Ryuki rushed to retrieve Barry while Ross and Karin continued to try to bring Reaper back from his delirium. He found Barry standing at the foot of the elevator, motionless and weeping silently. "No way out , no way out" he kept repeating. He was so close to the edge, slowly approaching the threshold. Ryuki leaped out from his mech and landed into a running start. He reached him just as he was about to put his foot out into the chasm. Ryuki reached out and grabbed Barry's arm , pulling him as hard as possible and slamming him onto the ground.
"Barry, snap out of it! This isn't the time to freak out! You've got people counting on you, peoples lives on your hands! I swear if you do something stupid I will send you to court martial, you understand that!?" Ryuki roared without stop. His voice echoed through the elevator shaft and back into the long hallway behind him.
The pupils in Barry's eyes had grown wide in the dim light. He looked pale and drops of sweat rolled down his forehead. His mouth opened as if to speak but only let out a harsh cough. He sat himself off, tossed his head from side to side to shake himself of the disturbing visions as reality seemed to be an illusion to him. "I uh , I dont know what happened. I just snapped. But uh, the way back down is gone. The comm cable is down. We're blind up here . What do we do now" he asked softly.
"We do things on the fly, thats what we do. Get up into your mech, we're going to tear this place apart" Ryuki spoke firmly. His resolve had been shaken, to see another of his squad mates fall to the call of despair. It definitely called to him. The easy decision, to just give up, always seemed to be a quicker resolution. Lay down, get down with it. No more fighting, no more fear, no more pain and suffering. No more frustration.
Too easy , he thought. Life isn't worth living if everything came easy. No, he wouldn't stop till his entire team was on a ship off this ice ball. Even if he has to drag them out of this icy pit. "Form up on me, Lt. Olafson" Ryuki radioed to Barry. The order was a clarion call to Barry, to pick himself up from desperation. "Roger, forming up on you".
They raced back to see Karin smacking down on Reapers suit, slapping it around like a slapstick comedy routine. "Hey, idiot , if you keep this up we'll just leave you behind" she berated him. "Reaper, fall into formation" Ryuki radioed. No response. "That is an order, sergeant", he said. The suit moved slightly , the head craning towards him. "If you don't comply I will be forced to put you in confinement for insubordination", he said once more.
He wondered, could he really do that? There were so few of them, there couldn't be a good reason for that. "Sir, all my years I always wondered what they would look like. Would they be green skinned babes? Or three headed, five legged plant monsters? I never wondered if they would do this though. Those things attached to the crew. It was like they replaced parts of their bodies. It had to be painful. But the one thing that I keep wondering, were they aware of it? Did they know what was happening? Captain, I want you to turn me to ash if one of those things attaches to me. I don't want to find out what its like on the other side" Reaper finally spoke.
Quite the request ,Ryuki thought. But it stayed in his mind. Would that be running away? He promised himself to bring everyone back but what if it wasn't possible? Was that a failure of leadership? Uncertainty once again crept back into his mind. He was so sure only moments before that he would do whatever was necessary to evacuate the planet. Maybe, maybe it would be alright , a merciful death to avoid a horrific future.
"Sir, we can get into the rest of the deck now, there might be another elevator elsewhere", Ross said. "Alright , column formation, Ross takes point" Ryuki called out. They rolled through the maw into a stark steel hallway. They passed junctions that led into passages too small for their mechs to fit into, forcing them to stay on the single path they found themselves traversing.
A light ahead turned out to be the ceiling lights of a large cafeteria with a false skyline replaying on the ceiling. "Dismount here, unpack a few rations while we have some tables to eat on. You've got fifteen minutes then we mount up again" Ryuki said while climbing out of his mech.
They sat quietly, quickly eating their rations and always looking behind their backs. The food was tasteless as far as they cared, their minds were focused on their surroundings. Waiting for one of those parasites to pop up took every bit of their awareness. Tiny things they kept their eyes on, swaying shadows or motion subtle enough to escape cursory glances, they were keen on looking for such subtle changes in the environment. The walls shuttered by some kind of distance explosion. The ground heaved ever so slightly and gravity itself seemed to be slipping directions. It could be the ice melting around the ship, causing it to sink further down. Perhaps it was those strange ice manatees. They seemed agitated , maybe they're trying to remove the source of their problems. Ryuki wondered why he was ascribing to them some kind of maliciousness. The world had turned him into an absolute cynic, even
Time passed quickly but the unease lingered. Even back inside the armored carapace of their machines, uncertainty continued to haunt their thoughts. The start up process was tense, rearming weapons took a bit of time, time in which they were completely vulnerable. They watched the displays slowly ramp up, flickering into view and floating in front of them. The complex start up process was streamlined for these machines but not enough to make the intervening waiting any more bearable.
"Alpha 1 ready" Ryuki said over the radio They counted up , like a timer , till all were ready. " Column formation" Ryuki called out. A sudden crash jolted them up, reflected by the armor as controlled through their neuromagnetic uplinks. An aftershock reverberated through the ground, forceful enough to move the tables and chairs.
They thought it was an oncoming attack but for the longest time nothing happened. They waited at the ready , their brains hyperactive in their attempts to predict the enemy attack. Nothing at all but the echo of whining metal. Ryuki then realized what was about to happen. He roared through the radio "Brace for impact!" as he pushed his mech up against the wall. Just as his team moved into position ,the ceiling began to break apart and drop down.
Huge panels came sliding off the ceiling, their shattered pieces turning into dangerously sharp shards that would have sliced up anyone not in armor. Gravity shifted from under their feet. No longer was it pulling down but pulling on their backs . The ship was tilting.
The cafeteria caved in around them as the ship tilted to its side, creating a large hole in the roofing , revealing various air ducts and pipes. Amidst the crashing of metal was a muffled gnawing and scratching. Only Ross and Karin could hear it , their ears still functional unlike Ryuki's, which after years of explosions and gun fire had become a constant source of ever-present ringing.
"Something's digging through the walls, Cap" Ross radioed in. Karin began scanning down the exposed ceiling for signs of life. Blips showed up on her map. They were small it seemed, similar in size to a human. A warning rang out through her cabin and a new image appeared in front of her. The magnetometric sensors were picking up huge objects moving towards them.
"Mechs! Same as those damn corrupted bots we saw before" Karin yelled. The flame throwers would be useless in this fight. They tossed their flame units to the ground and pulled flak guns and auto-rifles from their chest and back racks. The ship stopped its tilt enough to allow the corrupted warmachines to finally break through.
Ryuki fired off his flak gun. The shell exploded into shrapnel, shedding any light armored parts. The flak sheared through the head of one of the machines , another losing its left hand and right arm. They guns they carried exploded as the shrapnel caused the ammunition to cook off.
Barry fired off rockets from his shoulder pod into the opening above them. The rockets exploded into a shower of shape charged daggers , cutting through several mechs. Their parts fell through while more poured into the room. The precarious tilt had made movement difficult which forced Ryuki's team on their backs, firing off in the hopes of killing off the entire attacking force.
Still they poured in. Then the first return shots rained down on them. Auto-cannons fired in brief staccato bursts, racking their armor though none were critical shots. They needed to move to cover somehow while still maintaining their precarious footing.
"Fire off your hooks on the opposite wall" Ryuki yelled. In unison they raised the left claw-arms and fired off the rocket propelled hooks. The claws broke through the opposite walls, grabbing onto steel girders that supported the walls. The motorized reels screeched into action, pulling them along the floor-turned-wall to the other side.
Karin used this chance to fire off a set of air-burst missiles from a flip-up missile launcher. The missiles flew in arched curves with blazing blue flames up into the ceiling. When they exploded ,they spread a thick cloud of explosive gas into the followed by a compression wave that ignited the fuel into a powerful explosion.
The organic parts on the enemy mechs burst into flames. The heat melted through the steel girders, causing an avalanche of detritus to fall . A combined heap of burnt out wrecks and melted steel panels and beams crashed through the floor, forming a sort of bridge up to the floor above them.
"Rush it!" Ryuki yelled. Their only chance was to get topside. They aimed up into the next floor and fired their hooks in succession. The clasped claws burst through the next floor's ceiling and clamped down on the support beams. This time they used their rocket boosters to propel themselves along with the hook winch ,bursting through the ground wreathed in flames as the smashed back down onto the next floor.
From there they formed a circle of fire and blasted away with cannon and rocket fire. The rockets splintered into steel daggers , piercing through the flesh and pustules that covered the corrupted mechs. Their cannons tore through the reinforced ablative plates that made up the facades of the invaders , melting away the armor and exploding dead center inside their torsos.
Though their weapons were effective ,they could only fighter for as long as they had ammunition. Slowly they realized that each shell, each rocket and grenade were needed to fire true. No longer could they strafe their fire. Even with the advanced targeting computers and aim-assistance , it was chance that directed the ultimate destiny of each round they fired.
"Burst fire if you have to but don't waste your ammo" Ryuki yelled through the radio. Slowly they forced their way through. Their grappling claws now became weapons. They crushed the servo-joints to prevent the enemy mechs from lifting their weapons. But still they fired , their shots smashing through Ryuki's arms, heavily damaging the motors. His arms were now locked , preventing him from pivoting his weapon. It was only a hindrance to him though as he adapted to the new battlefield. He used the torso to rotate around like a tank turret while firing off rounds from his slightly lifted forearm. He was lucky then, each shot blew out the upper torsos and heads of the swarming machines.
