Sliding Reality: Chapter 6 Part 4 of 5 (Patreon)

Luke fired his jets to push himself back to the ground.

“Keep moving!” He grabbed the ammunition pack he’d let go of, sailing for the blinking turret. He slapped the ammunition pack in, the red light turning green as it spat light out into the darkness. Explosions bloomed, silent light illuminating the corridors under the asteroid eater’s skin the turrets poked out of.

Luke pulled the other ammo pack from his back, tearing the empty one out of the way and slapping in a new one. He pushed the box out of the way.

“Need a hand!” Moose yelled.

“Coming!” Luke yelled.

“Damn turret is messed up.”

Luke pushed down the corridor, and into the bay the turret was in.

Moose had one boot locked on the floor, his hand holding the turret as he kicked at the missile ammunition box stuck in place.

“Looks like the cylinder is jammed.” The missile cylinder kept trying to rotate into position and then releasing. Luke grabbed the turret’s frame and pulled himself up. A rock had got stuck in the cylinder mechanism.

“Gotcha!” Moose said, the box coming free as he slapped the other in place.

Luke grabbed his repair tool, using the grip to hit the stone free. The cylinder rotated and fired.

“Good here!” Luke pushed for the door. “Going for more ammo!”

The asteroid eater’s turrets had been stripped of ammunition, turning the defenders into glorified ammunition bearers.

Luke grabbed onto a bar, people flying down the hallway to guns further down the battery. He launched himself back to the service elevator. The ceiling smacked him in the back, throwing him into the floor. He grabbed onto a bar to arrest his force, grabbing someone else windmilling.

“The fuck was that?”

“Nuke, close by!” Jynx said.

“Fuckers.” Shiro spat.

“Thanks dude.” The windmiller said, holding onto a grab bar.

“No worries.” Luke took off deeper into the asteroid eater where the ammunition containers were waiting.

Part of the hallway had been blown in, Luke threw himself outside the asteroid, turrets shooting streams up into the darkness, to find missiles or enemy ships.

His jets pushed him back down past the collapsed section of the hallway. Under the asteroid he kept one eye on where he was going, the other on his map.

The three enemy fleets had stirred the hornets nest.

“Missiles!” Moose yelled.

Every guild ship fired their load and burned hard in any direction they thought would get them to safety.

Luke grabbed onto a grab bar, his map showing missiles detonating, light spraying through every opening to space from the corridor.

Purple enemy missile markers winked out, but not all of them could be stopped. Some of the shuttles that were still pushing the asteroid in the asteroid eaters maw were struck.

The asteroid cracked, being forced into the asteroid eater with the force.

A small shipyard’s defense couldn’t keep up, missiles hit its structure, tearing and twisting apart sections of its skeleton.

It went on for several seconds. The map clearing to show the enemy ships fleeing.

“What the hell?” Luke muttered.

“Really are the corporations in control, as soon as they saw that they couldn’t take Sanctorium and hold they tried to hit us as hard as possible and save as much of their assets as possible.” Jynx said. “If it was a guild alliance then there is no way that they would let this go. A gruelling fight is the best kind of fight, brings in more viewers.”

Luke studied the ships running away.

“Echo One, jump into your prepared bots and load dropships in hanger three, the fleet has requested boarders to clear the remaining enemy warships.” An aide said.

“Understood.” Luke pulled up his map, keying squad chat.

“We’re on boarding duty, jump to our loaded out bots.” Luke jumped into his other bot.

“On it.” Moose said.

The other three arrived in their bots. They jogged out to the hangar, hellcats were being recovered to one side, scuffed and broken, several dropships were being pulled from storage, three on landing pads with their ramps lowering.

Luke ran up to their marked dropship, other squads loading up, locking into their harnesses and storing their weapons.

Luke checked his safety was on more diligently than he would’ve before, locking down.

Two bots checked their harnesses, walking up and down the secured bots.

“Locked and loaded, ready to fly.” One said on local, the ramp closed behind them as they headed up into the flight area, locking into their external turrets.

“Understood. Sanctorium, this is Dropship Romeo One Three, request permission to launch?”

The silence dragged for several seconds.

“Your clear to launch, Romeo One Three.”

“Thank you.” Luke switched camera views, the dropship leaving the hangar and heading out into the dark. He pulled up his map and their target.

“Okay so we’re going to be hitting Destroyer Alpha.”

“Damn the fleet tore them a new one.” Jynx said.

The Destroyer was a slow spinning wreck, metal shards like a halo of ice around it.

“Gives us plenty of ways into the ship. It was one of the last they took out, the engines are out, reactors haven’t been ejected, weapons should be down, but we’re coming in from its most damaged side. We need to clear the ship and claim it.”

“You think that anyone is still alive in there?” Shiro asked.

“Sphere World builds them tough, each inner floor is like another layer of armor.” Moose said.

“We got five minutes till we reach the ship, while she’s busted up on the outside, we all know how a few people with repair tools can make a big difference.” Luke said.

“Bet Fin is going to be kicking himself when he finds out that we went and captured a Destroyer.” Jynx said.

“You said that he’s trying to do something that will protect us?”

“Yeah, he’s incorporating the Legion, that way we’re a security contractor so we’re allowed to have weapons and gear. Then if people want to come after a Legion member, then they have to go after Legion as we’re just working as shareholders of the corporation.”

“You think it will work?”

“The corporations are fighting all over Orion system to get as much land a possible. The Factions are creating their own groups that are doing the same. I think that as long as we have some cover to hide behind we should be fine.”

“But what does this mean, we going to be building freighters or are we building warships to defend what we’ve got?” Moose asked.

“Guess we have to, else someone is going to steal Sanctorium away from us. Its all we have left, if we lose Sanctorium we lose our foothold in Orion.” Shiro said.

“If we had more people then we could have held the other nodes.” Moose leaned his head back against his chair.

They all lapsed into silence. Luke fiddled with his gear and checked his map, stretching as best as he could in the suit.

“Are we criminals now you think?” Jynx asked.

“Depends on where you live. If you’re in the Coalition, then you could be, you could be a tax dodger, or a terrorist.” Shiro held up his hands as if balancing the accusations out. “If you’re in the Federation then you’re a draft dodger. In Sol, you’d be under suspicion, Settled systems, each system is different, but they generally don’t give a shit as long as you pay taxes on your earnings.” Shiro snorted. “The corporations probably want to hire us.”

“We just beat their fleet and attackers,” Luke said.

“We beat the forces under one corporation.” Shiro held up a finger. “There are many corporations and being able to defeat one shows that we’re strong. Becoming a security contractor also means that we are entering into their waters. That we could be bartered with, we have sold gear to others in the past.”

“One minute till we reach the target.” The pilot said.

Everyone started checking their gear.

When capturing a ship there were two basic rules to consider. Each defender counted as five people, each attacker as one, it was possible to capture the ship but you would need a lot of attackers. If you could kill all of the defenders then you would take the ship automatically.

“Remember they attacked us, so if we can just hold our positions on their ship and stop them from leaving the battle space then we’ll take the ship.” Luke said.

[00:38:17]

“How we know if there are any of them left alive?” Moose asked.

“If the crew were all dead then the ship would be marked for salvage,” Jynx said.

The lights turned to amber, harnesses unlocking. Luke stood, grabbing his rifle and clamping it to his back as the ramp lowered, the Destroyer a few dozen meters away. Shards glinted in the darkness a rail cannon scar opening into the flickering depths of the ship.

Luke held onto two grab bars, lining himself up with an opening.

“We’ll aim for there and push inward.” The light turned green. Luke tapped his feet together, his legs floating up as he pulled himself forward on the grab bars and out of the ship. Jets altered him onto target and he flipped going feet first, grabbing his rifle he glanced up at the rain of bots above him and the other drop ships releasing bots.

He looked between his feet, the distance going from the positives to the negatives, inside the scar he adjusted slightly with his jets stretching out his legs.

Metal grinded against his bot as he tapped his boots, hitting the interior corridor of the open corridor. Luke took the impact in a crouch, firing at a group of bots, walking on the walls.

“Enemy!” He stepped forward to clear the opening, feeling the dull thump of someone else landing. His rifle on full automatic as the bots sparked, a part of his brain recognizing the signs of dead bots.