by Aer-ki Jyr
“No clue,” the inside one said, tapping the shield experimentally to gage its strength. “Why didn’t they use this to block our path?”
“Aim high,” he said, pulling out his pistol and aiming at the bottom end of the shield. The others did the same, and within a second all five were firing pointblank into the shield, causing bursts of static high and low. They kept firing for nearly a minute before the inside two stopped.
“What’s wrong?”
“Heavy,” one of them said, flexing its shoulders.
“If we pump enough rounds into it it’ll come down, but we have to keep up our rate of fire so it can’t recharge.”
“No, the gravity,” the inside left one said. “It’s increasing.”
The outside three stopped firing, confused and concerned expressions on their faces. They glanced at each other, then at the two across the energy field. “We don’t feel anything.”
“More here,” the other inside one added, leaning against the wall. His pistol slipped out of his hand and fell sharply to the ground with a clank. “Double, I’d guess.”
“They may be trying to pin us down for a counterattack,” one of the outside ones guessed.
“But why block off the hangar?”
“Is it still increasing?”
“No,” the inside left one said, having trouble speaking. “But it’s heavy.”
One of the outside ones activated his comm gear and tried to contact the forward teams, reporting their status while the other two went back to shooting the shield.
“Grab a rifle,” one of the inside ones suggested, firing lazily into the base as his gun arm wavered.
The one on the comm took off running, which for a Calavari sounded like a stampede and looked only slightly less intimidating. As he got over to one of the tightly packed transports he got a response back from one of the commanders, indicating that most of the troops weren’t affected. Only those along the hangar were, with the more interior sections still at normal gravity.
The Calavari ran up into the transport and grabbed a spare rifle from the armory rack with its left hand, then grabbed another two with his other hands, leaving one to work his comm unit. When he got back over to the shield the plasma shots continued but the shield was being stubborn.
“The gravity zone is only along the hangar. If you move inward you should be able to avoid it,” he said, passing out the rifles.
“How far?”
“The other side. This whole chamber is heavy.”
“Too far,” one of the inside ones said, picking up his pistol from the ground and firing as he labored to stand steady, his heavy musculature seeming to betray him. “Get us through.”
Without further conversation the three outside techs took a step back and began shooting into the top of the shield with the rifles and continued to do so for several minutes before the matrix finally succumbed. One of the Calavari on the gravity side staggered forward, then the shield reformed across his back as he leaned forward on crossing, pinning him in place. An angry jerk of his powerful muscles took it down again, thin as the recharging matrix was, and the rifle bearers fired a few extra shots over his head to keep it down as the other one came through, immediately feeling a sense of relief as they returned to normal gravity.
The shield reformed behind them, cutting the hangar off from the rest of the jumpship again.
“What are the Nestafar doing?” one of the rifle-bearing ones asked. “I can understand the shield, but not the gravity.”
“If it’s low level, they may be able to fly up high in zero gravity and shoot down on us. That may be why it only affects the cavern.”
“There’s a cavern in the center of the ship,” another pointed out.
“How high do you think they can pump it?” one of the fatigued ones asked, making his own mental guess.
“No more than 3x, maybe 4,” the other tech suggested, glancing with the others for confirmation.
“We probably got the worst of it. No more than 2x, I think.”
“Two times gravity is bad enough, but why only here and not where the rest of our troops are? Doesn’t make sense.”
One of the outsiders put a hand on the fatigued one’s shoulder. “If we’re stuck out here, let’s work on permanently disabling that shield.”
The others nodded their agreement, recognizing the danger if the Nestafar upped the gravity throughout the entire ship save for a safe zone reserved for themselves.
7
“Where are you now?” Ian-2799 asked.
“We’re hanging out on the edge of the inner chamber…and it’s freaking huge,” Morgan answered.
“Well, I don’t know about your area, but we’re working our way through a ghost town. Aside from the retreating fire teams and ambush squads, this part of the ship is deserted. I don’t like it. If they’re monkeying around with the gravity we could be in for a world of hurt.”
“Not sure what to make of that,” Morgan admitted. “The Calavari commander has groups of techs hacking into the Nestafar systems across the ship and they say the ring of high gravity extends the entire way around, even the far side.”
“Suggests a preplanned strategy then.”
“Point,” Morgan admitted. “If we had more troops on the way I could see them using it as a delaying tactic in concert with the shields, but the fact that they’re not engaging us much blows that theory. Anyone got any others?”
“It smells like a trap to me,” Seth-3110 chimed in. “We’re working our way through the same ghost town. If they’re evacuating their people to safe zones and cranking up the gravity when they’re clear that alone might kill us, if they can get it high enough. The shields keeping us in are another red flag in that department.”
“I’ve already had a conversation with the Calavari on that. They said they thought 4 times normal gravity would be the theoretical max…which is about 3.5g. I’ve done that in training before, so I’m not worried. And if we’re fighting the Nestafar they’ll be similarly affected.”
“Unless they’re flying,” Ian pointed out, “and the gravity field doesn’t extend all the way up.”
“Which is why I want the rest of you to stay ‘indoors,’ so to speak. My team is headed out into the center, so if they’re going to spring a trap we’ll flush it out. Maka’var has ordered most of his teams to stay back as well, with only about 200 troops going with us.”
“Hang on,” Carver-6774 broke in. “We just went heavy.”
“Where?” Morgan asked, adjusting her in-helmet battlemap to a wide view of the entire ship, then scaled it back down a little to focus on their half.
“Not far from the ravine. We’ve been patrolling the edge line and running…shit,” the Archon said, cutting out.
Morgan waited a moment, but no response came. “Carver...you there?”
“Wa…i…t.”
“Holding,” Morgan said, guessing as to the strain in his voice and having her spidey senses start to crawl up the back of her spine.
“Damn…it,” the Archon’s voice came back, with heavy breathing audible in between words. “That’s no 3.5, Morgan. That’s 10+. The ravine…cranked up too…and just pancaked one of my Calavari. I dragged him…out to the 2g zone…but he’s hurt pretty bad. Concussion at least…from the fall. He’s also bleeding. Maybe organ damage.”
Morgan squeezed her eyes shut in anger. How could she have been so stupid?
“Fall back to the normal gravity, wherever the line is. We’re unaffected at my position. Everyone else report in. Who’s affected?”
“We just spiked,” Eriona-5229 said. “We’re not far from the ravine. About 2g here.”
“Normal here,” Ian added, with the others Archons all chiming in. Based on her battlemap Morgan guessed that another ring-like section of the ship had upped its gravity while the original did likewise, thickening the gravity zone in between them and the breach point.
“Morgan?” Maka’var’s voice boomed behind her as she was loo
king out into the huge crater-like chamber in the center of the ship that had varying buildings sticking up at the center and thousands, if not millions, of nooks covering the landscape that stretched at least a couple of kilometers from one side to the other.
The Archon held up a ‘wait’ hand as she finished her conversation with her fellow Archons, then turned around to look up at the towering Calavari. “I assume you heard?”
“The gravity zone extended.”
“And intensified,” Morgan added. “The original zone amped up too.”
“Of this I am also aware. Several hundred of my men are unaccounted for, but our techs have located the source of the gravity,” he said, pointing towards the center of the crater. “Down there is the generator that feeds the emitters that run throughout the ship. If we can capture it we can reset the gravity to normal and proceed with the conquest of the ship.”
Morgan frowned inside her helmet. “Are you sure it’s the only one? Our gravity fields are modular. All they need is a power feed.”
“As do ours, but the Nestafar technology is designed differently. The gravity effect is produced in a single location and reflected out through conduits to the specified chambers, then amplified within containment fields. My techs also say that they don’t think the jumpship has enough power to raise the gravity everywhere, unless they were able to tie in their gravity drives. They believe the rings are a mechanism to force us into a smaller area of the ship where they can crush us.”
“Not so fast…where are they hiding at? We find them and we find a safe place to fight it out with the bastards.”
“I have many teams in combat with the enemy now,” the Calavari commander stated oddly, as if he was nervous but not wanting to show it.
“Then I suggest shifting all your men into those areas and clearing out of any region with raised gravity. If they pump up another ring we can’t have our people caught up in it.”
“A delaying tactic,” Maka’var pronounced. “We have to get to the gravity generator…which is where I suspect most of their troops will be deployed in defensive lines,” he said, producing a small hologram from a handheld device that pinpointed the target building for Morgan to see.
“We need to scout it first,” Morgan said, looking back out over the expanse and putting an approximate waypoint on her battlemap. “They could have another gravity ring around the center to keep us away. Or they could be lying in wait as you suggested. We need to find out before we commit your men.”
“My thoughts exactly. You will lead my team?”
“Happy to.”
The Calavari motioned from behind him and a heavy combat team walked out of the ‘interior’ of the ship in pairs. “Move quickly, Human. The enemy has the advantage on us.”
Morgan clapped him on the lower elbow then turned and ran out over the edge of the platform she’d been standing at the back of. She dropped down to the next one below her and caught herself in a crouch before walking forward to make room for the Calavari, who slid over the edge, clinging by the arms for a moment then dropping a couple meters to the ground to lessen the impact. As they came down Morgan moved up to the next drop off and repeated the maneuver, heading down the angle of the enormous crater’s wall with it gradually shallowing out.
The inset platforms ceased a few hundred meters down, replaced by pillars and walls in a maze-like plain with wide gaps between each other. The purpose of the area escaped Morgan, who otherwise would have thought it to be a training area, given the layout. Regardless, they got a third of the way to the central buildings before the Nestafar appeared, popping up over top of the erratic walls and firing down on them from altitude as they hovered about on their muscular, flapping wings.
The Calavari took cover behind Morgan and started sniping them out of the air with their rifles while absorbing a few hits on their shields, but the Archon chose to barrel forward, ducking in and out of the passageways as she raced ahead behind and underneath her shield, penetrating deep into the Nestafar lines as they continued to rise up into the air, dozens strong at first, then hundreds. Morgan eventually came up to some that were still on the ground and finally began firing her weapon, shooting those closest first, then aiming up at the feet of the others flying overhead.
As she was doing so she heard the call from the other Archons indicating that a third ring of gravity had just popped up, with the second also having vaulted up into the 10+ g range after a short reconnaissance run. Macer-8291 hadn’t pressed more than a few meters inside the zone, let alone traveled across the length of it to see what the gravity rating was now in the first zone. Morgan knew she could walk across a 10 g area, at least she thought she could, but knew the others weren’t as strong as her. If she had to bet she’d give them a slight edge, but there was no point in risking it for a simple recon…unless the gravity had decreased on the far side.
Damn it…if she was back there then she might have tried, but there was no way she was ordering or even suggesting the others try. And there was no way the Calavari could make it. Their high mass was to their disadvantage in this case, while Morgan’s petite musculature would make her more adept to handle the multiplication effect of the higher gravity. The other Archons were similarly better off than the Calavari, but Morgan still had the greatest strength/weight ratio of them all, and it wasn’t by a small margin either.
Only way to fix this now was to get to the gravity generator…which meant beating their way through these troops, no matter how many of them there were.
“Everyone listen up,” Morgan yelled into her comm as she ducked, dodged, and fired her plasma pistol up at the Nestafar with dozens of red plasma blobs coming back down at her, some of which she blocked with her already divotted shield. “Either track the Nestafar teams back to a safe zone or get your asses down to the center of the ship. We have to take the gravity generator offline and, guess what, looks like this is where they have most of their troops.”
“Morgan, run to portside, now!” Ian ordered. “I’ve got eyes on your position and the Nestafar are playing with more than infantry. You’ve got walkers incoming.”
“Oh, shit!” she said, ducking down a side passage that was likewise unroofed. She switched her comm over to the frequency of her Calavari assault team. “Fall back, fall back,” she said as she ran, shooting around her shield as the infantry stalked her from above. “Walkers incoming. Get to cover…somewhere,” she urged, beginning to hear the heavy foot strikes behind her.
Suddenly there was a flash of red behind her back as bright as the sun, then it was gone a moment later with the distinctive crackle/zap sound of plasma impacting matter.
“Damn it,” Ian swore. “Your team just got roasted. Run Morgan, I mean it! You’ve got to get the angle of the walls above its firing line.”
“What’s shooting me?” she asked, dumping her damaged shield and sprinting through the passageways as fast as she could, keeping to the side as much as possible to block infantry firing lines, though knowing that running port would expose her to the walker, so she darted off fore and aft as often as possible to mix things up.
“A super dragon, so move your ass, girl!”
“Guide me!” she pleaded, taking a shot to her back that hit her equipment pack.
“Angle aft, that should block direct lines. It’s oriented slightly to your right with the layout of most of the rows.”
“Infantry?”
“They’re coming out of everywhere, but most in the air are behind you…no, wait, duck now! Incoming!” he said as the super dragon fired again.
Morgan jammed herself up against the bottom of one of the walls and pulled herself into a lump as the plasma raced over her head. The heat plume soaked through her armor and warmed her skin, then bits of melted wall started falling down on top of her as the bang of impact numbed her ears despite her helmet’s protection. She glanced up a moment later and saw that most of the wall above her head was gone, as were three to her right where the plasma had cut straight
through.
“Damn it,” she yelled, jumping up and sprinting over pieces of wall as they resolidified into clumps on the floor. Reaching back she detached her pack, dropping the backpack full of supplies and the weapon rack, keeping only the pistol in her hand and her jump pack on. Immediately feeling lighter she raced down the hall, ducked left for a few steps, then sprinted again down an angled corridor that should have visually blocked her from the giant machine that she didn’t waste time turning around to look at.
“Tell me when it’s going to shoot.”
“It’s twisting now…ready…ready…duck!” he said, guessing based on its movements when it had her locked in, which was tricky to do even with practice.
Morgan didn’t duck. Instead he jabbed her jump pack onto full and put as much power into her legs as possible, then leapt up above the flanking walls just before the red plasma streak came in. Its thermal shockwave propelled her up even further, shooting the Archon several stories high before she dialed back the power and started a controlled fall, trying to aim for one of the wall tops.
She came down at an angle but managed to stay up top, then with a twist of her foot began running along the top of the wall for several steps before jumping again, this time less high, knowing that her capacitor hadn’t had time to fully recharge.
Morgan landed in between walls this time, then took off sprinting erratically, using her superhuman speed and agility to try and lose her pursuit as she got further and further away from the stationary walker.
“You’re clear,” Ian said, prompting Morgan to come to a skidding halt and nestle down near the base of the wall on her left.
“What’s…it doing now?” she asked, a bit out of breath.
“Another ring just went up,” Seth said, worry in his voice. “They’re driving us to the interior.”
“Where are their teams heading?” Morgan asked.
“Same place,” Carver answered. “We just followed them to the edge of the chamber, then they took off flying as soon as they could. They’re leading us to slaughter. I can see 14 walkers from my position, and they’re tall enough to step over the walls.”
