YSS Dawn Hammer, Bridge
The bridge crew worked hard trying to maintain course as air slipping past the shields and pushing its way into the belly of the crumpled hull. Power levels, though much too high, were stable until an alert chimed, an automated engineering report informing of a massive drop in coolant pressure.
Looking to Kaede, “it’s not my call to make, but it might be time to order the crew to abandon ship.”
YSS Dawn Hammer, Reactor Bay
“Honestly, this is a complete guess. The Aether is best described as a ‘ubiquitous sea
of energy’ and a reactor basically opens a portal to that dimension,” he explained to Hiroshiko as the bomb slowly formed, “right now the the ‘portal’ is fully open, so what we need to do is disconnect the reactor from the aether. And that’s where the subspace detonators come, they cause distortions in subspace and should break the link. Just one squeeze of this here remote and pop- no more aether... I’m Dirjon, by the wa-“
His words were cut short as Reaper explosively reappeared, hurling the engineer into a bulkhead and he remote clattering to the floor where he once stood.
Both Moriah and Magenta instinctively raised their arms and opened fire with their forearm weapons. Reaper swiftly danced a gymnastic routine as his subarm weapons fired back. In a moment the reactor bay had become a battleground. Seeing her inability to land solid hits Magenta fired up her aether thrusters and charged the Elysian, only to be kicked into an idle forklift.
Moriah had greater success as she grappled from behind, though the much bigger opponent would have none of it. His powerful, mechanized wings caught her by the arms and flipped her overhead as he spun about. The glow of her wing thrusters was the only warning of the disaster to follow as a beam of white hot aether cleaved through the zesuaium armor plating bisecting the soldier perfectly in half. As the thrusters fired each half of Moriah soared different directions into the coolant lines leading to and from the reactor.
Frost covered the floor and walls as noxious fumes of ammonia and other similarly dangerous, heavy gasses burst into the atmosphere. “Moriah!” cried Magenta as she again charged the winged menace. Reaper staged his scythe in preparation to counter only to find himself in an armlock Dirjon grappled to his swinging arm. Magenta’s pointed knee punctured shield and metal plating as it spiked into the man’s chest and carried him as they both slammed into the reactors durandium plating.
“Lucky shot, kid,” Reaper’s helmet speaker announced over the cacophonous racket of the dying reactor. Grabbing her stabbing leg he pulled her out and slammed her into the floor, indenting her into the alloy flooring.
Not risking a shot from his PEW missing and hitting the already unstable reactor Dirjon rushed toward the intruder with a blade of plasma ignited from his wrist weapon, thrusting for the neck. Reaper ducked swinging his scythe but only striking the zesuaium shield and being knocked aside by the fast reacting Daisy.
As the reactor bay reached dangerously low temperatures the fight devolved into something of a petty fistfight ending in Dirjon being thrown against the same forklift Magenta had hit with enough force to hear a sickeningly wet snap over the chaos. Reaper dragged his scyth, searing the floor as he stepped toward Dirjon who lay slumped against the small vehicle. As he raised his deadly blade for an overconfident execution a full salvo of flares and subspace missiles erupted from Dirjon’s countermeasure pods, swarming the Elysian as the downed combat engineer drew his Armor Service Pistol and emptied all 50 rounds into the fireworks show.
As the smoke settled against the gaseous haze the fearsome Reaper was gone, traces of blood remaining. Dirjon didn’t know much about his situation besides the cold, and yet also the heat. The reactor was smoking, and his body was freezing the cold seeping straight to his bones even through the armor.
He could only hope Hiroshiko had the good sense to have fled the bay before being overtaken by the gunfire or cryogenic fluids and gasses that had now surrounded him and entombed in his armor, now too cold for the nanomuscle to function. One by one subsystems we’re going off-line and all he could do was watch, even as the transparent durandium beneath the armored faceplate of his helmet iced over.
Through the glaze he could see Magenta struggling to stand, her M2-4 naturally more resistant to the cold but obviously succumbing to the cryogenically chilled atmosphere. With one heavy foot over another she defiantly forced the spherical bomb into her arms and plodded on towards the breached coolant pipe closest to the reactor. After pressing hard against the distressed pipe the osmiridium ball fit perfectly into the unaffected section, rolling into the core of the reactor.
With the payload delivered Magenta kept fighting pressing onwards toward Dirjon now but falling short as she fell to her knees. Her nanomuscle had finally frozen, even through the nonconducting zesu plating. He reached out to her with his telepathy but received back only her fear, anger, and desperation in response. Being Dirjon’s third death he responded with only his hope, knowing they’d be brought back from death, if only in his mind.
As his consciousness no drifted quickly away Dirjon sent out his last telepathic broadcast as far and wide as he could muster addressed specifically to Hiroshiko...
“Detonate.”
YSS Nishitama, Military Sector
“Do it, Rikun- but SAINT-up anything classified,” Candon instructed as he stepped off the armor rack checking the aether sidearm on his hip and the two ASBRs stored behind his head on their shoulder mounts, “Rohan, I’ll tell Alpha what we’re doing. Your ladies need you at the helm.”
With a brief, armor-clad handshake Rojon departed to lead the operation, heading into the waiting Type 31 Dropship.
Addressing Rikun and Matsuvo, Candon now took a more professional tone, “alright, here’s what we’re doing. Any minute now the enemy cruisers will make it over the city. Their attention will be towards the ground. Our job is to hit them from above. We’ll be swatting fighters, shuttles, anything that’ll give our troops on the ground a hard time. Our idea is to lob a ton of subspace missiles over the area, teleport in, make a mess, and then get out. I recommend having a capacitor so you can make a quick teleport out before it crashes. Afterwards we regroup with the regular forces.”
At this time yet another cadence started and the century began boarding the dropship.
Planet Himiko, Storage Facility
As the group at the storage facility finished preparations the two battered cruisers hovered high in the skies above, shuttles descending along with small golden specs scattering throughout the city. The Rikugun base was under heavy assault artillery, missiles, and beam weapons flashing under the afternoon sun as the rumbles of explosions echoed throughout the city.
From the passenger seat of Anju’s convertible Masumi took command of the ad-hoc convoy.
“Alena, Thad, take point in the tank and remember to turn on the shield generator,” she directed, “it’s just a pair of Daisy barrier shields on the front so make sure you face whatever is shooting at you. That’s a 35mm machine gun- it’s basically a small cannon.”
“Anju, If we find anything too big for the tank I need you to get me into a position where I can launch a rocket. We only have four so we need to make them count,” she continued, “Menelik, you’re our rearguard, if they hit the car we might not be able to kill the heavy stuff.”
“Our first stop is west-north to another supply house, we’re taking a right out of the facility and a left at the intersection heading west for 9 klicks. Roll out when ready.”