Omega [REDUX]

Chapter 24

"T-minus two minutes to Whiplash impact, commander."

Then I don't have much time. "Navigations, maintain course. Get us over the enemy carrier. Tactical, give me readings on the carrier's lance gun emissions."

"Yes, ma'am."

Elsa didn't even have time to take a breath to calm herself, instead running her fingers over her console as she brought up the data she'd just received from Anna. "Weapons, ready missile pod 1, frag missile. Target these coordinates. Someone give me an update on how much power we have left on this bucket."

"Backup generators are still holding fine, commander," one of her officers reported, "although we run the risk of overheating them if we push them any further."

"Give me a margin for overclocking."

"Overclocked usage for more than 45 seconds could prove fatal."

"Maintain power to our main thrusters. Prepare to drop our shields on my mark."

"Ma'am!" Oh great, now the insubordination I'm dreading is coming. "This is suicide."

Ignoring the chorus of outcries that arose with that comment, Elsa turned on her heel to face the officer that had echoed his sentiments so boldly, who was now standing up from his chair. "Sit back down and man your post, officer, or I will be forced to remove you from the bridge," she spat. "We have a minute and 41 seconds before those torpedoes hit."

"But—"

Hesitation. Refusal. Fear. Almost instantly Elsa snapped. "Strip down your console interfaces and abandon your post. Analysts, transfer remote control of our shields to my console." She looked down at her console, keyed in a few commands, and stared back at the now flabbergasted recruit. "I will give you 5 seconds to leave the bridge, or you'll be locked out of the escape pods under my authorization when we abandon ship."

Almost instantly the officer bolted, but not before yelling to the entire bridge, "The bitch is crazy! Our scores our doomed; we're not even going to make it off the ship!"

In a fit of rage, Elsa brought up the escape pod display and disabled the officer's authorization, cutting him off from all escape pods. Blood pounded through her veins as she turned back to the task at hand, eyes narrowed into thin slits and lips drawn into a thin, determined line. She refused to fail this simply because of a stupid fucking shithead who couldn't listen to orders. "Weapons, is that missile ready?"

"Missile is loaded, ma... ma'am."

She could hear the fear in his voice too. Losing her cool had been another mistake, another slip up on her part. She hated herself for it. But now wasn't the time to chastise herself for losing her cool; she had an entire battalion to save. "Where are those readings for the lance gun?"

Another yellow beam lashed out and struck the ship. Elsa watched as the wispy blue shields of her command cruiser dissipated as the entire bridge shuddered from the impact. "Additional missile launches from the carrier detected ma'am!"

"Class?"

"Standard ballistic missiles."

"Deploy all countermeasures immediately." Thumps resounded through the floor as 80mm rounds began firing. "We need to take as little damage as possible." Especially so given

"T-minus 45 seconds to Whiplash impact."

"Weapons, are those coordinates locked in for our frag missile?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Ready to fire the missile on my mark." They were very near the enemy carrier now. Elsa's eyes remained fixed on the radiation emissions on the hostile ship. The readings were low for now, but were climbing slowly; the lance gun would be ready any second now. She would need to get her timing absolutely right. If she didn't bait out the lance gun, the rest of the plan would fail, and the other part in the plan would be equally irrelevant if they went down now.

It's now or never.

Elsa reached over to her console, and cut the shields. "Mark!"

Another thump shook the bridge as the missile fired, white trail streaking across the bridge windows. Elsa's heart went along with it, her hope for Anna and the prospect of winning this scenario followed its trajectory. She feared she was screwing up somehow, but had no time to ponder that thought. She'd have to make do from here on out.

Then emission levels on her console spiked. She knew what was coming: "Brace yourself—"

The dreaded yellow lance lashed out once again, connecting on the Command Carrier with an impact that set secondary explosions off across the ship. "Damage report!" Elsa yelled, already rerouting power to the shields, the blue wispy glow slowly materializing.

"Hull integrity just fell to 59%, commander," an analyst reported, frantically scrolling the console before her. "Multiple sentry guns offline, power reserves holding, engines damaged but still giving us sufficient thrust."

"Ops, overclock our generators now. Maintain thrust, but maximize power to shields. Navigations, keep us on course. Hold her steady."

"T-minus 19 seconds to Whiplash impact, commander."

The blue wispy glow started to become a glare. "Shields at 200%, commander."

"Maintain current course, do not—"

More impacts echoed off the underbelly of the ship. "Enemy carrier is firing on us, commander!" The bridge was rocked with impacts resonating from underneath them, a few officers being thrown off their seats every so often.

Elsa gripped the handrail once again as the ship continued to shudder. "Shields!" she yelled. "Status report on our shields!"

"Holding steady but falling at 177%, commander."

Through the windows she watched the grey Assault Carrier disappear underneath them, plate by plate of reinforced armor plating at a time. She cast a glance at her display, the render of their ship, the enemy carrier, and the incoming torpedoes still projecting towards her. The Whiplash Torpedoes were close now. Very close.

And exactly where she needed them to be. "Brace for impact!"

Both missiles connected, the first detonating on the shield layer and rendering the protective measure useless. Then the next one slammed straight past the armor plating, and a heartbeat passed before the warhead detonated.

From her display connected to a remote camera on the underbelly of the ship, Elsa watched the Assault Carrier burn and crumble. "Open fire!" she ordered. "Make sure nothing gets out; every single man or vehicle we leave untouched is a disadvantage to us."

She prayed that backup was coming.

Because she was running out everything she had. Ammunition. Energy. Motivation. Even lifting the rifle was becoming heavier and heavier. She was becoming increasingly deaf, overwhelmed, and exhausted. She couldn't keep this up.

And for not much longer.

Anna ducked as shrapnel went flying, a hail of lead chipping off bits and pieces of concrete as she ducked and wove amongst the rubble and debris, desperately trying to reload her weapon. Sustained LMG fire had kept her pinned down for the past 5 minutes, and she'd just taken advantage of a lull in the firing to make a run for it, only to be fired upon again. This is going downhill; if I can't find a better position we're not going to be able to secure the site at all.

A loud explosion rocked the world. Anna didn't have time to have a good look, but she turned skyward reactively and spotted the bulbous tip of the Command Cruiser.

Which happened to be engulfed by a huge fireball.

No. It can't be. Anna dropped behind a pile of rubble, a sinking feeling welling up within her. We just—

We didn't—

—did we really?

Bullets peppering her location brought her back to reality. Suddenly afraid, Anna backed up towards the rubble she was hiding behind, concealing as much of her body as she could. Her eardrums hurt terribly so, and she winced as static hit her ears when she brought up her comms.

"Elsa, are you there?

"Elsa?

"Elsa, come in!"

Garbled static. For a moment Anna feared the worst. "Elsa, please respond—"

"Yes?" The sudden reply threw Anna off guard. "Yes Anna, what is it?"

"Oh god, are you alright? When I saw the explosion I thought—" I thought you were done for, and my heart aches even though I know none of this is real and I just can't explain it, and I can't explain my feelings for you either—

"Anna?"

"I thought we were all goners," Anna managed, taking a deep breath. The firing had fallen off somewhat, but she knew she was still being watched. "I'm still pinned down over here—"

"I know," Elsa responded, "I already fired off the missile. It should be there any minute now." The sound of whining had begun to blot out Elsa's voice.

Anna cast her head skyward once again, watching the Command Cruiser emerge from the smoking fireball, and the white trail of a black shape that began to grow bigger and bigger. "Just on time, in fact," she replied, and just what we needed.

Anna dived for cover. The signature whining of the missile increased in volume until the explosion hit.

Sound slammed into her eardrums, and for a while all was replaced by a singular ringing sound. Even through her Sentinel armor Anna felt the rush of hot air from behind her, watching debris fly over her hiding spot amidst the screams of enemy soldiers. She saw not the fires raging behind her, only the prospect that she'd received a miracle served to her on a plate.

With grim satisfaction she finally reloaded her ASR1, and swung the rifle over the edge, aiming through the scope in the hope of spotting any survivors. Fires raged amidst the rubble, the only flickers amidst the settling dust, the only motion against the dead background.

Nothing.

"Blue Leader to Blue Team, do you copy?"

"This is Blue Two, we copy."

Anna pushed herself back up to her feet, scanning the area with her own eyes. "Area looks clear," she radioed, reattaching her rifle to her suit's magnetic grips and drawing her pistol instead. "Bring in the Turtles."

"Do we redirect the other one?"

"Yes, call that in as well."

"Roger that."

"All units," Anna radioed, "this is Deputy Force Commander; landing site is secure. I need a reorganization of all our units back into squadrons. All dropships, deploy your ground forces and await further instructions. Requesting automated sentry defenses at this location."

Anna shut off the comm unit, trudging over the rubble towards the landing site. She'd secured the site, but at what cost? Even as she looked up at the sky, watching gunships airdrop sentry turrets encased in drop pods toward the rubble below, she realized they were already behind schedule. It would take an agonizing three minutes for their Mobile Command to deploy, a further two for ground forces to mobilize, potentially more if their forces were incompetent, all of which was time wasted.

And time wasted meant more time for the cannon to gun down the entire fleet.

It was all going downhill.

She'd done a few things thus far; she'd secured them air superiority, she'd gotten intel on the enemy fleet. With any luck, she also secured the landing spot for Anna as well. But the fleet that confronted them, as well as the plasma cannon below, continued to threaten the entire plan.

She ran through the master plan once again, something she'd come up with in minutes; now she began to really doubt if it was in any way feasible. She would need Anna to secure the landing site, after which she would disable the generators powering the plasma cannon, which also powered the anti-ballistic defenses near the cannon as well as the cannon's shields. Even then, the cannon was equipped with layer upon layer of reinforced armor; Elsa still wasn't sure what a payload of missiles would do to it yet.

But she still had one trump card.

Or at least, thought she did. She didn't know if the card would do it either.

Elsa leaned back into her seat, which she had strapped herself into, and had ordered the rest of the bridge to do the same. For now, their ship cruised alongside the remainder of the fleet. They'd gone from a grand total of 12 vessels to only 6 remaining, and still had 4 supershielded Assault Carriers to deal with before they could deal with their real threat. "Status update on emergency thrusters!"

"Fully charged, commander."

"How many explosive thrusters do we have left?"

A blue plasma bolt splashed across their shields. The hull shuddered. Alarms blared. "Shields at 2%, commander!"

"Execute evasive maneuvers. Officer, how many explosive thrusters?"

"Our second one is charged and ready to go; that's the one we currently have ready. We have one final series of explosive thrusters that we can charge within minutes."

"Can we trigger them individually?"

"Yes we can, commander."

"Prep the other one as we go along. Weapons, do we have an alternative firing solution?"

"Yes commander," her weapons officer reported, "I've programmed our lance gun to fire a shot as our missiles launch, and for a second shot to fire just before the missiles impact. It'll require some overclocking on our generators though."

"Ops?" Elsa asked, not looking up from her console as she ran through a few calculations of her own. "Will the generators hold?"

"With occasional fluctuations to our main thrusters, the firing solution can be executed," came the response amidst the flurry of fingers on a console, "unless you wish to prioritize power to our thrusters, in which case the lance gun won't do as much damage as the firing solution requires."

Elsa clasped her hands together and took another deep breath out of countless ones she'd already taken within one simulation. This was the decider. The tiebreaker. The game changer. All they had to do was survive with at least one ship. Just one. One was all they needed. If they couldn't pull it off, then well, they were pretty much screwed. If they could, well…

…she would execute the rest of her plan as best as she could.

And bloody well she would. "Weapons, what's our most powerful option in our arsenal?"

"Not much, commander. All we have is the lance gun, a large supply of frag missiles and…"

The officer trailed off. Elsa narrowed her eyes. "What is it, officer?"

"We appear to have an uncharged grade-3 EMP."

Elsa ignored the shiver that travelled up her spine; Kristoff had used the same EMP to take down the convoy she'd been transported in over a year ago. But now that she was thinking about it… "What do you mean by uncharged, officer?"

"That it'll take about a minute for us to get it prepped."

"Do it," she said, scanning the new battlefield render that the projection was now displaying, watching the bluish, 3D models of her fleet ships cruise around the red outlines of the enemy's. I could lose a few ships if I do this.

But I could lose more if I don't.

"Force Commander to all ships, I need some serious firepower over here. Select your targets and fire half your payload of missiles." And if I don't have enough missiles for the final assault, then I've effectively screwed us all over. "Execute now!"

All around the bridge, white trails seemed to explode from her fleet ships, streaking across the sky like tendrils lashing out against enemy ships. As the missiles impacted, bright flares of light struck her pupils, the enemy carriers' shields lighting up as they resisted the impact. But immediately after another wave of missiles lashed out. For a moment, all the enemy carriers became constantly reigniting balls of fire and smoke, the missile barrage unrelenting.

But for all the spectacle Elsa's fleet was making, she knew it was merely a bluff. They wouldn't be able to fire enough missiles simultaneously to take out any of the shields on the enemy carriers, but Elsa was counting on their own fear factor. An extremely risky move, she realised, but if she could successfully frighten her enemy into believing they could be outgunned, then she could force them back, hopefully to regroup. After all, they had just lost air superiority, and Elsa's own fighters were already swarming the enemy carriers, peppering the shields with whatever they had.

Any normal person would want to maintain their shield advantage; they'll be willing to back off just to keep it. But it still isn't something I can count on.

"Plasma cannon recharging, commander!" an officer reported. "It's still locked onto us!"

"Navigations, get us behind an enemy carrier." Her heart began to race. Now they were teetering on the brink of defeat; her plan needed to work. "We still need to buy some time."

Those generators… Elsa cast a glance at the cannon, and brought up the tactical analysis back on her display. The shields were still up.

She keyed in a few commands and brought up her comms unit again, establishing a private channel. "Anna? Do you copy?"

"Yeah, I'm here."

Thank god. Elsa unwittingly felt a burden lift itself off her chest. "Status update on the ground." No, too serious, too commanding. She won't like me like that.

"Yes ma'am," she heard on the other end, with a small giggle. Elsa was relieved. "We've established our forward base; Mobile Command is up and running, and our ground squadrons are forming up. Vehicles are still dropping in though; we'll need an extra minute before we fully mobilise to move out."

"Incoming!"

Plasma slammed into the hull, this time strong enough to throw Elsa completely off her feet. She slammed into a console to the left of her as the ship began to keel, and pain exploded across her neck and upper torso, the air in her lungs forced out of her abruptly. She coughed, gasping for air, her senses overwhelmed with pain, blurred vision, and the loud blaring of klaxons.

"Status… update…" she managed to groan as she tried to push herself back up, reaching for her comms earpiece that had been thrown across the floor. "Someone… get me a status update," she repeated, raising her voice further.

The hull shuddered again, the floor slamming into Elsa's elbows. She cried out in pain and fell back to the metal beneath her, slamming her head and sending an agonizing bout of headache through her. "Goddammit!"

"Commander, our hull integrity just dropped to 42%," an officer spoke, albeit in pain. "Cannon is still targeting us!"

"How the bloody hell did we get hit?" Elsa asked. "We were behind a fucking enemy carrier!"

"The cannon fired anyway, commander."

What the fuck? "How many ships are left?"

"Our fleet just took out another ship with combined fire, but they're already on half their missile payloads. Only two enemy ships remaining."

Elsa pushed herself across the floor and grabbed her earpiece. The first thing she heard was "…you there? Are you okay? Please respond!"

"You need to move. Now. We're getting eaten up here," Elsa spoke into the comm unit. "I've bought all the time I could; if we delay any longer we're going to get blown up."

"Roger that. I'm mobilizing now."

The comm channel shut off. Elsa pushed herself to her feet, stabilizing her balance against a metal railing. "Where are those two enemy carriers?"

"Both are converging on one of our fleet ships."

Elsa peered at the display as she scrolled through the comm channels; the last two enemy ships were bearing down on XV06, and she was surprised that it had taken that much damage. She hailed the cruiser: "Force Commander to XV06, abandon ship immediately. Expend all remaining weapons from your payload and evacuate all personnel and vehicles. Make sure as many people get out alive as you can."

She turned back towards the bridge. "Weapons?"

"Already on it, commander. EMP away!"

With a resounding thump, Elsa watched the small black shape fly across the bridge window and quickly shrinking into the distance, closing in on the two ships that had now come into vision. She followed its trajectory on the bridge display. "Ops, get our shields back online. Just in case."

"Already back at 93 %, ma'am."

She watched XV06 go down in a ball of fire, managing to fire a few missiles into the sky while the rest of it was consumed in a massive fireball, only to impact harmlessly upon the enemy carriers. Escape pods and gunships scrambled to get away, but not all of them were lucky. Elsa winced as she watched their live count drop further.

In the gap between both the ships a bluish sphere of a lighter hue exploded from a central point, engulfing the two ships in its blast radius. Their shields flared brightly, and then faded, just as their engines flickered and sputtered, only emergency thrusters keeping the ships afloat in the sky. This time Elsa's remaining fleet commanders knew what to do; yellow lances lashed out across the blue sky, drawing deep firing incisions into the enemy carriers, piercing the ships over and over until they too succumbed to fire.

Elsa watched with grim satisfaction, even as their own shields flared and barely held, watching the blackened metal carcasses of the enemy fleet crumple and disintegrate, splintering as they fell to the desert ground below.

That is, until she realized they were still being targeted. "Fire the thrusters!" she yelled in a panic. "We can't afford to be hit again!"

It was a mistake on her part, and on the part of the over-eager officer who executed her orders; even before the plasma bolt was anywhere close to the Command Cruiser, the thrusters were fired.

No one was strapped in.

Elsa was thrown across the bridge a second time. Luck continued to favour her; she slammed into a bulkhead, her back taking the brunt of the impact, but when she crashed back down onto the floor she realized the rest of her crew wasn't as lucky. Ghastly, agonized screams echoed across the bridge, and the smell of blood had begun to fill the air. Elsa's superhuman senses took every single bit of the atmosphere in, with terrible consequences.

The ones that hadn't died would probably be left with broken bones, she realized, and would be in far too much agony to continue. She grunted as she pushed herself back up, struggling to resist her sensory overload, trying to return herself to being fully operational.

But that was impossible. She was in pain. She had an incapacitated bridge crew. Effectively, her ship was dead in the water. She could still play her part in the plan, but to a very limited extent. She prayed she would be able to make good on that promise.

Until then, everything was up to Anna.

With great effort, Elsa made it to her console, and began to broadcast on a ship-wide channel. "All personnel, this is the captain speaking."

She took a deep breath to stem the pain. "Abandon ship."

Come on, Anna. I'm counting on you now.

"I repeat. Abandon ship."