//------------------------------// // Chapter 63 // Story: Hegira: Eternal Delta // by Guardian_Gryphon //------------------------------// Earth Calendar: 2117 Equestrian Calendar: 15 AC (After Contact) April 7th, Gregorian Calendar Kephic glowered at the Augment, as if the force of his frustration would somehow influence the soldier's mentality in a useful fashion. The remainder of the trooper's squad had since moved on, following the fleeting glimpses Kephic had allowed them to catch as he drew them away from the central portion of the platform. On some level, the speckled Gryphon admired the soldier's suspicion. His instincts were, after all, correct. Most of Kephic's emotions, however, were caught up in a tangle of frustration and urgent concern. He knew that time was short, but he knew no specifics. Kephic hated unquantifiable variables, particularly on the battlefield. Seconds ticked by into first one minute, then two, as the Augment remained stationary, communicating quietly with his squad leader. Kephic couldn't hear what was being said, as a result of the sound baffling in the soldier's helmet, but he could tell the man was speaking by turns into his headset microphone. Kephic tightened his grip on the hilt of his sword, and held his breath for another ten seconds. The Augment began to move, at last. Unfortunately, the soldier's new trajectory took him in precisely the opposite direction of his squad. Back to the center of the platform. The speckled Gryphon wasted no time with further analysis. With as much stealth as he could manage under the circumstances, Kephic lunged from his hiding place, dropping down on the stunned Augment sword-first. The soldier managed to dodge handily, but Kephic's initiative put the trooper firmly on the defensive. The man swiftly brought his rifle up, deploying the bayonet smoothly in the process. The Augment tried furtively to get off a series of initial shots, but Kephic denied him the advantage of his rifle, bringing his sword down forcefully together with a series of vicious swipes from both wings. The Soldier was forced to choose between having his head crushed like a grape, and having the front of his rifle split into several useless chunks. Predictably, the man opted to lose the tip of his rifle's barrel, rather than the top of his skull. Kephic swiftly re-adjusted his tack to press his momentary advantage. He knew the soldier was likely already communicating with his squad, leaving the Gryphon only a matter of moments to make his kill, or to disengage and escape. The Augment threw out what looked to be a wild swing. Kephic spotted the attempted ruse, and countered with a sudden front flip, taking him over the soldier's head with room to spare. If the Gryphon had one specific advantage, it was his ability to fly. The advantage was limited by the relatively confining nature of the superstructure, but it gave Kephic a slight edge nonetheless. He pressed his attack ruthlessly, taking a series of lighting fast swipes at the Augment's back. Two strokes landed, severing nanomuscle groups and coolant lines in four different places. The Augment barely seemed to notice, having no sense of pain whatsoever. Rather, the enemy soldier retaliated with a stunningly quick series of complex parries that forced Kephic to pull away. It occurred to the Gryphon that he should stop treating the trooper like previous Augments, and instead leverage tactics designed to fight Changelings. The commonalities were obvious. Like Gryphons, both Phase-III Augments and Changelings relied mainly on speed and agility for both offense and defense. Like Changelings, Phase-III Augments had a reduced sense of pain, and incredible organic redundancy. And like most drones under the sway of the Hive, Augments were single-mindedly devoted to their mission, at the expense of all else. Kephic smoothly switched to a defensive posture, spinning his sword casually into his left claw, and spreading his wings slightly. The Augment paused for a tenth of a second, surprised by the Gryphon's ambidexterity, and troubled by the unexpected shift in tactics. Kephic capitalized on the hesitation to sidestep into a better defensive position, briefly exchanging a series of experimental parries with the soldier. The Speckled Gryphon immediately realized that fighting the Augment to any sort of conclusive outcome would require more time than he had to spare. He prepared to spread his wings, and make good on his escape. A split second later, a spread of rifle rounds whizzed through the air, forcing Kephic to dive laterally for cover behind a support strut. The Gryphon winced, and prepared to dig in until he could find a viable exit route, gritting his beak all the while. "I *hate* cybernetics." Mr. Utah furrowed his brow, and gestured calmly, but forcefully with his pistol. Skye shot the man the dirtiest look she could physically force onto her muzzle. After a brief pause, the Unicorn sidestepped away from the panel, keeping her eyes fixed on Mr. Utah unblinkingly. Fully expecting some sort of trick, Mr. Utah carefully ensured that Skye remained within his gaze at all times, even as he confirmed that she had countermanded her previous instructions on the console. Lantry, for his part, remained as still as possible, only shifting his feet and legs to keep himself in lock-step with his captor. Mr. Utah's knife was already coated in a thin layer of blood, and more was flowing freely from a thin gash beneath the edge of the blade. The tiniest of false moves, in any direction, would instantly sever the General's critical arteries, with or without added intervention. Mr. Utah nodded curtly, and stepped back from the panel. He gestured once more with the pistol as he spoke. "Now the beacons." Skye traded a long, doleful glance with Lantry, before making her way as slowly as possible to the first beacon. Skye glanced up as she set about removing the object from its position on the vertical truss bar. She kept her tone as calm as possible, but an unmistakable note of hatred crept its way in nonetheless. "You have *no* idea what sort of forces you're toying with. You're going to kill billions of people, and then what happens to your precious doctrine of Human superiority?" Mr. Utah knit his brow, and centered the pistol's sightline firmly on Skye's forehead once more. His tone was likewise calm, but mixed with unmistakable markers of rage and hate. "Don't editorialize. Your kind wants to reduce the rightful masters of all life to a herd of simpering fools, cowering in the filth before your oh-so-godly Solar Tyrant." Skye snorted, and shook her head as she moved on to the second beacon, again keeping her pace as slow as she could without incurring direct wrath. "First? I've met Celestia, and she's not what I'd call 'godly,' by a long stretch. Second? Masters of all life? Really? How often do you practice that absolute load of horse-shit in the mirror? Third... Do you actually believe any of it, or is this just about corporate interests?" The Unicorn raised an eyebrow and leveled a severely judgmental glare at her captor, putting on a deceptively nanny-like tone as she finished her thought. "Because really... I've done my research, and the vast majority of you 'Humanity rules' 'anti' zealots are no different than any other rabid extremists, in either world's history. You're all about either fear of change, pure arrogance, laziness and envy, or greed. So which are you?" Mr. Utah glowered, gritting his teeth to maintain control of his temper as he forced out a response. "I am the one holding a weapon capable of atomizing an inch-wide hole of tissue front-to-back through that ugly misshapen skull of yours. Work silently. Unless you'd like a demonstration of my 'arrogance,' in full." Skye glanced up at Lantry again, waiting for some sort of signal. The General merely produced a slight nodding motion with his eyes. Though the Unicorn couldn't fathom the reason for the order, she followed through, moving on to the third beacon. As she worked, doing her best to maintain a slow pace, she muttered invectives to herself under her breath. Stan stood, lungs heaving like a blast furnace, waiting for his pursuer to round the far corner of the passage; Steadfast in spite of his instincts. Every nerve and muscle in his body urged him to go flat-out down the corridors until he reached the edge of the ship, and then to hurl himself into the sky, and keep going. The Pegasus tensed as the Troll thundered into the corridor, skidding around the corner and slamming into the far wall momentarily as he got his claws under him. Carradan waited just long enough for the creature to visually acquire him, then took off up the nearest ladder well. Though the Diamond Dog was far faster over flat deck plating, Carradan could rise several decks on his wings, in the time it took the huge beast to cover the first three rungs of a ladder. Stan's flight provided the only tactical advantage standing between him, and an unthinkably grizzly death. Though the Pegasus didn't know North Carolina's layout by heart, he had spent enough time on the ship to have a workable sense of its structure. Perhaps more importantly, he had spent enough time around Fyrenn to pick up bits and pieces of useful military knowledge. More than anything, he was thankful that he had learned to read and understand bulkhead location codes. Carradan breathlessly counted off the compartments as he bounded through deck three, headed to the port-side fore area of the Battleship. The smallest seeds of a plan had begun to germinate in the Pegasus' mind. Stan paused for half a second to brace himself as a particularly forceful tremor rocked the ship. As he regained his footing and continued the helter skelter dash forward, he allocated a small part of his brain to worry about the battle going on outside. In the Pegasus' estimation, the North Carolina was approaching the breaking point. Stan realized, with a rueful grunt, that his clever tactic would be absolutely pointless if the entire Battleship went down. A particularly jarring impact of paws against metal refocused Carradan's mind sharply on the present danger. It wouldn't matter if the Battleship survived, if all that remained of him was a thin pink paste. "Periscope depth reached." The Retribution's Captain leaned forward and pulled down on two cylindrical handles above his head, releasing a small digital scope. He peered into the device as the LADAR officer made his preliminary report. "Primary fire-control systems are still suppressed. Visual lock established on hostile targets, positive identification; Battleship North Carolina, Arsenal Ship Agincourt. Designating as tracks Omicron Two-Seven and Omicron Two-Eight." The Captain blinked as his scope automatically adjusted to the sun-like flare of muzzle discharge, then pulled away before issuing his orders. "Telemetry; Establish individual tracks on priority subsystems. Weps; Load torpedo tubes, VLS racks, and bring the deck gun online. Helm; Make your course three-three-two true, maintain periscope depth." The weapons officer nodded curtly and began speaking quietly, but forcefully, into his headset. "Torpedo room, load all tubes, mag-tracking configuration. CIC Configure VLS warheads for pre-programmed positional tracking, and ready deck gun for visual acquisition. Standby for tracks and kill orders." The LADAR operator spent several moments quietly working his console, before making a more detailed report. "Critical enemy subsystems identified. Designating Battleship turrets as Omicron Two-Seven-One, Two, and Three respectively. Designating Battleship damaged starboard outrigger structure as Omicron Two-Seven-Four. Designating Battleship Island structure primary weak point as Omicron Two-Seven-Five." The man paused as the helm officer interjected briefly. "Heavy swells inbound. Tertiary effects from enemy fire." The Captain nodded, and secured his seating harness as the LADAR officer continued. "Designating Arsenal Ship ECM systems as Omicron Two-Eight One, Designating Arsenal Ship Bridge as Omicron Two-Eight Two, Designating Arsenal Ship VLS racks and magazines as Omicron Two-Eight Three and Four. All tracks designated, awaiting assignment." After a brief pause, The Captain leaned forward, and began gesturing as he laid out a final series of pre-combat orders. "Kill track Omicron Two-Seven Two and Three with VLS. Kill track Omicron Two-Eight Four with torpedoes. Kill tracks Omicron Two-Seven Four and Two-Eight Two with deck gun. Weapons posture one. Stand by for fire command." After a short pause, the weapons officer nodded, and glanced over his shoulder. "CIC reports all weapons configured as orders, and tracks assigned. Standing by for your order sir." The Captain sat back, and folded his arms. "Fire all." Kephic ducked to bypass a vicious blow from his primary opponent, then rolled to avoid an incoming round. The remainder of the Augment's squad was slowly, but steadily closing the distance, providing withering and precise fire support. The speckled Gryphon knew that he was only alive because the same girders and struts that prevented him from making maximum use of his wings also provided nearly limitless cover from railgun fire. Kephic knew enough, from first-claw experience, to know that delaying tactics could only last a limited time. By his estimation, he only had a few more brief moments before the remainder of the squad overwhelmed his position. Escape was a non-option. With the entire squad of Augments concentrated on a single target at close range, the Gryphon knew he had absolutely no chance at surviving an aerial egress. Though he was categorically unwilling to give up, Kephic silently resigned himself to the rising likelihood that the engagement would take his life. He knew his best chance lay in creating a sufficient distraction amongst his opponents to escape. As the Gryphon pivoted gracefully away from the Augment's bayonet once more, he reached for one of his two grenades. The devices were light incendiary charges, intended to burn through armor rather than defeat it solely with concussive force. As a byproduct, the grenades also produced a great deal of light and sound, not unlike a flashbang. Kephic was on the verge of pulling the pin, when his nearest assailant staggered, and dropped to one knee. Rather than bother with his sword, the Gryphon flicked away both the pin, and spoon. He rammed the grenade into the gap between the soldier's helmet and pauldrons, pivoting away in the same smooth movement. A stream of precise, well-patterned cover fire burst from above, taking the remainder of the squad by surprise. As Kephic rolled away, he took advantage of the moment to arm, and throw, the second grenade. He exited his maneuver as the first device detonated, taking his assailant's head and shoulders with it in a searing, expanding sphere of pure heat and light. A moment later, the second grenade went off, dazzling the remaining Augments' ocular sensors briefly. Kephic seized the moment to spread his wings, and dive off the catwalk, pivoting up at a ninety degree angle to avoid striking a support beam. As he made good on his exit, the seemingly invisible source of support fire continued to wreak havoc on the enemy squad. The stream of rounds only ceased once the majority of the enemy soldiers had gotten their legs back under them. By that time, Kephic was well out of sight, clinging to the outside of the platforms support buttresses. He didn't have to wait long for Varan to appear, still cradling his RAC as he alit on a nearby maintenance ledge. The speckled Gryphon raised an eyebrow, ignoring the streams of rain pouring down his ears, cheeks, and off the tips of his wings. "How did you know I was caught in a tight spot?" Varan blinked once, then spoke with his customary dispassionate tone, and piercing stare. "I know you." Kephic smirked, noting that Varan allowed himself a nearly imperceptible hint of a return smile. The speckled Gryphon gestured with one claw as he sheathed his sword, then glanced out at the horizon. "We're short on time. I think we've done our job." Varan nodded, and inclined his head towards the center of the platform. "My thoughts exactly." "We have new inbound fire!" The TAO stiffened, and instinctively braced. Another round of shockwaves coursed through the Battleship's superstructure. He glanced at the LADAR operator, who pulled away from his scope to make a swift report. "Starboard lookout reports new contact! Periscope in the water, bearing zero nine eight true, distance three hundred yards! Closing in standard aggressive attack pattern on our starboard quarter!" It only took a few moments for the TAO to settle on a new course of action. He cleared his throat, and barked out a series of commands. "Come hard right and press maximum thrust out of the engines! Switch turret three, and VLS tubes one through five to new hostile track!" The weapons officer nodded, and set about implementing the acting Captain's instructions. The helmsman turned and raised an eyebrow. "Sir, that heading will put us on a potential collision course with *both* enemy vessels!" The TAO nodded, and narrowed his eyes. The man's tone dipped into a dangerous octave as he repeated his order. "Come hard right. Flank speed ahead. Set manual throttle and disengage all safety interlocks." The helmsman blanched, but nodded nonetheless, and set about carrying out his orders. "Hard right rudder, ahead flank. Aye sir." The TAO turned to his acting XO, and leaned in close enough to make himself heard at a lower volume. "Where are we with the intruder situation?" The XO narrowed his eyes, and sighed as he responded. "Several enemy combatants have been found, and neutralized. Response teams discovered charges on two coolant lines, and three on critical sections of reactor casing. There might be more, but if so, they aren't attached to any critical areas or components. Those have been swept clean, and secured." The acting Captain paused, then tilted his head, waiting for another impact to pass before speaking again. "Are any of the boarders still at large?" "MAKE A HOLE! *GO!* CLEAR THE DECK! *MOVE!*" Carradan poured every possible ounce of air into his lungs as he shouted the instructions. The words echoed through the forward hangar bay, rebounding sharply off the walls and ceiling. Mercifully, after a momentary pause, the deck crew sprang into action, rushing for cover, in some cases for nearby hatchways. Stan managed to make it to the opposite end of the chamber, and into one of the open launch bays. He kicked frantically at a portion of the decking, trying to recall exactly where his target lay. Stan frantically glanced at the bay's entrance, then left at the shooter's redoubt. An airman was sitting in the control chair, eyeing the latched hatchway that connected his control room to the landing bay proper. Stan rapped one front hoof sharply on the wall to get his attention, as his back left hoof finally found the access latch he had been looking for. Though he had never seen one in action aboard a ship, he had noticed similar devices in use on the ground at airports on many an occasion. From pure observation, and a healthy stint reporting on commercial aviation, he knew precisely what the device in question was capable of. As he pried the latch into the open position with one wing, he gestured first to the shooter, then down at the port. The man seemed to realize what he wanted, thankfully. The officer held up an 'ok' sign with his left hand, while furiously working the control panel with his right. The man's voice came over the intercom, just as the Diamond Dog burst through the entry portal, skidding into the center of the hangar in a furious daze. "Are you sure you want me to cycle that?! Do you know what it is, much less what it will do to you?!" Stan nodded as the Troll sighted in on him, the creature's beady rage-filled eyes locking on with laser focus. "Pull the fuse, turn it up to eleven, I don't care what you have to do! I want everything you can put into it! Heck, BLOW THE WHOLE JUNCTION for all I care! Just WAIT for my signal!" The officer gulped, and nodded hesitantly. Stan dug in, ensuring that his back left hoof was firmly planted in the access groove he had forced open. He flared his wings, dipped his head, spread his front hooves, and prepared for the worst impact of his life. "COME ON YOU FAT, UGLY, WRINKLY, DUMB *MUTT!* COME AND GET ME!" The Diamond Dog obliged, putting inch-deep gouges into the armor plating of the deck as he took off at a strong lope, headed directly, and single-mindedly, for Carradan. The hit was exactly as painful as the Pegasus had predicted. He felt as if half the bones in his body had been transformed into a messy pulp. The world spun upside down, and a bone somewhere in Stan's left rear haunch let out an ominous crack. Stan managed, incredibly, to maintain a half-standing, half sitting position. He wrapped both wings around the Troll in his best imitation of a death grip, and poured every last ounce of strength into his lungs. "NOW! NOW! NOW! CYCLE IT NOW!" With only a touch of hesitation, the officer reached down and flicked the appropriate switch on his console. In short order, all hell broke loose. After a momentary whine, light and heat sprang forth from the socket. The sun-like blue-white tendrils of electrical energy coursed over the latch plate, and the 'APU,' markings stenciled on it. They danced and flickered as they rushed up Carradan's left rear leg, and into his body and wings. Acting on Stan's instructions, the shooter had bypassed all safety cutoffs and fuses, routing the main trunkline for the magnetic catapult directly into the aircraft APU plugin socket. The launch chamber filled with artificial lightning. Arcs passed into and over Stan, through the Troll, and out to the walls of the compartment, seeking a grounded state by whatever path they first happened upon. Without a cutoff fuse, or regulation circuits, the socket became a conduit for many thousands of volts. The arcs whipped around Stan's wings, as the Pegasus latched onto the Troll, and lifted his other three hooves away from the deck. The action forced electricity that had been passing through the Pegasus' legs, to instead pass through the Troll's body. The Diamond Dog screamed in pure agony as his muscles welded to his bones, contracting reflexively as the electricity first shut down, then overwhelmed his internal organs. In spite of the beast's amazing durability, his nervous system, brain, and heart were incapable of diffusing so much voltage differential in a nonlethal fashion. Stan cried out as well, pouring the force of his lungs into a heartfelt battle cry as his muscles tingled, and his ribs creaked under the force of the Troll's vicious grip. Though the process only lasted half a minute, it seemed to Carradan as if the thirty seconds somehow stretched out into hours. His lungs filled with superheated air, and his eyes twitched reflexively as the nerve endings responded to the charge running through them. Abruptly, the Diamond Dog's howls ceased, and his dead weight came crashing down on Stan like a mountain of bricks. The force of the collapse knocked the Pegasus away from the APU socket, vastly decreasing the number of electrical arcs in the chamber. A moment later, the deadly bolts vanished entirely as the shooter disconnected the circuit breaker to the entire subsystem. As crewman rushed in to remove what remained of the Troll, Stan lay flat on his back, desperately forcing his lungs to inhale, and exhale in a slow, rhythmic fashion. The moment the Diamond Dog's carcass was off his chest, the shooter was standing above Stan, holding out a helping hand. Stan took a deep breath, placed his right hoof in the man's hand, and allowed the officer to pull him over into a standing position. His legs shook, more from adrenaline than anything else, as he took stock of himself. After an experimental step, he could tell that he had cracked, possibly broken ribs. One of his wings felt bruised, and he felt certain that if he wagered his back left hoof was fractured, he would win. Otherwise, however, he felt none the worse for wear. Not even a single singe-mark marred his feathers, messy though they were from sweat, and the impacts he had received. After a long moment of silence, the shooter whistled, and shook his head slowly. He knelt down to bring his eyes level with Carradan's as med techs rushed to pull the Pegasus onto a stretcher. The officer's tone was equal parts awe, and thinly veiled surprise. "How in the hell did you know that was going to work?" Carradan tried to wave off the medics, but they forced him, insistently, onto the stretcher at last. The shooter began walking alongside as the bearers spirited him away towards the nearest corridor. "Well... I'm a Pegasus aren't I? Some of us can control lightning... So I figured I'd be safe. And heck, there was no sense in letting the Gryphons have *all* the fun today." The shooter held up a hand and blinked several times, before forcing out his next thought awkwardly. "Really... Though... Where did you get a crazy hair-brained idea like that?" Stan shrugged as one of the nurses forced him back onto his chest, and sighed. "A friend of a friend pulled a similar stunt recently. Saved a good few lives in the process. And I figure, there ain't no way I'm letting a blue reptile best me at anything." The Shooter came to a stop, blinking and stammering incoherently as the stretcher and its procession moved off down the corridor. Stan winked, and chuckled. The sound swiftly turned to a cough as the motion agitated his ribs, but he managed to get out his words nonetheless. "My friends do this sort of thing all the time! Its not the most idiotic thing we've ever tried!" At last, the officer managed to find his words, calling out as the party rounded a corner. "Your friends are a *bad* influence!"