Omega [REDUX]

Chapter 25

Anna had never expected to come this far. Elsa's plan was crazy, she realized, way crazier that it'd already been on paper. Establishing a forward base in the midst of a formidable air force had been crazy enough; using ground teams to take out a heavily protected generator was even worse.

Now, she was part of that ground team.

They couldn't burn-in, unfortunately; when Anna had raised that possibility to Elsa she pointed out that they still had a plasma cannon to deal with, along with anti-ballistics in the vicinity. It was likely that they also had anti-air, and the dropship probably wouldn't get high enough to avoid all that without getting shot down prior. Elsa had ruled out the possibility of an escort, because it wasn't worth it logistically.

But they had to; it was the only way to eliminate the cannon's shields, so Elsa could pull off their killing blow.

Such were the thoughts that ran through her head, even as she pulled the bolt back on her rifle to slide a fresh clip in. Supplies had just been dropped to their Mobile Command, in addition to the ground forces that were now being deployed. Anna hefted the rifle and slung it back into the magnetic clamps, pulling up comms on her HUD in the same movement. "Ops, where's our demolitions team?" she radioed. "We need them mobilized within the next 30 seconds."

"They're on their way towards Mobile Command," came her ground-based Operations Officer. "They are already mobilized however; their transport should be at our front door within the next 10 seconds."

From the mini-armory Anna shut off the light, trudging towards the bunker exit of their Mobile Command. "Get them to wait up. I'm on my way. And redirect our forces to push towards the generator."

"Roger that, ma'am."

Final armor checks, all systems running smoothly, weapons loaded and ready. I'm good.

Anna hit the door release on the bunker door. She heard the troop transport scrunch to a halt on the dust covered ground outside even before the door opened fully. The four-wheeled, fully armoured APC beckoned her, the back doors facing her opened as she stepped outside, revealing a team of 5 black armoured soldiers.

"Deputy Commander," one of them said. "You called for us?"

Anna was glad she was wearing a helmet, otherwise the look on her face when she saw the team would have been deemed extremely unprofessional. She recognized the voice: Vanguard. Valor Team. For a moment she hesitated, not sure how Valor Team would respond if they could tell from her voice who she actually was.

She wasn't sure they'd appreciate being bossed around by her.

She didn't get a chance to respond. Gunfire sailed over them.

"Shit!" Anna ducked to the floor, the rest of Valor Team suddenly tense as well as gunfire struck the side of the APC. "Return fire!" Anna yelled into her comm unit, broadcasting to the nearby available units. "We hold this position at all costs!"

The steady rattle of gunfire began to pick up; at first it was distant, coming from their attackers, but the soldiers on their forward base began to recover and retaliate, and soon the entire battlefield echoed with the discharges of rifles. Mobile Command proc'ed off defensive protocols, activating integrated turrets that began to deploy.

"What's our move, ma'am?" Vanguard asked, poised to leap amidst the thundering sound of their other perimeter turrets firing on enemy targets. "What do we do now?"

Anna forced herself back up against the van, trying to think. Come on, Anna, think! What would Elsa do?

"Return fire!" Blackcomb yelled at the APC driver. The thudding of the APC's mounted machine gun could be heard now. Anna kept her head down; her being dead would make everything fall apart.

If they're already rushing us, it means they're desperate; they don't know what else to do, and they're trying to find a way to scuttle us out. They'll want to take out immediate threats. The moment our demolitions team shows up they'll get focused down, and I definitely can't let that happen.

I need to give them something to shoot at…

"Ma'am?" Vanguard asked, more urgently this time.

I can do this.

"Stay in the APC," she replied, pushing herself backup and drawing her sidearm. "I'll relay orders to you when I have them."

"Roger that, ma'am," Vanguard responded. Anna heaved a sigh of relief; she hadn't been recognized. She sprinted across the dusty ground as the APC doors closed behind her. Everything was going to shit around her, but at least she had a plan.

And just like with every plan thus far, it was probably crazy.

"What's the situation, Ops?" she radioed as she rushed across their landing zone, ignoring the fact that there were aircraft landing nearby, bullets pinging near her position. "Give me a heads-up!"

"Hostiles are attacking from the North-East end of our perimeter," came the reply as Anna skidded behind cover, scanning the area in front of her for hostiles. "Roughly 40 on our live count. I have suppression teams setting up right now." From the corner of her eye she could see suppression teams rushing to respond, a few getting cut down in the process, but that was the least of her concerns for now. Every single soldier's life was a resource, whether she liked it or not, and she had to utilize them, even if it meant keeping her alive to direct operations.

Bullets pinged near her once again, forcing her to duck. "Ops, send me a fireteam, preferably an Alpha division fireteam if you can spare any."

"Roger that, deploying Vigilance Team to your location."

What is it with me and my match history? It's like I can't run away from it. Anna ensured the safety on her T2 was off as she moved away from her cover, sprinting towards one of the dropships that had just prepped for launch.

"I'd salute you, ma'am," the pilot said as she embarked from the back ramp, ducking inside to avoid the incoming fire, "but I do believe you'd appreciate it if we took off faster."

"How good can you hold your own against anti-aircraft fire?" she asked, as she heard the turret on the dropship come online and open fire. "With a payload of soldiers in your hold?"

"I can manage the occasional shot—"

"I'm going to be asking you to fly straight into AA fire."

For a while the only sound was the turret above them firing. The pilot pushed herself out of the pilot seat to turn around and pulled up her visor, revealing her chocolate coloured face as she stared straight at Anna. "Deputy Commander, no pilot can claim to excel at diving straight into the range of enemy AA-guns."

"The longest you've survived for?"

"Bout two and a half minutes in the practice simulators."

Anna shrugged. It seemed decent enough. Not that she had any other choice, cause she'd probably be dead anyway. The pilot caught the gesture nonetheless. "What that's supposed to mean—"

"It's cool," Anna cut in, just as the sound of boots on gravel reached her ears. "Ready up. We need to be in the air ASAP."

The pilot sighed, as she turned back to her controls. "Roger that."

"What's the plan, ma'am?" one of the soldiers asked as Vigilance began to strap themselves in. "Where're we dropping into?"

"It's likely 'crashing into' instead of 'dropping into', soldier," Anna replied, holstering her sidearm and beginning to follow suit. "This is going to be one bumpy ride."

"I'm not sure I follow, ma'am."

"We're flying in as bait."

The entire team literally stopped whatever they were doing and just stared at Anna. She ignored their obvious disbelief for a moment, letting it hang in the air.

When she was done strapping herself in she looked up, took in all their blank expressions, and replied, "What're you waiting for? Strap in. You don't want to lose an arm along the way, do you?"

This really, really hurts.

Elsa leaned back against the cushioned seat, the taste of blood in her mouth. It hadn't hurt this much when I was crashing into everything.

The only concerns she had with having super-enhanced senses was that she felt everything with greater sensitivity. She could detect the slightest gust of wind, or the smallest sound. But it also meant that the amount of pain she felt was multiplied. She'd had additional mental strength to go along with it, coupled with "mental conditioning" from her time in Empyrean, but there was a limit to how much she could take.

This was pretty near that limit.

Around her, alarms blared, small sparks flew, chairs swivelled with small creaks here and there. Gunfire raged on outside her ship, but here on the bridge, there was near complete silence. It was empty, abandoned, and lifeless, save for her. And Elsa wasn't sure how long that would last before she got shot out of the sky.

It was worth a shot, she thought silently to herself, maneuvering the ship onto a different course as the cannon began to reload and readjust its aim. I did what I had to, I'm sure of it.

She had no energy left to be angry anymore, too tired to rage at the administrators that had rigged this test, and condemned her and almost 1000 recruits to fail. Exhausted and demoralized, she watched the hopeless battle rage on before her, powerless to change anything anymore.

She had three other cruisers besides the Command Carrier to finish the job. But everyone was on half their payloads, way less than Elsa had planned for. She'd done the numbers prior while planning; after they drew fire to allow for Mobile Command deployment and had the generator destroyed, firing three full barrages would allow enough missiles to land before backup power kicked in for the anti-ballistics, and do enough damage to the cannon to take it out.

Now she didn't have that amount of missiles anymore.

Elsa rerouted power to the shields as the plasma cannon became fully charged; the blue wispy glow outside the window pulsed rapidly as fighter remnants fired upon her. She wasn't too concerned about them; for now, they had the advantage in the skies, in so far as the cannon didn't take them out. And that was only a matter of time.

Blue plasma leapt towards the Carrier. Wordlessly, and almost defeatedly so, Elsa pulled the Carrier onto a different course. The ship keeled as it turned, and the plasma grazed the side of the shields, causing the entire bridge to shudder.

She cast a glance at her console. Shields had dropped to 7%; generator was overworking to try to recharge it. Elsa proc'ed cooling measures onto the generator and slowed the shield recharge rate. Now it was only a matter of time before she went down.

"Command? Come in, command."

Elsa raised an eyebrow as she triggered her comm unit. "This is Force Commander. Identify yourself."

The channel cut off. Another transmission came in on a private channel. "Elsa?"

Her heart sank. "Anna." I failed you, she wanted to say, but held her tongue. She didn't need to confront her friend with their impending failure right at this moment. "What do you need?"

"We're mobillised and en route to the generators."

That's good, Elsa thought. "Did the escapees arrive yet?"

"What escapees?"

So she doesn't know yet. Elsa swallowed. How was she supposed to tell her?

"Hello?"

"I scuttled the ship, Anna. I'm the only one left aboard." In front of her she watched the display track the escape pods and gunships dart towards the city. "I'm not wasting people's scores unnecessarily."

There was silence on the other end for a while. Elsa didn't blame her; she might have single-handed doomed her entire attacking fleet from the decisions she'd made today. As unfair as the entire situation was, she didn't want to lose, not while so many people's futures were depending on this.

She didn't want to screw anything else up.

And she did.

"We can still do this, right?" came the timid, afraid voice on the other end.

Elsa exhaled softly and glanced back up through the bridge windows, staring at the black cannon ahead, unsure of how to respond. How was she going to phrase this in a way that wouldn't disappoint her? Without letting her know that she'd failed her?

"Yeah," she said, after a long pause. "We still can." Better to lie to her now and have her blame me later. Why? I don't know either.

"Okay." She heard Anna try to calm herself on the other end. "I've got a demolitions team moving with us; I'm going to try to bait them with the dropship I'm in."

She WHAT? "What the hell are you doing?"

"It's the only way," came the response. "They're already rushing our base; they'll respond to any immediate threats as long as they can identify them. A dropship looks a lot more threatening than an APC, especially when they don't know that our demolitions team is in the APC. They won't think that far ahead."

Shit shit shit shit shit—

"Trust me on this one, Elsa. Just once. As long as you're still in the fight I promise I can and I will make good on this."

How could I possibly say no? "Please tell me you've got a good pilot. Otherwise we'll be wasting lives and soldiers unnecessarily."

"She claims to be pretty good."

"She'd better be." I wouldn't want to lose you, or lose this for you, or lose anything about you.

Elsa leaned back against the chair, fighting off the pain, the self-deprecation, and her inherent instinct to protect Anna. "Do what you have to, but make it quick," she finally said. "If this is going to work, you'll have to take out those generators before they take me out."

"Roger that." The line cut off.

Elsa cursed out loud. How was I supposed to burst her bubble? How could anyone?

Bitterness gnawed at her as she slammed her fist upon the armrest, unsure and afraid, terrified that she'd condemned Anna. Wasted her life because of one assessment. Because of tactical decisions. Because of herself.

Also because we're all out of the firepower necessary to take anything out—

Wait.

I technically do have enough firepower, don't I?

"We're coming in hot, ma'am! Area is crawling with enemies."

Anna tightened a gloved hand around her seat straps as the dropship began to shudder. Her pilot executed a few extra maneuvers, just before the whirring of the autocannons reached her ears. She inhaled and waited a heartbeat, then moved her hand towards the buckle. "How steady can you hold us?"

"Not for long, but I can manage a few seconds."

"That's all we'll need." Anna unclasped the straps restraining her, letting one hand anchor her to the seat while the other ran through a final systems check. "Ready up, boys and girls," she said to the rest of the soldiers who had begun to follow suit, "'cause we're going feet first."

Her plan was working so far. She'd ordered the pilot to gun down whatever got in their way, but maintained a course towards the generator, and the AA perimeter. They'd encountered increasing amounts of resistance, which meant they were drawing away firepower from her other troops. Including their demolitions team. If they were lucky, they'd be able to set up, assemble and fire off their Hellfire launcher, taking out the generator. Anna drew her T2 as the pilot brought her dropship into one last turn, retrorockets firing as the ramp behind deployed. "Go!" the pilot yelled, just as AA rounds came sailing by, the autocannons increasing their firing rate. "I'll hold them off!"

Anna didn't take a second look a leapt into the open space below.

She hadn't seen exactly how high they were, and it was only when she took that leap of faith did she realise that she was much closer to the ground that she had originally anticipated. As the ground rushed up to meet her only miracle reflexes allowed her to proc her suits' own thrusters, giving her some backward propulsion just before she hit the ground.

Even then, she still slammed into the concrete. Her helmet connected with the hard surface beneath her, sending a shockwave of agony through her skull. She grunted and recoiled, curling up instinctively as bullets sailed overhead.

Footfalls clattered around her. "Ma'am! Are you alright!"

Gunfire pounded into her eardrums as Vigilance set up near her, opening fire on hostile targets. One of them pulled Anna into cover and into a sitting position. "Can you hear me, ma'am?"

"I'm… good…" she managed, blinking back blurry vision and straining to focus. "I think I am?"

"How many fingers am I holding up?" he asked.

She groaned inwardly but complied. "Three."

"Right, you should be good." The soldier handed her back her pistol, and she clasped it gratefully. "Where to now, ma'am?"

A loud sound caught their attention; Anna tilted her head skyward to watch a white trail blossom into an orange fireball as it impacted on the side of their dropship, the sound of strained metal and irregular propulsion a terrible symphony to behold as the aircraft lost control, spiraling into an uncontrollable loop and slamming into a nearby building.

Bless you, Anna thought, before gunfire brought her back to reality. "Valor Team! What's your current position?"

Coordinates began uploading to her HUD display. "We're en route to your position, ma'am. Pardon our lack of speed, we didn't exactly have a dropship at our disposal."

"Pardoned," Anna replied with a smirk as she nodded towards the Vigilance soldier, sliding away her sidearm and drawing her ASR1. "Just get here ASAP."

"Roger that."

"Where's our contact?" she radioed on a local frequency to the soldiers around her, equally pinned down and equally clueless. "Anyone have a heads up?"

"I'm deploying remote cam," one of them said, slamming a small lens onto the rubble she took cover behind. "Scanning for hostiles and uploading them to shared tactical analysis." Red outlines began popping up on Anna's display as gunfire assailed her ears. Her work was cut out for her.

Anna sucked in a breath, and then swung the rifle over the rubble, aiming through the scope in the same movement. A soldier's helmet crossed the path of her reticule. She pulled the trigger, letting the white trail sail through the air as she ducked again, this time holding onto the rifle in the same position. With any luck, her opponents would be too dumb to notice she was still armed, and continue to fire blindly near her position instead of actively aiming to kill her. "How far to the generator?"

One of the soldiers ceased fire to reload, but brought up his wrist mounted display. "The building which our attackers are holed in stands between us and our objective, ma'am." He ducked as shrapnel came flying from a grenade blast nearby. "We need to get moving, otherwise we'll get chopped to pieces."

Another hail of suppressive fire came sailing by, the thunderous sound and deadly streaks forcing them closer to the ground beneath them. "How do you suggest we do that, soldier?" Anna asked.

The soldier raised his head just a little, in an attempt to respond. A white trail sliced through his helmet and he promptly collapsed.

"No!" she heard another soldier yell.

Anna pulled herself into a kneeling position and took aim again, following the rapidly dissipating white trail to its origin: a black barrel with the glint of a visor behind it. She shifted the crosshair over the reflection and pulled the trigger, a white trail of her own streaking through the large open space between them and the building. A hole and resultant cracks blossomed across the bluish-white visor before the figure dropped.

"Ma'am, we need to get out of here," one of them said as she dropped back to reload. "We need backup. ASAP."

Anna pulled back the bolt on the ASR1, dropped behind cover and triggered her comms. "Valor, how far out are you guys?"

"ETA 3 minutes to your position, ma'am."

"Copy that." Anna switched comm channels. "Merida, Belle, Rapunzel, what's your position?"

"Still in the skies, engaging the occasional meagre response they're trying to put up," Belle replied. "Other than that, we're being cut off by AA every time we attempt to approach that generator."

"Need you air strike these coordinates," Anna said, already uploading the necessary data to their systems. "Use frag missiles; we need that building taken out."

"Copy that. ETA 2 minutes."

Two minutes was going to feel like a lifetime, she realized, just before she heard the soldier she had just spoken to scream, her armor blackened and holed. Her lifeless corpse dropped to the ground.

Damn.

"Keep your heads down and eyes peeled!" she yelled at the last three soldiers. "It's just us left!"

She accessed her Sentinel armor's capacitors, sending her shields into overcharge, her suit now glowing a bright white. Anna brought up her rifle again, but now she was an obvious target. Stray rounds collided with her suit, sending energy discharges flying as she took aim at her attackers. Bullet after bullet she fired in quick succession, soldier after soldier she dropped. Her hands grew numb from the recoil and her vision blurred ever so slightly.

Her suit beeped out a violent warning. She ducked back into cover, dropped out the magazine and slammed a fresh one in. Her capacitors were recovering, albeit almost completely fried; her shields were now recharging at a much slower rate after having almost been depleted to nil.

"Where's that air support, guys?" she radioed. "We're getting—"

"Hold your horses, amigo," came Merida. "We're on it."

The signature sound of Lightning fighters reached her ears; three black shapes whizzed across the sky, smaller trails suddenly detaching from the main craft and slamming into the building. A terrible series of explosions shattered the concrete building, the resulting shockwave sending debris flying and soldiers screaming, eventually drowned out by crumbling, shattering and the general chaos of the collapse of a building. Anna ducked as the building's foundations gave way, trying to make her body as small as she possibly could as chunks of concrete rained down overhead.

"That's one hell of a red carpet you've put up for us, ma'am," came a voice over the radio, just as an APC pulled up about 10 metres from her position. "Appreciate the warm welcome."

Anna pulled herself up to look after the explosions and crumbling had ceased. The tall skyscraper that had once stood in their way had been reduced to a pile of ash and rubble. The occasional suit of armor stood out amongst the debris. In the distance, through the cloud the dust that had yet to settle, the generator could be seen.

"Can we hit that thing from here?" she asked.

"Think so," Blackcomb replied as he emerged from behind the APC with the rest of his team, already scrambling to set up. "Looks like a clear shot to me."

"Then it's time to end this."

Elsa watched her display intently; the render was tracking troop movements on the ground, almost all of them in fact. She was just interested in only one of them.

"Elsa?"

Did she do it? Elsa triggered her comms once again. "Anna?" Did she actually fucking do it?

"We did it."

Elsa watched as new entities popped up on her display. Hellfire missiles arced from the mobile launcher her scanners were now picking up. She brought up a screen from an underside camera mounted on the ship, watching a cluster of white streaks slam into the large powerhouse that served as the cannon's generator. Orange flames and black soot engulfed the structure, completely obliterating it.

In the distance, there was a tiny shimmer upon the cannon's surface. Elsa exhaled. It was over. They did it. There was only one thing left to do.

"Elsa, fire our missiles now!"

"I don't have many left, Anna," she responded. "Most of them were used to secure our air superiority."

"What?!"

Elsa sent the ship's generator into overcharge again, maxing out power to the shields and thrusters simultaneously. Under normal circumstances it would cause permanent damage to the ship, but she didn't have to care about it now. "Firing whatever I have left." Thumps echoed along the bridge one final time, amidst the shuddering of the accelerating ship.

"How are we going to—"

"You've done your part, Anna. I'm doing mine now." Elsa angled the ship appropriately and began her final approach.

"What—"

Elsa cut off comms to Anna, leaning back into her chair as sparks began to fly in ever-increasing intensity, the shuddering becoming more and more worrying. Her display beeped out a warning: the cannon was fully charged again. Elsa strapped herself in, and triggered her emergency thrusters, this time to push her ship forward instead of out of the way.

The blue plasma lashed out, scoring a direct hit onto the ship. Energy flared and fizzed on the hull exterior, shields already dropping to a dangerous 1%. But with 30% hull integrity remaining, and firepower raining down from the skies, this outcome was sealed.

She'd beat back the impossible.

She'd salvaged a few scores.

And she'd helped Anna graduate.

So she let a small, relieved smile cross her face as the ship crashed bow first into the cannon, slamming past its foundations and obliterating key power sources, sending explosions rocking through the ship, just before a piece of sharp metal slammed straight through her head, and everything went from blood red to pitch black.

When she came to, the single word Victory flashed across the pod cover that she lay in.

wew. that was also a bitch to write, especially during an exam period. But that's over now, so while my schedule may still be busy I can still write this without feeling like I should be studying :P