That was… unfortunate. “I see… Well, it was worth asking.”
Without the ability to jam their communications, there was only a few things that we could do. Turning to Celeste, I once again gave out instructions. “Celeste, I want you to stay behind and command the ship for the battle. I need you to make sure everything goes smoothly.” given her nature, she probably knew more about this ship and its abilities than I did, especially after these new upgrades.
She opened her mouth as if she was about to protest, but I didn’t give her the chance. “I’ll be going down with Sharon, Yin, and Yo once we get within range. While we are down there, you need to make sure to take out the enemy assault ships, disable the warp gate, and preferably retrieve the communications relay.”
None of these objectives were any less important than the others, so I could only leave this job to her. Celeste hesitated for a few moments, before nodding her head reluctantly. “Alright, John… I’ll do it. But, does that mean I get to sit in the chair?” A small, mischievous smile formed on her face as she asked that. She knew how much I liked this chair.
“...Fine. You can sit on the chair while I’m gone.” I said, shaking my head with a slight chuckle. “Keep the ship safe for me.” After saying that, I stood up, followed by the two women at my side. “We’ll be hitting the area soon, so we’ll go ahead and get in the clones.” No way in hell are we going down in our real bodies when there is the threat of the ships simply bombing the site from orbit.
Celeste nodded her head at that, clearing her throat and stepping up. I could hear her beginning to give out orders as we walked out of the bridge. On our way to the medbay, I went ahead and called Yo, letting her know the plan. She said that she would meet us there.
To my surprise, not only Yo, but even Yang was waiting for us when we arrived at the medbay. I looked at the bird girl with a complicated expression, knowing that I couldn’t take her with us even if she wanted to go. She had a crafting class, not a combat one, so she wasn’t really that suited for fighting. Even if she did manage to use her voice to turn a group of assassins into living meatballs.
She seemed to understand something from how I looked at her, and shook her head, a small smile forming on her lips. “I don’t want to go with you, Master. I just want to see you all off.” As she spoke, she stepped up towards Yin, giving her a tight hug.
I could see Yin’s face soften at Yang’s show of affection. It really wasn’t normal for her to see us off like this, and for a moment I questioned it. However, a quick check of her with my senses told me that there was absolutely nothing strange about her, whether it was her aura, soul, or whatever. At most, she just appeared to be worried about us.
After Yin reached up and patted her on the back, I heard her speak in a quiet voice. “We’ll be back soon.” She said, reassuring her sister. Yang only nodded, stepping back before giving similar hugs to the rest of us.
“Master.” She called out to me before I could access my clone, stopping me after I sat down. When I looked at her curiously, she smiled slightly. “I’ll give you something good when you get back, so be safe.”
Pardon me while I go drag my mind out of the gutter. Even if she spoke some rather… suggestive words, her tone and expression did not hint at anything but a sincere gift. Most likely, she had crafted something good and wanted to show me. As such, I nodded my head with a smile. “Show me when I get back then.”
And thus, the dramatic moment was ruined after I got in my clone, only to sit up on the medical bed behind Yang. Coughing awkwardly, I stood up and made my way to the door, hearing Sharon laugh slightly behind me. “Well, we’ll be off then.”
After that, then we finally moved to the teleport bay, waiting for the ship to drop out of subspace. Of course, I didn’t feel like just sitting there and waiting. Celeste, mind sharing vision so I can see what’s going on until we leave?
Chapter 48: Tables Turned
As I watched through Celeste’s eyes, I could see the five ships displayed on the monitor of the bridge. As I had expected, three of them had the metallic rings circling them indicative of an assault ship. As for the other two, they matched the model for the shield ships we had seen previously.
“All ships, commence attack!” Celeste called out from the captain’s chair, her eyes trained on the screen. After her words fell, there were various responses, such as the Qu’Lopti flights assembling or the Deus Ex cannons charging. “Prepare to fire the new gun on the closest assault ship once their shields go up.” She gave the warning to the nearby Ackbar, who nodded his head heavily.
As expected, when the majority of the ships on our side started shooting their weapons, the hexagonal shields quickly appeared in place around our target ship. It was at that moment that I felt a cold smile forming on Celeste’s lips. “Fire the main cannon!” She ordered loudly.
On the screen, the empty space seemed to turn white for a brief moment. There was a wide flash of formless energy, which immediately focused itself into a concentrated beam, targeting the blue hexagon directly between us and the enemy ship. When the beam made contact, it did not stop, it did not even treat the shield as being there. The only thing that happened was that the beam changed its color from white to blue after passing through the shield.
And like that, the first ship fell. It did not explode in a brilliant blaze from the detonation of its white hole like the ones we had fought before. To my surprise, the white hole actually began to shrink and dissipate before our eyes, vanishing completely before the ship itself exploded into countless pieces.
How did you do that? I asked Celeste curiously. Before, the ships exploding had always been a major threat, as just one had the power to destroy nearby planets.
“I’ve been studying the structure of these ships since our first encounter.” Celeste spoke to me mentally, as the remaining two assault ships trained all of their rings on us. “There are a couple of weak points I theorized and programmed into the targeting computer. Now, this is going to sting a bit…”
As her words ended, the world was once again bathed in light. Two massive beams fired directly at the Ariadne, colliding with our shield. “Feedback stored energy to strengthen the shields!” She ordered, even as the ship began to shake slightly.
“Shield generators three and six are down! Shield strength down to 70%.” Ackbar called back after reading the damage on the screen, his face grim. If just two of these ships could get rid of 30% of our shields in the first blast, we were in for a rude awakening when we found their main fleet.
“Target the second ship, all guns!” She said before closing her eyes. Despite the situation, I could hear an almost excited tone to her when she spoke mentally to me again. “Want to see a new trick I’ve been working on?”
Before I could ask what she was talking about, she had started. “Reality Break: Limitless Silver Sands, stage two.” Oh god, she developed that skill even more?! Don’t tell me that it has that same naming sense… “Infinity Hive.”
Although she had still not opened her eyes, I could hear a gasp from some of the crew members. Looking up from my actual body, I could see faint silver specks flying through the vent only moments later, before some more words entered my mind through Celeste’s ears.
“Shield generators three and six are… back online. Shield at 85% percent!”
Celeste chuckled slightly, finally opening her eyes. “Fire the main cannon again!” She ordered, before turning her thoughts to me. “I figured out a way to take advantage of all of those metallic clones in my grove. I can use that skill to convert them into my Limitless Silver Sand, though I am unable to move my main body while controlling them. And naturally, they can’t perfectly replace the rare materials used in the ship, so the shield will be a bit weaker until we get time to repair it.”
As she finished her explanation, the second assault ship had fallen. “Qu’Lopti flights, take out their warp gate! Deus Ex, beginning moving on the communications relay! Let’s give this last o
ne some more targets.”
It’s a good thing her words fell when they did, because I could already see the rings surrounding the final assault ship moving into position to attack again. But this time, the target was not us, but the planet. However, that changed immediately when the other ships began moving.
This was only natural. They wanted to destroy the base on the planet to prevent us from getting the research materials, but that was not our only objective. If we destroyed the warp gate, this region of space would be cut off from their main forces. Stalling that for just a few minutes would let them have reinforcements. On the other hand, if we capture the communications relay, we will have access to the locations of other nearby bases.
The ship seemed to hesitate for a split second before the metallic rings spun into motion. Two of them targeted the Qu’Lopti ships, two on the Deus Ex, and the last one on a rather unexpected target, the communications relay itself. “Shit.” Celeste cursed, probably the first time I have heard her say that in… ever, as far as I could remember. “Didn’t expect them to go that far.”
After she said that, the three beams of light shot out. While the Qu’Lopti ships were agile enough to avoid the beam locking onto them, the Deus Ex had to endure it with the power of their shields. Yet, there was no defense for the relay, as it was instantly obliterated under the force of the beam. “New plan.” Celeste said reluctantly. “Qu’Lopti flights, pull back. Deus Ex, do your best to disable the warp gate without destroying it. If we can’t find their nearby bases, then we’ll just take the transit data from the gate.”
“Understood, Vice-Captain.” Several voices rang out over the channel as the ships moved into action. At the same time, they began firing on the final assault ship, while the two shield ships began moving back, as if to retreat.
“Are we going to let them get away?” Ackbar asked, looking up to Celeste.
“We can’t stop them both.” She said, shaking her head. “Any tactical information that they could share about us would have been sent as soon as we destroyed their first ship. Just be thankful that they are choosing to preserve precious resources for future fights, rather than going on a suicide run to ram their planet base.”
After she said that, the final assault ship met the same fate as the first. “How long do you need in order to disable the warp gate?” She asked nervously.
“Two minutes should suffice.” Came the Deus Ex’s honest answer. “We merely need to identify and surgically target key power stations.”
Celeste nodded her head, seeming to fall into thought. “Okay, go ahead then. It should take them at least five minutes to get reinforcements through the gate, hopefully. As for normal subspace travel, we should have a few hours at the very least.” After that, she turned towards the pilot of the Ariadne, just as the two shield ships disappeared into subspace. “Get us within teleport distance of the planet, the landing party is waiting.”
After that, I decided to cut off the link between Celeste’s senses and my own, turning to meet the rather curious looks of the women around me. “We won.” I said with a smile. “But, once we get down there, we need to act fast. With the battle already over out here, they’re probably going to have armed whatever self destruct device their base has by the time we arrive.”
Thankfully, I wasn’t bringing Lex with me, or this would be a lot worse than it was right now. “Once we get down there, we are going to run straight in, guns blazing.” Metaphorically speaking, of course. “Forget about finding any research data this time. There’s probably not going to be the time for that. Instead, try to find a researcher, and if that fails grab a guard. Anyone that doesn’t look like a store-bought entity. We can interrogate them after getting back to the ship.”
Sharon and Yin nodded with small smiles, while Yo pumped her fist. “Alright, finally a good fight!” She grinned, her mouth literally splitting from ear to ear.
“Don’t expect too much.” I said with a chuckle. “The last base we hit had terrible security, remember?”
Hearing that, Yo nodded her head, her expression downcast. “Yeah, you’re right. Maybe they’ve got something special here, though? A secret anti-you weapon?”
I really hope not. That would make things troublesome. I thought silently, before Celeste’s report came in. We were close to the planet now, close enough to teleport down. And judging from the energy readings, she confirmed that they were overloading their reactor, building it towards a meltdown.
“Alright, let’s go.” I said with a smile, and the others all nodded. Not long after that, a bright light surrounded us, before a loud alarm could be heard from every direction. Once again, we had been teleported down to the world, just outside of the complex. However, something was different this time, causing me to furrow my brows.
I couldn’t feel any of the elements around us. They were using the same trick that they had showed me back at the start of this war, preventing me from using my druid powers to control elemental mana. And looking at the expressions on Yin and Sharon’s faces, they felt it too.
Shaking my head, I converted a layer of skin on my hand into slime, shifting it into the form of the sword that I had neglected for so long. In this kind of situation, I was the most disadvantaged. Both Sharon and Yin had powers that could be used outside of elemental manipulation, whereas it had become my specialty.
However, there was still more I could do, which I began preparing as Sharon crushed the wall of the base with her bare hands, forcing it open for us. I assumed my battle form, thick draconic scales covering my body. There was the brief sensation of my insides rearranging to fit this form, but afterwards I was ready.
When the three of us charged in, we were immediately met with laser fire from the human guards. For the others, this was fairly normal, but it was rather annoying to me. Even with the scales, I still felt the heat of the beam on my skin. This was the first time I had taken actual damage in a battle in a while, and I was not really that pleased with it.
However, before I could charge in to pay them back for that, they had already fallen to the ground. When I looked at them again, I saw that their heads were suddenly facing the wrong direction, causing me to send a look over to Yin, who shrugged lightly. Aside from Yo, who didn’t need to care about elemental mana, Yin was likely the least affected by the lack of elemental manipulation.
Shaking my head, I looked towards the next door, just in time for Sharon to pry it open. However, as soon as she did, she was sent flying back by a beam of light that squarely struck her chest, making her cry out in pain. “Oh no they didn’t!” Yo said with a dark growl as she dived through the opening that Sharon had made, while I ran over to Sharon in order to heal her.
“I’m alright, John.” She said with a small cough, some blood at the corner of her mouth. Nonetheless, she struggled to her feet, only accepting a small heal. “Time is of the essence, remember?”
Chapter 49: Divide and Chaos
I could only nod my head at Sharon’s resolve to continue forward. She was right that we were short on time, as I had just said a little while ago. Sadly, since we knew that everything was likely to blow up in our faces soon, we didn’t have time for her to meet up with Priscilla to combine. “Alright, let’s go.”
Inside the room that Sharon had opened moments before, Yo had assumed the form of a massive three headed dog. There was a literal fire in her eyes as she viciously ripped to shreds the large robot that was likely responsible for the blast that knocked Sharon down. I could see chunks of metal flying through the air as the three heads tore into it.
Every now and then, it would try to fire another blast at her from various parts of its body, but those seemed completely ineffective against Yo. It was only a matter of time before she ripped out something vital, and the robot stopped moving altogether. Although it had once appeared to be large and humanoid, it was now nothing but a pile of discarded scrap.
As Yo walked towards the next door, her body seemed to explode in green slime, which
rapidly reformed to create her humanoid appearance in only a second. However, her eyes were still set in a sharp glare as she looked to the two doors that lead further into the base. “Where do we go, dad?” She asked, her voice still dark.
I was tempted to say that we should split up to cover more ground, but that wasn’t really a logical decision here. We were looking to capture someone to interrogate, and the only way to do that was my Toybox power. Or… “Yo, when you absorb creatures, you get their souls, right? Does that include memories?”
When I asked that, she turned to look at me curiously. “Somewhat. I can see their memories when I eat them, but I usually just spit the memories out.” She answered, unsure where I was going with this.
“Alright. Then, you take Yin and go that way.” I pointed towards the door on the left wall. “I’ll go through the other one with Sharon. If you see anyone that looks special, just… don’t ‘spit out’ the memories that could help.”
She seemed a bit surprised by my decision, but nodded her head nonetheless. Yin looked at me in concern, but still followed Yo to the door, using a blast of her mental prowess to rip it out of place. Once they left, that meant it was only Sharon and I remaining. She couldn’t help but turn to look at me. “You sure you’re alright with her eating people?”
I thought about her question for a moment, but shook my head in resignation. “Not really. But, we are going to be killing them either way. Either they die to us, or to the explosion they are trying to set off. Either way… this is war, and they’re the enemies.” I said this more to remind myself than her. “We need that information if we’re going to get out of this situation.”
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