Omega [REDUX]
Chapter 40
"Javelin, this is HQ. We're detecting some questionable reads from your area. Do you copy?"
Kristoff ducked behind cover to reload. "Copy that, HQ. Little busy over here!" A fireball sailed past his left shoulder, singing his armor even as he scrambled out of the way, bringing his rifle up to bear. "Presence of three Ascendants definitely confirmed!"
Edward's roars reached his hears even over the firing of his gun, rounds seeming to have no effect. It definitely drew his attention though; Kristoff lunged to dodge blast after blast, flames splashing across the ground, barely able to keep a grip on his rifle through it all. Everything around them was ablaze, from the machinery to the cables to the metal walls that adorned the cargo bay they had been forced back into.
"Copy that, Javelin. Recovery craft are inbound. Good luck."
Recovery craft. Clearly even HQ didn't expect them to last long.
Kristoff squeezed off another burst at Edward as his adversary zipped around in the air, flames trailing his trajectory. He ducked behind a wall before Edward could retaliate, and brought up his squadron readings. Thus far, his squad remained relatively healthy and unharmed, having been clad in powered armor resistant to environmental hazards. Edward had however realized this, and had simply concentrated his fire into potent blasts instead of blindly spewing fire.
Now his armor was scarred, cracked, and he definitely felt hotter than he did when he first boarded the craft. The crackling of flames around them had begun to drown out the firing of their guns. "Focus fire!" he yelled through the COM. "Don't let up! He can't keep this up forever!"
Their bullets sailed through the air, liquefying as they neared Edward's body, becoming nothing more than heated slush when they finally connected with his skin. For now their ammo supply was sufficient to sustain their fighting; Kristoff's Ascendant analysis led him to believe that Edward would eventually run out of energy to sustain intense flames. If they kept this rate of fire up, they'd take him down eventually. Right?
It was only a question of endurance, and attrition, Kristoff came to realise morbidly as his brain began to tune out the now monotonous crackling of flames and ringing of gunfire. The only advantage they had over Edward was their body count. Edward could almost certainly kill any one of them, but he'd have to kill all of them or run before he could rest.
And that implied sacrificing some squadmates.
No. No matter what, I won't let that happen again. With renewed vigour Kristoff leaped from cover, sliding along the metal floor and spewing lead at Edward. "Come and get me you bastard!"
Elsa extricated herself from the rubble she found herself in. Her body hurt in a million different places, and she was having trouble breathing. Her suit had caved in from the punch, the metal plating now shattered and constraining her body in a difficult way, but she could get out of it easily enough. Her head spun and her vision was fuzzy, her movements deliberate but clumsy. It was a miracle that other than that, she hadn't been impaled by the metal around her.
She might have been dizzy, but she knew footsteps when she heard them. Fuck fuck fuck—!
As Edmund's punch collided with her armor she dissipated, her particles flowing through the suit's crevices, icy shards scratching upon Edmund's temporarily exposed skin, leaving small bloody trails. She reformed as Edmund's pain manifested in a loud howl, delivering a solid kick towards his back, knocking him forward.
He staggered from the impact, skin reforming its rocky exterior, trying to turn around before it was too late. Elsa leapt forward with an elbow strike, knocking him off balance again, leaving her an opening for a beatdown. Her attacks flew in a flurry, every hit disorienting him, every impact a painful blow. But she couldn't keep it up forever; punching solid rock would inevitably take a toll on her, and Edmund's physical endurance rivalled even that of her own.
She waited for him to retaliate, which he did, in the form of a sudden swing of his rock-encrusted right arm. Elsa dodged, using his momentum to send him sprawling, then blasting him with an ice beam to knock him away, eliciting another cry of pain. She let fly a flurry of blue lances, embedding themselves in his skin, sending him staggering backward but not quite penetrating the rocky exterior. It wouldn't keep him down, but it would keep him occupied.
I can't fight him on his own grounds; he still can out-punch me and out-endure me. Have to keep my distance. Minimize damage taken. Can't risk countering direct blows.
Her heart sank as she watched his granular skin harden further, the lances shattering under the pressure as he regained his balance. "That might have stopped me a few years ago," he snarled, "but not anymore. I've grown since then. I've grown to HATE YOU!"
A blast of granules came flying, but she countered with her own icy mist as she threw her hands in opposite directions, swiping the attack away and lunging forward. Edmund roared, hands morphing into huge boulders that he swung downwards, crashing them upon the floor with a clang as Elsa dodged backward at the last second, before leaping nimbly over his attack, delivering a solid dropkick to his chest. As she hit the floor she dissipated again, particles surging towards her adversary, reforming behind Edmund as he got up.
Edmund had predicted that; he swung his arm blindly, rocky edge catching Elsa before she could raise her hands to block it and sending her flying into a bulkhead. The impact left a noticeable dent as she crashed back down onto the floor, stars entering her vision, pain blossoming everywhere. Get up, get up! You don't have time to recover—
"You fucking traitor!" she heard him yell despite the pounding in her head as he bounded over, frantically trying to push herself back up, arms straining from the effort. "I will crush you like a maggot—!"
Elsa dissolved quickly, particles flowing over and past his skin and reformed behind Edison as he crashed into the pile of metal she'd been lying on. Now that he was exposed, Elsa adjusted her stance and attacked. The icy lances embedded themselves in his back, frosting over the immediate area on his skin. As Edmund turned she scored a few additional hits on his legs; with a little manipulation the ice covering his body expanded, merging into a large gleaming mass and effectively restraining him in an icy cocoon. He roared, struggling against his makeshift prison.
"You mock me with your tactics, Elsa. Do you really think this can hold me?!"
"I don't intend to." Icy energy swirling, Elsa's punch connected with his chest, shattering her icy restraints as the force knocked Edmund into the air, crashing him into a pile of machines a few metres away.
A lull in the fighting. She doubled over, catching her breath, but her senses were on high alert, mind still racing. She could hear the shifting of metal as Edmund recovered, and the sounds of battle a few stories up. She readied for his counter attack.
Everything had just gone south, Elsa realized, and their strike force was caught in the middle of it.
Flashes of light disrupted the monotone blue glow of the datarooms. Elaine was a blur of movement, and it was only Anna's augmentations that saved her from being dismembered and decapitated. Her eyes darted left and right, tracking the Ascendant's every motion, every "muscle" shift and contraction, predicting her every move.
So far, it was working. Elaine hadn't been able to get a single hit in. Anna shifted and countered every attack, repositioning where necessary, hardened metal gauntlets knocking away Elaine's swipes. Her hands kept morphing into various weapons to adapt, whether to blast Elaine backwards or to form shields to block attacks she could not otherwise defend against.
In a tussle she threw Elaine off balance, snapped her head back with the blade of her own palm, and kicked Elaine backwards to dislodge her. The force sent Elaine skidding across the hall, plowing her through dataserver after dataserver, sparks and metal splinters scattering across the floor. "You're persistent, I'll give you that," Anna taunted, her body shifting and morphing to a more mobile form. "You really just don't know when to quit."
"I didn't come here to quit," Elaine spat back, pushing herself to her feet. "And you know absolutely nothing about me."
"I do. You've been brainwashed and told lies."
"I'm making the world a better place. And you're standing in my way."
"Yeah keep telling yourself that." Anna's arm reformed into its normal appearance, clenching twice to make sure as she assumed her fighting stance. "I don't want to hurt you, but I will if I have to."
"Shut up and fight."
Her motion sensors pinged off Elaine's form as she leapt straight at her, yelling as she did; Anna's left gauntlet morphed into a generator, blue energy shield materializing as she slammed it into Elaine, staggering her back and leaving her guard exposed. She stepped forward, elbow strike connecting solidly with Elaine's face, fist swinging in the opposite direction to further disorient her adversary. Elaine's arm formed a gleaming blade as she regained her balance, swinging wildly to defend herself, strikes bouncing harmlessly off Anna's shield as she kept up the assault.
Anna found herself becoming a singular fluid motion, a force of pure refined combat prowess as she bobbed and weaved, deftly knocking Elaine's attacks aside, her own attacks landing true on her adversary's exposed core. Her palm charged with electricity, and every time she landed an attack she'd send a pulse through Elaine, jarring her body with bolt after bolt. Her thrusters compensated for every weight shift, her augmented form an unmoving monolithic bloc that her adversary could not overcome. She could tell it was working; with every deflected blow she watched Elaine become more and more frustrated.
Angrily, Elaine lashed forward with her blade-arm, overextending in a split second; Anna sidestepped the attack, seizeing her adversary's arm and twisting her body, using Elaine's own momentum to execute an overhead throw, slamming her down to the floor in an arc. Even Elaine she tried to recover Anna's back thrusters propelled her forward, knocking her adversary off her feet again and pinning her to the ground, other arm raised and poised to strike.
"Why are you attacking the ship?" she barked. "Why is Empyrean here?"
Elaine chuckled, blood trickling down her lips. "Now now, why in the world would I possibly tell you that?"
Her fist struck Elaine's face swiftly, sending blood splattering. "I won't ask again!"
"Please. We wouldn't want to spoil the surprise now, would we?"
Anna's eyes narrowed in hesitation. Surprise? What kind of—
The moment was all Elaine needed. The strike came from her left, well within her peripheral vision but too quick for her to react. The force knocked her off Elaine's body and sent her rolling, thrusters struggling to compensate, her head reeling and her cheek throbbing from the impact. When she regained her balance on one knee and stared upwards, Elaine was gone.
Fuck.
"You puny fools," Kristoff heard Edward over the sound of his flames. "You cannot hope to deter me. But I will enjoy making your death a slow, slow burn."
His squad responded not with words, but with polarized faceplates and additional spewing of lead. Edward's retort was in roars.
"Running low on ammunition, sir!" someone called out.
"Take your shots wisely and only when you have to! Swap to your sidearm in close combat!" He dropped out the spent magazine from his rifle and slammed a fresh one in. "Make every bullet count!"
Their gunfire had died down over the course of the battle; his soldiers were tired and demoralized, sweating and distracted, eyes exhausted from the glare of the fires. They couldn't keep this up for much longer, he realized, otherwise someone was going to end up dead.
From cover, Kristoff watched Edward's head twitch ever so slightly, catching his lips moving imperceptibly despite the flickering. He's communicating with someone. That can't be good. "He's radioing somebody," he yelled to his squadmates as he drew his sidearm. "Take him down now!"
Their gunfire picked up again, wisps of flame materializing where the bullets melted away on Edward's sphere of heat. Edward's head snapped back to them, snarling, his hands moving in the same motion to spew another burst of flame. His fellow soldiers dodged the blasts, frantically scrambling for better cover or reaching for fresh magazines to reload their weapons.
Kristoff's own HUD projected the rising temperature; they couldn't stay here for long. More importantly, it was likely the fire was compromising the ship's systems. The sprinkers and automated extinguishers had burnt out long ago; if left unchecked, the fire would ravage the ship's systems beyond repair, and then they would have a problem.
Then to his surprise, Edward fired off a few final blasts at his squadmates, and flew back down the way he'd forced them in, blazing a trail of flames as he did. "He's falling back!" someone yelled. "Keep up the pressure!"
His squadmates gave chase, reloading as they did, prompting him to do the same. Hearts renewed and with a momentary lull in the fighting, Kristoff realized they now had a relatively better shot at pulling through. Still, he couldn't help but feel something was off. Edward had never been known to run from a fight, given that he was the most psychologically volatile of Empyreans three remaining Ascendants. What changed?
What were they planning?
"Elsa? Elsa, come in!"
Ice engulfed the rocky projectile flying towards her. The wall held. It didn't hold, however, when the next projectile hit, and she was forced to leap clear as the ice shattered. "I copy," she responded as she rolled to recover, reorienting herself. "What's the situation?"
"Elaine's escaped. I had her but I—"
Elsa fired off icy bolts of her own to deflect Edmund's attacks. "Keep it cool, don't worry, and focus on the mission. Did you see where she went?"
"Negative. I was disoriented when she escaped. I'm scanning through the ship's systems to see if I can locate her."
Blue energy swirled along the length of her arms as she ducked and spun, narrowly dodging the rocks thrown her way as she delivered a crippling blast to Edmund's torso, the creaking sound of ice penetrating his rocky exterior reaching her ears. Edmund didn't even cry out as he fell to his knees, grunting and gasping for air.
"Well if you find anything," Elsa began as she approached her downed adversary, "keep me informed—"
A sudden flash of silver. The blade cut deep into her forearm before she could react, having been intended for her heart. Pain exploded along her arm, prompting her to recoil, even as she reflexively blasted her attacker with ice to give herself some breathing room. The wound frosted over quickly as she gained line of sight with Elaine and let off a series of retaliatory blasts. Her new adversary leapt aside nimbly, lunging over to her downed comrade.
It didn't add up in Elsa's head. Elaine had no reason to come after her when Edmund was dealing with it, and she had never known Elaine to back down from a fight, even if Anna had an advantage. But before she could blast Elaine away from Edmund's body she could feel an intense heat emanating from the wall to her right.
Shit. She drew her hands up in a circular motion, forming an icy barrier sphere that she strengthened as she braced her hands, turning to the left to anticipate the impact. She was right; just as the barrier was anchored the wall blasted apart, Edward's fiery form surging forth. With another mental burst the ice hardened dramatically, but that didn't stop cracks from appearing as Edward slammed into, and bounced off, the sphere.
Now everything made even less sense. All three? The only conceivable reason Elsa could fathom for such a move was to band together to kill her. But even then, why now? They'd have made the move earlier the moment they spotted me instead of splitting up like they did. What the hell is going on?
She watched Edward recover, setting the perimeter around the three Ascendants ablaze as Elaine hoisted Edmund onto her shoulders. Her eyes narrowed. Kristoff and his team bounded into the area, rifles raised but unfired, securing the perimeter. Anna had found her way up, body fully weaponized, thrusters ready to fire.
"We have you surrounded," Kristoff's voice came through his suit's mic as they trained their weapons on the trio. "Surrender immediately. You have nowhere to go."
Another five seconds elapsed in their tense standoff before Elsa caught a small movement in Elaine's hand. The wall behind them exploded, evidently having been rigged with charges beforehand, sending dust and debris flying. No wonder Edmund drove our fight into here—
The dust cleared to reveal an Empyrean gunship hovering parallel to the gunship. The Ascendants had already jumped to its troop bay. Its main cannon had rotated to face them.
"Get to cover!"
Elsa had a split second to assess the situation as the autocannon spun up. Time seemed to slow for her as she took stock of what she had to do. Anna's reflexes were already propelling her away from the line of fire, and her augmented form would be more than enough to take the barrage. Kristoff and his soldiers were not quite as durable or fast. And across her line of sight they were still in the cannon's effective range. They weren't going to make it.
So her hands came up quickly, icy wards materializing in front of the soldiers, floating shields cracking as they hardened as the first rounds escaped the autocannon's chamber. She was quick, but not quick enough; Elsa watched the rounds ping harmlessly off the shields she had conjured for her comrades, saving them from the deadly hailstorm.
She almost had a moment to feel relieved.
Then the first few rounds collided with her torso.
Pain, unlike anything she had ever felt, seemed to shred her entire body even as she quickly formed a barrier to shield her. More rounds sailed through before she could solidify it sufficiently, grazing her sides with burning trails, her vision turning red from the effort. For a moment all her world boiled down to the whirring of the autocannon, the pinging of bullets against metal and ice alike, alongside the rhythmic pounding of the pain that echoed through her body—
The whirring ceased. The wind howled. The pain intensified. Her reddened vision darkened as she fell to her arms, shaking and straining from the effort. She couldn't speak. She couldn't think. She couldn't breathe.
"No no no no—" she heard faintly. Distanced clattering reached her ears. "Elsa? Elsa, stay with me! ELSA!"
Another foreign yet familiar feeling began to creep up her skin. Goosebumps began to pop as her arms gave way. Even in her current state she knew exactly what it was; simulation or reality, it only came when she was close to passing out.
Cold.
Not like this. Stay with me, Elsa, don't let me go like this. Not like this. Not like this!
It wasn't good.
Her bio-scanners detected multiple bullet wounds, severe internal hemorrhaging and a whole other list of medical diagnoses that she couldn't bother to read right now. Her hands morphed into a series of sprays, spewing biomite over her lover's wounds, who groaned in agony as the mist made contact with her skin.
"Come on come on come on…" Her panicked eyes felt the pricking of tears as they roamed over her lover's wounded form, watching the blood slowly trickle across the icy dress, flowing into its crevices. "We need a medevac ASAP!"
They were going to have a life together. They were going to spend every waking moment together once they got out of active service. Now all that was in jeopardy, she realized, as she did her best to seal the gaping wounds, but felt her heart ache at her lover's agony, knowing there wasn't much more she could do to ease the pain.
"Hummingbirds are 3 minutes out, Anna," Kristoff said, keeping an eye on their perimeter as his soldiers watched the Empyrean gunship depart. "But they can't hover for long. We need to get her to our rendezvous point."
Anna began to cradle Elsa as her lover began to pass out, not realizing that her arms were trembling. "I don't know if it's safe to move her—"
A terrible explosion rocked the hull, sending all of them staggering; a few soldiers nearly fell out of the hole the Ascendants had left in their wake, barely grabbing on to their squadmates or crevices in the walls before they were sent flying. Anna reflex was to double over and cover Elsa with her body, shielding her from any debris that might have come flying their way. Luckily, the explosion seemed to be coming from—
"The loading bay," Kristoff muttered. "The fire Edward started is spreading. The ship is compromised, Anna. We have to go. Now."
Anna brought up a new screen on her HUD and interfaced with the ship's system. She flinched from the torrent of red alerts that she received. Almost everything was damaged now that the fire had spread across the ship; system-wide failures were barely being compensated by backup generators, and even those were failing. They'd only have minutes before everything went to shit.
She interfaced with sensors and scanned the surrounding area. The cruiser was hovering at 33000 feet above a largely rural area; projected blast radius for potential reactor meltdown would engulf a series of nearby villages if the cruiser crashed nearby. It was however, situated along the coast; if she could chart a course for the cruiser into the sea…
"Take Elsa and get to the rendezvous point. I'll deal with the ship."
"What about you? Where are you going?"
She set her jaw as she carried Elsa in her arms, and passed her form gingerly to Kristoff. "Collateral is too great if the ship crashes here. I'm sending it to the waters nearby."
"You won't have enough time!" she heard as she began sprinting down the hallway.
"Then I'll make time!"
"Move, move, move!"
Pockets of Empyrean resistance were still onboard, desperately scrambling for escape pods. His squadron, bless them, kept their cool as they moved down the hallways, quickly and efficiently neutralizing enemy opposition. Not that they were interested in fighting; most of them were simply trying to get off the ship before it was too late. "Rendezvous just up ahead, sir."
They'd reached the area when they'd first been dropped off. His squadron secured the area, forming a perimeter around Kristoff as they watched the skies and checked their corners, Kristoff himself still carrying Elsa's prone form in his hands. He could hear the explosions in the distance increase in intensity, and he felt his heart rate speed up.
"Dropships inbound sir," someone signaled to him. In the distance, the silhouettes of the Hummingbirds could be seen, distorting the air around them with their heat trails. Help was coming. Soon they'd be out of this hellhole.
Despite the situation he couldn't help but think back to that day all those years ago. The day he'd lost two of his squadmates and had barely been able to take Elsa down. He'd had to carry her prone form too; he'd had to stand and wait for the Hummingbirds to take them back. How much things had changed since then, he realized, as the dropships made their final approach—
"Get back!"
An explosion from directly behind them threw them to their feet. Instinctively he curled his body around Elsa as he dropped to the floor, the resulting impact sending his head spinning. He was lucky none of them were thrown off the platform, barely managing to push himself to his feet to survey the damage. His squadmates were fine, but the entrance to the ship was now blocked by debris.
Which meant Anna was now trapped.
Reach the datacenters. Secure flight vector. Offshore onboard data. Return to rendezvous.
She rushed through the burning, sparking corridors, her augmented vision compensating for the smoke obscuring her vision, charting out a waypoint and a path towards her objective. Her skin tingled from the heat; she'd kept sensory input to a minimum so she wouldn't be deterred by flames when she couldn't possibly be burnt, but the scene around borderline terrified her. Coupled with the fact that Elsa was wounded, it was a miracle she wasn't curled up in a corner, sobbing to herself.
Focus on objective. Reach the datacenters. Secure flight vector. Offshore onboard data. Return to rendezvous.
Return to Elsa.
"Anna?" A crackling radio transmission reached her ears as she rounded the corner and reached the still glowing, strangely undamaged datacenters. "Anna do you read?"
"I copy," she said as she interfaced with the ship's systems and began to offshore information onboard, some part of her actually feeling the bits of data drain away from the ship's banks. She paced the room, scanning for missing data packets and anything else she missed. "What's the situation?"
"Rendezvous point is compromised. Explosion sealed it off with debris."
Her heart stopped. "Are you alright?" Don't focus on it. Get your objectives done, and then find a way out. "Is Elsa okay?"
"We're fine. We're all fine. Dropships are here to extract us. We can wait here and find a way to extract you someplace else, or we could try blasting away the debris—"
An explosion, this one more severe than before, shook the entire ship. Anna's vision scrambled and garbled, rendering her effectively blind, feeling herself fall to her knees. Through her comm she could hear panicked yelling. "Get out of there!" she replied, trying her best to keep her voice tone level. "I'll find my own way out."
She'd gotten the order of her priorities wrong again; now she scrambled to adjust thrust vectors before it was too late. She relegated to offshoring to a background process with a decent level of priority as she brought up the flight controls. Her head began to throb from all the data processing, and she struggled to keep pace as static clouded her vision.
Divert power to thrusters and main engines. She struggled to her feet, head still spinning. Deactivate shielding with overrides. She leaned against a server for support, checking that she hadn't accidentally killed the data offshoring in her pain. Set… flight vector… on course 2-7-0, accounting… for loss... of power. The static began to clear. Her body regained strength. Power returned to her limbs, and her head cleared. She took a breath and collected her thoughts.
I need to get out of here.
Another series of explosions rocked the ship. She darted from the center and back into the smoking corridors. She charted another waypoint at the hangar and dove through the flames, flames lapping at her metallic skin and she blasted away debris and sprinted toward her destination.
The large bay was already ablaze. The interceptor-fighters lay scattered and partially damaged, no doubt a result of the lurching the ship had been through. She wirelessly accessed their systems as she ran, frantically searching for a ship that remained air-worthy. She spied one at the end of the bay; Anna initiated its pre-flight procedures, powering up its engines, as she triggered the bay doors to open.
Her comm crackled to life once more. "Anna, get out of there! The ship is going down!"
More explosions and shuddering. The ship lurched; Anna could feel its trajectory decaying as it tilted, the other aircraft and debris slowly sliding in the direction of the ship's bow. She sealed the Lightning's cockpit and gunned the engines, thrusters firing to allow the craft to hover in the bay. Stray metal plates and loose electrical cables came dislodged from the rest of the crumbling bay, forcing her to execute evasive maneuvers.
Now.
Anna triggered the afterburners, propelling the Lightning out of the bay, the sound of an explosion behind her fighter roaring in her ears. The night sky was a welcome respite from the bright and burning hell she'd just escaped. She'd gotten out safe and sound.
She angled the craft into a slow turn. From the cockpit she could see the Support Cruiser, fires blazing along its hull, slowly descend toward the water as its engines and thrusters flickered and burnt out. "Anna to Javelin. I got out."
A chorus of garbled cheers could be heard on the other end of the line. "Thank god," came Kristoff's reply. "We thought for a moment that we'd lose you."
She found herself leaning back in her seat, exhaling deeply as she plotted a course home and set the Lightning on autopilot. "How's Elsa?" The worry was evident in her voice now.
"Medics have gotten her stabilized, and extracted the rounds from her body. Her added recovery rate helped out a lot. She's going to be fine."
Anna felt her heart lighten significantly at that. "Then I guess we're done here."
"We've still got one hell of a debrief to get through," Kristoff chuckled.
She didn't respond. Elaine's words came back to her. "We wouldn't want to spoil the surprise now, would we?"
Anna realized she was wrong. They were anything but done there.