Contagion - Part 4

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.