Same Day

— Saturday, February 18, AD 2130 —

«T-minus five minutes to arrival.»

“Alright, everyone,” Colonel Saito remarked, “this is it. Let’s get our game faces on!”

“Never thought you were much for ‘game’, sir,” Major Hackett responded with a smirk.

“This mission is hardly so trivial that we can treat it with such levity, anyways,” Mote retorted, only to quickly add a second later, “sir.”

Saito released an exasperated sigh as he looked back at Mote — who at that moment in time was wearing his Aldredian armor, the helmet obscuring his face as he sat back in the captain’s chair of Raenaros. The Colonel then turned to look around the small bridge of the Corvette, at each of Major Hackett, Captain Travis, Researcher MacTavish, Mark, Danielle, and Kate — all of them fully suited up for combat, with weapons and protective powered armor. After all, it wouldn’t be long before the eight soldiers found themselves embroiled in combat as they led the ground-side assault on EA’s base.

“…It’s finally happening, though, huh?” Mark commented after a brief moment of silence. “We’re finally going to capture EA?”

“If we’re fuckin’ lucky,” Kate retorted dismissively. “We don’t even know if the bastard’s gonna be here. Hell, we don’t even know if this base is his only one!”

“Not to mention how we don’t even know if our new beam jammers can block EA’s beaming tech…” Travis muttered, and then passed Saito an uneasy look. “There’s a ton of uncertainties, here. Are we sure that we’ll even be able to land?”

“All the reports from the PMCs state that EA never uses his superior tech to kill,” Hackett replied. “And remember, even back when EA was attacking SERRCom, his robots never shot to kill.”

“So we’re gonna bet on EA being fucking kind to us?” Kate responded incredulously. “Us, his attackers?”

“No, we’re not,” Saito corrected. “You haven’t forgotten the battleplan, have you?”

“No, of course not!” Danielle replied. “But, uh, you know. Just in case we did forget, can we go over it again, real quick…?”

The Colonel shook his head in disbelief. “…The plan,” he eventually explained, “is for most of the battlegroup to remain in orbit and pound EA’s bombardment shields. That will force EA to put all of his shields’ power into protecting against the orbital bombardment, rather than attacks from the air or the ground. Then, the Genesis, while cloaked, will descend into the atmosphere, where it will launch its full complement of fightercraft — including the Raenaros — to fly under the bombardment shields. The Genesis’s sensors will locate as many of EA’s beam jammers as it can, allowing the fightercraft to target and destroy them, thus allowing the Genesis to do a more thorough follow-up sensor sweep of the base and beam away any of EA’s own beaming tech.

“However, to ensure that EA or his tech doesn’t escape, we have to secure the Interstellar Gate — and it’s likely that the defenses will be hardier around the Gate. If the Genesis is able to beam it up, then great; but if the Gate remains under a beam jammer, then we — as the vanguard — will enter the base, locate the Interstellar Gate, and secure it. After that, our job is to determine just what the hell this base is meant to do. To back us up, the Genesis will beam down a few mech and tank squadrons around the outskirts of the base to distract EA’s forces and give us the cover we need to investigate.”

“But we’ll still need to be careful,” Hackett added. “Orbital bombardment shields don’t project high enough into the atmosphere for a ship the size of Genesis to safely fly under, while still having room for evasive maneuvers. So the Genesis will have to remain outside of the shields, which means that we’ll have limited support. We can’t afford to be careless.”

“All while an entire battlegroup is constantly pounding the same shields that we’ll be fighting under…” Travis passed Saito an apprehensive glance. “Is that really safe?”

“We do have our own shielding,” Saito remarked as he knocked on his breastplate, revealing the golden light of energy shields. “And the exact targeting coordinates for each bombardment round will be transmitted to the entire battlegroup. As long as we stay more than a hundred meters or so from those points and keep our shields above half charge, we’ll be able to survive a single bombardment volley. But more to the point — we can’t give EA a reason to turn his shields into a full ground-to-sky dome until after we’re under them, or else we’d be fully locked out. And once we’re under them, we need to give him a reason to keep diverting power to his shields, away from his other, more active defenses. That means a continued bombardment.”

“Otherwise there’d be more stuff shooting at us, huh…” Kate mused, only to released a frustrated sigh. “Fuckin’ hell. What a pain in the ass.”

Mark glanced her way. “And here I thought you would be excited for a fight!”

“Well sure, but I also want to live to see another day, you know,” Kate replied.

“And we will — if we just have faith in the Colonel’s plans,” Mote interjected. “But more importantly… we’re here.”

Just as soon as the words left Mote’s mouth, a holographic image of a camera feed appeared on the Corvette’s bridge. While Raenaros was currently parked within one of Genesis’s fighter bays, she was still able to see into the outside space by tapping into Genesis’s own exterior cameras — and through those cameras, the grayscale gradient of subspace quickly gave way to the deep black of real space, speckled with the white of distant stars. A planet, wreathed in the blue, green, and whispy white typical of Terra planets, appeared below… and sensor readings quickly revealed the presence of an enemy battlegroup waiting in orbit, accompanied by heavily-armed defensive satellites.

«This is Captain Krick, speaking to all squads. Commence Operation Thorn Crush! Let’s show this bastard what it means to fuck with SERRCom!»

Within moments, Genesis peeled away to begin descending into the planet’s atmosphere, while the rest of the SERRCom battlegroup — consisting mostly of Cruisers and Frigates, led by the Battlecruiser Origin — rapidly moved on EA’s ships, opening fire with an intense volley of railguns and missiles that wiped out several satellites and successfully destroyed one of the enemy Frigates.

“ALRIGHT!!” Kate whooped as she watched the distant Frigate fall into shreds on one of the holographic displays. “Now THAT’S the way to start a fight!!”

“All that’s left is to follow it up,” Travis remarked, looking off to the side at another camera feed showing that Genesis was rapidly approaching the planet.

“I would suggest that you all hold tight for this next part—“ Mote started speaking, only to cut himself off. “…Wait. We’re being hailed.”

“What?” Saito looked at Mote in disbelief. “Are you saying that EA can see through the Genesis’s ACS?”

“No… it’s a broadcast message to the whole battlegroup, from the enemy base,” Mote replied. “…It’s relayed through EA’s ships, but the message seems to originate from the planet.”

“M-maybe EA is here, a-after all…?” MacTavish suggested.

“Let’s see what he has to say, then,” Saito commented. “Mote, play the message for us.”

“Understood, sir,” Mote responded.

A second later, a recording of a voice began to play — but instead of the familiar voice of EA, it sounded feminine, and somewhat synthetic. «This is Mainframe Overseer, designation Athena, simulacrum A021, speaking.»

“Simulacrum?” Travis echoed with a smirk. “…EA really is Austin, alright.”

«This message is being broadcast to all attackers. I warn you: leave now, or be destroyed. Under no circumstances should you destroy this facility. The fate of the galaxy is at hand. …This is Mainframe Overseer, designation Athena, simulacrum A021…»

“And it loops from there…” Mote commented as he stopped the recording.

“’Fate of the galaxy’, huh?” Hackett remarked. “EA certainly is… confident, isn’t he?”

“I’m more interested in that voice,” Kate said. “Was that an AI? Does EA have a fuckin’ AI running this base?”

“He’s already sent AI-controlled robots against us, before,” Mark pointed out. “So I suppose it shouldn’t be a surprise that he would have an AI to control an entire base.”

“A careless mistake…” Mote said, watching as the camera feeds now showed a clear view of EA’s planet-side base, from Genesis’s position just a few dozen kilometers over the surface. He then looked at another camera feed, this one seemingly staring at empty sky… just in time to see the first volley of orbital bombardment rounds slam into the base’s bombardment shields, creating a massive sheet of golden light across the entire sky. “…That AI will never be able to keep up with us. But for now—!”

«We’re under the shields. All fighter wings, you’re clear to fly!» shouted Chief Captain Krick over the comms. «Give ‘em hell!»

“Alright! Everyone, hang on!” Mote shouted as he fired up Raenaros’s engines. The entire craft jolted under the force of her engines and quickly rocketed forward through Genesis’s fighter bay — and out into the open skies beyond. Vast blue skies, peppered with clouds, stretched out to every horizon… only to be quickly filled by fightercraft pouring out of Genesis’s fighter bays, seemingly emerging from thin air to descend on EA’s base.

As soon as the fightercraft left the protection of Genesis’s ACS, the base’s groundside defenses opened fire, filling the air with bullets and surface-to-air missiles. Quickly, the SERRCom fightercraft broke off to find and destroy the base’s beam jammers — and Raenaros was no different. Shields alight under the constant weapons fire, Mote brought the Corvette’s own weapons to light, firing the Chaos Cannons down at the distant SAM batteries. The beams of energy raked across the ground-based weapons, destroying one and damaging the other… though a second sweep a moment later revealed that energy shields had sprung up to protect the anti-air defenses. It would figure that there are shields everywhere, Mote thought to himself in annoyance. But we have shields, as well. Perhaps it would be best to ignore the AA defenses and focus on destroying the jammers—!

Interrupting his thoughts, however, was the sight of several aircraft launching in the distance. With slate blue armor plating, and bearing the signature blue ring with black crossbars insignia associated with EA, there was no doubt that these aircraft were yet another layer of the base’s defenses — and they were numerous. Brow furrowed, Mote quickly spun Raenaros to reduce its profile just in time to evade two missiles screaming by, at which point he fired the Corvette’s Chaos Cannons into the distance, nailing two of the incoming fightercraft and exposing their protective energy shielding.

So we’ll need to deal with the defenses first, after all… Mote thought bitterly as he re-oriented Reanaros to dive nose-first into the swarm of EA fightercraft. Instead of firing the Chaos Cannons, however, he began to focus on a different system in the Corvette, causing bright streaks of blue lightning to begin coursing down the craft’s hull. I haven’t had the chance to really test the limits of this ship’s CCS… so let’s see what it can do.

With that thought, Mote forced an incredible electrical current through Raenaros’s Chaotic Channeling System, which effectively served to multiply the distance over which he could use his powers — allowing him to create fierce forks of lightning from Raenaros to a handful of nearby fightercraft. Booming thunder rolled across the base as Mote’s lightning strikes lit up the sky, only to be blocked by the shields of the enemy fightercraft. Now certain that he could reach targets even a few kilometers away from him, Mote shifted his attention to trying to shut down the enemy fightercraft entirely by zeroing out the voltage throughout their circuits. He focused intently, diverting attention only to maintain evasive maneuvers with Raenaros… only for EA’s fightercraft to continue flying and fighting in the skies, rather than shut down on Mote’s command.

A wave of missiles shot through the sky from behind Raenaros, launched as a volley from the swarm of SERRCom fightercraft. Despite the missiles’ hypersonic speeds, EA’s fightercraft had demonstrated an ability to dodge them just minutes prior… but now, the fightercraft seemed to respond more sluggishly, resulting in many of them taking the missiles straight-on. …It should figure that I can’t just shut them down… Mote mused, his brow knitted in irritation. This isn’t the first time that EA’s machinery has proved resistant to my powers. However, my interference does seem to slow them down, at least — so I should focus on that, and let the rest of the attack force clean up the airspace!

Mote promptly turned his focus to suppressing the electrical circuitry of all surrounding hostile machinery, making use of Raenaros’s CCS to extend his reach over a handful of kilometers. But the base itself was nearly twenty kilometers on a side, and the contested airspace was much larger than that; with that in mind, Mote pointed Raenaros towards the nearest clump of EA fightercraft and turned the engines up to full throttle. The entire Corvette juddered under the thrust of the engines, rapidly accelerating the craft through the atmosphere at speeds rivaling the hypersonic missiles used by SERRCom fightercraft. Within moments, he had closed to within manipulation range of the enemy fighters, and quickly moved to suppress their electrical systems just in time for a handful of SERRCom missiles to find their mark against the fighters’ shields.

At this point, EA’s fightercraft had begun to realize the threat that Mote and Raenaros posed — sensors indicated that most of the enemy attack force was attempting to make distance between themselves and the Corvette, while the remaining portion was clearly forming up to attack. Laser blasts exploded across Raenaros’s shields, each blast no where near enough to pierce the craft’s defenses, but slowly totaling up over time to drain the Corvette. With the knowledge that Raenaros operated on Chaos Energy, rather than electricity, and thus that he couldn’t easily reinforce the shields, Mote sought to take evasive action. He forcefully slammed the maneuvering engines every which way to rapidly alter Raenaros’s flight angle, attempting to minimize the craft’s profile in respect to his nearest attackers — but such movement proved difficult, as the Corvette’s high speed generated so much atmospheric drag that Mote had to fight to turn the craft’s nose away from the direction of travel.

A flash of bright golden light filled the skies as the base’s bombardment shield was again struck by a volley from the SERRCom spacecraft in orbit. Mote reflexively winced under the sudden and blinding light, distracting him for just long enough that he failed to evade an EA fightercraft as it slammed straight into Raenaros from above. A shower of sparks and metal debris rolled across the Corvette’s shielding as the momentum from the collision sent Raenaros diving towards the ground below. Immediately, Mote turned the Corvette’s thrusters to turn away from the ground; steadily, the craft’s nose began to pitch upwards, all while her altitude was rapidly dropping. Four thousand meters… three thousand…! Mote mentally read out the altimeter readings as he forced as much energy as he could into the Corvette’s maneuvering thrusters. …Two thousand…! …One—!

The Corvette suddenly jolted, its shields peppered by a shower of metal debris as it slammed through one of the taller towers in EA’s base. As soon as it did, Mote applied a massive magnetic charge to Raenaros’s hull, and a similar charge to the metal within the buildings of the massive facility, hoping to use the repulsive magnetic forces to keep the Corvette from crashing. Raenaros continued to rocket through the air, maintaining much of her prior hypersonic momentum as Mote’s magnetic forces crushed parts of the facility beneath… until eventually, the Corvette’s nose finally turned upwards again.

…Just in time to slam right into a large, sturdy structure on the far side of the base.

“Ngh—!” Mote grunted in pain as a massive jolt shot through Raenaros once more. Her shields remained intact, brightly glowing to protect from the harm of slamming through the walls of a massive building — but the Corvette’s thrusters were unable to recover. The deafening roar of wrenching metal echoed through the air as Raenaros slammed through reinforced wall after reinforced wall, eventually arresting the craft of most of her momentum… until finally smashing through the final wall on the other side of the massive building. Bright blue skies again met Mote’s perception, but he had no time to react as the Corvette emerged from the building a mere handful of meters above the dirt — and promptly slammed into the ground, carving a trench through a dirt-covered courtyard. Brightly flaring shields again protected Raenaros from harm… but as the Corvette violently slowed to a stop, several of EA’s fighters fired on the craft, their lasers exploding across the Corvette’s shields — and finally bringing them down under 30% shield charge.

“…Everyone alright?” Colonel Saito called out from somewhere within the Corvette’s cabin.

“…Yeah, all in one piece… barely,” Travis replied warily.

“God, Mote, you fucking idiot!” Kate shouted; by the sound of her voice, Mote could tell that she was already barging back onto the bridge. When he felt a slap to the side of his head, he knew that his assumption had been correct. “You were in the sky for two fucking seconds and you managed to crash?!”

“Don’t act like I meant to do this,” Mote snapped back as he began feeding power into Raenaros’s thrusters.

“No shit, that’s the entire fucking point,” Kate retorted.

Mote made to argue, only for the sounds of explosions overhead to divert his attention. Shortly thereafter, the metal debris from a handful of destroyed EA fighters rained down over the large courtyard that Raenaros had crashed in, followed by a couple of SERRCom fightercraft roaring past overhead.

«Captain Krick to Raenaros! You bastards alright?!»

“…We’re fine,” Mote eventually responded.

“Battered and beaten, a little,” Saito added, “but yes, we’re fine.”

«Well hot damn. A crash like that would’ve totaled any other fightercraft,» Krick replied. «Maybe you should watch your goddamn speed, Lieutenant! If you can’t handle hypersonic, then don’t fly hypersonic!»

“It worked just fine the last time I flew Raenaros in combat…” Mote muttered.

“The last time you flew this ship in combat, you were in fucking space!” Kate argued. “Atmospheric flight is a COMPLETELY different thing!”

“I don’t need to hear that from you,” Mote retorted, and then turned his attention back to the comms. “Captain, the Raenaros is still good to fly. I’ll return to the skies soon.”

«Belay that, Lieutenant,» Krick cut in. «Your flying was damned reckless, but whatever you did sure drew the attention of the defenses. Thanks to that, the rest of the attack force was able to wipe out most of the goddamn beam jammers around this base. We’ve just beamed down the ground-side attack force to assault the base from the outside.»

“So we can move on to the next phase, then?” Saito questioned.

«Now’s as good a time as ever,» Krick replied. «The Gate itself is still protected by a god damn beam jamming field, so you’ll have to secure it yourself. Now get your ass out there, and watch yourself—»

«This is Mainframe Overseer, designation Athena, simulacrum A021,» cut in a slightly-robotic female voice on the comms. «Intruders! This is your last warning!»

“It’s the AI, again?” Danielle questioned.

«You do not understand the danger that you face in this facility!» declared the AI. «This facility contains research labs studying live Nanocreature specimens. Further fighting may inadvertently release the specimens!»

“N-Nanocreatures?!” MacTavish exclaimed in worry.

«This is your last warning! Leave, now, if you know what is good for you!»

After that, the AI’s voice fell silent, leaving behind an atmosphere of unease.

“…So EA was studying the metallic infection, here…?” Mark commented warily.

“I call bullshit,” Kate declared. “You don’t need a base this massive just to research shit — and definitely not defenses this fucking heavy! I’d bet money that that AI is just trying to scare us away!”

«I’m with the Lieutenant on this one,» added Captain Krick. «Since when has EA ever told us the truth, anyways? The man’s been a goddamned two-faced liar ever since he first showed his face!»

“And if he isn’t lying?” Hackett prompted.

“Guess we’ll find out when we investigate the base, huh?” Travis remarked with a chuckle — though a hint of unease could still be heard in his voice.

“Caution was already warranted, given the kind of technological lead EA seems to have over SERRCom,” Saito said. “Watching out for infected animals isn’t too far out of scope. And in a worst case scenario, we all have energy shielding. So, as long as we keep our wits about us, I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

«Glad to know you’re a confident man, Saito,» Krick snarked over the comms. «But that goddamn base isn’t going to investigate itself! You’re our only chance at securing the damn Gate and stopping any reinforcements that might come through!»

“True…” Mark commented as he made to disembark Raenaros. Mote began to disengage from the Corvette’s neural dive system to follow, only to be stopped by Saito.

“No, you should stay in the skies,” the Colonel ordered, and then gestured to Danielle. “You as well. Mote, Danielle, I want the two of you to help the SERRCom forces gain air superiority over the base.”

“The Raenaros will need some time to recharge its shields, sir,” Mote replied.

“Then Danielle can protect you for the time being. But the last thing I want is any more surprises, and the best way to stop that is to get air superiority as soon as possible. After all, we have mechs and tanks moving to surround the base, all to distract from our activities — and those ground forces need air cover. You’ll be of much more use in the skies, than you would be wandering around the base.”

“…Understood, sir.” Mote nodded resolutely as he settled back into Raenaros’s captain’s chair.

“Oh boy, a dogfight!” Danielle remarked. “It’s been a while since I got to do one of those!”

“Don’t get carried away,” Saito stated, amid the sounds of the rest of the team disembarking from Raenaros. “Remember, we’re dealing with an enemy who has demonstrated technology more advanced than our own. Who knows what tricks he has up his sleeve.”

“We’ll be careful, sir,” Mote replied. “Don’t worry about us.”

“Really? You sure you won’t slam through any more buildings?”

Mote scowled, though the hint of playful mocking in Saito’s voice made it clear that he was only making fun — and Mote decided accordingly to not respond.

“Alright, the rest is up to you,” the Colonel eventually said, turning to disembark to allow Mote and Danielle to focus on returning to the skies. “Mote, Danielle, I’ll see the two of you in a bit. The rest of you, you better get ready for a firefight — I doubt EA’s robots or that AI are going to just let us take the Gate! Now, let’s move out!”