The turbines on the gunship screamed as the vessel hurtled through the sky, weaving between buildings, traffic seemed to be stopping if it intercepted their route. Silsbury was about to radio her thanks to the Superintendent back at headquarters when the transmission came through.
'Roger Sir,' she replied, 'What exactly did you have in mind?'
A soft thud from outside the door interrupted Lucy's voice, softly as he could switched off his communicator. Leaned over and dimmed the lights to almost pitch black with only the soft blue lights of the console flashing. Breathing heavily, he was suddenly remembering why he hadn't joined the BAF and had chosen the BPA instead and why he had never transferred into the SRD. Stealing himself against his inner demons he prepared for what was to come.
Superintendent Benford Calvert (OBE)
Captain James Calvert of the Darrowby
Captain Libertas of the Hearts.Delight
Harry stopped short in front of the door, sliding his blade from the body of the constable who had been standing guard in front of it. The body fell to the ground with a thud, and Harry winced as he predicted resistance from inside the room. He pressed his ear against the door, listening intently, but could hear nothing.
With a flick of his wrist, he pressed the door open button, and then almost lost his head as a rifle bolt sizzled past him, burying itself in the wall behind him. His eyes flicked across the room briefly, and then he threw himself into the room, rolling behind a desk as a second shot narrowly missed his thigh.
'So the BPA have one good shot' he thought to himself. He had used to be a BAF officer, he knew the BPA's tactics, and this person seemed to have thrown them all out the window. Someone was determined to see him burn.
A third shot, and the desk he was hiding behind sizzled as the metal was melted. These guys had some serious rifles.
Harry waited until he heard silence, and then launched himself to the next desk over, his sword singing as it whistled through the air. The rifle shot again, but this time Harry did not hide. He threw himself into the air, pressing a firm foot against the wall and using it to propel himself into the center of the room, changing direction so fast the mysterious rifleman couldn't keep him in his sights.
A split second later Harry was in front of the man, and with a roar the sword sliced upwards, cutting the barrel of the rifle in half. The man, some sort of officer, took a step back, and without hesitating flipped a pistol from its thigh holster, but before he could raise it, Harry's sword was underneath his chin. He let the gun clatter to the floor with a sigh.
Harry smiled and looked down at his body. There, along his torso, was a bloodied mark where the rifle shot had grazed him.
"You are the first man who has been able to hurt me, or anyone trained by the great Siona Kithe" he said. "It would be a terrible waste to kill such talent. No, until we meet again."
The blade slid, somehow collapsing, into the handle, and with a swish the officer was knocked unconscious. Harry smiled grimly, and then slid a memory chip into the main computer core. Two brief commands later, and all the information he needed was transferred.
He looked around the room a final time, then headed towards the landing pads.
"This is Harry" he spoke into a transmitter. "Get your men back to the ships, I have the info we need."
'Calvert?'
*static*
'Calvert!'
*silence*
'Damn it!' Silsbury said as she turned back to Sykes, 'His communicator's been turned off.'
The gunship approached the large, neo-gothic styled building that served as the headquarters of the Bretonia Police Authority. Three freighters sat on the landing pad, the few automatic turrets that guarded the area had been turned into smouldering twisted shapes.
The ship descended and began to hover over the steel plated pad. The two officers jumped out and rushed to the cover of the cargo mech storage stand. Inspector Rogers, under instructions, took the gunship behind the Hussar Hangar.
'Got any grenades left?' Sykes queried as they looked out at the line of vessels floating above the landing pad.
'Four, but we're two ground units against three shiploads of trained soldiers, blowing up their ships while they're still inside might not be the best thing to do, then we've lost all element of surprise.' Silsbury countered.
'Well you can't scratch 'em once the doors are closed with a standard frag, what are you planning to do?'
Lucy looked up at the large mechanized suits designed for unloading cargo that they were sheltering behind.
She smiled her rare smile.
~
Inside The Hub the remaining Officers had given up on halting the advance of the commando's, they barricaded the door to the armoury and now, with actual weaponry, were putting up a proper fight with no more casualties on their side and (due to the lack of cover) several confirmed kills on the assailants.
But the Commando's had no interest in ascending higher into the building, not unless their leader called for help.
No request came as expected and after a parting volley they met up with Harry and began to descend in the tubes to the landing pad departure floor.
The party commandeered one of the transit shuttles and travelled the distance to the pad.
They disembarked and boarded the ships.
Harry's ship lifted off the pad and the other two made to follow suit but were stopped almost immediately by two cargo mechs which dropped from the upper bridge layer running just above the landing pad.
The six tonne machines plummeted and smashed into the departing vessels with an incomparable noise of screaming steel and shattered hull plates. The pilot of the vessel Silsbury had chosen to engage was not killed immediately and attempted with what functionality he had left to try and push the vaguely humanoid mech off the landing pad. With her intuitive knowledge of machines Lucy made her machine hunker down and engage its tracks (for use with incredibly heavy loads), the ship stopped making any headway into the cloud of smoke the gripped rubber treads were producing.
Sykes' machine lumbered around the other crippled vessel, preparing to buckle the airlock doors to prevent the commando's escaping. He had landed in the perfect spot to completely crush the most fragile part of the hull, the bridge area.
Silsbury's mech was losing the battle and was steadily being pushed towards the nearby edge as the ships engines reached full power and the thruster was engaged. She scanned the controls for anything of use and possible manoeuvres flashed through her mind. It was then she recalled something mentioned by a Constable who was deeply involved with martial arts. It's much easier to let the enemy exert all the effort while you simply direct him.
She engaged the forklift prongs on the body of the machine, rearranged the positioning of the bulky arms holding the freighter back and used them both at once as fast as possible to flip the vessel up and over the top of the mech. The pilot, who had been so focused on going forwards, didn't register that in the initial shock and contact with the landing pad, the repulsor engine on the front had been destroyed and only the mech had been holding it off the ground.
The freighter full of commandos powered straight over the edge of the BPA landing platform and embedded itself in the ground.
The two mechs raised their hydraulic hoods to the sky at the remaining ship which was prepping weapons; there was nothing they could do to get out of the way. They would end up in a similar manner to the security missile turrets still smoking nearby.
Inspector Rogers in the unarmed, outstripped, outclassed, ex-hunting gunship saved them. In so doing he lost his life. The turbines screamed as the vessel sped from its shelter behind the hangars.
Metal hit metal and sparks flew as the atmosphere bound transport deflected off the shields beginning to rebuild at the prow of the freighter and ripped alongside it, crushing its guns and tearing the side of the port engine open.
It was a futile attempt but it undoubtedly saved the lives of Sergeant Sykes and Commander Silsbury. A trail of raw ions spewed from the side of the wounded transport as the gunship, now a fireball, span around and around before exploding, showering the streets far below with shrapnel.
The freighter evidently decided its mission was more important and turned away from the devastated landing pad and moved away as quickly as its semi-crippled engine would allow it.
Sykes crackled through Silsbury's radio.
'If we go now we can catch it easily, it's leaving a big enough trail we might not even have to use equipment.'
Lucy piloted the clumsy three fingered hand of her mech to dislodge a fragment of hull plate jamming one of the torso servos.
'Commander, are you there?' Calvert's voice also came through.
'Superintendent! Are you still combat effective?'
'I never want to see combat again thank you very much, and yes I am alive, your concern is appreciated.'
Sykes chuckled, 'e's not happy'¦'
'Silsbury'¦ it was Harry'
Lucy didn't twig at first, 'Harry who?'
'BAF defector; works with the Kithe family now.'
'Dammit! This whole thing was about her isn't it!'
'It would appear that way.'
'Orders Sir? The installation is relatively undefended.'
'Do whatever you have to Commander; I have wounded to attend to here.'
Lucy stared impassively at the readout of her impromptu battle suit, emanating her trademark cold anger.
She reached a decision.
'Look Sykes, there is no way we can get to the installation in time to prevent him getting the package, all we can do is send a warning and hope they get out in time.'
The Sergeant's mech flexed its hood perplexed.
'Then what are we going to do?'
Silsbury began the procedure of disembarking from the cargo mech.
'How much explosives do you think you would need to cripple the engines of a battleship?'
'That depends on how impressive you want it to be.'
'Fairly impressive.'
'Well in that case, I'd suggest as much as is to hand.'
Sykes too had disentangled himself from his machine.
'The amount currently attached to pillars at the Burlington Mall?'
'Two of the charges would do the trick fine Commander'¦ But why are we having this discussion?'
White and his team slowly made their way up to the 5th floor of the mall, using their hostages as meat shields. Unfortunately for them, so were the BPA. As they reached the top floor, the crumpet-loving henchmen squealed with delight as they noticed the better crumpet stall was on this floor.
"Alright men, barricade yourselves in. We'll be escaping soon. Put the hostages in there," Nathan said, pointing at an empty shop.
"Sir, the BPA aren't here yet. I'm gonna go get some crumpets, alright?" asked Nathan's right hand man, Callum.
"What? No you're not!" replied Nathan. However Callum didn't stick around for the answer. Nathan muttered a string of expletives as he watched Callum run across the mall to get the crumpets.
Right at that moment, the BPA arrived on the floor. The leading officer quickly noticed the crumpet stall under attack, and sprinted over there to protect it. He couldn't fire as it could damage the crumpets. It would have to be an old-school fight. Both sides continued firing at each other, trying to avoid hitting their guy at the crumpet stand.
The Battle of the Crumpet Stand had begun.
[10:10:28 AM] Josh (Dejavu): Bauer is legendary to the LPI, I joined because I wanted to be that epic.
Inspector Savins and his team including Constable Hansen shuffled their way upstairs, keeping their firearms close. Before turning the corner, the Constable turned to Savins.
"Whatever happens sah, it was a pleasure servin' with you, with all of you. We shall remember what has happened here today, an' not just us, those that will become stronger, an'..." Hansen said confidently but was interrupted by Savins.
"GET THAT MAN!", Savins screamed as he pointed to the man scurrying along to the crumpet store. The officers bunched up behind plants, hastily kicked down tables, and the outcroppings of the walls.
"TAKE HIM OUT! NOW!", Adam ordered furiously to his men, and was met with a hail of gunfire. Ducking, he pulled out his weapon and returned the favor. Fire from both sides was largely ineffective as the edges of the walls and the barricades were deflecting most of the shots. A few officers here and there were singed but continued fighting. Thinking quickly, he tugged at his belt and threw one of his flash grenades over his head, only for the bomb to hit the ceiling and bounce straight back. Panicking, the Inspector kicked it out into the first floor, hearing a dull thud seconds afterwards. Looking up from his barricade, several energy bolts sizzled past where his head was and this time, made sure the flash bang was thrown correctly.
Hearing several shouts and screams over the continual blaster fire, Savins shouted for the officers to push forward and gain more ground. Constable Hansen rose up from his barricade and ran while firing from the hip, with one of the shots slicing through a plant, the remains catching fire as the bolt cleanly hit one of the criminals. In their new position, Savins was able to see more clearly where the criminals were hiding, and began unloading blaster shots in their direction.
"WHATEVER YOU DO, DON'T BLOODY HIT THE CRUMPET STA..." Adam yelled in protest against the roaring blaster fire.
"Jellico! I need another blaster pack. I'm out!", the excited Inspector shouted, and in return, received a small cartridge.
"Sah! We cannot continue to hold like this! They have much heavier weaponry than us, and sooner or later, they will destroy the barricades!", Hansen said above the din.
"Keep picking them off Hansen! We don't have much support over here, so we'll have to make with what we've got!" Savins exclaimed. Throwing the last of his flash bang grenades, Savins crept along the left and right side of the floor, taking cover in the various pockets of where his men returned fire. Seeing only dark silhouettes against the red flashes from the blasters, Savins fired. Suddenly, the pistol overheated and was thrown on the ground. In pain, Savins threw himself against the wall while sheets of blaster bolts chipped away at the marble. Grasping his hand, he looked over to his men ducking and firing, some dropping and taken away while the others continued their fire.
Without warning, a slight tug was felt at his side and the world began to spin for the Inspector. Exclamations and shouts for help were heard as all sound began to quiet in volume as Adam's head met the marble floor. His eyes open, he saw he was slowly being pulled away by Constable Hansen, looking extremely worried. He tenderly felt his side, only to feel a sticky substance on his hand.
"Sah! Sah! Are you alright? We'll get you the first aid as soon as possible!", said Hansen looking flustered.
Motioning with his head to get close, Adam whispered, "Do you know what I can't believe? One hundred and twelve credits for a pair of football boots. Football boots! Who would have thought!", and with that, his eyes closed.
"I need someone here quick! The Inspector is down!", cried Hansen. Two other officers joined him with the first aid and began frantically working while minding the blaster fire.
"Get the scanner going, keep the fire away from us."'
"He's going into shock! Concussion seems very likely! We need to get him out of here..."
Constable Walden watched through his scope as an armoured police transport descended next to the first bridge pillar with charges on it. Four people got out, Commander Silsbury, Sergeant Sykes and two Constables, one of whom was the demolitions expert Wyatt, the other, Sullivan, was acting as pilot.
Three stood by the ship while Wyatt began performing an operation on the fuse box, when he signalled that it was disabled they began to load the charges into the transport. They then moved along to the second pillar and repeated the process.
The transport, job completed, left one pillar with charges still in place and began making its way towards the docking ring in the upper atmosphere.
In the cargo hold Silsbury, Sykes and Wyatt were suiting up.
'So what are we looking for here Commander?' Sullivan queried from the cockpit, 'Should I set the scanners to maximum and buzz the entire surrounding area in sections?'
'Negative Constable, they'll know we're looking for them and this ship isn't going to hold up for very long against Battle Razors.'
The Constable gulped, 'Ok then, what do I do?'
'The docking ring emits a blip every few seconds on a certain frequency, 6.2Ghz I believe, used to guide unmanned shuttles to dock with the least amount of 'effort'; if you tune the ships receiver to that frequency then take us out on a controlled orbit we will be able to tell where the ship is.'
'How, if you don't mind me asking Ma'am?' Sykes queried, a puzzled look on his face.
Silsbury put her helmet in place and pressed the seal button, she was rewarded with a gratifying hiss. 'I don't exactly know how the cloaking works on these ships, but I know they can, I've seen the Hunter once from a distance; anyway, whether it simply bends electromagnetic waves around itself or somehow shifts itself to another dimension (she said this with a wry frown, a sure sign of sarcasm) it leaves a distortion, you can't just disappear completely.'
Sykes looked satisfied with this explanation.
'And how does the blipping signal from the docking ring help?' Wyatt asked nonplussed.
'I did'¦ I mean I 'eard you could do something of the sort with those active-camosuits that the Ghost Squad get issued; no reason why it wouldn't work with a ship.' Sykes continued, giving his suit a pre-space-walk check as he spoke. Realization dawned on Wyatt also.
'Look will someone please explain to the one person here not well versed in electronics or active camouflage how the hell this annoying beeping is going to help?' Walden's voice, rather strained, issued out of their helmet speakers.
'Think about it Walden,' Wyatt began 'If the cloaked ship is only able to bend the light spectrum around it then there will be no signal when we are behind it and no visible reason; if it can bend a greater range of the EM spectrum then there will still be at the very least a phase distortion of the signal.'
'And how the hell am I supposed to know if the signal is 'out of phase'?!'
'You have wave analysing software on the cockpit computer Constable, record a snippet of the broadcast and have it loop in sync with the original, then compare it to what we are actually receiving; if you set the parameters correctly it will tell you of any anomaly.' Commander Silsbury relayed the instructions then busied herself checking her weaponry.
While Constable Wyatt fiddled with the explosives and Sergeant Sykes refilled his weapons hopper with the unorthodox projectiles, Constable Walden put the excerpt of broadcast onto a waveform display behind a real-time display of the signal they were receieving.
'I'm done Ma'am.'
'Good, now do a grid by grid search thirty klicks out from the planet, they won't be further away than that.'
'And try and be nonchalant.' Sykes offered helpfully 'Don't want 'em to become suspicious.'
In the cockpit Walden grumbled, 'Find and invisible ship they say, fly with enough explosives behind your seat to vaporize a small space station they say, now fly a ship nonchalantly; well, here I go, just casually doing a grid by grid search of the entire area, I'll just pretend this is a sightseeing vessel shall I? I know I'll just stop on Waterloo and paint 'Foreign Tourists Inside' on the hull, yea that will definitely fool a huge warship belonging to one of the nastier terrorists of all time! I should have joined the Commerce Control Division, they get to sit all these things out in a comfy lounge, but Constable Walden? Noooo'¦ He gets to go up and play hide and seek with a Destroyer!'
The Lyre was the highest (planet bound) detention facility in Bretonia; far out of the reach of the New London Megatropolis, its entrance was a hillock near the edge of some dense swampland, a holographic projector put the semblance of long grass and weeds over the dense titanium door.
The Warden was named Ellis Dyer and he was taking part of his favourite pass time, watching the prize prisoner.
She had been caught whilst trying to capture one of Harry's ex-superior officers, one who was detested by her loyal Lieutenant. Captain Jayden Heath was to be given to her devoted follower as a present, but a moment laxness on her part and a fair amount of sheer coincidence, lead to one of the more important events in the history of The Lyre.
Rather than critically damaging the destroyer where the Captain was stationed and waiting for the escape pods to launch, she wanted to have a little fun with Heath before she handed him on.
They found the ship in a Leeds smog cloud, it was a Hunter-Killer, looking for Kusari stealth ships and as such, was damn near impossible to detect on scanners in its surroundings. But they found it.
She herself boarded the Destroyer surreptitiously and made her way to his quarters, leaving one of her men at the helm of the Elegant Anguish. No one noticed her as she slipped past the few personnel active on the redundantly named 'Night Shift'.
Siona broke into the sleeping quarters and waited in the dark, wearing an outfit with tiny fabric content for Heath to arrive.
When he arrived she began to seduce him, the Captain thinking the woman was his 'bit-on-the-side from engineering'. As soon as he had taken his jacket off and his neck was exposed Siona struck, injecting him with a paralyzing agent. The agent was a liquidized form of the drug Støv, the same as encountered by the Bretonia Police almost a year earlier, Siona had purchased it as a trial before the supply was diverted.
Støv does not paralyze the body, it incapacitates a specific part of the brain; decisions cannot be made by the target, instead they follow any instructions given to them whilst the rest of their body functions perfectly.
'Put this on.' She said smiling at her new slave.
The now blank faced Captain donned the space suit.
'Good now follow me.'
The two walked all the way back to the airlock just as a Kusari Navy scout destroyer with full stealth hull crashed into the side of the vessel. The espionage equivalent of going 500km away from home to a hotel specifically to meet with another woman who you're having an affair with only to bump into your wife who was there for her toy boy just as you enter the building.
Kusari destroyers are quite fragile vessels, especially when stress is put upon the thinnest section just behind the huge 'adze head' prow; the fact that both ships had their shields disabled (standard procedure to prevent power surges and stray ions being detected) and the fact that the KNF vessel had been moving at quite a speed did not help the collision either.
A rather bent looking destroyer made to flee as the sturdier Bretonian ship reacted with a string of Cerebus class turret rounds and two light mortars. The HMS Vanguard was rewarded with a large explosion as the unshielded combatant vessel was ripped apart by the mortars.
The concussion wave rippled through the smog and, due to its proximity to the Anguish, overloaded the cloaking system, revealing Siona's ship to the rapidly re-arming Vanguard.
Siona couldn't get out, the axe head like prow of the Kusari ship had mangled that part of the hull, even creating a small breach in the armoured stealth plates. Captain Heath and Siona were slammed against the dented wall as the small hole sucked out the air as though the void was drinking it. Automatic procedures built into the ship locked down the affected area to prevent the entire ships oxygen from escaping whilst dispatched Nanobots chittered inaudibly to each other as their tiny bodies moulded and reformed to cover the breach.
'Captain Heath! Where are you?' the first mates voice came over the intercom.
'I'm in aft section C.' The Captain replied dully.
Siona's last though was that of frustration, not only did the drug leave the subject available to direction from anyone who asked a question of them or told them to do something, the helmet she was wearing didn't have any cushioning inside it and the collision with the wall had resulted in her cranium making solid contact with the plasti-glass with plenty of force.
She then fell unconscious and was locked in the brig once oxygen had been pumped back into the recently fixed area.
The acting Captain of the Anguish realized that they were outgunned and his instruments told him that a mop up crew of Gunboats was on the way from the Leeds fleet, he had to save this ship and the crew if he couldn't save Siona. So the ship turned and fled to its far away base.
Now Siona was trussed up like a Gaian Razorback in a smugglers hold, sitting in a stark concrete cell with not even a mildew stain to liven things up. The room was four square meters and lit brightly by the solid Glo-pane ceiling, there was only one door that opened into the cell block corridor with the same concrete cladding so when it was closed it was almost completely invisible on the inside.
Each cell had recessed projectors in them allowing one wall to be turned into a screen, useful in interrogations but also used to taunt the prisoners, all part of the process of breaking them.
Dyer delighted in projecting a realistic 3D impression of a tool or personal item on the wall so it appeared that could they just get their arms free, the prisoner could retrieve it. Of course most times, with the lower security personnel, the subject would run straight at the wall immediately on wake up from sedation only to curse the cruel trick. Siona was different, they kept her laced with just enough to keep her docile and blur her perception. Dyer taunted her with images of her famous blades sitting in racks, and the game could continue as there was no chance of her moving from the solitary piece of furniture in the room (an anchored flat bench against a wall) or seeing through the illusion.
He smiled to himself in the control booth and made the blades appear to dance and shimmer invitingly with his interface. He watched closely as desire and festering hate displayed in Siona's eyes.
It was time to begin again.
He darkened her room and a projection of a shadowy figure appeared as though seated in the room with her.
Dyer activated the speakers in her room and enabled the voice distortion filter or as the staff of The Lyre called it 'the Demonizer'. He would bully her with this visitation, increase her dosage and eventually change the image to that of a friend and
'You were killing civilians on Leeds, where were you getting your orders?'
'There were'¦ no orders'¦ it was my plan.'
'Don't lie to me Siona! You set out from a base to do this; Where? Where is the base? Who gave you instructions to do this?'
''¦mine'¦ my plan'¦'
'WHERE IS PHEONIX SHIPYARDS SIONA? WHERE?!'
This is Chief Commissioner Silsbury, authorization code Lima Alpha 16-1216. The Lyre has been compromised, move all high value criminals offsite immediately, make for the Navaar Mountain Complex...
New London was a busy place today. In orbit, the cloaked Elegant Anguish held geo synchronous orbit over the city that the shuttle was on its way back from.
Said shuttle ripped through the final dregs of atmosphere, and with a silent shimmer, dissapeared as it entered the 'Anguish's cloak field. Behind it, emerging from the docking ring, a transport emerged.
Harry swore under his breath as he looked at the two empty docking ports on the side of the destroyer. Those were hand trained men, and Salazar would not be pleased he had lost them. Not only that, the ships had some of Salazar's personal technology on them, which would give the BPA some interesting advances in engine and hull construction technology.
No matter, he was focussed on a single goal. With a few short strides, he clicked his memory chip into a computer port and started the 'Anguish's mighty computer with cracking the data within.
Meanwhile, only a few thousand metres away, a much larger ship sat cloaked. Salazar himself stood on the bridge of the Immortal Hunter, watching the scene as it unfolded around him. His ensign looked up from the control panel.
'My Lord...' he started, looking around at Kithe.
'Hmm?'
'Well My Lord, there's a transport ship that doesn't seem to be going anywhere...'
Back on the 'Anguish, the computer was done. A few taps of Harry's long, supple fingers sent the warship twisting and falling towards the planet. He would not take another shuttle to be destroyed. The Elegant Anguish was coming to reclaim her queen.
Clouds streaked by the windows, and then the sunshine burst into the bridge, warming the skin. It had no effect on the grim face of Harry however, who stood, one hand resting on his sheathed blade, in the middle of the room.
He had no plan, except to kill everyone he saw. He wondered how many of them would be running away as he arrived, and soon his question was answered. Several large land transports were moving over some swampy ground, away from the concealed prison he knew was there.
An alarm screamed. Outside of the BPA's transmission blocking building, the intraveneuos tracker buried in Siona's arm was able to transmit. She was in one of the trucks, heading away from the building. The fools were trying to take her with them.
The 'Anguish decloaked in all her glory, right in front of the fleeing transports, which swerved and stopped as large weapons came to bear on them. Underneath the ship a cargo ramp descended, and standing there, clothes flapping in the wind, with an unsheathed and extended blade, and with a murderous look in his eye, stood Harry.
In orbit, a battleship patrol spotted the destroyer on their scanners, and alarms started to shriek. Inside the transport, Constable Warden looked up with a shout.
'The Elegant Anguish is on the...' he stopped as he looked at the scanner, because right in front of him, it was telling him there was a very large, very invisible ship.
The BPA officers in the trucks were tough, hardened men. When the Anguish descended low enough for Harry to jump from the ramp onto the wet track below, followed by a group of commando's in black, they didn't budge an inch from their standing ground behind the doors of the transports, guns aimed with steady fingers at the appoaching enemies.
But Harry was unstoppable. A flick of his finger activated the small plasma trail along the edge of the sword. Quickly heating to 3000 degrees, the plasma allowed him to quickly cut straight through a solid steel door and stab the person behind it.
He ignored most of them, heading for the truck he knew had his queen within. Some of the BPA soldiers had started to flee, knowing that keeping the other prisoners imprisoned was more important than killing the soliders. There were battleships in orbit, they would deal with the destroyer.
A slice of the blade and the back of the transport was no longer sealed. Harry jumped up, flicking his wrist in a figure of 8 pattern he cut through the two guards who stood at either side of the door. His love was there, dishevelled and drugged, her hands bound in front of her.
His blade slid inside the handle, and he pressed it to his belt where it magnetically held, and then, as if she weighed nothing at all, picked up Siona Kithe in his hands and carried her back to her ship.
And the BPA on the ground were correct. There were battleships in orbit.
“Commander… If that’s the Anguish over there… then how is it that the signal is distorted here?”
Realization dawned in the back of the transport. Salazar had come to see his little girl.
“Alright, we continue with the plan, though on a different ship, I’d say we’re parked right alongside the Immortal Hunter.”
Constable Walden paled even further, “I’ve heard stories about this guy and that ship.”
“Haven’t we all Walden,” Sykes grunted as he strapped a thruster pack to the trolley holding the explosives, “Now let’s go and blow both of them up!”
Walden’s hand hovered over a switch, “Ready?”
The affirmative was given and the hull doors opened; three BPA Officers and a thrust assisted trolley jetted out towards the cloaked ship.
The closer they got the more form the vessel had, far below them the Battleship patrol moved to position itself over the Anguish and then began to bombard the atmosphere with Mortars and Razors as the Destroyer began to ascend. The Hunter de-cloaked quite suddenly in front of them and began to rake the patrol with plasma from above.
Everything with guns in the New London area turned as one to the large vessel, a figurehead of hatred and fear, and opened fire. Salazar’s Battleship couldn’t hold out forever but it was achieving what it wanted too, as the Anguish began the slow journey back out of the atmosphere complete with her missing Captain and most of the men who attacked the convoy, the Battleship patrol was coming about to face the larger threat.
Silsbury scanned around the engine area for the customary heat dissipating chambers.
“Through there!” she pointed at a large tunnel like vent in the aft of the ship.
“Eyes peeled Wyatt, sometimes these things have Laser mesh over them, not a very fun thing to walk through.” Sykes informed the Constable busy manhandling the trolley.
In the tunnel they were eventually presented with the vast fin-work of the starboard heat-sink. The Hunter hadn’t had its engines cycling so the alloy was mercifully cool but impenetrable.
“Wyatt, give me the sticky.” The Constable dug around in the trolley until he produced a large tube with a nozzle on the end. Silsbury squeezed the glue like liquid onto the heat-sink in a large circle. Pushing back off the alloy to a safe distance she observed as a portion of fin-work dissolved leaving a moveable plug.
Sykes kicked it in allowing entry into the ships engine bay, it was an old ship so servicing was done by airtight capillaries to major sections rather than having gravity and oxygen in the area. This suited them fine as the passive heat-sinks only ever were brought to the crew’s attention if the heat alarm went off in the Bridge and there was to oxygen to be lost through the gaping hole.
Lucy was slightly awed, she wanted to study the cloaking core that glowed in its cage housing and to take the massive jump engines apart and put them back together just to see how they worked. She hadn’t seen anything like it before, the snaking coils and huge conduits framed perhaps the most beautiful pair of engines the Commander had encountered, it would be a travesty to destroy them.
But destroy them she would.
She directed Wyatt towards the merge point of the jump engines, the spot where the sheer energy produced would rend a hole in space/time… she assumed, this kind of technology had not been seen before.
“Ok, now rig these to blow remotely.” She instructed then joined Sykes to provide over-watch.
The Hunter was taking a pounding, every few seconds the vessel would shake violently, far more severe damage was being inflicted on the other side however; a destroyer and a Gunboat were already critically hit.
Wyatt had put the charges in position and was just about to link the detonators to a remote when a shudder ran the length of the shielded flooring he was crouched on. He disengaged his gravity boots and turned around to see what had appeared to be a solid metal housing case for the engine bay began to open letting light and the vista of a surreal, silent space battle, like a movie on mute except for the sub which only worked when the Hunter took a hit.
“Wyatt, they’re activating the jump engines! Forget it, we need to move now!” Silsbury ordered. The two behemoth creations began to cycle up, increasing the vibration in the bay tenfold.
The three BPA Officers sped for the opening hatch as energy sparked and coiled within the jump engines. With their propulsion packs on full throttle they reached the now fully open aperture just as the Elegant Anguish swooped past and around the larger ship, moving at a speed that allowed it to avoid most of the fiery volleys from the regrouping Bretonian forces.
Walden swung the armoured transport around in front of them at near full speed with the cargo bay door open.
“GO, GO, GO!” he yelled.
Behind them the Immortal Hunter began to hum with energy and the weapons shut down, the Anguish sheltered alongside it.
They almost made it to the transport under their own steam but something assisted them.
With an almighty shockwave the energy from the jump engines discharged along their lines to merge and then follow the conduit to the prow of the ship… there was something in the way…
Although Wyatt hadn’t had time to set up a remote detonator, a billion kilowatts of energy did the trick just fine.
Some of the energy still managed to find its way to the front of the ship and create the rip needed, the Elegant Anguish sped through without a moment’s hesitation and the Hunter made to follow, but with a rapidly disintegrating aft end it didn’t stand much of a chance.
Against the odds, all three BPA Officers were blown straight into the waiting cargo bay of the transport which was then shunted over a klick away, rolling over and over until Walden could right the craft
Silsbury, rather battered from colliding with the interior hull plates brought herself to a position where she could see the spectacle.
The Bretonian ships had not left off the battering and the vaporizing engine section sparked and glowed as oxygen streamed out of the rents caused by the catastrophic explosion, yet still the vessel moved forwards.
The front of the Hunter passed into the distortion which had been ripped in the space ahead of it but there was not enough energy left to keep it open. The jaws of the tear in the universe closed mercilessly on the ship, ripping the front half along with it and leaving a sparking and spinning aft which soon exploded quite spectacularly.
When the brightness decreased Lucy unshielded her eyes to see shards of ship still burning as the last pockets of oxygen escaped, with disappointment she noted that none of the engines themselves were complete enough to be worth studying.
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