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

“Clear!” Jynx said behind him as another thump hit the floor.

“I’m out!” Luke yelled, crouching and tossing his magazine, pulling out a fresh one as the old one bounced off the wall in zero-g.

“I got you,” Shiro moved past him, firing on single shot. A fourth thump hit the ground.

“I’m down,” Moose said.

“They’re dead,” Shiro said as Luke hit the bolt release.

“Nice,” Luke pulled up the map, orientating to their location and throwing up a marker.

“Lets push for here.” He didn’t want to get locked down in one location. The enemy would know where they were and move to destroy them if they remained still and they had an objective.

“I’ll take point,” Jynx said.

“Go for it.” Shiro moved to the side, she weaved forward as other impacts came down behind Luke. Another squad entering the ship.

Shiro reloaded as she advanced through the bots.

“I got a marker on them for someone to repair.” Luke said.

“I have tail end Charlie,” Moose said.

“Thanks.” Luke moved to follow Shiro who’d finished reloading.

They worked to cover one another, walking on the walls of the ship, chem lights illuminated most of the ship, lights flickering on and off periodically.

Jynx leaped up a ladder.

“Clear!”

Shiro followed her, facing the other direction.

“Clear here.”

Luke and Moose followed them up.

“The magazine should be two halls bearing one eighty.” Luke checked his map. Ships were orientated Bow, stern and then compass degrees.

They clonked down the corridors, Luke tried to even out his breathing filling his ears, watching every corridor, anticipating someone walking out.

Luke checked his map rapidly as they slowed.

“This is it,” He pinged a door.

“I got the hallway.” Jynx stepped past, aiming down the hall.

“I have the door.” Shiro reached out and grabbed the wheel in its middle.

“Ready,” Luke aimed at the doorway.

Shiro yanked the wheel, the four bars disconnecting as he hauled the heavy door open.

Luke rushed in, short catwalk over row upon row of missiles secure in their cradles pointed towards the outer hull.

“Clear left!”

Nothing moved, no shots rang out as Shiro pushed to the right. “Clear right.”

Jynx, Moose pull into the doorway, Shiro see what you can do about fucking up the feeding mechanism.”

“On it.” Shiro clamped his rifle deactivating his boots and jumping over the railing into the missile magazine.

Luke pulled his eyes from the sleek weapons of war, lined up to feed into the acceleration rail that would carry them through two outer decks and the launch port out into space.

“Echo one at Missile magazine three, I have my guy breaking the feed mechanism now.” Luke keyed the command channel, checking his map. Fighting was breaking out across the ship.

“They’re trying to get the ship back into action, most of them are focused on the engineering spaces associated with the engines.” A squad leader called out. “They have bots with weapons too.”

“Magazine five is secure, working to disable it.”

“Dropship launching from the hangar, watch out!” Another squad leader yelled.

The dropship pushed out of the hangar, its turrets firing on dropships releasing bots, tearing through the ships, two missiles struck both ships before they had time to react.

The Destroyer shook from the near-blast.

Must be HE not nuclear.

Incoming dropships fired at the enemy dropship, it threw out flares firing wildly, missiles spewing free from its racks. Trying to get them out before it could be destroyed.

Friendly dropship turrets peppered the enemy dropship, holing it as they spewed chaff.

Another ship was hit with a missile, the others untouched as the enemy dropship stopped firing. Friendly ships fired into the forward sections of the dropship until a salvage marker appeared on the ship.

“The hell was that?” Jynx asked.

“Enemy dropship attacked our reinforcements. Its dead now, but we lost three dropships and its made a bigger mess in our LZ.”

“Feed mechanism is broken good.” Shiro said.

“Good, lets get out of here, weld the door shut and we can help our people down in engineering, hit the defenders from the side.”

They left the magazine, other squads accessing the other magazines and breaking their launch capabilities. Reactors were cut off as Legion bots swarmed the ship.

“Engineering should be up ahead,” Luke pitched his voice low, tense from the long path they’d taken around all the fighting.

“Grenades first and then kill as many as you can, draw them out of the fight with our people.” He looked at Jynx and Moose holding grenades, he held up his and thumbed it, them doing the same, he waited a half-second and opened the door, pitching his in as hard as possible at an enemy marker.

They threw in theirs as well and backed up, pulling up their rifles. The grenades went off in three off-time thumps. Jynx led, Moose right behind her.

“Going in.” Luke said for Shiro.

“Behind you.” Shiro said.

“There, behind that power module!” Moose yelled.

“Got them!”

Luke rolled in to the left, behind Jynx.

“By the lines.” Luke saw movement but not the angle.

A burst threw the bot out from its hiding place, dead.

“Nice kill.” Luke saw movement, aimed and fired, killing a bot with a repair tool one with a rifle followed afterwards, Luke put them down before they could aim.

Luke heard the fighting without seeing it.

“Grenade out!” Moose yelled on local. Jynx and Luke held their advance, the grenade went off, throwing out bot and ship shards.

“Moving up.”

Luke followed Jynx, trying to look where she wasn’t. She stopped at a burst hitting ahead of her. “Watch where you’re shooting dumbass!”

“My bad!” A friendly said.

More bots were moving into the room, linking up with Luke and his group, clearing out the remaining defenders and engineers in a rush.

[Broken Skies Destroyer]

[Capturing]

[1%]

“Rez the bots for our people to use and keep pushing, we out number the defenders five to one now.” The assault’s commander ordered.

“Shiro get any bots you can up and running.” The counter climbed up steadily, more bots entering the ship every second.

“The ship is firing its thrusters. Dropships get clear.”

The wall pulled Luke towards it.

“Damn, can someone take out those thrusters!” A squad leader asked.

“I’m near a relay, working on it.” Another said.

“Shiro you keep working on getting bots back online, Jynx, Moose we’re heading to the bridge.” Luke added a marker.

“Catch you later.” Shiro said.

Moose had point as they moved through the ship, meeting up with friendly squads, pushing for the last bastion in the ship.

The pressure disappeared as they reached the bridge.

“Cut the relay, but we’re in a spin.” The squad leader that had been working on the thrusters said.

“Keep up the push.”

[Capturing]

[67%]

They weren’t the first squad to reach the bridge. Bots with repair tools cut into the bridge’s reinforced doors, their squads ready behind them.

Luke’s and two others were waiting down the adjoining corridors.

“Grenades!” Someone called out.

Luke backed up, barely hearing the faraway explosions through the bridge doors.

[Broken Skies Destroyer]

[Captured]

“Nice work everyone, good capture, those working on the bridge doors get them open. Those who broke the missile launch systems, fix them again. Anyone else jump back to Sanctorium, the engineers will take over. Dropships re-route to the other warships we’re working to capture.”

“Command says for everyone but Shiro to jump back. They want you to fix what you did to the missile launcher.

“Okay, and the bots?”

“I’d say repair as many as you can, engineers are going to get all of ours anyway.”

“Gotcha, see you back in Sanctorium.”

***

“This is why I said we shouldn’t attack Sanctorium.” Tao said into the silence, his arms crossed and his eyes closed.

He opened them to look at the Krixtan guild leader glaring at him.

“The Legion have been a resourceful clan. The Iron Admiral leads their fleets, Ichika their fighter craft, Foster their ground forces. Each are veterans in their own rights. The Miner King runs their resource gathering and Minnie runs their shipyards and factories. The rivalry between them and the Star Kings has been great for views, allowing us to gain more than we lose in each battle. They are good at fighting and they manage their building and material gain well. When they saw the attack they reacted by immediately selling off their other nodes for fear that they would fight off an attack on multiple fronts.”

A message appeared in the corner of his vision, his eyes narrowing. “They have just incorporated, becoming a security contractor.”

“What would you think about another attack Tao?” Ella Waris asked from the head of the conference table.

“We now know that they have a defense network hidden around Sanctorium. Warships are a limited resource, we will have to lose a lot of them to remove the threat of the Legion fleet. Unless we are willing to go in with a fleet two or three times bigger than the last, or have four times as many dropships and hellcats, Sanctorium will stand.”

Ella looked away from him. The walls of the room showed maps of different nodes under attack.

Battles were being waged across the Orion System. Other groups had launched their own attacks against the guilds in the room.

Fights were breaking out everywhere, heating up to levels seen only at the opening of Sphere World and the Guild’s rush to claim as much land as possible.

“Focus on whatever you can blackmail, barter and steal from people before the talks begin tomorrow. Afterwards we’ll have to assess. We will have to consolidate our guilds to make the greatest use of them.” Her eyes flittered over the people in the room. A warning and an opportunity.

“Chairwoman Waris,” Tao held his hands infront of him. She raised an eyebrow.

“Are we allowed to use rail cannons on planetary targets?”

She held his eyes and gave a slight nod. “You may plan to use them, but you must come to me to verify their use.”

“Thank you Chairwoman, in that case I have some targets I think that we can wrap up in the next couple of hours. I would also suggest to my fellow guild leaders that they make sure their command posts are located underground. If possible set up dummy command posts to confused the enemy.”