SHIELD WORLD DESIGNATE REQUIEM
MISSION SITE – 'DAWN'S HIDEAWAY'
Yamato stared down the barrel of the very dangerous magnetic accelerator cannon attached to a very dangerous rogue frigate. Motes of blue light collected along the length of the mini-MAC as the coilgun charged up, internal systems likely loading in another experimental armor-piercing time-delayed high-explosive capital killer round. The former UNSC warship's eyes glittered with malice.
Yamato had planned ahead for exactly this contingency, and was rather discreetly rotating all nine of her primaries clockwise while her opponent prepared her main weapon system – as expected.
"Die," hissed Dawn, a manic grin spreading across the corrupted frigate's features, her eyes blazing with arcane malevolence.
A series of near-simultaneous bangs shook the complex, and for a moment silence reigned.
SHIELD WORLD DESIGNATE REQUIEM
MISSION SITE – 'DAWN'S HIDEWAY'
SPARTAN-IV-311 threw himself towards his errant teammate, attempting to drag him to the floor of the Forerunner complex before the MAC could discharge – as futile as the act might have been. Spartan Jeremy Martinez was obviously in the grips of target fixation, as shown by his actions in standing directly in the firing line of the goddamn ship-killing cannon.
And all Spartan Clarke had managed to do was get the both of them killed, as his attempt to get his fellow soldier out of the line of fire failed miserably, with the two supposedly 'super'-soldiers now clustered together.
The MAC round roared downrange towards them, crossing the distance in mere nanoseconds… and impacted the shield barrier separating the SPARTAN fireteam from their supposed charge. The subsequent flare of energy temporarily blinded the team, overwhelming the glare protection systems integrated into their helmets. Only Clarke, facing to the side, was partially unaffected. Partially.
When the glare faded away, the fireteam leader glanced to the side to check what had occurred, releasing his hold on his teammate in favor of raising his own weapon – not like the M395 DMR's 7.62x51mm FMJ-AP ammunition would do anything other than piss the rogue frigate off.
Blind in one eye, he could still see enough, as he stared in disbelief. The shield was still up. Sure, two of the four layers had been stripped away – and as he watched, the third section flickered and died – but it had held. Against an anti-capital kinetic impactor, fired from a supposed Charon-class light frigate.
Spartan Matt Clarke was no top-tier genius, but he understood the science behind kinetic weapons. The standard 83B6R3/MAC round was a five hundred tonne, 150cm bore projectile. Shrink that down to a bore of 95 millimeters without any loss of speed or weight – somehow – and the effect-on-target would increase exponentially.
And the shield preventing access to the fight – or access out of the structure in regards to their target – had just weathered that hit.
He was both grateful and more-than-slightly terrified. Grateful because he and his team had just survived a would-be fatal attack. Terrified because… 'What the hell is this complex for?'
SHIELD WORLD DESIGNATE REQUIEM
MISSION SITE – 'DAWN'S HIDEWAY'
Yamato cracked open her eyelids.
No, she hadn't been rent asunder, nor was there a fist sized hole in her chest cavity. Her gambit had worked.
While Dawn was concentrated on charging her MAC and getting a firing solution on Yamato, the battleship-woman had been focused on her own task. Lining up her main batteries, she had prepared herself to take immediate evasive action in a rather unconventional manner.
Based on previous – and painful – experience, and pre-mission research regarding the standard Charon-class frigate's various weapon systems as per the UNSC naval technical database (which Captain Thomas Lasky had so graciously permitted access to), she had calculated the exact moment in which to fire a full broadside while propelling herself into the air.
As a battleship, the maneuver would have been impossible. But in her ship-woman form, it was merely improbable. The anti-gravity propulsion module salvaged off of one of the destroyed Covenant vehicles outside might have assisted in some miniscule way as well, or – more likely – just provided a placebo effect.
In the end, it made little difference as to the 'how', as long as the evasive action worked. And it did. The recoil from her main battery immediately shoved her to the side of the hall as the hypersonic projectile sped past, barely missing its intended target. The pressure wave still hit, however, and gave her added lift, nearly slamming her into the wall.
Colliding with the metallic floor, she felt the alien material dent inwards beneath her weight. Might have been worse – it could have given way entirely, like conventional materials were wont to do when 72,000 long tons were focused into a spot the size of an average human.
Yamato had no doubt that the UNSC would be picking up pieces of her from the interior of the structure for years to come if that round had found its original mark. That is, if the structure was still standing after the Office of Naval Intelligence would be forced to implement some sort of contingency plan to secure – or destroy – the Abyss-corrupted warship in front of her.
Dawn stood in front of the door from which she entered the hall, surrounded by utter darkness. Even from almost fifty meters away, the battleship-woman could still see the MAC charging up for another shot.
"We're not here to hurt you," Yamato called out. "Please, come with us peacefully." It didn't work – usually – with the Abyssals that she was used to facing, but given the circumstances, it did not hurt to try. Yet.
No response.
"You're UNSC. Not only that, but you're THE Forward unto Dawn, a ship that held all of humanity's hope when there wasn't any hope left to hold. You're a symbol for humanity's resilience in the face of certain doom, so why are you trying to hurt them?"
Still no response, but the hum from the MAC was getting noticeably louder. One final attempt, then.
"Do you not remember the vow your crew took? To pro-"
Finally, a response. 'And what did they repay my service with?' The voice was not verbal, but more of a feeling pulsing through Yamato's mind, coursing with fury, hate, and uncontrollable rage. 'All must die.'
Yamato sighed. She would have to do things the hard way... not that she had expected talking to an abyssalized ship would make it not want to murder every living thing within a sizable radius of itself. It was still worth the attempt.
Yamato rotated her cannons and fired again-this time directly at Dawn.
Nine high explosive shells slammed into the Forerunner material at Dawn's feet, the shockwave from the blasts forcing the frigate to stumble backwards as the structure groaned, the MAC discharging upwards and connecting with the ceiling – or rather, with yet another energy barrier covering the ceiling.
Though the round had missed, Yamato was not given a second of respite as a torrent of autocannon fire poured out from the smoke covering the general area where Yamato's shells had landed.
Yamato responded in turn, her complement of 25mm AA cannons and 127mm dual purpose guns ripping apart the atmosphere in a blaze of defiance.
The space inside the cavern turned into a hellish nightmare, tracers and hot lead filling the air, as both combat vessels unloaded their full armaments at each other.
Though she managed to avoid or deflect most of them, a cluster of UNSC 50mm armor-penetrating shells caught Yamato's side, knocking the wind out of her.
Meanwhile, Yamato's return fire was having little effect, the rounds sparking harmlessly off of Dawn's body as she waded through them unhindered. A devilish grin materialized on the rogue frigate's face, reminiscent of that which was often shown by the fearsome Abyssal Re-class aviation battleships.
Yamato nonetheless kept up the volume of fire, her secondaries and anti-air defenses sweeping the hull, searching for any sort of weak spot – and the frigate abruptly jerked as an explosion blossomed on her starboard side.
A lucky series of 127mm rounds had struck one of Dawn's mounted archer missile pods and caused a chain of detonations that threw the frigate violently into the side of the hall.
Dawn hit the energy field protecting the surface with such force that that particular section appeared to shatter beneath her, splintering apart into fine shards. Her forward momentum was not entirely diminished by the collsion, however, and she soon found herself within the actual material on the other side. She hung there for a second, plastered into the wall, before gravity took over and sent her crashing into the ground like a rag doll.
Behind her, the protective field began to repair itself.
Dawn slowly got up, her right side scorched and still smoking. She shook her head – and then did an almost comical double take when she noticed the state of the cannon array on her right shoulder. Or rather, the lack of a cannon array.
The rogue frigate glanced behind her. The cannon lay on the ground, brutally severed from her shoulder. Somehow. Black liquid boiled up from her wounds, quickly sealing them shut, as her facial expressions switched rapidly from shock, to horror, and then to complete and utter rage.
'So, you wish to die slow? I will tear you to pieces, bulkhead by bulkhead!'
Ignoring the threat, Yamato rotated her primaries to track Dawn. This time, she had loaded armor piercing.
'Firing solution calculated... rounds on the way.'
Nine yellow tracers raced out of Yamato's cannons and arced towards Dawn.
Three landed on target. A metallic shriek reverberated through the cavern and Dawn disappeared in a shower of crimson sparks. When the smoke cleared, Dawn was nowhere to be found.
Yamato scanned the dark cavern until two glowing eyes of malice cut through the haziness and gave away Dawn's position, accompanied by another salvo of UNSC fifty-millimeter autocannon fire. Only this time, the fire control was sloppy, punching in all around the Japanese ship-warrior… but not a single one making contact with the intended target.
The battleship-woman fired again, but this time no rounds connected. Instead they plowed into the metal floor, opening up holes in the structure.
A massive flash of blue-white light blinded Yamato for a second before a huge blast threw her to the ground.
Out of nowhere, Dawn landed on top of her and pinned her squarely to the ground, her tremendous weight slowly taking its toll on Yamato's body.
'Another trick that this form has provided me... an in-atmosphere slipspace transition, as my former crew had called it,' hissed Dawn, three ugly purple bruises forming along the length of her body. "The memories of their fear when considering the possibility… they are… exciting.'
"I, Yamato, shall not be defeated by a cheap trick!"
Yamato's rear gun battery swung quickly upward and unloaded three high explosive rounds into the underside of Dawn's chin and flinging her torso upwards with enough force to allow her to roll out from underneath Dawn's pin hold.
Screaming with fury, Dawn leapt at Yamato before she could fully right herself - only to be intercepted by a salvo from Yamato's second main gun battery. This time however, she wasn't even knocked back, having propelled herself forward with the aid of her maneuvering thrusters.
Yamato ducked down and landed a solid punch into Dawn's midsection as she flew over. The rogue frigate skidded to a halt on the ground a fair distance away.
Taking the initiative, Yamato rushed over to Dawn and pinned both of her arms to the ground before she could recover. She was now right above the abyssal, observing the rise and fall of the frigate's chest and staring right into her terrifying yellow eyes.
"This ends now. Come quietly - or I shoot," stated Yamato coldly, as she lined up one of her primary batteries to Dawn's forehead.
The Abyssal's struggling seemed to stop. For a second, Yamato actually thought that she had given up. Those notions were quickly shattered when she felt a searing heat on her left thigh.
'Burn...' said Dawn, venom oozing from her mental voice, piercing directly into the battleship-woman's mind, filling it with images of her former crew roiling in flames as her ship-self began to sink, of that ONI pilot that had died in fire bringing her to this location…
Dawn had rotated one of her main thrusters to fire directly at Yamato's leg, scorching the battleship's skin with roaring blue nuclear flame. Yamato yelped and released her pin hold on Dawn, allowing her to flick an obsidian-colored wrist-blade out of her glove and slash diagonally at Yamato's midriff.
Had she not been protected by the thickest armor belt ever put on a seafaring warship, Yamato would have been cleaved clean in two. As it was, the blade managed to dig nearly a full centimeter into Yamato's armored skin before Dawn slashed violently downward, leaving a shallow cut running more than half the length of Yamato's torso that oozed black fuel-oil.
"Ack!-"
Torpedo Belt perforated from frame 27 to frame 81. Fuel leak detected.
Leaving Yamato no respite, Dawn then balled her other hand into a fist and jammed it with all her available strength into Yamato's gut, the impact of such a vicious attack making a visible mach cone of hyper-pressurized air as it struck home. The Japanese woman's vision turned red.
Dark blood shot out of Yamato's mouth and splattered across Dawn's face, with the frigate's tongue snaking out and licking at it.
Normally such a hit would have knocked Yamato out cold from the sheer force, but the amount of adrenaline pumping through her veins kept her conscious just long enough to fire an armor piercing round point-blank into Dawn's face.
The soft ballistic tip of the shell flattened itself against Dawn's nose and allowed the hardened steel penetrator behind it to slam into Dawn like the impact of a Scarab assault platform dropped from orbit. The kinetic energy transferred to Dawn slammed her head back so hard that even the inhumanly tough forerunner alloy floor of the cavern was indented. Silence descended on the hall as both warships laid next to each other.
~o~
Next chapter: Things get even more interesting.
