattered across most of the torso, and the bodysuit beneath was cracked, broken, or just plain missing in large patches. They struggled and failed to stand twice, as the Chayot loomed closer.
“Thank you, great gods of the pantheon, for delivering me this heretic to slay in your name.”
The Chayot’s bulky fingers reached down, grasping One by the neck and lifting the pair up to helmet height with the straining of the suit’s servos. The four glowing green slitted eyes flickered ominously.
“All you heretics will burn in the name of The Creator.”
One smiled.
The Chayot had been stupid enough to bring him into striking range.
The first plasma-wreathed wrist blade extended and burned deep into the elbow joint, the cascading ionized gasses melting through layers of steel and ballistics plating, then the gel underlayer, and finally through the flesh and bone within.
Both One and the severed forearm dropped into the water, sizzling as the Chayot roared in anger and pain, grabbing at the cauterized wound. The severed limb within dislodged from the gauntlet, flopping out and staining the water red and black with the hissing of molten flesh.
The partners had been soldiers for long enough to know what death looked like, and how to avoid it. Hesitation was death, and only Alfred operated faster than hesitation. In less than a second, the weapon pushed off, driving the tip of the other wrist-blade up and into the exposed chin. Red and white paint started bubbling away as the blade boiled through the armor, gel layer and into the brain matter inside.
“Sir, their air support is right on top of you, you need to get back to base!”
A helpful watcher from the wall over comms.
One carefully reached down, and sliced through the heavy chain and cabling of the canister belt connecting in a string from the ammo reserves on the back of the armor, careful to keep the heat of the plasma-wreathed blades away from the canisters themselves. They lifted a section of cable with three canisters dangling freely.
“A present fit for a heretic.”
You need to move.
The roar of engines was getting loud now across the tidal flats, as the last few defenders on the wall scrambled to keep the G.O.D. ground forces from advancing. The enemy formation was looming, as the Justices engaged the last handful of Skyjack drones the base could muster. One erupted in a fireball, visible even from this distance, but soon enough the Skyjacks were sent hurtling to the flats below in equally glorious eruptions.
“Alright, plasma shielding is back up. Get your ass to Ghost.”
Alfred was clever at choosing what he said within the closed subnet and which points he spoke aloud over the comms, to let allies know their state.
“Little covering fire, folks? We’re coming in hot.”
The sprint back to the base wasn’t made any easier with the flaring of small arms fire against the plasma shielding, rippling an unhealthy orange-yellow. But eventually One was able to scramble up the dislodged ramp, coated as it was in rubble and debris from the partially collapsed firebase wall.
Two mechanics helped him up and over the lip, as part of the quiet roaring of engines across the water slowed and stopped some half a click distant.
“Oh fuck!”
“Harbingers, on approach!”
The enemy Agatha Gunships disgorged their payloads first, two fresh squads of Shocktroopers led by a Seraph each. The regular white armor could be seen interspersed with Judicators – lightly armored specialists outfitted with magnetic field defense and electrical weapons capable of emitting high voltage in dangerous arcs of chain lightning. Death to drones and power-armor.
One and Alfred, too. EMP-hardened or not.
The Sophies, having dropped three Harbingers, ascended and flew back the way they had come, leaving the bipedal walkers to turn and fire upon the firebase with heavy cannons. The remaining Justice could be seen hovering in VTOL mode, providing close air support as the Agatha Gunships began an attack run.
We need to get to our Exoskeleton. We don’t stand a chance against those Harbingers.
The enemy was advancing now, sprinting across the shallow tidal flats towards the variety of barriers and barricades now manned by mostly the dead and dying.
“Get those last non-combat personnel in the air NOW!”
The roaring of fusion engines made everything other than internal comms a dull roar, as the mechanics and engineers who had been steadfastly working until the last moment sprinted for the sliding side-doors of the matte black Agatha transports.
“Four bogeys on approach, our last AA gun is barely holding together.”
“Concentrate fire on that lead Aggie!”
The chattering of gunfire could barely be heard over the screaming of the cold fusion engines.
One sprinted for their Exoskeleton, the bipedal suit standing in poor condition in shoulder locks near the edge of the landing pad. Broken and damaged equipment lay in pieces across the tarmac from where resistance techs had scrounged parts and components. Yet that same old longhorn skull sat stumply upon the headless chassis, quickly bolted in place.
The old prank upon the Commander lived on, even now.
One popped another combat stimulant, and roughly swallowed several large pills. HUD levels changed.
“Will she hold?”
Alfred didn’t reply. One could feel him perched silently at the edge of their shared consciousness where the human mind could comprehend. Alfred hid the worst of the immense A.I. information processing away from the places the organic mind might lurk.
It was much too easy to overwhelm creatures of meat and bone.
“Guess taking that broadside salvo wasn’t great for the machine’s shelf life, eh?”
One ignored the large red button to release the shoulder clamps, prodding Alfred into a remote startup. The fusion engine sputtered as he climbed the ladder, bounding once, twice, and then caught the cockpit door as it opened. The Exoskeleton roared to life, with the hatch in the belly opening up to allow the damaged pilot to clamber inside.
Silver lining is that the iron and carbon reserves have been replenished, so I’ll get on stopping some of the bleeding and replacing the hematic plates while you drive.
The Exoskeleton had originally been a gift from Shifter – simultaneously a torch for the rebellion against the gods, and an estranged father figure’s poignant exclamation point speaking to the archaic nature of Central’s tech. New models of war machines were rare, so tried and true were the centuries-old aircraft and equipment across the galaxy.
That stupid bull’s skull was as much a symbol of defiance as anything else.
But sometimes one had to shake things up.
“Skelly’s launching now. I’ll try to hold them off while you launch, pilots.”
The fifteen foot tall machine jerked to life as Alfred connected a snaked cable into the closest access port behind One’s jaw. Vision blossomed into a 360 degree view of the outside of the machine. The Exoskeleton moved like an extension of the body after that, with One barely touching the controls for the most part as the two weapons systems linked together. Cyborg to a larger war machine. With a few heavy footsteps, they grabbed the enormous gun from the rack near the Exoskeleton cradle and moved to the hole in the wall as the first Agatha roared over the firebase, launching a salvo of missiles and gunfire.
Transports and fighter craft erupted in patches across the landing pad, sending people scrambling for cover.
“Open them up!”
The Exoskeleton moved as any soldier would, pressing a shoulder against the crumbling wall of the firebase and poking the barrel of the ten foot long gun out at the oncoming aircraft.
Empty casings the size of fire hydrants began dropping like rain from the chamber as the gun started firing in semi-automatic fashion, Alfred handling the minutiae of targeting fast-moving aircraft. The smartlink meant the trigger was made redundant – each round was willed into action, fast as the chamber could clear.
The second Agatha, close as it was, banked to avoid the new stream of gunfire, as several rounds caught the shallow right wing. It erupted in flames, plowing into the barriers outside the firebase and furrowing a deep groove that quickly began to fill with mud and water.
The new threat sent the oncoming wing scattering, as the Agatha Gunships and the VTOL Justice began returning fire at the new piece of armor. Seraphs were closing, seeing the new armored, lanky threat. The Harbingers pounded the walls relentlessly as they clunked forwards with a squat and sure gait, coating the battlefield with grey dust and black smoke.
“The ground forces are getting closer.”
“Agatha R-384 taking off now!”
“Get that fire out!”
“I’ll cover you!”
Personnel were scrambling in all directions, chatter filtering across the comms.
The first Agatha lifted off into the air, banking over the ocean-side wall and then angling itself upwards for an ascent into orbit. It got about half a click before the Justice engaged its main afterburners and raced after it. Both aircraft were out of range before One could do much.
The bulky Agatha was picked off effortlessly by the faster and better-armed fighter in a spray of parts, flames, and bodies.
An easy kill.
“Scramble those transports, let’s go!”
The order didn’t do much but intensify the frenzy of action across the failing firebase.
Two more transports lifted off, as well as a Tabitha VTOL craft – the pilot trying heroically to fend off the aggressors. They made it about forty feet into the air before a stray missile from one of the gunships jerked through the chaff and impacted the left engine. The wreckage landed in a flaming heap outside the walls, the pilot ejecting directly into his own exploding engine shrapnel.
The last enormous shell casing dropped to the ground, and One reached for the second of three magazines at the hip with the Exoskeleton’s enormous hand. Slapping it into place and pulling back the enormous pin felt agonizingly slow, even when the machine was an extension of one’s body.
Such was the case with physics – the larger the mass, the slower one moved. It didn’t matter if the duo could react in milliseconds – one was always beholden to mass.
The middle of the Harbingers spewed black smoke and flames soon licked up the right arm – followed by a crunching fall forwards with a final round from Skelly.
One was having to waste more time on the armor than he wanted – the infantry was closing, with the two new Seraphs leading the way, bounding and loping across the flats towards the crumbling Firebase.
A spattering of bullets across the limbs and chassis turned attention to the looming infantry now huddling into the barriers at the foot of the holed wall. There were more G.O.D. Shocktroopers than One had semi automatic rounds left. Each enormous round skewered through the lightly armored infantry, sending sprays of red and chunks of white armor in all directions.
Alfred lined them up, Skelly knocked them down.
Then the wall cover failed, allowing a heavy Harbinger cannon round to punch through and send a portion of the Exoskeleton’s 360 degree vision into blackness. HUD outlines and levels fluctuated wildly, going red and orange.
We don’t have much time, we’ve lost the left arm. Give me remote pilot access and get on a fucking Agatha. There’s nothing else we can do.
“Okay.”
Talm is lost. We need to run to fight another day.
“Fuck!”
One yanked the cable from the port behind their ear. The 360 screens inside the cockpit went black, then lit up again, even as the heavy armored door opened and One emerged from between the shoulderblades.
A communication from the fleet cut loudly across comms as One dropped ten feet to the ground and sprinted towards the transports – engines roaring and thrusters a cool blue. Skelly turned and began firing with the one remaining arm at the Seraphs vaulting the damaged gate. Alfred remote piloting – forced into juggling yet another task across an entire battlenet.
“Commander, you have twenty minutes. This is your last call.”
Tarnos, a former God of Death – now one of the God Resistance Army Leadership, speaking from fleet command in orbit above.
“We’re coming, Tarnos.”
Alfred’s childlike voice over the battlenet.
“Last wave of Aggies has the green to go, holding AG-8378 low for the Commander.”
Alfred was giving orders to multiple units simultaneously so One could breathe properly with both sets of lungs and run. The remaining undamaged thrusters embedded in the bodysuit flared a brighter blue.
The sliding side doors slammed back open as the enemy Agatha gunships came around for another pass. One full on leapt inside the Aggie as it lifted into the air, catching the door rail with a hand and swinging sideways to a stop. Alfred cut the thrusters for them.
“I’M HERE. GO!”
The Agatha lurched, as the door locked into the open position and the door gunner opened up the gun. One spun, taking a heavy-caliber spike rifle from a nearby trooper and engaging his magnetic boot clamps.
And then the ground was shrinking, with the last Aggie in the formation lifting up into the swirling black smoke and grey concrete dust. One watched Alfred’s shrinking, remote-piloted Skelly flip the enormous gun, grabbing it by the barrel to use as an enormous club against the Seraphs now descending over the walls with the help of their thrusters.
Alfred was good at piloting armor, but he was just buying time. Despite one armored assailant being battered with a crunch of armor and pilot into the inner wall, it wasn’t long before the remaining Seraphs and reinforcing infantry encircled the exoskeleton and brought it down using their bladed plasma weaponry with brutal tactical efficiency. One felt the killswitch engage through Alfred just before there was a bright flash and a plume of smoke. Using nuclear power as a weapon, even for self-destruction of armor and ships was banned by the Sol Treaty, so conventional explosives would ensure the G.O.D. couldn’t reverse engineer the machine.
Still…
Poor Skelly.
“Bank right, Justice moving to intercept.”
“I see him. Door gunners, broadside please.”
The formation of Aggies swept hard to the right, sweeping out across the shallow coral reefs and gentle shallow fish-bearing seas of Talm. The tidal flats disappeared as quickly as the coast as the line of aircraft arced upwards towards space above. Gunfire thrummed from everywhere.
Minutes passed, as the two formations of Aggies weaved and ducked during the ascent, exchanging gunfire, missiles, and chaff. Alfred and One did their best with the spike rifle, failing to contribute much in the aerial dance. The Justice picked at the edges of the formation, hunting stragglers in and out of VTOL mode.
“Hitting mask territory in twenty.”
The pilot’s prompting returned a chorus of hissing as Blue Flame troopers sealed their suits for vacuum.
You’re still compromised. I’ll let the pilot know. You can’t survive in a vacuum for at least another thirty minutes. The nanites aren’t done.
Well, if the Agatha was shot down, a little ebullism was the least of their worries, right?
“Here comes that fucking Justice, bank left and light them up on three.”
“Three.”
The lead pilot swerved sharply and the formation broke wide, a series of open side doors sending a torrent of high-velocity fire at the rapidly gaining fighter craft. The swarm of Agatha gunships trailed – slower than the less-armed transports.
The Justice cut low, dropping below the angle of the guns.
Two pilots got overeager and broke formation to give door gunners a line of sight.
It slowed them enough to allow the trailing gunships to fire three missiles.
The first arced and exploded in a sea of chaff. The second went wide as the pilot jerked the Agatha back upwards. But the third caught the other transport just below the wing, blowing it into three flaming pieces that dropped heavily into the sea below.
Only eight Aggies remained.
The clouds were thinning, with the heavier gunships pursuing falling further and further behind and below. The Justice was the single remaining threat as they danced through the skies.
You’re sealed against the vacuum, although it isn’t pretty.
The nanites doing their work at Alfred’s bidding.
The rear Aggie exploded just as they breached the atmosphere and gravity gave way to weightlessness. The Justice arced past and accelerated, even faster now without air to slow it down.
The Agathas were out of chaff, and two more transports succumbed to the pursuing Justice by the time the resistance fleet came into view. Gunfire and escort fighters dispatched from the fleet were enough to chase off the aggressive attackers and the slower gunships behind.
“Two minutes. Watch the incoming.”
“Breaking format-”
“I’m hit!”
“Bank around Drifting Ghost and come back-”
“Portside batteries, they-”
Alfred was opening up more of the chatter to One, with nothing else to do as they approached The Fair Pygmalion. It didn’t look great, as the G.O.D. was pressing the advantage of the most recent orbital gun battery to fall. What had been a tentative standoff had become an all-out shootout.
The Aggies banked and split themselves between a number of different hangars, slipping through semi-transparent barriers into the atmosphere and artificial gravity within.
I’ve pinged Yorke and Tarnos. We’re rifting in two minutes.
It was an ugly, tail between the legs retreat, which drove them mad. They were so tired of The Guardians of Destiny winning, and eking out a barest survival in the neutral territories where neither the gods nor The Black Armada dared overreach with military might.
“We’ll get Talm back. I swear it.”
“I know.”
Alfred could feel the sense of disbelief.
One descended from the side door of the Agatha onto the metal floors of the deck. The rumbling of the engines as well as that of the rift generator were vibrating across the hangar. Technicians and crew were clipping safety harnesses and lanyards to railings and safety assists as gravity lurched once, twice, and then gave out entirely. All the power was being pulled away from production of gravity to feed the tearing and wormholing of the rift through the massive rift engines.
The enormous white rifts ripped into existence in front of each ship in the God Resistance Army fleet in a staggering of engines. The G.O.D. pressed this clear advantage, with the enemy fleet pushing forwards and unloading at the resistance ships desperately fleeing towards safety. Several erupted mid-rift, with the sudden closing of bridging between spacetime scything the elongated hulls in half with molecular precision.
Maybe three quarters of the fleet successfully rifted out. The rest was left in tatters, drifting above the planet.
One stood at the energy barrier, watching thousands die as each resistance vessel erupted, split, or went adrift.
“One day we’ll be free of the gods, Alfred.”
“I believe you.”
Silence thereafter, as the white of the rift enveloped The Fair Pygmalion, and Talm was left behind, firmly conquered by The Guardians of Destiny.
