A thousand-
Seven hundred and ninety two.
Yes, Ring,
thank you for clarifying. However many it is, that's a
lot of tango heading his way...
-brilliant beams of energy strike from all directions, the orange orb protecting me puckering and blistering as the continuous rain strikes home. What are they hitting me with? No weapon whose profile I can immediately call to mind should be able to do this much damage.
Get out of their line of sight.
And that's even
more worrying. I don't know if they
expected to face a Lantern or not, but if their guns are doing
that to his shield, imagine what they can do to New Cronus, or a Titan...
I fly directly towards one of the cruiser class ships, fire slacking off from that direction as the hull obscures my location. So what am I being hit with? Plasma? No, there's no ionised cloud residue. The only.. other things that comes to mind is an Apokoliptian blaster, but these ships aren't of Apokoliptian design. Right, establish a new shield inside the old one, expand, drop the old one and-
The battleship and two cruisers open fire on New Cronus's launch bays. They're inside the main shield envelope, and the heavy firepower punches through the weaker near hull shields in moments before wrecking the hull beneath.
Logical. There's no way any kind of
effective shield could wrap that closely inside the curve of New Cronus' arc. And as we see, the secondary arrays covering critical systems inside the primary can't handle
that much firepower for long... Like slipping a knife into the joints of a suit of Plate Armour...
-transmit what I'm seeing to the interior. Alright, gravity manipulation is unlikely to be entirely reliable here. Let's try crumbler fire to the ship acting as my cover. I form a railgun and bend my shield bubble slightly to give in a clear line of sight to the target. Sight good, aperture minimal, charge and open fire.
The rate of fire is… Less than what I'm used to, but the shots fly across the void without significant deviation from projections… Right up until they hit the ship's shields, at which point they completely fail to crumble them. Not plasma or programmable matter based, then. Magic… Magic? I haven't had the opportunity to study starship scale magic shields, due to the fact that they wouldn't work away from a living world.
There must be
considerable thaumic batteries aboard, then, to support that kind of output. Or
someone of equivalent power fuelling them.
I cease fire, load mage slayer rounds and fire a quick volley of those. No… Greater penetration. Not magic. Or at least, not a simple magic barrier.
The battleship launches assault boats into the broken launch bays as the cruisers switch their attentions to New Cronus's main guns. For a moment I get the impression of the difference in the size of the two sides. New Cronus may be a broken moon, but it's still a moon; lunar size, rather than the tiny technically-a-moon that most planets have. And the future tech city, shield emitters and drive which covers it increases the mass even further. The battleship is barely a hundredth of that, and the cruisers less still.
Flys attacking an elephant. But flies armed with razor-blades capable of shearing through the weak points of the hide.
From a distance, it would look like a toy.
And my overshield is gone as one of the cruisers manages to get a hit with one of its primary weapons. I'm lucky that they don't use all big gun ships. I dodge and weave, three more shots flying past me as it tries to adjust with no success. Lanterns just aren't that easy to draw a bead on.
To be fair, he's lucky it didn't collect
him entirely. It doesn't take an
aimed shot to take him out in this fight. Just a
lucky one.
Okay, I could have a go at those assault boats, but that would involve getting closer to the battleship with no idea how to get through the shields and board it. On the other hand, the angle would be awkward for their guns, I'd be shielded by the two largest objects in local space and it would slow the boarding efforts. And capturing an assault boat might make getting on board easier.
Still…
If you kill the mothership, then the boats have nowhere to go. Nor will it be able to throw more out. And it's likely to have more information on its' systems than an assault boat.
Orange energy roils around my left hand for a moment before I raise it towards the cruiser and fire! The shield… It's stressed, but I don't think I'm in danger of breaching it. I make a tugging gesture with my left arm, the beam of energy changing from a beam of destructive force to becoming a leaching beam instead. This time the shield is visibly weakened, flaring all across this side of the ship.
That's interesting. I really can't think of a shield system that acts like that.
So a 'feed me!' effect is stronger against it than pure destruction.
Fascinating.
Spell eater overheating.
Huh? Ah, replace it.
I wonder, what effect could be causing that? Sorcerers aboard the ship trying to affect him?
Compliance.
Is that..? From the shield?
Unable to confirm.
Bizarre that they would have an effect to protect against melee assault, but given that they're after Gods... I could
see the more combat-oriented Titans flying out to punch the enemy vessels.
Great. I'm being affected by something magical. I can't see it, can't detect it, and it's impeding the techniques I'd usually use to try and deal with it. I-.
Ring, compare psychological responses to baselines.
Increased focus on intellectual enquiry. Reduced concern about combat.
Some manner of distraction effect? Even
kinkier.
Ugh. Someone found a way to largely bypass my magic resistance. And I'm sure that would be fascinating to study, but I'm in a war zone and need to focus on that.
Indirect wards. Doing something to change the nature of the region. There's still an energy exchange so I can still drain them, but only at a fraction of normal strength. Mage slayer rounds don't work because there's no single focus of energy to drain; it's spread throughout the region and constantly being replenished. I fire an x-ionised round at the cruiser and it gets close to the hull, but doesn't quite hit home. The basic physical laws are being altered by the invader in their favour.
Boy, talk about '
Fuck You, that's how.' hacks. Definitely not using
conventional technology alone.
So what still works? New God blasters. I don't have one of those, but I… Do still have one of those stupid disc launcher things the team picked up in Qurac in subspace. See if it works while the shield is stressed.
I take it out of subspace and put it on over my armour before firing, the resulting discs flying forwards and taking position around the most weakened portion of the shield and releasing-.
Boy,
there's a deep cut. Sitting in his inventory for
two years, and only just now finding a use for it.
Never clear out
anything that might look useful, kiddies.
I dart forward through the gap, torn between being pleased that it worked and unsettled that the disc launcher turned out to not be completely useless after all. New God technology is unimpeded. Given typical New God behaviour…
This wouldn't usually work, but if they're stacking the deck…
So more or less confirmed the attacking fleet is using New God tech. But Apokaliptian or New Genesisian? Would
Grayven be involved in something like this?
As I hit the hull, I take an Apokoliptian lash out of subspace and use constructs to wrap it around the base of the closest flak turret. It sheers through the metal easily enough, tearing it free and sending it floating away through space. A construct knife… Cuts into the metal, but nothing like as deeply as it should. Great, but the whip is totally the wrong shape for penetrating a hull.
Which leaves…
I see they didn't upgrade the material of the ships to be proof against their own weapons. Why
would they, since the Titans would presumably have nothing to counter it?
I attach myself to the hull with a leaching beam, but instead of draining it into the orange light, I hook up my own tattoos and drain it into those. As Canis described it, that's basically how New God technology works, so-.
Ooh. This feels weird.
Fuuunky. Not quite a
proper use of Godspeech, but definitely
enforcing his essence upon the universe.
I form a battering ram construct, and… Not sure exactly what's happening, but while I imagined a simple cylinder what I actually get has… Ah, tron lines? Along the shaft and head. I smash it into the hull, and the hull armour fails, splintering and shattering in the area around where the ram struck. No escape of atmosphere, but I can't see any internal force field.
I dismiss the ram construct-. What's more important, boarding the ship or protecting New Cronus from boarding? There aren't that many ships, and the internal volume of the place is huge. I could get reasonable information by interrogating the crew of this ship, and-.
Focus, OL. Kill the ship first,
then loot. First rule of
murderhoboing adventuring.
Warning! Information gathering receiving greater than usual priority.
Ugh. When did I get so comfortable with external mental influences?
At least you're able to
recognise it as such. I doubt
you a
year ago would have
hesitated to start hacking the systems for info, instead of taking the ship down.
I zip through the hull breach just as marines in full encounter armour storm through internal pressure door, guns firing. Plasma rather than blasters, I note, and nothing like powerful enough to destroy my construct barrier.
"Surrender, or I will take this ship by force."
"We do not bow to alien gods!" The squad leader draw a sword-. Yes, that's definitely Apokoliptian. "My life for Sparta!"
So, the lack of atmosphere being vented may well be because they depressurise non-essential areas? It makes a certain sense. At any rate, it looks like the Mooks don't get quite as many New God goodies as the ship itself.
