On the screen, the Broodmother swung its head from side to side, and the mass of creatures divided, each charging outward, spreading to the sides of the human circle.
“Unity, do something!” Martin screamed through the comms. “They’re killing us!”
“Everyone, hold on,” Nori said, grim-faced. “I’m taking us down.” Her hologram wrapped fingers bent downward, and Unity dove toward the densest mass of monsters.
“What the hell are you doing?” Bulco yelled.
The Navigator didn’t answer but her lips thinned in determination. The heavy ship swooped down at the horde, unceremoniously dropping down the last few meters. Hundreds of tons of freighter landed on top of a sizeable mass of the monsters, squashing them into Warped goo and sending many others flying from the impact. Everyone onboard was rattled badly, but the advanced seats managed to absorb the brunt of the shock. Unity took a beating as well. Part of the bridge hull bulked and the large crack on the leftmost monitor broadened. Several holo monitors exploded in a shower of holographic dust.
The desperate maneuver took out nearly half of the charging monsters, but it wasn’t enough. The enraged Broodmother shrieked again and the surviving Warped got to their feet and charged on.
“It isn’t working,” Diamond’s voice came over the comms. “The big one is controlling them. And more are coming at us from the other side. You gotta take her down, Unity.”
Nori quickly recovered. Her fingers spread wide on two different light consoles, and the ship’s hull groaned as she once again limped into the air. “I’m lifting her up. Hold on down there.”
“Structural integrity is down to sixty percent,” Bulco said stiffly, nursing a bruised elbow. “Let’s not use that maneuver too often.”
Nori stared intently at her monitors as she brought the ship back in level with the fort. The Broodmother’s head rose above the walls, staring straight at them. “Noah,” Nori said between clenched teeth. “Shoot that bitch straight in the face.”
At less than fifty meters away, the next cannon shot hit the enormous Broodmother in the neck, blasting away a large piece of metal plating along with a sizeable chunk of flesh. She raised her head and bellowed another earth-tearing shriek.
The mass of charging Warped faltered. Many broke off from their formation and started charging at the human reinforcements circling the hill, exposing themselves. The farthest fighters mowed them down in seconds.
Noah fired again and again, hitting the giant creature in the center of its body, sending pieces of flesh and armored plating flying in all directions. The attacking Warped’s formation broke apart even more, and the strays were quickly picked off by the defenders. The Broodmother screamed, looked straight at the ship and opened her mouth. Nori brought the ship into a dive just as a cone of sharp blades shot out of the open maw. Unity’s hull caught the edge of the blast and the sound of metal pinging against metal filled the bridge.
“We’re okay, we’re okay,” Bulco said urgently, clumsily operating his consoles. “The hull took a little beating, but even incomplete, the new plating soaked up most of the damage.”
“NORI, LOOK OUT!” Lana screamed.
The Navigator's head snapped toward the main viewscreen just in time to see the Broodmother whipping her tail at the diving ship. Caught off-guard, Nori desperately pulled her arms up, trying to dodge the attack, but this time, she was too late.
The entire ship shuddered violently as the semi-trailer-sized tail slapped powerfully against the hull, causing a sea of red indicators to light up. Several power junctions blew out, sending showers of sparks and clouds of smoke to fill the bridge.
Unity was hurled off course, veering dangerously toward the ground. Nori wrestled with the compromised controls and pulled up at the last second, guiding the damaged vessel back to a safe trajectory.
But that wasn’t the end of it.
Noah let out a frightened cry.
The holographic controls around his arms blinked on and off as bright flashes of energy started running up his body. The Gunner managed one last stifled cry before a neural feedback hit his skull. The courageous young man went limp in his seat, his head smoking, his brain fried.
From his pod, Nathan looked up in horror at Noah's limp body. With a silent command, the Gunner’s chair turned on its own, revealing a charred skull where the young Gunner’s face used to be.
***
Everything came to a stop.
“No,” Nathan said firmly as if stating an immutable fact. He was unable to tear his eyes away from the smoking corpse. Flashing images swept through his mind, of people he cared about, dying violently in front of him, while he was powerless to help them.
“No. No. No,” he said with growing conviction.
He was no longer powerless.
Throwing away all fears and caution, he closed his eyes and embraced the Tec.
***
“That shard took out the cannon and blew up a power conduit,” Bulco shouted over the screaming alert. “We can’t shoot anymore, and structural integrity is down to fifty percent!”
Lana paled as she looked at their newest member’s body. But unlike the young Technomancer, she was able to tear her eyes away back to the viewscreen. “Oh my god,” she whispered. The human fighters were closing in on the Warped and had already killed about half of them, but the rest were recovering, banding together again, into a coordinated unit. The Broodmother was slithering over the fort’s walls, making her way down to the human feast. “They are about to get slaughtered.”
“Not on my watch,” Nori said grimly, flexing her fingers. “I’m going to ram into her.”
“What?” Bulco and Lana shouted together.
“Hold on!” the Navigator yelled and Unity shook violently as the Navigator turned the ascending ship a hundred and eighty degrees into a plummet so abrupt that some of the G forces escaped through the inertial dampener, gluing the crew to their seats as they streaked toward the rearing monster.
The Broodmother, however, proved to be faster. With a few flicks of her elongated body, she made it down the hill and into the ranks of the screaming humans. The monster’s tail flailed, smashing and hurling dozens to their death. The few remaining traps sprang all around her body, but their deadly payload was like a shower of soft pebbles against the Warped queen’s immense bulk.
The remaining fighters backed away from the raging fire, the hail of bullets not stopping for a second. They took cover behind raised walls and hurriedly built fortification, fighting and bleeding the Warped for every centimeter they gave way. For a glorious moment, it looked like the human fighters could pull it off, finishing the deadly queen on their own.
That moment passed all too quickly.
The Broodmother reared up her ugly head and let loose another deadly breath. Jagged blades flew in a wide cone, mowing them down like a scythe mowing wheat.
“Nori, we have to do something!” Lana shirked.
Nori clenched her teeth. “If I ram into her now, we’ll kill a lot of our own and there’s no guarantee it will be enough to end her.” She pulled up, leaving the giant serpent to its killing spree. At least a hundred people had lost their lives in that quick attack, and more were falling by the second. At least it looked like they’d managed to take out most of the smaller Warped along with them.
The remaining defenders continued bombarding the colossal raging creature, while small teams of specialists laid more traps around her, often at the cost of their lives. The traps sprung, some even spearing and tearing the giant’s flesh. The small group of elite guards lay in wait and sprang to attack the creature’s flank. The surprise attack actually managed to blast a section of the tail off. They continued shooting like crazy, trying to enlarge the wound.
It was still not enough.
Aside from the elites’ Warped Buster rounds, the other fighters’ smaller bullets mostly ricocheted off the creature’s thick metal plates and the damage they did cause was far from life-threatening. Ev
en the large holes inflicted by the asteroid cannon were already closing.
The situation quickly deteriorated as the Broodmother reared again and started tearing into the defenders with renewed vigor.
“Nori!” Martin’s voice bellowed through the comms.
“Do something, kid!” Diamond’s voice shouted as well.
The Navigator froze. She didn’t know what to do. She looked around her, desperately searching for an answer.
And one was given to her.
Nathan’s capsule melted away from him, and he walked, approaching the front viewscreen. He took in the death and mayhem below then glanced at the Gunner’s still smoking body. He held up his arms and with a calm clarity he hadn’t felt since the Calamity, said: “No more.”
“Nathan! What are you doing?” Lana shrieked as the floor started rising around him, slowly covering him in metal plates.
He gave her a grave look. “What I should have done sooner.” He turned to look at the Navigator. “Bring us down, Captain. Unity will take care of the rest.”
The other three crew members looked at him in pure astonishment, hardly believing the change in Nathan’s demeanor. Then Nori met his determined eyes and nodded.
“Thank you.” He smiled, then the final plate slammed over his face and the blob of metal that covered his entire body descended, reabsorbed back into the floor.
***
Once again, alone in the darkness, far from distraction, Nathan could finally focus. All this time, refusing to surrender to the Tec in fear of becoming a Warped had only stopped them from healing his mind. Now unleashed, the minuscule machines were merrily doing their job, adjusting the fragile parts of his overwhelmed brain, fixing him, bringing him back.
His connection to Unity flashed in his mind, growing brighter and brighter, strengthening, reaching all the way to the deepest reaches of both their souls. The fragile union they had established was finally complete.
Man and ship were now one.
The process, however, was not without its toll. Nathan’s consciousness started to fade, claimed by darkness. With his final waking thought, the Technomancer reached out and called for his partner’s true form.
***
The remaining consoles went blank.
“What the hell--” Bulco started to say, but a screeching sound interrupted him. The ship’s bulkheads began to move and stretch. Then a humming noise, like a high voltage line, filled the bridge.
Alter Mode engaged
As one, the consoles righted themselves, once again showing critical ship data.
“The ship’s changing!” Bulco exclaimed. He grabbed and pulled at the sides of one of his holo monitors, extending it for all to see. The monitor displayed the ship’s schematic from a third person perspective. But the image it was showing now was very different than normal. Unity’s main body had sprouted six giant insect-like legs and its triangular bridge extended even further from the main body and was moving freely, like a head connected by a neck. A hole started opening at the bottom of the head and the humming sound intensified. The hole extended, transforming into a gaping circular maw filled with intense bright energy.
Lana gasped. “The excavator! It wasn’t just absorbed, Unity merged with it!”
“Good,” Nori grunted and plunged her hands downward.
The ship slammed onto the giant Broodmother’s back, flattening her against the ground, trapping her under. The force of the impact sent the six legs plunging deeply into the gigantic body, where they remained clung to it. The Broodmother let out another terrible shriek. Her lower half was still free and flailing wildly, trying to toss Unity from her back, but the ship was too heavy even for such a monster to fling away. Changing her tactics, the barbed tail started swinging, hitting the side of the ship. Light consoles exploded in a shower of sparks, and new red blinking lights lit up like a Christmas tree.
“It’s tearing us apart!” Bulco shouted. “We have to do something!”
“This is a mining ship!” Lana cried.
“You’re right!” Nori shouted back. She whipped her hands free from the ship’s control and pounded at a newly formed blue console.
Unity’s head lowered, its maw hovering just above the Broodmother’s hideous head.
To the humans outside, it looked like the giant ship was trying to bite at the monster’s face.
Then she started mining.
A huge jet of bright energy shot out of the gaping mouth, hitting the side of the monster’s face. It shrieked, its lower body convulsed and thrashed even harder as the plates covering her face melted, revealing the fleshy tissue below. The beam burrowed through, easily punching through bone and sinew, until hitting the ground on the other side of the enormous head, melting the rocks underneath it.
The Broodmother’s body twitched in a last death tremor and then it died, finally defeated.
Silence spread over the battlefield.
“Holy mother of god,” Bulco whispered, his body went limp in his chair. “We made it.”
“Nathan did it,” Lana said softly. “
“He did,” Nori said quietly.
“I’d like to know how,” Bulco grumbled. “Me and the kid are overdue for a long, serious talk.”
Nori’s chair unfolded from her body. “You can ask him once he gets back.” She glanced at their Gunner’s body and looked down. “Come on, let’s get out of here. Maybe some can still be saved.”
Lana and Bulco rushed after her, but the Expert paused before exiting the bridge. She looked at the spot where Nathan disappeared and whispered. “I know it couldn’t have been easy for you, Nathan. I’m proud of you.” She stopped and sighed. “Just don’t be there all day.”
***
The cargo hold’s door lowered, letting in the wails of the wounded and the occasional gunshot.
Some of the smaller monsters survived, but the death of their leader threw them into confusion and disarray. They quickly fell as the human fighters mopped them up, systematically massacring every last one of the horde.
Still on top of the dead Broodmother, Unity’s cargo door opened, revealing a woman, speared and impaled through her stomach on one of the monster’s spikes. Bulco jumped down to her and gently lifted her up. The gaping hole started bleeding heavily and she screamed once, her breath rapid and shallow.
“Easy,” the large man said to her in a surprisingly gentle tone. “You’re going to make it. Just rest.”
“Help the others,” she croaked between blood-stained lips.
Bulco nodded. He pressed the woman’s tattered coat to the wound, then stood up to see a field full of wounded people. A mutated gopher came flying out of nowhere, aiming at his neck. The Engineer caught it midair and, with a sneer full of contempt, he tore its head off.
The sound of gunfire was slowing down as the cleanup crew had nearly finished their bloody job.
The large man tapped his ear. “Hey, Diamond, you still alive, old man?”
“You better believe it, boy,” the gruff man replied. “I’m coming over your way now.”
“Martin?”
“I’m here,” the Justicar answered weakly. “I took a hit, but I’ll be alright. Goddamn, what a mess.”
Nori stood on top of the Broodmother’s corpse, staring in silence at the scene below her. The death toll was high, higher than anticipated, but they'd won. “We made it,” she whispered.
“Hell, yeah, we made it,” Diamond agreed. “I’d be really pissed off if we went through all that trouble just to end up dead.”
“My guys are reporting that they’ve finished mopping up the last of the Warped.” Martin’s voice already sounded a little stronger.
“Mine, too,” Diamond answered. “Now we need to sort out the wounded and bury the dead.”
“And to loot the bodies,” Martin declared. “I think we’re all due some Tec.”
“Damn straight,” Diamond replied. “Everyone earned their share of the spoils.” He stepped forward from the crowd and
looked up at the four companions, still standing on the giant’s corpse. “Where’s my boy, Noah?”
Nori lowered her eyes and the others refuse to meet the shelter leader’s eyes as well.
Diamond stared at them for a long moment, then with a hoarse voice asked: “What happened?”
Nori looked up at him. “When the Broodmother’s tail hit us it overloaded our weapon systems. Noah …” her voice lowered to a whisper. “He didn’t make it.”
Diamond lowered his eyes and shook his head. “Damn it, he was a good kid. I had high hopes for him.”
Martin limped into the open and put bloody hands on the other leader’s shoulder. “We all took a beating. Thanks to heroes like Noah, we’re still standing. He will be remembered.”
Diamond sighed. “I wish I had fewer people to remember. They keep adding up, you know.”
“I know.” Martin delicately pulled over two of his men and whispered something to them. The men nodded and climbed into the ship.
Once the wounded were taken care of, the remaining people started moving cautiously between the piles of dead Warped, making sure they were really dead. Then the messages started pouring in.
Extracted 0.02 Tec
Extracted 0.009 Tec
Extracted 0.1 Tec
…
“Wow, there’s a lot of those,” Lana said after several seconds as the messages kept coming in by the dozens.
“Yeah,” Diamond looked at the people as they somberly moved from one dead Warped to another, extracting their Tec. The two men Martin had sent came out of the ship, carrying Noah’s charred body with them. The shelter leader’s eyes hardened. “I’m afraid that we can’t just give you half the piTec, like before.”
Earth Force (Relict Legacy Book 1) Page 32