by Vowron Prime
For the very first time in her life, Nina understood why the elite mercenaries of Earth called Magnus the Machine.
Fifty-Six
MC issued commands to Sarek and Nina en route to the CIC. “I want both of you investigating the medbay’s debris. Analyze whatever video footage we have. I want to know everything about what happened in there.”
“Good luck out there, bro. Trust me, I want to find Nova as badly as you do,” Nina said.
MC stormed into the CIC where Krar, Torneus, and his command staff awaited.
“Time is short, so listen up. According to our intel, we have twenty minutes until the Legatus’s orbital weapons platforms are in position to strike. I’m heading to space with the teleportal we left attached to Heimdall, the goal being to save as many of our satellites as possible. Assuming I pull that off, we’ll target the Tensa making its way here. We lost Reaver during the battle earlier, so you’ll be relying on our new artillery emplacements to help take down the chariots. Heimdall’s already begun bombarding the Dyn launch sites before they can fire another salvo, so we’re hoping we’ll only have to deal with the existing weapons.
“Any luck on pinpointing the Tensa’s location?” he asked one of the radar operators.
“Negative, sir. We have a general position, but nothing precise enough to fire the mass driver at.”
“Keep at it. The second we get a lock, we blow that thing from the sky, hopefully before it gets here. If we’re quick enough, we won’t have to worry about the mother ship’s fighters. In any case, I need you all to coordinate the base defenses. Prioritize protecting the artillery emplacements—if those go down, we’re royally screwed. Understood?”
Affirmative responses echoed throughout the room.
“You’re dismissed. We’ve beat that asshole once already. We can sure as hell do it again.”
MC donned his combat helmet and patched into the vidcam feed they’d placed in the medbay, where Sarek was diligently organizing debris and analyzing wreckage with a handheld scanner.
“How’d you manage to get that guy so motivated?” he asked his sister.
Nina turned the vidcam to face her and winked. “I have my ways. You really wanna know?”
He smirked. Count on Nina to find a way to brighten the mood. “When you put it that way, no, not really. But do keep me posted on any developments. And… stay safe.”
“Back at you, Magnus.”
MC brought up his ability HUD as he made his way to the armory. With all of the chaos that had happened, he’d forgotten to check in on the dampener. There were numerous ways he could’ve taken the chariots down, but he’d had a feeling that taking their energy weapons head-on would cause the ability to surge by leaps and bounds.
Sure enough, the chariot’s attack had filled its gory vidsphere with blood. MC concentrated on the sack, bursting it immediately. As he’d expected, the headache hit him in full force, sending him swooning with nausea. What he didn’t expect was that the dampener would immediately refill with blood—more than eighty percent to its next level.
Bracing himself against the armory door, he took several deep breaths to shake it off. Stronger headaches usually meant that the parasite was “rearranging” more of his brain, which in turn meant stronger abilities, so it was with excitement that he maximized the vidsphere.
His avatar faced two Zevan mages. Merely thirty feet away, the enemies chanted without interruption; the avatar took no action. Fire erupted from one of the mages’ hands. A cone of ice from the other. At that very instant, MC’s avatar activated the energy dampener—not on himself, but on them. The dampener formed a dome that enveloped the mages, absorbing their magic.
An instant later, both fire and ice appeared above their heads, redirected by the deflector shield attached to the dome. The two jets of magic combined, forming an explosion that killed the mages, yet even that energy was conserved—absorbed into the dome. An identical explosion formed several yards away, where a Zevan archer was secretly aiming his bow at MC. The resulting carnage was about as gory as expected. The vidsphere went dark, then replayed the scene from the top.
defenSIVE, ofFEnsive, iT’S AlL THE sAmE! shiElD tHeM, SUrROUnd ThEM, use ThEiR poWer AGAINSt THeM! DeFlect, PROJEcT, dESTROy, ANd maim! sO MuCH To eXPloRE! SO MUCH To GRoW!
Dampener projection. With the ability to deflect any attack, whether or not it was sent his way. If MC wasn’t worried sick about Nova, he might have done a victory dance. Now, he could potentially redirect chariot fire, even if it wasn’t aimed at him. He could essentially force his enemies to self-destruct.
And contrary to what the parasite wanted him to believe, this new ability would be invaluable for protecting those near and dear to him. He’d have to see how long he could keep the ability active, but this now meant he could wrap allies in a Dampening dome, vastly improving their survivability. Not to mention it would also let him capture enemies without killing them; his current abilities made that task a bit tricky.
MC made a beeline for the armory’s airlock. Though located near the medbay, the base’s construction had prevented any of the other rooms from taking damage, thanks to the several feet of rock that separated each room.
The portal to space had been shut with a simple rectangular piece of metal that formed a suction around the opening. Additionally, he’d built an airtight enclosure around it, because you could never be too careful. The last thing they needed was to vent the entire base on account of some asshat messing with it.
He donned his X42 powered suit before making his way over to an oversized gun propped up against the wall. Weighing in at a hundred pounds, the eight-foot-long energy beam weapon was a prototype—a portable, deployable point-defense laser system inspired by human designs.
The plan was to equip every squad with at least one powered suit operator, who would be responsible for the heavy gun. There were still some issues with reliability, but the prototype was fully functional.
“Seal it off,” MC ordered after returning to the armory’s airlock with the oversized gun.
Heralded by strobing red flashers and a series of whirs, the armory blast doors slid shut, hermetically sealing the room. After checking the thrusters that remained attached to his suit from his first foray into space, MC relocated off the enclosure surrounding the tiny portal that was no larger than his hand.
The air in the room began to vent slowly into space, though he wasn’t about to waste precious time waiting for the process to finish.
“Machine One, commencing operation.”
“Good luck, Executor. We’ll actuate your thrusters to point the suit in the right direction,” came Torneus’s voice over comms. Krar was busy preparing Sanctuary’s forces for the upcoming invasion, so Torneus was on-point for guiding MC.
“Roger that. This better work,” he said, eyeing the massive laser.
The black of space expanse greeted him like a comfy blanket, but there was no time to appreciate the surroundings. The CIC operators remotely turned the suit around and moved him to a position several hundred feet away from the mass driver. For good reason; Heimdall fired again, targeting the rocket launch sites on Kelruhn, its numerous rockets igniting to keep it braced in position.
The X42 maneuvered into position on autopilot, bringing the massive rifle to bear. The gun lacked a scope; such an instrument was useless when the entire firing procedure was remotely controlled by a computer program.
The weapon activated, though MC only knew it by his HUD’s flashing red light. Recoilless, silent, and invisible, the laser pulsed rapidly, sending absurd amounts of radiation hurtling toward the satellite making its way out of the atmosphere.
Five minutes later, Torneus’s voice came through over comms. “First weapons platform has been destroyed. Repositioning the suit now.”
“How many more do we have?”
“Nine. The Legatus deployed ten satellites in all.”
“That’s going to be cutting it awfully close…”
MC waited in silence while his laser did its thing, anxiously watching the mass driver fire its thrusters, moving rapidly out of sight as it repositioned itself to fire again and again on the enemy’s surface installations. The Legatus must’ve been fuming at his utter inability to do anything against the orbital weapon, and that made MC smile. It also helped that the launch sites were all clustered on this side of the planet, which meant that Heimdall didn’t have to move too far to target them.
Another five minutes, another rocket downed. Things proceeded smoothly until Torneus began patching in the radio chatter coming in from Sanctuary.
“Five—no, eight chariots! And a hundred Hasta. How did they get here so fast? The Legatus should not have had any forces so close by!”
Fuck. So the mother ship had sent its fighters ahead. So much for an easy win.
The biggest concern was the fragile artillery emplacements on the crater rim. The base itself was pretty heavily fortified, but those cannons were sitting ducks against enemy bombers, and they only had three of them.
The Resistance’s designs called for dozens of smaller guns to provide proper coverage against Hasta attacks, but they hadn’t had the time to set those up. The best they’d managed were several conventional AA flak cannons mounted at each site, alongside Zevan lightning mages. The cannons would have a hard time punching through advanced Dyn armor, and the Zevan, well, MC didn’t know what to expect from them.
MC’s fears were confirmed when reports of the conflict started coming in.
“Flak cannon down. Artillery emplacement alpha is now vulnerable to Hasta bombing.”
“Have each gun target a different chariot,” MC commanded. “If we’re going to lose our artillery, let’s at least take down as many enemy craft as we can.”
“Chariot down!” another voice called out. Followed immediately by “Artillery destroyed. We’ve only got two left!”
The battle wasn’t entirely one-sided, but it was pretty damn close.
“We need to speed this up, Torneus. Overcharge the laser. Whatever it takes.”
“Sir, we’ve already been overdriving the weapon by fifteen percent. Any further and we risk destroying the laser itself!”
“We don’t have time, Torneus! I don’t give a shit if it’s rendered useless, I need to get back down there. Double the output, let’s get this done.”
The fifth, sixth, and seventh laser platforms went down in quick succession. Apparently, doubling the power output more than halved the time required to cripple each target.
Unfortunately, Torneus had been correct, and the laser melted soon after destroying the ninth delivery vehicle.
“The tenth and final weapon has reached orbit. It is deploying its laser now.”
Fuck it.
“Get me to Heimdall. Now! Maximum burn. I can handle a few Gs.”
“Yes sir, moving your suit to the mass driver at maximal safe velocity.”
“Fuck safe! Double that too!” The mass driver had moved several hundred miles away from his position by now, but that distance wasn’t nearly as daunting as it would be on the ground.
The X42’s rockets activated. MC sustained six Gs as the suit accelerated at an absurd rate. Just moments later, the retrograde thrusters kicked in to slow him.
“It’s begun firing! One of the Eye in the Sky satellites has been destroyed!” Torneus shouted.
Steeling himself, MC teleported. Once. Twice. Each jump moved him almost a mile closer to his destination. Each jump made his headache double in intensity.
The mass driver came into view—a tiny dot noticeable only by its solar panels’ reflections in the blackness of space.
“Another satellite has been destroyed,” Torneus reported. “It is now aiming for Heimdall!”
The retros upped the G forces until MC’s eyes felt like they’d been crushed into his skull. Sticky liquid burst from every one of his facial orifices.
Gritting through the pain, he slammed into the hull of the satellite, which was already hot under the heat of the enemy’s energy bombardment. His energy dampener went up, covering the melting weapon. The shield lasted less than a quarter of a second before breaking—far too fast to activate the deflector to redirect the energy.
MC reformed the shield, but the result was the same; the beam’s intensity was incomparable to a chariot’s weapons. Heimdall’s hull began to melt.
He needed a new strategy, and he needed it now. He couldn’t relocate all of Heimdall in one piece—the satellite was simply too large. Which meant he had to somehow dissipate the incoming energy enough to be able to deflect it.
What if…
Mustering every ounce of concentration he had, MC formed a projected energy dampener a hundred yards away, but this one was a bit different. Instead of having it capture all of the energy, he calibrated it to be less effective—eighty percent of the energy passed right through. Then he tried to make another, right behind it. As expected, it failed; he’d only ever been able to create one shield. The most recent upgrade was useful, but it wasn’t enough.
He needed more.
Luckily, he knew exactly what powered his abilities—the parasite. And the parasite wanted to survive at all costs.
“Come on, you piece of shit. Make it happen or we both die here. Is that what you want?” he shouted with every shred of willpower he could muster.
The dampener failed again. The X42 began to boil. Warnings covered his displays. Sirens rang.
When it seemed as though all hope was lost, against his every expectation, the parasite capitulated to his all-consuming desire.
MC’s headache multiplied for a split second. Suddenly, the next barrier popped into existence behind the first one. Then another. And another.
Six shields materialized in an array, each absorbing a small portion of the energy. By the time the beam arrived at MC’s final shield, it’d become weak enough to be deflected.
As if it’d forgotten how its own “system” was supposed to operate, the parasite belatedly filled the dampener’s ability sphere with blood, bursting it.
MC activated the deflector on every shield, sending the incoming energy back in the same direction. But with the satellite several tens of thousands of miles away, he hadn’t a hope in a million of actually hitting it. At least, not without assistance.
“Torneus, you can see where I’m redirecting the energy, right? Angle the suit to get the beam to fry the sat!”
“Already on it, sir. Please stand by.”
“Like hell! I can’t keep this up for much longer. Do it now!”
Instead of a reply, the thrusters juked the suit imperceptibly, sweeping the deflected energy beam back over the enemy satellite. But merely strafing it wouldn’t do jack shit. Every single thruster on the suit activated—the retros and the primaries alike, exerting equal and opposite forces. The X42 went rigid, pinned into place, finally achieving the kind of stability it needed to place the directed beam squarely back onto its originator.
Ten seconds later, the flood of energy cut out.
“Sir, CIC confirms that the satellite has been destroyed.”
MC heaved a sigh. “I’m coming back now.”
But instead of a congratulatory response, he got only silence.
“Sanctuary, this is Machine One, do you copy?”
The blare of sirens burst through over comms.
A panic-stricken voice screamed,
“Sanctuary has been compromised. Ultimators are within the premises. I repeat, Ultimators have breached the Hangar!”
“They landed troops? Fuck!”
For the second time today, MC’s heart threatened to burst.
Nina!
No. This wasn’t over. Nina was still alive. He would not allow any harm to come to her. MC teleported through the portal back to Sanctuary’s armory airlock, then teleported into the hangar. Forty defenders protected the medbay with everything they had. Their defense was holding.
Ultimators. Trilnyth. Dyn. Zevan. Muta
ted abominations.
MC stared the invaders down and cracked his neck.
“You boys sure picked the absolute wrongest man to fuck with. This is my sanctuary! So please, get the fuck off my lawn.”
Fifty-Seven
Five Ultimators stood against dozens of Resistance troops, who desperately tried to hold them at bay. The massive hangar bay doors had been melted open. Corpses of all shapes and sizes littered ground.
Fallen steel girders littered the floor and small fires blazed near the doors. Most of the bodies belonged to the Resistance.
“Magnus! Over here!” a helmeted soldier shouted from a group of noncombatants in a corner of the hangar, waving him over.
MC did a double take. “Nina?”
“We could use a hand!” she yelled as she gunned down a mutated beast with her energy rifle, doing her best to shield the medics tending to the wounded behind her.
Her efforts weren’t enough. A doctor tending to one of the injured soldiers took an energy weapon blast in his back. His body exploded in a mass of gore, showering the surroundings with crimson.
MC projected a barrier, blanketing the entire area. He ripped a room-sized volume out of the rock fifty feet below the hangar’s floor, then teleported the doctors, the injured, and all of their equipment into that room, along with Nina.
Magnified by his earlier exertions in space, blood now poured freely from MC’s face. He ignored the pain.
He finished the structure by punching a few small holes leading back up to the hangar for ventilation before teleporting down into it. Flashlights flickered on, bathing the small enclosure in light. A quick glance confirmed that they were all unharmed.
“Magnus, hell no! I can fight! Don’t you dare keep me locked up in here!” Nina shouted.
MC gave her a guilty glance. “I already lost someone I love today, princess. I’m not losing another.”
He teleported out. The hidey-hole would protect them until he did what had to be done.
What ensued could only be called a massacre. Like an incarnation of Wrath, MC disappeared, teleporting into an enemy Ultimator, bursting it from within.
