Ravens of Eternity

291 Vicious Payback, Pt The last SSS fire team stopped running towards Amelia, and instead shot at her furiously with their rifles. Their drone also joined in, and fired both miniguns with relentless fervor. Thankfully, the majority of their shots simply bounced off her robust B-ranked armor uselessly. The rest simply left scratches and tiny dents on her surface, which her repair module easily corrected.

Azrael lifted up on the yoke, which pushed Amelia off the deactivated and powerless gravity pad. She inched their way out towards the open center, then hovered through the hangar bay doors and up into the sky.

Once they were free of the warehouse, she pushed the throttle forward then banked to the left as she swung the ship northwards, towards the rest of the Ravens.

While Azrael maneuvered Amelia, Claire quickly sent out a wide ping to the massive warehouse city in front of her, and pinpointed where the Ravens were. Their mecha’s signatures lit up on their screens, thanks to the entire district’s lack of power.

“We’re free!” Claire exclaimed over comms.

“And we’re on our way to you,” Azrael followed up.

“Take your time,” Kali replied. “We’re still cleaning up here.”

But Lucifer frowned at the remark. Raijin’s sensor data, combined with the sensor data that Amelia now provided to the team, helped give a better picture of what was going on around them.

The Peacekeepers were easily down to nearly half of their original numbers, but that didn’t mean they were out of the fight. In fact, Lucifer was all too wary of reinforcements.

.....

After all, the Ravens had taken over the corporation’s communications, at least on this planet. But it didn’t mean that the Peacekeepers were equally blind. Just like they had their own private communications network, the Peacekeepers most likely had their own as well.

“But not too much time,” Lucifer interjected. “We need to get ready to get the hell outta here. Raijin – relocate north along Amelia’s flight path and regroup. We’ll be right behind you. Everyone else, commit to a rapid engagement, then immediately fall back.”

“You got it,” Xylo replied.

She continued to skate backwards as she fired on one of the many Peacekeepers chasing after her. She squeezed the trigger and fired a quick burst, which raked across his armor, and left heavy dents in his upper right chest plating.

Xylo quickly performed a rapid dash and evaded counter-fire before she fired a second burst across the same spot. Bullets tore off a few plates of her target’s armor and revealed the relatively soft structure underneath.

Then, she fired a partially-charged sniper cannon slug right at that point.

It slammed right into her opponent’s upper chest, through the structure, and into the primary repair module. The slug tore the module apart, even as the mecha itself was thrown back from the sheer kinetic energy.

Xylo followed up with another burst from her rifle, this time concentrated on her fallen opponent’s head. Her rounds tore through the armor and utterly shredded the sensors underneath, which left the bewildered pilot inside completely blind.

And before any of his squadmates could retaliate, she escaped through the nearest exit, and blasted northwards with her thrusters on maximum.

At the same time Xylo neutralized a Peacekeeper, Kali swung around and charged the few Peacekeepers pursuing her. They were utterly shocked that she stopped running, and instead gunned straight for them instead. The sight of her imposing Rakshasa and her myriad of weapons caused more than one of them to panic in their cores.

They fired blindly at her, most left minor dents and scratches as they bounced off her thick A-ranked armor.

She fired her own machine pistols in response. At first, she simply sprayed them down, but as she neared, she focused her aim on one in particular. Even though he raised his arm defensively to protect his sensor cluster and chest, he was utterly bombarded with relentless pistol rounds.

Kali then reared her other two arms back, and swung her bearded greataxe with incredible ferocity. It cleaved through her opponent’s arm and embedded deep across his chest in a single swing.

Her axe easily tore through the armor into the core, and utterly annihilated the pilot inside.

Without losing much speed, Kali yanked the axe out of the mecha, which caused it to spin around before it fell to the ground. Just like Xylo, she sped for the nearest exit right after, then once outside, she maximized her thrusters and blasted northwards at top speed.

Lucifer and Freya sidled up to each other as they evaded fire from the Peacekeepers chasing them. They wove between the remaining dish towers as fast as they dared, and headed towards the nearest exit out.

“These PK’s are some annoying little shits,” Freya muttered.

“Tear ’em up a bit, then,” Lucifer replied. “I’ll cover ya.”

The two then swung around in sharp arcs, and turned towards the Peacekeepers chasing them.

While Freya charged straight towards their front line, Lucifer swung around the side and shot at their flank.

Ze lowered hir stance and slid sideways while on one knee, then fired bursts of charged slugs at a Peacekeeper who counter-charged Freya. They slammed into his rear thruster, and slagged the armor protecting it.

Not only that, but the force of the hits caused the mecha to stagger and stumble, and ultimately missed their opportunity to counterattack.

Lucifer then adjusted hir aim and fired another burst at another Peacekeeper. The charged slugs tore into its hip armor and began to melt down the relatively more fragile mechanisms underneath.

It eventually broke as it performed a hard maneuver, and toppled over as a result.

Ze tracked it as it slid across the ground, then fired a second tight burst. This one landed on his shoulder, and completely tore it off. Unable to move or shoot, the pilot simply laid on the ground in completel shame and watched as the two Ravens tore into his team.

While Lucifer kept the Peacekeepers off her back, Freya gunned straight for That Idiot. She leveled her spear, aimed it right at his chest, and reared back to lunge.

But just as she swung forward, That Idiot maximized his thrusters and dashed behind one of his subordinates. Fear had taken him over, and shoved one of his men in her way, who ultimately took the brunt of her damage.

Her spear tip sunk right into the Peacekeeper’s abdomen with ease, past the armor and the structure, and just under the piloting core. Then, she fired a coil slug right into the mecha itself, which easily tore through its storage space.

The slug ripped through to the back, annihilated one of its internal modules, then struck the chassis’ power plant. The force was strong enough to throw the mecha backwards a few steps, while the power plant ruptured.

It erupted with a violent explosion that tore the mecha from the inside out. And since That Idiot was right behind him, he was thrown backwards from the blast and knocked to the ground.

Neither Freya or Lucifer waited for any reprisals. Both spun around, pushed their throttle to the maximum, and escaped through the nearest exit at top speed.

And though the Peacekeepers fired at them as they retreated, they stayed with their fallen leader. That Idiot was utterly humiliated by the exchange, and grumbled as he pushed his teammate’s wrecked mecha off him.

He then clambered back to his feet shakily, then pointed out the exit.

“Regroup!” he yelled “The hell are you all standing around for?”

He then sped out the same exit that Freya and Lucifer left, followed by the rest of his team. Their sensors and systems ultimately regained full functionality again, though it took many moments after they left the Photon Tether block itself.

Most of them had been moderately damaged in the fight. Many had pock marks, blasts, and dents from the Ravens’ various weapons. All of their internal modules were also lightly damaged from simply being under the Photon Ray.

“Report,” That Idiot commanded.

One of his officers reviewed a cumulative damage report across their mecha. It was also accompanied by the names of their casualties.

“We’re down to half power,” he added. “And our systems are running at 87% efficiency, on average. We’ve suffered some significant internal damage from the Beam.”

“Must mean they took internal damage, too,” muttered That Idiot.

“Potentially.”

“Captain,” interjected one of the scouts, “the entire district is down. The Ravens destroyed enough of the Photon Tether to completely disrupt operations. On the bright side, they’re now easily visible on sensors.”

“About time we got a little good news. What’s their heading?”

“North-north-east, captain. And also, they got their corvette back. It’s up in the air, and they’re headed for each other.”

That Idiot groaned.

“Signal the destroyer and get it into play,” he said. “Make sure to have it intercept ’em. Last thing we need is to let them slip through our fingers. And you see what I’m talking about? We can’t let them loose like this. All they’ll do is cause more and more damage to the Federation.”

“Yessir!”

The team quickly formed up, activated their repairs, then blasted northwards as they chased after the Ravens.

Moments later, high above, the Peacekeeper destroyer descended down from the lower mesosphere. Its massive rear thrusters brightened up and flared widely as it flew at an angle towards the surface.

The monstrosity broke through the cloud cover as it descended, as though it was a massive beast coming out of the mist.

The destroyer itself was actually a heavily armed and armored fighting vessel, despite it being “light” in classification.

It was well over 600 meters long, 120 meters wide, and 180 meters tall, and sported the typical Federation Shipyards’ boxy, utilitarian look. Both its port and starboard sides were littered with guns and cannons and missile pods galore.

Each side had a dozen batteries that were lined up in a row along the middle, with each one holding twin 600mm cannons. In a row beneath them were a half dozen quad AA turrets. Their barrels were also devastatingly large at 288mm.

Above the main cannons were four massive pods, each one filled to the brim with 124 powerful B-ranked “Earthshatter” missiles.

Without a doubt, every single weapon the destroyer was armed with could easily tear through frigate armor. They certainly wouldn’t have any problems perforating Amelia all the way through, and reduce her into scrap.

But they were far from the worst.

The most powerful weapon on the destroyer was the rail cannon embedded deep inside it. Though it was only half as large as the cruiser-sized rail cannons that Terra Nach Mar created, it was still an incredibly devastating weapon.

This was certainly capable of ripping through capital ship armor with ease. And it could certainly obliterate any ship smaller than a destroyer. All it would take was a single fully-charged and well-placed shot to reduce a frigate to little more than scrap metal.

The gun itself spanned the entire length of the ship, and because it was embedded inside, only the very tip of the barrel came out the front.

Inside the ship, multiple technicians performed last minute checks on the gun’s status as they charged it up. The inside of the barrel itself glowed a bright blue as electromagnetic energies gathered. The sabot round floated menacingly in the chamber, and began to spin faster as the gun charged up.