- Joined
- Jul 3, 2013
- Messages
- 1,114
- Reaction score
- 41
A Galaxy Burning: A Starmade Fiction (Chapter #12)
- Thread starter MrNature72
- Start date
- Joined
- Nov 5, 2013
- Messages
- 517
- Reaction score
- 90
Authors Note: Everyone, I am so sorry for being gone so long. First, mom was in the hospitol. Second, my entire city lost power. Third, my computer is still broken. And fourth, my friend left with his computer. But despite all that, I still have my headphones, and I still have a library chock full of computers. So you know what that means? Yup. Time for some motherf*cking Galaxy Burning.
CHAPTER ELEVEN: Watch Them Burn
\"Dickson!\" I shouted.
\"Yessir?\"
\"You\'re a demolitionist, correct?\"
\"Explosives expert for my squad, yessir.\"
We had six squads, each squad had ten soldiers. Six rifleman, including the squad leader, two heavy gunners, a demolitionist, and a technician. I had grabbed a rifleman, a demolitionist, and a techy. \"You still have explosive charges on you?\"
\"Yessir.\"
\"Rig the room. Maria!?\"
\"You\'re not going to do something stupid, are you?\" She asked.
\"Stupid? No.\"
\"What\'s your plan then?\"
\"Going to turn this place to ash.\"
\"That\'s pretty stupid, Andrew.\"
\"Not when you\'re this fucking mad it isn\'t. Find me a route to the command center of this place with that map of yours. MARK!\"
\"Whatchya need, captain?\" He responded.
\"Get that blowtorch of yours and weld the door we came in through shut. I don\'t want anyone following us.\"
\"On it.\" Mark pulled out a small, handheld blowtorch from his rigging, and set to welding the door to its frame. \"I still hear them captain; I think they\'re waiting for the door to open.\"
\"The EVs?\"
\"Yessir.\"
\"Just because they\'re a virus doesn\'t make them stupid. Make sure that thing is welded tight.\"
\"I\'ll do my best, but the statue is in the way.\"
\"Good enough. Get what you can. Jack, get your weapon ready. We\'re going to be dropping in hot.\"
Maria chimed back in, \"Alright, there\'s an emergency stairway past this room. The command center is on B-12, so it\'s a good ways down.\"
\"Fine by me.\"
\"Weldings done.\" Mark said.
\"Room\'s rigged.\" Dickson said.
\"Follow me.\" I said. I headed over to the stair case. I kicked the door open. I heard some shouting below, and peeked over the edge; I was greeted by a couple of 3-shot bursts from about six stories below. \"Dickson! Let me see a grenade!\" I stuck out my right hand, my rifle in my left. He slapped a grenade into my hand. I pressed down on the spoon and flipped the safety pin out with my thumb. Beautiful, how after all these years, grenades had changed so little. I did some math in my head. I let go of the spoon, waited for a few small moments, and hurled the grenade at what I believed was the right angle. A few seconds, and a massive explosion shot fire up the stairs. I peeked over, switching my suits vision to infrared; I had missed the Vaygr by just a floor. Mark and I opened fire over the stunned soldiers, cutting them down before they could stand back up. \"Is the hydraulics in everyones suits working?\" My ear was stormed with a quick burst of \'yessirs\'. \"Alright then, follow me.\"
I worked my way over the side of the staircase, hanging onto the railing. My rifle was held firmly on my back by a magnetically-assisted clamp. I launched myself off the side of the railing, landing on the stairs adjacent to where I had launched and about two stories down. The suit absorbed most of the shock for me; I leaped again, and heard the rest of the troopers following suite. \"Tell me when I hit the right floor Maria.\"
We continued this for a short while, until Maria came onto the intercom again. \"Matthew, stop. That\'s the floor.\" I halted, and moved to the side so the rest of the troopers and Maria could land. \"I hope you know what you\'re doing, Andrew.\"
\"Oh I know exactly what I\'m doing. Dickson, get ready to blow the room.\" I said. Dickson pulled a clicket off from his combat rigging, and flipped open the cap, revealing a tantalizing red button. His thumb waited eagerly over the button. I peeked in through the glass on the door that lead into B-12. There were a number of Vaygr troopers scattering about what appeared to be a large storage room, filled with stacks of metal crates and cranes. \"Mark, slap a breaching charge on the door.\" The techy pulled out a small, circular breaching charge off from his belt. He removed the sticky tape, and slapped it on the door, clicking a red button on the front side.
\"10 seconds\" He said.
\"The moment it goes off, blow it, Dickson.\" I said. I braced myself against the wall to the right with Mark.
\"Understood.\" Dickson respoded, on the left side with Maria and Jack.
\"Five seconds.\" Mark whispered.
I braced my rifle.
\"One...\" There was a loud explosion. I instantly heard shouting on the other side. Dickson pressed his thumb onto the clicker\'s button. I could hear all of the det charges go off, even this far down. An alarm sounded, and the lights went out; Must have caused damage to the stations electrical system.
\"INFRARED AND SCATTER!\" I shouted as we stormed into the floor. Maria and I ran to the right; the troopers sprinted to the left. We all took cover behind the sturdy metal crates. I peeked out from behind the crates; The Vaygr troopers started turning on rifle-mounted flashlights, and tossed a few flares. I heard a lot of shouting, and two large machine guns from the end of the storage room turned on some mounted searchlights. I got one quick glance at them; My HUD designated them ass heavy twin-barreled 15mm autocannons. We were still cloaked in darkness however. \"Shoot and move; Don\'t let them catch you.\"
\"Why do they have autocannons here?\" I heard Mark ask.
Jack answered for me. \"Probably set them up after the invasion started; Even eggheads got guns.\"
\"Probably right.\" Maria responded. She peeked out from cover to my right; She started sprinting, opening fire while she ran form cover to cover. Good lord she can move when she really wants too, I thought to myself. \"Got two and-\" The autocannon opened fire near her location; she was pinned. \"Oh dammit.\"
I peeked out from behind cover and fired a few rounds at the gunner; it revealed my position, but I wanted it too. The autocannon instantly switched to me, and I dove to the left, dodging the fire and using the distraction to sprint to another safe location. I saw the shock troopers buddy running on my left; Two of them provided supression and kept the gunner occupied, while a third ran up closer.
\"Dickson, once you get close enough, toss a grenade and-\"
I looked to my right. There was something I didn\'t want to see; A Vaygr trooper, holding a flare. HOW DID HE GET THIS CLOSE! screamed my brain. Luckily, he seemed more startled than me; Probably was heading to flank my theorized position. I clicked a button on the side of my rifle, right above the handgrip; A large, electrolized bayonet slid out from right beneath the barrel. I promptly slammed it into his throat, just before he got his rifle high enough to shoot me. I kicked the rifle out of his hand as he grabbed my rifle, trying to pull it out of his throat. I pulled him down and behind the crate, keeping the knife jammed into his throat; Blood spurted, and his gagging was clearly heard. But I was giving less than a damn at the moment; That big Vaygr logo on his chest only made me angrier. I gave the bayonet a twist, and his body surged with pain until he collapsed. I let off a round into his jaw just to be sure before yanking the bayonet free; it retracted back into the rifle.
But the flare was still there, giving away my position. Sparks flew all around me as bullets scraped the crate and the floor. I looked to the body; A shield, I thought to myself. I latched my rifle back onto my back, pulling out my pistol. I yanked up his dead body, holding him in front of me and firing as many rounds as I made a mad dash forward, using their confusion at seeing a Vaygr body coming towards them. The surprise didn\'t last long, but it lasted long enough. Throwing the body, I dove, letting loose a few more shots that cracked as they rocketed through the air, leaving their signature white trails. As I slammed my body against some more stable looking crates, I dropped the magazine from my gyrojet pistol and slid a fresh one into it. \"How\'s everyone holding up?\" I shouted into the mic.
\"Those autocannons are slowly tearing these crates to shreds, it\'s all we can do to avoid them, sir!\" Mike shouted.
\"You three, spread to different cover. Stay hidden and give them a moment, move!\"
\"Yessir!\" They all shouted. A few short moments passed, and I could hear the autocannons firing at whenever they caught a glimpse, but slowly the fire died down as they lost track of them. I heard Jack\'s voice, \"Alright, we\'re set up. Now what?\"
\"On my mark,\" I responded, \"I want you to open fire. Just shoot. Give your position; Maria\'s at an angle enough on the right that she can tag the gunners behind the gun\'s shield if they swung to hit you. Can you hit them, Maria?\"
\"Of course I can, Andrew.\"
\"Good then. Three... two... one... MARK!\"
They instantly opened fire, and were soon greeted by a hail of 15mm rounds. It wasn\'t but a second until I heard two rounds fired from my right; and the machine guns died. Two more rounds, and the spotlights went out. I stepped out from cover and charged while they were startled. I fired off my pistol; I landed a few rounds in two soldier\'s chests, and managed to slip a round through the skull of a third as I got closer. I slid up against the wall directly beneath the railing where the mg\'s were. Maria, Jack, Mike and Dickson blistered the place with bullets as I slid across cover over to the stairs on the right. \"Hold fire!\"
I stepped up the stairs. With the autocannons down, and the spotlights killed, they had lost their advantage. It wasn\'t hard for my team to pick them off. One soldier was crawling away; He was bleeding from his kneecaps. I aimed my pistol at him, pointing the sights right at his head. I was about to squeeze on the trigger and-
Maria grabbed my wrist. \"Don\'t.\" She said.
I fired off two rounds right into his skull. His body went limp.
\"That wasn\'t necessary.\" She told me.
\"Obviously,\" I said, \"You didn\'t read that bit on the computer completely.\"
\"What do you mean?\"
\"You\'ll see.\" I ordered the troopers to stack up next to the door. They all lined up to the left of it, ready to breach. I checked it for any kind of traps, then nodded to them. They nodded back. I reared back and kicked the door open; The troopers charged, with Maria and I in tow. We opened fire on the few soldiers in the room. It was a smaller, longer room, with hundreds of filing cabinets.
\"Wow. People still use these things?\" Dickson said jokingly.
\"Yes.\" Maria responded. \"Big business still use paper; You can\'t just delete paper.
Jack fired a couple of rounds into a filing cabinet, and laughed. \"Yes you can.\"
Maria scoffed, but it didn\'t advance past that. We walked down the alley, checking and clearing the bodies of the soldiers of any weapons as we passed through. It went so for about a hundred yards, until we entered a massive computer room: the control center. I holstered my pistol and walked up to the primary console. Luckily for me, it was already turned on.
I opened up external comms, and connected myself to the Washington. \"Hello, Jeremiah?\"
\"Yes, Andrew?\"
\"We\'ve made it to the control room. Patch the Auditor in.\"
\"One moment- there.\" Jeremiah responded.
The Auditors voice came through, \"I see you\'ve made it safely to the control room captain, have you found-\"
\"Yes.\" I interrupted him, \"These people are responsible.\"
\"For what, may I ask?\"
\"Jeremiah, yank the information from this control room. Search for Planetary Invasion #12. Send the information to him. Search EV. Send the information to him.\"
\"I am wor...\" Jeremiah went silent.
\"Jeremiah?\"
\"Andrew.\"
\"Is everything okay?\"
\"No. These Vaygr are not like their brethren. Even the Vaygr has limits. These Vaygr must be...\"
\"Must be what.\"
\"...aprehended.\"
\"My thoughts exactly. Send the info to the Auditor. We still made a deal.\"
The Auditors voice returned about a minute later. \"Well, quite the find you have here, Commander. What do you plan to do with it?\"
\"Me?\" I responded. \"I plan to let you do your work, and then burn this entire place to the ground.\"
\"How do you plan to do that?\"
\"This stations uses a massive, unstable multi-fusion reactor chamber. No limitors in return for higher payout.\" I typed away on the console, digging into the system. \"Jeremiah can easily set it to overload, cause a small supernova.\"
\"Fair enough. I do not like the idea of losing such a station; But considering the circumstances, as long as you allow my men to do a clean search, I can compromise. Just one question; are you planning to return the favor? To go full circle?\"
\"Yes.\"
\"Fine. I don\'t need any personel. Only information. Give me 30 minutes.\"
\"Alright. Jeremiah? Overload the reactor in an hour. And patch me into the local Vaygr comms.\"
\"Understood... you\'re in.\"
I instantly heard shouting and yelling. I clenched my fist. \"EVERYONE QUIET!\" I shouted. The noise died down. I was an unfamiliar voice, and my presence was obviously made. \"You don\'t need to know who I am, what I am, or why I am here. All that you need to know is you have lost, and we have won. I plan to destroy your station in an hour. However...\" I clicked a button on the console \"... I have unlocked all the emergency hangar doors. You have until that hour is up to escape. Good luck. Turn off the comms.\"
\"You\'re back on the secure comms, Andrew.\" Jeremiah said.
\"Jeremiah?\"
\"Shoot them as they come up. Yes, I know.\"
Maria was stunned, \"What! Jeremiah, you can\'t do that!\"
\"Of course I can. Didn\'t you read the data?\" He responded.
Maria turned to me, \"What does he mean? What could the Vaygr done to deserve this!\"
\"You mean outside of destroying my planet?\"
She got up in my face, the helmet front receding away so I could clearly see her face, \"But they let the civilians escape!!\" She shouted.
I retracted my facemask too. I put my hand on her shoulder. \"The only reason I escaped was because I was on a marked DFN ship being used by the Vaygr to secretly shuttle prisoners. I had gotten lucky.\"
\"...No.\"
\"They shot down every single civilian transport to leave the atmosphere. I\'m not a survivor, me and my mom are the only survivors.\"
\"But... why?\"
\"Terror Fleets are psychopaths. They would kill with sticks if they had too; The Vaygr simply utilize them. But they went too far. They went too far with Pragni. So I\'m going too far on this station.\"
Maria sighed. \"I understand.\"
\"I don\'t like it, Maria. Don\'t get me wrong.\" I turned, and pushed a button on the console. All security locks within the station had been released. We began our walk back to the staircase, heading back to the surface to be lifted back into the Washington. \"But it\'s just full circle. This place obviously had a hand in destroying my planet, and the billions of people on it; I don\'t plan to let these people commit such an atrocity again.\"
\"So you\'re going to kill them?\"
\"Maria, I\'m just putting down the rabid animal. Nothing more, nothing less.\"
\"What about revenge?\"
\"It\'s more than that now.\"
\"What is it then?\"
\"Retribution.\"
CHAPTER ELEVEN: Watch Them Burn
\"Dickson!\" I shouted.
\"Yessir?\"
\"You\'re a demolitionist, correct?\"
\"Explosives expert for my squad, yessir.\"
We had six squads, each squad had ten soldiers. Six rifleman, including the squad leader, two heavy gunners, a demolitionist, and a technician. I had grabbed a rifleman, a demolitionist, and a techy. \"You still have explosive charges on you?\"
\"Yessir.\"
\"Rig the room. Maria!?\"
\"You\'re not going to do something stupid, are you?\" She asked.
\"Stupid? No.\"
\"What\'s your plan then?\"
\"Going to turn this place to ash.\"
\"That\'s pretty stupid, Andrew.\"
\"Not when you\'re this fucking mad it isn\'t. Find me a route to the command center of this place with that map of yours. MARK!\"
\"Whatchya need, captain?\" He responded.
\"Get that blowtorch of yours and weld the door we came in through shut. I don\'t want anyone following us.\"
\"On it.\" Mark pulled out a small, handheld blowtorch from his rigging, and set to welding the door to its frame. \"I still hear them captain; I think they\'re waiting for the door to open.\"
\"The EVs?\"
\"Yessir.\"
\"Just because they\'re a virus doesn\'t make them stupid. Make sure that thing is welded tight.\"
\"I\'ll do my best, but the statue is in the way.\"
\"Good enough. Get what you can. Jack, get your weapon ready. We\'re going to be dropping in hot.\"
Maria chimed back in, \"Alright, there\'s an emergency stairway past this room. The command center is on B-12, so it\'s a good ways down.\"
\"Fine by me.\"
\"Weldings done.\" Mark said.
\"Room\'s rigged.\" Dickson said.
\"Follow me.\" I said. I headed over to the stair case. I kicked the door open. I heard some shouting below, and peeked over the edge; I was greeted by a couple of 3-shot bursts from about six stories below. \"Dickson! Let me see a grenade!\" I stuck out my right hand, my rifle in my left. He slapped a grenade into my hand. I pressed down on the spoon and flipped the safety pin out with my thumb. Beautiful, how after all these years, grenades had changed so little. I did some math in my head. I let go of the spoon, waited for a few small moments, and hurled the grenade at what I believed was the right angle. A few seconds, and a massive explosion shot fire up the stairs. I peeked over, switching my suits vision to infrared; I had missed the Vaygr by just a floor. Mark and I opened fire over the stunned soldiers, cutting them down before they could stand back up. \"Is the hydraulics in everyones suits working?\" My ear was stormed with a quick burst of \'yessirs\'. \"Alright then, follow me.\"
I worked my way over the side of the staircase, hanging onto the railing. My rifle was held firmly on my back by a magnetically-assisted clamp. I launched myself off the side of the railing, landing on the stairs adjacent to where I had launched and about two stories down. The suit absorbed most of the shock for me; I leaped again, and heard the rest of the troopers following suite. \"Tell me when I hit the right floor Maria.\"
We continued this for a short while, until Maria came onto the intercom again. \"Matthew, stop. That\'s the floor.\" I halted, and moved to the side so the rest of the troopers and Maria could land. \"I hope you know what you\'re doing, Andrew.\"
\"Oh I know exactly what I\'m doing. Dickson, get ready to blow the room.\" I said. Dickson pulled a clicket off from his combat rigging, and flipped open the cap, revealing a tantalizing red button. His thumb waited eagerly over the button. I peeked in through the glass on the door that lead into B-12. There were a number of Vaygr troopers scattering about what appeared to be a large storage room, filled with stacks of metal crates and cranes. \"Mark, slap a breaching charge on the door.\" The techy pulled out a small, circular breaching charge off from his belt. He removed the sticky tape, and slapped it on the door, clicking a red button on the front side.
\"10 seconds\" He said.
\"The moment it goes off, blow it, Dickson.\" I said. I braced myself against the wall to the right with Mark.
\"Understood.\" Dickson respoded, on the left side with Maria and Jack.
\"Five seconds.\" Mark whispered.
I braced my rifle.
\"One...\" There was a loud explosion. I instantly heard shouting on the other side. Dickson pressed his thumb onto the clicker\'s button. I could hear all of the det charges go off, even this far down. An alarm sounded, and the lights went out; Must have caused damage to the stations electrical system.
\"INFRARED AND SCATTER!\" I shouted as we stormed into the floor. Maria and I ran to the right; the troopers sprinted to the left. We all took cover behind the sturdy metal crates. I peeked out from behind the crates; The Vaygr troopers started turning on rifle-mounted flashlights, and tossed a few flares. I heard a lot of shouting, and two large machine guns from the end of the storage room turned on some mounted searchlights. I got one quick glance at them; My HUD designated them ass heavy twin-barreled 15mm autocannons. We were still cloaked in darkness however. \"Shoot and move; Don\'t let them catch you.\"
\"Why do they have autocannons here?\" I heard Mark ask.
Jack answered for me. \"Probably set them up after the invasion started; Even eggheads got guns.\"
\"Probably right.\" Maria responded. She peeked out from cover to my right; She started sprinting, opening fire while she ran form cover to cover. Good lord she can move when she really wants too, I thought to myself. \"Got two and-\" The autocannon opened fire near her location; she was pinned. \"Oh dammit.\"
I peeked out from behind cover and fired a few rounds at the gunner; it revealed my position, but I wanted it too. The autocannon instantly switched to me, and I dove to the left, dodging the fire and using the distraction to sprint to another safe location. I saw the shock troopers buddy running on my left; Two of them provided supression and kept the gunner occupied, while a third ran up closer.
\"Dickson, once you get close enough, toss a grenade and-\"
I looked to my right. There was something I didn\'t want to see; A Vaygr trooper, holding a flare. HOW DID HE GET THIS CLOSE! screamed my brain. Luckily, he seemed more startled than me; Probably was heading to flank my theorized position. I clicked a button on the side of my rifle, right above the handgrip; A large, electrolized bayonet slid out from right beneath the barrel. I promptly slammed it into his throat, just before he got his rifle high enough to shoot me. I kicked the rifle out of his hand as he grabbed my rifle, trying to pull it out of his throat. I pulled him down and behind the crate, keeping the knife jammed into his throat; Blood spurted, and his gagging was clearly heard. But I was giving less than a damn at the moment; That big Vaygr logo on his chest only made me angrier. I gave the bayonet a twist, and his body surged with pain until he collapsed. I let off a round into his jaw just to be sure before yanking the bayonet free; it retracted back into the rifle.
But the flare was still there, giving away my position. Sparks flew all around me as bullets scraped the crate and the floor. I looked to the body; A shield, I thought to myself. I latched my rifle back onto my back, pulling out my pistol. I yanked up his dead body, holding him in front of me and firing as many rounds as I made a mad dash forward, using their confusion at seeing a Vaygr body coming towards them. The surprise didn\'t last long, but it lasted long enough. Throwing the body, I dove, letting loose a few more shots that cracked as they rocketed through the air, leaving their signature white trails. As I slammed my body against some more stable looking crates, I dropped the magazine from my gyrojet pistol and slid a fresh one into it. \"How\'s everyone holding up?\" I shouted into the mic.
\"Those autocannons are slowly tearing these crates to shreds, it\'s all we can do to avoid them, sir!\" Mike shouted.
\"You three, spread to different cover. Stay hidden and give them a moment, move!\"
\"Yessir!\" They all shouted. A few short moments passed, and I could hear the autocannons firing at whenever they caught a glimpse, but slowly the fire died down as they lost track of them. I heard Jack\'s voice, \"Alright, we\'re set up. Now what?\"
\"On my mark,\" I responded, \"I want you to open fire. Just shoot. Give your position; Maria\'s at an angle enough on the right that she can tag the gunners behind the gun\'s shield if they swung to hit you. Can you hit them, Maria?\"
\"Of course I can, Andrew.\"
\"Good then. Three... two... one... MARK!\"
They instantly opened fire, and were soon greeted by a hail of 15mm rounds. It wasn\'t but a second until I heard two rounds fired from my right; and the machine guns died. Two more rounds, and the spotlights went out. I stepped out from cover and charged while they were startled. I fired off my pistol; I landed a few rounds in two soldier\'s chests, and managed to slip a round through the skull of a third as I got closer. I slid up against the wall directly beneath the railing where the mg\'s were. Maria, Jack, Mike and Dickson blistered the place with bullets as I slid across cover over to the stairs on the right. \"Hold fire!\"
I stepped up the stairs. With the autocannons down, and the spotlights killed, they had lost their advantage. It wasn\'t hard for my team to pick them off. One soldier was crawling away; He was bleeding from his kneecaps. I aimed my pistol at him, pointing the sights right at his head. I was about to squeeze on the trigger and-
Maria grabbed my wrist. \"Don\'t.\" She said.
I fired off two rounds right into his skull. His body went limp.
\"That wasn\'t necessary.\" She told me.
\"Obviously,\" I said, \"You didn\'t read that bit on the computer completely.\"
\"What do you mean?\"
\"You\'ll see.\" I ordered the troopers to stack up next to the door. They all lined up to the left of it, ready to breach. I checked it for any kind of traps, then nodded to them. They nodded back. I reared back and kicked the door open; The troopers charged, with Maria and I in tow. We opened fire on the few soldiers in the room. It was a smaller, longer room, with hundreds of filing cabinets.
\"Wow. People still use these things?\" Dickson said jokingly.
\"Yes.\" Maria responded. \"Big business still use paper; You can\'t just delete paper.
Jack fired a couple of rounds into a filing cabinet, and laughed. \"Yes you can.\"
Maria scoffed, but it didn\'t advance past that. We walked down the alley, checking and clearing the bodies of the soldiers of any weapons as we passed through. It went so for about a hundred yards, until we entered a massive computer room: the control center. I holstered my pistol and walked up to the primary console. Luckily for me, it was already turned on.
I opened up external comms, and connected myself to the Washington. \"Hello, Jeremiah?\"
\"Yes, Andrew?\"
\"We\'ve made it to the control room. Patch the Auditor in.\"
\"One moment- there.\" Jeremiah responded.
The Auditors voice came through, \"I see you\'ve made it safely to the control room captain, have you found-\"
\"Yes.\" I interrupted him, \"These people are responsible.\"
\"For what, may I ask?\"
\"Jeremiah, yank the information from this control room. Search for Planetary Invasion #12. Send the information to him. Search EV. Send the information to him.\"
\"I am wor...\" Jeremiah went silent.
\"Jeremiah?\"
\"Andrew.\"
\"Is everything okay?\"
\"No. These Vaygr are not like their brethren. Even the Vaygr has limits. These Vaygr must be...\"
\"Must be what.\"
\"...aprehended.\"
\"My thoughts exactly. Send the info to the Auditor. We still made a deal.\"
The Auditors voice returned about a minute later. \"Well, quite the find you have here, Commander. What do you plan to do with it?\"
\"Me?\" I responded. \"I plan to let you do your work, and then burn this entire place to the ground.\"
\"How do you plan to do that?\"
\"This stations uses a massive, unstable multi-fusion reactor chamber. No limitors in return for higher payout.\" I typed away on the console, digging into the system. \"Jeremiah can easily set it to overload, cause a small supernova.\"
\"Fair enough. I do not like the idea of losing such a station; But considering the circumstances, as long as you allow my men to do a clean search, I can compromise. Just one question; are you planning to return the favor? To go full circle?\"
\"Yes.\"
\"Fine. I don\'t need any personel. Only information. Give me 30 minutes.\"
\"Alright. Jeremiah? Overload the reactor in an hour. And patch me into the local Vaygr comms.\"
\"Understood... you\'re in.\"
I instantly heard shouting and yelling. I clenched my fist. \"EVERYONE QUIET!\" I shouted. The noise died down. I was an unfamiliar voice, and my presence was obviously made. \"You don\'t need to know who I am, what I am, or why I am here. All that you need to know is you have lost, and we have won. I plan to destroy your station in an hour. However...\" I clicked a button on the console \"... I have unlocked all the emergency hangar doors. You have until that hour is up to escape. Good luck. Turn off the comms.\"
\"You\'re back on the secure comms, Andrew.\" Jeremiah said.
\"Jeremiah?\"
\"Shoot them as they come up. Yes, I know.\"
Maria was stunned, \"What! Jeremiah, you can\'t do that!\"
\"Of course I can. Didn\'t you read the data?\" He responded.
Maria turned to me, \"What does he mean? What could the Vaygr done to deserve this!\"
\"You mean outside of destroying my planet?\"
She got up in my face, the helmet front receding away so I could clearly see her face, \"But they let the civilians escape!!\" She shouted.
I retracted my facemask too. I put my hand on her shoulder. \"The only reason I escaped was because I was on a marked DFN ship being used by the Vaygr to secretly shuttle prisoners. I had gotten lucky.\"
\"...No.\"
\"They shot down every single civilian transport to leave the atmosphere. I\'m not a survivor, me and my mom are the only survivors.\"
\"But... why?\"
\"Terror Fleets are psychopaths. They would kill with sticks if they had too; The Vaygr simply utilize them. But they went too far. They went too far with Pragni. So I\'m going too far on this station.\"
Maria sighed. \"I understand.\"
\"I don\'t like it, Maria. Don\'t get me wrong.\" I turned, and pushed a button on the console. All security locks within the station had been released. We began our walk back to the staircase, heading back to the surface to be lifted back into the Washington. \"But it\'s just full circle. This place obviously had a hand in destroying my planet, and the billions of people on it; I don\'t plan to let these people commit such an atrocity again.\"
\"So you\'re going to kill them?\"
\"Maria, I\'m just putting down the rabid animal. Nothing more, nothing less.\"
\"What about revenge?\"
\"It\'s more than that now.\"
\"What is it then?\"
\"Retribution.\"
FlyingDebris
Vaygr loves my warhead bat.
- Joined
- Sep 6, 2013
- Messages
- 2,458
- Reaction score
- 1,312
- Joined
- Jul 17, 2013
- Messages
- 566
- Reaction score
- 47
i died and nice job im starting to wonder if ill be able to pick it up at a barns and noble soon.
I did notice that in the staircase scene, Maria refers to Andrew as Mathew, but that\'s just a technicality. Great chapter nature, glad to see you back in action. 
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2013
- Messages
- 1,114
- Reaction score
- 41
- Joined
- Nov 5, 2013
- Messages
- 517
- Reaction score
- 90
I messed up there. Matthew is actually the name of the main character in my original book. Sometimes if I work on both, I\'ll mix names up.
I\'ve managed to confuse many an English teacher with that same screw up. I appreciate the small details, like the caliber of the MGs. Really makes the universe seem alive
- Joined
- Nov 5, 2013
- Messages
- 517
- Reaction score
- 90
I believe that immersion is key. It would be simple to just have them flinging bullets at eachother. But knowing the calibers, the impact effect, even the effect of their flight (I\'m looking at you, Andrew\'s Gyrojet pistol), it just adds so much more.
You could probably find people willing to pay the credit limit to have Nature get out another chapter, me included.
