章 31: CQC

"COVERING!"

"ROGER, ADVANCING!"

While initial contact with the Eden Theocracy forces had been a relatively simple endeavour, the closer Mike, River and Jessica came to their Wyrm, the steeper resistance they met. While the trio had been able to take the first few units by surprise, by the 4th squad they were clearly searching for them and already on alert, leading to the current situation where they were being actively hunted.

(We've definitely gotten their attention… Although that's hardly a good thing at this point.)

"ROTATE!"

"ROTATING!"

Laying down covering fire before ducking back behind a concrete pillar, Mike shouted to River to move as chunks of his cover were rapidly disappearing. Checking how many rounds were left in the magazine of her looted rifle, River took a deep breath as she waited for Mike to open up again, as he did she abandoned her cover, keeping low as she moved from a billboard to a concrete pillar and set up covering fire for Mike as he also retreated. Having succeeded in breaking off contact, Mike regrouped with Jessica and River to find out where they fuck they had ended up after being chased for about half an hour. Still somewhere underground in what Mike assumed was a toll processing office, he figured they were getting closer to the underground hangar where the Wyrm was hopefully still parked, but therein laid the problem.

"It seems they're defending the hangar, could it be some sort of forward operating base?"

"Possibly…"

Hearing Mike's tone, River was already sure he had found a way out of their problems, the only problem with that was she wasn't sure she was going to like what he came up with.

"What now?"

"Remember those cargo conveyors we saw on the way in?"

"... That's actually not a bad idea."

While River actually felt like Mike had a reasonable idea, that positive evaluation only lasted about 5 minutes.

"REMIND ME TO NEVER TRUST YOU AGAIN MIKE!"

While taking the cargo conveyors as Mike suggested had taken the trio straight to where they had wanted to go, it had left them entirely exposed inside what turned out to be an Eden forward operating base.

"GET IN THE FUCKING VEHICLE!"

Using an Eden grunt as improvised armour as he took concentrated automatic fire, Mike hardly had time for River's complaints as she entered the Wyrm with Jessica. Hearing the drives kick in and starting to spin up, Mike used one of his shield's grenades to clear the area for himself as he made it to the Wyrm himself and strapped into the pilot's seat. Setting the atmospheric control system to purge the Wyrm in preparation for combat, Mike got an error from his own suit but decided to just ignore it by setting it to overpressure.

"We're getting the fuck out of here, hold on."

Lifting off and powering up the Wyrm's shields, Mike quickly located the service exit to the underground hanger.

"Prepare for blind jump, we're jumping as soon as we leave the lower atmosphere!"

"Agreed! Ready for jump!"

Climbing vertically among the commercial mega blocks, Mike, River and Jessica were all in agreement, they needed to get the fuck out of dodge.

That's when something gigantic entered normal space above them, the truly massive ship slowly emerged out of an energy field, as it did, multiple warnings lit up all over Mike's head's up display.

They were clearly being targeted.

"Fucking shit! Holy fucking fuck fuck! What the fuck is a capital ship doing down here!?"

Veering off his exit vector and cursing loudly all the while, Mike dumped both flares and chaff as he went back down towards the surface.

"Jessica you handled fire control before right!?"

"Yeah, b-"

"Then handle the weapon systems, River control the drones and sensors, we stand absolutely no chance if I lose focus now!"

Delegating away everything other than piloting, Mike yanked the stick to the side and smashed his foot down on one of the yaw pedals just in time to avoid a railgun salvo, serving in behind a mega block for cover.

"Aha! This guy is good! Hail him!"

Aboard the Eden battlecruiser, Inquisitor Lua's bored expression had all but disappeared by the time she watched the little fly start avoiding her fire control officer's dedicated attention. Although she had refrained from using nuclear munitions as she was under strict orders to 'not sully the gift to the ones above', Inquisitor Lua was nevertheless impressed at how fluidly the small ship she had been chasing for the last 10 minutes had been evading her.

"B-but ma'am, isn't that a violation of protocol to contact a heretic like this?"

Although still afraid he would end up like the guy he had replaced, Lua's staff officer still managed to barely squeeze out a protest at contacting a hostile vessel.

"Ha? Did I tell you to start thinking for yourself?"

Met with an interruption to her entertainment from a mere staff officer, Lua's mood took a turn for the worse as both her eyes and tone of voice went cold.

"I-I don't understand Ma'am."

(Wow this guy is idiotic too, what a fucking surprise…)

Getting up from her chair, Inquisitor Lua drew her sword without a word, then stabbed the staff officer with her rapier-like blade, aiming for the point where his right collarbone met his shoulder, then serving the connection.

"Listen here fucko! I don't know how morronic you would have needed to be up until this point but allow me to gracefully spell it out for you!"

Shouting loud enough to drone out the staff officer's screams, and so the entire bridge could hear her.

"As an Inquisitor, my words are the closest to the ones above any of you sad fucks will ever hear! They are to be treated as gospel, for I am a divine being, different from the rest of you trash! Obey my word and you will be enlightened, but do something as stupid as to think for yourself without my explicit permission and I will make sure your blood is put to far better use, LIKE THIS!"

First severing the shoulder joint with her sword, Inquisitor Lua kicked the staff officer in the chest before stepping on it, digging her sharpened heel deep into the pit of his stomach, Lua's face turned almost euphoric as she listened to the staff officer's increasingly desperate series pleas for mercy, then she picked the officer that was a few heads taller than herself up by his now partially detached arm before digging her teeth into her throat. While the staff officer did scream and trash for a bit as Lua ripped out his windpipe, he eventually stopped spasming a few seconds later. Satisfied with her 'meal', Lua tossed the now drained husk of an officer across the bridge before drawing a steamy exhale.

"Our lord above is thankful for this sacrifice, the blood of heretics or the blood of devout followers makes no difference! Question my orders again and I'll make sure everyone here and their families will be next!"

"... What the hell is happening now?"

Balancing vertically on the main thrusters behind some sort of mall, Mike was finally able to catch his breath when the Eden battlecruiser which had randomly appeared and started chasing them stopped its pursuit. While Mike wanted nothing more than to use this opportunity to run away, Mike knew full well that the second he left any sort of cover or concealment the Wyrm would get ripped apart by concentrated railgun fire.

"Someone is contacting us, I don't know this comn standard…"

Looking at the incoming request, Mike briefly weighed the pros and cons before he brought up a keyboard and started typing away. Within a few minutes, a screen appeared in the middle of the Wyrm's cockpit, displaying a 20-something-year-old woman with blood-red eyes, braided white hair and skin so white and pale it was slightly see-through. With a slightly bewitching smile, the woman wearing a black military uniform wiped traces of blood away from her lips before she spoke out in perfect common galactic dialect, the same language River was learning and River had spoken all her life.

"Greetings, uncultured heretics. I am an inquisitor of the faith, submit yourself before me and allow yourself to be baptised and I will offer you all a place as my trusted retrainers."

"How the fuck is she!?-

"Their god taught her… This is problematic, she really is an Inquisitor."

Cutting off River, Mike enabled the audio on his own side before speaking up himself.

"My that is the noblest of offers, I am truly humbled by that Inquisitor, my name is Mike and as you say, I am an ignorant heretic, what is this 'baptising' you speak of?"

Cutting off audio again, Mike quickly addressed Jessica.

"Do you know your way around these controls yet?"

"Yeah, it is pretty much the same as what I'm used to."

"Then arm everything, prepare for a hell of a fight on my signal."

"Mike?"

Also picking up a bit of what he was saying, River thought they were surrendering.

"This bitch wants to skin us alive. Let's run her shit instead."

"Roger."

With everyone getting on the same page, the Inquisitor spoke up again after suppressing her slight surprise at how frank the response had been.

"What devout lambs we have here, the rest of your world ought to follow such a noble example."

(Scratch that, she wants to skin an entire galaxy alive and drain their blood… Well, it is the Eden Theocracy we're talking about.)

"It's moving again. I am target locked with passive only."

Reporting on the Eden battlecruiser, River watched it through multiple drones she had periodically been dropping off while Mike concentrated on running away, while the drones couldn't loiter due to the gravity, River had managed to crash land a few of them intact on rooftops and balconies where they now trained their sensors on the hulking Eden battlecruiser and reported its position trough their laser comlink. Watching the Inquisitor offer them a prayer, Mike decided to stop transmitting on his side entirely, there was simply no reasoning with them.

"Jessica, run their shit. Target their auxiliary thrusters, without them they either crash land here or are forced to leave atmosphere, they'll have no way of pursuing us then."

"Roger, opening up with KEM's."

Still hovering on its main thrusters, the Wyrm launched a salvo of kinetic energy missiles out its sides. Falling for about a second, the missiles lit their thrusters and shot up into the sky past the Wyrm as Mike pivoted it over and out of the hover, quickly transitioning into a low sprint away from the battlecruiser as fast as possible. Immediately spotting the kinetic energy missiles approaching from above, Inquisitor Lua wiped the fake smile off of her face and returned to a cold gleam as switched back to her native language and ordered her bridge.

"Cripple their wings, I want them alive."

"They're targeting our propulsion, hang on!"

Still able to understand the Inquisitor as she gave out orders, Mike banked hard right as the mega block between the Wyrm and the Eden battlecruiser started getting shredded by its numerous railgun batteries.

Launching yet more kinetic energy missiles, Jessica gnashed her teeth in frustration as they were torn apart by flak.

"Damn it! I can't get through!"

Checking the weapon's inventory, Jessica realised it was useless to continue wasting munitions and held fire. Examining her target closer, Jessica quickly rethought her strategy as she turned to River.

"River! More drones! Need good targeting!"

"Right!"

Getting her point across to River with a limited vocabulary, Jessica was about to inform Mike too. Still, before she did she found no point in doing so as he had already caught on and started increasing the Wyrm's altitude.

Having slowly climbed to about 4 kilometres in altitude, Mike's evasion manoeuvres became increasingly hectic partly as he had far less cover to work with, but also partly to draw the Eden battlecruiser just a bit closer in.

(Although they seemed fun enough to play around with at the start, that didn't last for long…)

Cutting off communications with the heretic, Inquisitor Lua breathed a deep sigh in a vain effort to quell her boredom.

"Arm the main gun and finish them off, after that, we set course for this 'castle' that has been reported."

Condemning the ship and its crew to death, Inquisitor Lua's attention had been drawn towards reports of a massive palace or fortress that was giving her forces problems, although she had only been ordered to conduct a small-scale raid on the planet to find out what kind of boon had been sent, Lua now learned in the direction of ignoring that directive and just taking control of the entire planet herself.

That seemed far more entertaining anyway.

"Arming bow anti fortress railgun, prepare to fire!"

Far less inclined to offer any kind of protests or complaint after having seen his former superior getting killed the Inquisitor's new staff officer relayed her orders immediately. At the Inquisitor's orders, the bow of the battlecruiser split open like the yaws of a shark, revealing a truly massive railgun inside which started charging.

"That's sure a big ass railgun, your opening is here Jessica!"

"Ha!"

Wearing a bloodthirsty smile Jessica released a swarm of kinetic energy missiles, but instead of igniting after a second, Jessica waited for the opportune moment. Due to the higher, the Wyrm was flying, the missiles released had quite a bit of headroom to continue falling in their inert state, as they were cold and inert they didn't show up on the Eden battlecruiser's attention, even as it passed right over them.

"DIE!"

Using the drone's River had been deploying as a relay and for targeting information, Jessica launched the swarm of kinetic energy missiles right into the gut of the Eden battlecruiser, targeting its auxiliary thrusters with no warning Jessica scored a multitude of critical hits at the same time.

"We were hit from below! Multiple casualties in the port and port aft section, furthermore auxiliary thrusters number 11, 13, 17 and 21 are offline! The ship is listing aft, we cannot remain inside a grav well for much longer!"

Calling out as their ship took multiple hits the staff officer started panicking, luckily for him his leader didn't have the same issue.

"We're off balance by 65 tons, purge flak section 61A through 77D and increase power delivery to remaining auxiliary thrusters by 11%. Take what we need from the tertiary life support, no need to constantly fill up the backup tanks… That'll hold us airborne for a few hours."

"Purging flak sections 61A through 77D! Flight stabilising!"

"Readdressing power bus 33E! Tertiary life support system offline, we've regained full airworthiness!"

While capital class ships from Jessica's and River's individual galaxy were fragile hulks generally designed for long-range and ultra-long-range engagements, the Eden Theocracy's capital ships broke that trend entirely. Built to slug it out at what could otherwise be considered CQC or close-quarters combat, the perfect word to describe the titans of the Eden Theocrasy would be a juggernaut.

"Good, the main gun has charged while all of you were busy freaking out. Execute the heretics, wait for them to move first."

Done playing around the instant she took a hit herself, Inquisitor Lua had turned cold and calculating in a split second as she condemned the potential toys she had been interested in, to death.

(I have no use for pets that bare their claws at me, best to clip them early, that'll make the rest of them fall in line~)

"That massive turd is still airworthy!"

"SHI!-"

Noticing the massive railgun normally meant to crack open fortresses pointing in his direction, Mike slammed on the accelerator as he yanked the stick to the side, playing right into the Inquisitor's hand.

"OPEN FIRE!"

"Ma'am! Firing!"

Having chosen their moment perfectly, a third faction barged in on Mike and Lua's little game of cat and mouse, hitting the Eden battlecruiser with multiple high calibre railgun rounds and blowing one of its ammunition stores.

Unable to correct form his last-second desperate dodge, Mike crashed the Wyrm through a statue of some long-dead emperor. Putting on the brakes the Wyrm lost most of its lift and crashed into the plaza behind the statue, sliding for about a hundred metres before stopping; it was only when Mike had finally regained control he noticed what was happening.

"If you have that kind of fucking hardware then don't fucking wait to the last second like this!"

"We're hit! Multiple hull breaches detected, furthermore ammunition store #3 has cocked off! Heavy casualties reported and reactor output is dropping!"

Ombard the Eden battlecruiser not even Inquisitor Lua had seen it coming, it was only after taking multiple hits that anyone of the vessels noticed the massive hostile battle group which was emerging from some sort of underground holding complex near the palace.

(No way we're winning against that, and I'm not ready to meet with our lord above either…)

Weighing her options for a split second, Inquisitor Lua's calm and cold demeanour cracked as she realised she had been defeated by mere heretics.

"FUCK! Emergency disengage! Take us to witch space now!"

"Ma'am! Sending fleet-wide orders to disengage!"

As the hostile battleship shifted into hyperspace, the commander of the solar empire royal guard showed a satisfied smile before he addressed his superior sitting comfortably in his chair sipping tea beside him.

"Your royal highness, the marauders appear to be in a full-scale retreat planet-wide. What shall we do?"

Faced with a question she knew was coming, the empress of the solar empire nevertheless took time to put down her teacup and pat her lips dry with a handkerchief before responding.

"We want to talk with the crew of the ship that distracted those marauders, knowingly or not they led them directly into our ambush. We deem it necessary to at least thank them for that."

Pulling up surveillance records from the entire engagement, the commander of the royal guard also shared his master's favourable assessment, only he saw something she didn't.

(The pilot of that Wyrm is good, almost too good… That, or they knew what they were up against.)

"Right away Ma'am, I'll send a team to look for survivors."

Meanwhile back in the Wyrm, Mike Jessica and River were drained of their spirits after fighting for their life. Having confirmed that the Eden battlecruiser (and properly the rest of the Eden forces) had retreated, the energy drained from the warry trio. While River and Mike let all the pressure drain from their body, Jessica stood up and stretched while the Wyrm's cockpit was repressurized. Once she could breathe without her helmet on Jessica removed it as it had been squishing her ears for hours on end now, massaging her sore ears her sharper than average senses returned to her along with two extremely disconcerting discoveries.

The first thing that hit Jessica when she took off her helmet was the overwhelming stench of blood, new and old, throughout the cramped 4-man cockpit, secondly, she could only hear one other person breathing. Panicking at the realisation Jessica turned to Mike and noticed quite a bit of blood had already pooled at his feet, furthermore he had stopped breathing.

"NO! MIKE!"

Jessica's pained scream alone was enough to shake off any sort of exhaustion River had, as saw her shaking Mike River also noticed his state. Although he was wearing a bulletproof vacuum suit, that amount of protection had its limits. Fleeing from the Eden ground forces Mike had taken point when advancing and kept up the rear when retreating or disengaging, the numerous hits he had taken doing that time had worn out and eventually defeated his armour without him noticing due to the massive amount of adrenaline in his system.

"MIKE! STAY WITH US!"

The relief he had felt when the Eden battlecruiser suddenly retreated had been too much for Mike's system to handle, so as he learned back in his chair he had passed out, a few seconds later he stopped breathing.