by Shay Zana
A brief pause, and now their datakeys light up from their palms and spin with endless footage from the station's servers. "Certainly," Ranity chimes. "Anything more? Or may I hibernate now?" she says with programmed humour, a lifeless tone to her electronic voice.
Mazayus does not acknowledge her humour, her high spirits doing nothing for morale right at this moment. "Give us feeds to all biometric tags in the station, locate and highlight all UEU personnel and send them to our datakeys, seal all bulkheads to damaged sections of the station, restore atmosphere, and see if you can get the artificial gravity back online."
"Biometric tags to all active Serenity personnel are streaming to your datakeys. Scanning UEU personnel... Scan complete. All UEU personnel highlighted and streaming to your datakeys. Operational bulkheads sealed. Restoring atmosphere. Error, I cannot access the artificial gravity controls. My link has been disconnected. You must manually re-activate the artificial gravity to sub-sectors A to A99 via the control department in sub-sector A3."
Mazayus nods to the glowing dome on the wall in front of him. "Thank you, Ranity."
Her dome lights up with a purple hue, the smile of a shard intellect. "My pleasure, Paragon Mazayus. May I hibernate now?"
Boone stifles an amused grunt at the S.I's persistence to be lazy and deactivate herself. He wonders why she has not shown her projection to them. She seems lazy, so maybe she just could not be bothered simulating it. Well, is programmed to appear not to be bothered to simulate it. S.I’s are constructed to be as human-like as possible, and emit unique traits. Too bad they are as far from human as an animal.
All shard intellects are programmed with individual personalities and traits. This is more to make them seem more human-like, rather than to give them intelligence and self awareness. Although S.I’s are aware that they have physical projections, it does not compute to them that these projections are viewed by humans as the S.I itself, nor do they understand the communicational bond that humans may develop with an S.I due to this holographic appearance. S.I’s simply use these projections to project programmed courtesy, or, if given access to this ability, they can use these kinetic bodies to physically interact with the environment around them.
"Stay online. We may need your assistance," Mazayus insists.
Ranity pauses before replying, and Boone can swear that he hears a small sigh escape from her. "Of course. I will monitor your progress and give active updates on all Serenity and UEU personnel if you wish?"
Active updates on all personnel? Mazayus is not exactly sure what she means by that, but he hopes she does not mean to update them whenever someone so much as lifts a finger. Instead of continuing the conversation further, Mazayus ends it politely. "Thank you."
As soon as the Paragons move forward toward sub-sector A3, however, Ranity's voice echoes at them, narrating the combat just as Mazayus had feared, with surprisingly gruesome detail. Suddenly, her voice clamours over itself, multiple sentences stringing together at once, compiling into an incomprehensible muck.
"Ranity, stop," Mazayus demands tiredly, waving his hand at the closest dome. "We don't need combat updates."
"Oh," comes the disappointed reply of the S.I. "Very well."
They walk on as briskly as their mag-boots will allow them, but soon, amidst their effort filled silence, something shatters in the distance. They all freeze momentarily, listening for any more sounds, and when gunfire begins to ring out down the halls, they crouch lowly and begin to stalk their way ahead, using their arms to help heft their bodies along faster in the weightless environment.
They are coming up on sub-sector A3, the control department for all of sector A.
"Boone, you take point. Force them into cover, but keep your entity strong," instructs Mazayus through the comms unit in his helmet, though now unnecessary in the restored atmosphere.
Boone does as he is ordered and moves ahead of them, his Genesis no longer a heavy burden in zero gravity.
The sound of an explosion rockets up the hall next, merged with the muffled voices of men and women yelling. The Paragons reach the door to the control department, and while Mazayus and Deo press their backs against the flanks of the door, Natheus crouches behind Boone, who is standing before the door, ready to burst through when Mazayus gives the order.
ZERO GRAVITY
Mazayus counts to three with consecutive nods of his head, and jams his hand against the manual switch, flinging the door open with a burst of streaming atmosphere.
Boone leaps through the fray, immediately sighting the roaring battle of Serenity and UEU marines. The control department is immense in size, and the floor does not end on this deck, it continues downward like a huge in-door dam that cups to a bowl. Webbing catwalks litter the area, glowing in kinetic technology. The room is vast and dim, lit only by the kinetic catwalks and the many holographic controls and readings that travel up and down the control towers that reach up from the slanted floor to the equally slanted ceiling. It is like they are inside a giant sphere-city, with internal pillars that are homes to many holographic creatures journeying up and down like the sky traffic between skycities. It is both dazzling and belittling. A colossal view.
But they do not have the luxury to marvel.
Boone morphs his Genesis to the pummelling speed of a nikita shard, which enables the Genesis to act as a gatling gun. As he is greeted by many assaulting shards, he throws himself to the right in the zero gravity, and as his body barrel rolls through the air, guided by small thruster nodes in his vitasuit, he opens fire, spraying his foes with a powerful barrage.
His is bigger.
The UEU are pounded with the chain of rounds, breaking straight through their shields and armour, splitting their flesh apart. The few at the front ranks who are lucky enough to survive leap back behind their cover among the control pillars, grabbing at handholds to steady their flimsy bodies.
After Natheus lets off a three-shard singular shot, the others burst from the entrance, providing the flying Boone with some covering fire. Mazayus tosses a lightning grenade, angling it to the very corner of a pillar, and watches it swiftly spin through the air, clink lightly against the pillar, and now explode, buzzing at the holographic readings that travel the length of the pillar.
After seeing many UEU soldiers thrown through the air in the aftermath of Mazayus' grenade, Deo pushes himself forward with a leap, sending himself rapidly amongst the ranks of soldiers. He yells in violent aggression, firing and scattering the soldiers in alarmed frenzies. Nobody wants to enter close quarters with a roaring Paragon.
But despite the Paragons, the Serenity troops are still outskilled by the genetically augmented UEU. Natheus moves into action, attempting to aid the retreating Serenity soldiers. He plants his mag-boots firmly to the nikita portion of the ground, careful to stay away from the kinetic catwalks where his boots will not connect. He fires off three shards from his Parallel, all shots making contact with three separate targets, saving one soldier's life from a grenade to the face. The primed but unexploded grenade is sent sailing through the air. Natheus locks on, honing in on it patiently with his sights. He squeezes off one shot from the primary barrel, hitting the grenade right smack in its centre and detonating it. This creates a flurry of blinded confusion, allowing the Serenity soldiers to slip themselves back behind pillars.
While the others go about beating the crap out of any UEU soldiers that get in their way, Boone is having trouble steadying himself after each burst from his Genesis, the powerful weapon having a dreadful kickback. At one point, he is sent flying backward in the zero gravity, saved only by a pillar as he flips himself around and plants his boots firmly on the vertical surface. "A jet pack would be real handy right about now!" he shouts to no one in particular.
In answer, Mazayus soars past him rapidly, propelled by thrusters on the soles of his boots. "Boot-thrusters, Boone! Install them next time," he yells back at him teasingly.
Boone sends Mazayus a pouting look from the inside of his
visor, though aware that he cannot receive it. When he gets back to Altair, installing boot-thrusters will be the first thing he does...
Mazayus propels himself toward a pestering foe that continues to spit out heavy ice shards. His weapon is primitive, only able to wield one shard, unlike storing multiple elements in its chamber like the Genesis, but the giant icy particles can be lethal when wielded properly, and Mazayus hates ice shards. With the speed of his boot-thrusters, he dodges the many icy spears lobbed at him in a continuous barrage. He angles his legs appropriately, leaning himself to enable his flight path to take him head-on at the soldier. At the very last metre before making contact, Mazayus swings his form around, ceasing his speed and throwing hot star energy into the man’s shields.
Blinded by the brightness of the thrusters, the man swings out with his weapon wildly, clipping Mazayus' ankle and sending him spinning in a circular motion. The soldier takes the chance to lob yet another shard at the Paragon.
Mazayus quickly uses his boot-thrusters to catch his balance, but is caught in the abdomen by the giant cryo fragment. His entity retaliates and repels the round, but is considerably weakened. With another few shots like that, he will lose his entity shielding. He draws his submachine guns and opens fire, aiming directly at the man’s heavy weapon. With the impact of nikita against nikita, the sheer jolt of the weapon forces the man to drop it. Mazayus pushes himself back at him, and when in range, kicks both boots to the man's visor plate, holding him in place with a firm grip on his chest plate. The burning energy sears through the remainder of his shields in a pop, singeing his face.
Deo clings onto the edge of a kinetic pathway with one hand, supporting his recoil as he suppresses the relentless UEU forces. Keeping them off the vulnerable Serenity soldiers, he overhears one of the men.
“Get the damn gravity back online! Go-go-go!”
In the rim of his vision, he sees the flash of emergence. A section of the hull is melting. Something is burning through! “Heads up!” he alerts his squad. “Company!”
The Paragons make a beeline to secure themselves, alerting the marines, who all take to yelling out in preparation.
“Hull breach! Hull breach! Hull breach!”
A pierce of the hull, and the recently restored atmosphere is now draining away again, whistling as air squeezes out into void. A fissure is split under a mechanical claw, punching through the weakened hull. The atmosphere screams in response, gusting outward, fleeing the sector as it punishes Paragons and marines alike as they hang on to their lives.
Through the rushing air, the mechanical claw extends and reaches deeper through the hull breach, clipping onto the edging and hauling itself through.
“Dragon!” a marine howls.
The four-limbed warmachine tears open the hull as it pushes through, announcing its arrival with a salvo of heavy incendiary rounds, and the blazing fireballs are issued straight for the squad of marines as they dash for the sector controls, disobeying their superior as he barks at them to stay put.
"Get down!" Deo barks at them too, just too late. The fire rounds make impact, engulfing the men in an outburst of weightless fire. The oxygen in their suits ruptures and feeds the flame, creating a new ignition that claps at Deo’s entity shielding.
The next inferno is mailed his way. In the blink of an eye, the Paragon’s enhanced reflexes are able to hone in on the situation. As the rounds leave the warmachine’s cannons, Deo tugs once with his arm, pulling himself beneath the kinetic path, which shields him from the massive eruption of fire. His grip is ripped, body thrown by the impact, thruster nodes duelling for orientation. His spatial awareness realigns as he sails backward, firing at the hulking machine, sparking at its kinetic shields with pinpoint accuracy.
The Dragon charges up its dual cannons for another go, tracking the reverse-soaring Paragon, and Deo knows he stands no chance against such heavy firepower. He dual fires both his rifles rapidly, angry desperation fuelling his trigger fingers as he watches the cannons build up to firing status.
A flash of lightning impacting the machine’s flank knocks its aim, sending flaming missiles off at a steep angle. Deo catches sight of Boone releasing another arc of power at the Dragon before his back slams into the far hull, ricocheting until he can secure his boots to the flat surface.
Downing the Dragon’s shields with that secondary blast, Boone throws himself at the warmachine, clinging onto its plated hull as it flails a claw at him, missing. UEU marines attempt to shoot him off the machine, stinging his entity with their fire, but Mazayus and Natheus dispatch their own wrath and draw their fire from Boone.
Boone rips at the Dragons plating at point blank, his turret chewing and puncturing. He pulls himself away from the path of a giant claw as it slams down on his position, adjusting his aim to shred the limb before it can try again. The brisk flashing of his barrel morphs his vision into an avalanche of shadows and shifting motions, where titanic claws slash and nudge at him. He slips through multiple grasps, managing to find purchase upon the warmachine’s visor, but before he can slam a boot down, he is clutched from behind by rigid claws and thrashed backward, losing grip of his Genesis.
The Dragon pounds him against the station’s hull, his entity bursting under the blow. He feels his mind explode, the alien lifeform within him falling to stasis, and his arms go limp as he tries to pry at his captor. Another swing, and his head will be flattened against the hull.
Something swoops in to his aid, perching upon the wrist of the claw, wielding dual instruments. The arm begins its second trip toward the hull. Mazayus pours rapid fire into the Dragon’s joint. Boone pushes at the claw locked around his chest. Nikita screams.
Vertigo.
As the wrist joint snaps off, the two Paragons are sent flailing across the sector, and the Dragon’s arm collides empty-handed into the hull, splintering cracks up its length.
Mazayus leaps for a slackly floating Boone with the velocity of his boot-thrusters, dodging fire from an angry Dragon as it pursues them, unhitching itself from the hull. He grabs for the drowsy man and wrenches him down to escape more fire, going for the supply kit on his suit. Activating the EVA function on the liquid star energy device, Mazayus jabs it into Boone’s neck, through the material of his vitasuit. The EVA function activates an independent atmospheric field in a small diameter, preventing exposure until the vitasuit can heal over the perforation from the needle.
“You good?” he shouts as he sees Boone stir back into focus.
“I’m good!”
“On your six!” Natheus alerts them from afar.
The Dragon soars in and swats Mazayus across the sector as Boone is knocked upward, making impact with its visor and sliding over its upper hull. His fingers padlock to a jutting plating, latching on as the warmachine morphs beneath him. The plate reshapes, folding and sliding up to connect with a forward section above the Dragon gunship’s visor, and Boone is flung over with it. His body twists up and over in a guided somersault, feet peaking at the elevation of the display before he folds them inward, driving them through the visor and cracking it open.
The gulp of atmosphere fights his entry momentarily before he is able to dive inside the cockpit, bashing head-first into one of the pilots.
“Fuck! Get him off! Get him off me!” Boone hears the pilot shriek as he wrestles for a death-grip on his throat. The Paragon’s fingers lock around just as another man leaps upon his back and wraps his arm around his neck, fumbling for the manual release of his helmet to expose him. Boone ruffles himself wildly, the man losing his grip and sent smashing into the bulkhead.
In the interlude, the pilot beneath Boone had managed to scramble for his weapon and now opens fire into the Paragon. His entity roars in deflection, lightning shards splitting back into his own armour, shredding himself to death. The element catches the droplets of rising blood, convulsing at Boone until he can kick the dead pilot away, right into the recovering co-pilot.
The man swirls back yet again, u
nable to conquer his environment. Boone takes one advancing step, catches the back of the man’s helmet in one hand, and slams him into the bulkhead with a savage force. His visor cracks, and Boone leaves him for the void to feed on.
With the cockpit cleared, Boone races to the control panels, not even attempting to quell his excitement as he hollers, “it’s mine!” down his comms. This is a first experience for him. UEU Dragon warmachines are newly issued, and versatile in their advanced status. Not only can the machines operate as EVA hull-walkers, they can morph to operate as gunships. Powerfully aggressive hybrids, Dragons are any spacestation’s worst nightmare.
“Deo, get your ass in here, I need a gunner!” Boone calls as he spots the Paragon floating across the sector, propelled by his thruster nodules.
Deo had watched the battle from afar as he used the distraction to aid the Serenity marines. He reins his attention toward the far side of the control sector, beyond the towering pillars and glowing pathways. Access points blink unattended through clear nikita walls. The gravity controls must be in there somewhere, along with the orbital cannons. He opens the comms link with the other Paragons. "Gonna try for the controls. Looks like they’re through there." He sets a waypoint for them.
"We got you covered," Mazayus responds, darting back toward Boone.
Halting his idle sail around the marines, Deo accesses his thruster nodes with neural management, angling his trajectory across the sector. Shards brush at his entity, emitting a crackling of red fulmination through his skin, but the Dragon quickly draws fire away from him. Once he reaches the edging of the spherical control section, he pulls himself down to a solid surface again, planting his gravity boots as they sip in the connection.
Many of the Serenity marines have followed, a Paragon presence automatic guidance to them, and his protection highlighting him as their saviour. He never much likes the attention one receives as a Paragon, or the flock that always seems to follow. They find themselves rushing down a tunnel, littered again with glowing readings as they speed around in a circular motion. It reminds Deo of Altair’s atmospheric readings in life support.