Chapter 3:
Tooth and Robotic Nail
Even before Talon had finished his order, red lights began flashing across Bridge followed closely by blaring alarms. Everyone switched gears as the new situation was developing, a squadron of Hornet fighters came into sight from the Bridge viewport but disappeared as quickly as they came.
Talon stood from his chair as he began to direct orders, "Keep our Hornets in formation around the Solar Spirit, our 70mm Point Defense Guns should give our pilots an advantage. Mobilize all Security Teams in case of hostile borders and lock down the primary hanger bay. I don't want any of these spindly bastards getting my ship. Tag those smaller incoming units as Unknown Bravo and that bigger one as Unknown "Alpha". Talon took a quick breath before continuing, "Someone tell me what we have in the way of operable defenses."
A moment passed before he was answered, "Sir, exactly seventy-four out of our two hundred and fifty 70mm PDGs are operational and are acquiring targeting solutions. We have a handful of Medusa Rocket Launchers still active and an even smaller number of Lancer Missiles. Our forward Magnetic Accelerator Cannons are still undergoing repairs and Hellraisers on the Port and Starboard are still down, our technicians have no idea what's wrong with them. Our options are severely limited, sir."
Talon bit his lip as he muttered, "Without our Magnetic Accelerators and Hellraisers, taking out that pursuing ship isn't going to be easy. But when is it ever easy?"
"Targets will be in range of PDGs in three . . . two . . . one." And on que, the Solar Spirit's 70mm Point Defense Guns opened fire on the Bravos. Hornet fighters broke their formations and began engaging any targets that came into their view. The Bridge door hissed open, a squad of a dozen Grunts rushed onto the Bridge and fanned out across it. As with any engagement, it was required to keep a team of soldiers on the Bridge for security reasons.
Several Bravos flashed across the viewport with a couple Hornets in hot pursuit. From what Talon could understand from the situation on the Holo table, whatever these Unknowns were, the Hornet fighter teams seemed to be making short work of them. What had originally been over two dozen enemies a few minutes ago had already been reduced to a little over a dozen.
Trevor stood up from his console and approached Talon, "Sir, permission to join the fight?"
"Denied, I need you here in case something happens. Besides, our fly boys are making quick work of these Bravos." Talon gestured to the Holo table nearest to him, "Besides, I have a gut feeling this isn't all our new friend has to throw at us. What I need you to do is try to figure out what the hell these things are. My guess is some kind of new IMC toy."
A sour looked crossed Trevor's face before he gave a quick salute and went back to the terminal.
Specialist Dex Chambers, Militia Grunt, Hornet pilot
Dex brought his sights down on his third Bravo kill of the battle, his Hornet easily maneuvered him into position behind his target. Once his targeting system had the enemy locked, he eased down on his control stick's trigger. The Hornet's 35mm autocannons sent minor vibrations throughout the craft as they spun up and unleashed a lead filled hell onto the lone Bravo, shredding it in seconds. Once the craft exploded, Dex quickly maneuvered his Hornet out of the way of the debris, not wanting to scratch the paint most of all.
"Oh come on! Give me a challenge! These things are easy to deal with than Phantoms!" The Specialist exclaimed over the radio.
A voice returned his complaint, "Cut the chatter Dex. Return to formation, you're straying too far from the ship."
Dex let out a small laugh, "Oh don't worry about it Sergeant. These Bravos aren't nothing!"
"Return to formation, now! That's an order!"
"Yes, sir." The pilot sighed as he maneuvered his fighter back toward the Solar Spirit.
Dex made sure he wasn't transmitting when he said "Someday, I'm gonna have my own squad and I won't have to listen to that stuck up as-"
His complaining was suddenly interrupted when his squad leader's voice shouted "Dex! You got three Bravos on your tail!"
Dex's grip on his controls tightened as he smirked, "You wanna dance? Let's dance!"
He killed his main engine and used the Hornet's micro thrusters to perform a one-eighty, once he was turned around he immediately slammed down on the throttle which brought his engines back to life and speeding toward the enemy. The maneuver took only three seconds to perform after the countless hours of practice he had put into it.
However, and much to Dex's surprise, the Bravos executed the same exact maneuver as he did and were already on his tail once again, "Huh, slippery little buggers, aren't you? You should be a little fun to play with. Let's see how well you can keep up with me!"
Dex began pulling out all of the little tricks he had up his sleeves but each time he tried a new maneuver to get behind his enemy, not only did the Bravos perform the exact same thing, they were even better at it than Dex was. Beads of sweat started slide down his face slowly as each maneuver he tried was quickly replicated, his grip on the Hornet controls tightened even further as did the knot in his stomach.
"Dex! What's going on, why haven't you bagged those three Bravos?!" The Sergeant's voice came yelling through his helmet's speaker.
Dex's voice came through a little more panicky than he would have wanted, "S-Sir! These Bravos aren't like the others, e-every move I pull they replicate it! I can't get them in my crosshairs at all sir! I can't shake them either!"
The Sergeant let out a growl, "Silver, Kaze, form up on me. Let's show these bastards what happens when they pick on one of our own!"
"On your six, sir."
"Roger that, be there in a second."
"Dex, bring them back toward the Solar Spirit. We'll do the old Over n' Under!"
"Roger that, sir!" Dex responded before he slammed down on the throttle once again.
Dex's radar told him the three Bravos were still hot on his tail, but Dex's focus was solely on the Solar Spirit. The battle raged on around him as he shot passed his fellow pilots as they finished up on whatever target they had set their sights on. Dex on the other hand was going full throttle at the Solar Spirit as if he was going to ram the ship.
However just before he rammed into it, he pulled back his control stick and ended up nearly scraping the hull of the ship. His rader continued to show that the three Bravos had not given up on him. However, Dex had them right where he wanted them.
As soon as Dex was over the other side of the ship and was back out in open space, he said the word, "Over!"
"N' under!" Came his three squad mates.
The moment Dex was in their sights, the three Hornet pilots held down their trigger and unleashed a combined barrage of 35mm rounds. To the three Bravos, a wall of bullets suddenly appeared right behind their target and they didn't have enough time to change course. The end result: all three Bravos flew headlong into the 35mm barrage and were torn into little more than scrap parts.
Dex breathed a sigh of relief as he leaned back in his seat, the grip on his controls easing up as well. A few moments later, he found his fellow squad mates flying in formation. He could see into Kaze's cockpit, the man was giving him the thumbs up.
"That was some fancy flying out there Dex, thanks for being our decoy out there. Ended up being another kill for me." Kaze laughed.
Dex frowned, "Decoy? I'm nobody's decoy! I was just leading them toward you guys."
"Yeah you are Decoy, that's what a decoy does." Silver joked.
"Wait, did you just call me Decoy?" Dex asked with a hint of anger.
Silver chuckled, "What do you think Sarge, good name for the rookie, don'cha think?"
"All those for Dex's callsign to be 'Decoy'?" Asked the Sergeant.
Kaze and Silver both let out a simultaneous, "Aye!"
"And those against?"
Dex was bewildered, "Are you guys serious?!"
"The 'Aye's' have it. Welcome to the squad Decoy." With that, Sarge sped off back toward the Solar Spirit.
"Look forward to working with you Decoy." Silver followed the Sergeant back to the ship.
"Let's see if you can live up to your name." And with that, Decoy was left flying alone as his last squad mate turned back.
Decoy was stilled stunned, "Wha- . . . What just happened?"
Sarge's voice came through the speaker after a couple moments, "Decoy, return to formation. We need to get back to the Spirit. Don't want to be left behind, do you?"
The pilot let out a drawn out sigh, "Yes sssssiiiirrrrrrr."
Talon, Solar Spirit Bridge
"Two . . . one . . . aannndddd . . . all hostiles have been eliminated, sir."
A small cheer went throughout the bridge as Talon chuckled, "If that's all that thing has to throw at us, then this will be easier than I thought. How many of our Hornets took a beating?"
A moment went by before a voice spoke up, "Sir, all Hornet pilots report that they still are combat ready. No one is reporting any damage to their craft."
Talon laughed, "Ha! Looks like I severely overestimated them. We still have to take out that main ship, but if that last battle says anything, taking out the main sh-"
Trevor approached with a salute, "Talon, I have some unsettling news."
"Man, you just always have to rain on my parade, don't you." Talon sighed.
Trevor looked concerned, "I'm serious here. At first, I was positive that it couldn't be true. But I double, triple, and even quadruple checked. Even now, I'm still not sure if it's true."
If Trevor looked concerned, then Talon definitely had a reason to be as well. The Colonel stood up and placed a hand on his friend's shoulder, "What is it? What has you so worried?"
"Talon, if what I gathered is right, the enemy Bravos didn't fire a single shot. I went a step further and asked some of the pilots I know if they saw the Unknown perform any sort of attack, all of them said the same thing, nothing."
Talon clenched his fist out of nervousness, "That . . . doesn't sound good. But why? Why would they just send over two dozen units to die needlessly?"
"Well-" Trevor began, "This thing following us is some kind of automated machine, right? What if that initial wave was just to probe our defenses and see how our pilots fought?"
"You mean some kind of AI that adapts its tactics from what it experiences? Like the IMC Vice Admiral, Spyglass? Each time we fought against him, it was a little bit harder as it recognized our moves. Is that what you're thinking?" Talon asked
Trevor merely nodded in response. Talon sat back down in his chair thinking. If this thing following them was like Spyglass, it meant that during this time it will compile the data from the last fight and going to prepare its units for the next assault. The Colonel began tapping his finger on the metallic armrest, as he tried to think of something to try and even the odds.
A idea finally came to him as he stood up, "How many Medusa Rocket Launchers do we have left active?"
"Twenty-seven of our original forty, sir."
"Prep all of them but only fire ten on my word, I want them ready before the next attack." Talon turned back to Trevor, "Bring our Hornets in closer to the ship, tell them to stay within range of the PDGs. I have a bad feeling about this."
A crew member turned in his chair and shouted, "Sir! We have a problem! Two more Unknown Alphas just appeared on our radar and they maintaining the same distance as the first one."
Talon felt a chill go up his spine, "Put it on the Holo table."
The two new egg shaped ships were positioned right alongside as the first. Each ship seemed identical to each other. The bow of each ship had yet to open, he knew it was only a matter of time before it happened. Time was against them and were now outnumbered three-to-one, the only saving grace appeared to be that these were just transports of some type and seemed to possess no weapons themselves. Meaning that if they wanted to destroy his ship, they would have to rely on the Unknowns Bravos to do it.
Talon cleared his throat, "Ahem, Sergeant First Class Hopkins, once you send that report to the Hornet pilots, you have my permission to join the fight. We're gonna need every Hornet we can out there."
Trevor saluted once again, "Right away, Colonel Ryker!"
"Sir, our MRLs are locked and loaded. They are awaiting firing solutions. But sir, I'm not sure if our missiles will puncture the Unknown Alpha's armor."
Talon turned back to the Holo table with a grim look, "The missiles aren't for the Alphas."
A few more minutes passed before the next assault began. The sign that it had started was each ship bow opened just like the first time. Two of the ships launched four cubes each, which all broke into individual units. Another chill went up Talon's spine, the amount of enemies now was eight times larger than the last wave, but he had a feeling that they would be sending reinforcements which is why he prepped MRLs.
However the third launched a different type of ship, one that he hadn't seen before. It shaped very differently from the other ships but had similar color scheme as the Unknown Alphas. At first, Talon thought it was some kind of armored thorny whale with stretched front flippers. It was quite smaller than the Alpha it had been residing in it but at least three time larger than the regular Unknowns that had been thrown at them. And what he had thought were stretched out flippers looked to be normal wings you would see on any fighter craft. And the more he stared at the craft, the more it started to resemble a shark more than a whale.
"Someone designate that new craft as Unknown "Charlie". What can our sensors tell us about it?" Talon asked.
"Piggy-backing on our Hornet sensors can only tell us so much. What we can tell is that this craft seems to not have any weapons are far as we can tell and . . . if our sensors are not mistaken, Unknown Charlie seems to be more hollow than the Bravos."
Talon nervously rubbed his chin, "A hollow ship? Why do I get a troop transport feeling from that thing? Are our hangers locked down still as I ordered?"
"Yes sir."
"Good, keep them that way. We're gonna play this the same way as last time, let them come to us and keep are Hornets close to the Solar Spirit." Talon smirked slightly, "Except this time, we have a little surprise in store for our friends."
Another minute passed by before the Bravos seemed to get in groups of eight before speeding off toward the Solar Spirit. Unknown Charlie brought up the rear of the advancing Bravos, however once the ship was thirty-five kilometers away from the Solar Spirit, it held its distance as the enemy fighters continued forward.
"Sir, the Bravos are now in range of the MRLs, want us to fire?"
Talon shook his head, "Hold your fire, start giving me the distance they are from the ship."
"Roger, thirty kilometers . . . . . twenty-five . . . . . twenty . . . fift-"
The crewmember wasn't able to finish as Talon shouted, "Fire!"
Panels all over the exterior of the Solar Spirit slid open, revealing ten functioning two by three Medusa Rocket Launchers. Each launcher fired its six rocket payload shortly before the panels slid back over the launchers, protecting them as they reloaded. The rockets raced in the direction of the Bravos, avoiding any Hornets as they were programed. The distance between the Bravos and rockets quickly diminished as they sped toward each other. When the rockets were within two miles, the Bravos began evasive maneuvers in attempt to dodge the incoming ordnance. However, when the rockets closed the distance to half-a-mile, they quickly revealed their true purpose.
The outer coverings of the Medusa Rockets popped off and not a second later, half-a-dozen micro missiles each burst from the innards of each rocket, each micro missile seeking out its own target. The carnage was beautiful from the holotable, enemy signatures were quickly fading from the real-time map. However, this move was just to even the odds, not win the battle. MRLs were merely used to thin the tide of incoming fighter craft or ships with thinner armor. It took several micro missiles to adequately damage a Phantom, but it took at least eight missiles to take a Phantom out of commission as it was with the micro missile's small explosive payload, quantity over quality. And if you launch too many micro missiles at a cluster of enemies, the missiles were more likely to run into each other than the enemy.
As the initial carnage ended, Talon saw that that at least two-fifths of the had been destroyed by the missiles with a little under a third of the remaining incoming Bravos being damaged yet still operational.
Talon nodded to himself, "That should help even the odds a little, have our PDGs fire when they are in range."
The command chair's commlink button flashed letting Talon know there was a incoming message, as soon as he pressed it Trevor's voice spoke up, "Talon, I'm almost to a Hornet now, I'll be launching from the primary hanger bay shortly. How close are the Bravos?"
"Well . . ." A second later, the Solar Spirit's Point Defense Guns started firing at the Bravos that were in range, the sound of the cannons reverberated throughout the ship ever so quietly, "They're right on top of us."
"Understood, looks like I'll be a bit late to the party."
"Just be careful out there, alright?"
Trevor chuckled slightly, "Of course, mother."
"Colonel, Unknown Charlie just dropped off our sensors!"
Talon ended the called and switched his full attention back to the Bridge, "What do you me 'Dropped off our sensors'?!"
"It was there one moment and gone the next, we believe it may be using cloaking technology."
Talon groaned, "Well, that's just great. Tell our Hornet pilots to keep an eye out of it, it may just be hiding its emissions so we can't pick it up on sensors. And if they do see it near the ship, take it down."
"Sir! I spotted Unknown Charlie, Portside! It's hiding near our Port Bow thruster!"
A moment later, Talon had a visual on the craft on his personal holoscreen via one of the many external cameras the Solar Spirit, "Well, what are you waiting for?! Have our PDGs and take it down!"
"We can't sir, it's . . . uh . . ." Jacob sounded hesitant, "Sir, it's in a blind spot to our Point Defense Guns."
"What?!" Talon shouted before quickly followed up with, "Get some Hornets and blow it away!"
Jacob nodded before rapidly typing away at his console, Talon returned his gaze to the holoscreen in front of him, "It's just sitting there. What's it waiting for? It was only a matter of time before we found it, what could i-"
Talon's eyes widened when he saw exactly why it had chosen to hide there. From the camera's angle, Talon could see the main hangar door slowly opening. Panic seized Talon, "Why is our primary hangar door opening?! I didn't authorize anything! Who's opening the door?!"
His answer was soon answer when he switched to a different camera, one built in the interior of the ship that had a view of the hangar bay. A Hornet hovered slightly above the hangar floor, bobbing slightly left and right as it kept itself stabilized in the artificial gravity of the ship. The one piloting the Hornet was Trevor.
Without wasting a second, Talon contacted Trevor using his holoscreen, "Trevor, abort launch! Abort launch!"
Trevor's voice came through annoyed, "First you don't want me fighting, then you did, and now we're back to sq-"
Trevor wasn't able to finish as the Charlie came flying into the hangar bay, crashing head-on into his Hornet. Talon could only watch in horror as his friend's craft violently spin out of control across the hangar bay, slam into the deck, skid across the metal floor taking out several unoccupied Hornets and Crows, and finally slide to a stop, merely a crumpled mess. Hangar bay personal had dive out of the of the way of craft, and those closest to the ruined Hornet immediately began to check if its pilot was alive.
As much as Talon hated to do it, he had to push Trevor's situation to the back of his mind. They now had a enemy Unknown ship inside their hangar bay, the ship had landed in the nearest corner from which it entered, and at the moment seemed to just be sitting there. Talon had to take a deep breath to keep himself somewhat calm as he issued orders, "Get all available military personnel to the hanger bay! Have hangar bay personnel evacuate, wait scratch that, have them help evac the wounded people we have in there! Our top priority is to keep our enemy pinned in that corner! I want everything we have down there, Grunts, Pilots, Spectres, Sentry Turrets, hell the maintenance tunnel runs right under the hanger bay, get some Titans in there!"
"Jacob!" The crewmember rotated toward Talon at the mention of his name, "You're in charge, don't let me down."
Jacob stood up from his seat, shocked at what he just heard, "Sir! Where are you going?!"
Talon didn't turn to answer as he slipped his helmet on, his visor lighting up shortly after, "I said I want everything we have done there, that includes me. You have the helm Jacob."
The bridge door hissed closed as Talon stepped off the bridge, some of the crewmembers cast their gaze on the new acting-commander. Jacob nervously tugged on the collar of his uniform, "Why me?"
()()()()
Talon sprinted through the corridors of the Solar Spirit, alarms blaring as a automated voice spoke through the PA system, "Intruders on board. All military personnel to the primary hanger bay, this is not a drill."
"I swear to god, I solve one problem, seven more take its place." The Colonel screamed in his head as he rounded a corner.
Talon soon found himself to not be alone, at least a dozen Grunts were a second behind him, booking it to the hangar bay as he was. Soon the corridors became cramped from the Grunts and Pilots pouring into the hangar and the Hangar Bay personnel moving the wounded away from the soon-to-be carnage. When he finally made it to the hangar, he found a weapons cart that was there for people who needed ammunition and weapons. Talon swiped a G2A4 rifle with an Holosight attachment and stuffed his tactical vest full of ammo before sprinting toward the half-circle perimeter that had been formed around the Charlie, trapping any enemy unit that came out of it into that corner.
Metal crates and containers from around the hangar had been pushed to form the perimeter, providing cover for Grunts and Pilots. A pair of Grunts jogged by Talon, both carrying a Sentry Turret. The pair moved over to a box not being used by anybody and hefted the collapsed turret onto it. One Grunt, seeing their job ran off while the second stayed behind for a moment. The Grunt tapped a couple buttons on the small interface before leaving as well. A moment after the Grunt left, the Sentry Turret activated, the gun rose from its collapsed position and began to scan the area in front of it for hostiles.
Talon glanced to the right of the turret and frowned, the space between the turret and the next set of cover was too large. If he could fill the gap with some more boxes or crates, it would provide more cover but the problem was that all the boxes in the immediate vicinity had already been taken and use elsewhere. There were more boxes scattered around the hangar but it would take longer than he would like to retrieve them and set them up.
After looking around careful for a substitute, Talon's eyes fell upon a damaged Crow Dropship, one of the ones Trevor hit as his Hornet crashed. He was thinking on how to move the wrecked dropship when Spectres started pouring into the hangar. Without wasting anytime, Talon quickly waved over six of the metal men. Thankfully to some additional programming on Einhart's end, the Spectres could recognize several other commands instead of just 'move there' or 'terminate'. One of those additional commands was to move an object from one point to another, taken directly from MARVIN programming.
The six wedge-head Spectres stored their weapons on their backs before pressing their metal hands against the side of the ruined spacecraft and began to push. It took a couple moments before the dropship budged but once they started it, the Spectres managed to push it to where it needed to be in one go. Talon winced slightly as the sound of metal scraping against metal filled his ears as they pushed the craft.
Once the new cover was in place, the six Spectres drew their weapons and move away. Several Grunts immediately took cover behind the craft while several others crawled inside and busted out one of the windows to fire out of. Talon took cover behind a crate near the turret that had been recently deployed, aiming his weapon toward the Unknown Charlie.
The craft had yet to do anything else since it landed, from the position it landed in, the half-circle formation was faced with the starboard side of the spacecraft. Another minute went by before the yelling and rushing soldiers around Talon died down, with most of the soldiers in position, their weapons aimed at the unknown craft. Unease filled Talon, whatever these things were they certainly seemed to like waiting, however, Talon did not. His helmet's advanced receptors could pick up some whispering from the soldiers around him but nothing else, save for his own breathing
Then a thought occurred to him, why did the Unknowns send only one boarding ship at them? The Unknown Alphas could easily hold a dozen of these ships, so why only one? That's when it hit him, the first time they sent Bravos to attack them they sent a small group of them, to probe the defenses and see how the crew of the Solar Spirit fought. That's how they knew about the PDG blind spot, because they sent a group to scout it out. Losing units like that is consequence to a machine since all the combat data is immediately relayed back to the Alphas. So who's to say they weren't doing the exact same thing here, they want to know every weapon they have, how many soldiers they have fighting, how they fought, what their strengths and weaknesses are, so then the next wave is sent to overwhelm. Talon managed to level the playing field this time because he used the MRLs and caught the AI with its pants down. If the enemy manages to board a second time and Talon didn't have an ace up his sleeve, chances are they could easily be overrun. And right now, they were pointing every weapon they had at the spacecraft . . . all except one.
Talon whipped his rifle around at the sound of some loud machinery near him, it took him a second to realize it was the maintenance elevator bringing up the Militia's second most deadly weapon, outclassed only by the Pilots themselves, "Titans."
Pushing off the metal crates, Talon booked it to the elevator shaft and found four Titans with a group of eight additional Grunts already half way up. Talon let out a whistle which grabbed the attention of all eight Grunts, "Kill the lift! Keep the Titans in reserve!"
One of the Grunts gave a nod before running over to the lift controls and stopping the lift. Seven out of the eight Grunts along with the four Titan Pilots used the service ladder the rest of the way up, the last one staying to activate the lift again if need be. Talon stood at the top pulling each soldier up and ushered them toward the already formed perimeter.
When Talon returned to his original spot, he found two familiar Grunts crouching behind the crates, "Well, if it isn't Mr. and Mrs. Rivans."
The two Grunts turned their heads in surprise to the Pilot which just crouched down next to them. They only told a handful of people about their marriage but don't remember telling any Pilots about it. Malon's eyes fell to the Pilots weapons and remembered only one Pilot who carried a G2A4 rifle, a satchel charge, and a B3 Wingman, "Talon?!"
Talon deactivated his visor allowing Malon and Jonathan to see into his helmet, "Glad to see you two are arrive and well, I figured you might have been left at Kevan 4, but I'm glad to be wrong."
The three soldiers trained their weapons on the spacecraft as they continued to speak, "I've never seen anything like it. Is it IMC, sir?" Jonathan asked.
"No, I don't think so. These ships are like nothing we have on records, not to mention that none of the ships match the IMC color schemes. Yeah, color might not much to go on but I have never seen a IMC ship with at least some white and blue on it and I have no reason to believe they decided to change that. The IMC loves slapping their label on anything they can." Talon responded.
Malon shivered slightly as she readjusted her R-101C Carbine, "D-do we know anything a-about them?"
Talon rotated his neck to keep it from stiffening up, "Well, the three large ships whoever sent after us and their escorts are completely automated, most likely an AI of some type. Even this dropship is automated."
"But why is it just sitting th-"
Jonathan was interrupted when Unknown Charlie let out a loud hiss followed by a thick smoke which quickly obscured everyone's view of the ship. The smoke started to spread out from the ship and move closer to the perimeter surrounding the ship. Talon was ready to order everyone to fall back in case the gas was toxic in any way, but didn't need to as the smoke seemed to settle about thirty feet from the perimeter. Everyone stiffened when a loud metallic 'thunk' rang out from the ship, whatever was going to come out of that smoke was going to be met with a hailstorm of bullets. Yet nothing happened after another minute.
Fed up with all this waiting, Talon signalled to a group of eight Spectres sitting behind the perimeter, ready to do whatever was needed of them that was in their programming. At his signal, all the Spectre's wedge-heads snapped toward Talon, awaiting his next command. The Colonel pointed twice with two fingers toward the smoke, the Spectres immediately raised their weapons and began advancing toward the smoke. Talon wasn't going to take any chances in case that smoke was toxic, and there were some airborne toxins that even a Pilot's helmet couldn't filter.
The Spectres quickly were enveloped by the smoke, however their footsteps were still easily heard. After a half minute of being in the smoke, a monotone robotic voice spoke back to Talon, "Area clear, no hostile signatures detected."
Jonathan shouted, "'No hostiles'? What the hel-"
A streak of blue light shot out from the thick smoke and struck Jonathan in the chest that was poking out of cover, sending him back a few feet. His body hit the ground with a loud 'thunk' and laid there, unmoving, "Jonathan!" Malon shouted.
A couple more streaks of blue light flew out of the thick smoke striking a few more soldiers before Talon shouted, "Open Fire!"
Every soldier still standing began to unload their clips of ammunition into the cloud of smoke, however due to the smoke, soldiers could only guess where the shots were coming from and hoped their shots actually hit something, even Pilots with Active Radar Pulse couldn't see anything as this smoke was somehow playing screwy with their radar.
"Jon, please wake up! Don't leave me!" Her teary face fell onto her husband's chest, "You promised that you'd never me!"
Talon turned his attention toward the weeping girl, "Malon, get your ass into cover!"
Malon rose to her knees and said, "H-He's gone . . . He's r-really gone."
"Malon, I sa-"
Another blue light sailed straight into Malon's back, burning through her uniform down to her skin. The girl remained stiff for a moment before falling forward, laying her body on her husband's. Something got caught into Talon's throat as he saw the girl fall forward, he tried to hold back the oncoming tears but failed miserably. He hardly knew to two but to see a couple's final moments like that brought him to tears, coupled with the fact that his best friend is most likely dead from the crash.
A bolt of blue energy impacted near his head, causing him to involuntarily flinch. It was these Unknown bastards that are to blame, they're the ones who crashed into Trevor and they're the ones who took the lives of Jonathan and Malon. His grip on the G2A4 rifle tightened, enough so where his mechanical limbs left an impression mark on the grip. Talon rotated around as he stood, bringing his weapon to bear upon the enemy that took his friends from him. That's when saw the smoke had mostly clear, and what he was dealing with.
At first, he mistook it for some kind of odd looking Spectre, but at second glance, he knew it was no Spectre at all. The enemy was robotic, as he assumed, but along with an angular-human appearance, which seemed similar to the Spectre's bulky and angular design. It's head was the most abnormal looking from the rest of the design, sporting two insect like antennae from the top of its head along with six red slits which he assumed were the machines visual sensors. Every machines right forearm had been replaced with an odd looking arm cannon but, despite looking like it was made of metal, the cannon appeared to be flexible much like an arm, especially where the wrist would be. Covering the machines torso, lower body, and left was a black chitin like armor much like a beetle's exoskeleton.
One of the machine's snapped its toward Talon a half second before firing at him. The blue streak of light missed by mere inches, causing Talon to flinch once again. Before the machine could fire at him again, the turret beside Talon swiveled toward the machine and fired. The insectoid machine jerked with every bullet impact, its carcass fell over after a few bullets struck, however the turret continued to fire on the machine for another brief moment before swiveling to engage a different target.
Talon picked a single target out of the crowd, aimed his weapon and pulled the trigger twice. The first bullet slammed into the machine's weapon, throwing it off target as the weapon discharged. The second struck home as it sailed into the machine's chest where the solar plexus would be for a human. The machine fell over with a loud 'clank', Talon took a quick glance to his left and right to see how the others were doing.
Both Grunts and Pilots were giving the machines everything they had, as they always did in combat. Grunt bodies laid scattered behind the perimeter, some bodies were left alone while others had another Grunt kneeling over them, shouting at them. Talon shifted his gaze back to the enemy in front of him, it was then he noticed that enemy units were still pouring out of the Shark's interior.
Talon noticed a Grunt taking cover behind the crashed Crow with a Archer Heavy Rocket slung across their back. He waved toward the Grunt yelling, "Soldier! You with the Archer!"
The Grunt happened to crouch down to reload his R-101C Carbine when he saw the Pilot waving at him. Talon pointed at the Shark in the corner and shouted, "Send that rocket right into that ship's belly!"
With a nod, the Grunt tossed his carbine to the side before reaching awkwardly behind himself and lugging the Archer onto his right shoulder. With a nod, Talon stepped out of cover and began to pick off the machines closest to them, giving the Grunt some much needed cover as the rocket launcher began to lock onto the ship. The Grunt never got the chance to fire as another bolt of blue energy slammed into the Grunt's stomach, sending him back a few feet.
The Archer rolled off the Grunt's shoulder and into the legs of another Grunt who was also taking cover behind the Crow. The second Grunt turned around when the weapon bumped into him, the soldier notice his dead comrade on the ground and ran over to him, "Oh shit, man down!"
The Grunt pulled his friend's body into cover with a single heave, tripping over the launcher in the process. Talon waved down the second Grunt, "We need to use that rocket launcher to take out that ship!"
"I can't, there are too many of them! We need to thin them out if you want me to have a chance!" The man shouted as he began to lift the heavy weapon onto his shoulder.
Talon looked back to Jonathan and remembered seeing a grenade on his tactical vest. Moving over while in a crouch, Talon gently moved Malon's corpse off Jonathan's chest and retrieved the frag grenade off the man's chest. Once he moved back to the box, a machine suddenly ripped the turret off the crate and smashed it to bits on the ground. Talon ripped his B3 from his holster and put two bullets into the the machine's head just before it aimed its weapon at Talon.
After setting down the hand cannon next to his feet and pulling the pin but kept his fingers on the lever as he shouted, "Grenade volley! Pass the word!"
Grunts and Pilots who heard him started to pull out their own frag grenades and pulling the pins as they passed the word down of the impending grenade volley. About ten seconds later, Talon heard the words, "Grenade volley, ready!" from both directions, telling him that everyone with a grenade was ready. Talon once again nodded to the Grunt in front of him as his fingers came off the grenade's lever, letting off its trademark ching as he did.
"Grenade volley, out!"
Talon lobbed his grenade toward the largest group of machines he saw before crouching back down behind cover and picking up his G2A4. A few seconds later, every grenade that was thrown went off creating a tremendous 'roar' that echoed throughout the hangar. Bits of machines flew everywhere, including over the perimeter. The upper half of a machine landed next Talon, to the Colonel's surprise, the thing was still operational as it registered Talon's presence and started to raise its weapon to bear on him. Before Talon could act, the machine's head simply exploded, showering him with metal bits.
First Lieutenant Vera Dostya's heavy Russian voice came through his helmet's comm, "Covering you, commander."
The Grunt, seeing his chance, stepped out of cover and began locking on to the interior of the Shark. Talon stood up from behind cover and began picking off and machine's that survived the grenade volley, however more machines were still pouring out from the interior of the Shark. Much to Talon's dismay, he noticed a major decrease in the amount of weapons fire coming from all around the perimeter.
Talon heard a loud continuous beep from the Grunt beside him, before he heard the words, "Rocket out!"
The rocket shot out of the launcher, flew above robotic corpses that littered the ground, between two advancing machines, and sailed unimpeded into the Shark's interior. The Shark exploded in a glorious display of of blue flames and scrap metal. The machines still inside and walking down the exit ramp had no chance as they were engulfed by the blue fire and shredded by the shrapnel flying off the ship. Those further away from the ship didn't fare much better as they were either knocked off their feet or shredded by shrapnel or both. Those furthest away were the lucky ones as they mostly suffered a momentary loss in balance.
The Militia soldiers hugged their cover tightly as bits of metal flew past them and over parts of the hangar bay. Talon peeked over his boxes to get a view of the devastation, the explosion had taken out a large portion of the forces on the ground, much of the hangar bay floor in front of him had been observed by either parts of the machines or the Charlie. If they were going to start their counter attack, there was no better time to do it than now.
"Soldiers of Griffin Corps, advance!"
Talon vaulted over his piece of cover and began to pick off the machines closest to him as they started to recover. He could see out of his peripheral vision that both Pilots and Grunts were following suit by breaking from cover and slowly advancing. The amount of laser fire from the machines started to slowly dwindle as the Militia forces pushed the machines back.
Three machines turned their attention toward Talon and began to quickly advance on him. With two quick barks of his G2A4 rifle, the closest fell into the ever growing scrap heap. The remaining two opened fire, one shot grazed his helmet, leaving a black streak where it nearly hit. The second blue streak sailed right into his left arm, throwing his aim off and sending his shot off into the rafters of the hangar. Talon bit his lip as the synthetic nerves on his arm delivered the simulated pain to his brain. Another struck him in his right calf, once again, the synthetic nerves delivered the pain to his head. The shot forced him to his knee just as another shot skimmed the top of his helmet. Talon threw his rifle at the closest machine with enough force to stagger it.
True to Vera's word, a gaping hole appeared in the third machine chest, revealing all the circuitry and metal bits on the inside thanks to her Kraber-AP rifle. Seeing the third machine fall over, Talon sprinted as fast as his synthetic limbs would allow and slammed his shoulder into the second machine that had just managed to recover from being hit with the flying rifle.
The machine's metal feet left the ground for a brief moment before it was tackled to the ground with a loud clank. Talon felt three painful jabs to his stomach before he was rolled over onto his back, the machine sitting on his stomach, holding his throat while its energy weapon was held a few inches away from his helmet. The arm cannon began to swiftly before Talon's eye, the weapon grew longer yet thinner with each brief moment. After a few seconds, the weapon finally settled on its second form, a long thin jagged blade had replaced the arm cannon from the elbow down. And to Talon's surprise, the jagged blade began to spin.
"A chainsaw sword?! That is such bullshit!"
The insectoid brought the rotating blade on Talon's left shoulder, scraping past the synthetic flesh with ease and triggering Talon's pain receptors. The Colonel let out a cry of pain but managed to position his left hand on the machine's elbow and lift the blade before it did any real damage. Persistent in wanting to remove Talon's arm, it freed its hand from the Colonel's throat and moved it to the wrist. The blade slowly started to slowly move back to Talon's shoulder, with his right arm pinned under on the machine's leg he couldn't use it to fight back. That was until he remembered his sidearm.
Talon didn't know where exactly where the gun was pointing but he didn't care at the spinning blade started biting into his arm again. The B3 Wingman in his right hand barked, sending a bullet into the gut of the machine. The shot caused the machine to jerk and go stiff for a second allowing Talon to rip out his right arm out from under the machine's leg, plant the barrel of the gun under the chin of the robot, and unload the final three bullets into its head. As soon as the first bullet left the chamber, the spinning blade stopped, the other two bullets were merely to make sure the thing was truly dead.
The machine fell forward, smothering Talon's upper body. The Colonel relaxed, letting his arms fall to the ground. There wasn't any more gunfire so that either meant all his soldiers were either dead or injured or all the machines had been eliminated. The answer to his question was eventually answered when he saw a pair of Militia boots out of the corner of his eye.
"Hey, guys! I found em!" Talon recognized the familiar thick Irish accent of Dalton as the machine was lifted off him and offered a hand up, "You alright there, Cap'n?"
Talon to the hand and was swiftly lifted to his feet, "Bastard tried sawing off my left arm. Would have if it wasn't for my brother's trusty B3." As Talon mentioned the gun, he quickly reloaded the weapon before slipping it back into its holster.
Vera carefully ran over to the both of them, making sure to not trip on anything on the way over. Talon slipped off his helmet and attached it his belt before giving his sniper a sly look, "What happened to 'Covering you, Commander' when that thing was on top of me?"
The heavy Russian accented woman threw up a salute before answering, "I didn't have a clean shot, sir. If I fired, there was a 87.54% chance of hitting you as well. I started to shift to a dif-"
Talon held his hand up to cut off the Lieutenant, "That was a joke Vera, you don't have to be so serious. How's the eye holding up?"
Caught off guard by her superiors informal address of her caught Vera off guard, causing her to take an extra second to respond, " . . . I-It's fine sir, no glitches or technical difficulties."
"That's not exactly what I meant but good enough. Make sure none of these machines are still working, then check for wounded." Vera saluted him once more before moving off and checking for any functioning machines.
Talon let out a sigh, "Still as serious as ever. Back in training, she was a Chatty Cathy. There were some days I wanted to stuff her mouth with a sock."
Dalton chuckled, "Pretty sure that would be considered a crime if you were to go any further."
The Colonel shot him a dirty look, "And you're still as annoying from the first day I met you. For being on a team of elite covert operatives, you sure do talk a lot."
Talon took a quick look around the hanger and found a handful amount of soldiers shifting through the sea scrap parts, a shot ringing out whenever a Grunt or Pilot thought they saw something move, "How many do we have left?"
"Fifthteen, sir. Minus those stationed in critical areas of the ship and those in the Hornets." Dalton answer hesitantly.
"Fifthteen military personnel left?!" Talon all but screamed, "B-But how?! We went into this fight with about a hundred! Not including Spectre and turret support!"
"We . . . We were unprepared, sir. Our kevlar vest were completely useless against their laser weaponry. Our armor is designed to stop bullets, not bolts of energy."
Talon punted a nearby machine head, sending it few yards away. Dalton was right, the Kevlar they had was laced with a lightweight Borium nano-weave along with a thin gel layer to help absorb impact. The Borium nano-weave was a lighter version than the metal used in Titan armor was used by both the IMC and Militia during late in the war. But despite the vest being laced with what was dubbed "Titan-metal", the vest was merely designed to deal with ballistic weaponry and shrapnel.
Conventional laser weaponry was a pipe-dream on both sides, and therefore there had been no need to develop a countermeasure for it. The closest each side had to a conventional laser weapon was the Charge Rifle but its purpose was a Anti-Titan weapon. And without any countermeasures, save for chest-high-cover and such, they were vulnerable, more so than usual. From a hundred soldiers to fifthteen in one battle, a battle they almost lost and would the next time the enemy attacked. Even with Titan support, there was no way that they could hold out against another assault.
"I got several pluses over here, call the medics!" A Grunt called from the perimeter.
A Pilot stepped out of the wrecked Crow, "Same here, everyone in and around the Crow is still alive but not waking up."
"I'm seeing the same thing over here."
"What the hell, is nobody actually dead?"
"Get those medics in here now!"
"I got twelve wounded, zero dead."
Talon shot confused looks in every direction as people called out the same thing: No dead, only wounded, but none of them were waking up. He broke out into a sprint only to fall flat on his face after immediately tripping over some scrap metal. Quickly recovering, Talon then made his way carefully over to Malon and Jonathan. Kneeling next to them, he checked the girl's pulse, a sigh of relief escaped him as he felt the steady rhythm of a heart. He didn't even bother checking Jonathan's, upon closer observation Talon noticed the steady rise and fall of the man's chest as he continued to breath. But despite his best efforts to wake them up through various means such as shaking and talking and eventually followed by yelling and slapping, the two soldiers did not wake.
Talon watched as medics took a look at the wounded began to carry out them out, "I saw them get shot. Malon took a direct hit! And the medics say other than a 1st degree burn on the impact site, she's completely fine! What the hell is going on!?"
His gaze fell upon the machine next to him that Vera had saved him from, more specifically, his gaze fell on the weapon that replaced the machine's right forearm. Talon strode over to the headless machine before planting a foot on its robotic spine and ripping the entire right arm clean out of its socket. The weapon was unlike anything Talon had ever seen, made of black chitin like the armor but had a reflective surface. Staring into the barrel yielded no answers to how the weapon functioned, all he could make out was a bunch of wires and mechanical bits he had never seen before.
The ship shook violently for a couple moments, reminding him that the battle was not finished, "Dalton!"
The Irishman turned at the sound of his name, as soon as eye contact was made, Talon tossed the weapon to him, "Get that weapon down to Einhart, see if he can make any sense of that thing. Maybe he can figure out why it didn't kill the others."
Dalton nodded once before running off in the direction of the labs while Talon made his way back to the bridge, determined to make these machines pay for what they did to the men and women under his command.
()()()()
15 Hours and 45 minutes until Colony contact . . .
"Perhaps leaving Jacob in charge wasn't the best idea . . ." Talon muttered to himself as he jogged onto the bridge.
Jacob was now seated in the command chair, being shouted at from all directions. The novice officer was clearly unprepared for the current situation as he tried to think up a different solution for everything that was shouted at him. His uniform was completely drenched in sweat, showing just how stressed and nervous he was.
A crewman off to Talon's left noticed his arrival and shouted, "Commander on deck!"
The sweaty officer swiveled around in his chair, "Talon, I was never trained for something like this! I can't-"
Talon held up a hand to silence him, "I know you tried your best, you're relieved of duty, report back to your usual post."
Jacob merely nodded slightly before standing up and rushing to his usual seat. Talon sat down in the seat and immediately noticed just how damp the armrests were, which was slightly off putting but didn't matter at the current moment.
"Situation report!" Talon ordered.
"Seven of our Hornets are severely damaged and are awaiting access to the hanger bay, enemy Bravos seem to be using laser weaponry like those used in the boarding party. We have no casualties among to report however, it seems that the enemy is ignoring the damaged Hornets but we have no idea why!"
"We've lost twenty-three PDGs bringing us down to fifty-one, however, none of our Medusa or Lancer launchers have been targeted since we closed the protective coverings. Relieved to report that there have been no hull breaches on any deck."
"Hornet teams are mopping up the last bit of resistance as we speak but the Bravos aren't making it easy, they're a lot more coordinated in this assault and seem to be using our own tactics against us. But at the current rate, and if the enemy sends no reinforcements, we should have this wave of hostiles cleared up in a few minutes."
Talon breathed a small sigh of relief, it seemed like they were going to make it through this skirmish. But worry returned to him when he realized that if they were attacked by another, their chances were slim to none and slim just got vented out an airlock. Talon rapped his knuckles on his head, as if to crack open a idea but no decent ones came. The only idea he had in his head was to use Lancer missiles to either destroy or heavily damage the Unknown Alphas, the problem what was stopping the Bravos from blowing the missiles away? Lancers were the polar opposite of the Medusa rockets, slow but with enough punch to penetrate capital ship armor with a few rockets in the right spot. These missiles were meant to be used at close range so the missiles would strike their target before and fighters or PDGs could destroy them and there was no way Talon was going to let those ship surround his.
"S-Sir, you're going to want to see this. Sending it to your screen now."
With a nod to the crewman, his personal holographic screen popped up in front of him. It was a live video from one of the external cameras located on the stern, and what it was showing was unsettling. Both the Alphas that launched Bravos were sending out drones a fifth the size of a Bravo. These little drones zipped around the void of space, latched onto various pieces of scrap metal from the defeated Bravos and carried the pieces back into the Alphas.
"They're collecting scrap? Why?" However Talon had an inkling of what they were doing with that scrap.
Jacob turned in his chair, "Sir, with what we've seen the enemy do, I wouldn't be surprised if there was some kind of fast producing factory within the innards of that ship. Able to turn scrap into fighting drones at frightening speeds."
Talon nodded slightly in agreement, "Yes . . . virtually an endless supply of drones. Gets destroyed, pick up the pieces, fix it, send it back out, rinse and repeat until enemy is defeated."
A crewmember off to the side started to panic, "T-Then how can be b-beat them if they keep coming?!"
"The trick is . . ." Talon paused for a moment before continuing, "Is to destroy the Alphas or at least damage it enough to take it out of commission. The problem is with our weapons, without our twin forward magnetic accelerator cannons or Hellraisers, the only option we are left with is to use Lancers at close range, but I do not want those things any closer."
A moment passed before Talon heard someone clear their throat next to him, he swiveled around to see Sergeant First Class Daniels standing at attention. Talon gave a quick salute, "At ease Sergeant, I'm kind of busy at the moment so-"
"Sir, you're statement earlier isn't exactly true." Talon raised an eyebrow, ushering the Sergeant to continue, "Well, you said our only option was to use Lancer missiles but that isn't exactly true. We can bring all Hellraisers online but . . . it's gonna require something drastic."
"If we can bring them online, then we'll do it." Talon replied without hesitation.
"We need to overload our primary engines."
Talon paused for a few moments before responding with, " . . . Ah . . . well then . . . explain why first?"
"The problem with our Hellraisers is that they require large amounts of energy to activate but our ships power systems being stretched at its current rate with the current damage the Power Core, we would have repaired it long ago but there was a radiation leak and we lack the proper equipment to deal with it . . . Well, not true, we could initiate a reactor purge and that would eliminate the radiation but it would require a full system shut down. Worry not, the leak is properly sealed and has no chance of spreading to the rest of the ship short of someone opening the door to the reactor core. If that happens, the ship would automatically initiate a reactor purge, shutting everything down. Long and short of it is, we do not have the power to bring our guns online. However, we might just have enough power to overload our engines causing them to explode, but just before detonation, there'll be an enormous power surge, a surge which our techies say they can redirect to the guns and bring them online. The power that was being used on the primary engines can be redirected to maintaining the guns, once the guns are warmed up, it takes quite a bit less energy to maintain them."
"So the only way we can save our already damaged ship is to damage it some more." Talon let out a lengthy sigh before asking, "Will it work?"
Daniels shifted his weight to his other foot, "Honestly, we don't know. Something like this has never been done. There is a small silver lining, even if our primary engines do blow, our Port and Starboard side thrusters will still work. And the overloading will give us a temporary speed boost."
The crew was silent, awaiting their commander's decision, the only sound being the beeping consoles all around the Bridge. Talon rubbed his hands together nervously, "Without our primary weapon or Hellraisers, we're as good as dead. Evacuate the Engine room, get everything we can out of there, the less we lose to the vacuum of space the better. I also want the rooms adjacent to the Engine room emptied as well, just to be safe."
"We're on purposely causing our engines to overload and explode to hopefully activate our ship to ship cannons to take out an enemy we hardly know an anything about." Dalton sighed, making everyone on the bridge aware of his presence, "I don't think the word "safe" can be used at all in this situation."
"I'll inform the techies to get ready." Daniels threw up a salute before quickly leaving the
Bridge.
Dalton leaned against the side of Talon's chair before asking, "You think this is going to work commander?"
"What's One hundred and seven-two thousand four hundred and twenty five multiplied by five thousand and four divided by sixty-two thousand one hundred and seventy to the power of pi?"
The Irishman's face became twisted in confusion, "One hundred an- What? I don't even remember the numbers you said, how the hell am I supposed to know?"
Talon merely glanced up at the bewildered man with a deadpan look. It took another moment before a look of realization spread across Dalton's face, "Oh, you have no idea either."
"Alright, open our hangar doors for the Hornets, bring them all home and lock her up tighter than a nun's chastity belt. Keep an eye out for any more of those transports as well, if anyone sees so much as scrap that looks suspicious, light it up." Talon cracked his neck as Bridge personnel began to relay his instructions to the pilots zipping around the Solar Spirit. As soon as the last Hornet passed through the hanger shield, the large metal doors quickly slammed shut.
The Solar Spirit's acting commander sat quietly at his chair, his thumbs pressing against his temples. He would have taken any alternative to damaging their ship even further, there was only so much a IMC Carrier could take before giving out. There had been structural damage throughout the ship after the emergency jump, the repairs crews had managed to fix some of the damage but there was only so much a understaffed crew could do. Even if they did manage to bring the Hellraisers online, there was still the chance that the explosion would shake the ship apart.
"Of all the times to take command, it had to be when we were undermanned, unprepared, and if that wasn't enough, I just gave the order to break our legs." Talon leaned forward in his chair, placing his hands on his face, "Thanks dad, for making sure I was ready for a shitstorm like this."
"Sir." Talon sat as he heard Daniel's voice came through his chair's speakers, "Techies say they're ready . . . as they'll ever be for a situation like this. Engine room as been cleared out as well as the adjacent rooms, we're awaiting your word."
Talon pulled up the captain's holographic screen before he opened a ship wide broadcast. Lacking the words to describe what he was about to do, he merely settled with, "All hands, you might want to hold onto something . . . I'm about to do something really stupid. Daniels, do it."
The bridge was silent enough to hear the soft hum of the main engines grow louder. Various consoles began beeping loudly, informing the respective crewmember of the console that there was a problem in the engine room, before it was quickly silenced. The soft hum continued to grow ever louder as the bridge crewmembers were continually pelted with warnings. Talon crossed his fingers as the engine near the critical point, praying to whatever deity that could hear him that he and his crew make it through this.
"Engine status: Critical." Came the Solar Spirits automated system, "Primary engine detonation in ten . . . nine . . . eight . . . seven . . . six."
Talon looked around the bridge, at the men and women who fought so hard to be here where they are now. These next few seconds could well be their last, but if this was the end, then at least whatever was chasing them couldn't take the ship. Every single crew member aboard this ship would rather be dead then an IMC prisoner, himself included.
"Five . . . four . . . three."
His grip tightened on his chair, enough to turn his knuckles white if they weren't cybernetic, "You know what, screw promises. Next time I see Yurika, I'm marrying her on the spot. God knows how much longer I'm gonna live while in the Militia!"
"Two . . . one . . ." The humming of the engine stopped for a moment, shortly before the massive explosion shook the entirety of the Solar Spirit, sending those who were standing to sprawl across the floor. Even Talon was almost sent flying across the floor if it wasn't for his death grip on the chair he sat upon. Other less fortunate crew members bashed their head against their consoles leaving them clutching their head in pain or unconscious in their chairs.
Following right after the explosion, the ship began to creak and groan. Talon rubbed his armrest, "Come on baby, you can make it through this. You're a tough girl, don't give up on me now." Talon encouraged to the ship, hoping his words would encourage the ship to stay together and not break apart.
After a teeth clenching half minute, the shaking subsided and the creaking and groaning of the ship followed shortly after. Everyone waited another half-minute before doing anything, worried that any slight movement might be the straw to break the camel's back. Eventually, the crew members started rising from the ground while others turned back to their consoles, figuring out just how much additional damage was caused to the ship.
Then the best news from all day reached Talon's ears, "Sir, Port and Starboard Hellraisers are coming coming online! Two minutes until full charge!"
A small cheer erupted from the bridge crew at plan's success, however Daniel's voice popped up again on the captain chair's speakers, bringing some bad news, "Colonel, we've had an unforeseen complication. The power surge managed to bring the guns online, however the surge also burned out the power cables that allowed us to to use the guns. Put simply, we can't transfer any more power to the Hellraisers. Each gun has enough energy for one fully charged shot, try to make them count."
The Solar Spirit's eight Hellraisers were half the size of the cannons that were used to take down the IMS Sentinel but with the same power output. The IMS Melancholy was to be the first warship with this new weapon, but before it could be tested in a combat scenario, it was stolen from its dry dock by the Militia and then rechristened as the Solar Spirit. The downside of the powerful weapons was that the power draw to activate them was enormous, meaning if the reactor core was damaged before the guns could be warmed up, then the weapons could not be activated until repairs were done . . . Unless you decided to purposely overload the engines.
"Alright, helmsman, show these machine bastards our portside. Start acquiring targeting solutions for our four portside Hellraisers, have all four of them lock onto Unknown Alpha that holds the troop transport. If any ship needs to be obliterated, it's that one." Talon tapped a couple icons on his holographic screen bringing up the charge status of all eight Hellraisers, "Route the control to fire the Hellraisers to my console, I'd like the honor of putting a hole through the bastards myself."
Jacob smiled as he tapped a few more buttons, "I think we won't hold it against you, sir."
Talon's screen shifted slightly as a few new icons popped up, giving him the trigger to fire the weapons. As the portside Hellraisers neared full charge, the targeting computer finished running its equations and moved the guns into the correct positions. The viewport went dark for a moment before a live video of all three Alphas appeared on screen, giving the bridge crew the best view to see how well the Hellraisers did. A small ding from Talon's console drew his attention, informing him that all four weapons were at full charge and ready to fire.
"This is for Griffin Corps, you metal bastards."
His thumb gave the button a firm jab, another humming sound started to resonate throughout the entire ship. About six seconds after the humming started, it stopped, followed by a sharp crack. Right after the crack, four beams of yellow light slammed into the Unknown Alpha carrying troop transports, searing four Titan sized holes into its hull. A moment passed before an explosion from inside the blew itself into at least a dozen pieces. Cheering broke out across the bridge at the destruction of the drone carrier, Talon leaned back in his seat as he wiped the sweat off his brow.
"Remaining two Alphas are closing in with drone fighter support, orders?" The minor celebration was brought to an end as everyone quickly went back to their assigned tasks.
"Bring our starboard Hellraisers to bear on them, I want targeting solutions asap! Two cannons on each target, all we need to do is cripple them." Talon shouted as he leaned forward again. They were so close, all they need to do was temporarily take the ships out of commission or at least damage them enough so they back off. Either solution worked for Talon, as long as they could get some breathing space.
As the carriers neared the ship, their drone escorts speed up and broke off in two directions, half of them looping over the Solar Spirit while the other half went under. A chill went up Talon's spine when he realized the Bravo's target, their unfired Hellraisers. Their PDGs wouldn't be able to stop them in time and it would be too risky to re-deploy the Hornets when they were about to be surrounded. Luckily, the Solar Spirit was equipped with an anti-fighter missile system.
"Fire all active Medusa launchers! We can't let them destroy a single Hellraiser!" Talon ordered.
In conjunction with his command, twenty-seven protective metal coverings slid open to reveal the launchers shortly before each one unleashed its payload. Like before, the projectiles moved toward the largest cluster of enemies before the metal coverings of the rockets burst off before unleashing its micro missile barrage. Despite being micro missiles, the amount of ordnance detonated around the Solar Spirit still managed to send minor vibrations throughout the ship.
The surviving drone fighters made a beeline for the starboard side Hellraisers, intent on destroying them whatever the cost. The remaining PDGs began shooting at the incoming Bravos as soon as they were in range, a second salvo of Medusa rockets were fired, thinning the crowd of Bravos even further. Luck seemed to be against them again as the flaming wreckage of a drone slammed into one of the Hellraiser, breaking off its barrel and making it too dangerous to fire. Talon couldn't even stop the safety protocols from kicking in, powering down the damaged cannon leaving them with only three.
"Shit! We just lost a Hellraiser! Don't wait for my order to fire, as soon as those cannons are ready, you fire!" Relinquishing command of the cannons, Talon turned his attention on the ever approaching Alphas. The drone carriers were at two thousand-five hundred meters, putting them in visual distance from the Solar Spirit. The gaping maw of the remained open as they approached, giving Talon the impression that they were going to try and eat them, and for all he knew, that could a possibility.
As the ships closed distance to a mere half-mile, the Hellraisers finally unleashed their focused plasma beams of yellow light straight into each ships opened bow. The Alpha that received two Hellraiser beams was destroyed before the lasers even finished firing, the second however still remained in one piece with a giant new hole. Talon began to think up possible ways to finish the damaged Alpha, that changed when the remaining Bravos broke off their attack and returned to the carrier. The bridge crew stopped whatever they were doing to watch the viewport screen as the damaged Alpha began to slow.
Talon waited until the distance was too great even for their external cameras to get a clear picture before opening a ship wide broadcast, "Crew of the Solar Spirit . . . we won."
A resounding cheer broke out across the entire ship, crew members ran into each other's arm crying, others were thanking whatever deity they worshipped, and others just thrust them arm into the air with a cheer. The Colonel himself could only smile as his crew went around celebrating, they weren't out of the woods yet but it didn't hurt to celebrate their little victory.
Once the celebration died down, he resumed the broadcast, "Alright people, let's not break out the champagne just yet. There might be more of those things out there and out ship is in a even worse state than before. I want damage assessments, weapon inventory, a headcount, and continued repairs. We have . . . thirteen hours and thirty seven minutes before we make contact with the unknown colonists, so let's try to make the Solar Spirit look pretty as possible. And those who haven't gotten sleep, go and get some, you've earned it. Alright people, we all know what to do, lets to work Griffen Corps! Bring on the burn! Bring on the burn!"
In unison, the whole crew of the Solar Spirit returned with, "Yeah! Brace and return!"
Seven hours and two minutes before colony contact . . .
For the past six and a half hours, the Solar Spirit had been limping through space without any additional engagements from the Unknown drone group. Several hull breaches in the engine room had vented the oxygen and left room decompressed, and due to the Solar Spirit's safety protocol, the only way to access the engine was to enter it from the hull breaches outside the ship. Talon only allowed crewmates who volunteered to assess the damage within the engine room and see if anything could be salvage from the explosion. The reason why Talon only accepted volunteers is even today's technology, there was still an endless list of things that could go wrong in the vacuum of space and he wasn't going to force anyone to go out there..
In the end, three women and two men volunteered and suited up for the zero gravity environment. At the current moment, the five brave men and women were surveying the damage to both the primary engine as well as the room as a whole. Several cameras had been places around the room by the surveyors allowing the bridge crew to monitor their progress. Talon had also ordered a Crow dropship to land on the exterior of the ship near one of the breaches, allowing a quick escape back into the main hangar in case they needed it.
Talon had remained on the bridge, continuing to coordinate with the rest of the ship in repairs. The bridge crew had recently changed shifts, allowing the people who needed sleep to get it. Jackie had long since claimed his chair after wandering in about an hour ago, forcing the Colonel to merely stand next to the chair since he didn't have the heart to force his beloved pet off.
"Sir." Came a dismal voice from behind him.
He was certainly surprised to see that the depressed voice came from Dalton of all people, he had only seen the man sad once and that was when all pornography was forbidden on all military vessels by the higher ups, "Dalton, I thought you were disposing of the machine parts littering our hanger. What's up?"
Dalton's gloomy looked continued as he explained, "Second Lieutenant Elbourne . . . is dying. The doctors say she has a hour, max. She's asked to see you before . . ."
It had felt like something had struck him in the chest, Second Lieutenant Elise Elizabeth Elbourne, or simply just El to most people, was the commanding officer of Wraith Squad and possibly the most lethal woman in the entire Militia. But most importantly of all, El was a close friend to Talon. El had a personal philosophy that if you wanted to fight to protect what's rightfully yours from those who seek to take it, then you had the god given right to do just that, no matter the circumstance. When she heard about a certain young Pilot rising quickly through the ranks that was being denied a spot on the battlefield, instead of talking to his commanding officer, she merely knocked the Pilot unconscious and woke them up on the dropship ride down.
Each time Talon was denied to participate in combat in any way by his father, El always seemed to have some way to smuggle him onto a dropship and into combat, however he wasn't knocked unconscious anymore unlike the first time. She commanded a great deal of respect from every Pilot across the Militia, although nobody knew much about her background, what everyone did know was that El knew approximately seven-nine ways to silently kill a man with a knife. El was a master of being unseen, able to sneak into heavily guarded IMC facilities, plant some explosives or steal some data, and be back in time for lunch.
But now hearing that El was dying filled Talon with a tidal wave of grief, he knew she had to be on the ship somewhere since Dalton was one of her subordinates, the other two squad mates had to on the ship as well if El was onboard. Talon followed Dalton wordlessly to the medbay, several crewmembers saluted as he walked by but he didn't bother to return any kind of sign to them.
The medbay was even more over capacity than before with most of the Solar Spirit's Grunts and Pilots now lying comatose. Other than the comatose soldiers, there were plenty of still conscious soldiers and crewmembers that had been injured after the botched Jump. Some of the wounded were sleeping soundly, their only movement being the rising and falling of their chest. Others however were in obvious discomfort, moaning as they tossed and turned on their bed, hoping that a doctor or nurse would come help ease their pain.
"Oh, Colonel Ryker." The Pilot turned to see Doctor Elton quickly moving around the wounded on the floor over to him. The senior medical officer through up a salute before returning her hand to the datapad she was holding, "Sir, I have found something very interesting abo-"
Talon held his hand up as he shook his head to silence the doctor, "I'm sorry, right now isn't a good time. I'm here to see El off."
"Ah." The doctor's tone became grim, "Second Lieutenant Elbourne, hell of a fighter. After the jump, parts of the ships interior collapsed, like in the engine room. I'll spare you the details but a piece of debris fell on her, crushing and impaling her. When we finally got to her, she was already passed the point of no return, all we could do for the meantime was keep her alive for a little longer. I know I could have saved her i-"
Talon held up his hand again, "Don't go there doctor. You did everything you possibly could, there is no need to make any excuses. Instead on focusing what you could have done, focus on the things you still can do. You're the best doctor we have on this tin can, don't forget it. Come talk to me in a bit after I speak with El, Ill listen to you then."
Before returning to her work, she threw up another salute, "Thank you for the compliment Colonel, I'll do my best to live up to your expectations."
Once the doctor was off, he caught up to Dalton who was waiting at the foot of El's bed. To the right of her bed were two more Pilots, the other two squadmates of Wraith squad. The Pilot lying in the bed was Alec Ryder, a athletic man with brown hair and a heterochromatic set of eyes, one being hazel with the other blue. Talon knew him to be mostly by the books and a all round decent guy, unless you got him drunk. From what Talon could remember, Alec had been banned from about seven bars on the planet they received their training. Being mostly by the books and following most orders to the exact letter, he quickly earned the name Echo by both his squadmates and others. Talon could also remember the commotion that he caused when he first snuck aboard the Lunar Ray back in Angel City. A majority of the people at the scene wanted just to throw him off the ship. Master Sergeant Dion saw the potential in the man, and the will to fight the IMC, and thus requested Andon to fold Alec into the Militia. At the moment, Alec was resting in the bed due to to dislocating his knee after the emergency Jump and a few bruised ribs. However, the doctors said he could most likely be out of the infirmary later that day.
The other Pilot sat at the foot of Alec's bed, yet another brown haired man but with a thin build and his eyes were solid gray unlike Alec's heterochromatic eyes. Blake Galeron was a slacker off the field of battle, never keeping his uniform neat, missing roll call several times a week, often found napping where and when he shouldn't, and singing songs from the twenty-first century at random. Certainly not winning any Pilot of the Month awards anytime soon, however, when in combat situations, all nonsense sails straight out the window with him. Talon was suspicious of the man when he had first signed up, Galeron was the name of a quite famous family that was a big supporter and financial backer of the IMC. After doing some digging around, all suspicions were dashed when he read about a colony girl name Matilda that he fell in love with. The report said that they were to be married soon after they met, but they never got that chance when the IMC found out her town was sitting right on top of a rich deposit of metals. The IMC came as they always did and booted the locals out, injuring or even killing those who resisted, Matilda was one of the casualties. Blake had been recently discharged from the infirmary after receiving a moderate concussion and a cracked rib. Despite still having some minor pain, the Pilot had already collected his armor and weaponry, a silenced RE-45 Autopistol sat in its holster on his right leg while a similarly silenced R-97 SMG sat against his back.
Elise Elizabeth Elbourne was a woman in her mid-thirties but look like she was in her late twenties. Her ear length jet black hair used to cascade all the way down her back but after joining the Militia, she was forced to cut it to ear length, much to her protest. One of her blue eyes had been gouged out by the falling debris, but left her right eye completely untouched. Most of her toned body was wrapped in numerous white bandages, despite having her wrappings changed daily, blood continued to seep out of her wounds and staining the pure white bandages. Even with the anesthetics being slowly introduced into her system through the IV line nearby, it was obvious that the slightest movement caused her quite a bit of pain.
But despite the pain, El still grinned as widely as she could as Talon approached, "Ah, Colonel Ryker, or should I say Acting-Commander Ryker?"
Blake scooted over as Talon sat down, "Ha, how bout just Talon. If anyone is deserving of their rank, it's you Second Lieutenant Elbourne. If anyone on this ship commands an equal amount of respect to my father, it would be you."
El let out a small laugh, causing her to wince in pain, "Gah, fuck it all, it almost hurts to breath."
Talon immediately rose from the bed, "Should I get a doctor?!"
El waved her hand, "No, no. I fear that I don't have much time. I have already spoken to the others, the last person I need to talk to is you, Talon. So sit down."
Nodding slowly, Talon sat back down and listened closely, "Talon, you know that Wraith squad became one of the most feared Militia squads under my command. And should the commanding officer of a Pilot squad be killed, the command of the squad would shift to the next highest ranking Pilot in the squad. Which would be recently promoted Master Sergeant Dalton but . . ."
Dalton shook his head, "No, there is no person who can command this squad except El."
Talon looked at the other three Pilots in confusion, "Wait, recent promotion, I didn't authorize that. Who promoted him?"
"I did." Stated El, "Are you saying that you are denying his promotion?"
The Colonel looked at Dalton for a moment before replying, "Well, if you think he deserves it, then I won't argue."
El coughed a couple times, a bit of blood came out with the cough. After leaning back in her bed and relaxing for a minute, she continued, "That's good, but he won't lead the squad and Alec and Blake refused for the same reason. Which has left Wraith squad without a future commanding officer."
Talon could already see where she was going, but he could hardly believe it, "Talon, I've asked the others and with some debate, they are willing to let one person assume command of Wraith squad. If you're half as smart as I hope you are, I think you know where I'm going with this."
"B-but why? I never received the training you guys did, sure I know how to use my Cloak well, but you guys might as well be modern day ninjas. Not to mention your Cloaking tech is experimental, which is a big difference from my standard issue cloak."
El turned to Dalton, "Give it to him."
The Irishman nodded before pulling put a small hexagonal device from one of his pouches and handed it to Talon. After Talon examined the device for a moment, he instantly recognized the device, "My god, a Mark VII Shade Stealth Field. I hear this was made specifically for you guys, not only does it generate its own stealth field, it enhances the stealth field emitters built into a Pilot's skin if they have it. This little sucker allows Pilots to be cloaked for a incredible amount of time and with near perfect invisibility, even to other Pilots. This tech is incredible."
Alec chuckled, "You seem to know a lot about a classified piece of tech."
"Well . . ." Talon started, "I may have used my father for authorization to look at the specs when he wasn't looking."
"Sadly, it still has problems." El started, they all could tell she was getting weaker, "It can last a lot longer than the standard model by far. But, extended use in combat tends to overheat it. This model is best used for sneaking into enemy installations undetected. And I'm giving you mine, Talon."
El coughed again, this time violently, causing Blake to stand up and call a nurse over. Talon knelt beside El's bed and took her hand as she began to speak softly to him, "Talon, promise me . . . Promise me that you'll look after them, as their officer and their friend."
"I . . . I don't know what t-" Talon started before he was interrupted.
"Just promise me damn it!" El cough up blood again, tears were running down her cheeks as her grip tightened. Talon leaned in further due to her voice becoming a near whisper, "Please, I need to hear the words, I need to . . . know that they'll be . . . in good hands."
Talon looked the dying woman straight in the eyes as his owned grip tightened, "I promise, I promise you El that I'll make sure they get through this war, so help me god."
Once Talon's finished promising, El's serious expression softened into a smile. She seemed to sink a little further into the bed as she closed her eyes one last time. Her breathing continued for another minute before she let released her last breath, her hand hung limply in Talon's. The other Pilots around him were trying to hold in their tears, but even with all the training they received, it couldn't stop them from weeping over someone so close to them. To Dalton, Alec, and Blake, El wasn't their comrade, or superior, or even their boss, she was their family. Talon bowed his head and muttered a few words before releasing El's lifeless hand.
Talon took a deep breath as he stood, "We'll have a proper burial for her once we're out of this mess. When you guys are ready, report to the bridge. We still have a lot to do."
The three Pilots merely nodded as tears continued streaming down their face. Pilot squads on both sides were always tight knit groups, referring to each other not as fellow soldiers, but rather brothers and sisters. If you saw the man or woman next to you as a brother and sister rather than another soldier, then you'll always fight a little bit harder for them. But if you lose them, then the pain is akin to losing a member of your family.
Giving the three Pilots space, Talon moved a good distance away to allow them some privacy. The Colonel leaned against a nearby wall, letting out a sigh as his shoulder bumped against the steel wall. El was an amazing soldier, losing her was quite a loss for the Militia. But she passed on the mantle along with her personal stealth field generator to him. Talon had two pairs of big shoes to fill, one set from General Andon Ryker and now the other from Second Lieutenant Elise Elbourne. Talon looked down at his feet, he had double duty with two impossible roles, Commander of the Solar Spirit and her crew as well as being the commanding officer of the Militia's legendary Wraith Squad. It seemed like the universe was just trying to crush him with seeming impossible tasks.
"Why so glum, chum?"
Talon whirled around at the sound of the voice, a few beds down lay an injured Pilot he thought to be dead, "Trevor?! My god man, you're alive!"
Nearly jumping over the over patient beds, Talon made his way over to his best friend's side, "I saw the video, I-I thought you bought the farm when your Hornet was all smashed up. Man, it's great to s- . . . Trevor . . . your legs . . . they're-"
"Gone?" Trevor finished for him, "How very perceptive of you commander. I would have never been able to figure out that by myself."
Trevor sat up in his bed, using his one good arm to do so since the other was in a cast. The infirmary had yet to give him a shirt, revealing the numerous bandages on his torso which he received from the crash. At the mention of the lack of legs, Trevor wiggled the two stumps that were once his legs, thick bandages were coiled around at the end of his stumps. Despite the loss of his legs, Trevor seemed awfully chipper despite the whole ordeal.
"Woke up about an hour ago to find my legs were gone. The doctors told me that when i crashed, bits of circuitry and metal impaled itself all up and down my legs. Muscle, shredded. Bones, fragmented. Had at least a dozen bits of metal shoved into my femoral artery, the only reason I didn't bleed out is because the bits of shrapnel went into the artery, but it didn't go all the way through. Docs said it would have been impossible to remove all the metal without causing me to bleed out. Much simpler and easier to just take the legs off where the shrapnel ended." Trevor explained as a few tears of relief rolled down Talon's face.
Talon quickly wiped away the tears, "Man, if I knew you were alive, I would have come sooner."
Trevor leaned over and put a hand on his friend's shoulder, "I know you would have, but if you did, I would have beat your ass and tell you to get back to work. You didn't have any time to worry about a single soldier, you thought about the crew as a whole first and acted on what you thought was right. Not bad for a rookie commander."
"That 'soldier' happens to be my best friend. But you're right." Talon sat at the end of Trevor's bed, "I had to push your crash to the back of my mind and focus on the safety of the ship and her crew. Doesn't mean I was all too happy about it. . . . You hear about El?"
The legless Pilot glanced over to the still three weeping soldiers with a sigh, "It's a damn shame. One of the best damn Pilots in the Militia, gone. And she didn't even get to go out in a firefight. I guess Death knew better to send a armed squad of soldiers at her. So who's the commanding officer of Wraith squad? Dalton? Blake? I sure know it ain't Alec, his score in squad commander training was god awful."
"Me."
Trevor was shocked for a moment before he started putting the pieces together, "Kind of makes since, no one else in the squad wants to take her spot since it has always been her spot. You're on good terms with everyone on the team and you've worked with Wraith Squad several times before so you know how they operate."
"I know I'm the most logical choice but I don't know what to do anymore!" Talon squeezed his fists in anger, "I need to make sure everything on this ship is running as best it can in the shittest conditions, and now, I need to live up the reputation of Wraith squad's commanding officer! I can hardly keep the ship together unlike my father, how the hell am I suppose fill El's shoes for one of the most fear Militia squads?!"
"You can't." Trevor simply replied.
Talon rolled his eyes, "Thanks man, big help you were."
He began to rise when Trevor spoke up, "Sit down and let me finish."
Sighing, but complying, Talon sat back down on the bed and let Trevor continue, "You can't, because you are trying to think like someone else. For crying out loud man, you've already talked to Einhart about this! You fended off that assault all by yourself, you used your instinct and gut feelings. You did what Talon would do, not what your father would do. Now do the same thing with Wraith Squad. Do what you would do, not what El would do. Sure, you may stumble along the way, that's a given. But battles aren't won by a single man, they are won by a group of people working together. I heard how you left Jacob in charge when you went to the hanger, you weren't alone then, you had someone helping you out. And now, you have Dalton, Blake, and Alec, don't think like you need to take the wheel by yourself. They're your squad now, they will rely on you, but in return, you can rely on them as well. It's the wonderful thing about family."
Talon sat silently on the bed, processing what his friend had just told him. Trevor was right, he was starting to think like before his chat with Doctor Einhart. And that way of thinking would have just led to more trouble if Trevor hadn't reminded him that he wasn't alone. He needed to get into the mindset of relying on other is okay, it was okay to show weakness to them as long as you can also show them that you have the strength to lead them.
"Man . . ." Talon laid a hand on Trevor's shoulder, "I'm just glad you're still alive. And lucky to have you as a friend."
Trevor smiled, "Yeah, I know you are."
At that moment, Talon's personal datapad started to chirp, informing him that he had just received a message. After a couple taps, he found the message to be an urgent meeting request by Doctor Einhart in the R&D sector, near his office. Apparently the doctor had discovered something important about the weapon Talon scavenged from one of the machines. Talon slipped the device back into his pocket as he said his farewells to his friend and made his way to the exit.
However, before he could leave, Doctor Elton quickly caught his attention, "Oh commander, about that thing I wanted to talk to you about."
"I'm sorry Jade, Einhart is urgently requesting me, he found out something about the enemy boarder's weaponry. Uh, rain check." Talon quickly left, sprinting down the hallway toward Einhart's location.
"Talon, wait! This has to do with the enemy's wea . . . and he's gone." Doctor Jade Elton let out a long sigh as she was about to go after him, but was suddenly stopped by another doctor, requesting her help with another patient.
A few minutes later . . .
Talon slowed his pace as he entered the lab area, several scientists were scurrying around the lab. As to what they were doing, Talon had no clue but he didn't much care for science, preferring the simplicity of killing before you are killed. Einhart himself resided in the middle of the room, the weapon had been placed on a large stand with various tools spread out across the table. As Talon approached, he could see that the good doctor had been thoroughly and carefully dissecting the weapon, several unfamiliar components which he assumed came from the weapon sat on the table just to the left of the stand.
Einhart heard Talon as he approached, "Ah Talon, I'm glad you came so quickly. I believe I may be onto something with this strange weapon."
"I hope so, if anyone on this ship could figure it out, it's you." Talon encouraged.
The doctor turned back to the weapon, "With this piece of tech, I'm inclined to agree with you. So, let's start with the basics. This weapon is far more advanced than any hand held we have, laser weaponry for the common soldier is still a pipe dream for both the IMC and Militia. So we can probably rule out that whatever these things that attacked us were, they are not IMC."
Talon nodded, "Came to that same conclusion, the IMC like to smack their label on pretty much anything they own. Not one of those ships or machines had anything linking them to the IMC, not even any barcodes or serial numbers."
"What's amazing, besides being a energy weapon, is that this weapon has the ability to transform to mechanical saw with a jagged blade. Or more simply, a chainsaw. I still haven't figured out how the transformation works, I may need to see it actually occur to better understand it. But that's not what you're here for, you're more interested in the fact that this energy weapon managed to incapacitate over a hundred soldiers, both Grunt and Pilot, but did not kill a single one. Well to be honest, I still don't exactly know, but I'm following a lead."
Einhart turned his attention to the bits of tech he managed to remove from the arm, "It seems that this energy weapon functions very differently when it comes into contact with live tissue than when it hits dead tissue or inorganic material. When it hits the latter, it merely burns through it, or at least tries to. It managed to burned through the Grunt's and Pilot's armor pretty easily, but other durable material, such as your cybernetic limbs, it only leaves a burn mark. Meaning that this laser does have a limit to what it can burn through which is good, if it struck a Titan it would most likely only leave a small scorch mark."
Talon rubbed his fingers over the spots he was shot, he had yet to use more spray-on synthetic skin, "So, since I was shot on my limbs, the laser didn't affect me as it was suppose to?"
"Correct." Einhart began to pick up the small bits of tech and examine it closer, "Whenever it hits dead tissue such as a rotting corpse or inorganic material such as a rock, it doesn't do much. However, when it hits living tissue, and let me clarify, when I say living tissue, I mean like a human being or animal, it would probably just burn a plant however I haven't tested it. Anyway, when it hits living tissue, something interesting happens. I still don't understand how it happens, but I understand a little of what is happening. The energy projectile acts as a sort of stunning shot, like a taser. It renders the person unconscious and isn't lethal in any way whatsoever. Now if I'm correct, the stunning shot has a secondary effect but I haven't been able to figure out exactly what it is exactly."
"I . . . can help . . . with that."
The two men turned to see Doctor Elton panting heavily, beads of sweat forming on her forehead. The doctor pointed at them, "You two need to hear what I found. I believe I have found what this secondary effect is."
She eventually caught her breath and made her way over to the two, a large datapad in hand, "Now, the soldiers struck by these beams of lights are in a odd situation. They are perfectly healthy in every way. Aside from the first degree burn marks, that laser did no physical damage to them. I ran MRIs, CAT scans, Ultrasound, basically everything I could with the equipment I have and I found nothing wrong. As a medical professional, this caught my interest. I won't bore you commander with all the details but I believe I have found the reason why our perfectly healthy soldiers won't rise from their slumber."
"Put simply, that weapon has managed to mostly wipe out and severely reduce the production of several that are responsible for a person's sleep-wake cycle. The chemicals are present, however, just nowhere enough to wake them up anytime , before you ask, I have no idea how this weapon managed to both eliminate and reduce the production of the chemicals. However, I do after running a few tests, the chemicals are still being produced but at the current rate, they won't wake for roughly a month, at least."
Talon shook his head, "That won't work, I need those people back on their feet. You said it was a lack of those chemicals was the reason they won't wake up, right? Can you just synthesize some and inject them with it?
"Ja, that could possibly work." Einhart nodded slowly, "I can synthesize the chemicals needed to wake them here in the lab, I will start after I've finished with Talon. Doctor Elton, could you handle the injections?"
"The shots won't be the traditional 'in the arm' injections. But, yeah, it is possible. I'll go and prep the patients, I should be ready in about two hours." Without another word, Doctor Elton turned on her heel and started to walk out before she was stopped by Talon.
"I just wanted to apologize for ignoring you. I'll be sure to make time for what you have to say. Just, keep the science jargon to a high-school level."
The female doctor let out a small laugh before saluting, "Sounds fair, Colonel. Now, if you don't mind, I got some people that need waking up."
With a nod, Talon let her go as he turned his attention back to Einhart. Strangely, the German scientist's attention was preoccupied, mainly with watching the departing Chief Medical Officer. Einhart's eyes followed her all the way out of the science lab and rested on the last spot he could see her, as if hoping she would pop back into the room.
"Doctor Axel Einhart, do you perhaps have some unspoken feelings for my Senior Medical Officer, Doctor Jade Elton?" Talon asked joking with a smirk.
Einhart quickly looked to Talon, back to the spot he last saw Doctor Elton, and then back to Talon, "I've told you many times not to call me Axel." Without another word, Einhart turned back to the bits of machinery on the table.
However, Talon wasn't going to simply let this go, "Oh, I am so going to hook you two up. I'm now just realizing how adorable you two would be, jabbering the whole day away with your science jargon."
Without looking up, Einhart responded with, "I am a man of science, no time for such things."
"Your words say 'No', but your eyes say, 'Please ma'am, may I have some more?'"
"Speaking of eyes, how is Vera's holding up?" Einhart asked, eager to change the subject.
Talon sighed with the resistance Einhart was putting up, "Einhart . . . I once hid myself in jungle-swamp muck for sixteen hours straight waiting for an IMC convoy. Imagine how long I can pester you."
Einhart scowled at him for a moment, his features softened slightly as he looked back to the door, "Believe it or not, me and Jade are actually childhood friends."
Wordlessly, Talon pulled over a stool and sat down as he leaned forward over the table as the Doctor continued, "We were together till about the middle of high-school where I was pulled out due to 'academic excellence' and transferred to Earth for the most elite private school. Back before I moved, my name was Heiner Drach, which is what Doctor Elton knew me by."
"Why the name change?"
"The IMC was planning on making me a 'Scientist of the Future', they wanted everything about me to be perfect to appeal to the high class of the Core Worlds. I was apparently born and raised on Mars, studied on Earth's very own Luna, and then transferred to Earth to continue my work on advanced robotics. To them, recruiting some high-school kid from a Frontier planet wouldn't work with the image they were going for."
"This transfer to Earth, was it what you wanted?" Talon asked.
"Yes, back then the tensions between the Core Worlds and Frontier were not nearly as bad as it was a few years ago. I had the chance to do the work I always dreamed of, my young naive mind never thought they would use me to build weapons that would murder hundreds of thousands of innocent people. They claimed it was only to be used as a deterrent, "peacekeeping". Anyway, me and Jade were pretty sweet on each other, there was no doubt that if I hadn't gone away, that we would be married."
"I assume there is a reason you haven't told her who you are?" Talon questioned as he examined one of the arm cannon's components.
Einhart let out a sigh, "Ja, since high school, our paths have gone in almost opposite directions. She's a doctor, her purpose is saving lives, to make sure a person can see the next light of day. Mine? I help build warmachines, my purpose is to create things that kill. I . . . I've changed and she wouldn't approve. My life is full of bad deeds."
Talon look down at his hands, there was truth to Einhart's words. He was the brain of the Spectre program, a program that lead to countless massacres of Frontier populace. But at the same time, Einhart was wrong. Talon banged his robotic hand on the table to get his friend's attention.
Once the good doctor was looking at him, Talon gestured to his arm, "Tell me, in what way is giving a man back his life a bad thing? True, you founded the Spectre program, but you are now the head scientist in the Militia who focuses on cybernetic limb research. Without you, I would just be a head and a torso in a wheelchair, sure, I could have gotten some prosthetic limbs like other Pilots have, but I can't feel with them. These arms and legs I have with me now feel real, and that alone makes it all the better. You gave me a second chance at life, you gave a man the ability to run, to climb, to live. And what's more, you know that you've done something wrong and now you're trying your best to make up for it. I don't think many IMC scientists would've done the samething you did. You're a good person Axel . . . and as for the Spectre program, you did it with good intentions, but you were lied to. That doesn't absolve of what you did, but as I said, you're trying your best to do some good now, and to me, that's all that matters."
The doctor was silent for a minute before responding with, "Thank you . . . It truly does mean a lot of what you said to me." Einhart removed his glasses and cleaned them on his labcoat, "Now, I think we should get back to the matter on hand."
The Colonel nodded as he stood, "We know what they do, now, how do we protect our soldiers from it?"
"Ja, that is the question, isn't it?" He rested his hands on the table in front of the weapon, "Your kevlar vests do nothing to protect you against energy based weaponry. Now, what do we know of that can stop energy projectiles?"
"Metal for one, the metal crates in the hanger seemed to do a good job. However, I don't every Grunt slapping on a sheet of metal to protect themselves without problems." Talon tapped his finger on the metal table as he continued, "From you described, this energy just needs to touch our skin to knock us out, and no doubt a couple bolts would find their way in gaps of the crate armor."
Einhart nodded, "What we need is something to cover the entire body that can stop the bolts, like some kind of body suit or a . . . shield . . . hold on a moment. Riley!"
Another scientist across the room popped his head up from his work, "Something you need Doctor Einhart?"
After waving him over, Riley Morrison quickly jogged over as Einhart started talking, "Riley here isn't a full fledged doctor yet, still hasn't decided what to get his PhD in, but he has a brilliant mind."
The man quickly jogging over to them was skinny, almost unnaturally so. His pale skin indicated that it hadn't seen true sunlight for at least a couple years. His face was covered in freckles with a large pair of glasses resting on the bridge of his nose. It looked like Riley was the spitting image of the average high school nerd on the body of a man in his mid twenties.
Once Riley stood in front of the two, he quickly threw up a sloppy salute which was quickly dismissed by Talon. Einhart grabbed Riley by the shoulder, "Riley, remember that project you were working on, miniaturizing Titan shields for infantry use?"
"Wait what? I thought shield use for infantry was still a pipe dream?!"
Einhart smiled, "It's a scientist job to bring dreams into reality." He turned his attention back to Riley, "You said you had a working model, Ja?
Riley rubbed his arm nervously, "N-No, I mean yes . . . b-but no. It works, but not how it's suppose to."
Riley lead the two to a different lab meant for testing new equipment designed by the Solar Spirit's eggheads. The room was reinforced unlike the other rooms, in case of any explosive mishaps, "The shield on Titans are able to stop anything thrown at them going a certain speed, hence why bullets, rockets, and a variety of other projectiles are stopped while Pilots can easily enter and exit their Titans. I've been working on a shield that functions somewhat similarly, a shield that what extend over a soldier a quarter of an inch from their clothes or skin if they happen to be wearing nothing."
"And what's the problem then? And why aren't the higher ups taking interest in this?!" Talon couldn't help but ask as he waited for the two doctors to step up a bunch of various lab equipment.
"I've run nearly a hundred tests on the thing, and no matter what I do, I can never get the shield strong enough to stop a bullet, not even a sidearm." Riley explained, "And then there is the issue with the power."
Talon held up a hand to silence Riley before turning to Einhart, "How is a shield that can't stop a bullet suppose to help us?"
"I will admit, everything I'm thinking of right now is just a theory. But every scientific discovery was at one point just a theory. So in the Solar Spirit's darkest hour, we may be advancing science that could prove our very survival. Our Titan's shields are made of energy, as are the enemy's projectiles, and because of this, if my theory is right, if the shield is strong enough, it should be able to stop the energy projectile. Simply put, a bullet can go through a thin energy barrier, a energy projectile can go through a thin metal barrier, my hope is that when two energy projections clash with each other, one could not simply pass through the other without a bigger reaction, and the stronger one should negate the other. If it works, then we just have to make sure the shield is stronger than the energy projectiles." Einhart explained.
"Again, the power supply problem." Riley chimed back in, "I haven't been able to make it . . . portable. While the shield generator can fit snugly right above a Pilot's thruster pack, the Pilot would also have to carry a small generator with them to power it, and when I say small, it would have to be the size of a child . . . and it would still have to be nuclear."
"Let's worry about that when we're sure that the shield can stop a blast from the weapon. Einhart, you think that you get the arm cannon to fire?"
Einhart brought a hand to his chin "Hmm, I believe so, however I will need a new weapon, I'm good at dissecting foreign technology, not so much at putting it back together."
Talon simply nodded, "Still plenty of parts in the hanger, I'll have someone bring an intact arm here."
"In the meantime, Doctor Einhart, may I request you assistance in finishing setting up the device?" Riley asked as he began pulling out a mannequin from the corner of the room.
The two scientists busied themselves in getting the device setup as they discussed potential ways of getting away the power supply problem. The device in question was rectangular in shape and about half the size of the Pilot thruster pack that would be place along the spinal column right above the thruster pack itself. When the two finished plugging in various wires, the device began to give of a very slight hum, he wouldn't have heard it if the room hadn't been deathly quiet after the two finished. Along with the gentle hum, the device lit up and gave of a blue light similar to the visor color their helmets had. A few minutes later, a crew member walked with the arm cannon in hand. Not wasting any time, Einhart set to work on getting the device to fire. Using his note he had taken on the dissected weapon, he began to hook up a variety of wires to a nearby terminal from the arm itself.
With one final tap of the entry key, Einhart took a step back from the terminal with a puzzled look, "I think that should do it, the weapon should fire now . . . or blow up. Guess there is one way to find out. Riley, fire up the shield."
Across the table from him was Riley with a similar terminal, with a nod and a couple taps on the keyboard, a dome of faint blue erupted around the mannequin, similar to the Titan's dome shield each one has when it was deployed. However, a moment after the shield activated, the dome began to shrink in size until the shield itself rested about a quarter of an inch from the mannequin's surface. Once the shield adjusted its size, the faint blue light disappeared from sight but Riley assured him that the shield was still active.
With a sigh, Einhart said, "Guess this is the moment of truth."
A single press of a button, a streak of blue light shot out of the arm cannon and straight into the mannequin's chest. A bright blue light flashed off the chest where the bolt had struck it, however, the flash hadn't come from the bolt itself but instead the shield protecting the chest. The shield itself had a slight ripple effect to it after the bolt hit but vanished after a moment. The mannequin's chest itself was untouched.
Riley couldn't help but jump with a cheer, "Hell yeah! It works, it really works! Granted, it still can't stop a bullet but this means my work wasn't for nothing!"
Even Talon had to smile, they now had a way for Grunts and Pilots to be protected against energy weaponry. It still needed some work but it was the first step toward a reliable defense. After Riley calmed down, he ran it through another test where the weapon was repeatedly fired until the shield overheated. After several trials, the average came out to be five hits before the shield failed and needed time to recharge.
Talon examined the device further before turning to the still slightly celebrating scientist, "Riley, with the Solar Spirit's 3D printers, could you start producing these shield generators?"
"I mean, we can, I have the specs needed to build it on my personal datapad, wouldn't be that hard to input it into one of the printers. But there is still a lot of kinks to work out before it's ready to be used in a combat scenario." Riley explained, not bothering to look up as he did.
"We may not have time for that, it works and that's the important part. If we're attacked again, we will need them for the ship will fall. Sure, it's unconventional and it will limit both Grunt and Pilot mobility by a lot. But honestly, we don't have a lot of options here, can you get it done, Riley?"
The fledgling scientist looked up from his terminal, "I'm no fighter, knowledge is weapon. While I can't use it to smash some machines, I certainly can use it to help give you an advantage in fighting those machine freaks."
Riley looked Talon straight in the eyes, "Commander, I promise, I will make sure this device is combat ready next time we meet those tin cans. Permission to request help from the other scientists?"
"Granted, save for Einhart and whoever he needs to help him wake up our people. Whatever parts you need, don't bother asking, you're granted . . . unless you need parts from the ship itself, then we will need to talk."
With one final salute, Riley began making a list of parts and items he needed before requesting the other scientists to join him in the testing room. He also sent the schematics for the shield generator down to the MARVINs working the assembly line down that was located next to the hanger. Finally, Einhart picked two other eggheads to assist before heading off to synthesize the chemicals they needed to wake the troops.
Talon on the hand saw no more purpose for himself to remain in the R&D part of the ship. With a farewell to Riley and Einhart, the Colonel began making his way back to the bridge. It was unnerving to see such a lack of of soldiers roaming around the ship, at the moment, they only thirty-even Grunts and twelve Pilots on active duty. Twenty-five of those thirty-seven Grunts weren't in hanger when the battle raged on but were either stationed on the Bridge or the at the Life Support Systems as they were the two most important facilities on the ship at the current moment. Since the fight, a few more Grunts and Pilots had been discharged from the medbay such as Alec and Blake.
The two of them along with Dalton were awaiting him on the bridge, Pilots usually followed their commanding officers around during situations like the one they were in case of enemy attack. This was so they didn't have to waste time finding each other and instead head straight to where the fighting is and wreak havoc. Four Pilots can cause a lot more damage than just one. As Talon stepped onto the Bridge, Jacob rotated in the Captain's chair to see him and immediately stood up while saluting him, shouting the phrase, "Commander on Deck."
Talon dismissed the Acting-acting-Commander with a simple salute before sitting down in the chair. The other three Pilots of Wraith squad walked up to him, awaiting his orders. With a sigh, Talon leaned forward in the chair, "The passing of El has hit us all pretty hard, you guys more than me since she was your commanding officer and friend. But knowing El, she wouldn't want us to mourn her passing, instead she would want blast a IMC base to kingdom come in memory of her. Lord knows she would have loved to go out in a firefight, but as my friend Trevor told me, Death was a lot smarter than to send a hit squad after her."
That comment earned a slight chuckle from the other Pilots, Talon ran his hand through his shaggy hair, "We all know that I have no-where near the same level of skill as she did, just the mention of her name was enough to get some IMC soldiers shaking in their boots. While I can't lead Wraith squad the same way she did, I will try to lead us in way that would make El proud of all of us. I hope you guys can put up with me until I can get the hang of things, I will certainly stumble along the way, so you guys will have to be right beside to catch me in case I fall."
Alec smiled, "I trust your judgement, sir. Give me an order and I'll my damndest to follow it to the letter."
"Hey, I can put up with anyone who doesn't tell me to shut up when I'm singing." Blake slugged Dalton in the shoulder, "Main reason I didn't want this guy becoming our squad officer."
Dalton chuckled as he slugged Blake back, "Between you're singing, music selection, or your need to sing in firefights, I wouldn't know which one I would need to change first."
"Hey." Blake pointed an accusing finger at Dalton's face, "You did not just badmouth my music selection."
"Dude, those songs you're singing, they're from the early twenty-first century. Can't you get something a little more modern?" Dalton questioned. Instead of listening to Blake's rant about how 'Most songs these days are garbage', Dalton turned back to Talon, "Honestly, better you than me running this squad, no offense. But I have a feeling that you'll do okay, and if not, El will probably rise from her grave and kick your ass seven ways to sunday."
"Knowing her, you're not wrong. Thanks, it makes it a bit easier to accept this job knowing you guys are behind me. Better get comfy though, I'll be spending a lot of time on the bridge." Talon warned as he leaned back in his chair.
"Don't worry about that." Blake retrieved a deck of cards from one of his pouches and began shuffling the cards, "I've mastered the art of finding ways to alleviate boredom."
Alec eyed the deck of cards, "Per Commander Ryker's orders . . . Er, Andon Ryker's orders. All playing cards of any type are prohibited while on active duty. Seriously, he sent someone to the Brig for two days cause he was in possession of a deck of cards."
"Well . . ." Blake started as he continued to shuffle the cards, "Andon isn't in charge at this moment. What say you, Talon? Gonna send me to the Brig?"
Talon cocked an eyebrow at Blake, "Seriously . . . my old man banned playing cards? Game away, as long as it doesn't interrupt your duties."
"We're playing Poker then." Alec quickly chimed in.
Blake stopped shuffling at Alec's quick change of heart, "Well . . . that didn't take long."
Alec merely shrugged, "Hey, never said I didn't play the odd game when we were planetside."
"No drinking though." Dalton added, "I heard what you did during basic in those bars."
"Stuff it, will you Dalton?" Alec retorted, anxious to get the game started.
"El . . . why did you leave me in charge of these idiots?" Talon muttered with a chuckle.
Two hours and thirty six minutes until colony contact . . .
With everything calmed down from the most recent attack and no more major issues arising, Talon had allowed himself a quick nap. He was woken an hour later from a chirp on his datapad, informing him he had a message. It was then he realized that Jackie had jumped onto his lap at some point during his nap and now was soundly sleeping. Not bothering to reach for his datapad in his pocket, he simply opened the the Captain's chair holoterminal which he had linked with his datapad. The message had been from Doctor Jade Elton with no subject listed, however, the message itself was all it took him to get moving.
"They're waking up."
Much to Jackie's growls of protest, Talon picked Jackie up of his lap and set her back down on the chair. Seeing that Talon was on the move, the other three Pilots quickly gathered up their cards and followed quickly after him. It was a short trip to the hanger bay were most of the comatose soldiers had been placed due to the medical bay being over capacity. The formerly comatose soldiers were slowly rising from their cots that were provided for them. Many of them felt nauseous, a few of them found the closest bin to vomit into as they rose to their feet. Doctor Elton spared all the doctors she could from tending to the other patients, she wanted to do a thorough examination of each formerly comatose soldier to ensure there were no lasting effects.
Not wanting to stand idly, Talon tasked the other member of Wraith squad to help out the doctors in anyway they could. The four them helped patients up from their beds, gave them a shoulder to lean on as they walked, or quickly moved them over to the nearest waste bin should they need it. The process was slow, each soldier needing quality time to make sure they were going to make a full recovery. Thankfully, as time went on, the nausea began to wear off, allowing the soldiers to get around on their own without aid.
Talon breathed a sigh of relief when he realized that all of the comatose soldiers had woken, they were going to need every person they could get next time the Unknowns roll around, he could only hope that Riley would have his little gadget ready when they did. A pair of familiar voices caused his head to turn, both Malon and Jonathan were holding each other close as the doctor tending to them asked them a series of questions. As Grunts and Pilots were cleared for duty, their first action was heading over to the nearby weapon trolley and loading up on everything they would need. He couldn't help but feel a little proud of his soldiers, they had just been cleared for duty after waking up from a horrible experience, and their first thought was to get ready for the next battle. He wouldn't expect anything else from Militia soldiers, but it still filled him with a sense of pride.
Doctor Elton waved him over once she cleared a Pilot for active duty again. She tapped a couple more things on her datapad as the Colonel walked up, "I am happy to report that all soldiers that were comatose will be making a full recovery."
"Fantastic, with your help, we now have a chance of giving those tin cans another black eye in case they decide to come for round two."
"Interestingly, remember when I said the production of several chemicals in the brain had been severely reduced in the comatose patients?" She asked, stowing away the datapad on her hip.
"Vaguely, what about it?"
"Well, just ran another series of tests on our patients. The chemical production for those three have returned to normal, meaning we won't have to keep administering the chemicals every time they need to wake up."
"So . . ." Talon started, "Do you know why that is?"
She merely shrugged, "I don't honestly know, I've never seen a weapon able to neutralize several specific chemicals. We were just trying to wake everyone up that no one bothered to start taking data. All we know is that our method works, we'll be keeping a large supply of those chemicals on hand for the time being."
Talon nodded, "Good idea, let's hope we don't have to use it. I'd rather not get into additional fights until we get back to Militia space."
"Personally," Elton started, "I've had enough of this war. Too much loss of human life, so much potential wasted."
With a hand of her shoulder, Talon reassured her, "One day Doctor . . . One day."
Without another word, Talon left the Doctor to her responsibilities and made his way back to the R&D sector of the ship to check on the progress of Riley. After looking around the labs for Einhart, he learned from another scientist that the old scientist decided to get some much needed rest. With the need to find Einhart gone, he entered the testing lab and was greeted with an explosion and a black cloud of smoke. With lungs full of smoke, it was difficult to put on his helmet with all the coughing he was doing. Thankfully, Alec already had his helmet on and helped the other three.
Once his helmet was sealed on, the filter system almost immediately expelled all the smoke from within the helmet and fresh filtered air flooded back into Talon's lungs. It took a moment to stop coughing, but once he did, he was greeted with an amusing sight. Riley Morrison's entire front half was stained black from what looked like several explosions, a oxygen mask and safety goggles protected his face from the smoke however.
Riley lifted up the goggles to expose that the skin around his eyes laid untouched by the smoke creating another amusing sight, "Hmm . . . so that didn't work. I'm running out of ideas here."
"I think I making gas masks required for this room." Talon stated as he walked up, still coughing lightly.
"Ah, commander! Checking up on my progress, I assume?" Riley asked as he tossed the piece of metal that had once been a shield generator into an ever growing pile of blown up tech.
"You assume correct. I'm guessing by the pile of generators over there, progress is not good?"
"Yes and no." Riley simply stated before continuing, "Since I'm not the only one working on this, we've managed to work out quite a few kinks. We found that extended use tended to short out the generator, fixed that. A horrible miscalculation on my part was brought up by another scientist has been quickly fixed as well. An-"
Talon held up his hands to stop Riley from moving on, "What, exactly, was this horrible miscalculation?"
"Umm . . . The shield might or might not have prevented oxygen from passing through its field." Riley rubbed the back of his neck nervously, "Good thing we got that fixed before moving onto human trials."
"I'm not even gonna ask how you screw something like that up." Dalton chimed in.
The Colonel rubbed his chin, "What seems to be the problem then if you've managed to work out a lot of kinks?"
"Power!" Riley shouted as he banged his fist on the table, "I haven't been able to find a suitable power source. All Titans have a small nuclear reactor which powers everything, including the shields. Sadly, I haven't been find any way to build a pocket sized nuclear reactor, so I'm looking into alternative powers sources. I thought I was onto something at one point from an old movie I watched a while back, sadly, I don't have the specs needed to build a miniaturized Arc Reactor. So, if we're attack again with laser weaponry, the best I can give is the current model plugged into an external power source."
"We'll make do, thankfully, all of our comatose friends have waken up and are ready for the next fight. Anything you need before I take off?" Talon asked.
"A solution to the power problem." Riley joked, "Nothing, I have a feeling I'll think of something soon. I'll have a MARVIN grab whatever I need.
Leaving him to his duties, Wraith squad returned to the Bridge to prepare for the coming contact with the colony. Talon continued to hope in his mind that this colony was neutral or friendly and was willing to help with repairs. If they turned out to be hostile, there was a high chance that would be the last battle of the Solar Spirit. Talon could only pray, and pray he did.
Zero hours and zero minutes until Colony contact . . .
"That has to the reddest planet I have ever seen." Talon remarked as he ordered the ship to a full stop.
The planet in question reminded Talon of Mars which had he seen in pictures, just a massive red planet. A pang of nervous filled Talon's stomach when he considered that they may in fact be at the Core World's very own Mars, but that was quickly dashed by the fact that besides the orbital debris that could be seen from the view port, there wasn't a single ship arriving or leaving the planet. He ordered the ship to be kept a distance away from the debris, he knew of a tactic that the both the IMC and Militia has used in that past. It involved rigging the orbiting debris with high-grade explosives and detonating them when a enemy ship passed near, and the last thing Talon needed was more explosions shaking his already beat up ship apart.
"Open a broadcast, boost the strength as much as you can. Let's see if we can make some friends today, shall we?" Once Talon received a thumbs up from one of his crewmates, he clicked a button on his holoscreen which started the broadcast. But even as he pressed it, he didn't say a word. He needed to be very careful with his next few sentences, if he let it slip that this was a Militia ship, and the people planetside were sympathetic to the IMC, that would spell disaster. Or even if he let them know that the Solar Spirit was in fact a military vessel, that alone could cause the colony to become hostile toward them. But at the same time, if he hid the fact and it was later discovered, that too could make them hostile.
It was a long half minute until Talon took a deep breath and began to speak, "This is Commander Ryker of the Solar Spirit. Our ship has suffered major damage after a botched Jump and an attack from an unknown AI entity." He thought for another moment before continuing, "We are a military escort for a private security company. We are armed but we will power down weapons if requested. We are seeking permission to land and commence repairs on our ship."
Talon removed his finger from the button and awaited a response, praying that whoever heard them on the other side wasn't having a bad day and was in a good mood. There was also the possibility that they didn't hear the broadcast due to the Solar Spirit's damaged communications relay.
"Private Security, Sir?" Jacob asked, swiveling around in his seat.
"Yes. Private security is used both by the Militia and the IMC, meaning that we could be from either side. Here's hoping they tell us who they support, if any side, before they ask us the same thing." Talon explained, hoping for a response soon.
After a minute of waiting, Talon was about to start another broadcast when some static came through the bridge speakers. He could hear a voice through the static but couldn't make anything from it, "Try to lock onto that signal, boost it as much as you can!"
"Sir, there's too much debris, it's creating too much interference." Came a crewmember to his left.
"Damn it." Talon sighed as clenched his fist, if they wanted to speak with whoever was on the other side they needed to move through the debris which dangerous by itself, especially without shields.
"Helmsmen, start easing us through that debris field. Nothing fancy, I don't mind if you scratch the paint but try to keep her in one piece if at all possible." With an 'Aye, Aye, Commander' from the two helmsmen started to move the ship carefully through the chunks of destroyed ships. Talon opened another broadcast to try and inform whoever was responding to them of their intentions, "This is Commander Ryker, our communications relay has been damaged. We are currently navigating our way through a debris field to get a better signal."
Halfway through the debris, a horrible screeching of metal on metal burned its way into the Bridge crew's head as the Solar Spirit began sliding along a piece of metal. A moment later the sound stopped as the helmsman corrected their course, "My bad! That was my bad."
"Th- . . . Ika- . chi . . . Tarak Em- . . . to who- . . . eaking?"
"This is Commander Ryker of the Solar Spirit. Our communication's relay isn't working properly, we are currently navigating a debris field in order to receive a better signal." Talon responded to the broadcast.
"Un- . . stood. We ha- . . . . scanners no- . . inbound . . . -ur location."
Talon relaxed back in his chair, "Alright, if I heard them correctly, they're going to come and greet us. Helmsmen, as soon as we're out of the debris, bring us to a full stop."
After a couple more teeth clenching moments of metal scraping across the hull of the Solar Spirit, the ship finally broke through out the other side, giving everyone on the bridge a clear view of the red planet below . . . along with the small fleet of ships approaching them. Certainly not the type of welcoming party Talon would have wanted, but sadly, this was their planet, meaning they would have to deal on their terms.
Most ships commonly had a length much greater than their width, as it was from the first row boats built back when humanity back on Earth. However, it seemed that the ship approaching them decided to ignore the common design, not that it mattered in space with the lack of water or resistance in general. While the main ship had about the same width as a Unknown Alpha, that were the similarities ended. The ships were much more angular, and seemed to have a more human touch, and unlike the Alpha, this ship had actually responded to his broadcast. What seemed a little odd was the fact that while most of the main ship was angular, sitting atop the ship was a more sleek and curvy design that seemed out of place, almost like it was apart of another ship. Along with the main ship Talon counted about six support vessels surrounding what he assumed was their capital ship.
"This is the Ikazuchi of the Glorious Tarak Empire, power down your weapon systems or we will fire upon you."
"Well . . . this isn't how I hoped this went. Do as they say, power them down." Talon smirked a little as the PDGs, Medusa and Lancer weapon system were powered down, "They didn't say anything about powering down the Hornet Squadrons we have ready in the hanger."
Talon thumbed the broadcast button again, "Our weapons systems have been powered down, as you requested. I assure you that our intentions are only peaceful. Our ship came under at-"
"I don't want to hear it." Came the voice sharply, annoying Talon to some extent. It was he noticed that the Ikazuchi was requesting an open video transmission with him. He figured it was time to see the face of whoever was on the other side of the call.
Once he accepted, he was greeted to the sight of an older man, perhaps in his mid-fifties, the man was bald yet had a neatly trimmed moustache with a near military uniform with various decorations and commendations littering his chest, signifying him as a high ranking officer of this Tarak Empire, an empire that Talon had never heard about.
The man seemed to be surprised in some, for when Talon opened the video, the man seemed to jump slightly. Recovering quickly, the man began to question him, "Boy, I demand to speak with the commanding officer of the Solar Spirit."
Talon couldn't help but cock an eyebrow in response to his request, "This is the commanding officer of the Solar Spirit, Acting-Commander Talon James Ryker."
"Acting?" The man asked with a slight bit of annoyance, "Where is the regular commander?"
"Currently in a coma after our Jump Core went haywire and flung us to a set of unknown coordinates, causing a lot of damage to our infrastructure. We are resting permission to land, and start repair operations." Talon requested, as politely as he could.
The man looked off screen for a moment before turning back to the camera, "Our scans of your ship show a small spacecraft near the rear of your ship. What is its purpose?"
Pushing aside the fact the man scanned his ship without the Talon's approval, he answered as respectfully and quickly as he could, "It's purpose is ferrying a small crew of repairmen from our hanger to the hull breach that occurred in our engine."
The man again looked off screen, this time for a bit longer than last, "Hmm . . . Our scans are showing heavy damage across your ship, it also shows signs of a recent battle."
"We were engaged by an unknown AI entity, we managed to fend off the assault, just barely."
After a slight grumble, the man sighed, "You caught us on a bad day, this was to be the day we crush our long time enemies."
Seeing an opportunity to butter up to the man, Talon took it, "I can assure you that we had no intention of interrupting your long time anticipated assault. Nor any intention of stopping you, not that we could with warships such as yours. We simply need to land and start repairs on our vessel. Any assistance you can provide would be greatly appreciated."
The Tarak officer ran his fingers over his well kept moustache, deep in thought, "You seem like a decent man, Commander Ryker, something each person in the Tarak Empire should aspire to be. Very well, I will permit you to land on our planet. We shall spare what we can to get you ready to send on your way."
"I thank you, as does my crew. I assure you, we won't take up anymore of your time than is needed." Talon sighed in relief, knowing they were going to get the help they needed.
"Commander?" At the mention of his rank, Talon turned in his seat to see Vera standing at attention beside him.
"Ah, Vera, something you need?" Talon asked, carrying a cheerful tone.
"I was wondering if you knew where Doctor Ein-"
"Is that a woman?!" Shouted the Tarak officer with what seemed like horror in his voice.
Confused, Talon answered simply, "Yes, she is a soldier under my command."
The man took a step back, aghast by what Talon had just said, "Y-you traitor!"
Talon held up his hands defensively, "I'm not sure I understand, can you please elaborate why this is a problem."
"How dare you throw yourself in with those monsters! And to think, I was about to allow a ship full of women on our home! You're working with those on Mejere, aren't you?!"
"I swear to you that is not true." At the mention of Mejere, a crewmember began to see if it popped up anywhere in their ship's database but the result was nothing, "We don't even know what Mejere is, nothing is coming up in our database."
"Lies! All of it! That very woman's presence aboard your ship tells me everything I need to know. Know this, Acting-Commander Ryker, this deception will cost you your life as well as the lives of your crew!" Before Talon could respond again, the video channel was closed.
Talon remained silent for a moment, shaking in fear, still processing what just happened. Seeing their commander frozen in place, Dalton stepped forward, "Orders, Sir!"
Snapping out of his trance, he turned his gaze to the viewport, watching the Tarak ships approaching. With their forward cannons still disabled, their Hellraisers done for good, and with no shields protecting their already weakened infrastructure, their options were extremely limited. If they stayed where they were or charged forward to meet the ships, there was no doubt they would be picked apart by their enemies weapons. What they needed most was cover, and luckily they weren't too far from it.
With the goal of keeping his crew alive, he began to bark orders, "Helmsmen, full reverse into the debris field, make sure those bastards don't get a clean shot on us! Bring our weapons back online, PDGs, Medusa's, Lancers, everything we got!"
Alarms began blaring once again, signifying to everyone on board that they were once again in a combat situation, "Sir!" Came a crewmember to his right, "If we enter the debris field, we won't be able to deploy our Hornets, the field is too dense to allow for safe flight, even for our best pilots!"
"That hopefully means the same thing for them, even if they send their fighters into the debris field it'll mean they'll have to dodge the debris and our PDGs." Jacob answered for Talon, "Even IMC Ace squadrons would be hesitant to engage us with Phantoms in this environment. Not to mention, these guys aren't IMC. The Tarak Empire along with Mejere isn't showing any hits in our database. And I highly doubt the IMC would support any self-proclaimed empire other than themselves."
"Jacob's got a point, the IMC would most likely just attempt to roll over these guys." Talon added on to his XO's statement. It was then the Colonel noticed Vera still standing beside his chair, shaking as he did a minute ago, "What's wrong, Lieutenant?"
She slowly turned her head toward him, still shaking in place, "I'm so sorry, sir. I've doomed the ship, I didn't mean for-"
"Silence, Lieutenant, that's an order." Stopping mid sentence, Vera couldn't help but look away in shame. Before she could leave the bridge, she felt a hand grasp her shoulder, "Don't you think for even a second that this is your fault. He didn't get angry at you, he got angry at the fact I had a woman aboard my ship . . . which is weird."
"Both the Militia and IMC have women serving in their armed forces." Blake chimed in, "If I may sir, I think the reason that old bastard was infuriated was not because you had a women aboard your ship, but because you're working with one."
"Explain."
"Well, he did say 'How dare you throw yourself in with those monsters', right?" With a nod from Talon, he continued, "Which means he considers all women to be monsters, at least that's what I figure. Meaning one of two things, One: Could be that he hasn't had any luck with the ladies from birth, unlike yours truly, meaning he has come to despise women as a whole since he never had a girlfriend. However, I don't think this is the case. To order the destruction of a vessel just because it has women on it? I have a feeling there is more to this than has been revealed."
"And the second option?" Alec encouraged for Blake to continue.
"The second option, the more unlikely of the two but more reasonable to assume in the current situation, is that we may have found a colony of only men who are at war with women."
The five Pilots stood silently, even when the ship began to scrape against pieces of debris, nobody among them moved or even flinched.
Vera finally broke the silence, "An entire . . ."
"Planet of . . ." Alec contined.
"Men." Dalton finished, "You know, Blake, I honestly thought you were on to something there for a moment. For a split second, I forgot the man who was talking was the same man who used prototype Cloak technology to steal extra rations and sleep during training drills."
"Guys, I'm being serious here. I'm not saying it happens once every five colonies, but it is a possibility." Blake encouraged his fellow Pilots.
"Blake." Alec started, "This isn't one of your homo erotic fantasies, this is real life."
Blake could only deadpanned at his fellow squadmate, "Dude, you've seen my stash. You really think I'm gay? I even loaned you one of my personal collection not even a week ago."
Dalton couldn't help but smirk, "Alec 'By the Book' Ryder, you borrowed something from Blake's collection? Didn't know you had it in you."
Alec began to stammer out a poor excuse but was silenced by a voice that brought them back to the task at hand, "In case you haven't notice-" Shouted Jacob, who was now standing beside the Captain's chair, "We are a bit of a situation right now!"
Talon couldn't help but curse himself, he had taken his eyes off the battlefield for more than a few moments. And doing so could have cost him the lives of his crew, luckily, it seemed the Tarak fleet was holding position just on the edge of the debris field. No doubt trying to come up with some solution to smoke the Solar Spirit out of cover.
Gritting his teeth, he shouted, "Status of our weapons, are they back online?"
"Almost, weapon system restart is nearing ninety percent, weapons should be active within thirty seconds!"
"Sir! I seeing something strange on one of our external cameras, I can't be certain due to the debris, but it looks as if the enemy is deploying Titans."
Talon cocked an eyebrow, "Titans? In space? What in the hell? Try to bring it up on screen."
The video wasn't the best quality, the external camera being used obviously had taken some damage. Not to mention pieces of debris kept flying past the camera, obscuring the view repeatedly. But between the patches of video static and pieces of debris, Talon could clearly make out some sort of Titan-like mech deployed around Ikazuchi but one that didn't show up on their ship's database. Talon wasn't aware of any type of Titan that could operate in Zero-G existed or was even being developed. As a Pilot, it made no sense to him, Titans were unstoppable forces of nature but they were designed to do so in ground combat. There had been suggestions before for a Zero-G Titans on both sides but the plans were rejected. While the Zero-G Titans would be heavily armored, they're maneuverability, speed, and general usage would be easily outdone by both the Hornet and Phantom. They would be slow moving targets in the openness of space, easily picked off by fighters and warship weapons as well.
However, there would be one area where Zero-G Titans could infinitely useful, and that was in debris fields. While they could be easily destroyed due to their speed in the wide open areas, that disadvantage went straight out the window when cover was introduced. Using their thrusters, the Titans could maneuver between pieces of debris and asteroids using them as cover from enemy fire, something that both Phantoms and Hornets could not do easily.
Panic began to slowly fill Talon, right now they were in the middle of a debris field, the ideal battlefield for a Zero-G Titan. Both their Medusa and Lancer missiles would be next to useless, there was only so much they could maneuver through with their programming. Their only hope would be their PDGs, but they could be easily countered if the Titans started using the floating metal slabs around them as bullet shields. Just as Talon was about to order the full retreat, the next words he heard made his blood go cold.
"Unknown ship above us, Sir! Distance . . . Two hundred meters!"
"Those metal bastards are back?!" Talon shouted, standing from his chair as he did.
"Uh, no. . . Sir." The crewman responded sheepishly, "Let me rephase, unidentified ship. The design does not match the Tarak vessels nor the the three Unknown AI vessels we encountered before. My apologies for the confusion."
Unable to hold a sigh of relief, he breathed a long one as he sat back down in his chair. While the unidentified ship could still very much be a threat, he rather deal with that than with another Unknown carrier.
Shifting back into combat mode, he once again leaned forward in his seat, "What's its present course, and how the hell did it sneak up on us?"
"From what we can tell, it's heading toward the Tarak vessels, it passed right over us within throwing distance and did nothing. As for how it was able to sneak up on us, we believe that is was drifting through the debris field, with its propulsion system offline to minimize its signature. Micro thrusters could have been used for minor course corrections if needed."
"I'm tracking several new spacecraft exiting the debris field, much smaller than the vessel that just passed over us but still bigger than the Titans surrounding the main Tarak vessel. Wait . . . I have visual confirmation that the new arrivals are engaging the Tarak fleet. The smaller vessels seem to be some kind of fighter/bomber hybrid. Highly agile, and packing a lot of firepower."
Jacob swiveled his chair to face Talon, "Commander, as your second in command of this vessel, I highly suggest we use this chance to escape. There is a possibility that once these two factions are done fighting, the winner will come looking for us."
Talon rubbed his stubbly chin, thinking of the best course of action to take. But the decision he decided on would cause most of the Bridge personnel turn toward him with only confusion.
"Helmsmen, take us forward. The Solar Spirit is getting in this fight."
Jacob stood up in protest, "Sir! The Solar Spirit is in no shape to fight! She's barely managing to hold together after the last battle. And you want us to charge headfirst into another?!"
He gestured for Jacob to sit before responding calmly, "We have no idea where we are, we could be on the very edge of the Milky Way galaxy or in the next system over from the Core worlds and we wouldn't know the difference. We have numerous wounded on board, our primary engines are gone as is our Jump Core, our ship to ship guns are either still down from the Jump or rendered useless from the engine overload. Not to mention our ship's infrastructure has taken an enormous beating. If we run now, we will be right back where started but with no destination. What we need right now, is a friend. Someone at least to set us in the right direction. This is the call I'm making . . . we are helping the new arrivals engage the Tarak fleet!"
"By your order, Sir." Jacob said flatly before swiveling back around to his console.
The Solar Spirit groaned slightly to the sudden change in direction, but complained no more as the ship began trailing after the new arrial vessel. It took a few minutes for the Solar Spirit to breach the field once again, but they did so to a welcome sight. The 'Friendlies' as they were simply labeled by the crew, had already destroyed several Tarak ships. The Zero-G Titans had been thinned as well, these Friendlies were making quite quick work of the Glorious Tarak Empire.
It was then that he and several others aboard the Bridge noticed something, the Friendlies' fighter/bomber craft were using energy weaponry. Rapid-fire laser weaponry seemed to slice through the Tarak ship's hulls with ease. Talon swallowed nervously, he needed to get these friendlies on their side, their very lives depended on it.
"Enemy fighter craft have breached the hull of the Ikazuchi. What the . . . Sir, the entire squadron of the Friendlies' fighter craft have entered through the hull breach. It seems that that these fighter/bomber hybrids may also triple as a troop transport."
Talon scoffed in amazement, "Three in one spacecraft, hot damn, the higher ups in Militia command who die to get their hands on the blueprints for those."
"Sir, with the Friendlies fighter craft inside the enemy ship, the remaining Titans and support ships are closing in on the Friendlies' flagship! Orders?"
Talon hardened his face, anger clear in his voice, "Maneuver us into position along the friendly flagship. Let's show these Tarak bastards what happens when you threaten the lives of my crew. Have PDGs target those incoming Titan craft, prep all Medusa and Lancer launcher pods, acquire targeting solutions for the three incoming support ships. I want the Lancer missiles to fire four seconds after the Medusas, let the smaller missiles catch them off guard and knock them off their feet. And just as they start to recover, the Lancers will gouge them out."
"What of our Hornets on standby, Sir?"
"Keep them that way, I don't want to show our new allies everything we can do. Keep our aces up our sleeves for the time being." Talon responded, glancing off to the holotable next to him to see the battle playing out.
As he was hoping, the Friendlies' flagship didn't so much as look their way as the Solar Spirit was brought up alongside it. As the enemy Titans approached, they were torn apart from a hailstorm of lead and plasma from the two ships. The Titan husks crashed into both ships, bouncing off the Friendlies' shield but leaving some dents on the Solar Spirit, luckily, there was no reported hull breach from any of the impacts. Once the three Tarak support ships were in range, the two newly allied ships took two different routes to deal with the problem. The Friendlies' ship began to back off, pelting the three approaching support ships with plasma fire, hoping to the deter the three from approaching any further. The Solar Spirit however, remained steadfast, as every functioning Medusa Rocket Launcher popped out of the Spirit's hull, fired their payload, and then retreated back down into the hull, its protective coverings sliding back over the launchers. A moment later, the Lancer Missile Launcher performed the exact same actions, releasing their three missile payload. For a few moments after both payloads had been fired, most of the Solar Spirit was covered by thick smoke from the resulting backblast of each rocket and missile firing in quick succession.
Attempting to shoot down the rockets before they hit, the support ship's gunners fired their rounds at the rockets, managing to destroy a few and disable most of them. However, their true purpose was once again revealed when both the surviving and disabled rockets unleashed their micro missile payload. Due to the small size and sudden appearance of the micro missiles, the support ship gunners had no chance to stop them. The Medusa micro missiles pelted the hulls, scoring a few lucky breaches across the three ships but merely leaving most impact sights with a mere dent. Seeing the second wave of rockets incoming, the gunners began to fire widely, hoping to take out as many micro missiles as possible before they hit. However, it soon became clear that this second wave of missiles wasn't like the first wave, but it was discovered too late. Ten seconds after the micro missiles impacted, the Lancers dived straight into the support ship's hull. The Lancer missiles wreaked havoc, both on the inner and outer sections of the support ships, completely ripping apart two of the ships and sending the third's lifeless husk off into the void of space.
However, unlike when the Unknowns were beaten back, there was no resounding cheer when the Tarak ships were destroyed. Because, unlike last time, they were killing their fellow humans, and death of this scale was not to be celebrated lightly. Once the support ships were out of the picture, the Friendlies flagship charged forward through the debris toward the flagship, the Solar Spirit following closely behind.
As they began to approach the enemy flagship, something unexpected happened. The part of the Ikazuchi that seemed out of place from the rest of the ship suddenly detached itself and was hovering toward the two flagships while Tarak's began to retreat. Talon figured that the Friendlies' boarding parties must have entered the now separated segment of the ship, and the commanding officer must have ordered the separation to prevent the boarding parties from taking over the entirety of the ship. With the ship being separated within minutes of the boarding parties attack was either a testament to the skill of attackers . . . or lack thereof for the defenders.
With the Tarak flagship retreating, Talon let out another sigh of relief, thinking the fight to be over. The Friendlies' flagship would no doubt collect the cargo aboard the separated segment before retreating off into space. Talon's hope was that these Friendlies would let them tag along long enough to get some repairs, or at the very least know where they are and where to go head for friendly Militia territory. Several capsules could be seen shooting out of the segment ship and flying back toward the Tarak ship, it didn't take a genius to realize that they were escape pods. Seeing the pods gave Talon some hope, knowing that their new friends weren't merciless. Just as Talon was about to lean back in his chair and rest his eyes for a moment, another alarm sounded through the bridge.
"Sir, we have missile lock on us! The enemy has fired three missiles, one for each ship! Impact in . . . wait . . . this can't right. . . No, it's right. Impact in five minutes."
Talon couldn't help but laugh, "Jesus, five minutes till impact?! My god, we better get going, by the time they reach us, it'll be Christmas. Seriously, somebody should get out and help push those missiles."
Everyone on the Bridge couldn't help but chuckle, for a missile to take five minutes for it to reach a motionless target was something of an insult to modern technology. Even their slow moving Lancer missiles would be considered lightening fast to the ones coming at them. Talon felt a little insulted at this attack, at the speed they were going, he could sprint to the other end of the Solar Spirit and back before the missiles hit, granted, he would have to use the maintenance tunnels to make it back on time.
But if Talon knew anything about missiles, it was the slower the missile, the bigger the payload. Not every missile however fit this rule, they were exceptions of course, but most seemed to follow this pattern. And if these missiles coming at them was applicable to the rule, that meant the payload could probably destroy a small moon. His ship even without the main engine could match the speed of the missile coming at them, however the Friendlies still had people onboard the separated ship segment meaning that their flagship wasn't going anywhere without its crew. True to his thinking, the flagship soon moved underneath the segment and extended a docking tube to start funneling their boarding party back. However there was a chance that they wouldn't be fast enough, thinking that this was the time to show their worth to their new friends, Talon decided the best course of action was to eliminate the missiles outright. It wouldn't be hard to hit them with the speed they were going at anyway.
"Lock on some Medusa rockets to each missile, let's buy our new friends some more time." Talon ordered, relaxing in his chair as he did.
A few moments went by before Jacob spoke up, "Sir, there's been a problem. The missiles, they're . . . they're emitting some kind of energy signature. We can't get a lock on them with our missiles. If we wait and use the PDGs until they're closer, we still might be caught in the blast."
"Simple enough, send our best Hornets out there. Tell them engage the missiles at maximum range, and to run when they blow." Talon suggested.
Jacob nodded as he began to relay the command, "Roger that, Sir. Issuing orders to our Hornets now . . . Orders away, preparing to open the main hanger do-"
Before Jacob could finish, all the lights out across the bridge went out simultaneously. A chill went down Talon's spine when he realized what was happening, the Solar Spirit was shutting down.
"Report, was the hell is happening?!" Talon barked.
"We have a full system shutdown, I repeat, a full system shutdown. We don't even have emergency power!"
"Everyone, switch to your datapads, even with the power out, they'll still work. Someone find out what the hell is going on!"
Within moments of switching, the problem was identified, "The door containing the radiation leak in the Power Core shorted out! The entire reactor room has been sealed and the power core is shutting down to prevent any additional leaks and contamination! No casualties reported! A reactor purge is being initiated, time to purge completion and Power Core restart, two minutes and twenty seven seconds."
"And time until missile impact?" Talon asked, already dreading the answer.
"Twenty seconds after reactor restart . . ."
Talon rubbed his hand through his hair, his hand shaking the whole way through. Talon was scared, he didn't want to die, and he knew the chances of survival were really slim. But if he lost his cool, than those under him would likely follow. For them to do their job, Talon need to do his job.
"Alright, helmsmen, the second you have control of the Spirit, full reverse. I want the PDGs to target the missile coming at us, we might be able to push it off course enough to miss us. The rest of you, hunker down, as soon as the power is back on I'm issuing all hands to brace for impact. This is gonna get pretty rocky, you all understand?"
Murmurs of agreement could be heard throughout the Bridge as people start to prepare. All the terminals on the Bridge came equipped with safety harnesses for the chairs, the harness was typically only used for rapid atmospheric reentry to prevent people from slowly floating out of their seats.
Thirty seconds from reactor restart, Talon finished strapping himself in as the other members of Wraith Squad removed a nearby wall panel containing emergency seating behind it which they strapped themselves into. With fifthteen seconds left, he wiped the sweat brow as he picked up Jackie and held her tightly to prevent her from going flying. With five seconds left, he readied himself to make an emergency ship wide announcement. And with zero seconds left, he thumbed the broadcast button and shouted for dear life to save as many as he could.
"All hands brace for immediate impact, I repeat, brace for immediate impact!" Before he braced himself and his dog, his heart told him to add one more thing, "It's been an honor serving with all of you, see you all on the other side, one way or another!"
"Full reverse, full reverse!"
"Fifthteen seconds!"
"PDGs are opening fire, it won't be enough!"
"Everyone, hold on!"
"Please god, please get me through this!"
"Nine seconds!"
"After this is all over, will you marry me?!"
"Took you long enough to ask, you idiot!"
"I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die!"
"Bark!"
"3 . . . 2 . . . 1!"
All Talon saw the gray steel floor of the Bridge, followed by a blinding flash of light blue light, followed by an infinite void.
So it has been some time since my last upload, a long while in fact. I really have no excuses besides I just lost motivation so I just just shoved this project to the side. I have some rekindled motivation so I decided to start writing again while I have it. As for how I will introduce Titanfall 2 into the story, I have some ideas to do so, so we will be able to have all the new fun toys.
