Ravens of Eternity

367 Assassination & Sabotage, Pt The clean, minimal, and large hexagonal room had dozens of technicians in cleansuits, all working and talking and building. They were in various stations and terminals and workbenches encircling the room itself.

And in the very center was a large elevated platform with numerous parts littered on it. A handful of technicians were around the platform, and worked together to build the machine on it. They were assisted by numerous hovering drones and machine arms that descended down from the ceiling.

Altogether, the technicians and drones assembled what appeared to be a modular handheld weapon system. They had a handful of weapon bases, each expanded into various configurations from pistol to SMG to rifle.

There were also melee/ranged hybrids that were in the process of being put together, though no-one was currently working on them.

The technicians were otherwise fully engrossed in attaching the various parts to the weapon bases themselves.

One grabbed a rather large circuit, and attached it directly onto a weapon base. He then added a handle and trigger, as well as some kind of electronic barrel. Once he was done, he presented it to the drone working alongside him.

It scanned it quickly, then reported the results into a holoprojection next to his workspace.

The tech grimaced at the results, clearly unhappy with his attempt. He then added a few more parts and tweaked the energy paths before presenting it to the drone again.

This time, he grinned happily at the report then continued tinkering with his weapon.

.....

The other technicians around the platform were also heavily involved in their own modifications and experiments. They all built their weapons, tested them, tweaked them, then set them with the others once satisfied.

All of the others at the terminals and workstations around also did their own experimentation and toying and tweaking. But instead of building the modular weapons, they worked on modifying the modules themselves.

Each attempted to further optimize or shift or split or boost the power flows within each of their pet modules. To them, every tiny gain was a massive improvement. Or at least, steps towards massive improvement.

In truth, every single Drogar tech here simply played with their weapons, and bit by bit made them more and more lethal.

And they weren’t the only ones in the room. Standing at each of the corners in the vast lab were armed and armored guards, just like the ones on the surface above.

They stood and watched stoically, ready to take any action should anything happen. But also like the ones above, they were soft and undisciplined. Many years of working in comfort kept them weak.

In fact, they were practically half-asleep even as they stood.

All were wholly unprepared when Kali and her squad came through one of the many doors around the room. Kali herself threw a right hook into the guard right next to her. She poured her anger through her fist, amplified her energies, and slammed him squarely on his chest.

She cracked his armor along with his sternum, and threw him into the corner. He struck the wall with such force that all the air was knocked out of his lungs, and his mind was instantly dazed.

The rest of her squad charged the remaining guards as they activated their infrasonic staves. The staves hummed with power and vibrated with energy as Kali’s commandos twirled them around their bodies.

Alarm quickly filled the Drogar guards, and a few were able to pull their weapons out. They were able to point their weapons at the incoming commandos, but were swatted out of the way before they could fire.

Their weapons clattered to the ground as the Republic knocked them out of their hands.

Each of the guards suddenly found themselves pummeled on all sides as the commandos swung their staves over and over again. Their arms were struck, or their stomachs were jabbed, or their legs were swept.

One found himself flanked by two commandos, each of whom took turns in pummeling him senseless. He was utterly surprised by the entire attack – not just from the strength and ferocity of their blows, and not just from the sonic pulses that the staves emitted.

It was simply because he was led to believe in the weakness of humanity, and the superiority of the Drogar.

He had always believed that there were huge differences between their physical strength and stamina, as a species. And that in no way could they ever be overpowered by them.

But every blow he took was harder than any blow he had ever taken in his life. Any of his fellow guards who he had sparred with never hit as hard as the humans in front of him did. Realizing the actual truth completely destabilized him, demoralized him, and he went down without much of a fight not long after.

Little did he know that the commandos of the Republic knew how to channel their strength. They had practiced with the ability to control their energies, and release them at the most opportune moment. Month after month, year after year of diligent practice turned them into wholly deadly combatants that could hit harder and take more damage than anyone else in the Hegemony.

It only took mere moments for Kali and her squad to take down the guards around the room, which left the Drogar technicians in utter shock and awe and fear. Many were agape at having seen the sheer brutality and lethality of the Republic commandos.

And despite having weapons littered everywhere, did absolutely nothing in response. They were here to build, not fight, and had zero capacity to defend themselves. A few ran for the exits while others scrambled to hit the alarms up on two of the walls.

Not that they got very far – Kali and her squad reacted immediately. They quickly drew their sidearms out – heavy suppressed flak pistols. Each one was slightly larger and more menacing than Kali and Freya’s handcannons.

And instead of firing massive slugs, these guns fired superheated tungsten pellets into their targets.

With dull and heavy THWAPS, they gunned down the technicians around them. Each of them were riddled with dozens of red-hot pellets, which tore into their bodies with sickening ease. They literally tore their bodies apart and cauterized their wounds at the same time.

The pellets ripped right through and embedded themselves into the walls and machinery behind the technicians. Blood splattered everywhere as a result, and contaminated what should have been a constantly clean room.

The smell of burning flesh and blood and muscle filled the lab quickly, even as the dead Drogar fell all around.

~

Freya, Lucifer, and the dozens of drones with them flew all around the facility at top speed. Each and every single one of them were equipped with devastating plasma lances, which they fired at absolutely everything they saw.

Their beams had been completely optimized into super-thin streams of particle energy, which easily cut through even the thickest armor plating around. They quite literally pulled ions apart and disintegrated matter from an atomic level.

Nothing stood a chance against them, not flesh and bone, not any chitin or standard armor plating. Everything was cut to ribbons or eviscerated or dismantled with relative ease.

They sliced into the buildings and weapons and drones and turrets scattered everywhere.

What few weapon emplacements that still drew power were quickly sliced apart, and exploded before they could do any damage. And if anyone below was foolish enough to fire back with their weapons, the Raze team fired back with impunity.

Freya wove between buildings and fired straight into them as she flew past. Her beams cut through the outer armor plating easily and cut into the equipment and floors and people inside, at least by a half dozen meters.

She then swung around and up, which literally sliced off an entire corner section of a building, which slid off and fell onto an open space beside it. The large chunk smashed into the ground and warped from the impact.

Pieces of its armor plating was wrenched off and thrown in multiple directions.

At the same time, numerous offices were exposed to the world. Any Drogar still alive were subsequently cut down by hawk drones right after.

As Lucifer sliced apart whatever was left of the communications tower, an alert began flashing on hir screen. Drogar power signatures suddenly flared up at one of the collapsed hangar bays, which quickly caught hir attention.

“I’m seeing a number of Imperial mecha powering on,” ze said. “Eight or nine, I think.”

“Oh, good!” Freya exclaimed. “I thought things were going to be completely uneventful here... Let’s go take ’em out, you and me.”

“This might also be a good time to test system connectivity,” said Raijin. “The two of you have practiced in a controlled environment, but never in an actual sortie. Or with Drogar parts. This would be a good opportunity to gather some operational data.”

“I’m game,” said Lucifer. “Should be a nice little challenge.”

“Kinda wish there were more of them for us to play with,” said Freya. “I mean, a full squadron of 12 would’ve been nice.”

“Well, you could face them on your own if you want.”

“Hey, not a bad idea...”

With a few chuckles, Freya and Lucifer broke off from the drones and sped towards the hangar bay where the Drogar signals were coming from. They watched as the enemy mecha ripped a hole in the partially-collapsed hangar with their weapons, then flew out of it before the building collapsed further.

The two of them buzzed past at top speed and fired on the Drogar mecha, even as they were still regrouping. And although their beams struck their chitin for only a moment, they scored deep gashes in the armor.

By the time they swung around, the nine mecha had already moved into formation and began their counter attack. They moved through the air similar to Drogar fighters, and they seemingly wove and swum in a loose grid.

The formation swept around and attempted to envelop the two Oni cores, but found their agility far beyond their own. No matter how hard they tried to flank the cores, they simply slipped out with incredible ease.

Irritated by their inability to catch their prey, they instead pointed their talon-like rifles at the two cores, and fired at them relentlessly. They filled the air with slugs that crackled with dark orange energies, some of which slammed into the cores’ spinning omnitronium armor rings.

They ripped into a few plates that left them deformed and blackened.

But they found that no matter what they did or how much they fired they simply couldn’t do much damage to the Oni cores. The fact that their armor spun quickly meant that any damage they did was spread out across the numerous plates.

Many cursed deeply at the frustration they felt as they faced off against Freya and Lucifer.

But not for long. Not after the two began their counterattack.