But those two figures still stood. The bright had shrouded them but they remained like shadows cast by hapless victims caught in a nuclear blaze. They didn't move other than the flakes and bits of their charred remains falling off. It seemed a small gust of wind would have blown them down.
As the charred flesh fell away , the endoskeleton slowly came into view. It was odd though, that the armor was pristine. The flesh and bone that covered it must have absorbed all the energy from the blast. The heads crumbled, their jaws were the last to fall apart. The carapace armor disintegrated though bits and pieces of the bone still remained where the connective tissue wasn't completely torched.
It seemed obvious then that they weren't actually disabled. When one of the machines raised its arm and clasped its fist. Its sloped head was scarred with long streaks of heat burns. Its four eyes set onto the sides of the head blinked a dim red. A long rabbit ear like antenna stretched up from the side of its head but the tip had broken off, exposing the transceiver loop and electrical wire. a
It took a step forward, shedding more of its old under the crumbling flesh was a scorched body, blackened by the nuclear flames . A living shadow with red glowing eyes. As it approached, Barry hit the thrusters for a ramming charge into the cut door, busting his way through but also damaging the shield and several arm actuators in the process. He looked back to wave the others through but saw the two shadows looming over them, inching their way forward with embers of fire lifting up from the coal charred bodies.
He saw them lift up their guns. The muzzle blasts were relentless, blinding him as he was unprepared for the attack. The others still recovering from the waves of crabs were at a disadvantage. With low ammunition and poor cover, they were wide open for the assault. Dizzy and Wasp, perched high above the combat continued to fire off its ground penetrating RADAR charges , dropping nearly its entire magazine , with little effect. Ross fired his remaining missiles but were blocked by the other shadow and its giant sized shield.
Barry boosted forward, throwing his cracked shield at the walking shadows, smashing the four eyed machine in its torso before the shield bearer could block it. The shield shadow's hexa-eyes began to glow red , the light illuminating the antenna horn that grew out from its head. It turned, the horn now pointing at Barry who could clearly see that it was an antenna array that looked as if hard,scaly skin had grown over it in patches.
Ross took this as his opening , firing off the remaining air burst rounds at the shadows before the magazine switched to the armor piercing rounds. Unlike the crabs, the armor on these mechs were thick and solid. The airburst rounds did minimal damage, only leaving behind deep gashes and molten dents on the shadows.
He switched his carbine over to fully automatic fire, hoping the barrage of armor piercing rounds would dissuade the phantoms from their attack but the shield bearer successfully deflected the shots. Karin boosted around as the others were fighting, hoping to get a flanking shot on the ethereal black iron soldiers. She approached them as quickly as possible , keeping as low as possible until the last possible moment before popping up and firing off the remaining rockets and grenades she had.
When she reached the jump point, she saw the heat meter rising rapidly . A patch of radioactive debris had stuck to a ventilation duct , a goopy mess of grey-green flesh possibly the entrails from a crab that had burst in flames. The shadow moved aside its shield to reveal an enormous grapple claw, aiming the sharp claws at her. .She boosted up anyway but the rocket propelled claw grabbed hold over torso and in one fluid motion tossed her towards the wall. The impact cracked open the thruster heat exchangers, destroying her limited flight ability.
She hanged from the wall with one hand and foot while the other arm began to fire the carbine at the cable attached to the grapple claw. The shots pierced through the armored jacket of the cable and splashed out in a ring of molten embers and sparks through the other end several times before the it broke off. With the cable disconnected, the grapple lost power and fell off , allowing her to freely jump back down.
The shadows jumped off their perch down into the fresh graveyard and began to rush towards the opened exit. Ross attempted to ram one but the boosters had failed as he made the charge. His mech lost its balance and slammed face first into the ground.
Barry watch in horror as the two shadows proceeded to burn towards him. The magazine of his gun was empty, leaving him with only the plasmathrower and a few remaining Dagger rockets. The rockets burst out of the hip lower torso mounted tubes but the fiery impacts did not slow down the ghastly phantoms. The plasmathrower quickly became useless as the fuel tanks ran dry after a few pulls of the trigger.
They seemed to loom over him, their backs ablaze with fire. They were angels of death come to reap what is theirs. But the fires enveloped them, overtook them. Barry's ears perked up when he heard the distinct boom of Ryuki's autocannons. The flames that erupted from the back of the shadows reached up into the air. Licks of flame sprouted up and lashed the shadows. There, above them, burning out his heat exchangers , Ryuki's Lionheart. It came crashing down like a red hot comet.
Its impact tossed the shadows off their feet. Ryuki's mech stood up, its camouflage stripped off and leaving bare metal exposed. The armor parts and conormal packs had long stretches of scars and cracks crisscrossing like webs. Small contrails of water vapor lifted up from its surface, ostensibly due to the massive amount of radiation that it had absorbed.
He rose up from a cloud of ash and dust with the autocannons in hand. He fired both into the back of the shield bearer, tearing it into two neat pieces. He aimed one of the canons at the head of the other shadow. The white phosphorus of the muzzle flash formed a cloud around its head. As the exhaust dissipated, it seemed to take the torso along with it, leaving behind a wriggling puddle of slowly dieing sinew and organs.
The phantoms were exorcised with 60 mm high explosive rounds, their carcases smoldering atop the ruins. The armor Ryuki's mech wore had protected it from the nuclear detonation. His mech now wore radioactive patches of camouflage, dark grey and black. Had all the light been snuffed out, it would have been possible to seem his machine glow in the dark.
The fight was over. One casualty was tallied. Reaper had just stood there and died. No one fathomed what made him do that. Nor was there time to gather him from the wreckage. With the hatches melted shut from the plasma fire Barry poured onto him, there was no way to crack the shell and extract Reaper's corpse. There was no way to safely step out in the presence of fallout.
"We gotta go " Ryuki said as he pointed his left autocannon towards the sliced open doorway. Karin rigged several explosive charges as improvised land mines to give them enough time to gain distance between them and the horde.
They reached the end of the hallway to find an access door that had a working key pad. They needed to someone get out and activate the door without absorbing too much radiation. The hardsuits could have enough protection but then once the hatch is opened there was no guarantee that the pilots deck wouldn't be flooded by the radiation that Ryuki's mech continued to emit.
"Punch it, if that doesnt work we'll cut through" Karin said unexpectedly. For someone so mechanically inclined, a brute force method seemed to be ungraceful. "I don't want to stay on this frakin' ship forever, just kick the damn door down" she said with a bit of frustrated anger in her voice.
Barry obliged and tapped the control panel with his foot. Even a slight movement was enough to break the wall panel right off. Luckily that was what was required to force the doorway open. The safety relays must have been triggered, causing the door to demagnetise.
They bull rushed through before the sliding hatch suddenly slammed down shut. It had to be the parasites. They knew where they were. They were going to corral them , Ryuki thought. This was the final confrontation, he knew it. "Keep moving!" he yelled through the radio.
They made their way 200 meters to their destination, an access port into a funicular lift. Everything seemed orderly and quiet , a combination that seemed to bode ill. The ship wasn't creaking and groaning, the walls weren't falling apart or grimey. It seemed like a different ship altogether, one that seemed to have been frozen in time. An immaculate relic of a future that may never exist.
When the sliding hatch opened up without their instruction, they found a fully functioning airlock leading onto the lift. Arrayed at the intersection between the walls and ceiling were what looked to be exhaust ports and shower heads. The sliding hatch behind them slid shut silently once they had all passed through, sealing them inside the airlock.
The shower heads began to pour out a white mist while the vents whirred to life . The mist was composed of tiny particles of cadmium and silver to absorb all the radiation being emitted from their mechs. The white mist changed to a light blue color , perhaps to indicate that they had completed their tasks. This blue mist rushed into the vents and cleared away from the airlock.
Ryuki watched the onboard geiger counter slowly count down to a few millisieverts of radiation. The shower was complete and the exit from the decontamination room opened up. Lights flickered on along the path of the funicular leading up an incline into what would be the primary decks and crew sections. The dorsal auxiliary ship would be docked somewhere there but so would the secondary bridge.
They stepped on, with their weapons ready with what little munitions they had left. The tilted their heads up to watch the walls as the lift began to its ascent. The shaft didn't seem to long yet the lift was taking its time to get to the top. It could have been the weight was bearing down on the motors , that they were being overloaded.
It was a few anxious moments later the lift jerked to a stop just a few feet from the platform. They climbed up one by one while Dizzy used the rocket grapples to propel her thinktank up. Assembled together they found themselves standing in front a pair of sliding clear steel hatches. The oversized hatches were wide enough to allow them to walk through shoulder to shoulder without much worry about collisions.
One set after the other opened up for them, leading into a gleaming white hallway. They cautiously walked through , taking an arrow formation incase something were to pop out. Now on deck, they could see the colored lines on the floor that led to the various ship facilities. The auxiliary craft was marked with a red line that led down to the opposite side of the ship from the secondary bridge.
"Alright, you head to the ship" Ryuki said. "Sir?" Barry, hoping for clarification. "Im going to the bridge. Im shutting this thing down" Ryuki replied. Silence. "Ross, you're in command now".
They stood there , silent and motionless. Ryuki wondered if this would be his last moment before he saw his crew. He wanted to say something but there was nothing to say that wasn't already known to them.
"Move out" ,Ross radioed the team. "Once we're in, prep for launch" he said.