Ravens of Eternity

286 Desperate Ambush, Pt Raijin and Xylo blasted up and out of the corvette warehouse with their thrusters at the maximum. They were followed by streams of gunfire, which peppered them across their armor. Scratches, dents, and small gouges appeared on their chassis, but luckily nothing severe enough to punch through.

They quickly sped over the edge and dropped down towards where Freya, Kali, and Lucifer were mopping up, without any hesitation.

Down below, Freya push-kicked the last enemy mecha, who was thrown backwards from the blow. The pilot inside struggled against his controls and did his best to keep his mecha upright despite the force of her kick.

And just as he took a final step back and solidified his balance, Kali smashed him from behind with a hovertank in her hands.

The enemy mecha was thrown forward violently, and crashed into the titacrete highway just in front of him. He pushed up on his arms and rose up slightly, but was smashed into the ground by Kali’s hovertank for a second time.

And then a third time.

Shards of warped armor flung off both the mecha and the tank as Kali continued to pummel them together. Broken parts and torn modules were flung in every direction from her vicious attack. Once she was satisfied that both were sufficiently wrecked, she tossed the tank off to the side, then put a foot on top of the mecha proudly.

Raijin and Xylo landed nearby with heavy THUDS, and caused the ground to shudder underneath them.

“That Idiot’s here!” Xylo exclaimed.

.....

“Yeah, he came on all our comms,” said Freya. “This is our chance. I say we counter-charge and kill him now.”

“Wait,” Raijin interrupted. “There are more incoming. My sensors are showing another 12, all coming from all four directions down the main highways.”

“Guess they’re trying to pincer us?” said Kali.

“It’s a weak one, but yes,” Lucifer replied. “As for taking out That Idiot – not now.”

“Why the hell not?” protested Freya. She burned with the desire to absolutely annihilate him. It was something they all should have done long ago. The need to equalize things almost completely overtook her.

But, she tamped her impulse down and listened to Lucifer.

“They might’ve laid a poor trap for us,” Lucifer replied. “But it doesn’t mean it won’t be effective. We fight on our terms, not theirs, and that means escaping their encirclement. Right now, we gotta break north. Go go go!”

The five of them immediately blasted around the circular warehouse street at top speed, then turned northwards along the main highway.

“So we’re just running then?” said Freya.

“No, we’re taking attention away from Azrael and Claire too,” Lucifer replied. “If we’ve got the Peacekeepers behind us, nothing stops those two from getting the Spirit of Amelia free. Right?”

“We hear ya,” Azrael confirmed. “We’ll get it done, no worries.”

“My drones will help you as well,” Raijin told Azrael and Claire. “Simply tell them what to do.”

“Bogeys in range,” Xylo declared.

Just as the closest incoming mecha came within 1.5km of the Ravens, Xylo fired a partially-charged sniper shot right at it. Her slug cut through the air in the fraction of a second, and slammed the mecha’s chest dead center.

It tore through its armor, the structure, its core, then into its power plant with incredible ease. The energies within the power plant burst forth from the small rupture, and caused the whole thing to explode from the inside.

The other two came charging in, and wove evasively as they neared the Ravens. And once they reached 1000 meters, fired back with their shoulder-mounted rocket pods.

More than a dozen rockets came at the Ravens, streams of vapor followed in their wake. They slammed into the titacrete highway and buildings all around as the Ravens dodged them with evasive weaving.

Lucifer raised hir rifle and fired a tight burst at the nearest enemy. Hir charged slugs ripped into its armor, then slagged the structure underneath. Ze fired a second burst that tore through the greatly softened structure and into the core behind it. The pilot was instantly obliterated, and painted the inside of the core with his blood.

As it fell to the ground, Freya opened up her beamcannon on the third and final one. She poured as much energy as she could into the beam itself and scored the mecha’s armor continually. She did her utmost to keep her aim right on it, even though both of them wove left and right evasively.

Its armor was criss-crossed with lacerations that glowed a dull red, and began to fall off in softened pieces.

It attempted to fire back with its own SMG, but was quickly torn apart by Xylo’s rifle fire. She punched through its weakened armor with a few quick bursts, and struck multiple modules and systems underneath. The damage caused it to lose partial control of its thrusters, then careened off to the side unexpectedly. The mecha crashed into the side of a building with incredible force – enough to cause some of the wall to collapse inward, and on top of it.

The Ravens didn’t bother to stop, and simply increased their velocity. They sped past the demolished mecha at top speed and left the three Peacekeepers dead or dying in their smoldering wrecks.

~

Claire and Azrael watched the live feed on their screens with absolute trepidation. Nightmare and his Peacekeepers sped out of the warehouse about a dozen seconds after Raijin and Xylo bugged out.

Each and every one of his people seemed to be heavily armed, though luckily they weren’t heavily armored.

Still, it caused them a great deal of anxiety – they had no idea if any Peacekeepers were left inside. If any were still at the bottom, they definitely wouldn’t be able to fight them. Especially if they were still in their mecha. And definitely not while Amelia was locked down on the gravity pad.

A quick scan confirmed there weren’t any active readouts, but that didn’t mean that they weren’t simply on standby, and with their energy output bottomed out.

Regardless of what was in front of them, they both had to act. Amelia wasn’t going to be free if they didn’t fight.

Claire’s hands shook as she tapped on her screen and lowered the corvette’s ramps. Fighting always made her far too anxious and nervous. She definitely was able to hold things together if they were in fire teams next to each other, but now it was just her and Azrael – the two least combative members of the team.

Her heart shook at the thought.

But Azrael steadied her as best she could. She put a hand on Claire’s shoulder, and squeezed it lightly. Then she injected her arm with her VitaStim before she injected herself.

Energy coursed through the both of them. Their bodies felt lighter immediately, or perhaps it was because their muscles suddenly became stronger. Either way, they felt their skin toughen and their bones harden. On top of that, whatever aches and pains their bodies held also diminished, and their minds became clearer and sharper.

Both felt strengthened by Azrael’s stimulant, which certainly helped their courage solidify as well.

“Let’s get Amelia unlocked,” said Azrael.

Claire nodded, but then her mouth flung open as movement suddenly appeared on her screen. On it, a dozen SSS guards and their drones came up via a gravity lift in the middle of the warehouse.

They stepped out onto their floor in a rush, and spread out with their guns raised. They moved in teams of four – three guards and one drone – and quickly split up towards four quadrants of the floor itself.

Each of the SSS guards were all heavily equipped, with thick ballistic armor and large, robust rifles. They activated the floodlights and sensors on their weapons, and began to scour the shadows as they patrolled carefully.

The drones that accompanied them were equally imposing. They were much larger than standard patrol drones, and had thick armor to keep them secure. On top of that, they had twin miniguns protruding from the front.

Azrael gulped out of nervousness. Her hands began to tremble, like Claire’s did. They had all been in so many fights in the past year, but she never got over them, and they always got to her.

Violence simply wasn’t in either of their souls.

She wondered how they were going to get out of their predicament – it seemed there were too many people between them and the gravity lift. Wading through a dozen heavily armed SSS units was not something she wanted to do.

“Wait, look,” said Claire.

She pointed at the admin booth on the other side of the floor, across the open middle. Like the first warehouse, this admin booth stretched from floor to ceiling, though its internal space only looked as though it was only 3 meters high.

In there, the admin tapped madly on his screen, which opened an access hatch above him. He quickly climbed up and into it, presumably towards the floor above. His two personal guards stayed behind, however.

One of them tapped on the screen, and shut the hatch behind the admin.

“Did you see that?” Claire asked, to which Azrael nodded.

“We could maybe get to that room,” she replied. “Maybe lockdown controls are in there. We hit the button, sneak back, then blast outta here.”

“Sounds too easy.”

“I agree,” Azrael sighed. “But we don’t really have any other choice. We can do this. Come on.”

A few minutes later, the two of them emerged from Amelia’s airlock, and quickly made their way down her ramp. Both were wearing light stealth armor, helmets and all. Azrael wielded a simple electrostatic pistol – it acted the same as Raijin’s drones and fired bolts of charged electricity.

It was more than enough to take down the guards, no matter what armor they wore.

Claire was similarly armed. Though she kept an electrostatic pistol on her thigh, she instead wielded a StunPulse SMG. Unlike the pistol, the StunPulse projected waves of ultrasonic energy in a cone in front of it. Those waves completely disrupted neural activity in any living creature. Or at least, any biological creature. It certainly wouldn’t do anything to the drones.

Claire adjusted its output into a relatively wide cone, then activated the SMGs auto fire mode.

The two of them crept to the outer wall and practically hugged the shadows around them. They made sure to press up against any machinery or equipment as they moved, in order to remain undetected.

Raijin’s two drones came up and hovered around them, though they flew low to the ground to escape detection.

They all stopped just as one of the SSS fire teams walked near, and hunkered down behind some heavy equipment. Their hearts leapt into their throats as the fear of discovery overwhelmed them.

Both raised their weapons up, ready to fire just in case.

The fire team carefully walked between two corvettes with their rifles out. The beams of their lights and sensors swept across the two ships, and the floor, and the various shadows. And although they passed across where Azrael and Claire were hiding, nothing came on their sensors.

Thankfully, their stealth suits muted their physical lifesigns and signals, and kept them from being discovered. The two visibly relaxed the tension from their bodies as the fire team performed one last scan, then moved on to the next corvette.

Once a few moments had passed, their blood pressure lowered back down, Azrael and Claire once again crept towards the administrator booth. Both still stuck to the shadows and moved forward as fast and as stealthily as they could. They held their weapons in their hands, ready to use them.

They passed a second fire team along the way, but this time they didn’t stop.

Filled with courage that their armor was working, they kept on going despite the fear they felt in their chests. But that fire team didn’t detect them either, and kept on moving along as they searched.

Free and clear of the fire teams in their path, they approached the admin booth from the edges.

Azrael and Claire both took a few deep breaths as they gripped their weapons, then moved straight towards the open door as quickly and quietly as they could.

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