Ravens of Eternity

Chapter 288

288 Desperate Ambush, Pt The nearly two dozen remaining Peacekeepers sped right up to the Photon Tether block, but stayed just outside the southern entrance. Even though they hadn’t yet gone inside, their systems and sensors already began to be somewhat suppressed and scrambled.

One of their scouts attempted to perform active sweeps inside the block itself, but the sheer density of energy in the air negated them completely.

Even their live feed sensors were somewhat disrupted – the images flickered on their screens and MFDs wildly.

“Sir, fighting in there would be suicide,” said an officer. “Our sensor clusters aren’t robust enough to fight under the full pressure of a pure photon r-”

“I don’t care,” That Idiot said. “If we can hardly fight in it, neither can they. We’ve got numbers. We’ve got firepower. And the will of law.”

“Wait!” said a scout. “Sensors are detecting a signal cluster! It’s gathered right at the center of the block. Potentially mecha. Can’t really tell.”

“Lioness, take your squad and cover the western entrance,” That Idiot commanded. “Dirge, you go cover the eastern. We go in at the same time, clear?”

The Peacekeepers replied with an affirmative, then half of their team split up to the east and west. Despite that, the Peacekeeper officer that he rudely interrupted pressed on.

“Captain,” she said, “I must question why you ordered us to fire into civilian-inhabited zones. Or, rather, a civilian-inhabited corporate zone.”

.....

But he simply groaned in response.

“I already talked about this!” he cried. “Look, those people in there are heavily armed and dangerous! They killed their way to get here, and are gonna kill their way to get out. If we don’t take ’em out now, it’ll only get worse for everyone in the Federation. Am I understood?”

“Yessir, I do understand, sir,” she replied. “But please listen, we’re going to hear about this from the SSS Law Department. And we’ll all lose our badges.”

“No we won’t. Remember, this is the First Chief’s decree. And he’s the one who ultimately translates the law for us. So forget about the SSS. They’ve got no case.”

“But-”

The moment she began to protest, That Idiot immediately turned his mecha and shoved his oversized rifle at her chest. Its barrel ended up right where the officer herself was sitting in her core.

“Are you attempting to disobey an order?” he asked.

The officer was completely stunned at his show of force. She simply couldn’t believe that her own commanding officer was threatening her so openly. It was an event that she never could conceive of happening in the first place. Not in the Peacekeepers.

Her open mouth closed up into a tight grimace and simply remained silent.

“Squad in place,” Lioness announced over comms. Dirge quickly confirmed the same right after.

That Idiot lowered his rifle, then turned towards the entrance in front of him.

“Since you’re so afraid to fight in there,” he began, “you get to go in first. The rest of us will be right behind you. And once we’re all inside, we all charge to the center! Clear?”

His Peacekeepers confirmed his choices again, then the officer who protested shouldered her rifle and charged into the Photon Tether first. The others charged in a couple seconds after, on That Idiot’s word.

As instructed, they skated towards the center with their thrusters at maximum. But the moment they did so, all of their sensors all but completely collapsed. They could still see through the live feed, but it was moderately scrambled.

Their targeting and IFF systems had all but shut down, and they could only see vague signals coming from their own teammates. Even if they stood right next to each other.

Because they were going at maximum velocity, it only took a few seconds for them to reach the very center, right where the cluster of signals seemed to originate.

But to their utter surprise, it was completely empty.

“Dammit!” said That Idiot. “Where the hell are they? Gimme an active sensor sweep!”

Their few scouts quickly complied and performed a number of active sweeps all around them. But no matter what they tried, or how much they tweaked their own systems, their results were less than stellar.

“It’s real bad in here, captain!” a scout cried out. “We can’t see a damned thing! Sensors are barely responding. Output’s scrambled from too much raw data!”

“You useless twat,” he replied. “Overcharge your clusters and try again!”

“S-sensors don’t work that way, sir.”

“Then do whatever it takes to -”

That Idiot was immediately interrupted when weapons fire from all four cardinal directions came into the center.

Four of the Ravens had circled around as the Peacekeepers charged in, and assaulted them from every side.

To the east, Xylo poured in round after round from her assault rifle, and emptied the entire clip. And while she dumped the empty magazine and reloaded, she fired with a full-charge of her sniper cannon.

From the north, Kali fired at the peacekeepers with two of her machine pistols. She poured in burst after burst after burst.

Lucifer fired in from the West, and with very tight bursts of partial charges from hir stolen rifle.

Freya came in from the south end and poured as much energy as she could into her beamcannon, and lit up the crowd of Peacekeepers.

While some of their fire peppered the hapless mecha in the middle, a majority of their shots instead struck the dish tower that stood right in the center. Xylo’s sniper shot punctured the tower right in the middle, which was weakened by one of Lucifer’s charged bursts.

It was finished off by Freya’s beam, which finally cut the tower in two right in the middle.

The dish itself began to topple down, right where the Peacekeepers stood. It leaned over in one direction, then completely fell down to the ground. Its panels ripped apart and shattered as it struck, and its tension wires snapped and whipped around violently.

The sheets of sensors crumpled up and folded in on itself as it collapsed under its own weight.

Most of the Peacekeepers fled in every direction, but a few were too stunned to react. One was too frightened to move, even as the dish fell down on top of them. The sheer weight of the collapsing dish itself simply crushed the mecha, along with the pilot inside.

Two others were stunned by the sight, but were on the other side of the dish tipping. They were instead caught under the dead center of the Photon Ray, which was where the energy was most concentrated.

It immediately began to fry their internal electronic modules and systems, which in turn caused cascading failures throughout. Excess power flooded their mecha, and overwhelmed every single module.

Circuits overloaded and overheated far beyond the ability of their coolers to manage. It only took seconds for them to burn out completely, and for the entire system to begin shutdown.

Alerts and warnings coursed across the two pilots’ screens and MFDs as a klaxon blared in their cores. But no matter what they did, or what controls they activated, their mecha remained mostly unresponsive.

The mecha themselves took shaky steps, even though the pilots wanted them to run.

And once their energy shielding fell, the full force of the Photon Ray blasted through the mecha itself. Pure energy from the system’s star coursed through every circuit and module and organ and vein. It was so overwhelming that everything burned up from the sheer magnitude of it all.

The pilots inside screamed in absolute pain as they slowly disintegrated into ash.

Under the rest of the canopy, the Peacekeepers split up into their four squads and chased after each of the Ravens. They fired at them with their guns and rockets with absolute abandon, and peppered the entire area with their fire.

But without their targeting systems, barely had a chance to actually hit. Their weapons fire instead struck the towers all around them, and weakened them.

In contrast, the Ravens didn’t fire back. They simply skated at top speed and evaded all fire as best they could. At the same time, they performed active sweeps with their sensors over and over as they ran.

Although their individual results didn’t result in much, they fed the raw data straight to Raijin, who stood hidden just outside the northern entrance.

She processed all incoming data from the Ravens, mapped out their positions and movements, counted enemy numbers and trajectories, then fed it all back to the team in a flash. Unlike the mostly-blind Peacekeepers, the Ravens had a whole host of data that allowed them to see and target with near-impunity.

Added with Raijin’s EWar network enhancements, Lucifer was able to find all the data points ze needed to clinch a victory.

Ze outlined an erratic loop that circled all around the block. Then Ze quickly pinpointed a number of dishes, and sent the data to the rest of the team.

“Keep them chasing you along this path,” ze said. “And hammer these dishes as much as you can, as you pass it.”

“I get it,” said Kali. “We weaken the towers bit by bit, and topple them down one by one.”

“Right on top of their heads,” Freya added. “I like it a whole lot.”

“What if they figure out what we’re trying to do?” Xylo asked.

“Look who’s leading them,” Lucifer retorted. “That Idiot arranged a simple pincer and ended up the target instead. So, not likely. Besides, if they do manage to figure us out, and that’s a big if, we’ll simply change things up and keep them unbalanced..”

The Ravens immediately got into their maneuver and circled around the center. Each of them had a squad of Peacekeepers after them, who were firing wildly into the dish forest while in pursuit.

At the same time, the Ravens each shot at the towers ahead of them – the ones that Lucifer had specifically marked. Each one brought on more and more damage – dents and gouges from Kali’s bullets, scores from Freya’s beam, slagged titanium from Lucifer’s rifle, and clean punctures from Xylo’s sniper cannon.

And as they circled, they caused more and more damage between them. The towers themselves began to bend and lean as the Ravens peppered them with their weapons fire.

Freya cut cleanly through a tower with her beamcannon after having been significantly weakened by the rest of the team. She zoomed right under it even as it started to topple, and was well out of the way by the time it actually struck the ground.

Like the first one that fell, this too smashed to multiple pieces as it fell, and tension wires whipped violently as they snapped. The dish crumpled into itself as it continued to fall.

The Peacekeepers chasing her swerved out of the way left and right as they avoided the crashing dish. A few were too close, and their armor was whipped open by the flailing tension wires.

And those who veered under the direct Photon Ray found their systems suddenly overheating. If they weren’t already in motion, they would have certainly met the same fate as the two who were immolated to death.

But they sped through the open gap quickly, and only suffered minor burns in the process.

That Idiot being one of them.

He fired his rifle wantonly as Freya skated away. His bullets struck everything all around her, and left little dents everywhere. A few also struck Freya’s chassis, and scratched and dented her armor slightly.

That Idiot’s scrambled face appeared on Freya’s comms. He screamed at her through it, but some of his words were garbled and scrambled. She still got the gist of what he was saying, though.

His anger and frustration certainly spoke for him.

“That all you got?!” he screamed. “Coz we got a whole lot more for you! By the time we’re done with you, there’ll be nothing left!”

When she spoke back, the signal was relatively clear, and her voice was hard but even.

“You’ve no idea what we’re capable of,” Freya retorted. “And don’t you worry. You’ll get to see soon enough.”