Oni brought her ship in to land on the Draeger flagship without much hassle. The fighters that came with her did a good portion of the protecting for her. The rest was pure skill. And she didn’t use one of the openings that Violet had made for her. No, she brought her ship in to land in the Draeger’s main hanger where all the food is running around.
She licked her lips as a dozen pilots and mechanics pulled their pistols and surrounded her fighter. The hanger was a massive part of the ship that took up the entire middle of it, allowing one to see through to the other side of the ship. Giving Oni plenty of space to have fun. She opened the canopy of her fighter and stood for all to see. The pilots and mechanics looked at each other for a second and fired. Their shots impacted Oni with only a few misses, and she fell forward out of the fighter, her trench coat fluttering as she thudded on the ground limply.
The pilots looked at each other, confused and a little disappointed that they didn’t have a proper fight. Oni’s body twitched. The pilots reacted and pointed their guns at the body and waited. Eight tendrils of liquid metal shot out from under her trench coat and impaled the heads of the nearest pilots. The remaining pilots reacted and began firing at the still form of Oni, setting her coat ablaze with their plasma bolts.
Ignoring the bolts, Oni slowly, inhumanly rose from the ground, her body twisting and writhing at odd angles until she stood and tossed away her burning coat, revealing the thick layer of dark metal that covered her body and turned her head into a horned monster. The pilots she impaled began to shrivel up as the metal tendrils ran through their bodies, puncturing them over and over again as they pulled their lives from their bodies and healing Oni as the bolts of plasma impacted her. She shivered and shook her head as she tossed the bodies aside and moved in a blur to the nearest pilot, driving her fist through their chest before appearing behind the next pilot, snapping their neck. The final two pilots turned and ran as fast as possible to the nearest exit.
As Oni watched them run, Violet spoke over comms, “All ships! Re-group and defend the main fleet! We need to buy enough time for everyone to capture the flagships and win the battle! Adjani, Oni, Sparky, you’ve got ten minutes to capture them. Don’t fail.”
Oni shrugged as an alarm began to scream through the hanger, “INTRUDER IN THE MAIN HANGER! INTRUDER IN THE MAIN HANGER!” A man yelled over the ship’s intercom.
Cracking her neck and knuckles, Oni moved as the remaining pilots and engineers in the hangar drew their weapons and began firing at her. She dodged and closed the distance between her and the closest pilot. Bringing her fists up in a defensive position, she drove her right fist in an uppercut, her knuckles creating four small holes into the woman’s gut as spikes formed on her knuckles. As the woman felt the air get knocked out of her, Oni followed the hit-up with a left cross that shattered the woman’s skull and killed her.
Dodging another small flurry of bolts, Oni charged at the next closest man and punched the fist that held his gun, breaking his fingers. As the man screamed in pain, she grabbed him by his ears and brought his head down on her knee, breaking his nose and caving in his face. Quickly moving on to the next pilot, she dug her fingers into their chest and crushed the woman’s rib cage as she drained the life from her.
As Oni fed, the bolts of plasma burned her as the other crew never stopped firing. The dozens of bolts they fired constantly impacted her body as she fed, hardly doing anything but annoy and burn her. Oni shivered and screamed as she clutched at her head, her body seeming to be out of her control for a moment before changing again. Her hands and arms grew bigger as her shoulders broadened, her fists widened to three times their normal size, and her horns grew and branched out into a dozen sharp points, and the blue highlights on her turned several shades of red.
The crew in the hangar hesitated for a moment before continuing to lay on the fire. Oni scratched a sickening, ear-wrenching noise that sounded like a baby in a blender and charged head-first toward the nearest Draeger hanger crew. Her horns impaled the man as she shook her head, her horns ripping the man in half before she grabbed at the next nearest crew. The engineer, Oni grabbed, screamed as she tried to pull her arm free from Oni’s grasp. Oni pulled back and threw the engineer across the hanger, and she bounced off a fighter down the hanger before splattering against another one.
“Retreat! Retreat!” one of the Draeger crew yelled, and the rest of the pilots and engineers turned and ran for the doors.
Oni roared one last time before shrinking to her usual size and looking around the hanger. No one was there. Every engineer and pilot had indeed left the hanger. Cracking her neck, she jogged toward the nearest door. She made it three steps before a railgun boomed, and Oni was sent crashing into her fighter, causing a secondary explosion as the railgun’s bolt ignited the fuel.
As the fire burned, Oni pulled herself up from the scraps of her ship and limped out of the flames. Her jaw hung open and cracked, her right leg bent the wrong way, and her right forearm was missing entirely. The nanites of her body began to shift and move like a liquid wave over her body. Her jaw snapped back into place, her right leg cracked and realigned itself, and the nanites reformed her right forearm.
Her eyes locked onto the one who shot her, and a primal mechanical growl escaped her throat. A ten-foot-tall mech with boxy dimensions stood at the far end of the hanger. Its arms were as long as its body, with short legs and two red glowing cylinders on its back that connected to the Gauss cannon in its hands. Where the mech’s head should be sat the cockpit with a blond woman wearing a brown coat and pants lying down and glaring at Oni as she moved the joysticks to aim the Gauss cannon in the mech’s hands at the intruder.
“Who are you?!” the mech pilot yelled, “What are you?!”
Oni cocked her head inhumanly and screeched in a robotic mechanical voice, “I am the O.N.I. Omnipitant Nanite Interface. You have damaged this unit beyond repair. You will pay with your body.”
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The woman in the mech continued to glare as she said, “I am Captain Filip of the Draeger fleet. And you will leave MY ship in pieces!” Captain Filip fired her Gauss cannon again.
Oni bent her body at an odd angle, and the mach speed bolt flew past her, impacting the far wall of the hanger. Her nanites extended from her feet to the scraps of her ship, consuming the metal, and her body began to reform and grow. Her shoulders broadened again, this time growing even wider than before. Her fists grew ten times their size as plates of metal shifted and formed spiked knuckles. Her legs grew longer and broader as the nanites formed artificial muscles around them and the rest of her body until she stood almost as tall as the mech she faced.
Captain Filip snarled and fired again. Oni raised her hand and caught the bolt. The metal spike glowed with excess heat and energy as the nanites that made up Oni’s body consumed it. A shiver ran through her body as she finished, and she glared at the captain for a second before charging. She quickly began to close the distance as Captain Filip fired her cannon again and again, each shot weaker than the last as the cannon didn’t have enough time to recharge between the shots. Oni tanked each one, only covering her face from one shot going for her head.
Stopping her incessant firing, Captain Filip charged the cannon for one final massive shot. As Oni came close enough for the Captain to see the burning red glow of her eyes, she fired. The bolt tore through Oni’s chest, creating a two-foot glowing hole in the monster. Oni didn’t stop, completely unfazed, as she grabbed the cannon and crushed it before consuming the weapon and bringing her left fist up in an uppercut, striking the mech’s armored chest.
With a curse, Captain Filip released the cannon and brought the mech’s arms up to block the follow-up blow from Oni. The left arm of the mech cracked and bent as Oni punched it and quickly followed up with more blows. The Captain stumbled backward and creaked and groaned with every hit. Oni refused to let up her barrage of punches as she slowly dismantled the mech piece by piece.
The left arm of the mech gave first as the servos in its joints cracked and broke, causing the arm to fall to the ground with a crash. Oni had to step back to avoid the arm falling on her legs, and Captain Filip took advantage of the opening. Drawing back her one good arm, she jabbed forward, aiming for Oni’s head.
Oni didn’t dodge. She instead grabbed the wrist of the mech, pulled, and brought her right fist up to sever the arm at the elbow. Captain Filip stumbled as Oni pulled and fell forward, collapsing on the ground. Oni dug her fingers into the edges of the cockpit and ripped it open. Captain Filip pulled a sidearm from a hidden compartment and began firing at the towering Oni. The bolts sparked harmlessly on her body as she reached out and grabbed the Captain. Her hands entirely enveloping her body.
Captain Filip struggled to get free from Oni’s grasp to no avail, as she yelled, “Stop! Enough! Release me!”
“Negative,” Oni answered simply, “You have severely damaged this unit. You will pay for the damages.”
Captain Filip’s eyes widened as she asked, “What are you going to do to me?”
“You will be the new unit,” Oni said simply as her body began to melt and flow toward the Captain. Captain Filip struggled and wriggled as the nanites flowed up her body. She screamed in terror as the nanites forced her mouth open and slid down her throat, covering her from head to toe and penetrating her entire body. The nanites soon fully entered her as she fell to the ground, convulsing and twitching involuntarily. After a minute, she stopped moving and lay still for another minute.
She then sat up and cracked her neck as she looked at her former body. It lay on the ground in a bloody mess. Her right arm missing, her legs were broken in several places with bones protruding from her skin, and her left side and arm were gone entirely, leaving only a gaping hole in her middle. She bent down and closed the eyes on the body, placing a gentle kiss on her forehead, “I’m sorry, Sarah. I couldn’t save you,” Oni said, using Captain Filip’s voice, “You will not be forgotten.”
She then took stock of the Captain’s belongings and found a communicator in her pocket. Pulling it out, she activated it and sent out a signal to all ships to retreat and cease attacking. She also took the communicator from the corpse, her former body, and placed it in her ear, saying, “Violet, this is Oni. I have taken command of the Draeger fleet.” Violet did not reply, which was fine as Oni bowed her head and mourned the death of her friend.
***
I commanded my fleet as I fired at the battleship with my main cannons, heavily damaging the shields as it fired its numerous particle cannons at me, dealing almost as much damage to my shields as I did to it. Maybe ten minutes was too generous a time constraint for them. All well. I just have to hold out for ten minutes, and we win. I checked my shields, reading 40%, and I sent more power to my shields to charge them, setting my power distribution to 20%, 10%, and 70%. My shields began charging rapidly as I fired what I could at the battleship with my main cannons, disabling its shields and crippiling it completely as two of my shots hit its engines, leaving it vulnerable.
“I need some help over here!” someone called over the comms, and my display highlighted the source of the call.
To my left and up, a swarm of small fighters surrounded one of my frigates that got too deep into the maelstrom of ships. My ship’s weapons weren’t at full capacity and only my starboard cannons had enough charge to reach the target. I pulled back with my right hand and lifted my left hand up and forward as I twisted my wrists left. My ship began an upward barrel roll as I commanded, “Put all power into engines and move!”
The frigate didn’t question my command as it sped forward, and my cannons lined up with the frigate’s location. I fired, the beams just barely missing the frigate’s shields and causing a small cluster of explosions, a clear indicator that I hit a squadron of fighters. “Thank you, commander!” the frigate sent as it regrouped with the rest of the fleet.
“Stay out of trouble till your shields recover,” I commanded again as I noted my shields were at full power, and I redistributed my power to its original settings. My weapons quickly began to recharge, and I brought the front of my ship around to aim its main cannons at another cluster of frigates when I got another call.
“Reaper,” a man whose voice I didn’t recognize said over comms, “This is Draftnik, commander of the Eclipse fleet. We surrender to you.”
I smiled as I stopped my turn toward the Eclipse frigates when I received another call, “Violet, this is Oni. I have taken command of the Draeger fleet.”
My smile widened as I sent a communications request to Fulger. The call was answered quickly, and a woman’s voice came over the comms, sounding all too confident, “What do you want? To surrender?”
“Captain Fulger,” I began, and I could feel the confidence leave the woman through the comms, “I’m sure you know who I am, even if we haven’t met. I’ve just taken over the Eclipse fleet and the Draeger fleet. Surrender now and join me or die?”
Captain Fulger hesitated for a few moments before saying, “All ships stand down. We surrender.”
“Excellent! We’ll be in touch,” I said as I ended the call and sent a request out to Sparky to get her status. No response. I tried again. Still no response. I cursed under my breath and set a course for the Treasure Hunter battle.