Right, thank you once again to all who have reviewed. I only wish I could remember what you said. Oh well, I'll go online later and find out, replies are, or will be at the end of the chapter.
Chapter 30: One bear, ten wolves
The head of the wave of sentinels seemed to vanish behind my own wave of firepower. It looked ridiculous on the display, having so much ammo all flying towards the same point, more or less, but according to Hydra, the Destiny has an unlimited supply of ammo. I'm not sure how that works, but at the time as you can probably imagine I didn't care much.
The convenient thing about having so much ammo fly in a singular direction is that when you hit something, that something is likely to die.
My weapons fire preceded a huge, continuous explosion that sent small chunks of dead sentinel falling like slow moving shrapnel to the floor.
The wave separated into smaller waves which seemed to veer off and fly back the way they came. I ignored them for now. If I fired at too small a target with my weapons set to target the same area, there was a chance I'd hit civilian targets, assuming of course sentinels weren't already there.
For a moment, I envisioned the beasts, and their Demon allies swarming through the streets, burning, killing, ripping out entrails. The imagery in my head was disturbingly easy to picture.
I shook it off; if this was happening there was nothing I could do.
Whilst the sentinels were regrouping, my attention turned to the ground. Assorted demons were firing blindly in the general vicinity of the Destiny. I almost found myself laughing when two rockets flew gracefully past us and above the forest. Granted they'd soon fall to earth and cause a fire but I didn't really care.
I fired into the areas within my firing line which showed the greatest concentration of Demons, the area below me changed almost instantly from bright, cheerful looking grassland which was reflecting the sunlight in a picturesque fashion, to a smouldering heap of scorched mud and crispy Demon pieces. A grin broke out on my face.
The sentinels weren't coming back.
I cast a glance upwards to examine the still disturbingly large number of mechanical beasts; they seemed to be flying in figures of eight above the trees. They wove flawlessly in and amongst themselves, none of them crashed, not one got in another's way. They just hovered, except for the few that were spinning at a ridiculously high speed.
And then I found out why.
The machines they flung at us looked like fast moving rotating cricket balls. The automatic perimeter defence system obviously had a better idea of what they were because it instantly started blasting them out of the sky. I couldn't tell if the explosion was a result of the new machines of the miniature countermeasure warheads.
I soon found out that it was the former as the first of them found there way through the defence net. The Destiny shook with such force that Dragon almost fell out of his chair, and there was a surprisingly thud to my right, looking round, I noticed that one of the heads that I'd neglected to remove from my coat had fallen from my pocket and was now rolling about the floor.
I switched to only machine guns and tried to take out the pestiferous sentinel snipers. Unfortunately, the others that were hovering kept getting in the way of my fire, allowing the bombers to move to a safer area.
The Demon's fire improved somewhat. Three rockets got through the perimeter defence net and smashed into the Destiny. It was lucky that the 'tree' wasn't made of actual wood or we'd all be dead by now. Anyway, one of the rockets came unnervingly close to where we were sitting.
Manticore was flung from his chair; three pieces of shrapnel embedded themselves in his face. However he seemed to treat them as if they were nothing more then flies that had for whatever reason chosen to land on him.
My attention switched back to my somewhat flickery display. I hadn't expected this much damage from a single hit. In fact I had begun to expect that apart from the occasional shake, we wouldn't suffer any damage at all. It soon occurred to me that the Destiny, like the Matrix, was technology as opposed to magic. It still followed a few basic rules, even if it flaunted hundreds of them. In short, we weren't invincible. Shit.
The sentinels unleashed another wave of bombs. They seemed to have abandoned the idea of a frontal assault. I managed to take out one with a machine gun turret after numerous misses, five more got through this time.
My teeth rattled in my head as we shook. As quickly as was possible, I pulled myself together through the dying vibrations, switched to what I eventually learned were EMP turrets, and machine guns, and I fired into the line of sentinels. I really didn't care what I hit.
Without the rockets and their delightful explosive reaction to collisions, my wall of fire seemed stretched and inefficient. The fact that I missed most of my targets didn't help much. Several sentinels fell out of the sky. I managed to take out what I think were three bombers. It took me a while to realise that the only other person who was still firing was Hawk.
I cast a glance behind me, firing blindly as I did so.
Manticore was now lying unconscious amongst an outline of fallen rubble. He was breathing if nothing else, Hydra was twisting her had feebly from left to right, as if fighting the urge to pass out. Dragon's ribs were hanging out of his body like something carefully placed to one side and supported by a piece of string. I couldn't tell whether or not he was still alive.
I forced my gaze back to the display. (In case you were wondering, it was fixed, um, for lack of a better explanation, at a certain point within my head which I cold only access when looking directly forward. That's how I was able to check on the others. Another wave of bombs got through the weakening perimeter defence net. I was flung out of my chair and onto the floor about five meters away.
Clawing myself back to my feet felt like trying to lift a full sized snooker table with only one hand.
To be continued
Right, now for replies:
Angel-of-lightness: Fun talking to you again it was. 'Sniff', sorry, I've got hay fever and I thought writing my sniffs into a reply would be funny, it isn't though is it? I thought not. Thanks for reviewing. I still don't know how tall I am.
Agent Josie: I tried to get the spiders to go in the box but they told me it would be counter productive. Then they bit me and ran off. Oh well. I'll try again next week with spider-mice. A bizarre creature of my sister's construction. Thanks for reviewing.
Tai Wilson: It does indeed. I wonder if I should have included less just for the sake of aesthetics, Nah. Anyway, thanks for reviewing.
Chapter 30: One bear, ten wolves
The head of the wave of sentinels seemed to vanish behind my own wave of firepower. It looked ridiculous on the display, having so much ammo all flying towards the same point, more or less, but according to Hydra, the Destiny has an unlimited supply of ammo. I'm not sure how that works, but at the time as you can probably imagine I didn't care much.
The convenient thing about having so much ammo fly in a singular direction is that when you hit something, that something is likely to die.
My weapons fire preceded a huge, continuous explosion that sent small chunks of dead sentinel falling like slow moving shrapnel to the floor.
The wave separated into smaller waves which seemed to veer off and fly back the way they came. I ignored them for now. If I fired at too small a target with my weapons set to target the same area, there was a chance I'd hit civilian targets, assuming of course sentinels weren't already there.
For a moment, I envisioned the beasts, and their Demon allies swarming through the streets, burning, killing, ripping out entrails. The imagery in my head was disturbingly easy to picture.
I shook it off; if this was happening there was nothing I could do.
Whilst the sentinels were regrouping, my attention turned to the ground. Assorted demons were firing blindly in the general vicinity of the Destiny. I almost found myself laughing when two rockets flew gracefully past us and above the forest. Granted they'd soon fall to earth and cause a fire but I didn't really care.
I fired into the areas within my firing line which showed the greatest concentration of Demons, the area below me changed almost instantly from bright, cheerful looking grassland which was reflecting the sunlight in a picturesque fashion, to a smouldering heap of scorched mud and crispy Demon pieces. A grin broke out on my face.
The sentinels weren't coming back.
I cast a glance upwards to examine the still disturbingly large number of mechanical beasts; they seemed to be flying in figures of eight above the trees. They wove flawlessly in and amongst themselves, none of them crashed, not one got in another's way. They just hovered, except for the few that were spinning at a ridiculously high speed.
And then I found out why.
The machines they flung at us looked like fast moving rotating cricket balls. The automatic perimeter defence system obviously had a better idea of what they were because it instantly started blasting them out of the sky. I couldn't tell if the explosion was a result of the new machines of the miniature countermeasure warheads.
I soon found out that it was the former as the first of them found there way through the defence net. The Destiny shook with such force that Dragon almost fell out of his chair, and there was a surprisingly thud to my right, looking round, I noticed that one of the heads that I'd neglected to remove from my coat had fallen from my pocket and was now rolling about the floor.
I switched to only machine guns and tried to take out the pestiferous sentinel snipers. Unfortunately, the others that were hovering kept getting in the way of my fire, allowing the bombers to move to a safer area.
The Demon's fire improved somewhat. Three rockets got through the perimeter defence net and smashed into the Destiny. It was lucky that the 'tree' wasn't made of actual wood or we'd all be dead by now. Anyway, one of the rockets came unnervingly close to where we were sitting.
Manticore was flung from his chair; three pieces of shrapnel embedded themselves in his face. However he seemed to treat them as if they were nothing more then flies that had for whatever reason chosen to land on him.
My attention switched back to my somewhat flickery display. I hadn't expected this much damage from a single hit. In fact I had begun to expect that apart from the occasional shake, we wouldn't suffer any damage at all. It soon occurred to me that the Destiny, like the Matrix, was technology as opposed to magic. It still followed a few basic rules, even if it flaunted hundreds of them. In short, we weren't invincible. Shit.
The sentinels unleashed another wave of bombs. They seemed to have abandoned the idea of a frontal assault. I managed to take out one with a machine gun turret after numerous misses, five more got through this time.
My teeth rattled in my head as we shook. As quickly as was possible, I pulled myself together through the dying vibrations, switched to what I eventually learned were EMP turrets, and machine guns, and I fired into the line of sentinels. I really didn't care what I hit.
Without the rockets and their delightful explosive reaction to collisions, my wall of fire seemed stretched and inefficient. The fact that I missed most of my targets didn't help much. Several sentinels fell out of the sky. I managed to take out what I think were three bombers. It took me a while to realise that the only other person who was still firing was Hawk.
I cast a glance behind me, firing blindly as I did so.
Manticore was now lying unconscious amongst an outline of fallen rubble. He was breathing if nothing else, Hydra was twisting her had feebly from left to right, as if fighting the urge to pass out. Dragon's ribs were hanging out of his body like something carefully placed to one side and supported by a piece of string. I couldn't tell whether or not he was still alive.
I forced my gaze back to the display. (In case you were wondering, it was fixed, um, for lack of a better explanation, at a certain point within my head which I cold only access when looking directly forward. That's how I was able to check on the others. Another wave of bombs got through the weakening perimeter defence net. I was flung out of my chair and onto the floor about five meters away.
Clawing myself back to my feet felt like trying to lift a full sized snooker table with only one hand.
To be continued
Right, now for replies:
Angel-of-lightness: Fun talking to you again it was. 'Sniff', sorry, I've got hay fever and I thought writing my sniffs into a reply would be funny, it isn't though is it? I thought not. Thanks for reviewing. I still don't know how tall I am.
Agent Josie: I tried to get the spiders to go in the box but they told me it would be counter productive. Then they bit me and ran off. Oh well. I'll try again next week with spider-mice. A bizarre creature of my sister's construction. Thanks for reviewing.
Tai Wilson: It does indeed. I wonder if I should have included less just for the sake of aesthetics, Nah. Anyway, thanks for reviewing.