Ravens of Eternity

348 The Defense of Sorallus, Pt With dull orange lights and blazing klaxons, the bridge of the Federation cruiser was as panicked and awe-stricken as the rest of the intercepting fleet. Its grim-looking captain was aghast at all the reports he was receiving, and all the devastation he was seeing.

All of the Federation ships around him were dismantled piecemeal by the enveloping Hegemony fleet – their armor was ripped apart, their guns were torn off, and their systems grew dimmer. Frigates and destroyers were exploding all around, even as the cruisers grew ever more fragile.

He watched on the live feeds as a number of dead and dying frigates crashed into the cruiser next to them, and tore its armor open even wider.

Alerts kept on blaring on comms as the various captains frantically reported their dire situations – many cut to black as their ships exploded ingloriously.

But what horrified the captain more than the destruction that surrounded him was the fact that his own cruiser was hardly under fire. The only thing they had suffered were a few minor cannon shells to the topside.

“Sir! Damage report incoming!” cried one of his technicians. “Topside bombardment damage assessed – armor and structure punctured, no lasting internal damage. Some modules and systems irrecoverable. Atmospheric pressure low, but stable.”

“And the advance security force?” the captain asked grimly.

“No response.”

Alarmed, the captain immediately tapped a few controls on his chair’s screens, and heightened their alert level. In response, the orange lights that flooded the ship turned a shade towards red.

.....

“Activate heavy response squads immediately!” he commanded at the same time. “Seal all decks and bays. Send a comms to every allied ship in the area – we’re being boarded!”

~

In a separate section of the cruiser, a couple dozen soldiers ran down rows of power armor stalls as they tightened their operator suits. One of them stopped at his power armor, and placed his hand flat on its surface.

The armor scanned him, genetically verified he was its operator, then opened up to allow him in. Of course, he stepped in without hesitation.

A moment later, he stepped out of his assigned stall wrapped in his armor, joined a number of his comrades, then ran down towards the exit. There, they went into an armament station, gathered up heavy bullpup rifles, and loaded them up with magazines filled with tungsten carbide armor piercing rounds.

From there, they ran into the deployment bay and waited for the rest of their squad to load up. Their hearts thundered in their chests as the anxiety of a battle filled their minds. Many double-checked their armaments and their internal systems to help stem their rising fear.

Many of them looked up suddenly when the deployment bay’s internal alarms rang – it let them all know they were ten seconds from deployment. They all gathered up their courage, and yelled their hurrahs and chants as every second passed.

And when the alarm gave a single flat note, the doors slid aside and allowed the heavy response team to run out of their barracks. As they sped down the passageways in formation, real-time security reports scrolled past their visor displays and showed them where their targets were located.

Their internal navigation guides appeared on their displays and literally showed them the way through the passageways, past many rooms and zones and intersections.

Just as they were halfway through a four-way cross intersection, Kali’s commando squad launched their ambush. They pincered the response team from both sides, and smashed into their center.

One half of the squad swung their omnitronium greatswords and literally cut a swath through their enemies. Their blades slid through their thick armor as though they were made of tin, and completely eviscerated or dismembered every soldier they struck.

The other half also swung, but with their greathammers instead. And they crushed every soldier they struck with equal amounts of ease. Federation armor plating warped and wrapped around the hammers as they were struck, and allowed the bone underneath to snap and shatter.

Kali swept her opponent off his feet and threw him to the ground with expert finesse. Then she swung her hammer above her head with a wide grin.

“To all that’s holy,” she said with glee. “I love my job.”

She then brought her hammer down with such force that completely caved in the soldier’s armor with a thick, wet, crunch. He died instantly.

“Surrender!” she bellowed to the rest. “Or be ground to dust!”

~

“Clean kills only,” Xylo said coldly. “Only accept surrenders if offered. I want the gunnery bay empty within three minutes.”

“Yes, ma’am,” replied her squad.

Eight members of her squad quickly ducked into an entryway, and were immediately peppered by enemy fire. Most of the incoming fire bounced off or lightly scratched their armor. A few dug into the gaps and bit in. Not that it stopped their advance.

The nanites in Azrael’s stims broke down any slugs that were in their bodies into their molecular components, then stitched their cells back together as fast as they could go.

At the same time, they released some of their anesthetic locally – just enough to dull the pain. And in other sections of their body, the nanites released more endorphins to compensate.

On the other end, a number of Federation soldiers were behind heavy reinforced barricades all around the room itself.

Past them was a long, narrow hallway where dozens of gunners sat at their stations. On their terminals were the numerous guns on all sides of the ships. And they fired nonstop at whatever Hegemony ships were in their view.

Then, one of them was flung to the side with great velocity, and his brains splattered against the far wall next to him. As his body slumped over, three others around him were killed in the exact same way.

Xylo adjusted her aim, along with three members of her squad, then, as a team, fired on another set of gunners.

While they sniped from the rear, the eight up front pushed forward despite any wounds they took. Just as they got into optimal range, they raised their heavy shardthrowers and squeezed their triggers.

With loud blasts, they ejected red-hot tungsten carbide pellets into the barricades themselves, and pierced them with absolute ease. They punched through to the soldiers behind, and slammed them against the nearby titacrete paneling.

The Federation soldiers screamed in agony as the flak tore their armor and their flesh and their muscle apart. And on top of that, they seared into their bodies with excruciating pain. One cried frantically as he attempted to scoop up his intestines back into his body.

The lucky few were killed outright as their bodies were torn open violently.

Xylo’s squad ripped through the gunnery station’s defenses as though it barely existed – their shardthrowers made short, efficient, violent work of it all.

And when they completely dismantled it and actually got to the inside, found that the rest of the team had already shot more than half the actual gunners inside.

Their bodies were slumped over their seats, or were thrown to the ground, or simply didn’t have a head. Regardless, their blood and their brain matter and bits of their skulls coated absolutely everything else.

The gunners who valued their lives most had long since raised their hands up in defeat, or were on their knees begging not to be killed.

Xylo’s squad quickly pushed the gunners out the entire bay – the ones who were still alive, anyway.

As they did so, no-one seemed to notice that the screens in every single gunnery station flashed off and then on again. Each one seemed to go through a brief diagnostic check, then everything resumed as though nothing had happened.

~

As a disembodied swarm of nanites, Raijin watched as her engines swept through every circuit on the cruiser, and took them over one after another after another. Their advance was steady, but complete. And as they did so, she came up behind them, and reinforced whatever circuits they captured.

She swam through the circuits and with a flurry of commands, and locked out dozens of coders and engineers from recently captured systems. And with another set of commands, she brought up their full account data, emptied them, then flagged them as intruders themselves.

Even uncaptured circuits booted them out of their processes, and locked them out tight.

Not that they remained uncaptured for long. Without the interference from the cruiser’s datacoder teams, Raijin’s engines could do their work in absolute peace. They swept through everything and took every circuit over.

Raijin, somehow, breathed a sigh of relief as she patched the last security flaw behind her. She looked all around at the cruiser’s combined systems and modules, through the network of circuits.

And then, she entered her Machine Trance and spread all throughout it.

Raijin’s consciousness filled the cruiser itself, as though she slipped her hand into a glove. She felt every node and cluster, every cable and connector.

She looked through her sensors and both watched and felt as the Federation ships around her were torn to pieces. Waves of energy crashed against her, or at least, that’s what it felt like.

But in truth they were simply electronic, gravimetric, and kinetic readings from the forces that erupted in the space around the cruiser.

When she opened up all the rest of the sensors, found a cacophony of sounds and sights and waves. They overwhelmed her to the point where she shut it all back down and went back to the simpler signals.

And a light blinked on in her mind – what she was experiencing was something like Prometheus! She could use this data to further her work with the Prometheus Core.

She shook her head and put that idea aside, and instead focused herself on the task at hand. Though she vowed to return to it later. For now, they had an enemy to deal with.

Raijin reached out and took direct control of every gun and turret on the cruiser itself. She waggled them around briefly, as though she was stretching out her fingers. Then, through their individual targeting sensor arrays, adjusted their aim towards the Federation ships that surrounded her.

A kind of digital thrill filled her as the weapons systems charged up. She felt them hum and move and heat up, which felt oddly delightful to her. Arming up felt pleasant, and she wasn’t sure if that was necessarily a good thing.

Regardless of how she felt, this was something she needed to do. She recognized the need to protect her friends, her people, herself. More than that, she also recognized the need to cause death to do so.

And she was thankful for that. It meant she could still keep her humanity, or at least a semblance of it, even if she was currently a giant warship. Deep down, she would still much rather be just a mad scientist in her lab, playing with her toys.

But if this was what she needed to be at that moment, then she would.

Raijin turned her weapons towards the Federation all around her. And, with a clear conscience, fired them all at once.