章節 29: Target rich environment

"Do you guys want to die!? I can arrange that right now if you keep pointing those toys at me!"

Standing with two pistols in hand and wearing a bulletproof vacuum suit Mike wasn't really that afraid of the countless rich kids pointing their weapons at him, if a firefight broke out he was dead either way so it really didn't matter.

(Either I die here by a lucky headshot going through my helmet or I face capital punishment for killing a bunch of kids in self-defence… The only way we all walk out of this is they're all hopelessly green.)

While Mike had been the first to react to a pistol being pointed at his face, River had also drawn her PDW and extended the stock before stepping halfway out from behind Mike to cover for Jessica; she had been ready to start killing until Mike had started talking.

"Like some sort of merc can just come in here and start demanding things! Let's fucking kill them all!"

Responding to Mike's threat with one of his own, the one who seemed to be the leader of the group of rich brats that took doing drugs at a shooting range pointed his gold-plated showpiece at Mike, but most importantly he didn't fire, showing just how inexperienced he was to actually kill other people.

If Mike had been in the leader's position he would have already opened fire, this told Mike everything he needed to know.

"Righty, 6 against 3 you would think odds are in your favour, sadly none of you smartasses are packing AP. Sure, assuming you can all hit me from this distance it'll hurt pretty badly but that'll just decrease my accuracy on the return fire, in that case, I'll aim for body shots and all of you will die slowly instead of quick."

Instead of keeping his voice, loud Mike got cold and calm, as he understood it and felt it, Mike's avatar had gone through the countless hours of intense PVP combat in Interstellar Online, he had killed countless people, sometimes with his bare hands, and died in the most excruciating was imaginable so one more time didn't really matter that much to Mike; he truly didn't fear death, or at least he believed he didn't. Looking into the eyes of the kids pointing handguns at him, it was clear to Mike that fear had won over their heads, while the pride in them wanted to kill him, none of them was willing to stand out and become a target.

(In that case…)

Setting the safety on the handgun he had taken from the brat that almost shot him, Mike flipped it around and handed it back to its owner who was still on the floor.

"Scoot over and give us two booths, 5 minutes and we'll be gone and you guys can go back to whatever the fuck you were doing."

Rubbing his sore jaw as he thought over the offer, the guy on the floor eventually reached out for his gun as he relented.

"Okay, if it is just 5 minutes…"

But he didn't get back his gun that easily, just before he took it, Mike pulled the gold-plated handgun back as he opened his visor, staring into the kid's very soul.

"But if you point any kind of firearm at me again, loaded or not, I will kill you… Slowly."

Mike's voice was as ice-cold as it was frank and its effect on the entire shooting range was immediate as all semblance of aggression and bloodlust evaporated from the room. Getting nothing more than a meek 'y-yes sir' in response to that statement, Mike finally handed back the gun as he put his visor back down and holstered his own pistol. Rising to his feet, he turned his back to the kids and lowered his voice as he addressed River.

"They try anything again and we ice the entire room."

"Sure, that would be delightful."

Getting back to Jessica now that the situation was somewhat diffused, Mike grabbed her hand and dragged her over to a booth.

"Okay then, let's get on with it."

"What happened just now?"

Not understanding how or even why the entire standoff had just happened, Jessica was understandably confused, even more so as she didn't understand what was being said.

"Just a small misunderstanding. These rich people don't like sharing with poor people like us, given the chance they would rather snuff us out than have to look at us."

"Right…"

Not so sure about her chances to get away from Mike anymore, Jessica started reworking her plans.

While Mike was still in the middle of his standoff, the landing tower which had guided him and the others down was abuzz with activity after they had inexplicably lost contact with all orbital assets.

"Radar and lidar have been recalibrated and reset to no effect! No contacts registered, even laser comns to all stations have flatlined! We've lost all contact with anything above 100 clicks!"

It was a good thing stargazing wasn't a thing anymore, as all the stars had disappeared, so had the lights from any stations in orbit and even the planet's tiny moons had all but disappeared.

It was as if the capital planet of the Solar Empire had been swallowed up by a black hole.

"That's impossible! There were no anomalies detected up until now, 4096 landing towers just like this one, the finest sensors and equipment, a trillion souls and no one saw anything!?"

Red in his face from shouting, the flight controller's superior was beyond pissed off, mostly because he felt like someone was making a fool out of him.

Oh, how right he was, just not in the way he expected.

On a desolate, shattered planet sat an elaborate temple complex rivalling the size of some 20-century superpowers, worn down by entropy, erosion and war on a scale which boggled the mind the nameless planet that the temple was erected on was long dead, but the temple still remained in use. What atmosphere remained was highly toxic and not suitable for life, but what did inhabit the planet had adjusted to the harsh environment to the point they had all but forgotten that breathing the air without a filter shouldn't cause needless suffering. The people who lived in the massive temple had never left it, and outsiders rarely entered these sacred grounds for the sake of maintaining purity. Those who entered from the outside did so only after a massive donation towards the faith, the sole exception were the inquisitors, they were the faith's eyes, ears and hands throughout the Eden Theocracy, supreme in their authority they only ones that could go against their words were a fraction of people inside the temple's upper echelon. Having gone through the week-long cleansing to enter the sacred grounds, an inquisitor carrying excellent news for the very top of the Eden Theocracy walked through a seemingly endless series of grand halls and entombed studies before she reached the throne room she had been looking for. Cleansing herself before entering, the inquisitor removed her rebreather and willingly breathed in the toxic air and stepped into a small airlock where the air turned somewhat more breathable before entering the throne room proper.

"All-father, revered head priestess, it appears our offerings have finally bore fruit, sector 15 is currently reporting massive gravitational anomalies."

Kneeling inside the throne room, the inquisitor's report was met with an ecstatic almost maniacal laughter from the all-father, a sort of captain of a number of inquisitors.

"Finally! After aeons of petty infighting and squabbling! Oh lords above, is it finally time!? We have offered penance and purged all the lesser filth not worthy of our grand design!"

Reacting with almost equal excitement to the all-father, the revered head priestess gave penance in the form of her own blood to a grand statue depicting the holiest god of war before also offering one of her servants in its eternity, the child's eyes frozen in terror before fading as the head priestess cut his throat open with one of her nails and started smearing the holy statue with holy patterns in preparation for the coming crusade.

As the statue was slowly covered in sigils and its feet caked in fresh blood the statue's countless eyes started glowing in a revered light, having accepted the offering presented to it, the holiest god of war graced the priestess with its presence. Leaping from the statue, a mass of black lightning violently invaded the head priestess' body, searing her chest with a flash burn before she started clawing at her own face in the sunken empty sockets where her eyes would have been while laughing maniacally as she delivered the prophecy she had been so most graciously been bestowed.

"The time has come! THE TIME HAS COME! Our penance is complete, the gates shall soon open! These new worlds are ours to subjugate! THE HERETICS ARE WEAK! THEY KNOW ONLY PLENTITUDE AND PETTY INTERNAL SQUABBLES!"

Delivering her prophecy the head priestess clawed at her empty eye sockets and opened her mouth so wide that her cheeks tore apart, grabbing another servant she bit into the child's neck and ripped out her throat before draining its blood like a ketchup packet at the statue of her most revered god.

"OUR LORD ABOVE WILL PRESENT US WITH A PRELUDE! A TASTING!"

As the head priestess slathered the statue of her revered god with blood guts and gore, the all-father fell to his knees as tears of joy burst out from his eyes, the inquisitor was also affected as a steady stream of blood had been dripping from her face for a while now.

"HERETICS WILL BE BROUGHT BEFORE US IN SECTOR 15! WE SHALL GO FORTH AND PILLAGE IT IN THE NAME OF OUR HOLY LORD, THE FILTHY HERETICS WILL BE ENLIGHTENED! THIS MESSAGE OF OUR LORD HAS BEEN DELIVERED TO ALL TRUE BELIEVERS, OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS WILL DELIVER THE FIRST SACRIFICES TO THIS HOLIEST TEMPLE!"

Collapsing into prayer of gratitude towards her god, the head priestess delivered the statue yet more bounties as the all-father collected himself enough to give out orders.

"My child inquisitor, head to this boon and collect a suitable offering. Use the gates and spare no expense, we must give thanks to our lord without fail."

"Yes, all father, I will not fail!"

Remembering that fateful day with an almost euphoric reverence, the inquisitors smile widened to show her jagged teeth as she stood on the bridge of her personal flagship in orbit above the sector 15 anomaly, over the last few months she and her other faithful had slowly watched and waited with bated breath.

Now that the first boon of the upcoming crusade was only minutes away, the excitement was almost unbearable.

"... Oh fuck."

Coincidentally glancing at the sky after exiting the super mall Mike didn't notice it at first, but there was definitely something wrong with the sky above, when he noticed that the light from the stars and moons had disappeared he felt his heart sink. The sudden absence of outside light sources meant one of 3 things, all of them really, really bad.

"What's up?"

Quickly noticing the change in Mike, River's expression hardened. Given that a few moments before Mike had been talking about food and now seemed to be headed into a fight to the death Jessica also noticed something was wrong, there was a very palpable fear in his voice.

"We're getting pulled somewhere, we need to get back to the Wyrm immediately."

Explaining to River first the group sat off in a run towards the nearest metro station as Mike filled in Jessica.

"The stars are gone, this entire planet is getting pulled somewhere just like you were. If we're going back to where you are from you can get back to your people, but I don't think that's the case."

As if to prove Mike correct the sky shot open, and all 4096 air control nodes on the planet now picked up a totally unknown sky, along with a slew of contacts bearing no IFF signatures.

"What the hell is going on!?"

"Sir, we are now reporting 533 unknown contacts closing in fast! They're ignoring all hails and appear to have opened fire on not only us, but also other command and control nodes!"

"Central fire control node recommends returning fire!"

With all eyes inside the control tower settling on the tower commander, he reacted with his years of experience and his guts.

"Then we're now at war, sound the alarms and task all available railguns to fire!"

Watching the planetary defences open up, Mike's sense of urgency increased greatly.

"GET UNDERGROUND NOW, DEFENCES ONLY FIRE IF ORDINANCE IS INCOMING!"

Trying to at least warn the panicking populace around him Mike didn't stop to help anyone, but as the ground shook from orbital artillery hitting as Mike's group reached the metro he figured it was already too late for trillions of people. Getting into a transport pod along with River and Jessica as he felt multiple other impacts, Mike hoped he at least wouldn't get buried alive.

If he was going to die, Mike would at least like to go out with a fight.