บท 159: Dante's Inferno
*Recommended music - Nightwish - End of All Hope
UNS Singapore, Gun One
The Huawei Lei Shen series 9 dual 155 mm rail cannon hummed as energy flowed into its rectangular conductive rails. Built and designed by the weapon tech department of one of China's top hi-tech firms, the older ships like UNS Singapore were armed with the Huawei Lei Shen series 9 railgun which was state of the art during the ship's commissioning. Now the latest frigates and cruisers in United Nations of Mankind mounted the latest Lei Shen series 14 and above models. But that does not mean that the series 9 model was any weaker than its more recently developed counterparts.
Heat dispensing radiators shields popped out on the armored turret body as the weapon readied itself for the command to be fired. Inside the turret, autoloaders rotated the ready ammunition stores and selected two streamlined armor-piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabot projectiles each weighing over 3 kg. They dropped onto a loading hoist which carried the shell into the rear breach of each of the railguns and an automatic rammer shoved both projectiles into their respective guns.
A clamp gripped the armature covering the projectiles in place as the rammer rotated and locked the gun breech securing the weapon. All these took less than five seconds to be completed while the gun crew doubled checked their consoles and switches that everything was operational.
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"Fire the main guns!"
The weapons officer jabbed the firing key, and a split second later, the left barrel of the Gun One roared. The projectile was tossed out by the magnetic fields hit Mach 18 within a second, causing a vacuum tear in the very fabric of the atmosphere. The sonic boom scoured off all loose particles off the exposed hull of the UNS Singapore, and as the shock blast hit the Colony seconds later, it was like a 7.5 on the Richter scale magnitude earthquake.
Roofs rattled, windows broke, and any loose items fell and shattered throughout the Colony. The people hurdle under cover screamed while the unlucky ones had their eardrums ruptured.
Those onboard the UNS Singapore barely felt the shockwave, only hearing a massive thumping, as the ship's internal sound and shockwave proofing held.
The armor-piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabot projectile screamed through the atmosphere, taking 0.19 seconds to bury its self against one of the snow covered peaks of Sawtooth Mountain and exploded. The peak vanished, and collapsed, raining tons of rock and snow down the slopes. Seconds later, the roar of the explosion swept over the Colony, creating more screams of fear and terror among the civilians.
The public broadcast system blared again, warning the population for a second imminent firing of the main guns and the people panicked more as they quickly hid and took shelter again.
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UNS Singapore, Command Bridge
"Holy mother of god!" The bridge crew looked stunned at the destruction wrought by the main gun fire.
"Back at your stations!" Ford barked. "Status?"
"Stan-stand by!" The weapon officer looked slightly pale as his fingers trembled slightly while he checked with the gun crew. "A-all systems normal! Heat levels still within tolerance levels! Gun One auto heat dispensers are functioning normally."
Ford turned and gave Blake a disapproving look. He knew the effects of firing the main gun in an atmospheric environment as he had done a live firing exercise on a barren planet before.
Blake stared back unflinchingly at Ford and said, "Ensure that the Eagle One knows we are firing at his vicinity, make sure they take all the cover and precautions they could."
"Aye, Captain," Ford sighed and turned to the slack-jawed communications officer. "Contact Eagle One, make sure they are prepared and under cover for main gun impact!"
"Aye XO!" the comms officer jolted back to life and started messing around with her comms control, raising Eagle One on the radio. "Eagle One confirms danger close!"
"Warn the population again," Blake said and he waited for the comms officer to do her work and waited, looking at the main screen, watching clouds of snow and rock dust drifting down from the shattered mountain peak.
"Lock on that Hero..." Blake said finally after he mentally ensured that enough warning and time was given to everyone to take shelter. "FIRE!"
And another supersonic boom ripped across the skies.
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Uncharted Forest, 291 km away from Sawtooth Mountain Pass
Lt Joesph screamed at the men to take cover, "Danger close! DANGER CLOSE!"
"Get into cover!" His men yelled at each other, shouting to those still fighting the Hero.
The Hero hovered in place, smiling at the panicking and dying soldiers. His body was constantly recovering from the effects of the Sun God's Eye. He forcefully held onto his link to the Sun God's divine powers, protecting the link from the cursed demon explosive spells, and thunderstones.
He gloated at the creatures stumbling away from him in urgency, feeling the terror in their eyes and feeding on their fear of him. Is this what the Ancient Gods felt like? To easily dominate man and creatures? He gave out a bark of laughter, feeling the adrenaline rush as endorphins released from his brain made him high.
"HHAhaHAHAHAHaahahaahAHAHAHAHhahahaa...!" Dante laughed joyfully, "FEAR ME! BOW BEFORE ME! WORSHIP ME! FOR I AM A GO-!!!????!!!!!!!!????????????!!!"
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Something slammed into Dante, and the Sun God's Eye closed, vanishing from the mortal world as if it did not exist at all. A sharp crack of thunder, a hundred, no, a million times louder than the roar of a rifle lagged by 18 seconds behind the projectile that slammed directly into the unaware Hero.
The Marines and Claymore One hunkering down under cover both physically and magically. screamed and yelled as the blast wave overloaded their bodies, battering and tossing them like a ship in a storm. Weakened trees were torn up and uprooted, crashing down as the ground shook from the passing of the low flying projectile traveling at Mach 18.
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Dante screamed as his mind could not comprehend what was happening. The terror he has not felt so long since he first gotten his divine powers came rushing in. He felt his heart at the back of his throat and could barely feel any part of his body, only vaguely seeing something dark nesting on his belly.
He barely felt the heat caused by the friction of the air against his body as he suddenly traveled at 5,963 meters per second with a third of the projectile's head buried in his abdomen. His skin turned red, and peeled off, as the air scraped his remaining clothes and skin off and the heat burned his hair away and flash cooked his flesh off, exposing his bones.
Before his brain could process his dire situation as 0.45 second later, he and the projectile slammed deep into the side of the mountain range, sending a mushroom cloud up into the air and sent pieces of rock and stone flying hundreds of meters away.
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Blue Thunder roared in fright and tucked his head in under his wing together with his crew as they huddled together, using Blue Thunder's body as cover from the passing railgun projectile shockwave.
The men yelled and cried as the ground shook terribly and Blue Thunder felt true fear for the first time in his life. "I-I think I w-wet myself!"
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Gold leader, Sergeant Legos cursed as he fought against the sudden turbulence while the other planes in his flight rolled and dived in the air.
"Shit!" Legos cursed as he saw one of his planes impacted against the sea of trees and did a cartwheel before sinking into the leaves.
"Cobra down! We got another one down!"
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Valkyrie One and Two barely managed to stay in the air as the shockwave from the rail gun projectile passed by them several kilometers away, both ships hit air turbulence as the supersonic wave rolled over them.
Greg the goblin screamed and shrieked as he held on to his dear life in the holds of Valkyrie One. The stench of vomit and voided bowels reminded him of his times onboard the goblins raiding ships. "BAD MEMORIES! BAAAAAD MEMORIESSS! NOOOO STINKY MAAAA-NEEEEEEESSS NOOOOO~~~!!"
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UNS Singapore, Command Bridge
"STATUS?" Blake roared out, as the UAV feed suddenly flickered and a <NO SIGNAL FOUND> error message popped up. "Get that back online!"
"Aye aye!" The frantic crew quickly jumped into action, trying ways to bring back the UAV.
"Captain, Gun One reports systems holding," Ford reported, "Energy crystal battery currently left 15% power. Temperature holding at yellow levels but heat sinks and dispensers are still functioning."
Blake nodded, "Load the guns and have the crews on stand by, I want to know what's happening on the ground!"
"Sir! No responses from Eagle One!" The comms officer yelled. "Valkyrie Flight reports mushroom cloud sighted in the vicinity of Eagle One, ETA 22 minutes!"
"Airforce Command reports Gold Squadron had lost one Cobra due to the shockwave!" The comms officer reported again as reports from each department started to flood in. "They are requesting a SAR (Search And Rescue) team!"
"Have Valkyrie Flight vector over for SAR duties once they dropped off the troops!" Blake ordered.
"Captain, upper decks 2A, 4B and 5A reporting warping from the after effects of main gun firing!" Ford looked up from his tablet. "I have ordered crews down to do structure checks and support bracing on the structure frames just in case."
"Got it," Blake nodded, "After this get Engineering to do a whole super structural sweep of the ship, check if there are any issues with the ship's structure."
"Aye Captain!" Ford replied. "Damage and casualty reports coming in from the city!"
"Bad?" Blake asked as he eyed a beeping light on his computer and ignored it as it appeared to be a call from the Princess.
"Very..." Ford sighed, "I did warn you, Captain... Your popularity ratings gonna drop."
"Who cares about popularity ratings?" Blake raised a frustrated eyebrow. "I care about making sure a threat like that rabid Hero gets put down once and for all!"
"Sirs! UAV back online!" the UAV operator yelled from his station. "Putting it back up on the main screen!"
The main screen flickered to life and the view started panning, showing a trail of destruction caused by the rail gun projectile tearing right over the canopy of the Uncharted Forest, leaving behind a straight line of broken trees.
The image panned towards the circular clearing before it showed a dust cloud still drifting over a mountain face, and the imagery switched to infra, showing a bright blob right at the bottom of the dust cloud. The view panned downwards again, showing figures in the forest, some moving around while most barely moved, laying in various poses on the floor.
"Think we got him?" Ford asked.
"What does the radiation sensor tells us?" Blake asked the UAV operator.
"Nothing except background radiation and very low levels of 'Mu' radiation around the surrounding areas. Mu radiation was the classification Dr. Sharon gave for the magic radiation given off by the Hero and all forms of magic, just that the amount of radiation the Hero gave off was hundreds and thousands of time higher compared to normal magic, making Dr. Sharon able to come up with a method of detection.
"Vector Valkyrie Two into the impact site," Blake said after a while. "I want visual confirmation of kill."
"Yes sir!" the comms officer spoke into her mike as she directed the flight of Marines to their new heading. "ETA 31 minutes, Sir!"
Blake nodded and looked at the blinking light flashing nonstop on his console and sighed, keying the accept key. "Yes?"
"Blake!" The princess's panicky voice could be heard loudly, making some of the crew look his way. "What is going on!?"
Blake hit the headset key and donned on the headset, cutting off the princess's voice from his console speakers. "Something we had to do."
"What is something we had to do? Do you know how many damages are in the city now?" Sherene yelled into his ear. It was the first time he ever heard her yell, oh no the second time, as he thought back to the time she invaded his bunk. "We got calls from many people about being wounded! Are we still required to be taking shelter?"
"Yes," Blake replied, "For at least one hour!"
"Do you know there are fires all over the city now?" Sherene said, her voice slightly cracked.
"Hmm, I can think of someone who probably is in an inferno right now..."
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