Ravens of Eternity

Raijin simply infected them with her Truesight Engine, and took it over for themselves. She then injected her Oversight Engine into the main databanks, then pored through the information hidden inside.

“I have located Amelia,” she said after a dozen seconds. “She is 94 kilometers to the east, inside of a corvette storage facility.”

Raijin then sent out a ping to the rest of the team, and marked their destination.

“That’s a bit far away, even going at cruising speed,” said Xylo. “That’s a lot of travel time, if I’m being honest. Lots of chances to get intercepted.”

“Not with all this chaos going on,” Freya retorted. “And thankfully she isn’t on the other side of the planet. That would’ve definitely been one rough ride.”

“I’ve downloaded some data about the storage facility she is locked in,” Raijin followed up. “Every corvette in there is clamped down on gravityfield pads. We will need to find the manual unlock controls, or completely shut down power in the building to free Amelia.”

“How do we fly out?” asked Kali.

.....

“The roof retracts open. We simply fly up and out,” replied Raijin. “Then, we port to safety at Eris’ fleet.”

“Sounds way too easy,” Xylo muttered. “I don’t like it.”

“Hey, plenty of time for something to go wrong,” Freya joked. “Cheer up.”

The Ravens chuckled among each other as they sped eastwards. They hardly met any opposition along the way, and the hapless few that were patrolling were easily neutralized by Xylo’s shots.

“How’re you both on ammo?” asked Freya. “I’ve still got all ten shots available for my spear.”

“Half in my sniper’s mag,” Xylo said. “Two full reloads left. My rifle has three reloads.”

“My rifle’s just about empty,” said Lucifer. “But I’ve also got three magazines. Saving the rockets for a special occasion.”

“I have used zero stun pistol shots,” Raijin reported.

“Well, let’s hope we won’t have to use any more,” Freya mused. But she already knew the statement was wrong.

As the Ravens sped down the massive highway, even larger warehouses began to appear on the horizon. Far larger than even the one they were headed to.

The planet itself held all manner of goods, from simple personal items to hoppers to mecha to frigates. The huge warehouses – the ones that spanned multiple districts – held the largest ships on the planet. Typically massive cargo freighters.

Anything larger than those, such as cruisers, were instead stored up in the orbital stations that orbited the planet.

The Spirit of Amelia was simply one of millions of ships repossessed by the Federation. Or at least, by the Federation, through the Sol Security Services Corp. It was the SSS who held all of the material goods, and charged the Federation for their services.

The transport and storage of it all cost an obscene amount of money.

And to think it was still only a portion of the full amount that was stolen.

The corvette warehouse was full of activity. Or, at least, the space around it. The entire district itself was relatively lively. Many of the people had evacuated outside the buildings and were placed in orderly rows all along the many layers of walkways and sidewalks.

They chattered about their situation loudly, and gossiped about what was actually going on. Some believed that the executives were testing them, and that it was the perfect time to show off their leadership skills. Those few couldn’t help but boss people around.

The warehouse itself was completely cylindrical, and had a main road that encircled it that intersected with the mega highway the Ravens were currently traveling over.

And along that circular road, a wing of six mecha supported by a dozen hovertanks patrolled all along it. It seemed they were brought there by a random request for help. Although they were confused by the lack of problems and explosions, they decided to stick around just in case.

The last thing they needed was to get written up for abandoning an official emergency request. Even if it looked like nonsense.

Just as they passed the middle of the southern intersection, a sniper shot punched through the lead mecha’s head. Its sensors shattered to thousands of pieces as the slug tore through and embedded on the ground off to the side.

The report of Xylo’s sniper cannon echoed through the intersection less than a second later.

This caused the rest of the wing to immediately move into action. They quickly got into a tight formation, faced southwards, and attempted to locate the aggressor. But nothing appeared on their sensors except scrambled signals all over the place.

The accompanying hovertanks split into two groups, then flanked the mecha on both sides protectively.

But no other shots came.

Inside the lead mecha, the wing’s captain stared at his MFDs with absolute trepidation and anxiety. He expected another shot to ring out and wreck them, but instead there was complete silence.

“Central, this is SSS Wing 592,” he said. “Warehouse CCVC-6045 is under attack. Send backup. Over.”

Though he opened up a line of communication to his operating bunker, nothing came back but constant requests and alerts from blocks all around.

“Central, I repeat,” he said again. “Warehouse CCVC-6045 is under attack. Requesting backup immediately. Over.”

Nothing but more noise.

“Lieutenant,” he finally said. “Go take a look. The rest of us’ll hold the line.”

“Yes, captain.”

The tank formation to their right immediately maneuvered into a single-column formation and sped southwards down the mega highway. They reached the 500 meter mark after a few seconds, but found nothing.

When they reported as much, their captain told them to go further.

Well, he didn’t actually say so. But it’s what they heard.

When they reached 1000 meters, Freya and Kali leapt down from a building back at the intersection, right on the captain’s left flank. Their mecha careened through the air before they landed on a couple of hovertanks with violent force. The two utterly crushed them under the sheer weight and strength of their landing.

The drivers and gunners inside them were dead on impact.

The two quickly hopped off them and attacked the other tanks around them. Kali swept her axe in a semi-circle in front of her and cut deep into the sides of two hovertanks at once. Her strike gouged out huge scars across their armor, and tore into the soft structure underneath.

She then picked one up and flipped it over before it could do anything.

At the same time, Freya jammed another with her spear. Like before, its two edges cut right into the armor and slid neatly inside the cabin. This time, she only eviscerated the gunner, but the result was pretty much the same.

The hovertank’s driver was utterly horrified by all the blood that he simply panicked and kicked the tank into high gear. He was suddenly filled with the need to run for his life, and so threw his acceleration lever to the absolute maximum.

He immediately crashed into the hovertank in front of him, and ground to an absolute halt.

Freya took the opportunity to use her Beamcannon on yet another hovertank, and slagged its armor. The beam punched through the structure, then the power plant underneath that, which caused the whole thing to swell up and burst from the explosion.

As the mecha wing turned to counter Freya and Kali, bursts of fully charged slugs ripped into them from above. They slammed down on their shoulders, and caused a few to stumble from the force. At the same time, the red-hot slugs melted down their armor and began to warp the structure underneath.

Up above on the other side of the highway, Lucifer perched up on the building’s roof corner, and fired another burst at the helpless mecha below. Ze grinned with absolute satisfaction as ze tore them to pieces with hir new toys.

Joining the Ravens was the best thing ever. Ze never could have done something like this on hir own.

Then, ze laughed heartily for the Ravens to hear. Of course, Kali joined hir merriment as they all trashed their opponents with glee.

High above hir, Xylo and Raijin flew to the top of the corvette warehouse completely undetected. Their signatures were at the very minimum and barely appeared on anyone’s targeting lists.

They cut their thrusters as they crossed above the warehouse itself, then landed on the plain, flat, and unadorned roof. Xylo raised her rifle defensively and fired numerous bursts at the dozen or so defense drones stationed here and there.

She easily tore through their flimsy armor, and guarded Raijin as she dashed towards the curved observation deck on the other side of the roof.

Raijin herself connected to the roof’s administrator controls once they were close enough, and injected Truesight into the circuit. Not that she needed to, but it certainly made things 100% easier.

Most of the systems that she had encountered thus far had piddling defenses that were shamefully underwhelming.

She quickly toggled the roof, which split open from the center, like an aperture. Multiple curved blades slid away from the center and opened up the middle, which revealed the contents inside.

Like the mecha warehouse, this one had dozens of floors all the way down to the bottom. The very middle was completely open, which allowed for easy transport. Also it made it look like a stack of donuts.

The rest of the floors were long enough to hold multiple corvettes, all facing inward. Each and every single one was bound down securely by industrial gravity pads. Unlike antigrav, they didn’t negate gravity and made things weightless, they simply amplified them and made things ‘heavier’.

The two hovered down slowly as they both scanned the corvettes in search of their own.

“I have located Amelia,” said Raijin.

She then sent a ping to the other Ravens as she and Xylo hovered towards it. They got on the floor right in front of Amelia, then crouched down to one knee.

The armor plating on both their abdominal cargo areas opened up, which revealed Claire and Amal in each one. The two girls unhooked themselves from their secure seats, hopped down onto the floor, then ran towards Amelia.

They were followed by Raijin’s two other cottonball drones, who immediately began to scan the ship inside and out. Like with Freya and Lucifer’s mecha, they zapped every bug that they came across, digital and biological ones alike.

While the drones debugged, the two girls quickly got inside through the open cargo lift. Both ran as fast as they could to the bridge, plopped into their seats, and began to power up the ship itself.

They joined the rest of the Ravens on the comms display.

“We’re in!” Amal said.

“Feels great to be home,” Claire added.

“Great!” said Freya. “Prime every up, and let’s get the fuck outta here. This place is depressing.”

“You got it,” Amal replied.

“My code is currently reinstalling,” Raijin told them. “It will be roughly one minute before she will be ready to fly.”

“In the meantime, let’s shut down the gravity,” said Xylo.

Just as the two leapt back into the open center and began to hover down to the bottom, flood lights fired from the bottom floor, and lit them up brightly.

Both Tsunami and Phantom were bathed in pure white light.

Raijin’s sensors went wild as a dozen or so mecha energy signatures powered on below them. Then their weapons systems powered on as well. Suddenly, That Idiot came on their comms displays. He had a sneering grin etched deeply on his face.

“I just knew you’d all come here,” he said. “Been waiting for a couple damned cycles for you all! But hey, now that you’re here, all the fun can seriously begin. Tear ’em apart, boys!”

.....

At his command, a dozen streams of weapons fire erupted upwards, and blanketed the two mecha with hundreds of rounds in an instant.