Frank Briggs

They were close. It had taken weeks if constant battle, but they were now within sight of victory. The hanger bay the rift had opened into was huge, so huge in fact that Frank couldn’t see it all from where he was. Shipwright was an amazing builder; Frank was awed every time he saw another of his inventions.

Frank sat in the pilot seat of a small gunship. The unit looked much like a larger version of the personal combat drones. It reminded him of a motorcycle sized helicopter from home mixed with a dragonfly, not that he thought about home much these days. He was having way too much fun here.

His three dire rats Hickory, Dickory and dock were seated around him. The gunship was two small to seat more than one person, and the three rats barely fit in with him. Thankfully, he had been steadily losing weight since arriving here or they wouldn’t have fit at all. He hadn’t reached Bishop’s impressive physique, not even close, but he was heading that way...

Speaking of Bishop, Frank rotated the gunship around until the man came into view. The massive black man looked like a real, live gladiator from his games. He was huge, muscles bulging with every movement he made. His saber and shield flashed around him in a blur of motion as he battled the hoard of invaders.

He almost looked small from this distance, especially when compared to his two soul bound ogre companions. The pair were eight feet of round bodied muscle, dressed like gladiators like their master. Frank couldn’t help watching, as they went to work with their huge axes. The devil dog pack they were facing was quickly chopped down.

A loud crack rent the air; and the stone golem that had been approaching the trio on clumsy wings, exploded with a massive shower of black stone chips. That would be Blake, shooting her essence enhanced sniper’s rifle from hiding. The woman was a crack shot; but she couldn’t shoot very fast, due to the reload and recharge rate on her rifle.

Frank shook his head, looking away from his new allies’ actions. He was very happy to work with them, but they weren’t his responsibility in this battle. Switching the gunship over to its auto-pilot function, Frank concentrated on his drones. He owned hundreds of them now, having taken the scraps from the trials and rebuilt them himself.

Shipwright hadn’t given him any, but he didn’t mind when Frank reused the wasted units. He hadn’t been able to bond with any of the drones, that puzzled him because Erlking had given him the dire rats as a gift. When he asked Shipwright about it, he had told him that these drones hadn’t been pattern constructed. He had a factory that produced them on an assembly line.

Now that was really cool, Frank wanted to see that one day. Now wasn’t the time to worry about that however, he had the flyers to deal with. When Blake, Bishop and he first saw the creatures, Blake had called them little devils. The name had stuck, and that’s what they called them now.

He accessed his swarm of personal combat drones, through his newly upgraded neural interface. It was a really neat design, overlaying his units and the enemy on his goggle’s lenses. He could move the drones with his mind, or the wavelengths in his thoughts or something. He didn’t understand how it worked exactly, but it was awesome.

Nearly one hundred personal combat drones entered the hanger bay from the corridor that the three had just arrived through. Swarming out to surround the gunship he had claimed, upon entering a few minutes ago. Switching the gunship over from auto-pilot to drone control he accessed it with his neural link as well. Now it would react to his mental commands, just as if it were any of the other drones.

Changing the formation of his units into a wedge; with the gunship at its tip, Frank moved his flying force into the swarming little devils. There were hundreds of thousands of them in here, blotting out the overhead lighting with their sheer numbers. He needed to thin their numbers, at least around Bishop so the big man could reach the rift and shut it down.

Moving down to hover over their heads, Frank fired the gunships weapons in tandem to the personal combat drones. After a while, he had to stop and reroute the weapons energy to the shields instead. The gunship had better shields than the dragonfly shaped drones, and he was using them to cover his smaller units.

They moved forward; clearing the way for Bishop and his ogres, Rough and Tumble. Frank had thought the names were silly when he first met Bishop. The big black man had kindly pointed out that he had named his rats after a nursery rhyme, and so he probably shouldn’t throw stones. Frank gulped involuntarily at the memory, bishop was almost as big as the ogres and very scarry looking.

Of course, after getting to know the man over the last few weeks, Frank knew him better. He was soft spoken and jovial, except when he was fighting. He was a little crazy on the battlefield, part of the reason why Blake and Frank hadn’t joined him on the ground. It was safer for all involved to provide ranged support.

Another blast shook the air, followed by another exploding rock golem. He wished that Blake could fire faster, but he knew her rapid shots weren’t any more powerful than what he could produce from his drone swarms. No, she was better off targeting the big threats, and leaving the little devils to Frank and his drones.

He cast his mind over his other available units. They were still back in the corridor leading into the hanger bay, he hadn’t wanted to split his focus too much during this battle. He had nine juggernauts out there along with a double handful of repair drones. He was planning to keep this gunship if he could swing it too, it was awesome. He hadn’t even gotten hurt yet, he hated getting hurt.

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Perhaps he could remove a few of the gun instalments and replace them with additional shield generators to… a little devil crashing into the gunship brought his mind back to the moment. His personal combat drones had been reduced in number by nearly half. They weren’t as important to him as the juggernauts, but if he lost them now, they wouldn’t reach the rift.

“Blake,” he said over the ear insert. They had a shared channel and individual channels; he was using her individual channel to avoid distracting Bishop. “Can you see the rift? I’m running out of drones, if we aren’t close, I’m going to have to improvise.”

A long moment passed, where he continued to shoot little devils. He wasn’t getting any essence from the kills though, only the ambient essence from the surrounding air. The drones weren’t bonded to him, and he hadn’t wanted to risk his rats out there. Bishop was likely rolling in it by now though, even Blake was killing more devils personally then he was.

“Hard to say kid,” she replied through the line, using their nickname for frank. “I think your almost there though, just stick it out a little longer. If you don’t hit it in the next three minutes, pull out the big guns.” She finished, referring to the juggernauts.

“Copy that, thanks Blake.” He said back, he didn’t want to lose any of his juggernauts, they were really hard to replace. He didn’t want to fail the mission either however, he decided she was right. He would wait a few more minutes and then call them in if they didn’t reach the rift.

They reached it with twenty personal combat drones to spare. The rift looked like a rip in the world, it was crazy to look at and warped his mind a little just by being there. He thought that they were going to make this happen after all, when the flow of little devils cut off from the rift. What was going on, why did they stop coming through right as they got here?

Bishop had reached the rift at this point, and was already trying to close it with his essence. Frank hadn’t learned how to do that yet, but he figured they would teach him when it was his turn. Suddenly, three rock golems came flying out of the rift in a v formation. They made a bee line for Bishop, who wasn’t able to protect himself while sealing the rift.

The creature that exited the rift next was a new variety. Frank hadn’t seen this one before, he was a large thickly muscled man. He had red skin and black armor that looked like a cross between stone and glass, Frank thought it was called obsidian but he couldn’t remember for sure. The devil entered through the rift and looking around found Bishop, attempting to close the portal.

He raised a small black rod in his left hand that was wrapped with glowing lines, aiming it at the gladiator. Before he could fire however, his chest exploded. Blake had hit him center mass with an essence enhanced bullet. Frank was about to congratulate her, when the dust cloud cleared. The devil was still alive, wings beating fiercely to keep him aloft. The hole in his chest rapidly healing before their eyes.

“Frank,” the voice on the line belonged to Bishop, “This must be a General of some kind. We need to take him out. I can’t move while I’m closing the rift, and Blake has to recharge her gun now. It’s up to you kid.” He shouted, while still funneling his essence into the tear in the universe.

Frank gulped again; this was a lot of pressure to put on a guy. He needed to think about this, but there wasn’t time for that. The General was already lining up another shot. Throwing caution to the winds he reached back to his nine waiting juggernauts, and called them forward. Then, set his gunship on a crash course with the General.

He didn’t know if he could do this, but he had to try. Pushing his essence into the gunship, he recharged the power cell as best he could. Firing up the guns again, he sent the small metal rounds hurtling into the devil with the broken armor. He manipulated the fifteen or so personal combat drones he still had into a shield to protect the gunship.

Their shields were smaller and weaker, but they would hopefully give him the time he needed to at least delay this guy while Bishop closed the portal. The little devils had begun pouring out of the rip in space again after the General had arrived, he hoped that meant there weren’t any more big guys on the way.

The gunship’s weapons weren’t having as great an effect as he would have liked to see, but he had got the devils attention. It flapped its massive wings and headed for Frank, leaving Bishop to his work. Frank heard another boom, and one of the three stone golems exploded below. That was good, rough and tumble should be able to handle the other two. He hoped anyway.

The dogfight that followed was a crazy, adrenaline filled ride. The General had shot off a blast from his rod at Frank once, it had missed, but five of his personal combat drones had vanished in a wave of disintegration. That was close, he didn’t know if he could come back if he was hit with that, best to avoid it if possible.

Checking his display, he found that his juggernauts had reached Bishop’s position. He had to take a split second to order them into battle with the remaining stone golems, because it looked like either Rough or Tumble had been ripped apart. He couldn’t tell what one from here, but bishop was making progress. The rift was shrinking.

The devil General tried to return to the rift several times, when that failed, he tried shooting bolts of disintegration at Bishop. Frank managed to stop him each time by intercepting his blasts with one of his personal combat drones. He couldn’t keep this up however, he was nearly out of the flying drones. Another boom echoed throughout the hanger, the shot smashed into the General’s chest again, this time there wasn’t any armor to protect him.

He went down hard, but even now Frank could see him healing. Without waiting to see if he would recover, Frank sent the remainder of his personal combat drones down in a kamikaze run at his prone form. They crashed into him, one after the next until there weren’t any of them left. yet the devil was still healing; the creature had its limbs separated and its intestines were spilling out, but it was healing.

Frank didn’t know what to do now, he didn’t want to dive into it himself. That would really hurt, and besides it might not work. He checked on his juggernauts, they were too far away to be helpful, engaged as they were with the rock golems attacking Bishop. He was really starting to panic.

At that moment, Bishop finally closed the rift. Without the chaotic essence to power it, the General stopped healing so quickly. Frank was able to shoot it to death after that, using the gunship’s small onboard machine guns. The little devils hadn’t died when the portal closed; but now that they weren’t being reenforced anymore, killing them wasn’t out of the question.

Frank sighed in relief; they had closed the rift. The job wasn’t finished yet, hundreds of thousands of the little devils, perhaps upwards of a million, were still in the ship. They were going to have to hunt them all down, or risk them opening another rift. He still smiled to himself in triumph. Not bad for a fat kid; who’d let his cousin push him to his death, over a silly game just a year ago.