by Jeff Sproul
BOOM BOOM BOOM.
Another series of blasts rumbled the facility. Riley saw the explosions light up the north-east building.
"Solar arrays have been compromised. Power generation is now at two percent."
"Fantastic." Riley shook his head. "System, will I be able to repair the damaged stuff, with the materials I'll be gaining from the excavations?"
"The various equipment that is currently damaged can all be repaired with different quantities of the resources gained from the excavator at this facility, given enough time."
"So, that's a yes?" Riley inquired, lifting a brow.
"That's a yes."
Riley's lips curled. "Out of curiosity, is the aerial drone able to support more than its own weight? And if so, by how much?"
"The drone can still gain altitude as long as the added weight does not exceed two-hundred additional pounds."
Riley quickly pulled up his status screen to check his weight again, since it had changed a little with the addition of the wallets. It currently read as 196 lbs. Which, to be fair, was both his own weight, and the things he had in his inventory. He couldn't remember entirely, but he was sure his actual character was around 150 lbs.
"Alright. System, new plan. Withdraw the drone. I've got a stupid idea."
Chapter 4: Rational Plan
Riley crouched on top of the aerial drone as it slowly made its way toward his destination. "System, you can still hear me from up here, right?"
"Yes, commander," came a sound from a black armband with a built-in indicator light. It depicted his range of communication in green. It was on the center of the band and would let him know if he left communication range of the base. If he did, it would go red and he'd be unable to communicate with the base. Luckily, its range was greater than that of its scanning range. He just hoped that whatever the interference was that prevented him from calling back to Chrono wasn't going to get in his way now.
The wind whipped by due to how high up he was. He was coasting at roughly a thousand feet in the sky. He wasn't a huge fan of heights, but he felt he didn't have a choice. He had to play this just right, unless he wanted to get overrun by the small army outside his new outpost. So far, they hadn't done anything other than bombard him. He had no idea what their strategy was. It was likely that they were being controlled and observed by a player somewhere. But was that player nearby? Or far away? The possibilities for what could be going on here were endless.
The facility had been bombarded another seven times as he remained on the drone. He just hoped they wouldn't attack once the rounds were expelled. If they only had a few rounds left then this plan was going to be extra stupid.
Another small flash with three puffs of flame came from the mortar. In a matter of seconds, all three rounds smashed down into the base.
"The solar array has now reached zero functionality. It will need to be repaired before any further power generation can occur."
"Great," Riley murmured. "How much of a strain am I putting on the power supply of this drone?"
"The drone is running at maximum performance to accommodate the extra weight. It is currently at thirty-two percent power."
"Thirty-two?" Riley asked. "Ah, well…we're almost there. Are you able to get a good reading? I'm above the site, but how much farther?"
He looked down over the drone. Far below, he could see the amassed troops.
"Twenty more seconds," said the system from the band.
"Alright, we should've gone unnoticed. At least, I hope," he murmured. "I just hope those troops aren't looking straight up above them."
"That will depend on their innate AI or the orders given to them."
"Good to know."
"You've reached your destination. Shall I start the maneuver?"
Riley's lips curled. "Do it."
A moment later, the drone's propellers sputtered to a stop. Then, it plummeted.
The wind whipped up at Riley's face. His clothes ruffled rapidly. The goggles kept his vision clear. The sky was still pretty dark, but more blue had come to it. The sun was still far from rising, which was good for him, since he needed the cover of darkness to pull off this maneuver.
On the drone's back, he rushed toward the ground. "How much farther?" he called above the sound of the wind on his ears.
"One-hundred feet to trigger point."
Riley's entire body was tense as he held onto the drone. He needed to get to five-hundred feet. He was almost there.
Then, once he was at about five-hundred and fifty feet, the drone's propellers sped back up at full power. Riley just hoped that the drone's power supply would survive the maneuver. He hadn't considered it until a minute ago.
His descent slowed, but he was still falling pretty fast. He waited and waited. All he could do was wait. He looked at the armband. The light was still green.
"Jump."
Riley grabbed the edge of the drone and slid off of it. The propellers had gone idle again, but he kept it in his hands, held above him so that the propellers could direct his descent with short bursts to fine-tune his trajectory.
"The drone's gonna be alright?" he asked.
"The drone has a high probability of survival. Greater than yours," said the system.
Riley tried to smile, but as his mouth opened slightly, the wind just flapped his cheeks and showed off his teeth. He felt the drone shift and turn as he gripped it. The system was keeping him on course. All according to the plan.
He continued to fall. The ground rushed to greet him.
But it wasn't the ground he hit.
It was the mortar.
The moment his metal-plated boots smashed into the mortar, the momentum of his impact was transferred directly into damage. The spider-like legs sparked at the joints and cracked as he dented the top of the mortar considerably, which also pushed the cannon tube off at a broken angle.
Simultaneously, his hands released the drone, allowing it to zoom off into the sky at an angle, to help it avoid any fire. He might've disabled the mortar, but he was now surrounded by fifty NPCs equipped with assault rifles.
But they were also in close proximity to him.
All of the enemies were training their rifles on him. He didn't see faces. All he saw were figures moving as one, to kill him.
But with a single thought, everything around him froze. At least, everything within a one-hundred foot radius.
He didn't have a lot of time, though. He spotted two crates next to the mortar. One was filled with mortar rounds, while the other was about half empty. The scanner hadn't detected them, and he hadn't really noticed them with the zoomed in camera view. He'd figured they were simply part of the mortar itself, from the distant view.
He hopped off the mortar and went to the crate that was full of explosive rounds. He grabbed them and started chucking them around to each of the small groups of enemy troops. He only managed to get two mortar rounds to their destinations, before he then ducked behind the crate, trying to obscure himself as best he could between it and the mortar.
Time returned to normal, but no gunshots went off.
"Where is he?" came a woman's voice.
"No visual," came a man's.
"We have no cloak detection. Orders? Affirmative," she said, but Riley had no idea who the random NPC woman might be in communication with. "Troops, fire on the surrounding areas! If he's cloaked, we'll hit him."
Simultaneously, fifty assault rifles tore into the air. Short bursts cut into the dirt all over the place. None landed near him, though. The hostiles were all firing randomly in the vicinity, assuming that he'd cloaked himself.
This was something he and Brenda had both dealt with back in the Hellions expansion. Chrono's power was time manipulation, but only in a localized area and only for a limited amount of time. It was very energy intensive and he wasn't of the same capability as Chrono. A player's energy pool determined how often a player could trigger it, whereas the Mind stat determined how long it would last.
With the cooldown time over, he mentally triggered another time field. He started moving right away, grabbing mortar rounds and chucking them around the area. He managed to get four more out before he had to duck down again. There were red-hot rounds in the air that the enemy NPCs had fired but he didn't have much time to pay more attention to avoid hitting them with the mortars he was tossing around.
The cooldown ticked away again as the fifty soldiers tore up the ground with bullets.
Once more, Riley triggered the time-stop effect. He tossed out four more mortars and then grabbed two to hold while he ducked back down. The time-stop ended and the soldiers fired for another second or two.
"Hold fire! Did anyone hit anything?" came the woman's voice.
There was a series of grunts but no confirmations.
Then, Riley triggered the ability again.
He left the two mortars against the side of the crate that he'd found them in.
Then, he ran.
He passed by one of the soldiers and grabbed his weapon on his way by. He just hoped it had some ammo left, because he wasn't going to have enough time to grab any off of him.
He rushed in the direction of the facility, but 3.3 seconds wasn't a long time to try and run.
As the time-stop ended, he would suddenly 'appear' where he currently was, as his movements while time-stopped would be imperceptible to most things in the game.
He turned and aimed at the mortars he'd left at the crate. He pulled the trigger on the bulky assault rifle and fired a burst of three shots at the waiting mortars.
An explosion tore outwards and into the sky.
Within a couple seconds, the mortars he'd thrown at the grouped-up troopers also detonated one after the other.
After he fired, he quickly turned to keep running, but he'd barely even moved before the power of the explosion sent him to the ground from the shockwave.
There were shouts and yells, but each abruptly went silent.
Riley's health took a hit from his proximity to the explosion. He’d taken 224 points of damage, leaving him at 2526 HP.
Which could've been a lot worse.
He didn't have the energy left to pull off another time-stop. Due to holding two powers, his energy capacity was only 2800. Each time-stop had cost him 600 energy each. He was sitting at 400 energy left, which would have to be enough to run away with.
As smoke billowed and fire engulfed the area where the battalion had stood, he got up and ran away. He headed for the facility, leaving destruction behind him. In the semi-likely but hopefully unlikely chance that one or more of the troopers had survived, he'd be vulnerable. He needed to gain as much distance as he could.
"System, did the drone make it back?" he asked.
"It's almost home, with plenty of power to finish its journey."
"Ah, right," Riley murmured. "I guess it hasn't been all that long. Did the interference clear up, by chance?"
"Negative. The interference preventing communication to Chrono is still prevalent."
"Is there any chance that the problem could be closer to Chrono, and nowhere nearby?"
"That is a possibility."
"I doubt it'd make much of a difference, but try reaching Aaron from my contact list."
There were about three seconds of silence, followed by five seconds of static as he ran.
"Any luck?" he asked.
"Negative. The interference is still preventing communication."
"Alright, no problem. We bought ourselves some time." He turned his head as he kept running. The explosion should have killed the NPCs if they had a hitpoint capacity anywhere close to what his own troopers had. They would've turned into particles almost instantly upon death and then disappeared. If any of their equipment was left, and not somehow destroyed, he'd have to go and salvage it once he knew it was safe. For now, he needed to get back to base and fortify his control of the facility.
There was still a lot of work to do. Hopefully, there wouldn't be any more problems.
After more running, he reached the wall of the facility. "System, can you open a side entrance for me?" he asked.
"Keep running toward the wall you're facing. You'll see an access beacon lit with a small yellow ping."
"Yeah, I see it," Riley confirmed.
He ran over to the side of the wall where the yellow blip was in his vision. It wasn't lit on the wall itself, it was a ping that only he could see. He got to the point he needed to be at and looked around for a button or panel, but there was none.
"Uh, system, let me in," he said.
A small section of the wall descended right into the ground. Riley's brows lifted. Apparently, the wall went a little under the ground. He walked through the wall, thanks to the small entrance that he would've never been able to see without access to the facility's system controls.
It was strange walking back into the facility. It felt a bit like coming home.
Or at least, the safety of what a home should feel like.
He had left his five troopers to guard the command facility. It was really the only thing he could do with the limited resources at his disposal.
He headed back to the command building at the center of the base. He went in through the same entrance he had earlier and soon found himself in the hallway, heading to the door.
He'd changed the door permissions on his way out, so that it would only open for himself and anyone in the alliance. He couldn't simply set permissions to 'guild' because The Bunker Brawlers only made up a small part of the entire alliance. He wasn't relinquishing control of the facility to the entirety of the alliance. Not just yet.
He opened the door and stepped inside the command room. The five guards were all in different defensive positions around the room. Each of them had spread out and taken cover behind one object or another.
"Welcome back, sir," said Trooper One. "Have you dealt with the threats?"
"Yeah, they're gone," he replied to the NPC. "We need to finish securing the base. So I need Troopers Two and Three to check the north-west building, while Troopers Four and Five check the north-east. Once you've finished searching the building for hostiles, supplies, whatever, head to the south-west building, search it as well, then return here with whatever you've found.”
The four troopers all headed off, now in pairs of two, with Trooper One left behind with Riley. He watched them exit the room and then remembered to ask the system, "The lights are on across the base, right?"
"Yes," came the system's soft, digital voice.
"Perfect. Alright, so, what's on the agenda now?" he said, mostly to himself. He headed back to the command chair and took his seat. He allowed himself a moment to relax. "Alright, our scan range is still a little short. Once the drone is charged, can you send it back out to scan the area in a circling pattern?"
"The drone will be deployed once it reaches a full charge," said the system.
"Great, great. So, the south-east structure is the printer. What are the other three buildings?"
"The north-east building is for storage of materials. The south-west building is the excavator. The north-west building is also for storage."
"And these solar arrays are where, exactly?"
"Solar arrays are located on the roofs of the four outer structures."
"And does that mean the central command structure houses the scanner, antennas, mortars, and railgun?"
"That is correct."
"And how quickly will we get our first shipment of resources?"
"We will acquire the first shipment in five minutes, twenty seconds."
Riley sat back in
the command chair and tapped his chin. "How soon till sunrise?"
"The sun will rise in one hour, thirty-seven minutes."
"Hmm, what am I going to do about communicating with the others, then?" he pondered to himself. "Can you go ahead and acquire the coordinates to the alliance base from my rover? And…out of curiosity, there's no way to send the drone, or my rover out, to try and chain a signal back to the alliance base, right?"
"Unknown. It would depend on the cause of the interference and if it moves or lessens. Chaining the aerial drone and rover out toward the base would do little to boost the signal based on the current interference levels."
Riley looked down at the communication device on his wrist. The system had produced it from a small box-like device in the room and only consumed power to make it. It was only good for this facility and wouldn't work for others. But apparently, there were universal communicators for keeping in touch with every base that you had access to.
Riley watched the yellow dots move around the base. It was nice that he could track his own troopers in real time. Perhaps it would've been best to switch them over to base command, instead of his personal.
"System, with the resources that could be gained from the excavator, am I able to make more epper rods?"
"Yes."
"And I have a schematic for epper rods, right?"
The printer function under his list of functions flashed. "Ah, right," he said as he tapped the button. He brought up a list of all the recipes that he'd been given. He could make more troopers, he could make their pistols and ammo. He could make baz rods, he could make epper rods, he couldn't make the crystals for the teleporter, but if he remembered correctly, those were raw materials that were simply mined.
He tapped the schematic for epper rods and gave it a look over.
-
Epper rod
Provides (1,000,000) GUs
Required Materials:
11 Epzyte Crystals
5 Pugstine Ore
2 Crithil Dust
-
"Doesn't sound so bad…if I can get the resources," he mused. "System, do you have any recommendations for something I should be doing right now?"