Chapter 157: Chapter 22: Storm of Asteroids
'The designated trajectory of Olympus 2 is that of ejection from the Olympus system in the initial model, though there have also been predictions that it might settled into a different and further orbit instead. However, despite the best efforts of the scientists and physicists, no one has been able to track and predict absolutely everything. From now on, all we can do is to brace ourselves and move forward continuously.'
The bearers gathered around their ship as it lifted off from the orbital rings of Olympus Prime, as all of them sat around the room in silence. The magnitude of the loss of life the galaxy has just experienced is nothing less than unimaginable. Nobody, not even the original bearers who saw an entire cargo ship blow up right in front of their eyes, or Valerie on her bloody path of revenge, or Alrith with her history of experimentation have seen as much death in such a short amount of time. This particularly hits Cellica the hardest, as she deleted the life threats from the loyal supporters of the Space Force general and hid her head in between her arms, as Ol and Torelamri sat besides her, each with an arm on her shoulders and letting her know that she is not alone.
'We need to do something about Olympus 2.' Finally, Rydel was the one to speak about the obvious, 'we have all of the artifacts around here, so we must be able to do something.'
'After examining each of the proposed models,' Ol stood up from his seat, keeping one of his arms on Cellica still while opening up the holograms, 'there are shouldn't be any immediate threat to the planet's energy supply, with the amount of fusion reactors and the mirror arrays around the planet still operating. Though the mirror arrays around the entire planet are what's going to provide a quick and convenient source of energy to everybody regardless of the orbits. Without it, many will die, be it of cold or shortage.'
'So we just have to protect the array?' Zel, forever the practical if not a little cynical one, cut straight to the chase, 'from what?'
'The asteroids.' Ol pointed his fingers to the asteroid belt which one formed a nice elliptical ring around the center of gravity for the binary suns, 'they are the most dangerous weapons around. And with the stable orbits now disturbed, this cluster around here is first identified as being immediately a threat towards the orbiting mirror array station, which controls the clusters of mirrors that redirects the radiation onto the planet.'
'So that's where we will go, I see.' Zel said, nodding his head.
'Thanks to the Scroll of Truth, we know that we can at least make it to defend the mirror array from the initial storms of asteroids. The point defense system and the shields will not be enough to even handle the first wave.' Ol said.
'Is it even possible to stop all of the subsequent waves of asteroids?' Elmyra opened up finally, 'there are billions of rocks!'
'It is precisely due to that that we will need to intercept those rocks way upstream before it ever gets too close.' Ol said, showing a few locations in space which are marked to be where a majority of the upcoming asteroids will go through, the critical areas of this operation, 'we can never stop them all, but we just need to stop enough of them so that the point defense systems of the mirror array station can take care of the rest.'
'Another good news,' Ol flipped his wrist and brought on the next slide in his briefing, 'thanks to the vastness of space, we will only have to deal with the biggest wave at the beginning. The others will most likely miss the marks as Olympus 2 continued on it's new trajectory.'
'So all we have to do is to hold our posts for as long as possible after the first wave is passed, ideally, we would like to deflect the rocks away from the arrays and the stations, though deflection and destruction is also fine as the smaller chunks will burn up in the atmosphere of Olympus 2.' Ol said, looking at all of the bearers around the room, 'just by viewing at the powers of each of our artifacts, Rydel can easily redirect and warp the big rocks out of the way, Valerie can Lock down entire regions to prevents rocks from moving, Torelamri can use his Zone of Fast and Slow for entire regions too, Zel can warp rocks into the pocket domain, Elmyra can adjust the trajectories of the rocks, Cellica and I will be in charge of intelligence, sadly as neither of us are capable of helping any further in this fight.'
'Is this okay with all of you?' Ol asked, as he looked around the room.
'Um...What about me though?' Alrith puts up her hand like a student in class.
'You will be joining us,' Ol said, bringing up the next version of the slides which showed the critical paths that the asteroids will be going towards, 'the range of the Lightning Knife is quite limited in this case, so we will be helping in the station.'
'Ok...' Sounding visibly disappointed, Alrith dropped her head down as the red pony tail she tied up sagged down like a deflated balloon.
'Don't look so dejected.' Rydel kicked her in the boots, 'we all have our strengths and weaknesses, and the scenarios that we thrive in.'
'Yeah, and some of us thrive more than the others.' Alrith made a face towards Rydel, though her expression cleared up after his words.
There are a total of three critical paths that will need to be covered, and each of the groups are paired up except for Torelamri.
Rydel and Valerie, the classic pair will go together thanks to their synergy, and they will be dealing with the critical paths that will likely experience the highest density of asteroids.
Elmyra and Zel will go to the one with fewer rocks, but each of them are shown to be individually massive, which suits nicely to the power set of Elmyra especially after her enhancements. They are also going to travel instead using Zel's artifact instead of a shuttle, and Torelamri will simply lay down a massive layer of intertwined Zone of Fast and Slow, which will rip up all of the asteroids to shreds before funneling them towards the new direction with clever orientation of the zones. Thankfully, that zone is simply something that he will have to keep his mind over without needing to stay around it
The entire operation sounded simple enough as their shuttle first dropped off Ol, Cellica and Alrith onto the mirror array station, then Zel picked up Elmyra into his arms before both disappearing into thin air. That's also when Rydel and Valerie took a separate headed out towards their own spot after Torelamri went around and set up his Zones of Fast and Slow.
It really is all coming down to all of the bearers outside, but despite the potential challenges, all of them are confident, knowing that their enhancements and training after the operations will pay off right here and right now. Though there is nobody more nervous than Alrith right now. She has always been confident in her work, but none of anything that she has ever done even came close to the level of performance that will be required by the bearers. They will wear specialized goggles which tracks all of the incoming asteroids that will be big enough to cause a problem, and the amount of display is mind-numbing even to the gamers of the highest level.
This is where the more subtle benefits of enhancements come in, the part about enhanced recognition, processing and decision making, or it is colloquially known as a 'sharp mind'.
Rydel haulted the ship's momentum as they waited for the asteroids that will be passing through this area in a matter of minutes before giving Valerie a kiss on the side of her head.
'You ready?' He asked, and Valerie gave her a signiture roll of the eyes as if he even needed to ask.
As the pair looked onward at the waves of asteroids rapidly closing in towards their location, both Rydel and Valerie's artifacts lit up brightly like a small sun in the middle of the space. Then, a giant piece of rock even bigger than the shuttle halted it's forward trajectory meters in front of the shuttle before it disappeared and reappeared towards the desired trajectories.
'Rydel and Valerie has started!' Cellica said, as she looked back at the rest of the people at the Mirror Array station. Ol has explained that they are a group of volunteers that are here to help with the impending threats of the asteroids. The station's detection system has picked up the threat a long time ago, but due to the lack of resources and the insanity that is going on the planet's surface, no help was deployed towards them, despite the governor's orders to stay on the station and keep the energy supply of the planet's surface up. Their job is especially crucial as the planet drifts ever slowly away from its initial orbit and are receiving less and less direct sun light with every passing second.
Thankfully, the station is located at such a high orbit that they can very easily adjust for the amount of radiation reflected up until the maximum capacity of reflection by the entire mirror array is reached. But that is a bridge that all of them will cross when they get there.
'You are not just any volunteer, are you?' The station chief who has already said by to his family with a heavy heart after the orders of the governor was received by them. He knew exactly what will happen when the asteroids passes through the region of space occupied by the mirrors and completely destroying everything in their path. From looking at the simulations and the real time pathing of asteroids, it is more like a few streams of asteroids that will be coming towards them rather than a shower of asteroids attacking indiscriminately from all angles.
This would have been an easy adjustment, if not for the speed and size of the streams, as at least a majority of the mirror array would have been affected.
What the bearers are doing here is to do whatever it takes to change the course of the asteroids away from the initial paths and trusting the planet's atmosphere to burn everything up. The point defense system that would have been helpless in defending the station is now only tasked with clearing away the occasional rogue debris.
'Elmyra and Zel also engaged.' Cellica said, as she turned her head to looks towards the second point in the critical paths, then she looked towards the final place where Torelamri laid down his trap. In order to maintain the formation from such a distance, Torelamri have asked to be kept in a quiet room, as he puts all of his attention into maintaining the Zones which accelerates or decelerates the flow of time locally according to his arrangements, ripping everything apart while sending the collided debris towards the intended direction.
All of the bearers have leveled up since the last time they saw action, as they moved through oceans of rocks effortlessly, sending them out and away from a collision course with the station.
'You are not...' The chief looked down at their own monitoring screen, as it focused on what Rydel and Valerie is doing, as rocks were halted, slammed, mushed together and warp away. Things are even crazier at Torelamri's location, and Zel is partially opening up the pocket domain while holding onto Elmyra who's directing the rocks like the conductor of a professional orchestra.
And finally, Cellica saw the end of the first waves of asteroid, though the bigger rocks are the ones that are moving the slowest, as a handful of them bumped into each other and deviated from its initial course.
Cellica's eyes opened up, as she turned her focus away from the bearers and focused on that rogue asteroid the size of a freighter coming directly towards the mirror array station.
'There is one!' Cellica yelled out at the same time as the monitoring crew, and those on the station immediately sprung into action as they pointed their point defense system towards the upcoming rock and began to blast it into pieces, 'Rydel! Can you see it?!'
'Shit!' Rydel spun around, leaving the protection and zoning of the rocks directly in front of the shuttle to Valerie, who promptly reached out both hands in front and massively expanded out the volume of space which is locked down right in front of her, covering the size of tens of shuttles and freezing the asteroids all at the same time.
Rydel, now aware of the location of that rock, spun around and reached out with the glove, his consciousness and his sensations extended far out and away into the depths of space towards that rock that are flying towards his friends. He reached out, palms open and fingers outstretched, as the very fabric of spacetime bends to his command.
Rydel closes his fist, but there was nothing in his palms. His heart rate shot all the way up as he sped way up and chased after the rock that's is speeding towards the station with his will and will alone.
'Fire everything!' The chief ordered, as the intensity of the gun control AI is turned up to the highest threat level and nonstop barrage of fire lit up on the surface of the asteroids, but it barely makes a dent, let alone budge it away from its initial trajectory. Physical ammo are avoided in space because of troubling things like the conservation of momentum, so most weapons are outfitted with laser blasts that instead vaporizes the upcoming asteroids. However, that one is simply way too big!
'Rydel!' Cellica called out once more, as her eyes can now see the craters of the gigantic asteroid even without having to activate the Eye, and that's when she realized that size truly means so little in space without any references. That is not the size of a freighter, that is the size of a cargo ship!
'Get in here!' Rydel commanded, as he chased down the rock and clenched his fist hard and quick as the space around the rock went pitch black before the lights coming from the stars far out in the distance were warp all the way around into a ring of light, then immediately before the impending doom of the entire station, the rock disappeared into thin air.
'Not even close.' Valerie said as she finally managed to catch a breath as droplets of sweat formed around her forehead. She was still holding the barrage of rocks all by herself, and Rydel knew how hard that is despite her nonchalant look.
Gripping firmly onto the rock in his hand, he tossed it aside towards the designated trajectory. Burn in hell, he thought, as it reappeared to the side of the station and clipped onto the edge of one of the mirror arrays, smashing a whole mirror as the shattered pieces followed the asteroid towards Olympus 2.
'You idiot! You clipped one of the mirrors!' Cellica slammed into the comms but the calming hands of Ol and the station chief quieted her down.
'Thank you for saving us.' The chief said, 'I didn't think angels were real, but now I realized. With you people around here, we don't need angels.'
'We are no mystical being.' Ol explained, locking his eyes firmly onto the chief who has nothing but emotions all over his face. There were fear, gratitude, anger, confusion all on display, 'we were merely gifted with incredible powers, and we intend to use it to help as many as we can.'
'Do...all of you have this power?' The chief asked, 'can all of you make things disappear?'
'No. All of us are different.' Cellica replied, now finally able to turn away her attention as there waves of asteroids came to an end, and the array moves out of any immediate danger, 'we were too late for Olympus 1, but we are here now. Just don't...think too hard about the destroyed mirror?'
'I would take a single mirror over anilation any day of the week, ma'am.' The chief said, taking off his helmet and bowed towards Cellica and Ol, who's now all of a sudden a little uncomfortable.
'Is that it?' Rydel's voice came through the communications channel, and it was confirmed by both the monitors and Cellica. This was an intense yet short mission, and thankfully, all of the previous training meant that the combination of all of their powers were able to protect most of the mirrors around.
'Yeah.' Cellica said, 'come back now.'
'Not even fucking close...' Rydel said sarcastically, tossing the head piece to the side and dropped down onto the ground with Valerie sitting down next to him. The ship was set to head back to the station, and neither of them are in the mood for piloting, so the AI pilot will have to be the one taking care of the return trip. However, due to the random flying debris all around the space thanks to their work, the return journey is set to take quite a lot longer.
'How are you feeling? The arm acting up at all?'
'No, actually.' Rydel said, raising and looking at his normal looking right arm. Some strange things were occurring to his right arm ever since he has started his rehabilitation after Anozee performed the operation. There are constant random twitching going on, and sometimes even some delay of action, or over action of the muscles. However, as long as Rydel is focusing on whatever he is doing, his right arm is then acting alright, 'you know, the premise of this arm is really...something.'
'Yeah?' Valerie said with a smirk on her face as she picked up his arm and brought it close to her chest. Rydel felt the roughness of the black jacket that she is wearing, and the coolness of the zips, 'how does this feel?'
Rydel sat straight up and locked his eyes onto Valerie before wrapping her in his arms and rolling onto the ground.
'Feels okay, but I will need further testing.' Rydel said cheekily as Valerie chuckled out loud in response, then they kissed on the ground as the ship gently drifted back towards the station.
'Get a room!' Elmyra and Zel suddenly appeared right behind Rydel just as he is getting turned on. Zel kicked Rydel right in the legs while Elmyra has her arms on her hips not looking impressed by Rydel in the slightest.
'Well why can't you go into the Pocket?!' Rydel groaned, though both of his arms are still grabbing onto Valerie's round butts.
'It's not like I can't see you from there anyway!' Zel said, rolling his prosthetic eye up, 'GOD DAMN.'
Weekly Power Status
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