31st December 2012
22:32 GMT +1
"They have planes! Ring?
"
The ring shows me an image of the cockpit in my mind's eye. Helmet. Plane's an F-35 Lightning with marking for the Royal Norwegian Air Force. Bit strange there's-
BANG! BANG!
-just.. one. Alright, what do I do about them? If I remember correctly, Norway is dithering about the direction of their defence procurement so these planes shouldn't have anything
super advanced. Neither air-to-air missiles or cannons are going to do much to me, and since the area below has been evacuated shrapnel and falling bullets aren't a concern. I just need to down the planes before the robot gets free and uses its bypass power.
BOOM!
Graviton deflator.
"No shit! Y'got em?
"
"In progress.
"
Downing a plane when you have a power ring is very easy. Downing a plane when you have a power ring and want whoever's in the plane to survive is fairly straight forward. Downing a plane when you have a power ring and want whoever's in the plane to survive without the wreckage setting the city on fire when the pilot will try to ram you in preference to ejecting is a
little trickier.
Firstly, I fly out towards the sea. It will take me a little longer to support Guy, but-
BOOM!
Graviton deflator.
-I can still deal with the core parts of the job.
First plane banking to make its second run. Force beam projector off to the side. Slice through the neck of the plane, just behind the cockpit. Kinetic absorption field for the cockpit, trajectory of the body of the plane heading out to sea… Tumbling, but it's still not going to hit anything. Ignore. X-ionised knives slice into the cockpit, pilot reaching for-. Flare gun? Disarm, slice and drain. Helmet
off, dump cockpit in the ocean, drop pilot on a bench by the-
"Anti-Life justifies their actions." Inalienable Truth.
-shore. Great, laser point defence constructs-.
Missiles fly towards me to be met by laser beams, punching through their flimsy outer casing and prematurely detonating their explosive-
RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT!
-load and I yank myself around as
most of the cannon rounds miss, agh, and I've been meaning to redo that hip anyway. Check line of fire on the
second, reposition-
"One plane down, two left. You still there?
"
"You used crumblers on the eyes, right?
"
"Yes.
"
Plane starts turning
move. Decapitate, kinetic absorption field-. Body of plane heading for-. The shoreline, and there are still people in that area. Ring, phone them and tell them to move. Construct cockpit to stabilise flight path, send it into the sea. Cut through the pilot's helmet, toss the cockpit and land the pilot. Last plane is-.
"Guy,
evade!
"
RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT!
This one just gets an energy pulse because I need it to stop shooting more than I need anything else. The main body to the plane
shatters, fuel tanks spraying and fuel igniting a moment later! Trigger the ejection system, kinetic-
BOOM!
-absorption field-
Graviton deflator.
-to catch most of the wreckage which hasn't exploded yet because the fuel isn't being contained but
is burning nicely. Thrown it into the sea, catch the-
"Guy? Third plane down.
"
-seat, cut and drain through the helmet, drop off the pilot. No further planes here-
"Okaygreat.
"
-yet and I'm fully healed.
"Status?
"
"Gone to ground, bleedin' like a pig.
"
I turn and fly back towards the… They've moved, tracking… There. Purple-
"Anti-Life justifies my actions." Inalienable Truth.
-healing-.
Red lightning scythes through the city as Guy frantically evades, boring a hole in the ground to duck under it and then weaving around as the red seems to.. drip down. I fire a volley of crumblers at the robot but some sort of… Barrier? Appears in the air and detonates them prematurely. Not a barrier, then. Just ionising the air would probably work, not to mention whatever New God technology that thing has.
Okay, clever dick. Crumbler
shell.
In Harry Turtledove's WorldWar series, a German artillery detachment was able to bombard a Race landing zone and destroy several of their landing ships. The landing zone had point defences, but they were lasers designed to destroy incoming missiles and did absolutely nothing to heavy metal artillery shells other than mildly discolour the casing.
Most of my crumbler rounds aren't well armoured, because it's usually superfluous. That doesn't mean that I
can't make armoured rounds.
Bit of tungsten, easy to crumble but capable of protecting the mechanism, aim and
fire!
The round streaks through the air, and-. Gets about a metre further through the shielded area before being triggered.
Okay, cold gun. Absolute zero. Aim at the neck and fire.
Ice precipitates out of the air as the beam hits home, ice coating the area around-. Darn it, it's blocking this as well.
Fine. Construct battering ram
go!
The construct shoots through the air, pushes past the robot's defences with no more than mild abrasions to show for it and then hits the robot directly in the neck
hard. It staggers, some sort of energy I don't immediately recognise flickering and flaring around the impact site as its red energy lash cuts out and Guy gets a moment's respite.
Actually-.
I release Colin Thornton from my ring and attach filaments from the crumbler ram to him.
"Drain.
"
Lights on the robot flicker once more but this time there's no platoon of Justifiers for it to kill to heal itself. This time-.
"Cease." Final Stage of Existence.
This time my ring turns off and Colin fades away as the robot flies up to confront me.
