by Aer-ki Jyr
“That or face the gravity,” Ian agreed. “You think it goes higher than 10?”
Before he could answer Maka’var’s voice cut through on the shared Alliance comm channel. “All units, be aware. The high gravity zones are forcing us to the center of the ship where the Nestafar have an army waiting for us. Beyond that army is the gravity generator, where we must go if we are to survive. The only chance we have is to rush their lines in the hope that some of us will make it through. Their walkers can’t target us all, but we must make a simultaneous attack if we are going to succeed. I hereby order all troops to the edge of the central chamber, there you are to wait in cover until I give the order or until the gravity forces us into the open. Move quickly, we have little time left.”
“Morgan?” Ian asked.
“I’m already halfway to the generator and I’ve got my jump pack.”
“Do you know where it is?”
“More or less.”
“Then hurry, you’ve got a couple spiders coming up on your position from the far side.”
“Use your best judgment,” Morgan said apologetically.
“Quit wasting time and go save our asses,” Ian urged, understanding.
“I’m heading back,” Rev-5901 said on the Archon-only channel. “If there’s a way out I’ll let you know.”
“Lose the armor,” Ian suggested.
“Already stripping,” the Archon said, no merriment in his voice. “I’ll be off comm until I get back to my helmet.”
“Good luck,” Eriona offered. “I’m going to stay put and snipe as many infantry as I can. Maybe clear a road for some of the Calavari to get through.”
“Think some of us should make a run for it?” Carver asked.
“Morgan’s already there,” Ian said, dismissing the notion. “No point in facing down a mech if we don’t have to. Stay hidden along the edge, assist where we can, and retreat back into the gravity if necessary. I’m pretty sure their infantry won’t go back in there after us.”
“Not sure how long we’ll last in 10g,” Eriona pointed out.
“Long enough to reposition around the perimeter,” Ian said, determined to find some sliver of strategy to use. “Duck in and out and stay alive.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Eriona agreed, finding a decent sniping position and sighting in on the nearest flyers while conscious of the firing lines of the two giraffes closest to her position.
“Alright, I’m down with that,” Seth agreed. “Morgan, time to show off.”
“Trying,” she answered, hopping over three walls with a single jump, then coming down into cover and running off another direction before the enemy could spot her position, only to repeat the tactic again and again as she made her way closer towards the center.
8
Rev made his way back through the claustrophobic portion of the jumpship, coming into contact with the 2g ring far sooner than he anticipated. It slowed his run down to a jog, but he still maintained a rhythm up until the point where he crossed over the invisible line into the higher gravity ring. His legs crumpled under the enhanced weight, loaded upon him in a microsecond as he passed through the containment field between sections. His left wrist felt it first as it swung out in front of him, then it dragged his torso forward along with it, pitching him forward as the parts of his body ahead of the line were sucked down to the floor.
The Archon managed to catch himself on his elbows and keep his face from hitting the ground, then he stayed there for a moment, fighting against the pull and letting his body and mind adapt to it…then, very slowly, he pulled his knees up underneath him and set his feet. Standing up felt like lifting a stack of weights, but he discovered it was something his body could handle and within a couple of minutes he was walking forward, searching for the back side of the ring and hoping it contained less gravity.
He knew gravity generators were power hogs, and pulling this amount of gees across most of the ship should have been unfeasible…yet, then again, cranking up the generators this high also shouldn’t have been possible, according to the Calavari techs, yet somehow they were doing it.
Time was against them, and Rev knew he had to hurry. If there was a safe zone on the opposite side he needed to find it for the others before they were forced into the center against that army. Good as they were he didn’t favor their odds, especially given that they had no escape plan other than killing all of the Nestafar…which, had it been infantry only, would have been a challenge worthy of an Archon, but having the walkers in play just made it downright unfair, especially if this gravity continued to advance and pin them down so the war machines could target them much easier.
Guessing by the width of the 2g ring, Rev figured he was getting close to the back edge when he heard a joint pop in his knee. He stopped for a moment, wondering if it was damage or just a readjustment and settled on the latter, but the sound, along with the strain his entire body was under, was a vivid reminder that he had a time limit on his exploration. Determined as he was he kept going, trying to get a little more speed out of his awkward cadence when he passed through to the next ring and the top half of his body smacked down on the far side…in an even higher gravity field.
His head hit hard and his brain felt like it was being squashed, but fortunately Rev remained conscious enough to crawl back out into the 10g field. His upper body was screaming and he saw several cracks in his skin that were oozing blood, all of which fueled his fear-induced adrenaline that let him find his balance again and begin walking back towards the center of the ship.
If we don’t get that generator offline we’re dead, he thought, unable to form the words in his mouth as he hurried as fast as he could to get back to the 2g area…but he wasn’t fast enough. 2/3rds of the way back the rings shifted again, bringing the crushing gravity zone down upon him in the blink of an eye.
The Archon crumpled, bones dislocating as the higher gravity forced him down to the floor. Blood flowed from a number of points on his body, only to be sucked off and flattened into a very thin pool around him, spreading out to mark the spot of his death that occurred sometime within the next 2 minutes…
“Outer ring is here,” Ian reported as the gravity around the edge of the crater kicked up. “And the Calavari are going in.”
Morgan held off commenting until she completed one final jump that landed her outside of the maze and between two of the buildings at crater center. “I’m inside the perimeter. Any infantry headed my way?”
“Nope, they’re thoroughly distracted at the moment,” Ian said, firing his plasma rifle up at the cloud of flying Nestafar as thousands of Calavari charged down into the maze while the walkers targeted them with impunity. The enemy infantry also spread out, taking fire from the four-armed aliens, and began shooting down directly above them…yet staying high enough to give the walkers clean firing lines. The carnage was instant and widespread, but it appeared to Ian’s eye that they might have enough numbers to be able to push through into the center.
“Keep me updated,” Morgan asked as she ran down the narrow street and up to an intersection, breaking a bit before she hit it out of reflex, then jumping forward into a dive-roll when she crossed a barricade on her right side filled with infantry. A half dozen plasma shots blanketed her armor before she crossed the intersection, but she didn’t turn to fight them. The Calavari were getting mowed down and she didn’t have time to waste so she pressed on, running past the opposition that she could and fighting through those that she couldn’t.
One group was directly ahead of her, which she tried to jump over top of to save time…only to discover that her jump pack wasn’t working. That landed her right in the middle of a defensive blockade with nothing more than her pistol to fight with. She took a lot more damage getting through that mess, but get through it she did, then she headed further into the center where the gravity generator was marked on her HUD, knowing that it was an approximate position and that she would have to do some searching when she got there�
�and then find a way to take it out.
Morgan saw a number of Nestafar fliers gaining altitude in front of her, with those being the first she’d seen within the perimeter of the buildings. Most were rising up through the openings ahead of her and when she passed the next side barricade she noted that it was empty…just before she was tripped up by a tug on her legs that brought her run to a sliding halt and pitched her over forward, falling to the ground as the gravity kicked up to 2g.
“No…” Morgan pleaded, knowing that they were in serious trouble now. She looked up as she got back to her feet, seeing the Nestafar far overhead, circling about with odd wing flaps…then she realized that they must have been above the gravity field and now in zero g. Little red plasma blasts were coming down from them, aimed back towards the mass of Calavari that had to be…
“Morgan, heavy gravity has reached the edge and the Calavari are getting slaughtered. Please tell me you have some good news?” Ian asked.
“Gravity here went up too. All the defensive troops left, so I should have a clear run to the generator.”
“The infantry out here pulled up to higher altitudes and are firing blind down into the maze, but there’s so many that they’re hitting the Calavari anyway…and the walkers are still maneuvering in the extra gravity and burning them down. I wouldn’t count on any of them getting through to help you.”
“Where are you at?” Morgan asked as she ran hard, forcing her muscles to ignore the double gravity.
“A few steps outside the heavy gravity. The walkers are focused on the troops nearest them, so they haven’t been shooting this way…” he cut off suddenly.
Morgan fell again, this time hard as the 10+ g zone spread out to cover the entire crater.
“Damn…it,” she swore, pulling herself up to her feet and managing a clunky jog for a few steps that drained her limbs of energy. She walked the next few, then tried running again, getting in a few more strides before having to dial it back down.
“Morgan…”
“I know,” she said, tears forming in her eyes. “I’m trying…”
The next step she stopped and tore off her helmet, then unfastened the rest of her armor as quickly as she could, chucking one piece of it after another until all that she was wearing was her standard casual uniform. She picked up her pistol, which felt heavy as a rock, and ran forward. The ranger managed 7:00 mile pace now that she didn’t have the dead weight dragging her down and came up to where the waypoint on her battlemap had been, seeing a large conical chamber that had to be the generator complex.
She ran around the edge until she found an entrance and ran in…only to bounce back hard off a red, clear shield blocking her path partway inside. Her balance broken, the gravity yanked her down to the floor and mashed her head backwards on landing.
She screamed inside, not just at the pain but at the futility of her mission. The Calavari were dying and her people were pinned down inside gravity that they couldn’t survive forever, even if they could stay hidden. She was their only hope and now this damn shield was blocking her way!
Just then the gravity in the chamber kicked up to the third level, crushing and killing what Calavari remained. Morgan, already on the ground, was sucked tight, with her chest feeling like there was a mountain sitting on top of it and her eyeballs feeling like they were falling back into her head. She knew they were all dead, the entire assault force, her fellow Archons, over 10,000 people dead because she’d screwed up…and now she was about to die along with them.
Part of her screamed no…not this way. Not after 400 years of training and hundreds of battles. It wasn’t fair to die like this, without having at least a chance of success.
Those thoughts died with the wash of blood swirling in her head and throughout her body. A few surface veins had popped, soaking red into her white, green-striped uniform and all that her mind could focus on was the inevitable, crushing force consuming her…
In that mind blurring death knell her most basic instinct forced its way through…that being to fight the enemy. Somehow, she found herself staring down at the floor and crawling towards the shield, then leaning her shoulder against it and dragging the pistol across the floor with her, pivoting it around to point towards the barrier. Finding the trigger she began shooting the shield with a pointblank splash of blue, spraying hot plasma everywhere, some of which burned the skin on her arm and face but that was a small pain that the crushing gravity didn’t allow to process through her distorted mind.
She fired over and over, with no effect. The shield wouldn’t go down but she wouldn’t stop. She kept firing and tried to push into the shield with her shoulder, using her legs to prop her up a few inches and let the gravity work for her, putting extra strain on it that would add to the plasma damage. When it didn’t work she didn’t stop, she couldn’t stop…other than to lay down and die, which was something she would never do.
Morgan finally started banging her head against the shield as her pistol continued to fire, then a tingly sensation formed along her spine and shifted towards her shoulder. She pushed it forward and suddenly she felt the shield wrap itself around her arm…which was sticking through to the other side!
That flicker of hope redoubled her energy and as she kept firing the tingle returned and she leaned into it even more, feeling it cascade to overload, then release…after which her upper body pressed through, with the shield catching her at the waist and holding her tight.
She pulled herself along the ground but it was no use, she was stuck as the shield regained cohesion around her body…then the tingle formed again and pressure built within her, tiny in comparison to the gravity. The trailblazer pushed the pressure into the shield and suddenly her hips slipped through, along with her wrist that was holding the pistol.
Morgan clawed her way inside before the shield could reset. It caught her right foot, but she managed to slip out of her shoe and get clear. Forcing her head up and her blurry eyes to partially focus as they were being squished out of alignment, she saw a wall in front of her with hallways leading off to the other side. She randomly chose to go left, crawling inch by inch as the gravity tried to suck the last bit of life out of her. Her hand clenched the pistol, dragging it with her until a few meters down the wall disappeared and a large chamber of machinery was exposed.
Morgan couldn’t see what it was, she couldn’t see hardly anything, but she pulled the pistol around to the front and pointed it along the ground and started firing blindly. She pumped the trigger more times than she could count, not knowing how much ammunition she had left, and adjusting the angle by pivoting the barrel that gravity had locked down against the ground.
The next thing she knew the grip on her body was gone and she found herself bouncing off a wall. Her entire body screamed in pain and as she forced her eyes open she saw a blurry rotation, then a mass of red that was her body, sprinkled with pieces of white uniform. It felt like grinding sandpaper to blink her eyes but she did, over and over until some part of her vision returned.
She was alive…and as soon as that thought made its way to the forefront of her mind the relief and adrenaline started to wake her up out of the pain-filled haze she was drifting in. Morgan didn’t know what had happened or what she had shot, but she was alive and all that mattered now was making the most of the opportunity.
Looking around she was able to confirm that she was floating in zero g…which must have meant she had knocked out the gravity generation completely. Was it for the whole ship or just this area she didn’t know, but she got her red-soaked sock against the wall and pushed off, sending her over to a bank of computer-like consoles.
She grabbed hold of one and let her body spin around, causing a surge in her head that blacked out her vision temporarily. When it settled she took a moment to try and get more of her broken body back under her control, then saw the remains of an exploded something or other further into the center of the room. It had knocked over several banks of equipment and pieces of debris wer
e floating around, most of which Morgan couldn’t see unless they were right in front of her.
The next thing that poked its way forward in her mind was the enemy…were they around? She was a sitting duck, had lost her weapon, and had no armor.
She was alive though, and part of her still couldn’t believe it. As her mind started to wrap itself around that fact she started crying and couldn’t stop…then the tremors started and she did her best to hang onto the console so they didn’t send her flying off through the room. She realized she was in shock, but other than acknowledging that fact there was nothing she could do but wait it out.
Then she coughed…and spat out a spray of blood, reminding her that she probably had internal organ damage. She had to get out of here, but to where? Back outside would be a death sentence. The Nestafar could fly through zero g using their wings while she would be helpless without handholds to work off of.
Suddenly her mind flashed back to her basic training in Atlantis, with the 6s and the initial zero g training mission they’d gone on. There had been a large empty room they had to learn how to move through, which seemed impossible at first…no, no she reminded herself. Even if she could get across the giant chamber the Nestafar would shoot her. She had to focus and find a way to move in cover.
Just then she remembered the shield covering the door and wondered if it was still up. Was she stuck in here?
Bending arms and legs that just wanted to be left alone to die, Morgan pushed off towards the nearest hallway opening and made her way out into the perimeter walkway, bouncing off of walls until she got to one of the multiple doorways that led out into the miniature city-scape. Using the corner as a handhold she gently stretched out her shoed foot until the toes hit shield and stopped firm.