ShipCore

USD: Seconds after jumping out of Thea’s VTOL

Location: Meltisar, Groundside, 62km north of M-Prime

Air streamed past her suit as she fell like a rock, holding Thea against her suit’s armored chest. An altitude indicator appeared where there should definitely not be an altitude indicator, and Elis let out a curse as the ground quickly raced to meet them.

“Let go, I can handle the fall myself.” Thea shouted at her.

Elis looked down at the NAI and realized she was right. She’d been planning on doing her best to save the squishy human from being splattered on the ground or impaled by the trees below.

“Sure.” Elis shot back before letting go and shoving Thea away to figure out her own falling.

An aggravated “Bitch!” was lost in the airstream as Elis flipped her suit upright and pivoted to give her a quickly disappearing view of the compound. Her suit highlighted smoking towers where turrets had once been. Weapons fire continued to be exchanged by human guards hiding behind narrow window slits.

One of the drones Thea had brought carried a miniature railgun, because flashing lines of light continued to stab into the fortification where weapons were firing from. The defenders had damaged several drones in the air, forcing them into limping, smoking death spirals. They had done more than just flush their ride.

A chime erupted in her helmet, proceeding an excited sailor’s voice. “Goldstrike One, Keystone One. Fire mission inbound to your vicinity. Repeat, orbital strike inbound. Megaton Equivalent. Seek maximum cover, deep shelter if available.”

Keystone. The military had given her the callsign Keystone after Alex had made such a show of rescuing her. Elis clenched down a surge of panic. “Thea! What the fuck is this?”

There wasn’t a response, but a gust of turbulence jostled Elis suit as she dipped lower through the air. Behind the target ‘fortress’ - and that was the correct word for it, ‘compound’ did not cut it close - a hundred-meter cutter rose out of the ground. Earth, rock, and trees poured from the vessel in small waterfalls as it rose higher on linear drive maneuvering jets.

A sliver of fear accosted her as she realized that if that ship lit off its linear drive here, deep in the atmosphere, it would be the equivalent of a large yield missile and certainly everything for miles would be utterly devastated and flattened, including her.

A pillar of light fell from the sky, engulfing the entire area around the vessel, including part of the fortress. It narrowed almost immediately into a narrow beam of fire, skewering the center of the ship and slicing into the earth below. Elis’ suit sensors suddenly whited out, erasing her optical view, leaving her nothing but instruments to go by. She didn’t need visual to tell her what had happened, though. Lasers traveled at the speed of light and low orbit wasn’t that far away.

She braced for impact, locking her suit joints and setting her impact gel for maximum cushion and dampening. Turbulence from the shockwave hit her first and threatened to send her into an uncontrolled spin, but a small puff from her suit’s anemic thrusters righted her quickly.

Then something hit her in the back. Or she hit something.

Treetops cracked and snapped as she fell through them like an oversized cannonball, branches shattering as she crashed through them. One thick trunk was strong enough to survive. She bounced off it, sending her into another set of branches, like a pinball. A few seconds later, she slammed into the forest floor, her legs cutting through the soft loam like a knife.

Thankfully, she only sank up to her armpits. Heart pounding, Elis checked her HUD for any reported medical injuries and found herself in one solid piece; the suit systems had managed to turn a deadly, several kilometer freefall, into a very long hardly bothersome jump.

Then the blast wave slammed into the forest; trees bent while loose and weak branches snapped in the sudden gust, sending debris flinging through the forest floor. Debris smacked and bounced off her armored shell with loud cracks. The sudden storm ended as quickly as it arrived, before reversing in an implosion, hurling everything back toward the center of the blast.

Her HUD re-initialized her optical sensors finally, and the surrounding forest flashed to life. Pine needles floated in the air, creating a green snowfall all around. A rolling hill bank obstructed her vision of the target’s fortress. Elis let out a tense breath and forced herself to relax for a second as silence descended on the area.

The crunch of footfalls on the abused terrain. Elis’ HUD highlighted Thea in a green, flashing bounding box before the IFF confirmed she was an ally.

“Do you need me to dig you out?” Thea said as she came to a stop nearby.

Elis glared at her from inside her suit. “Why, why did we come here if you were going to drop an orbital strike on it anyway?”

“They have hostages.” Thea offered.

Elis’ eyes narrowed. “They were shooting back at us!”

Thea frowned, “That’s not exactly mutually exclusive.”

Elis felt a chill fill her. If the NAI was brainwashing his victims and using them to man the fortress there was going to be a lot of blood on their hands.

Reaching out to her sides, she tried to lift herself out of the hole she’d made. Her arms began to sink into the churned earth, and Thea grabbed one arm to help lift her out.

That was enough to make a difference, helping her to get a leg out of the loam. With a foot underneath her, she pulled herself the rest of the way out, but the dirt underneath began to collapse into the hole. Stumbling forward and away from the impact site, she nearly fell face first but her suit systems automatically compensated and turned the stumbled into a hop.

“None of our MainComputers had any idea there was a ship buried. Not even big-N. Shouldn’t be possible with Meltisar’s surveillance records.” Thea offered.

“Yeah, well, ships don’t just grow on trees.” Elis complained. “It got there somehow.”

“It might have actually been grown there, we don’t know.” Thea said.

Elis grunted, and they made their way up the bank of trees. As soon as they reached the crest, the full view of the fallout came into sight. A giant mushroom cloud floated up into the sky, and the skeleton of the ship lay broken in half, laying on its side and embedded into one of the lower wall segments. Embers from burnt material littered the forest and fields around the compound.

Drones continued to fire rockets into several turrets; that there was anything left of the fortress still standing was amazing, much less defenders still capable of firing toward the attacking drone units.

“Thea, this qualifies as FUBAR.” Elis said flatly.

Thea looked at her and frowned. “We’re still in one piece.”

“You called down an orbital laser strike on our position!” Elis hissed.

A chime reached both of them at the same time. Tia’s face appeared. “Are you both alright?”

“We’re fine.” Elis said.

“I have the Admiral of the 1st Fleet on the line telling me you hijacked one of his battleships to las-lance the planet somewhere near the capital?” Tia asked politely, but Elis couldn’t miss the quiet tension in her voice.

Thea and Elis shared a look.

“We’re apprehending the rogue NAI.” Thea explained.

“They had a ship; it was about to light off its Linear drive.” Elis continued.

Tia stared at them both, not buying what they were selling.

Elis felt a moment of relief when her favorite head of blue hair appeared, leaning over the Princess’ shoulders, excitement brimming in her eyes. “Elis! Is that your new power armor? It looks so badass!”

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