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Traversing the rooftops was easier than Jace had expected. Priam was strapped to his back between his pack and him, and Greg – despite his larger frame – was able to keep up with Jace’s athletics.
Not his speed, though. Traversing the rooftops was taking longer than Jace wanted, but within forty minutes they had reached the edges of the Pheracorp headquarters plaza. The building was composed of three, enormous spires that arched gracefully upwards before joining and then spiraling to even greater heights until it dwarfed the entire cityscape.
Greg was catching his breath as the trio was ducked behind some air conditioning units atop a building. Quinn’s voice came through Jace’s earpiece. Full of confidence and an entire demeanor switch. No longer terse and short-of-temper, it was filled with enthusiasm and a ‘get it done’ perspective.
“Alright boys, time to get to work. There are 500 feet of open ground between your location and the first of the three towers. The whole entire Pheracorp HQ plaza is a half-mile across. Based on the satellite pictures I acquired, there are heavy fortifications at each of the tower entrances. Going in on the ground floor in a frontal assault is going to be risky. Jace, you mentioned another entry route?”
“Yes,” Jace said as Ollie shifted into his silver-outline form and floated next to him – providing a visual feed for Quinn back at her station. “I am going to launch the three of us up, then grapple further up the side of the building. We’ll enter from the top helicopter pad Greg and Priam told me they jumped from.”
“Sounds good. Remember, once you get up there, have Ollie touch one of the terminals, and that will get me a foot in a door. Then, thirty seconds to a minute, and I can have the full layout of the facility.”
Priam tugged Jace’s arm, “And the objective! Godheart, or server first?”
Quinn giggled – which caught all three off-guard. “Both, in all likelihood. If they are converting this Godheart into an AI then it would need to be interfacing with the central server-stack itself. Just get me access to their network, and I can do the rest.”
Jace nodded and gestured for Greg to grab onto his backpack, as Priam clambered between Jace and his backpack once more. “Right. Here we go. Dark Energy Mine (Rank 1). Detonate.” Gravity ceased to have a hold on the trio, and Jace curled his legs under him before launching up. Dark Matter Cloak (Rank 3) [Group]. The trio vanished as they ascended.
With five seconds left, Jace grappled onto the building and pulled himself as high as he could, before activating another Dark Energy Mine to let their momentum continue to carry them up. When they were just below the helicopter pad, he grappled to that, and pulled the trio to the top of it, dropping the Mine’s effect as gravity took hold once more.
Greg got off and cracked his neck before his armored helmet rose up from the neckline and covered him fully. The brown symbol of his Protector’s Vow appeared above Priam’s head, and Greg’s body was coated in stone and earth. Going into his duffel bag, the large man pulled out the two rifles, quickly put them together, and then placed the magazines, grenades, and pistols on the few bandoliers around his body.
Priam activated Pulsar Ward on the trio, as well as his [Contingent] Pulsar Physic, with the trigger of ‘lethal injury’. Greg handed him one of the pistols and a few magazines, and the bunny-boy racked the slide before nodding to Jace, “He’s been showing me a bit of how to use it.”
Jace drew Nethaldrim from its extradimensional sheath, and ignited it with Dark Matter Blade (Rank 5) [Rending]. He also activated Dark Matter Shield (Rank 2), so that he could point it at enemies and let the bulwark take the hits before impacting Priam’s barrier that hugged his body much closer. “We ready?” he asked the duo.
Greg and Priam both nodded, and the trio headed towards the set of sealed, locked security doors. Easily a few inches thick – Jace slid his blade into the center seam, the extreme-cutting edge able to slice through with ease. Pulling it up and down, he felt the shlick noise of the weapon cutting through the locks. Dropping the sword, he used his prosthetic hands and heaved.
The doors slid open with a loud grinding noise. Jace willed his blade to warp back to his hand, and entered the facility with his allies right behind them. They were in a conference room, and Greg pointed to the far wall. “Hidden elevator. Which means there’s probably a hidden access door for the staircase.”
Ollie floated over to the wall and tapped his paw to a panel. “Does that work, Quinn?”
“It does,” her voice came in clearly over the earpieces. “I’ve got access. Give me thirty seconds. If you think you can find that door-”
“Found it!” Priam said as he went to the wall a few feet from the hidden elevator entrance. “I spotted a few squares in the pattern that were slightly off.” Jace came over and helped him search the wall, and Priam let out a pleased, “Yes!” as he found some hidden button. The wall slid open, and beyond was a small landing, with stairs going up and down.
Jace stepped into the doorway, “Good job,” and held the shield in front of him. “Quinn? Progress?”
“I’m working on it,” she said, her exasperated tone bleeding into her words.
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Victoria saw the notification on her sliverscreen. Immediately pulling up the comms, she gave the updated orders. “Looks like they went in through the upper floors. All ground forces – split to your secondary locations.”
She heard the series of various ‘affirmatives’ across the communication network, and she smiled softly as she turned to the squadron she had hand-selected. The best of the best of Pheracorp’s security forces. All of them, fully biotech’ed up just like she was. All with the best equipment that they had available – armed and armored up.
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Now…to wait and see where they are headed, based on the doors they force open. Then we can react better. She knew that the mechs would be of limited use indoors, save for a few specific ‘chokepoints’ around the building. The tanks stay put on the ground level, but the helos were up and holding steady with gunner crews, set up near every single balcony and upper-floor entrance or exit.
“Commander,” a voice came through the comms. “We have eyes on the broken door at the top-most helipad. Permission to engage?”
“Granted. Remember, fog grenades to find them, and then unload on the voided areas.”
“Roger.”
She grinned, knowing that a full complement of mechs was on its way to that helipad. Enjoy the attack from behind.
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Greg looked back as the whump whump of the helo outside caught his attention. “We’ve got company!” he shouted as he went to the doors and took up a position along one side. “Quinn? You got the layout yet?”
“Yes! Godheart and server room are both in the center of the building, right where the three buildings intersect. I’m uploaded to your Wayfinder’s maps.”
Darrin, Greg’s spider Wayfinder, crawled out from the neckline of his armor and projected the small map under Greg’s eyes. Glancing down, he saw that the route Quinn had mapped out took them through tight corridors to prevent Pheracorp mechs from getting in the way – but there was a huge plaza they would have to go through. That’s going to be hell, he thought.
But the sound of heavily armored figures thunking into the helipad brought his attention to the present. Kneeling, he placed his palm on the floor. I really hope this is as much concrete as it is metal. Planetary Palisade (Rank 10). He felt winded and began sucking in air as the pulse of brown energy surged into the floor. Less than a second later, as the mechs began to form up and move towards the doors, a 10-inch thick, slab of concrete shot up into the space – blocking it off from the outside.
And, he had 50 square feet to work with – so he layered the concrete walls one on top of the other. It would take a good chunk of time to drill through, and he doubted they had a drill. Even just punching the slabs with the mechs would take a few hours. “I bought us time,” he shouted as he ran over to join Jace and Priam at the stairs.
Jace nodded and glanced down the stairwell. Greg could hear the thump of booted feet echoing up towards them. “I think we go down the quick way. Remember, thirty seconds of zero-gravity. Dark Energy Mine (Rank 1). Detonate.”
Greg felt himself float up just slightly, and saw as Priam grabbed onto Jace’s pack as the Dark Matter Aspirant threw himself down the center of the stairwell. Greg followed, and saw the lines of guards ascending past the trio as they silently descended.
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Victoria was watching the feed from the mechs and ground her teeth in silent rage. He’s not alone, she thought. He’s got those other Aspirants with him.
She knew from the reports that one of them had Planet powers – he was the most likely culprit for the concrete barriers. Another had Pulsar powers, and could disable electrical devices. Thankfully, her mechs had been shielded since she learned about this threat – but they showed the ability to manipulate metal via magnetism, and so she knew that mechs would be of limited use.
Manpower is what it’s going to come down to.
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Jace reached the floor Quinn had set on their maps, and that Ollie projected right under his face for quick reference. The doorway was locked, and Jace sliced at the seams along both sides before kicking it in and bracing his shield.
A hail of bullets coughed from rifles, pistols, and shotguns – the rounds pinging off of his Dark Matter Shield (Rank 2) as he slowly walked forward, the Mine’s effect fading as his feet found purchase once more. “Greg?”
“On it!” Greg’s rifle barrel appeared right above Jace’s shoulder, and barked back. The loud crack made Jace wince, and he felt the vibration through his shoulder and into his chest as the cries of pain and shouts came from in front of the trio. Jace could also hear the ping of Greg’s bullets ricocheting and being deflected by body armor. The slight chipping at Priam’s barriers showed that the trio were being impacted by their fair share of bullets.
“We’re coming up on two minutes,” Ollie whispered to Jace. “Maybe drop the Cloak soon here.”
Jace nodded, “Greg? Priam? Ready to get this started for real?”
“Hell yeah!” Greg shouted with glee. “It’ll be a right proper fight!” the slight accent he had kept suppressed for every instance of Jace’s interaction with him came through his words.
Priam tapped Jace’s mid-back. “Ready when you are!”
“Three, two…one!” Jace let the Cloak fade and he sprinted forward.
“There! Focus Fire!” the leader of the group of Pheracorp soldiers in front of him pointed, and Jace saw the bullets slamming into his shield – and not causing any damage at all.
My turn. Dark Matter Dart (Rank 4). The black and purple spikes of energy shot out from the space around his shoulders, and slammed into the armored figures – boring holes through their defenses and dropping them instantly. He kept running forward and made it to the toppling bodies that Ollie instantly dusted to give clear footing.
Bringing his blade across his front, he did find a slight struggle with the length compared to the size of the hallway. Pulling the hilt in to his chest, he swapped to a different style – instead of sweeping slashes and cuts, he bladed his stance and focused on thrusting attacks. The blade would strike out like a serpent’s bite, and each time he pulled it back, the crimson and violet nebula would drip blood from the people he struck down.
Greg kept firing expertly aimed shots all around Jace, threading them just above his shoulders, next to his body, and even a few times ricocheting off of walls to hit people in the hallway from an odd angle.
The trio pressed forward through the rapidly-dusted bodies, and by the time Jace reached the larger, main-access hallway, he was sucking in breaths from the constantly, near-minute of fighting.
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[Stardust Acquired: 2,350]
[Stardust Split: 588]
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“I am splitting off Greg, Priam, and Quinn’s portions as we go,” Ollie whispered in Jace’s ear. “Down this hall, take a left.”
Jace kept running forward – not too fast, as he wanted to make sure that Priam and Greg could keep up. He stopped for a moment, however, as Greg knelt, a surge of brown emanated from his hands, and the entire hallway behind them was sealed over with layers of concrete. He jogged over to Jace and Priam, breathing heavily as he reloaded his rifle. “That’ll keep them from coming at us from behind.”
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Victoria clicked her tongue in disappointment, “They dropped their stealth,” she muttered. The camera feeds that were streaming in to her bionic eyes were tough to keep viewing – she was watching her men get dispatched with surprising ease, despite their heavy equipment and armament.
But she knew where they were going. Heading to the atrium. So, you are coming for the server core. She grinned, knowing that she had the perfect means to defeat them.
The server core was at the center of a ‘ring’ that was split into the three tower segments. Each segment of that ‘ring’ was a large, vaulted atrium where she had marshalled the majority of the outdoors forces. That meant, no matter which direction the three attackers came from, she could collapse in her forces and bring to bear a huge number of soldiers and mechs. Plus, she could reinforce the server core’s passageway with her elite units.
This is going about as well as I could have hoped for.