— Saturday, February 18, AD 2130 —

«Behind you, Mote!»

“Ngh—!” Mote grunted with exertion as he pulled Raenaros into a tight leftward turn, the g-forces pressing him hard into his seat while he focused on dodging the Iota robot. The jet fighter-shaped automaton closed to within mere inches of Raenaros’s hull… only to rocket past, its incredible momentum shooting it into the skies beyond, where it quickly made a tight turn back towards the action — all while locking its undercarriage cannon onto Danielle and firing repeatedly to keep her off its back.

Mote glared at Iota in the distance, watching as the robot flew far faster than Ranearos could safely manage in atmosphere, while making tight turns that would have instantly killed any human from the g-forces alone. Lights in the skies above from the continued bombardment of the base’s shields accompanied distant explosions as SERRCom fightercraft continued to vie with EA’s fighters for air superiority; amongst all of that, Mote and Danielle remained locked in combat with Iota, unable to break or shake the robot.

I don’t know how he did it, but EA managed to make his robots impervious to all of my techniques, Mote mused with irritation as he aimed Raenaros’s Chaos Cannons to fire upon Iota. I can’t instantly shut them down, as I can with any other electrical system… I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, if EA really is an Intellitechnic. But it means that all that remains is brute force. What a pain…!

The sound of multiple explosions nearby drew Mote’s attention to the side, where several of Danielle’s missiles had just been shot out of the air by Iota’s cannon. The robot then burst through the resulting smoke, careening through the air at high supersonic speeds straight towards Danielle. She quickly turned away to evade, all while loosing another two missiles — only for Iota to grab both out of the air with its arms and drag them towards Danielle. Barely a second later, Iota was upon her, slamming the warheads from her own missiles into her protective shields to generate an explosion and brightly flare up her shields. Iota followed up by latching onto Danielle’s wings, with its cannon pointed straight at her underbelly and firing repeatedly.

Quickly, Danielle shifted out of her fightercraft form and back into her human form, freeing her from Iota’s grasp — and allowing Mote to ram straight into Iota with Raenaros’s bow. As soon as the two flew past, Danielle transformed back into a fightercraft to pursue, firing off a flurry of missiles all around Ranearos in an effort to dissuade Iota from dodging away from whatever Mote intended to do. Mote himself made a mental note of the missile storm before refocusing on Iota; it was already clawing its way along Raenaros’s shields to take shots at the Corvette’s weapons, but Mote readily retaliated with Raenaros’s Chaos Cannons — which could manifest at any point on the Corvette’s hull. The beams of Chaos Energy merely deflected off of Iota’s energy shielding, but the attacks still seemed to distract the robot as Mote charged up energy through Raenaros’s CCS.

A second later, Mote discharged all of the gathered energy into a powerful lightning strike that nailed Iota right on its undercarriage sensor dome — accompanied by a strong electromagnetic pulse that Mote hoped would at least stun the robot for a second. And indeed, Iota began to fall away from Raenaros, allowing Danielle’s missiles to rapidly close in… but just as they did, a burst of light flashed from Iota’s topside, followed immediately by the sudden appearance of two more aircraft — only for Danielle’s missiles to finally detonate, clouding the sky with smoke.

Unwilling to get too close, Mote and Danielle both peeled away from the smoke. Mote fired Raenaros’s Chaos Cannons into the debris in the hopes of scoring a few additional hits… but a second later, Iota shot straight up out of the cloud, with no signs of its shields flaring at all. Instead, the robot appeared to have cloned itself, with three identical copies flying in tight formation around the center robot.

«What the…!» Danielle remarked in surprise, only for the three clones to flicker and then disappear completely. «It can replicate itself?!»

“Those can’t be full replicas,” Mote refuted, already turning Raenaros through the air to pursue Iota. “Did you see how they flickered away? I think they’re holograms.”

«But it blocked our attacks with them!»

“They could be hard light, or something — who knows. EA’s an Intellitechnic with an unknown benefactor, remember? We should expect to face advanced and unconventional technology.”

«Well, okay…» Danielle responded uneasily as she broke downwards and began flying evasively to dodge Iota’s cannonfire. «But if it can block our attacks before we even hit its shields, then what do we do?»

“Those systems still have to consume energy to project the holograms,” Mote said. “Just keep the pressure on! It’ll run out of power, eventually!”

«But—!»

“In the meantime, I’ll try to think of a quicker solution. But we don’t have time for this much talk! Just focus on fighting it!”

«If you say so!» Danielle remarked — right as Iota slammed into her undercarriage, again latching onto her wings with its arms. And again, Danielle shifted forms to free herself of the grapple… but this time, she stretched her arms out to latch onto Iota’s cannon, and then transformed herself into a raw mass of hard metal all around the cannon in an attempt to immobilize it. Indeed, while Iota’s energy shielding prevented her from touching its armor directly, the fact remained that EA’s robots all employed contour shielding — as was common throughout the galaxy. This meant that Iota’s protective shields closely followed the contours of its hull; the reduced cross-sectional area meant that its shields only had to expend power to block attacks that would’ve otherwise hit Iota itself, but the contour shape also enabled Danielle to infiltrate the open space between the cannon’s barrel and Iota’s body to fill it matter.

Iota soon began attempting to tear away at Danielle with its arms, but that proved futile — the robot’s arms were little able to sheer away the mass of metal that Danielle had become. Mote quickly made to capitalize on the opening, and turned up the power on Raenaros’s thrusters to close the distance. Just as he reached the range where he could begin using his lightning powers against Iota, however, the robot suddenly dove towards the ground, accelerating rapidly. In what seemed to be a mere couple seconds, the robot dove from an altitude of several kilometers straight down at EA’s base, where it slammed into one of the open courtyards. The raw force from the impact cratered the entire courtyard, throwing metal and concrete debris high into the air — but most importantly, the force fully dislodged Danielle from Iota, slamming her metal form into pieces across the ground.

Shit…! Mote’s brow furrowed, already in the motions to chase Iota down. But as a human pilot with human reaction times, he simply couldn’t dive as fast as the robot had, leaving him to impotently fire at Iota with Raenaros’s painfully short-ranged Chaos Cannons. However, the weapons fire proved to be enough to draw the robot’s attention; it turned away from the metal it had just sheered off of itself, supporting itself on the ground with its arms and then launching back into the sky with incredible speed. In its wake, Mote could see one of the metal chunks slowly begin shifting into a new form, the only sign he needed that Danielle was alright — and the only sign he had time to see as Iota rocketed straight towards Raenaros again. Reflexively, Mote made to evade once more… only for a thought to quickly cross his mind:

The robot only seems to have one actual weapon: that cannon, he mused. It otherwise seems to rely on its superior speed to slam into its targets. It’s using itself as a missile, basically. And there’s no doubt that the kinetic energy behind its impacts is incredible… but the laws of physics dictate that the robot suffers the same force that it imparts onto its target. And that force will drain its shields, eventually — so our best bet might be to just let it slam itself into us!

With that in mind, Mote altered Raenaros’s course to turn straight into Iota, aiming for a head-on collision. However, at the last second, Iota pulled down, just barely shooting past Raenaros’s underside — all while spontaneously creating two images of itself that smashed into Raenaros at the same supersonic speed as Iota. Despite being images, they still impacted with incredible force, flaring up the Corvette’s shields and throwing her into a diving spin. …Should’ve known it wouldn’t be that easy, Mote thought bitterly as he quickly corrected the spin and watched Iota shoot off into the distance. But at least I know now that those holograms are certainly hard light, or something similar. That must still take energy to create and maintain, so the plan doesn’t change. …Or does it…?

In the middle of his thoughts, several missiles rocketed past Raenaros, followed soon by Danielle herself, who had once again taken on her jet fighter form. With its superior speed and maneuverability, Iota deftly evaded each and every missile while swiveling its lone cannon around to fire on Danielle. Repeated shots lit up her shields, but she remained hot on Iota’s tail, chasing the robot through the air while quickly and repeatedly shapeshifting new missiles onto her wings and firing them. The resulting stream of missiles soon filled the skies with clouds of smoke, all while Iota continued dodging and evading, eventually pitching down into an all-out dive — straight towards Raenaros.

Seeing this, Mote quickly pulled up and gunned the engines, making moves as if he meant to fly a path perpendicular to Iota, so as to get out of the robot’s way. As soon as Raenaros looked to be moving away from Iota, the robot adjusted its course to maintain a head-on collision. As expected… Mote mused as he cautiously watched the robot through Raenaros’s sensors. Iota streaked through the air at supersonic speeds, even out-speeding Danielle’s missiles as it zoomed towards Raenaros — though at the last second, Mote pitched the ship upwards, thereby reducing its profile in respect to Iota. At that point in time, it was too late for Iota to adjust its course to maintain a collision, so instead, the robot fabricated another set of holograms — holograms that inherited its supersonic speed and then slammed right into Raenaros a split-second later.

The force from the impacts nearly knocked the Corvette out of the sky, and an alert sounded in Mote’s ears to signal that Raenaros’s shields had dropped to dangerously low levels. But as he acted to pull the Corvette back into a level flying path and fire its Chaos Cannons at the retreating form of Iota, Mote couldn’t help but smirk bitterly. That’s it… he thought to himself, at the moment that the robot created those holograms, I could sense a spike of electrical energy within its chassis. If I can just exploit that—!

In the midst of Mote’s thoughts, Iota zipped past Raenaros again, this time pelting the Corvette with cannon shots as it careened through the air towards Danielle. She quickly made to evade while firing off a dozen missiles at once, in the hopes of deterring Iota’s approach — but the robot instead created a dozen holograms to intercept the missiles, allowing itself to zoom past and latch on to Danielle once more.

Damn it, it was too far away that time! Mote scowled as he pushed Raenaros’s engines to pursue Iota. I need to get closer — oh, shit!

Immediately, Mote pulled up in an attempt to evade as Iota grabbed Danielle and then whipped her through the air to throw her at Raenaros. As soon as Iota released her, Danielle quickly shapeshifted into her human form, thereby greatly reducing her size — and thus allowing Mote to just barely dodge to the side. As soon as she was past the Corvette, Danielle took on her fightercraft form again and began to loop through the skies back toward Iota, while Mote put power into Raenaros’s engines to continue his pursuit as the robot led them even higher into the skies over EA’s base.

And then, the skies filled with brilliant light as the SERRCom battlegroup’s orbital bombardment rounds slammed into the shield protecting the base.

Shit—! Mote winced as the blinding light filled his vision, obscuring sight of Iota above him. Did it plan this? Was that intentional?! Damn it— focus, Mote, focus! Mote put his indignance at being outsmarted out of mind, instead focusing on Raenaros’s CCS to amplify his Chaotic ability and use it to search the skies for electrical fields. For a moment, all Mote could sense was the overwhelming energy of the base’s shields dissipating the incoming kinetic energy of the bombardment rounds… but within that sea of electrical energy, Mote picked up on one smaller signal — a source of energy that was rapidly approaching. Alright, this is it… steady, focus…!

Prior to the skies being filled with blinding light, Iota had been leading Mote and Danielle by nearly two kilometers, and at an incredible supersonic speed. Mote knew that the robot could turn on a dime, but even it would need time to turn around and accelerate again — time that Mote could use to focus. As Iota picked up speed on a collision course with Raenaros, Mote gathered electrical energy in the conduits of Raenaros’s CCS, resulting in dangerous blue sparks jumping around the Corvette’s hull and shields. But still, Iota approached, just as it had many times before… and at the last second, Mote pulled to the side to dodge, just as he had before.

Only for Iota to immediately adjust its course to compensate.

…And then — just as Iota approached to within a hundred meters — Mote suddenly fired Raenaros’s maneuvering engines at full throttle, instantly pitching the Corvette such that Iota would barely miss its intended collision. Didn’t expect me to see through you, did you?! Mote thought bitterly as he continued to focus on the electrical fields around him — namely, those near Iota. Now, come on—!

The next second passed as a minute, as Mote sought out the tell-tale energy spike that accompanied Iota’s hologram generation. He had just managed to evade the robot itself, after all, so the only way for it to hit him again would be to create more holograms. And sure enough, a mere split-second after Mote fired up the maneuvering thrusters, he could sense a welling of energy within the robot, and he promptly moved to act.

Against most normal attacks, Iota’s still-intact shields would have prevented Mote from doing anything — even a powerful lightning strike would not have pierced the shields to overload the robot’s machinery. Energy shields could typically be bypassed by directly manipulating the space behind the shield, but EA’s technology had somehow rectified that issue, hence Mote being unable to simply shut down Iota from the outset. But there was one fatal weakness with Iota’s shields that Mote moved to exploit: at the moment of the robot creating its holograms, Mote could actually sense a distinct device inside the robot’s body.

Which meant that at the moment of hologram creation, Iota’s shields could be penetrated by Chaotic abilities.

With that flaw in mind, Mote took all of the energy that he had charged within Raenaros’s conduits and focused on channeling all of it into Iota’s hologram generator, shoving untold voltage into the robot’s body in an instant. As the light from the bombardment shields finally began to dissipate, Mote could finally observe Iota through direct vision… just in time to watch as the robot seemed to spasm, all while the sky rapidly filled with dozens upon dozens, if not hundreds of identical holograms, all flickering erratically — a clear result of Mote overloading the robot’s hologram generator. And then, just as quickly as the holograms all appeared, they fizzled out, leaving only Iota, accompanied by the tell-tale golden static fuzz of its energy shields shutting down.

A second later, Raenaros shot past Iota; Mote’s exchange with the robot had covered mere seconds, and now the incredible speed of both carried them past and away from each other. Mote quickly pitched the Corvette down to begin curving back towards the robot, which he could already see recovering from the blow he had dealt to it — that is, until a lone missile zoomed onto the scene and slammed into Iota, blowing the exposed robot to pieces.

«Huh!» Danielle remarked over the comms as she flew past the explosion of her missile, watching the debris of Iota shower down upon the distant base below. «You took down its shields, somehow!»

“Through an exploit of a lucky flaw in its systems,” Mote replied as he finally pulled Raenaros around to join Danielle in formation. Now no longer focused on fighting a difficult enemy, he was able to take stock of the Corvette, at which point he realized that if Raenaros had been subjected to just one more high-speed impact, then the shields would have been done for. Nevertheless, he quickly put that out of mind and turned his attention to the skies over EA’s base, where SERRCom fightercraft remained locked in combat with EA’s automated fighters. “…Our jobs here aren’t done yet, though. Danielle, follow me—!”

«Colonel Saito to Mote and Danielle, come in!»

“Colonel?” Mote immediately responded, “is something wrong?”

«Wow, great timing!» Danielle remarked, «Mote and I just defeated one of EA’s elite robots!»

«That’s good to hear, but we don’t have time to celebrate,» Saito replied. «EA himself has arrived, and he has a big mech with him. Mark and Kate are fighting it as we speak, but I need Danielle to go back them up.»

“I’ll go, as well,” Mote declared.

«No, you stay up there,» Saito refuted. «According to Krick, our fighters are doing all they can to counter EA’s, but it isn’t quite enough. You and your Corvette should help tip the scales in our favor.»

“…Understood, sir.”

«Don’t worry, Mote!» Danielle said as she peeled off to fly towards the distant ground-side battle. «I’ll make sure Mark and Kate are fine!»

“Their well-being is the least of my worries…” Mote muttered, pulling Raenaros up to begin flying towards the nearest group of EA fighters that he could see, all while forcing energy into the Corvette’s shields in an effort to perform an emergency recharge. “But what about CSF-1, Colonel? Are you fighting EA, as well?”

«We could barely do anything against his regular robots,» Saito replied. «I hate to say it, but there’s just nothing we could do to help against that mech of EA’s.»

“Then where are you? Should I pick you up?”

«No. We’ve split up to investigate the base. We managed to activate the Gate’s block while EA was distracted with Mark and Kate, but who knows how long that will last; so our next objective is to learn as much about this base as we can. And to give us time to do that, I need you in the skies, and Danielle backing up Mark and Kate!»

“Understood, sir. We’ll take care of it,” Mote declared as he rejoined the fight for the skies over EA’s base.