Ravens of Eternity

324 Force of Nature, Pt The Fleet of the Corvus Republic lowered itself down to sensor range and hovered right above the much larger barge below. Up in the bridge, Rear Admiral Aurora commanded her gunners to fire, which they did with eager glee.

The Raven’s Refuge’s broadside guns had all been faced downwards, and fired in near-unison. The resulting BOOM was deafening to anyone out on the island deck of the barge. Everyone else was otherwise blasted to pieces when the shells struck the surface.

Most hit a number of defensive turrets and utterly destroyed them. Their heavy shells punched through their armor and annihilated everything and everyone inside. They were specifically avoiding doing any damage to the barge’s main deck armor itself, however.

The last thing they needed was to punch through and wreck anyone on the decks below.

Both luckily and unluckily for them, there were more defensive turrets than the Raven’s Refuge had guns. Far, far more. Though every barrage they fired wrecked some, there were plenty more still firing back at them.

The turrets all around the top of the barge rotated and swung up as they tracked various ships in the fleet, all of whom were already swaying from evasive maneuvers. There was a cacophony of cannonfire as they all attempted to hit the ships, but found that their shots went far and wide.

Multiple gunners groaned and complained loudly, and yelled at their targeting officers angrily. Called them incompetent for their inability to actually do their jobs. It was as though their targeting was completely off. As though they had missed on purpose.

In truth, Raijin worked to scramble the fleet’s signals, even while she attempted to break into the barge’s targeting circuits.

“I am unable to attack their weapons systems,” she said over comms. “They have completely isolated the majority of their circuits from each other. It is a very clever defense.”

.....

“Well, at least we’re safe from their weapons too,” Xylo replied.

“We are safe for now due to my targeting screen, however I do not know how long it will last. We must assume they have datacoders onboard, and are working to unscramble it.”

“Okay, great. How the hell do we crack that egg, then?”

“We strike their above-water operations tower,” Lucifer chimed in. “It’s not the bridge, but it comes close in terms of control. We tear it apart, and we reveal where the circuits terminate. Then we take it all over from there.”

“We’re on it,” Kali replied. “My assault squad is kitted and ready.”

Kali and her Rakshasa wing then adjusted their trajectory and angled steeply down towards the barge itself. Specifically, towards the main operations tower that Lucifer had pointed out on their targeting lists.

Not that their descent went unnoticed – multiple defensive turrets surrounding the tower turned their barrels towards them, and fired relentlessly.

A great majority of their shots whizzed by harmlessly, negated by Raijin’s targeting screen as well as the wing’s evasive maneuvers. A few came dangerously close to the point that the pilots heard them scream past.

Certainly close enough to rattle their courage and shake their morale

“Requesting assistance,” Kali said. “Those guns are getting more and more accurate...”

“We’ve got your back,” Xylo replied.

She and her wing dove ahead of the mecha at top speed as Xylo calculated their initial attack run. Though they too became targets from the defensive turrets, their speed and agility were more than a match against them. They came in hard, leveled off, then wove around as they headed towards their first few targets.

Then once they were in range, fired their Graviton Rays at numerous turrets and defensive emplacements. Their deep black beams rushed forward in an instant and struck the turrets where their armor was thickest.

Despite how robust they were, they had no chance against the Graviton Rays. Whatever the beams struck instantly crumpled and warped from the overwhelming gravitational forces applied to them. Entire sheets were wrenched off and mangled as the beams traversed their surfaces.

And when the beams came across a second time, warped the structure and systems and modules underneath with ridiculous ease.

Their barrels also bent and warped way out of shape despite their incredibly hardened hyper-dense composition. The force of gravity overwhelmed all else.

The multiple gunners seated inside them were also brutalized as the gunnery compartment they operated out of crumpled all around them. Their bodies were crushed and burst open as the turrets compressed themselves.

Some of the turrets exploded outright as their ammunition ignited from the sheer pressure imposed on them.

More than a quarter of the turrets firing on Kali were turned to slag by Xylo’s attack run, and it was only the first of many. Her fighters sped off after their initial attack, but quickly spun back around for a second heaping of damage.

By the time they tore through another dozen or so turrets, Kali and her wing were well in position for their own attack run. The six of them ignored the majority of fire headed their way, knowing that Xylo had them covered. Instead, the focused in on their target, and made a bee-line for the tower itself

They hardly bothered to slow down, and instead smashed feet-first all around it – on top, along the awnings, and down at their base. Much of the tower’s armor crumpled and dented heavily under their feet, unable to withstand the force of their impact.

But they were only just getting started.

Each of them reared back with their heavy two-handed weapons, and tore even further into the already-weakened armor. Their omnitronium axes and swords hacked and chopped, while the mauls dented and tore.

No matter the weapon, they wrenched the armor off violently and revealed multiple circuits and systems underneath. Which they tore apart with even greater ease.

The moment that the top-side operations tower had its first failure, Raijin snuck in her injection attack. There, she began to wreak havoc on their systems. While her engines took over the rest of the circuits, she took control of the turrets themselves.

And grinned mischievously.

Gunners inside each one were utterly horrified as their turret moved against their commands. Many cursed as they slammed on their controls, unable to do a thing about their predicament. They outright panicked when they showed up on each others’ targeting displays.

They were literally aiming at the turret closest to them. And they, in turn, were aiming at another turret close to them.

Then, they all fired at the same time with one tremendous FWOOM. Their own shells punched into the others, and blasted them to pieces. Most were simply torn open by the blasts, with everyone inside smashed into bloody paste.

~

Multiple decks below, Freya, Lucifer, and Amarok burst into some kind of scientific observation room. Most of the walls were littered with screens, each one with data pulled from whatever tests they were currently undergoing.

In the very middle was a large antigrav containment field, though it was currently empty and deactivated. A number of robotic arms with vicious-looking probes and needles hung from the ceiling around it.

Encircling the containment field were a number of terminals, though none were being manned by any technicians. In fact, no-one appeared to be down here.

At the far end of the room, in one of the corners, a man on a very high platform walked up to the edge and looked down at the three. He adjusted his well-tailored suit before he called down below to them.

“Ah, the Corvus Republic, yes?” he said. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

The three of them walked closer to the man, each of them brimming with anger. It appeared that they had finally come face to face with the person that ran this barge. Or at least, whoever ran the labs.

“Who the hell are you?” asked Freya. “And how do you know who we are?”

The man simply chuckled in delight, as though he was making the winning move in a game they were all playing.

“Call me the Director,” he said. “I’m the one in charge of this place. And I’ve been contracted to... remove you from the Hegemony.”

Freya balked at his words. Take them out? Didn’t he know who they were?

“You’re telling us you built all this just to trap us?” Freya guffawed. “I find that extremely hard to believe.”

The whole thing certainly sounded absurd to her. But then she felt Lucifer’s thoughts, which sharply disagreed with her. Hir mind was filled with various kinds of honey traps, though ze found it more exciting than worrisome.

“Of course not,” the Director replied. “I built this to further my own research. But it isn’t just some lab, no no no. It’s simply one gigantic trap, one whose bait is also its poison! Besides, you shouldn’t think so highly of yourself. You aren’t the first who’s ever come, and you most certainly won’t be the last!”

As he spoke, a handful of goons came through the doors from the sides. Each of the five of them were wearing incredibly robust power armor, and were wielding belt-fed miniguns. On their backs were large packs filled with ammunition that fed straight into their guns.

Worse, each of them was accompanied by their own wolf.

But these wolves looked nothing like the ones from the lab below. Instead, whatever fur they had were matted in small clumps on their bodies. And their skin wasn’t pinkish, but rather gray and somewhat stony in texture. In fact, they looked more like huge pestilent rats rather than wolves.

Even more terrifying were their eyes. Gone were any semblance of intelligence or even wildness – instead there was an emptiness that was accompanied by a distant bloodlust.

“By the way,” said the Director. “Thank you for bringing subject X99 with you. She’s my finest experiment, and this is an excellent opportunity to awaken her.”

The Director then raised a gauntleted arm, and curled his hand into a fist. In that exact moment, a tone echoed out all around the room, which pierced the wolves’ minds. It tore through their psyches like a blade, even as the Director himself laughed at Freya and Lucifer’s predicament.

The sound echoed through all of the wolves’ minds, and unlocked a primal instinct buried within. A primal need to tear, to rend, to destroy, to consume. It brought all those needs to the surface, and overwhelmed all rationality.

The enslaved wolves all howled in painful disharmony, as though they were bathing in the tone itself. As though it empowered them.

Amarok was also greatly affected – the tone barraged her from every angle. The invasion of thoughts battered her on all sides and shook her to her core.

She found herself filled with the need to sit, to obey, to destroy on command. To gorge herself with the joy of destruction, to revel in the act of vicious slaughter. All in service of the mad Director.