Killing the two guards posted at the superweapon’s entrance was easy. They had no idea we were there, so coordinated shots from Noah’s bullpup beam rifle and my handgun easily put them down. I had lost my bullpup on the now destroyed Haivu ship, so the handgun was the only weapon I had that was capable of being effective at range.
The Haivu guards died before they had the chance to react. However, that didn’t mean that Noah and I were undetected. They had enough time to at least form a thought or two, and that would be all that the Haivu needed to be alerted to our presence. We had to forgo stealth for speed, now. The Spear of Kain would be arriving soon, anyways.
Noah and I rushed past the dead guards and into the entrance of the superweapon structure. The inside was brightly lit, and it was just one long hallway leading deeper inside. There were side rooms attached to this hallway, but we paid them no mind. Anything important would be at the center. That’s how everyone did things.
The long hallway wasn’t empty, either. I could see a few Haivu reacting to us as soon as we stepped foot inside the entrance. They appeared to be scientists posted at the superweapon, judging by the way none of them visibly held weapons, and weren’t wearing the same suits that the soldiers did. If they were anyone but the Haivu, I’d do a quick interrogation. However, I couldn’t talk to Haivu at all. Dealing with them would be a waste of time. I started to run, planning to ignore and run past them.
I heard Noah’s bullpup rifle fire thrice. I stopped running and snapped my head back.
“Noah, what the fuck? They were non combatants!” I shouted.
Noah lowered his rifle. “You never know. I’m not taking any chances. They would’ve told all of the Haivu exactly where we were!”
I shook my head. “Fine. Just don’t do that again. It puts a foul taste in my mouth.”
We didn’t have time to argue about this. Noah and I ran around their limp bodies and made our way to the end of the hallway.
The door slid open without any input, and a caustic pod hit the ground between my feet. I yelped and jumped back, creating distance from the door. Noah jumped back as well, allowing the door to close once more. The caustic pod had come at an angle, meaning the shooter was above us.
I could only see what was in the next room for a few moments, but it was huge. There was some contraption housed inside of this superweapon structure. I only saw the base of it, but if I had to guess, the whole thing was similar in size to a warship, maybe less. It was basically another cone nestled inside this cone shaped building, to put it simply. Of course, it had several pipes running out of it, power sources, fans, coolant, all that kind of technological stuff you needed to power a superweapon. But I only caught a glimpse at all that before I was shot at.
Noah stroked his chin. “That caustic pod landed at an angle. I think our shooter is above us.”
“Alright, now what. How do we get up?” I asked.
“There’s bound to be stairs or an elevator somewhere. We just have to find it. But the guards are going to be trouble, and I bet there’s reinforcements heading this way. If we sit here for too long we’ll get pincered.”
A large series of booms emanated from outside. I could feel the vibrations through my clawed toes.
“Nevermind, scratch that.” Noah said. “It looks like the Spear of Kaine is here. They said that they were going to bomb the parts of the encampment away from the superweapon. They’ll take care of the reinforcements.”
I nodded. “Alright, let’s keep pushing then. I’ll rush ahead and distract the guards, you plant a shot between their eyes.”
I burst through the door, running on all six limbs. I tried to cover as much ground as possible to make it harder to hit me, and draw their fire away from the doorway. I heard a series of caustic pods pitter on the ground behind me. Even further behind me, I heard the unmistakable sound of Noah’s rifle firing. After a few seconds, the firing stopped.
I turned to look back at Noah. He quickly gave me a thumbs up, and jogged over to me. I took this time to take in what this room actually looked like.
Surrounding us on all sides were the walls of the structure we had invaded, of course. At the center of the room sat the superweapon, whatever it was. The walls of the structure were about fifty meters away from the superweapon, give or take. My mad dash had taken me right next to the unknown contraption. Melded to the side of the massive conical superweapon was a spiral staircase.
“Looks like we found our way up.” Noah said, walking past me. “I don’t see any elevators, so let’s just take this.”
I looked up. The superweapon was really tall, around the same height as an office building. It wouldn’t be easy to walk up the entire thing.
“Are you sure we want to go up?” I asked. “Wouldn’t there be like a command room somewhere?”
“I mean, I don’t see anything else down here.” Noah stated. “Plus, the guards on the staircase were shooting down on us. I bet there’s more of them as we go up. That means something important has to be up there, right?”
He made a good point. I conceded and we made our way to the staircase.
Calling it a staircase was actually wrong. It was a ramp. Affixed to the side of the cone, it led all the way to the top. And since it was a spiral, any guards above us couldn’t shoot at us! The ramp circling back around above us served as cover, so Noah and I only had to fix our attention directly in front of us. The ramp was also narrow, it only had room for Noah and I to climb up side by side, which was another blessing. The Haivu guards that tried to stop us couldn’t overwhelm us with numbers and we were given even engagements pretty much all the way up.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
When we were halfway up the ramp, it seemed like the Haivu tried one last defensive line, but Noah and I broke through with ease with our superior reaction time. After that, we encountered no more guards. We must’ve wiped them out, or they were gathering at the top, waiting for us to walk into their trap.
It took Noah and I several minutes to get to the top. The superweapon was huge and a spiral shaped ramp wasn’t the most effective way to get up. I cursed the Haivu for not installing an elevator on this thing.
There was a room where the spiral staircase ended. It was a room built into the cone shaped superweapon, as large as a living room in a well-off family's house. It was a command center of some sort. I leaned over to peer inside.
There were three Haivu scientist looking guys frantically typing away on a console of sorts. There were no guards inside, surprisingly. Noah and I had dealt with all of them. There weren't many to begin with, the Haivu simply didn’t expect a ground invasion of this moon, apparently.
The Haivu that were working the consoles didn’t even notice us. Noah raised his rifle, and I put a hand on top of his gun and silently pulled it down. Noah sighed, and walked into the command room. I followed.
The Haivu heard our boots clanking on the stainless steel floor. They spun around, eyes widening. Noah and I raised our weapons and slowly approached them. The Haivu put their hands up, which was a universal sign of surrender, apparently. We herded them out of the command room, and as soon as they stepped foot outside, they ran for their lives. I could hear their thin legs pattering on the floor as they tried to gain distance from the two crazy enemy soldiers that just took their superweapon.
Noah turned his attention back to the superweapon console.
“Judging by the lack of alarms or the entire building shaking, I’m assuming we managed to stop them before they fired it.” Noah said. “Now, let’s figure out what this thing is.”
We walked over to the console. The whole thing covered the entire wall, but we investigated the specific parts the Haivu were tapping away on.
On the left side, the most notable thing was a screen. Of course, the whole console was in a language that neither of us could read, so we couldn’t tell what it was for. But I could guess. The screen had something that looked like a blueprint of the superweapon we were standing in. Several parts of it were highlighted, but I had no idea why.
“Hey Noah, can you guess what you think this is? It’s definitely showing the readings for this weapon, but I don’t know what it's for.” I asked.
Noah crossed his arms and took a long look at the screen. “I have no clue either. Maybe they indicate structure integrity, or fuel, or temperature?”
“Okay, so not our priority then. Let’s move on.” I said.
We moved to the middle of the console. This one was a lot more obvious. There were two bright red buttons next to each other, both of them protected by a transparent safety that covered them.
“Okay, this obviously fires the weapon.” I said. “Wow, there’s no keyholes or pads or anything? These things just shoot when pressed?”
“Judging by their lack of security earlier, the Haivu really didn’t expect us to stick our noses here. These may be prototypes, so they sacrificed safety for speed, perhaps.”
Finally, we made our way to the right side of the console. The most notable thing there was a large screen that appeared to be a map?
“This is for targeting, I bet.” Noah said. “The Haivu did manage to destroy an entire supply planet from at least hundreds of lightyears away. Saka, can you read this map?”
I took a peek over his shoulder. “I can’t read the names that are on this map, but I think I recognize the system this map is looking at.”
I stared at it for a few more seconds.
“Fuck, Noah. This is the Galactic Union capital system. They’re absolutely targeting our capital.”
Noah clenched his fist. “It’s a good thing we got here before they could use it, then. Wait, hold on. I need to let the Spear of Kain know. I’d forgotten to let them know we were successful.”
Noah quickly explained to Ceel that we were successful in taking control of the superweapon. He also described what the console looked like, and how it was apparently aiming at our capital planet.
Noah cut the line after a minute of listening to whatever Ceel said. He turned to face me.
“Saka, Captain Ceel said she has a drone in this building right now. The ship’s in the middle of cleaning up the Haivu soldiers in the area, but they sent a drone to investigate the weapon. According to Ceel, it appears to be an oversized warp drive.”
I creased my eyebrows in confusion. “An oversized warp drive? What were the Haivu going to do with that?”
“According to Ceel, it’s big and powerful enough to warp this entire moon thousands of light years away.”
Realization punched me in the nose. “The Haivu were planning to use this to intentionally cause a warp incident!?” I shouted.
Noah nodded. “According to new information that finally reached Captain Ceel, the Haivu used a similar moon to destroy our supply planet. They warped the moon straight into the planet, destroying both. It’s a fucking battering ram!”
“Fuck. They were going to do that to the GU capital?”
Noah clenched his fist tighter. “Yeah. They were going to destroy a planet full of civilians.”
Noah shook his head and walked over to the targeting screen. He started tapping away on it, moving the targeting away from the GU. I thought he was trying to ensure that the capital was safe, but I was wrong. He started moving the map, moving the screen into Haivu territory, until he finally zoomed in on the Haivu home system.
“Noah, what are you doing?” I asked cautiously. “That’s the Haivu system. You knew where it was?”
“I looked over the war map when we first started this offensive.” Noah said dismissively. “I remember exactly where their home planet is.”
Noah focused the warp drive targeting on the Haivu home planet.
I snatched his hand away from the screen.
“Noah, you better not be doing what I think you’re doing. You can’t just use this weapon on the Haivu. You’d be killing billions of innocents!”
“They were going to do the same to us!” Noah shouted, taking his hand back. “They were going to destroy the GU capital. Like they destroyed Maralu! The Haivu don’t care about innocents at all! They’re perfectly fine with genocide!”
“We both know that that doesn’t justify what you’re trying to do.” I retorted. “When did you become so bloodthirsty? As terrible as the Haivu are, there’s still people on that planet.”
Noah whirled to face me. “Don’t call me bloodthirsty. I’m just trying to protect us! Trying to protect myself! The fastest way to do that is to get rid of the Haivu permanently!”
“Noah, I-”
“Saka, I’ve been in danger ever since those poachers kidnapped me. They kept me in a cage for weeks! Even after you picked me up, it’s still dangerous. We almost got mugged. We got attacked by pirates twice, and then the Haivu came and nearly finished us off! They even fucking blew up the only place I felt somewhat safe at! The Haivu starting this war was the nail in fucking coffin. I was comfortable at Maralu, I was even starting to think of it as home! But then the Haivu had to come and fuck it all up! That’s partially why I decided to enlist. I wanted to fight back and get revenge! The fastest way to end this war is to get rid of the Haivu!”
Noah’s voice was imbued with turmoil and emotion. He started by speaking calmly and ended his rant shouting.
“Noah, I understand how you feel. But this isn’t the way to do this. Look, the GU can’t afford to lose this war. They won’t lose this war. So let’s just wait here until Captain Ceel comes down and tells us what to do. Just calm down, okay?” I pleaded.
“No, you don’t understand.” Noah muttered. He started to briskly walk towards the center of the console, where the launch buttons were. I quickly recognized his intent.
I tackled Noah. I was much heavier than him, he went down easily. Noah yelped as he crashed to the ground, and started squirming under my grip.
I kept him pinned with two of my arms, and used the other two to lift my body into a sitting position. Noah lay face down, and I sat on his back. My front arms kept his arms pinned to the ground.
“I can’t believe you just tried to do that, Noah.” I said, shaking my head. “We’re going to wait here until you calm down and Captain Ceel gets here.”
Noah tried to strain his body and move, but it was futile. He let his head lay on the ground in defeat.
“Fine.”