**[ALERT] incursion iminent. Defenders to your stations **
Strobing red lights ligned the hexagonal tunel as I was dived into my defence pod. I felt as much as heard the impacts on the hull. Fear cleanched in my gut. Why had their been no warining we always had time to prepare in the past. I looked at my wrist and saw my whole squad was also en route I tapped the comlink behind my right ear
Evan: everyone ready
Jamie: oo rah these sons of bitches wont know what hit them
Sai: ready for anything
Pocket: Hey Evan glad you could make it
Grace: yes
Evan: Err Grace you…
Pocket: Ok guys 30 seconds still contact, Im going straight into overload So Grace I need you managing my levels and Sai I’m going to be burining through components so im going to need replacements as fast as you can get them to me
Evan: I guess you need us to do what we do best?
Jamie: Just you wait till you see my new loadout
I could see my pod ahead I rotated my body in the weightless tunel with practiced eased as my back slammed into my seat. I pulled the restraint harnes across me and flipped up the red cover of the activation switch on the right arm of the seat
** Systems Online, welcome back Evan **
The AI spoke with a nurturing feminine tone that wholly belied the absalute insanity that greeted me, as she had stated Pocket had imediatly raised and overloaded her sheilds and thankfully too as the sheer intensity of energy blasts and chemical explosions casting a horrific light symphony across my vison completly stopped me in my tracks
Pocket: Sai I need everything now!
Sai: Overclocking repairs now
Jamie: Woooooo
There was no need to aim the canopy of enemys overhead was suforcating my twin rail cannons firing over and over even in the freezing depths of space the coils of my guns were begining to glow a ominious red I looked over to my right and in the distace I could see the absalute firestorm coming from Jamie it looked as if he were painting ribbons of death over the sky. Thankfully Pollys shield tech allowed obects to pass out and should have stopped anything from coming in but from the look of it that could change at any moment
Pocket: Guys I cant maintain this im sorry. Im transfering the remainder of my power to you now good luck
The main shield covering the sector flickered then failed an avalanche of enemy drones pouring onto pockets heavily armoured pod. With a blinding flash the pod detonated then a solid white beam shot erupted from the fireball directly into the enemy swarm carving a clean whole through their numbers, at the same time a smaller shield snapped arround the remaining 4 of us but now it left the surface of the sphere exposed in our sector
Sai: im sorry most of my level 5 repair drones were in Pollys pod all I have now are basic level 1s that should keep your guns firing but once you start blowing components were done
Jamie: less talking more shootin’ tex yeea haw
The 4 of us kept firing into the slowly thinning mass above us but inevitibly some of the enemy swam made it down to the surface where they imediatly started cutting and drilling thankfully single targets were no match for my systems and were quickly dispataches but the scars on the surface were as if they were carved into my own flesh. We had never failed this badly but never had we faced an enemy so vicious
Evan: Grace give us something
Grace: Ive analysed their patterns its complex but they are in a controlled loop if you concentrte your fire through these vectors you will be able to take out multiple enmeies at a time which should drastically speed up their destruction. Sending it through to you now
My systems chimed as Grace’s calculations were fed into my fire control systems. As my pod moved through the virtual lines displayed on my hud with timed firing solutions it was if the 4 of us left were in a syncroised swimming team
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We began thinning their numbers quickly so much I could begin to make out the back drop of the nebulae all around us but that sense of victory was quickly snuffed out when suddenly one of the simple drones applying thermal bond to one of my cracking barrels just dropped and floated off into space I turned my head to see Sais pod explode without even the time to utter a word
Evan: this isn't how we go keep firing keep calm we can do this!
Jamie: God damn it I'm down to three guns, Grace can you compensate
Grace: calculat arhhhhh
I saw graces shields fail and the enemy swarm clearly sensed a weakness and all targeted her but for what graces pod lacked in armor it sure made up for it in the tangle of antennae and instruments
Jamie: Leave her the fuck alone, Deploying big boy
From the top of Jamies pod a purple haze began to shimmer as a long shining rod began to glow. I could feel the intensity of it in my soul. from 2km away and it fired leaving a purple beam etched onto my retina. The big boy had one function which it executed perfectly. Every engine in its cone instantly detonated which due to some perfect timing between the enemy swarm descending and Jamie firing meant over 80% of the remaining enemy were now nothing more than molten parts strewn around the surface. Jamies guns dropped his pod going dark. His shield flicked slightly but remained active.
With the swarm thinned to this degree and unfortunaly having graces unprotected pod I did what I did best and hunted every last enemy drone till nothing but smoke was left in the view over our sector.
The sound of my heart thundered in my ears as the silence of the pod and the vacume beyond pressed in around me. I could feel the skin over the knuckles of my hands taught as I clenched the controls as I swept the singular barrel of the manned turret I sat within merticulsly through their arc hoping that was the last of them but knowing we wernt that lucky. The alert had only gone out 20 minutes ago for all defenders to dive in but we had already lost Sai and Pocket and we still had 10 minutes left untill we were rotated out.
Jamie: do you think thats it where the hell did they come from?
Evan: I don’t know man the second I connected they were right on top of me. Some kind of stealth tech maybe?
Jamie: did you manage to get a scan and pull any data?
Evan: I didn’t but I think Grace got those new sensors last week
Grace: I did but I only got a partial read my pod got battered, hang on ill link it in com.
Race – unknown
Hull designation – unknown
Ship Class – fighter
Ship size – Small
Armerment – twin plasma accelerators
Armour – Low
Sheilds – High
Weakness – unknown
Evan: It was like the drone swarm from last month but I coudn’t see a carrier this time. Jamie do you have any repair drones for Grace? I dont think her armour will take another hit.
Jamie: no sorry man. I swapped out my drone store for more balistics as Sai said he had us covered with his new drone factory.
Evan: its fine we have 10 minuets left in this sector till were rotated out. Any info on global?
Grace: sectors m120-150 are still engaged. It seems what ever that was like a sunami. It hit us first and then spread over the rest of the sphere. Threat sensors arent picking up any further contacts. I have a bad feeling about this but I cant do anything with the state my equipment is in.
Evan: How long would it take you to get basic sensors back online. Do you have the mass for it?
Grace: ill have to retask my ammunition back to null mass for my repair systems to use but thats going to put me out of action for at least 5 minutes
I peered into the surrounding gas clouds fruitlessly hoping my eyes could suceed where our systems had failed but there was no sign of the battle over our sector now passed.
Evan: Jamie are you ready to cover grace while she repairs. I know it seems quiet but this isnt over
Jamie: I’m going to need a minute im manually pulling blown components
Jamie was our sectors main damage dealer he had equipped his pod with 4 balistic gatling guns and crammed every spare inch of space with amunition. I had opted for a more precise loadout my. Dual rail guns were round for round far more leathal but offset by my abismal rate of fire. My alloted mass was kept in an even split between amulition for my cannons and close quater shredders and energy storage to pack enough punch to drive a 15cm hole through anything. Grace was our systems and signals specialist. The sphere was split into 12 million sectors each sector was defended by 5 pods and acted entirey independantly so it was up to someone with sensors to determine and assess threats as well as interface with the very limited data from the sphere its self. Sai was our teams engineer controlling repair and maintenance drones basically keeping us fighting for longer and lastly Polly also known as pocket she was our sector leader as well as an energy and shield specialist.
I felt the impact of second as if some collosal second hand tick through reality all I could do was scan the billowing clouds above me not daring to take my eyes away should I miss anything.
Grace: ok sensors are starting to come back now I’m still not seeing anything
Evan: grace can you scan for sub space links I know normally it’s pointless but could you humour me
I was far from the leader Polly was and was a role I typically avoided but with her and her bother gone I needed to do something for my own survival of not for the teams
Grace: I can do that. I’ll tie the results into your grid. It’s going to take a little time for my systems to process the data
A faint distortion pulsed from Grace’s pod and then slowly, like motes of dust caught in sunlight interconnecting threads joined our pods together.
Grace: Since sub space comms relies on entangled particles, there’s nothing tangible between the two points. But if you're in the one-dimensional plane between and the sender and receiver are as close as we are a few km you can detect some distortion.
Jamie: thats great and super pretty but whats the point.
Evan: I just had a hunch
Grace: can I assume you thought there remained stealthed ships close enough to see but not attacking?
“Something like that.” I said distractedly as I begged to be wrong I looked at the timer flashing in the corner of my Hud 00:02:12 till the sphere forced our rotation and this nightmare would be over. And then I saw it like motes of blue glitter held in space above our heads
Grace: CONTACT!
The mote turned to a line, to a web, to a dense weave of threads.
Jamies remaining guns erupted into life, tracing lines of destruction across the sky above us, the swarm even denser than before like a angrily writing ball of metal covered everything. In the chaos I spoted a point of blue light so bright to my mind it could only be one thing. The control ship I leveled my cannon straight at it dumped all my remaining power into the capsitors and fired praying it would hit its mark. In the blink of an eye i saw multiple swarm between my self and my target detonate as the projectile passed through them seeking its prey until everything just stopped the swarm above had stopped the roiling formation Jamie and Grace had stopped firing too just for a moment when a much larger detonation ripped through the sky. The thought of winning seemed such a distant idea that i couldnt believe what i was seeing, had it been that easy?
And then the swarm decended on all of us like one of those yawning maws of death you hear about shredded first Graces pod, then Jamies as i saw their names drop out of the comm link and then in a wave of noise and light darkness took me.