Ravens of Eternity

360 Search & Rescue, Pt High above the cliffside base, the two remaining Imperial frigates were limping away from the fight as best they could. Their chitin armor had been ripped open in numerous places, and were impaled with dozens of spears all over.

Massive cracks had split in between each spear, from which multiple chunks of chitin had fallen away. Some sections of their exoframes were also clearly visible to the world, and were ripe for exploitation.

Many of their broadside stinger-like cannons hung limply in their turret housings, if they hadn’t been torn apart or wrenched out.

What few that were still functional had instead been completely powered down – all energies were diverted towards their repairs and their slipstream drives. The only thing they needed to do now was get away with their lives.

But they got no such chance.

The destroyer smashed bow-first into the first of the frigates with full speed. They struck the weakened chitin armor with such force that it blasted its armor into a cloud of chitin shards. Its exoframe also crumpled inward at the same time, and crushed numerous crewmembers at the same time.

Then, they collided with the second frigate. Though the impact wasn’t as harsh, the armor on both frigates shattered further as a result of the impact.

What was worse, any spears that were sticking out were pushed inward even further, and completely broke apart any remaining chunks of chitin. At the same time, they tore huge gashes into the exoframe and punctured even more modules and systems.

The destroyer’s front thrusters lit up as they flared out to the maximum, which caused the whole thing to slow down suddenly. Both frigates were thrown off its bow and were flung towards the ground violently. With their systems mostly destroyed, there was nothing they could do but crash.

.....

They slammed onto the ground with a massive WHUMPH, one right on top of the other. Whatever armor they had left completely shattered to pieces, and were scattered in every direction. Their exoframes warped around each other, and compressed greatly.

Everything inside them was crushed by the blow, whether it was machinery or munitions, or people.

A wave of force rippled out from the point of impact, and kicked away a layer of dirt and rocks and debris. It was strong enough that Freya and Lucifer both felt the shockwaves, even in the air.

Not that it stopped either of them from finishing off the Imperial mecha.

Freya gathered up all her omnitronium plating in front of her, and defended against a constant stream of repeater fire from the mecha in front of her. The slugs smashed against the plates, and wore away at them bit by bit by bit.

And as each one got moderately damaged, she slid them out of the way and revealed fresh layers beneath.

The frenzied Drogar pilot backed up even as he fired at her constantly. The fear of the entire encounter had thoroughly filled him, and he was acting purely out of frightened instinct. All he wanted to do was eradicate everything around him.

Luckily, he didn’t have to suffer long.

Lucifer swept in right behind him, and whipped numerous plate rings across his back. But instead of ripping through, he embedded them into the chitin, picked him up, then swung him in an arc over hir core. The mecha flew through the air gracefully, at least until it slammed down onto the ground.

Ze smashed it down with such force that chitin shards flew apart, and one of its limbs was torn off and flung aside. Then, ze slammed hir core into the downed mecha at top speed and tossed it away with incredible force.

The mecha was thrown dozens and dozens of meters away, where it bounced and tumbled and rolled violently until it came to a full stop.

And didn’t get up.

But Freya shot it with her sniper cannon, just to make sure. Only a moment later, all its signals died out.

All around them, the many defeated Imperial mecha lay on the ground in pieces. Their limbs had been ripped apart, or their chassis torn open. Their chitinous armor had also been blasted into various shards, and were littered everywhere. Even their weapons had been torn up or bent or destroyed.

There were also a few who had completely conceded, and their mecha had been shut down in kneeling positions. And besides the cannons on their backs, they had discarded their weapons and thrown them aside.

But they were the last thing Freya or Lucifer cared about.

The massive siege piston shot forward again with a resounding boom and smashed into the door. The tear in it had grown massively, and had stretched nearly from the bottom all the way to the top.

“Uh, a little assistance here,” Lucifer said over comms. “I think this gun’s a bit beyond our weapons.”

“Allow me,” Raijin replied.

Her hawk drones quickly flew down to the siege gun’s position, even as the last of the Imperial fighters crashed towards the ground. They swooped down towards it with an exacting precision, and stopped along various points alongside it, on both sides.

As the piston drew back into its barrel with a loud hiss, each of the hawks shot bursts of their needle bolts into specific sections. They pierced through any chitin armor if it was present, then sunk deeper into the mechanical structures below.

The devourer nanites inside them burst out, and chewed on everything they came into contact with. Just as the siege piston charged up with a heavy whine, various internal circuits shorted out and sparked. It began to shake and shiver violently, as though it threatened to explode.

But a second later, its internal systems simply let out long sighs and clinking groans as the whole thing came to a stop.

Now that the siege piston was dead, Freya flew up towards the heavy door, then opened communications with whoever was inside.

“Hey,” she said, perhaps a bit too casually. “Your rescue squad’s here.”

Someone immediately answered her comms request, and a middle aged man appeared on her screen. He looked somewhat gaunt and had bags under his eyes. Despite how tired he looked, he was clearly relieved.

“Thank the gods – a human,” he said. “I don’t even care if you’re Federation right now. They’ve been hunting us down for so many cycles now!”

“Well don’t worry,” Freya replied. “You’re definitely safe with us. And we’re definitely not Feds. We’re the Corvus Republic, and we can offer all of you asylum. Or at the very least, a trip towards safer systems. I’m Freya, one of the First Feathers.”

“Hendrik,” the man replied. “Chief Science Officer on this base. I, uh, don’t want to sound pessimistic, but they’ve completely wrecked our bay doors – how the hell are we supposed to get out of here?”

“Don’t worry about that – we can get in. You just get your people ready to evacuate, alright? Have them travel as light as possible, with at least the necessities. Food, medicine, clothing, data, tools. We’ll do our best to provide what we can as well.”

“Will do.”

As the two spoke, the Blade of Damocles hovered above the cliffside defensively. Though its armor was scarred and dented, its job was also far from over. The ship scanned the air surrounding them, and ensured that absolutely nothing slipped their notice.

At the same time, the Raven’s Refuge came down towards the bottom of the cliff gracefully. The ship swooped around in a wide arc as it lowered slowly towards the ground. And as it neared the cliff base, its massive antigrav landing gears folded out of their enclosures and opened up towards the ground.

The ship steadied itself as its underside ramps extended out and touched down.

There, numerous Corvus Republic Civil Defense teams ran down with their equipment and headed straight towards the massive bay doors. They were accompanied by dozens of industrial power armor with heavy plasma cutting beams mounted on their shoulders, along with large antigrav cargo drones.

While they worked on the doors, Raijin appeared on Freya and Lucifer’s screen. Pride was clearly etched on her metallic face.

“So,” she said happily. “How were the new cores? Were they satisfactory to pilot?”

“Satisfactory is a massive understatement,” Freya said. “It’s a dream to fly.”

She looked around the core itself, amazed at the design. It was laid out just like her and Eris’ experimental cores. But every frivolous thing had been completely removed. And instead of a wraparound screen, it only had a 180 degree screen supplemented by holographic MFDs.

Her controls were also incredibly minimal, with only a few holoprojectors and switches installed in her seat. And instead of two flight sticks like normal, she had two orbs that floated inside recessed platforms. To maneuver the ship, all she did was spin the orbs.

Although it was relatively intuitive, it took a great deal of retraining to get used to.

“I’ve got no complaints, honestly,” she continued. “It’s fast, agile, powerful. I couldn’t ask for a better core. And I think we oughta print one up for every pilot in the fleet.”

“I agree,” Lucifer added. “And also I disagree. We definitely outmaneuvered and out-damaged those Imps, no doubt. And we soaked up a good deal of damage along the way. The Oni are truly superiority fighters through and through. We dominated these skies.”

“But?” asked Raijin.

“But there’s a problem. A few problems, actually. Very few of us can actually fly these things. I had to use a great deal of energy just to stay conscious – the g-forces we’re experiencing in here are way in excess of human ability. If we threw any other pilots in these, they’d kill themselves just doing evasive maneuvers.”

Raijin nodded lightly as she soaked up Lucifer’s words. Their input was critical in her ability to iterate the next version of the fighter.

“I see,” she said. “I can perhaps place acceleration limiters in them. Or make them adaptive to each pilot. This should be doable... What else have you noticed?”

“These cores need a more specialized loadout,” Lucifer answered. “Since we don’t have room for magazine reloads, we’re stuck with only our initial ammunition count. Which seriously limits how long we can stay on the field.”

“Nn. I agree with you. I am already developing specialized energy weapons for Oni. Your current loadouts are only because I need further testing data.”

“Makes sense,” Freya said. “I’ve also thought about one last thing: omnitronium is kinda expensive. And these cores use a whole lot of ’em. We might go broke trying to equip our fleet with hundreds of these.”

“Let’s just capture whatever omnitronium we can get our hands on,” Lucifer answered. “These Imps love to line their circuits with it. And since we’re at war, we may as well reuse the scrap we come across, right?”

“This is all true,” Raijin finished off. “Regardless, we are a long way from full production lines and fleetwide deployment. After all, we still have to test Promethean Mode. I hope you are both ready for that.”

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