OIC (4)
MegaZone23
"A.D.A.M. stands for Absolute Disintegration of Available
Mass."
--Eve
All over the GENOM complex, and indeed all over the city
of Neo-Worcester, small shacks and what looked like minor
maintenance buildings and abandoned apartment houses
collapsed, huge weapon turrets rising from them. Multi-tube
missile launchers, double and quad-barrelled laser turrets,
unidentifiable energy weapon emplacements, and other large
instruments of destruction rose from the city's unassuming
profile, aiming at the Wayward Son.
"Oop," said ReRob as blip after hostile blip appeared on
the tactical display on Screen 3. "I think we have a
problem."
"Like understatement?" q offered.
"Kei?"
"Yeah?"
"Shoot whatever you think should die first."
"Heh." Kei grinned and began targeting and firing.
SDF-17 began firing first, the heavy repeating laser and
autocannon emplacements raining destruction on the city.
Gryphon skated his Valkyrie around a corner just as a micro-
Reflex bolt obliterated the missile launcher that had once
been the Wesleyan Church, two blocks back.
And then GENOM opened up as Largo finished refining his
targeting. Lasers, heavy plasma cannons, particle projector
guns, railguns, autocannons, and every conceivable form of
missile launcher began firing back up at the Wayward Son.
Gryphon and company were too busy to admire the pretty
view, though; dozens of grey Invid Shock Troopers had
appeared in the streets, and the Eight-Ball Squadron was
running dangerously low on ammunition. Gryphon, Daver, Mark,
and Paul had exhausted their missiles, and Tricia and Erik
had three between the two of them. GU-11 ammo wasn't being a
problem yet, but it was only a matter of time.
With five Scouts on his six and none of his wingmates in
sight, Gryphon figured he had a problem. He was screaming
down Main Street at nearly Mach 1 when a sudden inspiration
hit him. He had been in a situation like this once before,
and since Neo-Worcester was a city reconstituted from the
plans of the original Worcester--
Yes! There it was, dead ahead--the Main Street tunnel!
And it was still, he noted with a grin, illegal to go through
it in his direction. Well, too bad. He tucked the arms as
far back as they could go, put the legs almost back to
fighter-mode position, and racked the wings back to
oversweep, blasting into the tunnel and very narrowly
fitting. Behind him, three Scouts impacted various parts of
the tunnel mouth and exploded as the other two veered hard
and followed him in.
It was a short tunnel; Gryphon came exploding out of the
other end of it in mere seconds, popping his wings back to
full open and dropping the legs to boost himself back into
the air. His belly lasers had almost been scraping toward
the end there--a Valkyrie in gerwalk mode couldn't quite do
ballistic, just a good impression for a few seconds. Just as
he dropped the legs he got a quick glimpse of a Saab 900
Turbo which had been entering the tunnel, before the
downswinging leg inadvertently punted it back across
Salisbury Street.
"Oop," Gryphon muttered as he pulled the Valkyrie back
into fighter configuration and screamed into the skies. With
all the troopers about, the streets were becoming decidedly
dangerous places. Better to chance it in the sky.
"Eight-Ball Squadron from Eight-Ball One. Pull out and
return to fighter mode--there're too many Shock Troopers to
fuck around down there anymore."
"We're getting ripped apart!" ReRob cried as another
impact almost knocked him out of his seat.
"Damage isn't that bad yet," Yuri replied. "A lot of
dented and burned armor, and we're getting knocked around,
but they haven't breached the hull in anyplace important
yet."
"How reassuring," Rob muttered. "Still, we can't take
this too much longer."
On the other side of the battle, out Westboro way, the
ten fighters of Lieutenant Commander Fritz Koopman's Jolly
Roger Squadron were having their own fight for their lives.
The five Alpha and five Beta fighters, all separated for
better mobility, were scattered throughout the city,
alternately dodging and vaping Troopers and Scouts and
destroying the odd anti-aircraft emplacement, to help out the
Wayward Son. Being second-generation Veritechnology
fighters, they had a lot more missile ammunition, but the
Legios series weren't quite as fast as the Valkyrie, nor
quite as tough. Still, Fritz and his people loved them, and
would no more think of flying anything else than Gryphon and
his Valkyrie pilots.
Fritz leaped his battroid-mode Alpha over Spags, landing
on the roof of the Sport Shop and raking a two-fisted GU-XX
attack on a couple of hapless troopers; then, as his alarms
howled missile lock, he pivoted left, ducked, dove, rolled,
came up to one knee, and let off a spread of missiles from
his arm pods to bring down a flight of Scouts.
Two things drove him as he battled on: loyalty to his
ship, of course, and the great desire to redeem himself for
the fool he made of himself by attacking Iczer-2 with a
Legios. Well...those and the fact that he simply loved what
he was doing.
"This is not a healthy neighborhood to be in," Gryphon
observed to q on one of his comm screens. The Scouts had
vacated the skies, and for good reason; there was so much
energy and explosives flying around up there as to make any
attempt at flying very dangerous. The Eight-Balls were
struggling valiantly just to make it back to the ship for
resupply.
"Like, tell me about it," q replied as the Wayward Son
took another heavy hit.
"And it's about to get worse," Kei called. "I have
incoming hostiles. From orbit, no less. I count one, two,
three, four, five, six...shit! Seven hostiles. Big ones."
"Oh, shit," ReRob said, looking with horror as the seven
big blips blossomed on the tac screen. "Ikazuchis."
GENOM's newly-completed starfleet descended from their
orbital construction bays, primed and ready to defend the
mother corporation to the death. Their pods opened up and
each single one of them spewed out its entire complement of
Armored Scouts and Shock Troopers. Then they began to add
their firepower to the carnage below.
"This is very bad!" Rob observed. "Kei! Forget the
ground shit for now--go for the Ikazuchis. Try and kill as
many as you can."
"Aye aye, sir," Kei replied with a grin. "Yuri--turn
this pig around so I can get the main gun on them."
"Eight-Ball Squadron, like permission to dock is
denied," q was calling. "Sorry. Like hope you understand."
"Oh believe me, q, I understand," Gryphon said, the lump
in his throat growing as he saw the seven Ikazuchis rumble
over the city on their own grav drives, weapons opening up.
"Eight-Ball Squadron, this is One. Nothing for it, I guess--
kill anything that moves!"
"All right!" Mark hollered.
"Fire main laser!" the Super Buma captain of GENOM's
lead ship, the Quincy, shouted. "And order the others to do
the same!"
The main laser cannon of the Quincy spoke, followed by
all the others. The seven ships' Buma crews, coordinated by
the master computer in the GENOM center, seemed to strike as
one, with uncanny accuracy and precision--far superior to the
disorganized and inexperienced human crew of the original
Ikazuchi. The seven mega-laser beams converged just behind
the port railguns and blew A.R.M.D.-01 completely off the
ship.
"Fuck!" said Erik as he watched the entire battle
platform crash into and destroy a large section of
Neo-Worcester.
"Fuck!" said Fritz as he watched the entire battle
platform crash into and destroy a large section of
Neo-Worcester.
"Fuck!" said Kei as she watched the entire battle
platform crash into and destroy a large section of
Neo-Worcester. "Yeah? Eat this!"
SDF-17's foredeck split and cammed open again, the tips
remaining at a constant orientation as the rear sections
rotated up and apart. The main gun charged with its standard
orange lightning show, and then--
FOOOOOOOOOOM! The huge energy bolt whiplashed out,
boiling away and utterly annihilating the Quincy and three of
the closest Ikazuchis to it (the Mason, Stingray, and
Asagiri). The remaining three ships scattered, one gaining
altitude to make an attack from above as the others broke
right and left around the battle fortress.
"Sir! They have annihilated over half our fleet!"
Markus-05 reported.
"I am well aware of that," Largo replied. "I expected
as much. Who ordered those idiots to make a frontal assault
in such close formation? Activate Sol."
"As you command."
It only took fourteen seconds for SOL ACTIVE--
COORDINATING ORBITAL FIRE CONTROL to appear on Largo's main
screen. He immediately shifted the main viewer to God's-eye
view and attempted to target the bridge. They were beaten,
dead already--they just didn't know it yet. He smiled and
pulled the trigger.
The fifth Ikazuchi (the Gibson), which had broken to the
Wayward Son's starboard side, took advantage of Kei's
decision to go after the Romanov on her port side first by
firing her main laser again. The energy bolt was aimed low,
missing the bridge module and blasting a hole clean through
the foredecks of A.R.M.D.-02, almost severing it as well.
The impact and explosion actually moved the vast battle
fortress in the air, shifting it several yards to port. Not
much--but enough. And then...several things happened at
once.
Kei targeted the Romanov and issued the main gun firing
order again.
A huge bolt of azure energy howled out of the sky
without any warning at all, smashing into the SDF-17 on the
starboard side, just missing the starboard bridge module to
strike just forward of it and to the starboard--ripping right
through the back of the starboard main gun boom.
The main gun went off--it was already charged and
ready--and the resulting blast vaporized the Romanov before
ripping into Neo-Worcester and exterminating another large
tract of it. The starboard main gun breech exploded where
the bolt from the sky had struck, blowing the entire
starboard boom off. A.R.M.D.-02 was blown clear as well.
Pouring smoke from her hideous injury, the Wayward Son heeled
to starboard and dipped like a wounded bird.
"My God," Gryphon whispered to himself. He wasn't
religious--far from it--but the phrase was part of his
language anyway, just because he had grown up an American.
"My fucking God."
There was a moment of dead silence, as if the entire
battle had gone on hold.
"Christ on a crutch!" Kei shouted as the entire ship
heaved. The damage report on Screen 4 strobed red in an
alarmingly large area. "What the fuck was that?!"
"Sol!" ReRob cried. "Shit! Kei--activate the full-ship
shield. NOW!"
"Full-ship shield on--I hope we have enough of a ship
left to power it..."
A green globe of energy hummed into existence around the
grievously wounded ship as it struggled to remain airborne.
Fritz looked, shocked, into the sky as the three great
energy beams went off; his eyes widened with dread as most of
the SDF-17's starboard forequarter was blown off. In his
moment of distraction, he didn't see the Scout that charged
at his right side until it was too late. He felt the impact
as a stream of annihilation discs plowed into his Alpha, felt
a ripping pain in his right side as freefall overtook him,
and felt the shock as the battroid slammed into the pavement,
crumpled on its left side and smoking. Thinking him
destroyed, the Scout moved on.
Fritz got his damaged machine to its feet, then looked
down to assess his wound. There was a hole torn in the side
of the cockpit--freak shot, shouldn't have happened--and his
CVR-3 was shattered. Blood was soaking the side of the
cockpit. With a growing sense of horror, Fritz Koopman
realized he was dying.
He saw the shield appear around the Wayward Son; he saw
the two remaining Ikazuchis and ground forces open fire with
everything they had on it. And--in his peripheral vision,
almost unnoticed--he saw the dish antenna at the top of the
GENOM tower shift slightly.
Another of those incredible bolts of energy from space
ripped through the cloud to slam against the shield. Fritz
could see the SDF-17 shudder with the impact, even insulated
inside the sphere of the shield.
"Shit! That beam almost punctured the energy shield,"
Kei reported. "We can't take very many more of those hits."
The dish shifted. The beam slammed against the shield.
This happened twice more in the space of a couple of seconds.
Fritz knew what he had to do. He faced his impending
oblivion, stared it down, and accepted it. If he was to die,
he would die saving his friends. He transformed his battered
Alpha to fighter mode and started for the tower.
GENOM defense forces saw him, of course, and converged
on him; he could've cared less. He destroyed some, ignored
most. Let them hit him, they couldn't stop him. What were
they going to do--kill him? He smiled sardonically under his
helmet and aimed the black-and-white fighter right at the
dish, kicking the throttles all the way open.
"Fritz, what the hell are you doing?" Gryphon's voice
rang in his ears. "Pull out, you're gonna hit the tower!
Fritz! FRIIIIIIIIIITZ!"
Fritz fired all his remaining missiles, slammed in the
afterburners, and said a silent goodbye to everyone.
The Alpha plowed into the Sol command dish antenna
moving at 1,700 miles per hour. There was a blossom of
orange fire at the top of the GENOM tower as most of the top
four stories of the building was annihilated. Largo screamed
despite himself as his office exploded around him.
"Fritz!" Mark screamed. "Fritz!" The psychotic gleam
appeared in his eyes. "The bastards! They killed Fritz!
They killed Fritz! Those stinking little yellow-bellied
fairies--they killed Fritz! AAAAAAAUUUUUUUUGGGGGHHHH!!!!!"
Shifting his Valkyrie to gerwalk mode, Mark dove into
the streets again, popping into battroid mode as soon as his
feet touched ground and sprinting the machine through the
streets, destroying everything in his path.
"YOU KILLED FRITZ, YOU FUCKING BASTARDS! DIIIIEEEEE!!"
he screamed, side-kicking a Shock Trooper, punching aside a
Scout, and emptying his GU-11 into a heavy missile launcher.
"DIIIIIEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!"
"Mark!" Gryphon shouted, swooping into the streets after
him. "Mark, come on, come out of it! It won't do Fritz any
good for you to get yourself killed too!"
Erik and Tricia's fighters got there first; converting
to battroid mode, they tackled Mark as Gryphon and Daver
covered them.
"Where the fuck is Paul?" Gryphon wondered as he hosed
down a street corner with suppressive fire. "Eight-Ball Six,
this is Eight-Ball One. Where the fuck are you?"
"Over by Becker," Paul replied lackadaisically. "Couple
of Troopers to take care of. Why, do you need me for
something?"
"Oh, I dunno--I get the distinct feeling we'll be
evacuating soon," Gryphon replied acidly. "I ordered you to
stay with the squadron."
"Well it's not like I flew to Washington or something.
Gotta go--there's a Scout. I just need two more and I'll be
an ace." The channel went dead.
"What a fuckhead," Daver observed.
"Tell me about it. If we get out of this, he's never
flying in my squadron again. If I have anything to say about
it he'll never fly anything again."
"I'm ok, I'm ok--I just lost it," Haywire declared,
struggling to get up as Tricia and Erik held him down. "I'm
ok, I said, lemme up!" Slowly, carefully, they did. He
dropped his empty GU-11; mirroring its pilot, the VF-1A
looked dejectedly at the ground. "They killed Fritz."
"I know," Trish replied. "They'll pay for it."
"Talk later, people, we're being overrun!" Gryphon
cried. "Gerwalk, and let's get out of here!" The squadron
did so, falling into formation around their leader perfectly
(as always).
"SDF-17, this is Eight-Ball One. Any chance we'll be
able to dock sometime soon?"
"Like negative, Eight-Ball One...or at least like not
any time soonish," q replied. "You probably oughtta try and
get like as far away as possible."
"No way, q--we're sticking close. You may need us."
"Like thanks, Eight-Ball One. Like, stand by, ok?"
"Shield status?" ReRob inquired.
"Failing, and failing fast," Kei replied. "I think
we're screwed, Rob."
"There has to be a way. Yuri--can we fold out of here?"
"Not with the ship in the shape it's in...if we tried to
fold out of a gravity well in this shape, we'd break up.
Besides, with our fold radius, we'd just take those two
assholes with us anyway, and what would that help us?" Yuri
replied, gesturing to the two remaining Ikazuchis.
"There has to be a way," Rob repeated.
"Shield integrity at seventeen percent," Kei said
softly. "We're fucked."
"Their shield is weakening," cried the captain of the
Romanov. "Double the attack! DESTROY THEM! For Largo!"
"For Largo!" the bridge crew chorused.
"The shield's falling," Gryphon said, his voice hollow.
"Kei..."
"Shield integrity at two percent."
"Overload warning!" Yuri called as lights sprang up all
over her engineering subpanel. "The shield generators are
overheating--Christ! They've been storing all the energy the
shield's been absorbing."
"Rob!" Android's voice rang out of the intercom. "We've
got a problem down here--the shield generators are
overloading. I think the whole thing's gonna blow!"
"Shit!" ReRob said. "q! Call the fighters! Order them
to evacuate."
"All fighters, this is like control," q announced
calmly. "The shield's like overloading. 'Droid thinks we're
gonna blow soon. You are ordered to evacuate."
"What?!" Gryphon shouted.
"Like get the fuck away from the ship," q replied.
"We're gonna explode."
"No!" Gryphon shouted. "I won't leave you to die--I
can't--"
"You can't do anything, Ben," Kei cut him off, switching
her station to his comm frequency. "Get away. Save
yourself. That's an order."
"But--"
"Get away!" Kei shouted at him. "Someone needs to
survive this battle. Just because you love me doesn't mean
you have to die with me, now get the fuck away! I love you."
"I love you too, Kei..." Gryphon choked, coughed it
down. Now was not the time, and here was definitely not the
place. "Eight-Ball Squadron, this is Eight-Ball One.
Evacuate. Fighter mode, burner on. Get away from the ship."
Without a word the entire squadron turned and began to
streak away.
The shield generator display redlined and began to flash
"DETONATION IMMINENT". Yuri and Kei looked at each other.
"Been nice working with you, partner," said Kei quietly.
"And you," Yuri replied. She looked wistfully out the
bridge window at the burning top of the GENOM tower, and
whispered, "Zoner..."
The shield exploded outward, a brilliant green globe of
ever-expanding energy, rushing after the fleeing fighters and
engulfing Neo-Worcester in a boiling firestorm. The wave of
energy slammed into, engulfed, and ravenously devoured both
remaining Ikazuchis, the GENOM tower, and everything else in
its path.
"Eight-Ball Six! Paul! Transform, you idiot, full
burner, get outta there!" Gryphon screamed into his helmet
mike as Paulheat dawdled behind in gerwalk mode, right in the
face of the explosion.
"No, hang on a sec--I can make it, I just gotta kill one
more and I can be an ace--I'll make it, I--AAAAAAAA--*"
He was too late; the explosion engulfed him. The
fighter was destroyed layer by layer, disintegrated and
ripped apart at the same time. It broke up and vaporized
around Paul, and then his frail flesh form, CVR-3 or not, was
annihilated just as easily.
"YOU STUPID FUCKHEAD!" Gryphon screamed to the dead man
as the last molecules wafted free into the atmosphere. The
other five planes of the Eight-Ball Squadron streaked away,
free and clear ahead of the wave, as on the other side, the
remaining three Legios and one lone Beta of Jolly Roger
booted it out at max speed.
The explosion receded, faded away, and, just as suddenly
as it had roared over the landscape, it was gone, leaving
behind a blasted and desolate wasteland, a crater within a
crater, reaching almost to the outer edge of the original
twenty-five-mile blast radius. In the center was a huge
depression where the explosion's epicenter had burrowed half
a mile into the ground. The Wayward Son was nowhere to be
seen.
Then, battered, nearly destroyed, but wearily
triumphant, the shattered battle cruiser lifted itself out of
the crater. The SDF-17 had survived the explosion by being
on the inside of it. The shield's spherical radius was
unaffected by the explosion.
"We're alive," ReRob remarked, looking around. "Now
there's a pleasant surprise."
"The Reflex furnace is failing," Yuri warned as a light
strobed on her panel. "Gravity control at 40% and falling."
"Shit--looks like we've got some work to do if we're
ever going to take off again. Yuri...engage landing cycle.
Put us down on the outside of the crater."
"Landing cycle engaged," Yuri replied. From the
underbelly of the huge fortress, three great hatches opened,
and from within, huge double-tired landing gear extended.
The wheels were the size of largish houses, arranged in a
tricycle pattern; as the battered vessel eased itself down
onto the fused stone and glass that had once been
Neo-Worcester, they impressed twelve-foot marks into it.
Within a minute the SDF-17 was down.
"Great. Shut down all systems, recall the Veritechs,
and I'll go down and get repair work started on the engines."