Chapter Eight: The Proxima Rebellion (Part One)
HarakoniWarhawk
I like thick Cats and I cannot lie.
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What seems to be becoming a trend with my work has a flashback to the Proxima War because my Muse is laser-focused.
The music for the chapter is from Brothers of Metal.
"All of you are here for one reason; you wish to join Third Fleet and embrace the traditions that stretch back nearly two thousand years as of the current date. I can see that some of you are curious about why veteran Spacers are rubbing shoulders with green recruits; well, that's quite simple, really; The Third Fleet of the Domain of Man's Navy is unlike any other.
You may wonder why that is; surely one of the more modern Fleets like the Ninth or Fourteenth would be more divergent that one that's only predated by the First and Second Fleets?
In that, you would be very much mistaken, though not for the reasons you might expect. Many of the Third's traditions and divergence stems from when it was founded; At the very beginning of what we now call the Omega War. Should you become a Spacer in the Fleet, you'll find they have another name for it; The Proxima Drone Rebellion. I'm rambling here, but give this old salt time; I'll get to the point in a minute.
Third Fleet was laid down on the order of Didact Teshan Quillion, though the exact reason for it has been lost to time and war. The most common, and the one I subscribe to, is that he created a counter to the Autonomous Fleets being trialled during the months before his death. The Flagship, Loch Morlich, was the only one to be operational when Omega began its rebellion against the Domain. Like every ship of Third Fleet, past, present and future, the ship was fitted with experimental for the time Neural Interfaces; 'Jacks in the common parlance.
Those are why you are all in this class; Third is the only Fleet that has ever been fitted with them, and for a good reason. A common saying among Spacers is that 'a ship is the sum of its crew'. With Third, that is more than just a saying; it's quite literal. Instead of several hundred or thousand crew operating individual parts spread across the ship, the Interfaces will bring them together into one cohesive whole. Not everyone can handle the strain of such a bond, which is why eighty per cent of you will wash out after the first test. I can see the disbelief on your faces, and believe me, you'll understand not long from now.
Luckily for you lot, we won't be throwing you into that without a lot of training. In the old days, it was a trial by fire to see who could handle it; those who couldn't handle it tended to die from the strain. To date, there has only been one successful Interface Bond by a completely green crew; the scratch crew of Loch Morlich, who fought their way out of Proxima Centauri during the start of the Omega War.
Now, listen closely because I'll be quizzing you all on the tactics used that day after I've recounted the story. You might pick up a trick or two that'll help you in your time in Third Fleet.
Commodore (Reserve) Megumi Tallow: Terra Nova Nova Third Fleet Academy
Speaking to the newest prospective recruits to the Third Fleet; 1972 P.P.W ( Post Proxima War)
The ringing of her comm unit woke Elita up. It took her a moment to remember where she was, the Officer's quarters in the section of Terra Nova's Ring containing Loch Morlich's slip. Her flailing hand eventually found the device on the bedside table, and she activated it to stop the ringing.
"This is Captain Helios; who is this?" She noted how the automatic lights hadn't come on for whatever reason.
Commander Chekov's voice came over the line, and his words made her blood run cold. "Captain, it's Case Vermillion."
Elita threw the covers off and crossed her quarters towards the armour stand. Of all the things she'd expected to hear, the ultimate worst-case scenario was one she'd dreaded hearing. Admiral Ortega had laid out several Case plans in regards to Omega, ranging all the way from localized subversion by foreign state actors all the way to the Initiative going rogue on its own. Praying the armour stand was working, she was relieved to watch the articulated arms unfold and hold pieces of her power armour at the ready. Vermillion meant Omega had gone rogue and was currently attacking the system, which meant she needed all the protection possible.
The thirty seconds it took for her armour to be secured to her body felt like an eternity, but once the system came online, she linked into the line to Chekov. "I'm moving; how bad is it?"
Grabbing her sidearm and sword, the XO sounded stressed. "It's all over the system, Ma'am. Reports are coming in all the way from Proxima IX about the Drone warships attacking everything in sight. FLEETCOM crashed twenty minutes ago, so the situation in the Ring is unknown... But we're getting reports of fighting across this entire section."
She filed the information away and cranked the emergency pump to force open the door and leave her quarters. The sound of fighting hit her when she exited, the whirr of saws and plasma cutters mingling with the awful shriek of metal striking metal. Pistol raised, she aimed at the noise source to see a pair of Zero-G Construction Spiders locked in a deadly fight. The hallway was barely large enough for the remotely-operated machines, each one over a ton of heavily-armoured robot spider equipped with all the tools needed to perform maintenance on ships in space. One had the familiar green optics of an active neural link showing a human in control, but the other's optics were a bright cyan of an autonomous version.
Aiming, she waited until they split apart in preparation for a charge before opening fire on the autonomous spider. Heavy armour-penetrating rounds designed to penetrate Janissary War-Plate caught the robot under the thorax and blew fist-sized holes in it. The green-eyed machine capitalized on the damage, leapt onto the wounded bot and started tearing it apart. Elita's visor polarized as the plasma-cutters went to work and sliced it apart, leaving her alone in the hall with the possibly-friendly robot.
She levelled her sidearm at the cluster of optics when it turned her way. "Identify yourself, or I'll open fire!"
It never ceased to amaze her how the voice that came from the bots never matched them; in this case, it was a young man. "M-Maintenance Technician S-Second Class David Lister, Ma'am! The... The Ring is going crazy!"
Lowering her pistol, she walked over to the very-dead robot and kicked it. "What happened here, Technician?"
The Spider skittered around for a moment, no doubt transmitting the operator's state of mind. "T-There was an atmospheric alert in this area, s-so, and I was the closest, so I came in from the hull." The machine's jaws came alive as the Arc-Welders flared to life, an involuntary reaction if she'd ever seen one. "I found that... that overriding the environmental controls on the quarters and tried to stop it, which is when you arrived."
Taking her eyes off the robot, she gazed at the rows of doors on each side of the hallway to see the vast majority had a decompression alert flashing above them. Her gut twisted when she realized the only reason she'd survived was thanks to picking quarters at the very end of the hall for the sake of peace the night before. If it hadn't been for that... she'd have died when her quarters depressurized. No doubt the intelligence controlling the Initiative wanted to eliminate anyone who could take command of resistance forces.
That level of coordination was something Chekov needed to know. "Commander, Omega is sending maintenance units to remove the air from Officer berths. I'm seeing a good chunk of local command dead here, be advised."
The XO's voice crackled with interference, no doubt jamming on Omega's part. "Fuck, that explains why I'm not getting any answer from the Admiral. All the Slips are locked down, I've been trying to override it from here, but it's no good."
"Noted, I'll see what I can do on my end. Try and get in contact with Ortega; tell me when you do." She indicated down the corridor towards Lister, momentarily forgetting he wouldn't understand the signal. Rather tha explain, she just walked past them. "Follow me. Do you know how we can override the Slip locks from inside the Ring?"
Sticking close, the Technician was silent for a few moments. "Primary and Secondary Dock Control are locked down, so your best bet would be the emergency backup three decks down."
Surrounded by unknown opponents on a station going haywire, this entire situation made her nostalgic for the battle of Thiphon VII. Drawing her sword, she sliced through the dead robot's leg to check that the edge was still good and turned to her new companion.
"Stick close to me, Lister, and I'll do my best to get us out of here alive." While they couldn't see it, she was grinning from ear to ear. "These bots don't hold a candle to Theocracy Infidel-Hunters."
Andrei was beginning to realize he didn't like being in command. Hardwired through his implants to Loch Morlich, he could feel as the small crew who'd be onboard were bolstered by anyone with the right implants to Jack in. Most of the crew had been caught out like the Captain had and were now stuck on the Ring and having to fight through rogue maintenance units and worker drones. It was sheer luck that he'd been running firing drills with the gunnery crews during the night in preparation for the shakedown cruise that was supposed to be today.
While the Tyrant was trapped in her Slip, her weapons were fully able to engage targets of opportunity and boy, was there far too many of them. There were hundreds of ships in range of the sensors, and most were Drone craft. A lot of Hatchetman conversions, to be fair, but a Legion was hanging back vomiting hordes of Brattice fighters. With command and control shot and the TACNET compromised by Omega, the Navy warships struggling to defend the Ring were slowly being pushed back by the sheer weight of numbers. The situation was only made worse by the civilian vessels trying to flee, being destroyed and spreading debris across the battlespace.
Every two seconds, the Gauss Cannons fired like clockwork, sending nickel-iron slugs with unerring accuracy to smash aside hostile frigates. For every one they killed, another two appeared from further out of the system where the vast bulk of the Omega Initiative's fleet was. Loch Morlich was the heaviest vessel in action, though the largest ship actually able to move was DNV Deimos, a Vindicator class cruiser. She put her main battery to good work, firing frag shells into the swarm of cutters trying to get through the faltering defensive network around the Ring. A half-strength squadron of Enforcer destroyers had been able to escape the lockdown and was screening Deimos from any flankers, the tough little destroyers having more than enough armour to shrug off hits.
The one silver lining to the lockdown was the access to the ammo bunkers intended to resupply ships. Morlich had a deep reserve of ammo for a ship of her class and weight, but they'd have run dry twice over if not for the constant influx of ammunition. Of course, those were a prime target for the rogue bots in the Ring, which was why the bulk of the ship's Marine compliment was defending them. Well, what few Marines they had on board when the shitshow started; the rest were still stuck on the Ring along with the Captain.
Any further thoughts on that subject were shoved aside when a fire plan came in from the Captain of Deimos, targeting a pair of Subducator light cruisers attempting to pressure the artillery cruiser from behind the cutter swarm. Drawing targeting information from Morlich's vast sensor network, Andrei refined the plan and pushed it off to the gunnery teams for the Gauss Cannons. The high-speed Neural Links cut down on communication time, causing the Drone cruisers to be hit by shells with exacting precision fired not five seconds after the plan had been transmitted. One cruiser, already damaged, suffered a catastrophic magazine detonation as the slug punched through from bow to stern. Its partner was luckier, merely fluxing out as the shields overloaded their Flux Banks, trying and failing to stop the projectile.
He felt no elation watching the Drone ship be raked by fire from the destroyers, the light cruisers merely the vanguard of heavier units coming from further out. No amount of precision fire would stop one of the Captial ships before it pounded Loch Morlich into scrap metal and free-floating atoms. Their only hope was that Captain Helios could override the locks and let them manoeuvre freely; the alternative was death.
Augmented reflexes were the only thing preventing Elita from sporting a fist-sized hole in her chest when a burst of fire from around the corner very nearly hit her. Behind her, Technician Lister's Skitter crouched down with its optics centred on the far wall. Before whoever took the shot had the bright idea to follow with a grenade, she cranked up her armour's speakers and shouted.
"Hold fire! Friendlies!"
The man that responded wasted no time in replying. "Hands up and take your helmet off, no funny business!"
Doing as requested, she holstered her weapons and took her helmet off. Slipping it under her arm, Elita walked out to see a squad of armed and armoured Marines in the process of laying charges on the door behind them. Her implants registered a deep-scan that abruptly ended while the soldier aiming their rifle at her lowered it and snapped a salute.
"Apologies, Captain!"
Waving them down, she put her helmet back on and addressed the group. "At ease, Marines; who is in charge here?"
The soldier setting charges on the blast door, finished laying the detcord and stood up. "I am Ma'am; Corporal Jurgen Matis, 37th Assault Corp. An alert went out on the Corp channel about an attack on the Ring and to secure critical areas, but I've not been able to get in contact with anyone higher up." There was a faint tremor in the man's voice, but he kept it under control as he gestured towards the charges. "We arrived here to find it locked down with no response from inside; hence the forcing entry."
Debating on how much to tell them, she decided on the whole truth. "It's an attack on the entire system; Omega has gone rogue." To their credit, the Marines kept the cursing to a minimum. "I've got a Skitter jocky with me; he can crack the lock on that and save the charges."
A few of the soldiers twitched when the Robot came scuttling around the corner, but they all moved out of the way to let Lister access the door. The electromagnetic seal lasted all of five seconds against the De-Gausser took wielded by the Skitter. A pair of Marines grabbed the handholds and slowly forced the blast door open while their comrades kept their weapons aimed through the expanding gap. While Elita couldn't see inside, the Marines could and opened fire at something moving in there. A burst of return fire spanged off their power armour and drew a mag-dump in response that she could hear ricochet around the control room.
"All clear!" Slipping past the soldiers, she entered the room to find an Administrative android slumped over the primary console, riddled with holes and sparking.
Unfortunately, that wasn't the only thing riddled with holes and sparking; the console was in a similar state of non-functionality. Grabbing the subverted android, she shoved it aside and tried to 'Jack into the machine in the hope it was still functioning. Silence greeted her data-query, the system trashed by the hail of bullets that had killed the machine guarding it. A part of her mind railed against the Marines shooting up the room indiscriminately and screwing up the plan; the rest acknowledged that they'd just been following their training and weren't in the best mental state.
Withdrawing her interface cable into the wrist-port, Elita ignored the Marine's curious glances to face Lister. "The console's fucked; there any way we can free the ships without it?" If there was anyone who'd know the answer, it was the Yard-Dog.
The Skitter's optics dimmed while the machine lowered to the ground, only coming to life after a minute passed. "That was... well, it was the only way; officially."
His emphasis on the word got her interest. "And unofficially?"
"It might be possible to blow the physical locks, w-we had to do a theoretical study on it for the final test to operate a Skitter. You'd need one of these to weaken them enough for someone trained to use Naval scuttling charges, though..."
Referred to as Backpack Nukes despite being the size of a man and using Fusion, a scuttling charge required someone in power armour to lift it, and codes only issued to Navy Captains. The rough idea of a plan formed in her mind as she glanced around at the room. Six Marines in Raphael Patten Power Armour, one Maintenance Technician operating a Zero-G Constructor Spider and herself. It wasn't much in the grand scheme of things, but it might just be enough to do the job.
Rapping her knuckles against the wall, she got everyone's attention. "Alright, new plan. Corporal Matis, I'll need you to lead me to the nearest armoury to secure several Backpack Nukes." Leaving the Marines to perk up as they realized the plan, Elita addressed the Yard-Dog. "Technician Lister, how do you feel about making that theoretical study a practical one?
We're blowing the Slip Locks with nuclear ordinance, and it's going to be dangerous beyond measure. I won't lie; there's a large chance we'll die performing this... But we're the only people who can do it. The Domain is at stake, and I'll go down fighting if it means we give our comrades a chance to escape the system."
She was asking a lot of them, especially Lister. Any worries about their courage died when a truncated cheer rang out; lead by the Maint-Tech himself. She suspected the Marines were cheering because they would get the chance to nuke Navy property and get away with it; no matter the situation, some things never changed.
This is part one of a multi-part arc, my mind has hyper-focussed on getting this out so here we go after a month hiatus.
Been busy playing a busty Wolf Girl in Fallout 4, which is why this is shorter than the norm. I keep being distracted by thicc fluffy butt.
The music for the chapter is from Brothers of Metal.
"All of you are here for one reason; you wish to join Third Fleet and embrace the traditions that stretch back nearly two thousand years as of the current date. I can see that some of you are curious about why veteran Spacers are rubbing shoulders with green recruits; well, that's quite simple, really; The Third Fleet of the Domain of Man's Navy is unlike any other.
You may wonder why that is; surely one of the more modern Fleets like the Ninth or Fourteenth would be more divergent that one that's only predated by the First and Second Fleets?
In that, you would be very much mistaken, though not for the reasons you might expect. Many of the Third's traditions and divergence stems from when it was founded; At the very beginning of what we now call the Omega War. Should you become a Spacer in the Fleet, you'll find they have another name for it; The Proxima Drone Rebellion. I'm rambling here, but give this old salt time; I'll get to the point in a minute.
Third Fleet was laid down on the order of Didact Teshan Quillion, though the exact reason for it has been lost to time and war. The most common, and the one I subscribe to, is that he created a counter to the Autonomous Fleets being trialled during the months before his death. The Flagship, Loch Morlich, was the only one to be operational when Omega began its rebellion against the Domain. Like every ship of Third Fleet, past, present and future, the ship was fitted with experimental for the time Neural Interfaces; 'Jacks in the common parlance.
Those are why you are all in this class; Third is the only Fleet that has ever been fitted with them, and for a good reason. A common saying among Spacers is that 'a ship is the sum of its crew'. With Third, that is more than just a saying; it's quite literal. Instead of several hundred or thousand crew operating individual parts spread across the ship, the Interfaces will bring them together into one cohesive whole. Not everyone can handle the strain of such a bond, which is why eighty per cent of you will wash out after the first test. I can see the disbelief on your faces, and believe me, you'll understand not long from now.
Luckily for you lot, we won't be throwing you into that without a lot of training. In the old days, it was a trial by fire to see who could handle it; those who couldn't handle it tended to die from the strain. To date, there has only been one successful Interface Bond by a completely green crew; the scratch crew of Loch Morlich, who fought their way out of Proxima Centauri during the start of the Omega War.
Now, listen closely because I'll be quizzing you all on the tactics used that day after I've recounted the story. You might pick up a trick or two that'll help you in your time in Third Fleet.
Commodore (Reserve) Megumi Tallow: Terra Nova Nova Third Fleet Academy
Speaking to the newest prospective recruits to the Third Fleet; 1972 P.P.W ( Post Proxima War)
The ringing of her comm unit woke Elita up. It took her a moment to remember where she was, the Officer's quarters in the section of Terra Nova's Ring containing Loch Morlich's slip. Her flailing hand eventually found the device on the bedside table, and she activated it to stop the ringing.
"This is Captain Helios; who is this?" She noted how the automatic lights hadn't come on for whatever reason.
Commander Chekov's voice came over the line, and his words made her blood run cold. "Captain, it's Case Vermillion."
Elita threw the covers off and crossed her quarters towards the armour stand. Of all the things she'd expected to hear, the ultimate worst-case scenario was one she'd dreaded hearing. Admiral Ortega had laid out several Case plans in regards to Omega, ranging all the way from localized subversion by foreign state actors all the way to the Initiative going rogue on its own. Praying the armour stand was working, she was relieved to watch the articulated arms unfold and hold pieces of her power armour at the ready. Vermillion meant Omega had gone rogue and was currently attacking the system, which meant she needed all the protection possible.
The thirty seconds it took for her armour to be secured to her body felt like an eternity, but once the system came online, she linked into the line to Chekov. "I'm moving; how bad is it?"
Grabbing her sidearm and sword, the XO sounded stressed. "It's all over the system, Ma'am. Reports are coming in all the way from Proxima IX about the Drone warships attacking everything in sight. FLEETCOM crashed twenty minutes ago, so the situation in the Ring is unknown... But we're getting reports of fighting across this entire section."
She filed the information away and cranked the emergency pump to force open the door and leave her quarters. The sound of fighting hit her when she exited, the whirr of saws and plasma cutters mingling with the awful shriek of metal striking metal. Pistol raised, she aimed at the noise source to see a pair of Zero-G Construction Spiders locked in a deadly fight. The hallway was barely large enough for the remotely-operated machines, each one over a ton of heavily-armoured robot spider equipped with all the tools needed to perform maintenance on ships in space. One had the familiar green optics of an active neural link showing a human in control, but the other's optics were a bright cyan of an autonomous version.
Aiming, she waited until they split apart in preparation for a charge before opening fire on the autonomous spider. Heavy armour-penetrating rounds designed to penetrate Janissary War-Plate caught the robot under the thorax and blew fist-sized holes in it. The green-eyed machine capitalized on the damage, leapt onto the wounded bot and started tearing it apart. Elita's visor polarized as the plasma-cutters went to work and sliced it apart, leaving her alone in the hall with the possibly-friendly robot.
She levelled her sidearm at the cluster of optics when it turned her way. "Identify yourself, or I'll open fire!"
It never ceased to amaze her how the voice that came from the bots never matched them; in this case, it was a young man. "M-Maintenance Technician S-Second Class David Lister, Ma'am! The... The Ring is going crazy!"
Lowering her pistol, she walked over to the very-dead robot and kicked it. "What happened here, Technician?"
The Spider skittered around for a moment, no doubt transmitting the operator's state of mind. "T-There was an atmospheric alert in this area, s-so, and I was the closest, so I came in from the hull." The machine's jaws came alive as the Arc-Welders flared to life, an involuntary reaction if she'd ever seen one. "I found that... that overriding the environmental controls on the quarters and tried to stop it, which is when you arrived."
Taking her eyes off the robot, she gazed at the rows of doors on each side of the hallway to see the vast majority had a decompression alert flashing above them. Her gut twisted when she realized the only reason she'd survived was thanks to picking quarters at the very end of the hall for the sake of peace the night before. If it hadn't been for that... she'd have died when her quarters depressurized. No doubt the intelligence controlling the Initiative wanted to eliminate anyone who could take command of resistance forces.
That level of coordination was something Chekov needed to know. "Commander, Omega is sending maintenance units to remove the air from Officer berths. I'm seeing a good chunk of local command dead here, be advised."
The XO's voice crackled with interference, no doubt jamming on Omega's part. "Fuck, that explains why I'm not getting any answer from the Admiral. All the Slips are locked down, I've been trying to override it from here, but it's no good."
"Noted, I'll see what I can do on my end. Try and get in contact with Ortega; tell me when you do." She indicated down the corridor towards Lister, momentarily forgetting he wouldn't understand the signal. Rather tha explain, she just walked past them. "Follow me. Do you know how we can override the Slip locks from inside the Ring?"
Sticking close, the Technician was silent for a few moments. "Primary and Secondary Dock Control are locked down, so your best bet would be the emergency backup three decks down."
Surrounded by unknown opponents on a station going haywire, this entire situation made her nostalgic for the battle of Thiphon VII. Drawing her sword, she sliced through the dead robot's leg to check that the edge was still good and turned to her new companion.
"Stick close to me, Lister, and I'll do my best to get us out of here alive." While they couldn't see it, she was grinning from ear to ear. "These bots don't hold a candle to Theocracy Infidel-Hunters."
Andrei was beginning to realize he didn't like being in command. Hardwired through his implants to Loch Morlich, he could feel as the small crew who'd be onboard were bolstered by anyone with the right implants to Jack in. Most of the crew had been caught out like the Captain had and were now stuck on the Ring and having to fight through rogue maintenance units and worker drones. It was sheer luck that he'd been running firing drills with the gunnery crews during the night in preparation for the shakedown cruise that was supposed to be today.
While the Tyrant was trapped in her Slip, her weapons were fully able to engage targets of opportunity and boy, was there far too many of them. There were hundreds of ships in range of the sensors, and most were Drone craft. A lot of Hatchetman conversions, to be fair, but a Legion was hanging back vomiting hordes of Brattice fighters. With command and control shot and the TACNET compromised by Omega, the Navy warships struggling to defend the Ring were slowly being pushed back by the sheer weight of numbers. The situation was only made worse by the civilian vessels trying to flee, being destroyed and spreading debris across the battlespace.
Every two seconds, the Gauss Cannons fired like clockwork, sending nickel-iron slugs with unerring accuracy to smash aside hostile frigates. For every one they killed, another two appeared from further out of the system where the vast bulk of the Omega Initiative's fleet was. Loch Morlich was the heaviest vessel in action, though the largest ship actually able to move was DNV Deimos, a Vindicator class cruiser. She put her main battery to good work, firing frag shells into the swarm of cutters trying to get through the faltering defensive network around the Ring. A half-strength squadron of Enforcer destroyers had been able to escape the lockdown and was screening Deimos from any flankers, the tough little destroyers having more than enough armour to shrug off hits.
The one silver lining to the lockdown was the access to the ammo bunkers intended to resupply ships. Morlich had a deep reserve of ammo for a ship of her class and weight, but they'd have run dry twice over if not for the constant influx of ammunition. Of course, those were a prime target for the rogue bots in the Ring, which was why the bulk of the ship's Marine compliment was defending them. Well, what few Marines they had on board when the shitshow started; the rest were still stuck on the Ring along with the Captain.
Any further thoughts on that subject were shoved aside when a fire plan came in from the Captain of Deimos, targeting a pair of Subducator light cruisers attempting to pressure the artillery cruiser from behind the cutter swarm. Drawing targeting information from Morlich's vast sensor network, Andrei refined the plan and pushed it off to the gunnery teams for the Gauss Cannons. The high-speed Neural Links cut down on communication time, causing the Drone cruisers to be hit by shells with exacting precision fired not five seconds after the plan had been transmitted. One cruiser, already damaged, suffered a catastrophic magazine detonation as the slug punched through from bow to stern. Its partner was luckier, merely fluxing out as the shields overloaded their Flux Banks, trying and failing to stop the projectile.
He felt no elation watching the Drone ship be raked by fire from the destroyers, the light cruisers merely the vanguard of heavier units coming from further out. No amount of precision fire would stop one of the Captial ships before it pounded Loch Morlich into scrap metal and free-floating atoms. Their only hope was that Captain Helios could override the locks and let them manoeuvre freely; the alternative was death.
Augmented reflexes were the only thing preventing Elita from sporting a fist-sized hole in her chest when a burst of fire from around the corner very nearly hit her. Behind her, Technician Lister's Skitter crouched down with its optics centred on the far wall. Before whoever took the shot had the bright idea to follow with a grenade, she cranked up her armour's speakers and shouted.
"Hold fire! Friendlies!"
The man that responded wasted no time in replying. "Hands up and take your helmet off, no funny business!"
Doing as requested, she holstered her weapons and took her helmet off. Slipping it under her arm, Elita walked out to see a squad of armed and armoured Marines in the process of laying charges on the door behind them. Her implants registered a deep-scan that abruptly ended while the soldier aiming their rifle at her lowered it and snapped a salute.
"Apologies, Captain!"
Waving them down, she put her helmet back on and addressed the group. "At ease, Marines; who is in charge here?"
The soldier setting charges on the blast door, finished laying the detcord and stood up. "I am Ma'am; Corporal Jurgen Matis, 37th Assault Corp. An alert went out on the Corp channel about an attack on the Ring and to secure critical areas, but I've not been able to get in contact with anyone higher up." There was a faint tremor in the man's voice, but he kept it under control as he gestured towards the charges. "We arrived here to find it locked down with no response from inside; hence the forcing entry."
Debating on how much to tell them, she decided on the whole truth. "It's an attack on the entire system; Omega has gone rogue." To their credit, the Marines kept the cursing to a minimum. "I've got a Skitter jocky with me; he can crack the lock on that and save the charges."
A few of the soldiers twitched when the Robot came scuttling around the corner, but they all moved out of the way to let Lister access the door. The electromagnetic seal lasted all of five seconds against the De-Gausser took wielded by the Skitter. A pair of Marines grabbed the handholds and slowly forced the blast door open while their comrades kept their weapons aimed through the expanding gap. While Elita couldn't see inside, the Marines could and opened fire at something moving in there. A burst of return fire spanged off their power armour and drew a mag-dump in response that she could hear ricochet around the control room.
"All clear!" Slipping past the soldiers, she entered the room to find an Administrative android slumped over the primary console, riddled with holes and sparking.
Unfortunately, that wasn't the only thing riddled with holes and sparking; the console was in a similar state of non-functionality. Grabbing the subverted android, she shoved it aside and tried to 'Jack into the machine in the hope it was still functioning. Silence greeted her data-query, the system trashed by the hail of bullets that had killed the machine guarding it. A part of her mind railed against the Marines shooting up the room indiscriminately and screwing up the plan; the rest acknowledged that they'd just been following their training and weren't in the best mental state.
Withdrawing her interface cable into the wrist-port, Elita ignored the Marine's curious glances to face Lister. "The console's fucked; there any way we can free the ships without it?" If there was anyone who'd know the answer, it was the Yard-Dog.
The Skitter's optics dimmed while the machine lowered to the ground, only coming to life after a minute passed. "That was... well, it was the only way; officially."
His emphasis on the word got her interest. "And unofficially?"
"It might be possible to blow the physical locks, w-we had to do a theoretical study on it for the final test to operate a Skitter. You'd need one of these to weaken them enough for someone trained to use Naval scuttling charges, though..."
Referred to as Backpack Nukes despite being the size of a man and using Fusion, a scuttling charge required someone in power armour to lift it, and codes only issued to Navy Captains. The rough idea of a plan formed in her mind as she glanced around at the room. Six Marines in Raphael Patten Power Armour, one Maintenance Technician operating a Zero-G Constructor Spider and herself. It wasn't much in the grand scheme of things, but it might just be enough to do the job.
Rapping her knuckles against the wall, she got everyone's attention. "Alright, new plan. Corporal Matis, I'll need you to lead me to the nearest armoury to secure several Backpack Nukes." Leaving the Marines to perk up as they realized the plan, Elita addressed the Yard-Dog. "Technician Lister, how do you feel about making that theoretical study a practical one?
We're blowing the Slip Locks with nuclear ordinance, and it's going to be dangerous beyond measure. I won't lie; there's a large chance we'll die performing this... But we're the only people who can do it. The Domain is at stake, and I'll go down fighting if it means we give our comrades a chance to escape the system."
She was asking a lot of them, especially Lister. Any worries about their courage died when a truncated cheer rang out; lead by the Maint-Tech himself. She suspected the Marines were cheering because they would get the chance to nuke Navy property and get away with it; no matter the situation, some things never changed.
This is part one of a multi-part arc, my mind has hyper-focussed on getting this out so here we go after a month hiatus.
Been busy playing a busty Wolf Girl in Fallout 4, which is why this is shorter than the norm. I keep being distracted by thicc fluffy butt.
