Chapter 51 - Full Force Contact

Notes : Chapter 52 has been written and added to the queue !

I loved this fight. Just had a bit of a problem, having to delve into the whole mess that was the debate around 'hydrostatic shock' and all the things to do with bullets. This is why I try to keep things vague.

Chapter 51

Starborn Mountains, Starfire Valley

Wilderness

"...Of course. Let's find a good spot and we can take a break." Said Paul.

Sapphiria wasn't sure if that thing could understand them, but surely it could tell if something went wrong, and would certainly realize if they started moving in combat formation.

She wondered how to communicate to the magehunter where it was. Though, truth be told, she wasn't a hundred percent on that herself.

There was a sensor ghost, about...a hundred meters out. Static. Positionned on the side of the trail they were following.

She couldn't get a solid read on the exact location. If she had to guess, the thing was standing still and the haze was effectively trying to blend it into the background. It had been good enough for her to only get a warning now.

"Angle? Distance?" Whispered Paul.

"Ten o'clock. Point one kilo."

He nodded slightly, and started walking and speaking again.

"Though, I'm telling you, you should really have some kind of water bottle in that suit of yours."

"If you find the room, tell me. I'd be happy to accomodate the suggestion." Her sensors were starting to get a better resolution, and-

For a split second, she had a much stronger reading. It moved. Shifted as it caught sight of them, if she had to guess.

She was careful not to gaze at it, but her cameras marked something.

A place where the foliage was a bit...wrong. It wouldn't have fooled someone looking, but camouflage relied on getting lost in the noise. Like hers did.

"I'm sure we can strap it onto-"

She kicked Paul away before the creature even left the ground in its leap.

She pivoted, ready to blast it to atoms.

And that was when she realized she'd made a critical mistake.

She had, like Paul, assumed it would go for the point man.

But Paul wasn't the one constantly scanning around, was he?

The monster moved faster than she would have believed. She hadn't even finished turning that it was already halfway through its leap.

She knew she wouldn't finish the movement.

Her hands let go of the plasma gun, and instead of knocking the weapon aside, the monster suddenly had a fistful of heavy armor into its face.

Unfortunately, it wasn't her best punch. She didn't have the stance, the momentum, and while power armor could compensate for a lot, it was still limited by the laws of physics.

She didn't punch hard enough to have her hand come through the other side of its skull.

She did punch it hard enough to piss it the hell off.

The monster knocked her to the ground, razor sharp claws raking her outer plating as alarms blared.

She had her right arm fending off its head and tooth filled jaws, the abomination strangely flickering in and out of view as it tried to kill her.

Her left was grabbing her laser pistol.

She got a hold of it a split second before a clawed...paw? Hand? Something far more prehensible than she'd expected either way, pinned her right arm down, and suddenly her view was filled by teeth as it bit down.

She heard the high tech composites and alarms alike scream as the armor began to fail.

The first shot from the laser pistol caused it to jerk. The second howl.

The third simply made it even madder. She was dealing damage, she could see it, but whatever the hell that abomination had as hide was just absorbing most of it!

She was on the verge of panicking, when suddenly the weight was thrown from her.

She saw the mass of metal of one of her riotbots hit the mosnter like a damned truck, and then the abomination went flying.

Sapphiria was already jumping onto her feet, and so was the monster. It tried to rally, but was momentarily distracted as two bullets smashed into its face, taking out one of its -many- eyes, and snapping one of the spines lining the top of its skull.

That split second was all she needed, as she ripped her gauss rifle from her back, and set it to rapid fire.

It gathered itself for another leap-

The gauss rifle hissed, and six spikes of hypersonic, armor piercing tungsten flew straight through its skull, spinal column, intestines and finally went through a tree and several meters of dirt before stopping.

It dropped dead. Useless against an undead skeleton the gauss rifle may be, but living things usually liked their brains and nervous systems unperforated. That wasn't even mentionning the extra effects such high velocity projectiles tended to have on the surrounding tissue.

She put six more rounds in it just to be sure.

"You good?" She asked as Paul rushed to her side, carbine smoking, the weapon still trailed on the monster.

He looked at her, wide eyed.

"Am I- I should be the one asking you that! Merciful ancestors, are you alright?"

"I'm fine. Didn't breach the armor." Came surprisingly close though. How? Were its teeth enchanted like the Bane's weapons?

That was terrifying.

"Fucking hell." He muttered. "It's dead, right?"

"Yeah. I think so." She gestured at one of her riotbots, sending orders.

The hulking robot moved forward, and caved the thing's skull in with its mace, and then struck several times along its spinal column.

The head was already severely damaged, but it took several strikes on each section of the column to break it.

Better to be thorough.

"Well, this ain't what attacked the workers."

"I don't know." She bent over, taking a look at it. "It's sort of...similar? Related, certainly."

"Clearly older though."

"How can you tell?"

"It's got more mutations."

"They mutate with age?"

"No. If something gets caught in a mana tempest, either it dies, or it changes." He kicked what remained of its snout, still disconcertingly camouflaged, though it was starting to fail. "I don't know exactly why, or how, but I've seen plenty of examples. And they get weirder. More unnatural. Some start turning into crystal. Others grow exoskeletons. It's mostly predictable, though it changes from Convergence to Convergence. Usually the adventurers guild and local government tries to catalogue all the variations. Sadly the imperial expedition didn't have the time to do it."

"Great. Just great."

He turned to look at her.

"You don't know much about Convergences, do you?"

She shook her head.

"Not everyone wants to deal with mutated horrors."

Which, for that matter, was perfectly true. Her preferred distance from Theocracy xenohorrors was high orbit, where she was quite happy to nuke them from.

Failing that, descending at the limit of the atmosphere for precision strikes was also acceptable.

Being close enough to literally punch them in the face was a bit too much for her.

"I can relate to that." He stepped back from the dead monster. "I think we should end it here. I thought we'd go find a few more targets, but..."

"I think regrouping and restrategizing is a wise move as well." She gestured at the corpse, and one of her riot bots -the one who had shoulder checked it off of her, actually-, scooped it up.

"Good." He gave a look at her armor with open concern. "The magistrate is going to have my head."

"I'm sure it won't be that bad."

He gazed at her, and didn't even bother gracing her with a response, simply shaking his head.

Cia. She sent mentally. Thanks. I think you just saved my ass.

After all, she hadn't given the order for the riotbot to throw that thing off of her.

Language, admiral. Answered the simulacrum. And no thanks are necessary. I am merely doing my duty.

Sapphiria closed her eyes. The 'and so should you' was as loud as a gunshot, even unspoken.

...Prepare one of the uplift packages for review. But just for review, understood?

Right away ma'am. It'll be done.

Sapphiria sighed, as she focused back on the physical world, and checked her armor.

Already, the self-repair systems were at work, but she'd taken a beating.

Her armor pinged her.

Multiple sensor anomalies incoming. Half a klick and closing fast.

She closed her eyes briefly. It was going to be one of those days.

*****

Kalia had her hand firmly pinching the bridge of her nose, Gregor somehow managing to look impressed while standing behind her, as Malry just openly stared at the skulls piled on the side of the council room table, and Ramina did likewise, but at Sapphiria's armor, which was slowly putting itself back together.

"So." Said the mage-magistrate. "Let me get this straight. Instead of retreating, or attempting to drive them away, you just...'dialed up my weapon to max and vaporized their leader'?"

Sapphiria slowly nodded, noting that Paul was staying silent. Traitor.

"That about covers it." She said.

"And then, of course, the monsters didn't just retreat before the awesome demonstration of your power. Instead they rushed you." She nodded towards the pile of scrap on the opposite side of the table. "Your guard golems did their best, but they weren't enough. So you had to finish them off yourselves."

"Well, that's not-" The rest of her sentence, that she'd expected the thermal wave to incapacitate the others, died in her throat as Kalia just glared at her.

"Thankfully." Continued the mage-magistrate. "Those were not even remotely as tough or dangerous as the one you were tracking. So instead of getting ripped to pieces, Paul only got lightly wounded and you, my dear, had your arm almost torn off."

It hadn't been nearly that bad. The inner armor layers on her forearm hadn't even been compromised, the one who had pounced on her clearly not having the intelligence of its elder, and having gone for it instead of moving it aside when it had pounced for her head.

This time she'd used her monomolecular blade, and slit its throat like it was butter.

But something told her that trying to point that out would end badly.

Was Kalia actually her girlfriend, she would be sleeping on the couch tonight. Or be unable to sit down for a week, depending on her proclivities.

Stars, I wish.

She shook herself slightly. Nope! Nope nope nope nope. No time for those thoughts.

Paul, at last, cleared his throat and leaned forward.

"I agree our actions were reckless, but I would rather we be harmed and live to tell the tale than to leave these abominations to find and rip apart our people."

Kalia's eyes flashed, and she opened her mouth to clearly tear him a new one, before stopping as Malry laid a hand on her arm.

Both women's eyes met, and the alchemist shook her head slightly.

The mage-magistrate seemed to deflate, as she sighed.

"Fine. One point I will take. But we can't afford to lose you. If you die, Sapphiria, we all do."

Killing me is beyond your, or anyone's, ability.

Except her mother's. Maybe her aunt's. Those two had the power, resources and influence to track down and eliminate her backups.

Anyone else would...well, first have to deal with the two most powerful people within the Federation. Then the entire Home Fleet, and half of the Terran Guard.

Saying that would be even more inadvisable than her previous thoughts.

"I understand. But there's also things only I can do." Like tanking hits that would have shredded her squishier teammate.

When had she started thinking of the squishie as a team anything?

Kalia closed her eyes.

"I would curse you for your sense of duty, but I suppose that would rich, coming from me." Gregor nodded in ascent, though she couldn't see it. "I hope you will at least take some time to rest and recuperate."

"I will. And think up some alternative strategies." Because her machineguns would not be enough for these things. Well, they'd do the trick for the younger one, but the first one? Oh hell no. The laser pistol and carbine had mostly just annoyed it.

And that meant she needed a solution fast. If one of those things went for Astralis, she'd rather her sentry guns had rather more of an impact than mosquitoes.

It looked like those little autocannons she'd promised Ramina were going to move up the schedule a bit.

Though she wasn't sure it should be called a schedule anymore. More of a 'vaguely coherent list of emergency solutions'.

"Good. Then I won't keep you any long. Gregor will accompany you back."

She nodded. The mage-magistrate clearly wasn't willing to take any risks.

At this point...it was fair enough.

"Of course." She looked at the old skeleton. "Ready?"

He gestured at the door.

"After you."

She sat up, and nodded at her remaining riotbot. It had survived the battle, she just had to salvage what was left of its arms to put back a half functional one, and create a makeshift bucket out of its sibling's torn armor plating.

It moved, scooping up the scrap pieces, and went to follow as she stepped out.

If all of her outings were going to be this eventful, she really needed to get herself some shoulder mounted guns. She had the attachment points, just not the schematics. 'Power armor only heavy weaponry' wasn't exactly on the list of hardware the Navy had seen fit to put in the colonial schematics database.

Thankfully, she had machineguns, clamps, and considerable experience making unholy abominations of kludging.

It was high time she started using those to their fullest extent.