ShipCore - Book 2: Chapter 71: And All the King’s Men (Finale)

Book 2: Chapter 71: And All the King’s Men (Finale)

USD: During Battle over Dedia Prime

Location: Nu Crateris, Decaying Dedia IV Orbit, SRS Tears of Fire

The Tears suffered another strike to the bow from the cruiser’s railguns, punching through it at an angle. Ship integrity was becoming a concern as huge chunks of debris floated around the inner hull, smashing into things as the ship shifted. The main linear drive system had been shattered by another railgun strike, leaving the ship on gas RCS only.

The only consolation was the enemy cruiser had also lost its maneuvering thrusters.

Both had been damaged to where they only had a single railgun still operating, an anemic rate of fire compared to previously flashed between the two ships. The Shrike’s laser system’s heatsinks had melted down, slagging the entire system, and every single PDC-K on the outer hull was smashed or inoperable.

She suspected someone on the other ship had been zooming in and sniping at them. She certainly had been doing the same to them.

But the armored railgun mounts were more durable, and placing a railgun round in an exact spot was difficult.

Which was why they were still alive. The main reactor compartment had two near misses, but the citadel armor had deflected the blast at an angle that had avoided a core meltdown.

There was no audio in the vacuum in the compartment, but when a line of sparks erupted on the wall in front of her, it broke her out of her focus on the ship’s battle. A little black drone was being chased by a half dozen of Nameless’s favorite little miniature drones as they had a mini-dogfight inside the ship.

It veered toward her and opened fire, a half dozen bullets squishing on her armor’s plating. She was unharmed, but all she could do was blink in surprise at the sudden intrusion on her focus as the black drone flashed by her head.

“Nameless!”

[Notice: Hostile boarding units are attempting to breach the CIC again. Drone Booper is currently retreating to your position and combat drones are engaged in combat around your position.]

“Just.. just nanite them or something!”

[Informative: While nanite computation usage has been reduced by 85% because of cessation of industrial operations and ship tasks, all main computational compartments have been destroyed except main ShipCore. All current resources are tasked with maintaining normal processing and Avatar functions.]

Oh. That was bad.

The hostile drone lit on fire as a bullet damaged its battery pack, and Alex turned back to the tactical screen. A sudden flare of lasers from the Grazhdanin smashed into the cruiser tormenting the Tears and sliced off a comm antenna and grazed a rail turret.

Noticing the damage on the optical feed, she realized that had created an opportunity. The turret wasn’t going to be able to rotate as far backwards anymore, and she forced the Tears to claw itself backwards, bringing them out of its arc.

Suddenly the incoming damage ceased, and she realized the enemy ship was probably in just as bad a shape as the Tears. That didn’t stop her from continuing to fire at it with their last railgun.

The enemy cruiser didn’t seem keen on stopping hostilities either, and she felt a bit of anger as it slewed its weapons toward the planet and began another bombardment of the city out of spite.

[Notice: Atmospheric re-entry is imminent. Recommendation: Abandon ship.]

Alex’s throat constricted. “The ShipCore, right?”

[Informative: Modifications for ShipCore ejection are underway. Recommend bringing crewmember Elis with Avatar during escape.]

“Elis, are you still in engineering!?”

There was a moment of silence and static, but a clipped reply confirmed the question. “Ye..yeah. Pinned down here, but they can’t get past me to the reactor.”

Alex stood up from her console and flashed the tac-map on her HUD. Red dots were sieging engineering and the CIC. Booper and Elis were two large green dots while dozens of blue dots streaked around, harassing and targeting the red ones.

“Booper! Find Beeper and then keep the CIC and corridor to the ShipCore clear! I’m going to go get Elis!”

“Broop!”

The big combat bot answered back immediately before reminding a group of Corpos why it was a bad idea to mess with person-sized ship-modified combat shotguns.

Alex turned and ran to the corridor leading to the cargo hold and engineering, almost tripping on the massive hole just outside the door. A red indicator showed a man about to poke around a corner.

The thought that she probably should have drawn her pistol or something assailed her, but she quickly decided she didn’t need it.

Instead, she slammed her physical points into agility and launched herself forward. Just as the man was about to pop around and level his rifle at her, she slapped the wall, and a bolt of directed energy drilled through the wall like a bullet, slamming into him.

It was only enough to stun him, but she reached his position a second later and then stomped on his throat as she amplified her strength setting.

Her power armor’s knee joint actually groaned as she stressed it from the inside, but it maintained integrity as the Corpo’s vulnerable neck joint under her boot snapped and the man was decapitated.

One down already. Maybe she could retake the ship, and they could keep it from hitting the planet.

A rocket flashed into the corridor, and she only slammed points into physical defense a second before a rocket flew toward her. That would have probably kept her alive, but Nameless provided an assist by forming a nanite arm from her shoulder to reach out and punch the missile. It exploded in a cloud of fire and shrapnel that pelted her armor.

“F..fuck.”

[Suggestion: A faster pace would be more effective.]

Alex shook off her shock and sprinted through the corridor. Red threat indicators flashed, showing the position of men on the other side of walls, and she ducked into the workshop to avoid contact. In the room, a marine was fighting in hand to hand with a damaged combat drone.

The drone’s gun was jammed, and it attempted to slam itself into the man’s faceplate, but he had hold of it with both hands and was slamming it into the wall repeatedly to crush the chassis.

The struggle was repeated across the ship. Alex didn’t hesitate and moved forward to intercede, grabbing the Corpo soldier from behind and flushing a stream of nanites into his armor. The little machines found microscopic gaps and drilled their way through the armor in seconds before erupting into spikes that pierced his skull.

The drone tried to hover, but its thrusters flared out and it fell to the floor, the damage having been too severe for it to continue.

Alex activated her comms. “Elis, can you get out of engineering? We need to abandon the ship.”

There was no response and Alex felt a second of fear, but then the channel crackled to life, “Sorry, no can do. Too many of them.”

Alex grunted and slipped out of the wrecked workshop and back into the ship’s main corridor. It was only a few steps to the cargo hold, but there was a massive gun battle going on between the drones and Corpos.

Several industrial drones were behind cover and deploying Sentri turrets. As soon as one was setup it darted to fetch another weapon from a weapons crate to deploy. A squad of six soldiers was pinned on the far side.

Alex realized she needed a long-range weapon. She reached out and grabbed the wall, focusing on visualizing what she wanted and nanites flowed off her hand as she ripped a chunk out of the wall. The little machines went to work replicating themselves on the feedstock and then formed it into two rails.

She leveled the makeshift railgun at one enemy. A buzz filled her ears as energy built up around her hand as the nanites charged themselves and Nameless took control of her aim and adjusted her targeting.

Then it exploded and a long metal dart blasted out of her hand, the recoil causing her suit to lock its joints, almost spinning her.

The projectile left a fiery line of plasma behind it as it punched through a container and through the soldier she had aimed at. The others took cover and changed position, but she could still see their locations.

But killing them wasn’t her goal. She needed to get to Elis, so she took advantage of the lull to rush across the room and toward engineering, reaching the last stretch of corridor that led to it.

A gaping wound in the ship reached all the way out past the outer hull, and she felt a bit of panic as she saw a fiery cloud shimmering around the wound.

They were already entering the atmosphere!

Alex almost didn’t see the trap that had been left, stopping just short of setting off a claymore that had been left by some Corpo. She realized the breach was likely how they had entered the ship and then went after Elis. Reaching down, she touched the floor and a line of nanites marched over to the device and then disintegrated it.

Swallowing at the close call, she moved to the entrance of engineering. She quickly spotted the problem Elis was having. The other girl was pinned on the other side of the room, in the heavily armored reactor section. A small corridor was the only entrance to it, and she was trading fire with a group of eight soldiers who had spread out to cover the single choke point.

One wasn’t even participating; he had a device plugged into a console and was staring at the screen. She realized there was a wire hanging out of the device and hooked into the man’s neck.

[Notice: Cyberwarfare attack has been thwarted. Assuming control of hostile unit.]

Alex blinked, not understanding, and still trying to come up with a useful plan of attack when the hacker dropped the device and picked up his rifle, then shot at his comrades.

With the attackers distracted, Alex decided to add to the chaos. But when she stepped into the room, she froze at the absolute carnage on display. There were already a dozen Corpo corpses in the room, several were missing limbs, and blood was splattered across everything.

Drones were torn apart and mixed into the scene as well, and Alex had to fight down a wave of nausea. She forced it to stop. This was not the time for that. Hadn’t she done worse to the men on the way here herself?

The men returned fire on the one Nameless had somehow taken over. One was forced to step out of his cover, and Elis leaned out of her position and shot him with her pulse rifle.

Alex moved forward and made it halfway to the soldiers before one noticed her. He opened fire at her, but she raised a cloud of swirling metal from the floor that swallowed the projectiles and added them to its mass. It launched forward and she skewered him with it.

Stopping, she raised both hands and used them to help guide the cloud into flashing toward a second soldier, and then a third.

Within seconds, all the men were dead.

Alex rushed through engineering and through the armored corridor to the reactor room to kneel beside Elis, who was sitting with her back against the wall.

“Are you ok?” Alex asked.

“Do I look ok?”

Alex frowned and realized Elis was holding a hand over her suit. There was blood on the power armor gauntlet.

“Can you stand?”

“Yeah… are they dead? How many are left?”

Alex checked her HUD. The combat in the cargo hold was still going on, but most of the hostile units were dead. So were most of the drones.

“Not that many. Nameless, can we restore maneuvering enough to keep the ship from burning up?”

[Notice: Repair capabilities are compromised. The ship’s hull is experiencing friction. Estimation using current drag coefficient for ship shows a grazing pass through the atmosphere that will cause a lowering of periapsis and eventual re-entry and destruction of Tears.]

“That’s not what I asked! Can we fix it before then?”

[Informative: This unit calculates chances of repair before catastrophic atmospheric entry as very low.]

“Okay, Elis. We need to get to the escape pod.”

“I didn’t think you could leave the ship.”

“We are going to the ShipCore room—thing that Nameless is getting ready. Can you stand up?”

Elis’s suit protested as she moved. Alex realized there were divots and damage all over it and reached out to help. The suit was much more bulky than Alex’s A model, and it was a pain getting out of the reactor room’s corridor.

As soon as they were out, the heavy blast door to the chamber slammed shut behind them.

“Nameless, what was that?”

[Informative: Main Reactor is currently experiencing a controlled shutdown. However, a high chance of eventual detonation is possible. I have prevented a core ejection which would have ejected crewmember Elis along with the core. Proceeding with core ejection, now.]

Alex pushed forward faster, pulling Elis’s arm around the back of her neck and pulling her along faster than she could have moved alone. Elis kept her feet under herself, but the grunt of pain that elicited made Alex wince.

“Sorry. We need to get out of here now,” Alex said. She noticed that Elis’s free hand that was covering the hole in her suit was leaking atmosphere and a slow ooze of blood was bubbling out of it when pressure was released. Reaching down, she used her nanites to seal the hole to stop the leak.

“Nameless, make sure there is a medkit on the pod!”

As they entered the cargo hold on their way to CIC and the ShipCore room, Booper stepped out of the corridor and spat out covering fire against the few remaining Corpo marines. Alex passed by the bot and Booper followed them by walking through the corridor backwards.

A hiss of gas from Engineering vibrated the ship.

[Notice: Reactor core ejection, successful.]

[Recommendation: Proceed to ShipCore immediately.]

“We are already!”

When they reached the hole in front of the CIC door, Alex stomped on the metal floor plating. A nanite swarm chewed the metal and bridged the gap for them.

It wasn’t far from there, and Alex ripped the hidden panel concealing the room’s entry way. The matte white door slid open, and Alex pulled Elis inside.

Looking around, the space was much smaller than she remembered, only large enough for the two of them, really.

“Brooop.”

Alex turned to the door. Booper’s sensor pushed as close as it could toward her but was stopped by the entryway. “Nameless! Booper doesn’t fit!”

[Notice: Escape pod requires a large portion of volume for needed life-support and required nanite systems.]

Alex’s mind raced, “Just download his AI then! Where is Beeper!”

“Broooop.”

[Informative: Drone #3132 experienced termination during critical repair operation. No available space is available for AI core download. 99.5% of NAI capacity required for Avatar and ANUF processing.]

[Suggestion: Retrieve AI core from drone unit and activate escape pod.]

Alex thought about how to do just that when a rocket slammed into Booper’s chassis from the side. The explosion sent her flying backward.

[Notice: Drone #3133 has been terminated by hostile action.]

[Suggestion: Activate ShipCore escape pod now.]

Alex pulled herself back onto her feet, staring at the burnt corridor and the legs of Booper’s destroyed frame.

[Suggestion: Activate ShipCore escape pod now.]

Something she had never felt before boiled up out of her chest and she yelled. Stepping out of the escape pod, she turned toward the two men who were frantically reloading a shoulder launched rocket system. One dropped a missile to pick up his rifle and shoot at her.

She reached out and a mist of metal eroded from the corridor to intercept the projectiles, absorbing their energy, and turning them into more mist. The cloud grew and grew and rushed toward the two Corpos.

They turned and ran as the nanites reached them, but black ropes solidified around their feet and tugged them off balance. The cloud ate away at their power armor, and little streams of atmosphere blew out of slowly forming holes.

Alex prevented the nanites from melting away the men themselves, and she stared into their faces as horror and fear contorted into pain and agony as vacuum sucked the atmosphere from their lungs.

[Warning: Crewmember Elis is in a critical state.]

[Suggestion: Terminate inefficient behavior and return to ShipCore and attempt crewmember repair.]

“Elis?”

The words evaporated Alex’s rage. She tossed the two soon two be corpses down the corridor and mist of nanites fell to the ground in a rain of tiny metal sands.

The escape pod door slid shut behind her and a sudden acceleration almost tossed Alex off her feet, but she scrambled forward to reach Elis.

Nearby, the reactor core detonated in a vibrant explosion, a wave of energy slamming into the Shrike on the opposite side of the ShipCore pod. The incineration of the ship’s hull propelled it upwards. Nameless initiated ejection of the pod as the ship’s power systems failed completely.

The pod’s thruster burned down the narrow corridor as it escaped through a tube that had been melted away just for them. A miniature I-field flared red as it did its best to absorb the explosion of radiation from the reactor’s detonation. The matte white paint on the hull of the sphere-shaped pod peeled away as the deadly rays stabbed into delicate electronics inside.

[Warning: ShipCore processing compromised. Insufficient capacity for MainComputer operation. ANUF Capacity reduced to 1%. Core Compression in progress.]

Alex popped open her suit’s helmet, the atmosphere inside the pod having reached breathable and she frantically called out to her.

“Elis! Elis!”

When the other girl didn’t respond, a growing wave of panic had her hands shaking as she did her best to pry the heavy armor suit apart. Her nanites didn’t respond like normal, but she managed to weaken the main bolts enough to pop the chest piece off.

That allowed her to remove the twist lock helmet as well. To Alex’s relief, Elis was still breathing, but a pained look greeted her.

“Hey, kiddo, sorry about that… think I took an AP round.”

Alex felt tears welling up, “No.. no it’s not your fault. Let’s fix you up.”

Alex realized that Elis’s skinsuit was coated with blood, the source being a wound on her chest.

Elis coughed, and blood dripped from her lip. “Medkit.”

“Nameless, what do I do?”

There was no immediate answer.

“Nameless!”

“Nameless… help.”