Ravens of Eternity

289 Desperate Ambush, Pt Dish towers all around the block began to fall down one after another. The first few crashed down violently, and caused all manner of debris to get flung around. The dishes themselves were reduced to massive hunks of useless scrap, and allowed beams of Photon energy to beam down directly onto the planet.

The shadowy canopy began to have a handful of holes in it, and the bright golden Ray shone down from above, and began to very slowly slag the titanium carbide towers that lay wrecked under them.

Almost nothing could directly withstand such pure energies, except perhaps raw omnitronium. Of course even that would eventually melt down, though it would take years to do so.

“You know, no matter how many thugs you send at me,” Freya taunted That Idiot, “They’ll just end up crippled, or with their bones broken, or shot to pieces, or burned to a crisp. All of them. You really oughta just quit while you’re ahead.”

“You lawless slagbrain!” he cried in response. “You don’t get to talk to Peacekeepers like that! We’re the law here, and you’re goddamned vermin! Scum! Trash! We exist to wipe you off the face of the galaxy!”

“Hmph. Big talk for a small boy. If you had any sense, you’d take your people and run as far as you could.”

“You’d want that, wouldn’t you?”

Freya narrowed her eyes with a predatory glare.

“No,” she said. “I want you to die. Slowly. Painfully. So keep chasing after us and see what happens.”

.....

That Idiot was immediately incensed by her words. It shot right through him and caused his hands to shiver from unabated anger.

Images of stomping Freya into the ground filled his mind. They made him want to scream.

With no other recourse, he pressed his secondary weapon triggers on his control sticks, and fired rockets at Freya blindly. They left white-hot trails as they corkscrewed in her direction, but without precise targeting simply flew in every direction.

One struck the ground far too early and exploded on impact. It tore apart the titacrete underneath and blew a few chunks of it in the air. A few others smashed into the walls or a random dish tower, and caused some amount of damage to them.

Freya herself swerved sharply to the right and allowed a rocket to careen past. It flew erratically into a dish tower, and severely dented it. The dish itself began to lean over, but stopped almost as fast as it began.

Without skipping a beat, Freya overcharged her beamcannon and sliced through the tower, right where the rocket did the most damage. Her beam cut through the thick titanium carbide, and caused it to complete its collapse just as she cruised by.

The top half of the dish tower began to fall once again. Like all the others, it splintered to pieces from the initial impact, then crumpled up as the dish fell on itself. At the same time, the Photon Ray from above began to creep across the ground as the dish tipped over.

That Idiot, along with the Peacekeepers at his side overcharged their thrusters as they sped towards Freya. They passed right on by even while the dish itself was still falling, and were whipped by the tension wires all around.

Their armor was lacerated as a result, and left gaping streaks across their chassis.

While they recovered and moved back into formation, Freya spun around and switched from her rear thrusters to her front. She pumped as much energy as she could spare into them, and skated backwards.

She wove between dish towers as she targeted each of the Peacekeepers, then fired her beamcannon at them without interruption. The beam struck their armor, close to where the lacerations had torn into them, and compounded their wounds.

Every time she fired her beam, she cut off more and more of their armor paneling, and slowly took them apart piece by piece.

They fired back with the best of their abilities, but their lack of targeting simply caused them to impact everything around her. And anything that luckily struck ended up being absorbed by her shield instead.

Freya grinned wildly as she took That Idiot and his Peacekeepers apart, bit by bit. It was a vindictive move on her part, but it felt oh-so-satisfying.

In another quadrant, Kali punched her thrusters and launched forward violently. She grit her teeth as she wove between dish towers and evaded enemy fire as she did so.

She reared her bearded greataxe back, overcharged her arms, then swung at a dish tower with as much force as she could apply. It cleaved straight through the weakened point cleanly, and caused the whole thing to topple almost immediately.

Kali had long since stopped using her machine pistols and instead switched to her bearded greataxe. Simply because the pistols were only C-ranked to begin with. They could do a little damage to the towers, but it would have taken dozens of rounds to accomplish.

Her omnitronium axe had no such problems.

She was certain that with enough power it could topple fresh, undamaged towers to the ground. It was undeniable that she could take a weakened one down with ease.

The tower fell down behind her, and caused massive damage like the others. The Peacekeepers chasing her were forced to overcharge their thrusters just to avoid being crushed by it, and sped forward in a burst of power.

Though they were peppered with debris and broken parts, they just barely were able to make it through.

Except for one.

He lagged behind just enough that he was caught by the dish itself. It crashed down on top of him, then folded in on itself from its weight. He and his mecha were flattened instantly by the gigantic dish.

There wasn’t even a whimper as his life ended violently, crushed by tons of metal and circuitry.

Though the others by his side were lucky and daring enough to get through, it wasn’t without problems. They were briefly under the exposure of the Photon Ray, and their internal modules cooked slightly for a few seconds.

They fired their rifles and rockets at Kali in anger, and in retaliation for the loss of their comrade. Their shots peppered the area around her, and did even more damage to the towers around.

So, she responded the only way she could. Kali screamed as she reared back, then she swung her axe again and toppled yet another tower in a single stroke.

~

The hatch down in the substructure’s admin booth opened up, and a sliver of light from above shone through. The entire substructure floor was completely dark, as this wasn’t open to the sky above like the other floors.

There were also streaks of dust everywhere, clearly a sign that it was barely used.

Claire and Azrael flew in from above gracefully. The drones set them down on the ground, then immediately sped out to the substructure floor to scan it for enemies.

At the same time, the two girls went to the terminal, wiped the thin layer of dust on it, and activated it. They brought up the floor’s layout itself, and scanned it for what they needed.

Unlike the floors above, this floor was only about 15 meters high. Besides that, there was machinery and offices and all sorts of ancillary systems all around the floor itself. Some in the middle, some around the edges, and many everywhere in between.

The floor itself had a host of various functions – a portion of it was reserved for the databanks. Another held the massive power storage units. The warehouse even had an emergency security bunker filled with weapons and armor. There was also utility access, maintenance bays, and most importantly, the operations office at the other end.

The two of them quickly headed out, and went straight down the middle towards the operations office. And because it was rather dark, their helmets automatically activated night vision mode.

Claire and Azrael were able to see relatively clearly, even if everything was a drab grayscale.

They walked past the largest cluster of databanks, all of which were stacked on top of each other in massive racks that were exactly 8 meters tall. They were joined by multitudes of circuits and servers, all of which had numerous little lights on them that blinked and danced across their front plates.

The racks themselves were enclosed in reinforced, climate-controlled enclosures that kept everything inside free of dust and debris. There were terminals on each end of the row of racks, all of which appeared to be on standby.

The dull glow of the SSS logo was on all their screens, though they slowly faded in and out over and over again.

At the very center of the floor were large power storage banks which towered over everything else on the floor. The storage banks hummed with power, and their vibrations could be easily felt the more the two drew closer. The banks were 12 meters tall and were laid out in a circular arrangement surrounding a central pedestal.

The pedestal itself looked as though a handful of people could stand in it, and operate the power banks via the terminals that ringed the pedestal itself. Like the terminals in the databanks, these also had the SSS logo on their screens.

Not that the girls were interested in them in the slightest. They kept on going and headed straight to the other end, towards their true destination.

There, the large operations office stood regally, as though it watched over everything. While the entrance was down at the bottom, the office itself was roughly ten meters up. Its windows were angled downward, and peered out to the floor in front of them.

Azrael and Claire quickly went through the door, then took the gravity lift up to the main ops floor.

There, they were greeted with all manner of workspaces that all faced towards the windows. Each and every single one of them was relatively clean and clear despite the dust, though a few still had random personal effects. As though whoever used it before simply forgot they were there.

And all their terminal screens glowed with the SSS logo, as every other screen down here did.

Like everywhere else, the office had a thin layer of dust all over every surface. Though there were a few terminals that had seen some recent use, and the dust around them was cleaned off somewhat.

Especially the terminals at the windows themselves. There, a handful of standing terminals sat along the edge, and peered out to the floor below. The two went over to the largest one in the center, which was mostly dust-free, and had clearly seen recent use.

When they activated it, the SSS logo faded away, and the main menu was open to them. Claire went through every operation available to them in search of the one they wanted. Here, there were all sorts of systems access controls, such as drone instructions, ceiling retraction, power regulation.

And of course, the gravity locks.

“You know which pad Amelia’s on?” asked Azrael. “It’s not like they’re clearly marked or anything.”

“Not really,” Claire answered. “But we don’t need it.”

She quickly flipped a few toggles on the screen, and shut down every single gravity lock on their floor, one by one by one. Once she was done, Azrael shot the terminal itself with her stun pistol, and sent a large amount of electricity through its circuits.

It shut down and shorted out as a result.

The two ran back out as fast as they could, excited to get Amelia back. They simply couldn’t wait to hop back in, power her on, and get the hell off the planet.

Both wore smiles that they simply couldn’t wipe off, even if they tried.

And as they passed the array of power banks, Azrael stopped and stared at the pedestal.

“Wait,” she said. “I’ve got an idea.”

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