War Core 3, Chapter 7.

Chapter 7.

Your time in the safe zone is ending, prepare for the next stage of your challenge.

Hugh took one last moment to confirm his gear was in place as the announcement appeared. His wounds had healed during the remaining time they had spent inside the safe zone, and it appeared that some sleep did accelerate the healing process for him. Their entire team was up and armed, none of them quite sure what they would their next test would be.

Everyone had gotten some upgrade from the first stage, but none were keen to disclose the details. About the only detail that the party shared was where they had stashed med patches just in case they were too seriously injured to use them on their own. Pasharn didn’t have a traditional patch, instead, it was a small syringe of thick slime that had to be injected through the suit she was wearing. Other than their odd companion, everyone used the same healing items, which would make things easier in the thick of a fight.

One wall of the compartment they were in suddenly dropped down, revealing a long, metal passageway that ended in a hatch that looked like something from a submarine or a starship. Blaylock moved forward, the passageway was easily large enough for two human-sized people to walk next to each other, but the oversized rock giant filled it with his bulk and Hssim followed closely behind with Vilkrex at his side. Hugh and Pasharn followed Hssim with Dalven bringing up the rear

“Hold, I just received the details of our challenge,” Hssim said, pushing the information to the rest of the party.

You have been placed aboard the starship Faded Glory. Other forces have boarded, and you need to reach the bridge before your opponents do. From the bridge, your party can take control of the ship and activate the automated defenses. Eliminate all opponents aboard the Faded Glory to complete this stage of your challenge.

Hssim then shared the ship layout with them. It appeared his schematic was either overly simplified, or the GCA had dumbed down the ship layout to force more encounters. Three passageways ran from the rear of the ship where they were now located, toward the bow where the bridge was placed. The ship was eerily quiet, but Hugh thought he could feel the thrum of engines somewhere behind them.

“Unless anyone has insight into what passage to take, I say we take the rightmost and move quickly toward the objective,” Hssim said.

“I agree, but move either me or Pasharn to be right behind Blaylock, that way, one of us can provide cover fire,” Hugh suggested.

“Good, switch with Vilkrex,” Hssim said.

“Watch your fire, I won’t take kindly to any ‘accidental’ shots hitting me,” Blaylock warned.

“Woah, we’re on the same side, I’m only trying to help keep you alive,” Hugh said, not wanting to make an enemy of the angry rock monster.

With a dismissive grunt from Blaylock at Hugh’s response, he waved the party forward. The hatchway opened into a larger compartment with access to all three passageways leading toward the bridge. Hssim, Dalven, and Vilkrex moved from one passage to the other, trying to sense any difference. Hugh and the others weren’t exactly from species known for great senses. No difference could be between the three paths could be found, so the group chose the rightmost passage and continued toward the bridge.

The passageway was rather monotonous, with metal panels only broken up by some larger bracing around the edges every dozen yards or so. Their path angled slightly toward the right, so they didn’t have a completely unobstructed line of sight. It convinced Hugh that this wasn’t some real starship they were on, just a stage created by the GCA. Normally, there was a bit more detail in the battles he had been a part of. Now, perhaps the system errors were starting to show as the GCA standardized things in a bid to reduce some of the tremendous effort and resources they were expending.

“A side passage, do we take it, or continue on our path?” Hssim asked as a large hatch appeared on the left side of the passageway.

“I suspect that will lead to the central of the three passages. If our objective is to reach the bridge first, we may not want to deviate from our intended path,” Pasharn offered.

“There could be some additional rewards stashed away here and there, but I agree with Pasharn that we should press on,” Hugh said.

“I agree, we move forward if there are no objections. Blaylock, can you see about jamming the hatch shut so nobody can use it to surround us?” Hssim asked.

“I can, but what if we need to use it to escape some challenge ahead that we cannot defeat?” Blaylock said. Hugh kind of agreed with him. As bad as having a second force appear to the rear might be, if they found out the passage they had chosen was blocked off and another was the correct way, Hugh didn’t want to have to backtrack all the way to the rest zone compartment.

“Fine, let’s not waste any more time, get moving,” An annoyed Hssim snapped. Hugh was starting to notice the dino-like alien got more and more hostile when he hadn’t had a chance to kill anything for a while. They would likely have more than their fill of fighting before this was over so that particular personality quirk shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

They passed two more side hatches on their journey, and Hugh wasn’t the best judge of distance when he was in a flesh and blood body, but he would bet they had traveled several miles by now. Occasionally, Hssim would call a halt and move forward with Dalven to check ahead a bit. At every other stop, Hssim had Dalven move back and listen for any signs of pursuit while he went ahead solo.

“There are sounds of combat ahead, I think we’ve reached our objective. I’ll move forward and scout what the situation is, hold here until I return,” Hssim said. Dalven accompanied him, it was too risky to have a single one of their team move on their own. They weren’t gone for more than fifteen minutes before the pair returned, Hssim limping from a deep burn wound to his left hind leg. Slapping a med patch on the wound, Hssim waved Dalven to speak while he waited for the nanobots to numb the pain and treat the wound.

“It’s the bridge, and they know we’re here,” Dalven said.

“Who are we fighting?” Hugh asked.

“It’s hard to tell, but I think the original bridge crew is defending against the boarding teams from the other two passages we didn’t take. The bridge crew is a mix of races, and the boarders are more of those four-armed aliens,” Dalven said.

“So, the bridge crew is defending against two groups of the aliens we already fought, does that mean the crew is on the same side as our team?” Blaylock asked.

“No, they spotted us and shot Hssim with some kind of beam weapon. The invaders wore different colors, and they were fighting each other as well as the bridge crew. It’s a big free for all,” Dalven said.

“Do we attack, or wait for the two sides to wear each other down again?” Hugh asked.

“I think we need to risk an assault. The bridge crew seems to be holding the other aliens back easily enough and without our force, I fear they will secure the ship. While we watched, defenses were slowly coming online, and an automated turret dropped down to add its firepower to the mix,” Hssim said, the wound on his leg now mostly closed by the near-miraculous ability of the med patch.

“What kind of weapons are we facing?” Vilkrex asked.

“The aliens we fought before are armed the same, simple bladed weapons and spears. They are using numbers to swarm the bridge crew, who are armed with laser pistols, mostly. The only reason the invaders haven’t been wiped out is because of the long recharge time their beam weapons seem to take. Nobody seems to have any armor, but there are some shields around the bridge crew stations. The shields aren’t that strong, but it did take a hit or two from the invaders to break through,” Hssim said.

“What kind of numbers are we looking at?” Hugh asked.

“About twenty bridge crew, along with a pair of turrets. It was hard to judge the invaders’ numbers since I couldn’t see into the passageways very far, but while we were there, a near-constant stream of them attacked,” Hssim said.

“How do you want to play this?” Dalven asked.

“We’ll need to take control of the bridge console, which is set further back from the rest of the crew. A real monster of a ship’s captain guards it, but if we take him down, and access the console, we win the challenge. Here’s the prompt I received when I entered the bridge area. Unfortunately, one of the crew got a shot off before I could get back into cover,” Hssim said, pushing the prompt to everyone.

The challenge objective is nearby. Take control of the indicated master console to seize the ship. Once you take control, hold off all attackers until the ship's automated systems can neutralize the threat.

“Blaylock will lead the strike, with Hugh and Pasharn right behind him laying down fire to clear a path. We follow the wall to our right and charge straight toward the master console. Don’t stop, we keep moving or we die,” Hssim ordered.

As they moved closer to the battle, even Hugh’s ears started to pick up the sounds of the fight. The lasers the bridge crew used gave a sharp crack when they fired, and the now-familiar angry shouts of the four armed aliens were mixed in with their death cries as they forced their way onto the bridge through the sheer weight of numbers. Hssim held them back right before they came into view of the entrance to the bridge.

“We go, and we go fast, now!” Hssim shouted. All pretense at a stealthy approach was thrown out the window as Blaylock stomped his way forward. Hugh kept to the oversized ally’s right while Pasharn kept to the left, both of them using the rocky giant’s body as cover while trying to keep clear fields of fire.

After only a few moments they broke onto the bridge. Directly in front of them was a control console. Unlike most ships, the consoles faced the door they had entered from and did not face toward the bow of the ship like Hugh would have expected, giving the crew a bit of extra cover. There was only time for a glance around the bridge to orient himself before Hugh was forced into the fight.

The bridge crew was a mixed lot of humanoid aliens from species that Hugh didn’t recognize. It was a big universe, and he hadn’t even seen the tiniest fraction of what was out there. About the only familiar one of the bunch was the ship’s captain. Posted at an oversized console that was their objective, the ship’s captain was a huge example of the four-armed alien invaders. Was that supposed to be the alien's reason for attacking the ship, some dispute between the captain and his people? Hugh didn’t have time to consider it, as the alien manning the nearest console began to point a laser pistol toward Blaylock.

Hugh lined up his shot and fired on the crewman. A spark flared when his round hit the shield protecting the crewman and his console. The bullet was stopped, but the impact was enough to shatter the shield and open the way for Pasharn to blast the target with her weapon. A small spurt of acidic goo hit the crewman who screamed and collapsed to the deck.

Blaylock stepped around the now unmanned station and charged toward the captain, hugging the wall. A blast from another crewman hit Blaylock in the side, but other than a grunt of pain, the giant kept on course. A shot from Hugh shattered the shield around the shooter and opened the way for Pasharn to finish the job. More of the crew turned their attention his way, the boom of his .45 wasn’t exactly the most subtle means of fighting. Hssim and the others were now inside, charging past the slower Blaylock to engage the captain while most of the enemy was focused on the big guy and the human with the loud weapon.

A pair of blasts hit Blaylock, causing him to stumble and crash through the shield of a nearby station. The crewman at the station shrieked in terror as the giant crushed him in his oversized hand. Hugh posted up behind Blaylock, using the giant and the crew station as cover. A laser blast cracked past his head, close enough to singe the side of his face. Hugh returned fired, emptying the weapon toward the target. The hail of shots shattered the shield and tore apart the crewman. Pasharn stopped on the other side of Hugh and was firing rapidly as well.

He hit the deck and swapped magazines smoothly thanks to the muscle memory downloaded into his latest physical form. A heavier blast of laser fire slammed into Blaylock’s head, burning through the rocky covering and out the other side. It was one of the automated turrets, and as it began to slew toward Hugh, he fired. The shield around the turret was more powerful and it took two rounds to shatter it. His third, fourth, and fifth shots slammed into the armored turret housing, denting it, but not breaking through. The last two shots managed to penetrate the armor, causing the turret to explode off the ceiling.

“He’s gone, move toward the bridge,” Pasharn said as Hugh searched the giant’s pack for a med patch. She was right, even the powerful Blaylock couldn’t survive having a hole burned through his head.

Keeping low, Hugh and Pasharn moved toward the rest of their party who were tearing apart the ship’s captain. The captain wasn’t a pushover and had shot Dalven as they approached. The Yalear was even now trying to slap a med patch onto the hole burned into his stomach. Vilkrex ended the fight, slamming one of her hatchlings onto the back of the captain’s head while he tried to fight off Hssim.

Seeing their rivals about to complete the challenge, the alien boarding parties redoubled their efforts to seize the ship, joining forces to attack Hugh’s team. The frenzied charge of the invaders took some of the heat off Hugh and Pasharn as they reached the others at the bridge. Hssim was tapping his claws on the console and hissed at Hugh to cover him. Hugh reloaded and began to look for targets. Vilkrex’s hatchling had control over the captain, and whatever upgrade Vilkrex had received as a reward for their previous challenge must have improved her control over her puppet. The crew shifted focus away from the party and began to only target the invaders after their captain ordered them to ignore Hugh’s team.

You have taken control of the ship. The crew will now fight for your team and the automated defenses will slowly come online to assist. Defend yourselves until the ship is cleared of boarders.

They had done it, but it seemed the job wasn’t over just yet. More and more of the invaders poured onto the bridge and even with the crew helping them, Hugh wasn’t entirely sure that they would be able to hold out. Whatever the ship’s defenses were, he hoped they would hurry up and come online.