by Dain White
Well, we were in it now. The moment I started tearing into the strangely gelid texture of the web, it was obvious they knew we were there.
“Yak!” Jane called out.
“I see it,” I growled, and shoved myself up through the end of the web, pushing myself deeper into the gaping rent I was tearing with my hands.
“Take cover!” she yelled, and vanished in a blinding flash of light that fused the web around us into a glistening mass.
“Jane!” I called out, forcing myself through the web towards her last position.
She gasped in reply, “Good to go, Yak – wind knocked out of me…” I renewed my efforts to break free, as another salvo passed nearby.
Giving up all pretenses at stealth, I charged and fired above me, blowing a hole through the web and hurling myself upwards through it.
“Em, come in!” I called out, as another searing blast hurtled past me and blazed upwards to crash on a wall far above.
“Copy, Yak,” she replied instantly.
“Em, we found them! Tell the captain and get back as soon as you can!”
She rose immediately into the sky, punching a hole in the debris far above.
“Jane!” I called out, scanning around for her.
“Below you, Yak! They’re raising ship!” she called out breathlessly. I pulled myself back through the ragged rent in the web layer just in time to see her charge and fire below us, bolts of plasma streaking out and impacting in flashing explosions of glitter as the ships below started to drop. We were suddenly being focused by multiple directions below us, and a sudden thunderclap of pain crashed into my leg, hurling me sideways into the web.
I wasn’t sure if I had a leg anymore, to be honest, and was a little afraid to even check. I tracked fire back down and grinned as a maelstrom of fire blazed out below me. It was definitely a war now.
08232614@14:55 Captain Dak Smith
“Captain, we have found them,” Emwan said smartly, and flashed a report to my screen.
“Very well, let’s get them some support,” I growled, and leaned in closer for a look.
Janis spoke up, “Captain, I have a platoon dropping on their position now. I took the liberty of setting up a perimeter.”
“Janis, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking here. We need to make sure this is tight. I need you and Pauli on the gig.”
“On the gig, aye,” she replied. Pauli unclipped, and hung for a moment blinking at me.
“Settle down son,” I soothed. “Janis and Em can do everything you’re doing on those screens faster than you can, correct?”
“Yeah…” he started. I wanted to let him finish, but the way I see it, we have no time.
“Janis, break loose the gig would you dear? Gene, ears?”
“Ears, aye,” he replied immediately.
“I am taking Pauli out on the gig. We’re going to do whatever we can to help down there.”
“Captain, fly right. Janis, can you continue at the helm for a bit? I am in the middle of something back here.”
“Certainly Gene,” she replied. I kicked across the gun deck to the suit racks, and started working through the procedure. Pauli came down behind me and dove right in, clearly trying to catch up.
“Nice economy of motion, son,” I replied. “See that you never cut time from the counts in your quest to go faster.”
“Never happen, sir,” he replied. We made our way over to the forward lock and started the cycle.
“Captain, the gig is in drop position, bay hatch open.”
I had my suit on and was working through the sixty count, so that was mighty quick. “Nicely done, my dear. Pauli needs a little more time. The lock is cycling though, so we’ll be in shortly.”
“Very well, sir. We are seeing high order impacts on Cyron tower, best guess is sublevel 300, and sir – this is where Yak and Jane are deployed currently.”
“How are they doing down there?”
“They are in active combat, Captain.”
“Are they going to make it, Janis?”
“At this time I believe they will, sir. “
“Well, hoping is one thing, but belief has a funny way of going sideways, Janis. You better knock wood.”
“I understand, sir. Nonetheless, it is how I feel, so I am taking what comfort I can. My future experiences with Jane and Yak are well detailed. I no longer think there’s any reason to suspect their validity.”
Pauli and I shared a look while the ambers flashed, then cycled through the lock and kicked over to the gig. It hung in the bay, a hypervelocity dart with enormous engines and overpowered lifters, waiting.
I loved flying.
“Get strapped in son,” I called on comms as the lock cycled on the gig. He moved ahead of me, working his helmet off. “Also, keep the suit on, son. It helps.”
“Sorry sir,” he replied, sealing his helmet again while he climbed past my chair. I smiled as he chuffed around and finally got his helmet set and strapped in forward.
“Ready for some fun, Pauli?” I called forward, rotating my chair into the cockpit.
“Ready, aye,” he said, working on his screens already and still smacking the keyboard.
“You sound enthusiastic, son… Relax! This is where I’m from. I grew up flying here.”
I lit the warmers on the turbofans, and finished the preflight. “Gene, ears?”
“Ears, aye,” he replied.
“We’re away,” I called out, and released the clamps. I tapped us out of the hold on jets, and punched around in a deceleration burn, watching the Archaea fly up and away.
“Captain, please note new waypoint,” Janis remarked.
“Very well,” I replied, setting up for reentry. This route was going to be tight. Normally I’d ride the bubble on down, but I was going to have to drop a little sharper than normal. The gig was pretty tough, but she wasn’t the crab. I’d have to hold her within spec, or we would burn into incandescent ash.
We blazed down, wreathed in fire, and hammered around a little more than I liked, but she held together. As soon as my engines could breathe, I kicked them on and headed west. The jet stream on this planet was fierce, and if you didn’t get up to speed, you might find yourself tumbling, spinning; all sorts of exceptionally bad experiences on a gig like this.
Not that I would really have a problem with it. We’d be fine. This was definitely not my first drop into NT. Pauli might almost die of fright, however. He wasn’t ready for this.
“Pauli, I need you on targeting. Can you work on that for me?”
“Targeting, aye,” he replied, and brought up the proper screens. “Captain, there’s a lot of targets.”
“Son, I don’t need the sierra designations, unless any of them are on collision course. I am only interested in master targets. I’m watching the sierras.”
“But sir, they’re all sierras!” he replied.
“Yes,” I replied with a smirk. “This is flying, son. I won’t run into anything out there, but there’s a lot to see and that means, I can’t just look around casually. I need you to do that for me. I also need you to report range and heading on anything, I can’t really focus on specifics.”
“It looks like a video game, Captain,” he called back, blissfully distracted as we slid into the first wave, rather gently I thought.
“Well, it isn’t, but if that makes it more interesting – by all means, try to get a high score.” I chuckled.
08232614@14:58 Jane Short
Yak disappeared in a burst of fire, to return a moment later from the heights.
We might have bitten off more than we can chew.
Every time we fired, our position was lit up by a concerted aimed stream of fire from more positions than I cared to count.
We didn’t have very much room to maneuver, and we kept hitting these damned trip wires. Every time that happened, we were hit, unerringly. It hurt, too. I had a lot of burns at this point, though the suit felt cool and moist, and did a lot to alleviate the pain
in those areas.
“Jane, Yak, come in,” Emwan crackled in on comms.
I ascended towards her voice. Yak climbed after me.
“Five-by-five, Em,” I called back, once her carrier wave was locked.
“Janis is deploying dropships on a perimeter, with two tasked on this area.”
“Em, they’re going to die dropping in here,” I called back.
“Jane, we need to concentrate fire!” Yak yelled out suddenly, his shots tracking another one launching, as it blasted skywards. I joined in and we poured fire into it until it disintegrated and fell back towards us in burning bits and chunks. I twisted and dodged the return fire, but Yak got a solid shot in his hip, hurling him downrange.
“You holding in there, Yak?” I asked softly. He had to have been hurting.
He sounded grim. “I’m fine, Jane. Let’s get this done, though. We need to win this war here and move out.”
We were climbing past 300 meters, which unfortunately, was far too close to fire a full power shot. “Yak, we need to be at least 500m for minimum safe distance,” I replied.
“Copy,” he replied, and opened fire above us on the snarled layer of debris choking out the world above. Each shot blasted a bigger hole ahead of us as we launched skyward.
At 500 meters, we pulled up a bit, and stopped. I smiled as he drifted slowly up a bit above me.
“Go ahead and take the shot, Jane. You’re the specialist,” he added somberly.
There was nothing to it. I sighted in on the center of the intersection far below, and fired for full effect.
08232614@15:01 Steven Pauline
“What was that?” Captain Smith asked on comms. I had seen it, but I wasn’t sure what it was.
“Some sort of lightning?”
“Underground?”
It had lit an arco all the way up, from the cloud depths below.
“Sir, Emwan reports Jane has fired at maximum.”
“Very well,” he replied immediately. “What was the yield?”
“The yield was point eight kilotons, Captain.”
“Is that a lot, sir?” I asked back on comms.
“Well, it’s not much more than an itty-bitty tactical nuke, Pauli. Janis, can you patch me through to Yak and Shorty?”
“Certainly sir; the channel is open.”
“Yak, Shorty, how copy,” he called out as we continued to fall through the clouds past the vast towers of this glittering metropolis.
“Solid copy, sir,” Yak called back.
“What’s the situation down there Yak?”
“Well, it’s pretty well handled, Captain. We’re headed down for BDA, but I don’t know if there’s much battle damage to assess. There doesn’t look like much of anything down there other than concrete and soot.”
“Captain,” Shorty broke in. “There may be other colonies here. You need to make sure the cavalry knows to stand off and engage at maximum range. This is not a foe we can face on the conventional battlefield.”
“Will do, Shorty, good work – you too, Yak. Janis?”
“Captain, there is nothing to change in deployment orders at this time,” she replied smoothly.
Yak called out, “Sir, there’s nothing down here. All hostiles down and… vaporized, sir.”
My stomach slid up my throat a bit as the captain banked down into a long straight, towards layers of air traffic far below.
“Very well, son. Listen, Janis needs us to look at some more locations. I’ll fly high cap, we need to be three blocks east. Can do?”
“Ooh rah, sir, we’re moving out,” he called back.
Captain Smith hauled us around through a corner exit and climbed.
08232614@15:08 Gene Mitchell
“Gene, would you have a moment?”
I looked up. “Well sure, Janis,” I said to the air.
“Gene, I am having a hard time with the pump systems for municipal water,” she said.
“I ought to be able to help. I worked city services for years, Janis”
“Do you know where the valves are to prime the Belltown pump?”
“Yeah… aren’t those on Viceroy? I think they’re around level 250 on the Viceroy side of the causeway across from Emperian.”
“There’s no causeway at level 250.”
“What level is the causeway?”
“Level 400, 800, and 1200 on that face of Viceroy”
“Level 400 then, it was the lowest one, I remember that much.”
“I have located the pump switch. Thank you, Gene!”
“Any time, my dear – glad I could help. Is there anything else I can do?”
“Gene, there are many mechanical connections I am afraid I can’t find references for. I have compiled a report to your screen. Please let me know if any of these systems are familiar to you”
I was glad to have something to do other than watch the news reports of fires, riots, earthquakes and explosions in the Warrens. Thankfully they weren’t attributing it to anything other than the ‘great glitch’ as they were calling it.
“Janis, you notice that the outflow for Titan is only 30%?”
“Yes, that has me very concerned. Reactors in the 3000 block feed primarily off that line. That has put a severe strain on cooling.”
“Well, you have the mains, at about 500 on Titan, south face.”
“Gene, that valve is currently open.”
I scratched my head. “If that valve is open, you have a vent cap closed. There’s a series of them all along that line.”
“Gene, do you know where they are located?”
“Sorry Janis… up?”
“I will find them.”
I sure hoped she did. Yak and Shorty were in that neighborhood.
08232614@15:15 Jane Short
“So we’re pretty sure there are no people left down there?”
“I can’t imagine there would be, Jane,” he called back as we moved down the block, a few hundred meters up. Emwan was on a high cap above us, relaying a connection to the Captain as needed.
We were looking for webs, and finding them, sadly. They were scattered around, and as we approached the end of the block, they were following the same pattern as before, thickening. Unlike our previous approach, there were flattened tracks below in the dust, clearly delineated, and used frequently.
“See them, Jane?”
I nodded. “Yep. We’re not sneaking up on this group, Yak.”
“Nope, I wouldn’t think so. Should we just move into the intersection and let ‘em have it?”
“Absolutely,” I replied. “No need to get any closer than we have to. Captain, how copy?”
“Solid copy.”
“Captain, we’re going to move in and fire for effect into this intersection. We’re seeing webs, sir.”
“Very well, Shorty,” he replied quietly.
We closed the gap with the end of the block, and looked downward into the depths of shadow. A few strands of web reflected from scans, faintly leaking electromagnetics.
“Let’s pull up a few hundred more meters, Yak,” I said, and punched through the debris drifts above to 500 meters, and then pulled up short, waiting for Yak to catch up.
“Ready?”
He nodded.
“Fire for effect,” I called out, and blasted into the depths below. A thunderclap flash exploded into a white hot blast of incinerating fire that rolled up towards us, reaching and blasting skyward through the debris drifts, briefly wreathing us in fire and smoke as the shockwave passed.
A glowing spot below us marked the impact point, dead center in the intersection.
“Should we take a look?”
I shrugged, and started dropping down. There couldn’t have been anything down there after that, but it didn’t hurt to look.
Suddenly, a perfectly aimed shot streaked out of the darkness below and knocked me into darkness.
08232614@15:21 Shaun Onebull
“Jane is hit!” I yelled on comms. I watched her hurtle
high above me, skipping across the face of the building, and launched upwards after her. I had no idea what had hit her, but it was serious.
“Very well, Yak. Em, drop and engage,” the captain replied smoothly as I hurtled towards her falling body.
“Engaging, aye,” Emwan replied, and a streaking whoosh ripped past me as she hurtled into the depths below. I was focused on Jane, and adjusting my drop to catch her, the structure of the foundation a blur as we fell together into the inky depths.
08232614@15:21 Jane Short
I came to with searing pain along my right side, and noticed Yak above me, falling towards me, reaching out.
“Yak…” I gasped; my voice little more than a croak.
“You’re alive!” he exclaimed, the relief in his voice oddly comforting. He reached me and I fell into his arms and thankfully, back into velvet silence.
08232614@15:21 Captain Dak Smith
“Captain, she’s alive!” Yak called up on comms, through a burst of static. I rolled us over and kicked the pedals into a dive, as we streaked down.
“Designate Master 1, Captain, range 1200 meters, six o-clock low,” Pauli yelled excitedly.
“Very well, steady on, son. Em, report!”
“Captain, I am in pursuit of a heavily armored scout, though I am two turns behind.”
The target was coming down a block towards me, and I was definitely fast enough. “Keep the pressure on, Em, I’m on intercept,” I growled.
Pauli gagged and groaned as I raced the target and punched it hard towards the next corner, a cross street to our left. The intercept was coming up fast; I didn’t have to work out the math to see I wasn’t going to get there in time, not if I wanted to be able to make the corner.
Ahead of us and a few hundred meters below, the target flashed past the intersection, almost too fast.
“Hang on Pauli, this is going to be a little hairy,” I called out soothingly. He choked something in response as I threw us into a dive coming into the intersection, punching downwards into the shadows and snap rolling us over to the right. I pushed air hard against my pursed lips and hauled back on the stick to flatten out our dive on the new heading, trailing the glowing contrail of the target by a half block.