by G Aliaksei C
Then it thumped again.
Then the familiar sound of a RAM-D rotating rang across the base, followed by the roar of a laced plasma bolt and the groan of the rollback mechanism.
“Fort! What’s going on!”
“Attack from forest. Forward enemy unit with focused shields. Deflecting attack. I am bringing up artillery. Calling the village for reinforcements.”
Inna was gone, having soundlessly teleported somewhere. Jim was running back the way we had come, several of his other bodies leaving their positions around the base to join him.
Eight massive artillery cannons, one of Jim’s installations, thumped as one, sending their payloads up. Half a minute later streaks of light hit somewhere north, and a shockwave shook the ground under us, almost as much as the wave of fracture had. I wondered if the impact had freed any more levitating islands.
“Negative effect. Enemy deflector Class determined to be 8.”
Eight.
The Shade I had fought with Rarus had only been a five.
“Everyone on the walls!” I yelled into my Menu, my roaring voice echoing across the base, drowning out the endless rumble.
While Jim initially refused to substitute his laser rifles for my own, I had no such qualms about taking apart my minigun. The result of my work was the Class 4 Chini - a gatling gun with three ten-millimeter caliber, meter-long barrels. This creation of mine used a known Class 4 weapon system - a form of particle lance. The original technology accelerated small quantities of special sand to incredible speeds, allowing for great muzzle velocity and penetration.
I, of course, used the same technology to accelerate antimatter. Upon firing, a canister of antimatter was emptied and launched down the barrel. It was fired in a shield bubble that created a layer of vacuum between the antimatter and the air it passed through. The unintentional effect of such a system was that the shot’s shield interfered with weaker shields and, on impact, allowed a portion of the antimatter to pass through the defense. The result had proven rather colorful - in testing Crawlers vanished as the antimatter reacted with the air in their deflector, filling it with fire and roasting the Beast alive in its own dome.
Unfortunately the gun was too heavy to carry and maneuver on my own, so I attached it to a fresh suit of powered armor. The Class 3 suit, set with Class 4 Gems, covered only in thin armor, allowed for plenty of stability and power to lift the weapon with one hand.
Only it wasn’t normal armor. Using my upgraded solar furnace and a borrowed mass of Durasteel, a rare and precious material on the Rings, I recreated a particular alloy of Durasteel that seemed nonexistent on the Rings. It was an amazing alloy that allowed it to both reflect and radiate all wavelengths of radiation like nothing else. The ideal version of the alloy, if fired upon with a laser or high-energy beam, reflected over ninety-nine percent of the thermal energy carried by the attack. If heated enough, the alloy glowed the energy away at an amazing rate. That made it difficult to manufacture and irreplaceable in combat. A villager inscribed deflection Runes similar to Inna’s on the thin armor, but their effect was minor. I had no understanding of the Runes yet - it was simply not something I had time to consider.
Months of work did not go wasted on a simple gun and suit of armor, however. I rolled out a stack of large, thick metal hexagons, and began the startup sequence. One by one the plates of armor, humming with power, rose up, taking position around me. Stack after stack I activated the plates until the room was filled with floating, humming armor. Using my suit systems as a special anchor the armor could move with ease in my vicinity, shifting and dashing to where it was needed. My suit, in turn, sunk the momentum changes required for the motion into the ground I stood on. That, too, was a known technology, used for public transportation platforms in larger cities. I, having ordered a set of such platforms, ended up repurposing their parts into the Flight Armor.
Unwilling to leave my other arm unoccupied, and recognizing that in this world a gun did not always win a sword fight, I constructed an over-engineered Class 3 sword from the Nova weapons we had captured. It was the most boring, least creative of my inventions, and I swore to fix that.
That, however, was the end of my new technological prowess. I stepped into the armor, feeling sluggish under the weight of all the gear.
Gray, one of the three Marbots I had made for Inna, rolled up and knocked into my boot. I smiled back at him, and the Marbot rolled out of the way.
The little sphere of armor was the only Marbot of the three who returned to me after a short stay with Inna. It was hard to tell why, but he had taken to living in my workshop, quite content with watching me work for hours on end.
Squeezing sideways through the doorway I awkwardly jogged up to the tank and climbed on, avoiding the lengthy run required to reach the wall.
The four nearest RAM-Ds were firing in series now, sending a bolt of plasma down the north side of the valley every few seconds. Their target was highlighted by discharges of lighting and fire, a ripple in a sea of dust. The consistent fireball of lighting and smoke seemed to near with every impact, approaching the line where firing RAM-Ds would no longer be safe.
Once more I couldn’t help but stare at the right before me. The pillar of smoke caused by the RAM-D’s assault seemed tiny in the sea of dust that filled the valley. Several of the stone fracture were hundreds of meters in the air now, their narrowing bases still partially hidden under the surface. The dust danced and rippled with every hit, waves of dust rolling over the valley, a signature of every shockwave.
The sudden change in the air impossible to miss. It was as if the volume around me filled with energy. I had trouble discerning whether the pressure saturating around me was physical or physiological.
I slowly turned around, trying to spot the source of my tension.
Two red eyes met mine. I did not recognize the stare, too focused on the red glow to note the face. The eyes looked me over, then the wall of armor surrounding me. I was finally able to lose their hypnotic lock, and recognized the monster standing before me.
Inna had… changed. Her suit, while retaining the same frame, now had a whole new layer of equipment, armor and mass that turned the smooth, light set into something much heavier and deadlier. For the first time I saw her full array of weapons - four swords, two knives, a compact rifle and some sort of gauntlet-mounted cannon that probably made my heavy Firebolter seem like a firecracker. Gone were graceful, smooth movements of an ancient being. As if refusing to commit any time to useless in between, her movements seemed to lack anything between the before and after. At one moment she was looking at the horizon, another, at me, as if teleporting her head instead of using muscles to turn it. Solid black eyes with red irises stared at me from the pale, unnaturally still face.
She was in her combat body. A real, honest-to-void Class 9 combatant stood next to me. Beneath her black Durasteel armor, I knew, were prosthetic, weaponized limbs, armored organs, enhanced muscles and other technology I could only dream of.
Rarus joined us. Compared to the slender Human standing next to her, the massive insectoid seemed like a toy tank.
With a thought the Flight Armor around me parted, the plates shifting to let the Inson approach.
Rarus asked the question first.
“Drake. Why are you trying to imitate a disco ball?”
“What are you talking about?” I shifted, sending reflections of sunlight and nearby explosions scattering across the landscape. There was no avoiding it - I lit up the area around me like a lightbulb.
“Your armor is akin to really reflective snow. You are aware of the concept of ‘camouflage’, right?”
“Camouflage is overrated. This!” I tapped my chest with the free hand. “This is Energy Durasteel! Or, well, a really cheap alloy of it.”
“Alright, but why did you paint it reflective white?”
“It’s not paint, this is what Energy Durasteel looks like! Can we move on to the problem at hand? What are we shooting at?”
I turned to Inna.
The Lady of War raised a hand, pointing beyond the wall.
“Drake, we are in what you Corporate call deep shit!”
“I can tell! I can’t believe they’re just taking my RAM-Ds like that! And that idiot from Concord thought they could take down a White Specter!”
“Oh, no. It’s so much worse than that!” There was a distinct note of excitement in her unnaturally hollow voice. “Open your map, turn on the Zone overlay, and look!”
I did just that, accessing the map in my Menu in my mind and zooming out from the fortress with the Zone coloring scheme activated. I physically shifted in surprise - the light-yellow comfort zone between the two nearby hotspots was gone, replaced with a dull Purple.
According to the map, we were in a Class 8 zone.
“Oh, shit! It’s about to get fucking heated up in here now!”
I looked at the commentator, whose words so closely mirrored my thoughts. Inna’s nineteen villagers were high-fiving in a circle, cheering. The only thing identifying them as the villagers were removed helmets - all stood tall, armored and armed to the teeth, grinning at each other in excitement. All were very clearly forward combatants, their massive weapons and bulky armor lacking any tact.
“What are you all waiting for!” I saw Inna flash around to look at her people, who began putting on their helmets and unlimbering weapons.
Me and the Jims looked around uncomfortably, feeling oppressed by the very presence of so many high-Class armor systems. The wildly colored armor gleamed in the sunlight; Barrels and blades spun in excitement for the upcoming battle.
“Are we done?” I finally found my voice, and the villagers stopped their banter to look at me. “We still have that…. thing… what is that!”
My eyes finally landed on our opponent. It was a massive, eight-legged thing with a bulbous body, completely alien from the Crawlers I had dealt with before. I had trouble telling if it was a machine or a creature, its living and metal components too interlaced to tell apart. The view was obscured by the thick, gleaming energy dome that so effectively reflected our artillery.
The RAM-Ds could no longer do anything - firing at this range would do more damage to us than the enemy.
“Drake, mentally open your Menu and join the call.”
Using the Vazanklav beacon as a relay I connected to our local network, and joined the combat coms. The Villagers voices sounded off in my head.
<…Mechanic ready!> David’s voice, a quick and compressed thought rather than a sound, reverberated in my head through the Menu. He was wielding some complex contraption, an amalgamation of several weapons that seemed terribly unreasonable, if impressive.
I quickly put on my helmet, allowing the optical systems and Heads Up Display to connect to the rest of the suit, and chimed in.
There’s a badass, I thought, impressed with the charge.
Something countered her.
The oversized, shielded spider proved to be little more than a carrier for smaller units. A single shield bubble, gleaming with energy, launched out of the spider’s larger dome. It angled down, landing between Inna and its carrier. Without pause, it charged.
Several meters before one-another the two combatants accelerated. It was as if I was watching a movie at double speed. They shifted from side to side, mirroring each other’s moves perfectly as they neared. The enemy fired first, a brilliant golden beam lancing out of its dome and smashing into Inna’s, spilling fire across the valley as it deflected. Inna returned the favor a fraction of a second later - her compact rifle was up and firing, gray beams flashing across the burning distance between them. Unlike the golden beam Inna’s weapon was visibly effective, denting the attacker’s shield in with its vast power.
The two shields met, passing each other and merging into one. Something tore and exploded, and a moment later the combatants separated. Inna went vertical, launching herself ten meters into the air. The hidden opponent bounced back to where he came from. Two long, slender, three-jointed limbs flew out of the engagement, coming to a rest a distance away. Their tips gleamed in the sunlight.
Inna, in the air, was rattling off a report. My mind struggled to understand the accelerated thought.
All nineteen villagers teleported several hundred meters off the wall, straight outside the Dome. I realized how clear the weather was. A rare occasion indeed, often a prelude to a firestorm.
First came something akin to a game of chess. Inna’s people landed and spread out around the shielded spider. Shield Strider, came the name. The enemy countered - more of the smaller creatures clinging onto the Shield Strider began to teleport off, appearing outside the shield and charging. Powerful, gleaming personal deflectors hid the creatures underneath. The smaller wall defenses opened fire in salvo with the villagers. The attacking creatures, unphased, evaded or deflected the ranged fire, moving and teleporting like flies.
“Mr. Frost,” said Jim as he raised his weapons. “We can’t hope to do anything against that.”
I saw Pessi, who also remained on the wall, nodding in agreement - his mighty weapon was proving completely ineffective against the quick-moving targets.
“Put up or shut up, Jim! But if you don’t at least try I’ll think very poorly of you.”
All twenty Jims fired their laser rifles at a single attacker. All twenty hit the spot it was occupying, missing the target entirely. The enemy didn’t even slow its charge - it just shifted, negating damage better than a deflector ever could.
A momentary flicker of the enemy shield allowed me to see within for a fraction of a second. I replayed the helmet recording in slow motion, straining to understand what I was looking at.
It was a chaotic creature in every regard. Several dozen thin legs of armor and dark-green muscle surrounded a bulbous, round body. Every limb ended with a blade, saw or edge. The legs moved in perfect harmony, digging into the ground and launching the creature forward, providing the Beast with perfect traction and control. The hemispherical, deformed but generally round body had no face nor mouth. Instead it had a dish-like crater that took up most of its front - the source of its deadly golden beams.
Finally, after several endless seconds of advance, the two sides met.
Both the defenders and Beasts moved with the quickened speed of overlapping Slipstreams - a Class 8 system that seemed to accelerate the user in time. The physics of such a system were alien to me, as the only method of bending time in such a manner known to me involved a black hole of negative mass - theoretical, impractical space magic that would kill the user and destroy the world it was used on.
Rarus was, as usual, quite impressive. The massive insectoid, with only Class 7 gear, was holding her own against a single opponent, steadily chipping away at it with monstrous speed and strength, unassisted by a Slipstream. Like a piece of wood being fed into a grinder, the attacker was being pushed back by the Inson’s relentless might. Rarus, clearly at the peak of her capabilities, was barely avoiding a stalemate, saved only by Pessi’s covering fire.
It took me several painful minutes to climb down the wall and run outside the Comfort Dome, forced to move by foot since I lacked a teleporter of my own. I was surprised the fight was still ongoing, the hacking, sawing attackers holding their own against Class 8 and 9 warriors of Vazanklav. Occasionally two combatants would separate, broken and tired, only to re-enter combat with renewed strength
I lacked a Slipstream. I lacked a teleporter. My rampant Fall Coefficient did very little to help in a battle of such might. I was, once more, entirel
y useless.
So instead I started to walk towards the spider. Ignored by twenty individual brawls surrounding it, the massive carrier seemed uninterested in participating in the action. I walked past the line of combat and pushed through the dome covering the massive Shield-Strider. My approach did not go unnoticed - a leg slowly raised up, and the sharp tip streaked towards me. As once I managed with the Shade, I shifted, dodging the impact. Plates of armor floating around dashed in front of me, ramming into the side of the falling leg and pushing it aside, making my dodge viable. The armor plates quickly returned, taking up position, ready to deflect further attacks.
From my waistband came an oversized grenade which I, unphased by my near death, flung up at the body of the spider. Halfway through the flight the grenade’s small thrusters activated, launching it towards the massive torso overhead.
Having accomplished my mission I turned right back around and began to run. Another dodge and roll took me out of the bubble. I slid to a stop, fell on my chest, and covered my head.
As one the villages moved back from their engagements and fell to the ground.
Several seconds of hell that engulfed the battlefield. A blinding light filled the dome behind me. The forcefield held for a time, cooking the spider in antimatter fire before collapsing. The flood of fire washed over us, blackening deflectors and knocking smaller, upright opponents to the ground. My armor plates assembled all around, building a multi-layered shield between me and the killing fire. The wind changed direction several times, bathing every object in range with heat and fire from all angles.
The massive Shield Strider lay in ruin, its towering majesty shattered.
But dozens of smaller enemies, previously carried by the Strider, remained.
Combat resumed as rapidly as it paused. I looked back at the flaming wreck of the Shield Strider, burning in a circle of scorched earth, and saw one of the smaller multi-legged combatants moving towards me. The crippled, limping creature charging me, hacking and sawing with wobbling limbs.