Capítulo 128: Chapter 44: The Rescue
'Spotted!' Both Cellica who's been monitoring the status of this fight with her artifacts and Rydel and Valerie who's just using a simple telescope on the shuttle all shouted at the same time as Sir Deva and Sadie Allen walked out of the building. Knowing that they will come with an explosive entrance, Valerie immediately hopped over to the pilot's chair and started prepping the shuttle for emergency maneuvers.
'The people I have mentioned to you about has just exited the building.' Cellica warned through GBI communications channel, 'be careful.'
'Yeah yeah....' The officer replied impatiently as it circled around the riot control droids in a semi-circle with multiple layers of back up and surrounded the remaining soldiers and the two man who has walked out.
There is no reason to treat them any difference, especially since they don't exactly look like they are coming out to surrender. The bolts are fired at them, and they continuously bounced off a shield. However, that shield doesn't interact with the attacks like the normal force shields from the shield generators. Normally, energy bolts causes a sort of rippling effect like a drop of water onto a calm surface. This shield bounces those attacks off like a trampoline as bolts are sent flying back where they came from.
Then, the shield became more and more expanded and covered a larger and larger area to the point that all of the riot control droids ended up firing the bolts straight back into themselves. Realizing that the two are enabling the soldiers to fight back, the officer immediately pull the droids back and regrouped nearer to the shuttle. The rate of fire also ceases and instead some of the droids aimed to find the edge of the shield by providing scattering fire in all angles while a few of the shield neutralizer sphere are rolled out right in front of them.
The shield neutralizers are spheres that gives off electromagnetic signals that will jam most normal grade shield generators upon impact, similarly to how a charged Aquarian blade does to a shield, and those things simply bounced off the outer layer of the shield and rolled away.
'Try to group them up.' Sir Deva ordered as he continued to walk forward without a single hint of worry about getting hit, as Sadie Allen is charged with the role of deflecting all of the upcoming attacks with his artifact. Then, as more and more of the droids are grouped together next to the shuttle that they crashed landed in, Sir Deva reached out a hand and activated his artifact.
There is a twist and a whirling in the image of space around the shuttle before a tiny dark sphere popped into existence. Then, the mass sphere projected by Sir Deva began sucking everything towards it like a tiny black hole as the shuttle slid towards it before collapsing inwards as the metal screeches and screams. The droids were lifted off the ground and thrown into the pile of metal as the projected mass sphere became stronger and stronger. In one instant, almost half of the droids and the two shuttles are turned into a mountain of scraps. Despite his surprise, the officer orbiting high up away from the surface of the orbital ring quickly put in the command for scattering and spreading out the remaining droids, leaving around twenty of them still standing.
They opened fire once more from a more spread out position, and Sir Deva simply reached his hands out to the side and started picking off the droids one pair at a time. No shots were fired from anyone from the Absolute Being from that point onward as Sir Deva easily took care of what remained on the battle field.
Then, he looked up, and his enhanced vision searched for the shuttles that could be controlling the droids.
'Which ship were the drop ships released from?' Sir Deva asked in his channel towards the supporting crew that are in the command room of the base.
'Based on the trajectory, the drop ships could only come from the following angles.' The supporting officer uploaded a hologram projection of the ship's trajectory, starting from the piles of metal spheres and tracing their move back up until they blended into a single trajectory high up away from the surface of the second orbital ring. There are indeed a ship hovering around in that area, and it remained there curiously, even after seeing what Sir Deva can do.
'He is about to do something!' Rydel warned, as Cellica relayed the same information towards the GBI forces, 'be careful!'
'Don't you intervene with my job!' The officer sounded tilted from the wipe out of his riot control droids squad, 'I have another squad.'
'But what are you going to do now?'
'I am going to board right into the base. We were going too soft on them!' The officer howled, as he slammed the button to release the remaining two drop ships hidden in the cargo holds.
'Sir Deva, they are releasing more drop ships!' The supporting officer warned.
'They won't be anymore.' Sir Deva said, taking a single deep breath and let the artificial air fill his ribcage and his belly before turning all of this focus towards that shuttle that has another two shining dots released and coming their way. Then, he reached out.
Unlike most other artifacts, Sir Deva's Mass Projector can work exceedingly well at long ranges, and he actually struggles with accuracy in the near range, which is why that's what he trained to control most of the time. His artifact simply has way too much power, and it wanted to be released with a high intensity and through great distances. The accuracy is going to be tricky at this distance, but as long as he can create a strong enough gravitational pull from the projected mass in the approximate right direction, it should do the job of crushing or crashing that shuttle that is meddling with their business.
Unleasing his limits on the artifact, Sir Deva released a giant sphere of mass near the shuttle's altitude, and the sudden appearance of the body of mass immediately pulled the shuttle right towards while sending the readings on the various devices into a frenzy. Alarms filled the room alongside panic as the pilot struggles to gain the control and bring the shuttle back into it's stable position. However, the pull is too sudden and too strong! The thrust generated from the shuttles are supposed to be used in higher atmosphere and low orbit environment, which means it is enough to overcome the planet's gravity and some air resistance, but not enough to escape the pull of Sir Deva's artifact.
'Shit!' Valerie also spotted the sphere, and despite them being a few kilometers away, the shuttle they are on also started drifting towards it as the ship's computer struggled to comprehend this suddenly appearing celestial body and the extra force vector. Thankfully, the force is a lot weaker at this distance, and the acceleration is a lot smaller.
The ship that was Sir Deva's initial target is now falling quicker and quicker towards the center of the projected mass and be crushed into a giant metal meatball, along with all of the crews in it.
Without a moment of hesitation, Valerie turned her ship and dived towards the suddenly appearing center of the gravitational pull.
'How close do you need?' Valerie puts the thruster at maximum output so the acceleration of the ship and the acceleration from the project mass sphere combine to get them as close to that ship as quickly as possible.
'I don't know yet,' Rydel said, 'but...but I can feel it if we get close enough.' Rydel said, his left hand already reaching out and feeling for the texture of space as orange light pulses on the circuits on the glove.
'Then what are you going to do?' Valerie trusted that Rydel knew the consequences of getting too close, and only refrained to only say what needs to be said.
Without answering, Rydel switched on the communications to Cellica, who's talking to the now panicking officer, 'Cellica! Tell all of the crews to bunch up together and get as close to a single formation as possible, like a meatball! I will warp them out when I get close enough.'
Then, he turned and shouted to Valerie who's monitoring the distance between the two ships closely, 'Valerie! I will jump out of the ship once we get close enough towards the orbital ring, then I will warp those people into this ship.'
'And then...' Rydel said, then he felt it! The rough edges of the shuttle, and feeling of the wings putting pressure in the center of his palm. He is within range! With his space uniform already on, Rydel slammed open the door and jumped out before finishing, 'I will save you! I promise!'
'Don't worry about me.' Valerie said with a calm voice, 'I am plenty safe. I will lock my ship down for five seconds, and then I will unlock it.' Then, with a shining light from the cockpit of the shuttle, Valerie activated her artifact as the shuttle slammed to a halt in its tracks.
Lock Down activated!
Rydel now have ten seconds to warp those people into the shuttle, but he will have to do it after Valerie has unlocked.
Rydel was about to say something cheesy like I love you, but he knew he will succeed, and he knew he will have to succeed, so instead, he shut his mouth and began to focus.
There is no downward gravity in the orbital ring, but the ship's velocity still carried on sending Rydel down towards the surface of the orbital ring alongside with the kick that he gave to himself as he jumped off. As he flew through the space quietly both down and away from the center of the projected mass, the feeling of the shuttle remained in his hand.
He is getting closer towards the shuttle, just at an extra angle when compared to Valerie's shuttle. Now that he is outside of the ship, he can see the bigger picture much more clearly. Reaching out with his glove, he began to close in on that shuttle.
However, he could only feel the surface of the shuttle. And nothing within it. His fingers flailed madly around like a flag in a storm, but he just can't get in!
What is this bullshit? Rydel thought as he tried to focus harder, with the fingers search and making its way around the shuttle that has now reached the outer edge of the projected mass as the outer layers began to shed off and fire bursts from the deforming ship.
He will have to dig deeper, be more precise with his minds, and be more decisive with his actions. There are so many moving parts at the same time as vectors for both himself and the ship he is trying to safe is sending him everywhere. This is incredibly difficult, liking shooting a fade away shot in basketball, except the rim is flying away and crumbling at the same time.
But that's what he has been training for! For the past two months, despite their super recovery and energy reserves, Valerie and Rydel still trained their hardest to get better and better at the skills of using their artifacts. Valerie figured out how to lock herself and a much bigger region down, at a cost of a horrible after effect, and Rydel simply got better at using the glove on the move.
As long as he still struggles to warp objects in all situations, he cannot call his artifact the Glove of Summoning, and it would be a bit shit really. Gritting his teeth, Rydel approached the task that he has never tried before. Some might argue what is the point of preparation and training if the actual task is always so much difficult, but the entire point of that is to prepare one's body and mind to perform beyond one's perceived limits when it is called for.
And the moment is now!
Breaking through the outer layer of the shuttle with all of his concentration as the glove shined bright like a light bulb, Rydel felt the feeling of the crews of the GBI shuttle huddling and bundling into a circle. But it was more than that he felt. He felt the desperation and the fear of death eliminating from those that are surrounded by the space he controlled.
Now, their fate is quite literally within his hand.
Closing in his fist, Rydel warped all of them away from the ship which exploded an instant later as the fuel tanks are penetrated and the engine core burned up. But Rydel knew he was successful.
Turning and twisting his body in mid air, he reached the clenched fist towards the shuttle that is stopped dead in its tracks. The reason that Valerie only stopped for five seconds is because of the way orbital ring operates and the mess of vectors that one need to take into consideration. When Valerie locks an item down, she mostly locks it down with reference to her own movement, so a flying bullet will be locked down in its trajectory relative to Valerie, but in the reference frame of the universe, the planet is still spinning and orbiting about the celestial body it is orbiting on. She will never have to worry about the movements of the universe around her.
However, when she is locking areas around her down, she needed to be incredibly careful regarding the reference frame she chooses, or else she will come out of the lock down in the middle of the stranded space as the planet left her behind. That's one of the key things she had to learn during her two months of training.
So for right now, Valerie locked the reference frame onto the planet Olympus Zero, or rather the precise longitude the shuttle is on. However, the shuttle was orbiting with the orbital ring at a different speed than the self spin of Olympus Zero, meaning that Rydel, the orbital ring and the projected mass all would have left her behind at a velocity that equaled the difference between the planet's self spinning speed and the orbital ring's rotation speed. Five second is just enough for her to still be able to catch up to them with the previous velocity that is much faster than the linear speed of the orbital ring's rotation while still giving Rydel enough time to save the crew.
So after all of that mental gymnastics, Valerie locked everything around her down right away. For her, the feeling of being locked down felt like sitting on the bottom of a swimming pool, as there is no sound, no movement and nothing around her. It is a moment of peace, or stagnation, depending on one's viewpoint. And though Valerie would have enjoyed it on another occasion when things are less stressful, now she simply anxiously awaits for the end of the Lock Down.
And finally, after what felt like an eternity to her, five objective seconds has arrived, and a wave of information traveled outwards from the spiraling patterns of the artifact in her arm and unlocked all of the regions around her. The shuttle jumped immediately back up onto its previous speed and trajectory, as the scanners and dials continued their warning.
'There you are.' Seeing the shuttle moving again, Rydel smiled a little as the shuttle began to move again. Then, he felt for the velocity of that and matched it with the movement of shuttle, 'nice to see you again.'
'Have you got them?' Valerie asked as she maintained the current velocity and tried as hard as she can to steer the ship down and away from the mass sphere that still remained there. However, the ship struggled to escape the gravitational well.
'I have, and I am dropping them in the ship...now.' Rydel said and released his grasp.
A bundle of humans appeared next to the shuttle.
He missed.
'FUCK!' Rydel screamed, 'I missed, they are right next to you though!'
'I am on it!' Valerie shouted loudly as she leaped off her chair, accidentally snapping off the seatbelts with her strength. She ran towards the doors and saw the groups of crew members still hugging each other tightly.
'Don't bother! I will warp all of you out of there!' Rydel said, reaching out and expanding the radius of influence for his glove to cover the entirety of the ships and the surrounding crew before closing in all both of them.
Then, he spun around to see the rapidly approaching ground and released the shuttle right in front of him. He slammed onto the top of the shuttle and crushing his nose on the metallic shell. There is a small cracking sound coming from the physiologically enhanced and yet still not very tall nose, but Rydel don't have time to worry about that.
'Pull up! Pull up!' He yelled into the microphone as the orbital ring is getting uncomfortably close and his enhance vision can now see clearly what is going on in the ground.
'On it!' Valerie replied as she dragged all of the crews into the shuttle and left them to figure out the seating and seat belts before she sprinted towards the cockpit and turned the nose of the shuttle up with all of its thrust.
The shuttle shot away from the base L2 in a parabola as the bottom scraped along the top of some of the buildings on the orbital ring before finally avoiding a fatal crash narrowly with a high riser. However, as the shuttle now turns away from the orbital ring's surface safe and sound, Rydel can finally let out a sigh of relief as he can finally relax his fingers where dug into the top surface of the shuttle and prevented him from being thrown off it.
'You know, we really could have won pilotmania with that maneuver.' Giggling uncontrollably after that daring rescue, Rydel spoke into the microphone as he heard the crews cheering in the background about their survival and Valerie's effort. To them, Valerie appeared to be the savior.
But Rydel really couldn't care less at this point. As the shuttle doors open again and Rydel was pulled into the main room, the rest of the crews were still wondering where this person came from.
'Ah, Cellica, I am sorry...' After mustering some courage, the officer finally said once more in the communications channel to the worrying Cellica, 'I...don't know what really happened, but I think it was thanks to your people.'
'Call us the Bearers of the Artifacts.' Rydel walked out from the cockpit, the dent in his nose now exceedingly obvious and distracting, 'it was an artifact that crushed your ships, and it was two artifacts that saved you.'
'Artifacts...?' Those that never experienced the powers of the artifacts simply cannot contemplate what that really means, but right now, they really don't want to think too hard about anything, 'anyway, is your nose okay?'
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