Fitfully progressing through a series of flickers, the lighting in
the sally room off the airlock turned back on even as the ship was
being rocked by a series of heavy impacts. Kassina Vikkonen grimaced
momentarily and then quickly reassured herself that all her men were
unharmed. Muttering curses in Caldari battle slang here and there,
all of them signalled readiness and quickly resumed their equipment
check.
'Are you still sure
you want to do this girl?' the tall Caldari bounty hunter asked the
young Amarrian who seemed unaccustomed to the combat suit she was
wearing. 'Now's the last chance to opt out.' Kassina grabbed hold of
the bulkhead when another salvo hit the ship. 'If we don't get shot
to pieces before we even arrive.' she added grimly.
Seated on a folding
bench, Sylera continued the diagnostic check of her combat suit.
Without looking up she replied. 'I am the most qualified in the sort
of infomorph transfer we need to undertake.'
'We have a medic.'
Kassina Vikkonen said and gestured to encompass her team of
battle-hardened troopers.
Sylera finished the
diagnostics and set the systems of her enhanced armour into their
active state. Micromotors whined as she rose and finally looked up at
the other woman. Kassina still stood head and shoulders taller than
the lightly built Amarrian.
'Sandrielle is my
teacher, my sister and my friend.' Sylera said. 'I have been in the
hands of the enemy myself once. I will not let her endure this and do
nothing. If she is still alive, I want to be there.'
Kassina pressed her
thin lips together. 'You are a capsuleer, you should be out there, in
a ship, fighting.'
'So are you.'
Sylera replied and extended her hand to receive the weapon Kassina
had been holding for her. 'So what are you doing here?'
'I wouldn't want to
let my men go into battle without me.' Kassina nodded in
understanding, but her expression remained full of doubt.
The Caldari could
only respect the bond those wormhole capsuleers shared with each
other, but she did not trust in the combat effectiveness of this
fine-featured and frail-looking Amarrian. Her men, and herself, have
all come through the intense training of the harshest Civire battle
schools. Every single one of them had years of combat experience.
They were her hand-picked best. The girl had a point though. If they
reached their objective, they would have to extract the infomorph of
Sandrielle Jaunes into a remote clone and override whatever systems
The Hive could have linked her to. Finally Kassina shrugged and
handed Sylera the electromagnetic rail-assault gun.
'Everyone should be free to choose the
way how they die and what they die for.' Kassina smiled thinly. 'Just
try not to get in the way too much.' she added more seriously.
'Attack squad. Prepare for boarding, we
will dock with the enemy ship in ten.' a crewman's voice informed
them via the intercom. Moments later the deck shuddered as the
airlock connected with the Hive supercarrier. Kassina's men readied
their weapons while the lock pressurized and slowly slid open.
Sylera put on her helmet and took her
position at the rear, and then the outside portal of the airlock
opened the way into the Hive vessel.
***
Fighter craft and
drones swarmed around the enemy battleships which were persistently
closing range. The amount of tracking disruption they faced from
Rasenzoku recon ships forced them to concentrate their fire on the
three carriers. Everything else was just moving too fast. In the
meantime a squadron of Rasenzoku battleships and battlecruisers did
what they could to decimate the heavy assault ships which The Hive
had launched from the vast hangars of the supercarrier.
In
the middle of that
maelstrom of destruction, massive
utility portals opened on
the underside of the Oni, proud
member of the Rasenzoku carrier wing. Powerful
tractor fields activated and carried modular elements the size of
small buildings from the Oni
to it's sister ship the
Stormguard. Likewise,
elements of the other Archon carrier decoupled themselves from the
ship's superstructure and floated toward the Oni. In
an effort to maximize their effectiveness, the two capital ships
switched roles in the middle of the battle. While one of them would
focus fully on providing capacitor and repair to friendly ships, the
other other would improve
it's defences to full potential.
Cedrien observed
the daring manoeuvre with surprised interest. It had never occurred to
him to use a carrier's maintenance bay facilities to exchange modular
elements between two such ships. Under the heavy fire they were
facing, it was an innovative tactic to keep either ship in the battle
while the enemy might think they have already broken it's defences.
Cedrien
himself concentrated on directing his fighter wing and sentry drones
to full potential. At this
point they were committed to the fight. With heavy interdictors on
the field, the Hive Nyx was prevented from escaping, but so were
they. Cedrien's sensors registered Alira's Loki releasing itself from
a ventral airlock on the enemy mothership.
'Commando team
deployed!' the Matari capsuleer reported as she engaged her
propulsion module and went into overdrive to escape the trio of Hive
Zealot assault cruisers which were homing in on her. Her defences
were in a precarious state, but she was kept on the verge of
destruction by the streams of dedicated repair nanites issued by
Cedrien's carrier.
Now it would be a
race for time. They did not need to necessarily win that fight, they
just had to hold out long enough for the commandos under Kassina
Vikkonen to rescue Sandrielle. So far, they were doing well. Their
earlier manoeuvre had resulted in a major loss of support and assault
ships for The Hive. Now only the heavier ships and a few scrambled
cruisers were available to them, and the Rasenzoku recon wing did
it's best to keep the effectiveness of both low through the use of
energy neutralizers and tracking disruptors.
They
had endured some minor losses, but the balance of forces clearly
favoured Rasenzoku.
Then an energy flare appeared off the
split bow of the Hive Nyx.
'Enemy cyno active!' was immediately
reported by a number of Rasenzoku pilots.
Now there was no telling what The Hive
might bring into the fight.
***
Slylera twisted right and smashed the
stock of her assault gun into the faceplate of the Hive trooper who
had tried to ambush her from behind. Like an unwinding spring coil
she twisted the other way, pushing with the left palm and sweeping
her left leg across the floor at the same time. The smash, push and
sweep – executed in such quick fashion and augmented by the suit's
systems – floored the armoured enemy. Quickly Sylera took hold of
her weapon with both hands again and sent a salvo of energized
projectiles directly into the neck-seam of the Hive soldier's armour.
The impact ripped his head clean off his body and shattered the
helmet. It's parts slithered across the floor like a gory, broken
eggshell.
'They are coming up behind us.' Sylera
shouted over the combat link as she went back into cover behind the
corner from which she had sprung, barely avoiding incoming fire.
'Tessin, Konai. Cover the rear!'
Kassina ordered over the racket of gunfire and the low, pulsing hiss
of the Hive lasers.
The two mercenaries quickly scrambled
over to assist Sylera. One of them deftly rolled across the opening
of the corridor from which more enemies were approaching. A white
beam painted him and the shield of his suit flared under the strain.
He was thrown into cover rather than moving under his own power. He
signaled OK to his squad-mate before taking position and firing.
They were pinned down now between a
heavy blast door, more Hive troopers coming from the rear and the
contingent which guarded the cellblock that was their objective. The
segmented bulkheads offered some cover, but under continuous fire the
heavy beams and spars had become whittled down. Before long there
would be nothing left to duck behind. More Hive reinforcements
positioned themselves in the corridor behind them. Sylera and the two
mercenaries did their best to hold them off with staggered,
controlled bursts of hybrid charges.
'Wouldn't it be great if we'd brought
something more heavy.' one of Kassina's men quipped after he dove
away when a bulkhead segment exploded into white-glowing fragments
under continuous laser fire.
'Can do.' Kassina growled back.
Dropping behind cover she tapped a switch opening the utility panel
of her gun and blocked the receiver assembly. She set the weapon on
continuous autofire and pulled the trigger until the oversaturation
gauge flashed with an angry red. Then she threw the weapon at the
enemies crouched down around the cellblock entrance. When the
electromagnetic charge proved too much for the weapon's structural
integrity a second later, it exploded into a burst of supercharged
shrapnel that tore through the Hive troopers behind their cover.
Finally they could advance.
'Laaku. Get to work on that door
override. Everyone else fall back to the cellblock entrance now!'
Kassina ordered and sprinted to the defensive position only recently
occupied by the Hive troopers.
Sylera followed and only heard the
strangled scream as the man called Tessin tried to get across the
mouth of the corridor again. This time the laserbeams of the Hive
soldiers penetrated his shields. On her tactical HUD she saw his
signal flash and vanish. 'Tessin's down!' She reported as she slid
into cover and opened fire at the enemies now advancing behind them.
'Here. Hive laser weapon ma'm.' One of
Kassina's mercenaries handed a weapon to his commander, then they all
began to lay down suppressing fire as best as they could.
Ammunition began to run low for most of
them and it would only be a question of time until the Hive brought
in heavy weapons, and now they were with their backs
against the cellblock door.
'Make it fast Laaku!' Kassina urged her
field technician.
'Working as fast as I can ma'm!' Laaku
replied from his position at an opened micro-optronics switchboard as
he connected his codebreaker to the utility port.
Directly opposite from them, the heavy
blast-door which had blocked that route slid open with the whine of
powerful servo motors. An assault squad of more Hive troopers stormed
in recklessly. Two went down under the concentrated fire of Kassina's
unit but the powerful shields of the heavy combat suit that brought
up the rear held.
'Laaku?!' Kassina shouted urgently and
fired her scrambler rifle at the enemy who brought his large plasma
cannon to bear.
'Almost there, almost there!' the
tech-trooper responded just a moment before a plasma discharge
obliterated part of the bulkhead behind him and Konai with it. A
smouldering wound in the ship's interiour structure was all that
remained, bleeding molten metal and compound materials.
Good Stuff.
ReplyDeleteThank you :)
DeleteSo when will you write another one of your nice small vignettes?
More Sandrielle style martial arts pls... Sylera was taught in it... Extensively.
ReplyDeleteMaybe some forbidden dark magic arts too? X'D
Are those Civire mercs Dust mercs or just regulars?
Well, without giving away anything I can tell you that there will be something bordering on magic in the next episode ;)
DeleteThe Caldari are not Dust-style clone soldiers, they are part of Kassina's crew, but of course the technology and weaponry they use is similar.