Sorry it's taken me a while to upload this.
Anyway, thankings to all reviewers, as per usual, replies are at the end of the chapter.
Chapter 19: Fall at the first hurdle
The bullets smashed into the sentinel's outer casing and wreaked havoc with its innards. Killing sentinels, as I soon discovered, was much more fun when you were using a gun turret as opposed to a bulky electricity cannon, (I never found out what they were actually called, that's just my name for them), and there was a reasonably small number of them.
The Hammer had more gun turrets then the Logos, so many of the kills went to them, there were only about fifteen sentinels, and looking back, I was probably lucky to get the two kills that I did. My skill with a gun turret was to Ghost's and Sparks' what caffeine is to amphetamine. I was spending almost twice the ammo that they were using to destroy a single sentinel. Still, I consoled myself with the fact tat I'd probably get better with practice.
Then they came.
Again, it was sentinels, almost 200 of them. All of which were charging towards us with disturbing speed. The gunfire ceased for a second whilst we stared in horror at the sight, then we quickly came to our senses and unleashed another wave of gunfire on the enemy.
Sentinels began dropping out of the sky left, right and centre. Unfortunately, the small shower of mechanical corpses that fell to the floor was probably not even a tenth of the sea of mechanical demons that was charging towards us.
The Hammer wasn't as fast as the Logos, and the sentinels landed there first. I quickly swung my gun turret around to face the hammer and started shooting as best as I could at the beasts that seemed to be lasering their way in to the ship.
The first one died before it had even landed, it fell backwards slightly before falling to join its friends on the pipe's floor. The next target was somewhat more awkward, its claws were already dug into the hull, and though it died when one of my bullets smashed into its 'head', it retained its tenacious grip on the hull. It was the same story with the next five.
Fear clawed its way into my head and began to burn as I heard the first metallic gongs overhead. The sentinels had landed on the Logos. I tried to twist my turret back around to see if I could pick them off, but I soon noticed that several 'arms' or tentacles or whatever, had grabbed onto my turret and were holding it steadily in place.
"A little help here!" I shouted over the gongs and the constant sound of gunfire.
"Get to the EMP!" Screamed Ghost, who seemed to be fighting the sentinels over control of his own turret.
I lifted the harness from over my head and charged towards where the small illuminated red switch lay. It was surprising to think that something so small could save us all, but in the grand scheme of things, I didn't really care.
I was within five meters of the thing when a huge jolt sent me crashing to the floor. This was followed by a longer shaking that gradually calmed itself, it soon occurred to me that the Logos had crashed.
"Hurry!" Screamed Sparks from somewhere behind me.
I pulled myself to my feet and continued running.
At first I didn't pay much attention to it. My mind was aware of the hole in the ceiling, but not to the extent where it cared. The only thing that mattered was hitting that switch. When the first sentinel came through though, my priorities shifted somewhat.
I searched desperately for an electricity cannon to dispatch the beast in front of me, it soon occurred to me that there were none anywhere near me however, it didn't really matter anyway. One of the beast's arms shot forward and grabbed me around the neck.
It lifted me into the air about two meters and held me there. The grip around my neck was tight, tight enough to prevent my breathing. I struggled to pull the arm away from me but failed miserably. Things began to look dimmer.
The last thing I remember was a scream from somewhere behind me.
*******************************************************************
"External defences." Said Dragon gesturing at one of the charred corpses on the floor, "Any unauthorised person who comes too close to the Destiny gets burned to a crisp."
"What about if they're just a random person out for a stole?"
"Then we generate a ghostly noise and send them running the other way."
"Neat."
Me and Dragon had been assigned the fun task of moving the corpses into the Destiny. The last thing we needed was for anyone to see any of these, and at the time we thought they might make interesting decorations.
"You like her don't you?" Dragon asked after a few moments of silence. There was a somewhat immature tone to his voice.
"Like who?" I replied as we threw the program into the 'tree'.
"Don't be a wanker Wanderer; you know damn well who I'm talking about.. I've seen the way you look at her, and then there was that whole display earlier when she was stabbed through the chest."
Dragon's callous tone made punching him seem very tempting. Then again, I figured that at his age, nothing seemed especially surprising and disturbing. I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.
"For all I knew she'd just been killed." I forced frustration into my voice in the hopes of getting him off my back. "I would have done the same for you, Hydra or Manticore."
"I'm touched." Dragon was grinning now, "but that still doesn't change the fact that I've seen the way you've been staring at her, that and your head revealed a few things."
I threw a severed head into the Destiny and turned to stare at him. I had made my feelings about people peering inside my cranium perfectly clear, (going in after my attack on Morpheus was fair enough I suppose but this.)
It then occurred to me that I'd never so much as considered entering someone else's head. I kept reminding myself to do so but I could never really be bothered. That and I wasn't entirely sure how to.
"Do you remember what I told you about pissing about inside my head?" My tone was as serious and as threatening as I could muster. Beneath it all though, I couldn't help but feel somewhat amused.
"It was an accident." Pleaded Dragon in a sarcastically apologetic tone of voice, "I found it when I went in to find out why…" He cut himself off. I knew what he was going to say, and the last thing that I wanted to hear, talk about or be reminded of was my brother's death at the hands of Morpheus, or the fact that I'd failed in my attempt to kill him.
"I'm sorry." Dragon said in a more genuine tone of voice.
I sighed and ignored him for a few moments, hastily trying to banish the mental imagery of Seamus' fiery death, (and Dragon with a broken nose), whilst I pushed another corpse into the Destiny.
"It's alright." I said, concluding that it was a simple and forgivable accident, "Just don't do it again."
There was silence for a few moments, each of us collected random body pieces and hurled them into the Destiny with needless force. If nothing else, I remembered thinking; He seemed to have finally shut up about Hawk.
"So," he said after a minute or two, "Are you going to tell her?"
Bastard.
To be continued.
Right, now for replies:
Angel-Of-Lightness: I would have changed to saying 'Naz' in the replies section many a month ago, but this way I get a higher word count. Your review and mad story uploading suggests that you were thrice as hyper as usual yesterday. I hope it was an enjoyable experience and that you didn't loose any blood. Thanks for reviewing.
Tai Wilson: I was going to start by saying enjoy Alabama, but by the time you read this you'll have been and gone, probably. Oh well, I hope you enjoy/enjoyed it and thanks for reviewing.
Agent Josie: Sheesh, its never enough for some people. Nah, seriously though. Thanks for reviewing. I was originally going to end with Hawk 'apparently' dead on the floor, but I'd already done something similar in Army of Exiles and I didn't want to start any patterns.
Anyway, thankings to all reviewers, as per usual, replies are at the end of the chapter.
Chapter 19: Fall at the first hurdle
The bullets smashed into the sentinel's outer casing and wreaked havoc with its innards. Killing sentinels, as I soon discovered, was much more fun when you were using a gun turret as opposed to a bulky electricity cannon, (I never found out what they were actually called, that's just my name for them), and there was a reasonably small number of them.
The Hammer had more gun turrets then the Logos, so many of the kills went to them, there were only about fifteen sentinels, and looking back, I was probably lucky to get the two kills that I did. My skill with a gun turret was to Ghost's and Sparks' what caffeine is to amphetamine. I was spending almost twice the ammo that they were using to destroy a single sentinel. Still, I consoled myself with the fact tat I'd probably get better with practice.
Then they came.
Again, it was sentinels, almost 200 of them. All of which were charging towards us with disturbing speed. The gunfire ceased for a second whilst we stared in horror at the sight, then we quickly came to our senses and unleashed another wave of gunfire on the enemy.
Sentinels began dropping out of the sky left, right and centre. Unfortunately, the small shower of mechanical corpses that fell to the floor was probably not even a tenth of the sea of mechanical demons that was charging towards us.
The Hammer wasn't as fast as the Logos, and the sentinels landed there first. I quickly swung my gun turret around to face the hammer and started shooting as best as I could at the beasts that seemed to be lasering their way in to the ship.
The first one died before it had even landed, it fell backwards slightly before falling to join its friends on the pipe's floor. The next target was somewhat more awkward, its claws were already dug into the hull, and though it died when one of my bullets smashed into its 'head', it retained its tenacious grip on the hull. It was the same story with the next five.
Fear clawed its way into my head and began to burn as I heard the first metallic gongs overhead. The sentinels had landed on the Logos. I tried to twist my turret back around to see if I could pick them off, but I soon noticed that several 'arms' or tentacles or whatever, had grabbed onto my turret and were holding it steadily in place.
"A little help here!" I shouted over the gongs and the constant sound of gunfire.
"Get to the EMP!" Screamed Ghost, who seemed to be fighting the sentinels over control of his own turret.
I lifted the harness from over my head and charged towards where the small illuminated red switch lay. It was surprising to think that something so small could save us all, but in the grand scheme of things, I didn't really care.
I was within five meters of the thing when a huge jolt sent me crashing to the floor. This was followed by a longer shaking that gradually calmed itself, it soon occurred to me that the Logos had crashed.
"Hurry!" Screamed Sparks from somewhere behind me.
I pulled myself to my feet and continued running.
At first I didn't pay much attention to it. My mind was aware of the hole in the ceiling, but not to the extent where it cared. The only thing that mattered was hitting that switch. When the first sentinel came through though, my priorities shifted somewhat.
I searched desperately for an electricity cannon to dispatch the beast in front of me, it soon occurred to me that there were none anywhere near me however, it didn't really matter anyway. One of the beast's arms shot forward and grabbed me around the neck.
It lifted me into the air about two meters and held me there. The grip around my neck was tight, tight enough to prevent my breathing. I struggled to pull the arm away from me but failed miserably. Things began to look dimmer.
The last thing I remember was a scream from somewhere behind me.
*******************************************************************
"External defences." Said Dragon gesturing at one of the charred corpses on the floor, "Any unauthorised person who comes too close to the Destiny gets burned to a crisp."
"What about if they're just a random person out for a stole?"
"Then we generate a ghostly noise and send them running the other way."
"Neat."
Me and Dragon had been assigned the fun task of moving the corpses into the Destiny. The last thing we needed was for anyone to see any of these, and at the time we thought they might make interesting decorations.
"You like her don't you?" Dragon asked after a few moments of silence. There was a somewhat immature tone to his voice.
"Like who?" I replied as we threw the program into the 'tree'.
"Don't be a wanker Wanderer; you know damn well who I'm talking about.. I've seen the way you look at her, and then there was that whole display earlier when she was stabbed through the chest."
Dragon's callous tone made punching him seem very tempting. Then again, I figured that at his age, nothing seemed especially surprising and disturbing. I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.
"For all I knew she'd just been killed." I forced frustration into my voice in the hopes of getting him off my back. "I would have done the same for you, Hydra or Manticore."
"I'm touched." Dragon was grinning now, "but that still doesn't change the fact that I've seen the way you've been staring at her, that and your head revealed a few things."
I threw a severed head into the Destiny and turned to stare at him. I had made my feelings about people peering inside my cranium perfectly clear, (going in after my attack on Morpheus was fair enough I suppose but this.)
It then occurred to me that I'd never so much as considered entering someone else's head. I kept reminding myself to do so but I could never really be bothered. That and I wasn't entirely sure how to.
"Do you remember what I told you about pissing about inside my head?" My tone was as serious and as threatening as I could muster. Beneath it all though, I couldn't help but feel somewhat amused.
"It was an accident." Pleaded Dragon in a sarcastically apologetic tone of voice, "I found it when I went in to find out why…" He cut himself off. I knew what he was going to say, and the last thing that I wanted to hear, talk about or be reminded of was my brother's death at the hands of Morpheus, or the fact that I'd failed in my attempt to kill him.
"I'm sorry." Dragon said in a more genuine tone of voice.
I sighed and ignored him for a few moments, hastily trying to banish the mental imagery of Seamus' fiery death, (and Dragon with a broken nose), whilst I pushed another corpse into the Destiny.
"It's alright." I said, concluding that it was a simple and forgivable accident, "Just don't do it again."
There was silence for a few moments, each of us collected random body pieces and hurled them into the Destiny with needless force. If nothing else, I remembered thinking; He seemed to have finally shut up about Hawk.
"So," he said after a minute or two, "Are you going to tell her?"
Bastard.
To be continued.
Right, now for replies:
Angel-Of-Lightness: I would have changed to saying 'Naz' in the replies section many a month ago, but this way I get a higher word count. Your review and mad story uploading suggests that you were thrice as hyper as usual yesterday. I hope it was an enjoyable experience and that you didn't loose any blood. Thanks for reviewing.
Tai Wilson: I was going to start by saying enjoy Alabama, but by the time you read this you'll have been and gone, probably. Oh well, I hope you enjoy/enjoyed it and thanks for reviewing.
Agent Josie: Sheesh, its never enough for some people. Nah, seriously though. Thanks for reviewing. I was originally going to end with Hawk 'apparently' dead on the floor, but I'd already done something similar in Army of Exiles and I didn't want to start any patterns.