Chapter 7 Part 3 of 3 (Patreon)

Edmond got the Support and the Attack fleet circling Vehpolis while his Main fleet floated above the collapsing controlled area of the city.

The civilians had made a mad dash to the south and the teleportation pads, disappearing back to Kircross as fast as the lines could move.

“Tigers gave them the strength they needed,” Esther said.

“They held out longer than I thought they would, the Vehpolis fighters held their own.” Edmond said.

“Takes a certain kind of person to hold out in such a situation. Lieutenany Brigadier Yui is moving to position firebreak.”

The map updated as the line across the southern edge of the mountain shifted as one mass, flooding down through the streets.

Three, two one.

The Main Fleet fired every weapon they could bring to bear on the area right ahead of the defensive line. The Attack fleet flew over head just a few minutes apart, carpeting the area in bombs.

Resolute bucked as her accelerators tore through a devourer and four city blocks behind them.

The Alvan fleet laid down a wall of destruction that nothing living could pass.

***

While Erik and his four special teams were in the southwest, Rugrat and his teams lay in the southeast.

He lowered his rifle and looked over to the people going through the teleportation pads, a constant stream.

George shifted in his chair, yawning and stretching.

Rugrat went back to watching the street through his scope and the hole in the wall.

“Keeping you up?”

“Just been in one place for a long time, how do you sit there all day and not get bored?”

“Practice, training and just start thinking of other things, you can entertain yourself out of boredom most times.”

Kestrel’s came into land near the teleportation pads, dropping their ramps as medics rushed them down, the civilians halted as wounded were teleported to the field hospital in Kircross.

“You think that the Shattered are going to hide in the mountain till we leave?”

“come on George, don’t tempt fate like that, I hope to hell they do.”

“You scared that they’re going to get stronger and then we wont be able to take this place back?”

Rugrat paused. “I hadn’t really thought of it that way. I guess the longer that they are here the stronger they’ll get with time. Makes me wish that we could blow that mountain even more.”

“What if we can’t cut off the tears?”

“Then the ten realms is going to be seven realms real quick. Need to push them back, the lower they get, the safer it is for them to cultivate and get stronger, up here, about one in five will survive cultivating, in the third realm, they can cultivate as much as they want and they’ll be just fine.” Rugrat sighed, looking over his sight. “the ten realms is just ten planets, the shattered realms, not even the Elves and Gnomes knew how many worlds were connected. They have to use tears to get into the ten realms but there are gateways across their planets connecting them like one messed up spider’s web. There are a lot more of them than there are us.”

“So why aren’t we helping the Imperium?”

“You heard Glosil the plan the Imperium had, while it sounds good, clear out the ninth realm, it wasn’t a plan, the more we looked at it they were trying to get control over our forces and our resources.”

Rugrat’s sound transmission flashed with a priority message.

“Check your maps, movements in the dungeons. All forces pull back to the south west and south east rally points.” Glosil said.

“Shit”, alarms were going off under the city as the shattered used the dungeons to advance underground.

The warships opened fire, tearing through buildings, streets and the ground below to cut them off.

It split the shattered, but groups went deeper and others moved too fast to be caught by the attacks.

The lines had shrunk down in the last couple of hours, now they started to shift again as units withdrew, herding the last civilians. A line appeared between the forces splitting East and West.

The Main fleet pulled back, watching over the retreating forces, moving towards Rugrat’s position. The Support fleet moved to the south Western fallback.

“Should slow the shattered some,” Rugrat watched the battle, biting his lip. “Get ready.”

George grabbed his machine gun and moved to his stone reinforced window, watching the road.

People flooded back to the teleportation pads as officers checked their defences again, they’d turned four square blocks into a walled base.

Rugrat saw the shattered advance, marked wit the collapse of buildings and rail cannon fire tearing apart the ground, matching the shattered advance.

The last units pulled back inside the base’s walls, Rugrat silently prayed for the evacuation to speed up.

“Fire in the hole. Fire in the hole! Fire in the hole!”

Charges went off in series, cutting down buildings and creating a moat around the camp, the dust cleared to reveal the dungeons below.

Machine guns opened fired as they spotted targets.

“Eleven o’clock!” Rugrat fired, killing a shattered metal tree covered in lightning.

George fired, tracers cutting through the group of trees as Rugrat fired, targets appearing in the dozens.

“Third company pull back!” Niemm yelled.

Rugrat tuned out the orders, focusing on his piece of real-estate and keeping it clear. The Main Fleet hung in the sky above, tearing through the city and the dungeon floors below.

Beasts jumped the gap between the city and the fallback location’s island.

Rugrat and George killed some, but there were too many and the weight of fire from the other buildings had slackened.

“All remaining units, prepare to pull back as one. Execute spell scrolls on my orders, you will be pulling out via corvette!” Niemm yelled. “One minute!”

Rugrat tapped a spell scroll on his carrier and fired, flinging a shattered back, he fired as fast as he could pull the trigger on the next three.

“Reloading!” Rugrat tore out his old magazine and smacked in a new drum and looked through his sight.

“Shit, got a devourer,” He shot as he talked. “Back in!”

The thing looked like a demon, humanoid, horns, tail and three sets of hands with metal and lava falling from several wounds.

The Demon flinched from the rounds but it continued to run, even as George brought it under fire. Spears shot out of the ground and exploded next to the house in shredding spikes, the side of the building and roof were shredded with thousands of metal shards, the barrier stack complaining and filling the air with the smell of hot metal and ozone.

“Pull spell scrolls and pullback!” Niemm yelled over the howl of corvette engines as the first dropped down into the center of the camp.

Rugrat pulled on the tab of the spell scroll on his vest, quickly aiming it.

Spell formations appeared across the ‘moat’ destructive spells of ever element and color detonated.

Rugrat grabbed the barrier stack formation, pulling out one shard and stabbing in another, he turned the handle, locking the stack into place and hurled it through the broken house and into the moat.

He turned as George jumped out the back of the attic, Rugrat followed him out, dropping four stories to the ground, he took the impact with his legs and ran after George, people were flooding out of the buildings as the first corvette took off, a second coming into land with its ramps already down.

Soldiers ran up the ramps and into the ship’s vast hold.

Rugrat moved to the side, smacking people on the back as they drained into the ship.

The ground started to crack and shift.

“Shattered underneath!” Rugrat yelled, following the last man up the ramp, seeing Niemm running up another ramp.

“Get us up!” Niemm yelled, the corvette’s ramps started to close as the ground began falling away, the Corvette slid backwards and down as the square came apart.

“They’re coming up!” Rugrat yelled as PDC’s fired on the ground below, revealing the shattered infested ground below.

A devourer hit the ships barriers, causing it to jerk to the side as it started to climb and tilt away. Rugrat saw the demon devourer get a face full of jet thrust, tearing its body apart as Rugrat tumbled forward, losing his grip on the grab bar. George grabbed him by his carry handle, grunting as he held onto a standing strap with the other hand. Rugrat grabbed his arm and the grab handle as the ramp doors sealed them in red light.

The corvette leveled off and Rugrat let gravity take him, hitting the ground.

He grunted, rising to his feet.

“Thanks bud,” He nodded to George.

“You know how heavy you are?” George muttered, rubbing his shoulder.

Rugrat rolled his eyes, looking at the seer screen as the main fleet dismantled their fallback position with prejudice, missiles and railcannon rounds pounded into the camp, collapsing the surface into the dungeon below and carrying on deeper down into the ground.

“You good?” Erik contacted him first.

“Was just gonna check in on you. Everyone got out.” Rugrat moved to a drop chair, pulling it down from the wall and sitting.

“We got the corvette express, cleared out, looked like they were trying to pull your ass back down to hell.”

“Yeah it was a close one,” Rugrat felt that jolt from the devourer attack in his bones.

“Main Fleet is going to stay here, mop up as many tears as possible, we’re going to get based in Kircross, Attack and Support fleet are going to merge into second fleet and go tear hunting.”

“Who we going with?” Rugrat reached up and pulled his faceplate off to rub his face.

“Two special teams with each fleet, other four on standby. You want to take first shift?”

“Yeah, you’re better with the hand shaking and smiling crap, give me and George a fight anyday,”

George took off his helmet completely andpulled down the drop seat next to Rugrat, grinning.

“Got it, you’ll be with Team Three and five.”

“Nice,” Rugrat shifted his head, stretching out his neck.

“Any word on the attack to retake the ninth?”

“Nothing yet, I’m not sure if they have headed off yet..

“Yeah, we need to close these damn tears.”Rugrat recalled his talk with George. “If we don’t we’re going to get buried under shattered.”