Ravens of Eternity

209 Blood & Flame, Pt Planet Gromentok, Corlett System, Federal Colonial Territories

The fighting was incredibly fierce along the settlement’s outskirts. While the sprawling settlement itself sat on a large hill, a couple of defensive lines completely encircled it along the bottom.

Gunfire and beamcannons erupted from the outer perimeter line of Hallowed and drones all around, every single one aimed at the four mecha that skated along the perimeter.

Many of the Hallowed were in combat armor, and wielded military-style rifles. Some of them were in power armor, and wielded more potent weaponry, such as shoulder-fired railguns and sabot launchers.

Despite their weapons only able to shave or scrape off bits of armor, it all added up. They nicked and scraped away at them bit by bit.

Far deadlier were the drones that were mixed in along their ranks. The standard guns were around, along with the 4 meter gun platforms. But further back were 8 meter artillery drones, who lobbed fat 400mm shells down onto their opponents.

Their shells blasted into the ground, and left huge craters in their wake.

Every single defender was littered all around the settlement behind heavy cover, or temporary fortifications, or inside reinforced buildings. Not only were they deeply entrenched, but they also repositioned themselves after every attack. This ensured that any losses from counterattacks or reprisals were minimized.

Freya’s shield was riddled with cannonfire from numerous drones, but it held firm. She upped its repairs while she continued to dash around the perimeter.

.....

“Looks like they finally wised up,” she said. “It only took, what, four settlement attacks until they got their shit together?”

Behind her was Raijin and Max, both in Stormrider mecha as well. Behind them was Xylo, in her own mecha as usual.

This time however, they had eschewed the Prophet’s White and Gold paint scheme. They instead replaced them with the colors of the Ravens – a matte black with hues of blues and greens and purple under the right angles.

All of them still had the shield and machine pistol combo, except Raijin had an Unranked Multi-beam Plasmacutter on her shoulder. It was purely utilitarian and industrial in nature, but she wasn’t there to fight in the first place.

Max on the other hand, had a C-ranked Ragnarok Armaments Grenade Launcher. It was simple, effective, and devastating.

“Want us to bring down the pain?” asked T-Rex. “‘Coz we can. And we want to. Nothing crazy.”

He, Locke, and Fluke were still up high above in Mr Jurassic, and were absolutely itching to get into the fight. They had all watched as Freya and Xylo got to have a ton of fun, and their envy rose with every attack they launched.

Not once had they been needed, and their trigger fingers got mighty itchy, indeed.

“Yeah, why not?” said Freya. “Make us an opening, and we’ll cut right into town.”

“But do not fire in town, only on the outer perimeter” added Raijin. “I am still unable to locate the Systems Contoller.”

The three guys cheered as they moved down to a bombard position over town. Their excitement went unchecked as they aimed their turrets at the lines all around the settlement’s defensive perimeter.

Then, they began to rain down fire.

Each gun flung hollow cylinders of tungsten carbide slugs at supersonic speeds down towards the ground. Worse, each one was highly charged with stabilized plasma. They fell to the ground like dark red balls of electric fire, but with smoky gray cores inside.

The slugs slammed into the ground with devastating force, and waves of energy flung outwards, in every direction.

Anything that was within four meters of the impact point was utterly annihilated. Everything that was within 16 meters were simply ripped to shreds, and anything up to 32 meters away were tossed aside like dolls.

They shot slug after slug at the enemy below, and completely demolished the entire outer defensive perimeter all around the settlement itself. The inner defensive perimeter was close enough to get shaken and thrown around a bit. But for the most part, it still stood.

It was simply too close to the settlement itself for them to tear through. But the outer perimeter? Totally fair game. And they tore it to pieces within seconds.

Before the dust could even settle, Freya and Max blasted through towards the settlement itself. Raijin and Xylo took up the rear behind them.

Max blasted through a weakened section of the inner perimeter with a half dozen grenades. Drones and Hallowed were tossed around as their defenses were ripped apart. Freya polished off any stragglers as they punched through to the other side.

Together, they took apart enemies of all sizes, even as they were pelted by their small arms fire. Bullets and slugs bounced off their armor and shields, which dented and damaged them slowly but surely.

And as they pushed in further up the settlement, they ripped apart any of the defenders that stood in their way.

Both Raijin and Xylo followed in behind them, as they carved a bloody path up to the very top, where the settlement’s town hall sat. They went in quickly, but also warily, and kept their shields up as they charged in.

Raijin sent out ping after ping as she performed a multitude of scans. And yet, even though the entire settlement was well within every range, she couldn’t see where the controller was located. She was utterly puzzled by it.

There was no way it was possible for there not to be a controller.

Even more, there weren’t any makeshift hangar bays with mecha parts, or anything like that. And the number of printers she saw were far from adequate in terms of producing the drones they faced.

“I am still unable to locate the Controller,” she said.

Her exasperation was abundantly clear in her voice.

“Alright, so what do we do, then?” asked Xylo. “Do we just pound the whole thing to the ground and hope we get it?”

“Let’s at least take out whatever Prophets are out here,” said Freya.

The four of them screamed through town at high speed towards the center. While Freya and Max cleared the way, Xylo performed another bio scan up ahead. She received a number of enhanced readings inside of the armored town hall.

“I’ve got signals similar to Prophets,” she said. “Neutralizing them now.”

She leapt up into the air as she zeroed in on her targets. And once she had reached the peak of her jump, her thrusters kept her there for another second.

It was all the time she needed, and fired two shots right after the other. Each one punctured into a floor each, and plowed into everyone who was hiding inside. Everything was reduced to a fine paste, even as her bullets flew right on through unimpeded.

The four of them made it all the way up to town hall, and set their back to it in a small outwards arc. Then they set their shields out in front of them, which kept them well protected from all sides.

They were immediately peppered with light fire from the Hallowed around them.

“What’s the plan now?” asked Freya. “If we can’t find it, we’re sorta stuck.”

“I have a theory,” answered Raijin. “Just give me a moment to verify it.”

Freya watched as drones began to converge on their location, and fired at the few that got close. Max joined in and lobbed a multitude of grenades downrange, and blasted a number of them with glee.

Meanwhile, Xylo shot down any artillery drones she spotted that were aiming at them. The last thing they needed was to get bombarded by their tungsten carbide shells.

Their Stormrider mecha were tough, but not so tough as to resist direct hits from their fatboy munitions.

And even as they stood there and held their ground, more and more drones and Hallowed drew closer. Their bullets peppered them all over and bounced off their thick armor. Though some found their way between the seams, and bit deep regardless.

The damage was minimal, but it still stacked up.

All the while, Raijin performed another deep scan, this time she focused on the flow of electricity. She traced each of their lines, and layered over her TacMap with her findings. Realization set in as she watched the ebb and flow of power.

“There are multiple electrical endpoints all over the settlement,” she said. “Many of which house relay transmitters, which is where the orders are coming from. But their source of power does not come from the settlement’s outer generators.”

She pored over the data, and saw where electrical lines seemed to end, and yet power still flowed through normally. Then she approximated where she believed the true power source was, and sent a ping to everyone.

“I believe that they have a hidden, shielded bunker inside the hill,” she continued. “Approximately 50 meters right below us.”

“Well how the hell are we gonna get down there?” asked Max. “It’s not like any of us are able to drill down or anything.”

“There’s gotta be an entrance,” said Freya. “I mean, it’s possible, right?”

As they pondered their next move, alerts blared all over their MFDs.

“Move!” cried Xylo.

The four of them immediately broke out into a dash as scores of artillery drones below fired simultaneously. Their shells struck town hall with devastating power, and blasted it wide open. It was wrenched apart even wider with every shot that followed.

The entire hill shook as their combined strike pounded into the ground, and flattened the top of the hill. Everything that was up there was reduced to scrap.

Incensed by the attack, the four of them wove their way down the settlement. They tore through whatever drones and Hallowed that were in their way as they closed in on the artillery drones. Freya and Max made short work of their targets with their shoulder-mounted weapons, while Xylo and Raijin ripped into theirs with their machine pistols.

“I found it,” exclaimed Raijin.

While they counter-attacked the artillery drones, she had some code run through the visible power grid. One particularly quiet cluster extended out towards the edge of the hill, and terminated very close to the ground.

She pinpointed the location and sent a ping to everyone.

“I believe this might be a hangar entrance,” she continued. “We simply need to create an opening.”

“Leave that to us,” said Azrael.

She pushed the yoke forward and tilted the Spirit of Amelia so that her guns were pointed straight down. Next to her in the copilot’s seat was Claire, who had taken control of the nose gun, and aimed them right where Raijin’s ping landed.

Four beams of intense energy came down from the sky and hit the ground. Each one converged to a single point as Claire focused them with absolute precision.

Together, the intense heat burned the top layer of soil into ash and molten rock, then struck the hardened titanium carbide armor underneath. And after only a few seconds of concentrated fire, they ripped through to the hangar tunnel beneath.

Claire moved the guns in a slight circle, and cut open an opening wide enough for all of their mecha to hop through.

Down on the ground, the four sped their way towards the opening, even as drones chased right behind them. Freya even spun around and slid backwards as she fended off drones with bursts of her chaingun with a long and satisfying BRRRT.

They were helpless against her armor-piercing rounds, and tumbled around after being shredded to pieces.

They all quickly leapt into the hangar, which had a tunnel that led to the central core under the hill. They sped down to the very end, where a large hangar bay with three Stormrider mecha stood along the walls.

Most importantly, there were huge, reinforced blast doors on the far wall that led further into the facility itself.

“I’ve got the door,” said Raijin.

She slid right up to the middle, and began to cut through the thick metal with her Multi-beam Plasmacutter.

The others linked up their shields and protected her, even as the drones spilled through the opening and swarmed their way closer.

Freya, Xylo, and Max fired wantonly into the crowd and did their best to keep them at bay. In return, they received all manner of fire in return. Their shields and armor were scratched and dented from the sheer amount of bullets they received.

Max’s MFDs began to flicker and throw out multiple alerts as bullets struck some of his modules and systems. They had somehow snuck between the armor, and did serious damage to his mecha’s internal systems.

The sheer noise as gunfire echoed all throughout the long hangar hallway was beyond deafening. All of it blended together and became a loud, continuous roar that threatened to collapse the hill on top of all of them.

.....

It was an excruciating few moments before Raijin cut through the heavy blast doors, at which point they quickly ran in behind. They then blocked it up with whatever heavy objects they could find, then trained all their weapons at it.

They nervously listened to the drones’ relentless fire as they slammed into the door and their makeshift barricade.

Behind them, Raijin had gone to the center, and looked at her readouts. She quickly zeroed in on a climate-controlled and highly secure room in the corner. Multiple logic circuits and servers sat in rack after rack on the inside.

“I am getting the Controller’s signal now,” said Raijin. “Stand by while I take over their system.”

Then, she dove in. And like before, she fought against the Security Intelligence, and brought it to its knees.

And moments later, the entire settlement went still.