Hello, good to see you again! Previously on…Word of goddesses rescue reach the Imperial leadership on Gamindustri. Empress Keya calls in a meeting, to which most important people in all of the Gamindustrian System arrive and during which they discuss the possible culprits and course of action. Afterward, Empress visits one of the most, if not the most, important prisoners, Histoire. How will all of this ultimately play out and who will come out on top? Read and find out.

But before we continue, reviews.

To end5: Thank you very many.

Alright, with that done, let's begin.

Chapter 6

February 4, 2257

06:00

Artisan's base

Although everyone knew, that in space time flew differently, time was still measured according to Gamindustri's rotation cycle. This is why whenever the clock hit 0600 hours, the whole base was filled with a familiar siren and voice from the PA.

"All personnel, wake up!"the voice said."Everyone is supposed to be at their stations in half an hour! I repeat: all personnel…"

The announcement was repeated for another three minutes, before it finally ended and all across the station, members of the resistance cell quickly started waking up, putting on their daily clothes and running towards their stations, where they would begin another day of work for the goal of the organization.

Same was with the goddesses, who after their meeting with Artisan received their own room with four individual beds. At the sound of the wake up call, they also started slowly rising from their beds.

"Good morning."Noire said and yawned.
"Good morning, everyone."Vert said."Slept well?"
"As well as you could expect."Blanc replied, massaging her back."I never knew miners had beds so bad…"
"Maybe it's because you didn't have great cushions?"Vert asked, crossing her arms on her chest.

Blanc shot her a glare and was about to say something, but Noire stopped the situation from escalating:
"Not in the very morning. Besides, some people actually don't mind beds like these."

Saying that, all three of them looked in the direction of Neptune, who was still soundly sleeping, with a bubble coming out of her nose and a streak of saliva on her left cheek.

"I guess SOME people can sleep anywhere."Blanc stated.

Noire stood up from the bed and approached Neptune. She started shaking her.

"Neptune, wake up."she said.
"Five minutes…"Neptune mumbled.

"No five minutes. We're all awake already."

Instead of answering, Neptune simply tugged the blanket and covered herself with it more. Noire growled.
"Are you serious about it?"she asked.

She then proceeded to grab the blanket and with one, quick motion, she tore it off of Neptune, making the goddess of Planeptune yelp, surprised.
"Noire, why are you so rough?"Neptune asked, covering herself with her arms, even though she was still in her clothes.
"Everyone is waking up and only you are still sleeping!"Noire replied."We just learned that we slept through three years of our people's suffering and you still act as if nothing ever happened! I can't understand you sometimes!"
"This is just how she is."Vert stated."I guess you can take Neptune out of time of peace…"

"…but you can't get time of peace out of Neptune."Blanc finished.

"Good to see you finally agree on something."Noire stated.

Neptune, in the meantime, got off of her bed and stretched herself.

"Alright, time to welcome a new day. Let's go and see how is everyone."she stated.

"Really, how are you suddenly so energetic?"Lastation's CPU asked, facepalming.

Neptune didn't respond. She simply went towards the door and left the room. Remaining three simply followed, with Noire still irritated beyond belief.

February 4

07:01

In the base

As they walked through the corridors of the base, goddesses saw other members of the resistance group. They already spent a whole day here and were already familiar with the daily routine of the base. First, they made their way towards the canteen, which was big enough to accommodate all of Artisan's subordinates. Due to the lack of any kind of supplies, food was not of the best quality. It mainly consisted of canned food, made to last more than a decade. Additionally, they had to ration it. Some said that it was a miracle that they still had anything to eat after these three years. Only once in a few months did they manage to get some supplies, but only something minor, in form of stuff they stole from enemy ships passing by and with help of some smugglers, but only the ones who helped them not expecting anything in return. Which, once again, was not a lot, because many smugglers still took money for their services.

After the breakfast, members of the resistance immediately went to their tasks. Some were tasked with maintaining the base, while others with guarding it. At one point, goddesses witnessed a training for the group's armed section. Due to the lack of sufficient facilities, such trainings were taking place in corridors, which were cut off from transit for the time being. Still, seeing twenty resistance members in full equipment was a sight to behold. Even if their assault capabilities were minimal at best. They also learned, that these fifty soldiers that came on the corvette were from Lastation. This is why Noire, although she didn't show it, felt partially guilty that nearly three fifths of them died while rescuing them.

They even were allowed to see the said corvette. As it turned out, the corvette in question was an old Goddess' Call-class patrol corvette. Before The One Day War, these vessels were already considered museums and were slowly being phased out of service due to the fact that they entered service in the late 2140s and were supposed to be replaced by newer Pride-class corvettes. They were quipped with Class-3 fusion drives, as this class of ship was created as a rapid response vessel, which meant that in turn, it had to sacrifice firepower. This is why it's most powerful weapons were two two-barreled point defense turrets. It was also, like all spaceships, capable to land on the surface of the planet. Normal crew mostly consisted of four members and was able to take a compartment of ten Marines aboard. Which meant that soldiers that came on the ship had to really squeeze in if they wanted to fit inside to come here.

Ship was also on hold for the time being. It was due to the fact, that it used a lot of fuel during the rescue mission and nobody knew, when will an occasion appear for them to get some ship fuel.

"You know what?"Blanc asked.

The four of them were leaning against a barrier on the balcony overlooking the hangar, watching the maintenance crew work around the ship.

"What?"Neptune asked.
"I'm actually surprised they managed to survive in hiding for so long."Lowee's CPU replied."Considering that they can get some supplies so rarely."
"This only shows how persistent they are."Vert stated.
"True. Everyone I asked said that they fully believe that one day, they will overthrow the Empire."Noire said."They still are full of hope."
"That's good, right?"Neptune asked, tilting her head."I mean, having hope is good."

"It is, in some situations."Vert stated."But sometimes, having too much hope can also be harmful."
Neptune threw up her arms.
"I guess you're right."she agreed.
She then looked past the ship, into the stars that were visible through the hangar's force field, which held in all the air.
"How do you think? How would it play out without the Empire and Keya?"Neptune asked."Would we already be setting up colonies in new star systems and expanding to new stars? Or still sitting and trying to figure out what to do now that we posses FTL tech?"
"That's actually a good question, not gonna lie."Noire agreed.

"Knowing us?"Blanc said, smiling."We would probably argue about who has the right to set up the first extrasolar colony."
"Probably. But who knows. Maybe we would be able to come up with some compromise."Vert said.

Others nodded in agreement.

The whole good mood was then interrupted by a blaring sound of alarm and red lights that suddenly flashed in the hangar. Immediately, everyone dropped what they were doing and started running out of the hangar.

As one of maintenance crew members ran past them, Noire stopped him.
"What's happening?"she asked.
"Alarm usually means danger to the base itself."mechanic replied."Procedures tell us to gather in the canteen, where commander will give us every information regarding it."

"We'll go with you then."Neptune stated.

Mechanic looked at them.
"You sure?"he asked.
"Of course!"Planeptune's CPU said confidently."After all, readers must know when action starts, right?"

"If you say so."mechanic said, looking at Neptune a bit confused.

Soon, four goddesses followed the mechanic into the base and towards the canteen.

February 4

09:12

Canteen

Upon reaching the canteen, goddesses saw every single member of the resistance group gathered there. They also saw that like during the breakfast, most of them were divided between their respective sections. Marines stood with Marines, mechanics sat with mechanics and so on. They all were gathered in a crescent around a table, on top of which stood Artisan, with her deputy, sergeant Tiller, commander of the Marines. He was a tall, broad shouldered man with small beard. He looked at everyone with his eternally critical look.

"Attention!"Tiller exclaimed.

His order brought every conversation taking place to a stop. All eyes turned to him and Artisan.
"Thank you, sarge."Artisan said and turned back to the others."We have an emergency on our hands."

"What is it?"one of Marines asked.
"Not too long ago, our outside sensors detected some object touch down on the surface of the asteroid. It wouldn't be anything weird, as many things hit this rock. The weird thing is that this thing started moving."
Once more, everyone started whispering.

"Quiet, commander's speaking!"Tiller exclaimed.

Silence fell once more.
"We suspect it to be some Imperial drone."Artisan continued."We don't know what it's doing here, but if it's here, it means we have to destroy it."

Everyone nodded in agreement.
"For this, we need volunteers that will go outside and destroy it."the commander finished.
Everyone expected the Marines to immediately report for the job, however even they seemed to hesitate. This allowed a certain goddess to lift her hand up in the air.
"We can do it!"Neptune exclaimed.

All heads immediately turned in her direction. Other three goddesses looked at her with surprise and disbelief. Noire leaned down to her ear and whispered:
"Neptune, what are you doing?"

Neptune replied with a smirk.
"What? It's probably just a small drone. We can deal with it."
"But…"Noire tried to argue.

"Are you sure?"Artisan asked.

Neptune stopped paying attention to what Noire was saying and turned back towards the commander. She nodded with certainty.
"Sure! We might have just woke up, but I'm certain we can take down a single drone!"she replied.

Members of the resistance cell looked at the four goddesses for a few seconds…

…before suddenly erupting in cheers. People started clapping and standing up. The four looked at it, surprised even more.
"That's our goddesses!"someone exclaimed.
"Yeah, kick their asses!"another person shouted.
"This drone is gonna remember this beating for the rest of it's existence!"third person shouted.

CPUs stood there, feeling a bit awkward.

"Now, now, no need to cheer."Neptune said."You're making us blush."

"Maybe you."Blanc said."I have a bad feeling about it."

"Agreed."Vert said."But I guess we can't back out now, can we?"
"Nope. As always, thanks to Neptune."Noire stated.

Not long after, Tiller took them to the room which the cell used as armory. Fortunately, they had some spare uniforms and riffles. Each goddess took one of each and thanks to a special material, which adjusted itself to wearer's body size, it was not a problem to pick a suit and because of low amount of shares, they were unable to summon their weapons. Soon after, they were led to one of the hatches that led to the outside of the facility.

February 4

09:39

Hatch 19

On the desolate outside of the asteroid base, one of the rocks was flung open on it's hinges. This allowed the four CPUs, dressed in their spacesuits, to crawl out of it and soon after, they were all outside. They all looked around, making sure that it was safe and after that, they closed the hatch behind them.

"Can you hear me?"Neptune asked, testing the radio.
"Yes."the other three replied.

"Good, so that means, that we're ready to go."Planeptune's goddess stated.

"Neptune, I wanted to ask earlier, but I was busy dressing."Blanc said."What exactly is your plan? Why did you volunteered us for this mission?"

Neptune looked at her and smiled.

"Well, I just thought it might help us."she replied.
"Help us?"Noire asked."With what?"

"Maybe, if we take down this drone, the faith in us will be reignited between the members of the resistance. And it will bring enough shares to allow us to take our other forms."

The other three looked at each other.
"You know, that actually makes some sense."Vert said."I didn't fail to notice, that even though resistance members believe that we can bring back the old order, they don't seem to particularly enthusiastic about our capabilities."
"And considering how happy they were, this might actually work."Blanc agreed.
"I guess you're right."Noire said.

Right then, all four of them heard Artisan's voice in their helmets.
"Goddesses, can you hear me?"she asked.
"Sure do."Neptune replied.
"Good. We're monitoring everything with our sensors on the surface of the asteroid."

"Great, so you can update us on the go."Noire said."Will our weapons be enough to get that thing?"

"It should be."Artisan assured."But I guess you should more focus on the drone."

"Why?"Blanc asked, basically guessing why.

"Because…"
Right then, the ground beneath their feet shook.
"…it's already here."

"I have a bad feeling about it."Vert said.
"Don't worry, I'm sure whatever it is, we can…"Neptune started.
The drone started appearing from behind the curvature of the asteroid.

"…deal with it."Planeptune's CPU replied, less surely.

The drone that soon came into their view was something none of them expected. The machine itself was tall, nearly three times as tall as a normal person, with a compact, certainly heavily armored main body with six spider legs. There was a turret on the back of the machine, with two miniguns and a sensor array on it. With each step the drone took, the asteroid shook.

Goddesses stood there for a few seconds, observing the machine, but it didn't seem to notice them, so they were able to quickly jump behind a rock, which stood nearby. There, they ducked down and observed as the machine marched through the desolate surface of the asteroid.

"What do you have to say now, Neptune?"Noire asked.

"Um…Maybe he's nice?"Neptune replied, trying to hide her nervousness behind a smile.

"Now you really got us into a situation."Vert stated.
"Don't blame me! When I hear the word 'drone' I think of the small ones, like the ones Nepgear liked to fly around Planeptune! Or the ones used for out military!"
"The Empire is NOT our military!"Blanc said."Their drones can be something different than ours!"
"Is there a problem?"Artisan asked.

Noire, Blanc and Vert looked at Neptune.

"What?"Neptune asked.
"Go on, answer."
Neptune nodded and replied.
"This is Neptune. Nothing's wrong. We can deal with this think."
"Good. Just be careful, it's really hard to break through it's armor."resistance commander explained."Fortunately, explosives can easily deal with it."
"If only we had some."Noire mumbled.
"Good news. A Plastic Charge explosive is a part of every soldier's equipment. Each of you has one. You also have several grenades for your riffles' inbuilt grenade launchers."

Goddesses smiled.
"Bad news. Grenades are not strong enough to break through the armor. To destroy it, you have to place a charge on it's underside. That's where it's weakest point is. You also need to bring it down to do so."

"And how are we meant to do that?!"Noire asked.
"I'm sure you can come up with something."Artisan said and ended the call.

"Wha…? Hey, don't hang up on us like that!"Lastation's CPU exclaimed.

"I guess we're on our own now."Blanc said."So, anyone got an idea how are we gonna approach it?"

Right then, everyone looked at Vert.
"What?"Leanbox's CPU asked.
"Well, you are the biggest gamer out of us."Neptune said."I bet you got some ways to deal with a giant machine like that."

"Maybe, but as of now, nothing really comes to my mind…"Vert shrugged.
Noire looked over the rock, towards the drone. It was still there, looking around with it's sensors and searching for any signs of enemy activity. Her eyes focused on it's thin, spider like legs.

"Artisan said that to destroy it, we have to bring it down."she said."If we aim at the legs, it should be easy."
"Depends how strong they are."Blanc said."They might look fragile, but they can turn out to be as tough as the body looks like to be."
"You never know if you won't try!"Neptune said and jumped out from behind their cover.
"Neptune, wait!"Noire exclaimed, but it was too late.

Neptune was already running towards the drone, aiming her riffle at it. She pulled the trigger and a spray of bullets flew towards the machine, colliding with it's side. And, of course, they didn't do anything to it.

The only thing they did was turning the drone's attention towards Neptune. Machine quickly clattered it's spider like legs, turning towards the goddess. When it recognized her as an enemy, it immediately went into combat mode. It's miniguns started spinning, slowly heating up, aiming down towards Neptune. Not only that, but four claps, one on each side of the body, opened and four more barrels came out of them, aiming in every direction.

"Oh."Neptune said.

Right then, the miniguns opened fire and a spray of lasers flew towards Neptune. Goddess tried to evade them, but the almost non-existent gravity partially prevented her from that. Fortunately, Noire came flying and pushed Neptune out of the way, as lasers hit the place where the goddess stood a second ago.

Neptune looked at Noire.
"My hero…"Neptune said.
"No time for that!"Noire replied."Stand up and fire!"
On the other side, Vert and Blanc also joined the fray, firing at the drone. Their bullets also didn't made any impression on the machine, except turning it's attention on them. Barrels that came out of it's body then aimed and started firing at them, forcing them to evade as well. Meanwhile, it's minigun turret stopped firing to cool down, while the machine continued to keep it's enemies at bay.

"This thing got PDCs!"Vert exclaimed.
"It sure helps them!"Blanc said.
"What do we do?"Noire asked.

Neptune looked at the drone, thinking. Finally, she had a plan.
"I think I know."she said."Try to distract it for me. I will try to bring it down!"

"You serious?!"Noire asked.

"Yes!"Neptune replied shortly.

"I think we don't have much options!"Blanc said.

Saying that, she loaded a gun's grenade launcher and pulled the trigger, sending the projectile flying towards the drone. However, drone didn't let it hit easy. It's PDC managed to take the grenade down before it hit it's mark and fired at Blanc, who was forced to evade once more.

"Damn it!"Lowee's CPU exclaimed, landing hard on the ground."I'm gonna turn you into razor blade, you tin can!"

"Maybe wait for that!"Vert exclaimed, firing her assault riffle at the machine."And don't make it angrier, will you?"

"So, you agree to my plan?"Neptune asked.
There was a short silence, before the other three replied at the same time:

"Yes!"

"But only because we can't come up with a plan of our own for now!"Blanc pointed out, evading another shot from the PDC."Just hurry up!"

"Alright, spread out!"Neptune ordered.

Goddesses quickly started enacting the plan.

Meanwhile, inside of the base's control room, Artisan, as well as some other members of the resistance cell, observed the whole fight on the screen of a laptop standing on the table. On it, they could see four blue signals of the goddesses, which meant that they were still alive, which was a good news, but still, they were not doing good against the drone.

"Honestly, I thought they'd be over by now."Tiller said.
"Yeah."others agreed.
"We have to have faith in them."Artisan said.

Others looked at her.

"You know, Art, I think that plan to break them out was a mistake."Tiller stated.
"You now you approved this plan, too."Artisan replied.
"Because I had hope, that they will actually make a difference. But looking at them now…"
Artisan stopped listening to what the sergeant was saying. She looked back at the screen, as goddesses' signals started spreading out.

"Come on, you can do it."she thought.

On the outside, goddesses already spread out as much as they could, with the drone's weapons targeting each of them. Meanwhile, Neptune did her best to sneak past the sensors and behind the machine. As it continued to focus it's efforts on killing other goddesses, she started running at it. As she ran, she loaded a grenade into the grenade launcher. She aimed at the drone and pulled the trigger.

Grenade flew out of the grenade launcher and, in low gravity, flew straight towards the drone. Neptune was quickly loading another and firing. At the same time, the PDC targeted the grenade and fired on it. Thanks to that, Neptune could continue to run towards it. She was firing grenades, making the PDCs focus on them, while remaining three and the miniguns focused on other three goddesses.

After a few minutes of running, which felt like an eternity, Neptune suddenly felt something. Something that she didn't feel in a long time.
"Is it…Yes!"she thought.

Using her tactic, she closed the distance between her and the drone, hanging her riffle on her back and extending her hand. Then, in a flash of light, a familiar katana appeared in her hand.

"Aaaaaaaahhhh!"Neptune exclaimed, swinging it and jumping forward.

The blade easily cut through the metal legs of the drone as Neptune flew under it. Machine was too slow to react to these events and before it knew, lower parts of it's legs started slowly falling towards the ground.

Neptune came to landing and turned around, making her blade disappear, while she also pulled out her riffle again. This time, however, she aimed the weapon's inbuilt cable launcher. She fired it and it attached to the machine's body.

"You too!"she exclaimed on the radio.

Three other goddesses quickly joined her in her effort. Drone, unable to process what just happened, was helpless, as three more cables attached to it and before long, it was pulled down. When it fell, it threw up a cloud of dust.

When they made sure it was down, goddesses aimed at it's weapons and destroyed them in quick succession. Next, Noire ran up to the underside of the machine, planting the explosive on it. She quickly returned to the rest and pulled out a detonator.

"Time for fireworks."she said, pressing the button.

Explosion that occurred tore apart the underside of the drone, as well as ripping apart it's internal systems. Soon, the turret fell to the ground, while various parts started spinning in the air, flying away into the void.

Goddesses stood there for a few seconds, taking it in.

"We actually did it."Blanc said.
"Now that's what I call teamwork!"Neptune said, putting her hand up.

All four goddesses did a high five.

"Great job!"Artisan said in their comms."I knew you can do it!"
"So I guess I have to thank you for that influx of share energy?"Neptune asked.
"So that what it was?"Noire said."I knew I felt something familiar."

"Then that means…"Blanc said.

She focused her thoughts and then, her hammer appeared in her hand. Same with Vert's spear and Noire's rapier.
"It's been some time since I held it."Vert said.
"Same here."Noire said.
"Apparently, everyone in base is already giving us enough share energy that it's enough for all of us."Blanc said.
"That would make sense."Artisan said."Everyone here is cheering for you."
"Then tell them to wait for us. We're gonna have a party!"Planeptune's CPU smiled.

Two hours later…

In the base, CPUs' room

CPUs quickly returned back inside the base, where after leaving their equipment at the armory, they went to the canteen. There, they were met with all members of the resistance cell, which were cheering for them loudly. Not long after, Artisan allowed some heavier drinks to be brought from temporary retirement. Soon, everyone made a toast for goddesses and their (for now partial) return of powers. Goddesses left after they noticed, that everyone is getting really, REALLY drunk real fast.

Right, the four of them were sitting in their room, when Artisan entered.

"You did great out there, didn't know if I told you already."she said.
"You did, at the party."Neptune said."But please, praise us more…"
Noire rolled her eyes.
"So, what will happen with that drone now?"she asked.
"I sent some engineers to check it."commander replied."While most of the internal systems are fired, surprisingly, it's ammo supply, AKA it's battery, survived, as well as the turret. We already decided to mount this on our ship."
"Good, more firepower is always appreciated."Vert said.
"Especially if we want to liberate the whole system."Blanc said.

"Indeed."Artisan agreed."Engineers say, that it should take only three days to get everything ready. After that, we can start planning our next moves."

"By the way, how did this drone find it's way out here?"Blanc asked."Do we know anything about it?"
"Fortunately, main computer also survived. Apparently, this machine got off course and simply ended up here by accident. Even more fortunately, during the landing, it's transmitter was damaged beyond repair, so it could not transmit any signals towards the enemy."Artisan explained.

This actually made goddesses shudder. Knowing that everything was because of luck was actually scary.
"I fear what happens when our luck runs out."Neptune said.
"So am I."Artisan said, sighing."But that's not important now. I'm also glad, that you were able to regain at least a fraction of your power."

Neptune lifted her hand and her katana appeared in it.

"Hell yes!"she exclaimed."And this is just the beginning! Before long, we will simply barge in Keya's home and throw her off the pedestal!"
"I like your enthusiasm. But I still think we should wait at least for another opportunity to strike them. Until than, rest. You deserve it."

With that, she turned and left the room, with the door closing behind her. Four goddesses looked at each other.

"Now, that we slowly get our powers back, nothing can stop us!"Neptune said.
"I agree."Blanc said."If we let more and more people know about our return, the more share energy will we receive."
"And thanks to that, we will regain our ability to transform."Noire said.
"And when we do, Keya will never know what hit her."Vert said, hitting the inside of her hand with her fist.
"Yeah!"CPUs exclaimed at the same time.

XXX

And here we end for this part of the story. As always, remember to leave a review, follow and favorite. It will be highly appreciated!