Chapter 172 - Assault on Haui's Moon (1)

Fresia frowned as she watched a replay of the previous check-ins with the hydroponic farms. “Something is off, Kril would never act this obediently…”

In fact, she felt that all of the check-ins over the last four days were slightly suspicious. However, the data did not lie – the observation post was in perfect condition, as were the radiators, hydroponics and solar array. Shipments of fresh nutri-paste and vegetables were still coming in daily as usual.

So why did she have this sinking feeling in her heart? Before Fresia could dwell any longer on it, a call came in through her multi-terminal. “Head Warden Fresia speaking.”

[Ma’am, we’ve spotted a few bright spots heading our way. Are we expecting new prisoners? I thought we were not accepting any more prisoners.]

“Hmm? Maybe it’s an inspection. It’s about time any way. Get Gaul on the line.”

Gaul’s holographic face appeared on her monitor. “Fresia, we’re working on collaborating the radar data with our visuals. We have attempted to hail the incoming ships, but they are not responding. We will confirm soon.” Gaul spoke with an eerie calmness, not in the slightest perturbed about unknown ships coming in.

“Good, keep me updated.” Fresia nodded as she ended the call. “Not responding can only mean one thing…” She quickly typed in a few commands, sending them out through the intranet.

In a few short minutes, two prison officers were in front of her desk, saluting. “Ma’am, you wanted to see us?”

“The prison is compromised. We will need to be battle ready in the next few hours. How many combat ready guards do we have?”

The statement caught the prison officers offguard. “Compromised? Ma’am we just sent another 40 men, so we have less than half a battalion of men.”

“I asked how many are combat ready.”

The prison officers glanced at each other with wariness. “Ma’am, we only have about 250 men who are combat ready. The rest are medics and administrative staff who may have experience but are not under contract to defend the prison. But how long have we been compromised.”

“Four days I assume, or maybe even more. They might be watching our data lines, which is why I’m speaking to you verbally.” Fresia answered. The prison officers gulped internally, nodding vigorously.

“Get all of the men geared up. Say it’s a drill. I don’t want them tipping off the enemy that we know we’re compromised. Let’s keep them in the dark for a little while longer. I want them drill ready in three hours.”

The prison officers saluted, before leaving the office into a hallway. The aesthetic of the prison administrative wing was dreary, a standard grey everywhere that coated each floor and the lobby. One of the two prison officers were visibly nervous as they marched quickly through the corridor past rooms filled with clerks managing the prison logistics, food supply and repair teams.

“This is bad, I’ve never heard of the warden that serious before. The last prison break was pretty easy to solve, but this seems to be even worse.” One of the officers mumbled to the other as they navigated a narrow corridor.

“Doesn’t matter. We got Barilla Defender turrets, we’re practically a destroyer at this point. Any ship that tries to come close better have a dense energy shield else their dead.”

“Do you think it’s one of the criminal gangs trying to break one of their own out?”

“Can’t be, but no one’s getting in and out of this prison. Not when we got 250 exosuit guards and a dozen turrets.” The officer grinned.

As they turned the corner, one of the officers slammed into another administrative clerk, both of them falling onto the floor. “Hey, what the fuck? Watch where you’re going, idiot.”

“Sorry, I’m still a trainee, please forgive me.” The clerk looked tanned as an outer, bowing profusely and keeping his head low. The officer noted that the clerk was fairly tall and muscular, but his continuous bowing showed his timidness.

“As long as you get it. Move along. Tsk, fucking outers can’t even do a clerk job right.” The officer cursed, leaving the bowing clerk alone in the corridor.

The clerk hastily ran in the opposite direction, entering one of the administrative rooms that had rows upon rows of cubicles. “Hey you, new guy! You were supposed to be here fifteen minutes ago, what the hell?” A burly supervisor with thick hands slammed his desk, causing the keyboard to slightly clatter.

“I’m sorry, I got lost on the way here. I’m really sorry!” The clerk continued bowing profusely.

“Fucking outer… just get to your desk.” The supervisor sighed, motioning towards a cubicle that was supposed to be his.

The clerk sat right down in his cubicle, faced with four holographic monitors and a handwritten procedure in front of him.

“Monitor the health vitals of the listed prisoners and note down any observations over the next four hours…” The clerk got to work, the health vitals displayed on the four monitors as he sat back and observed. He placed a earpiece in his left ear, seemingly listening to calming music as he watched the vitals.

An hour passed like this, when suddenly the supervisor got a call, his face blanching from the very moment he listened. “Are you sure? What are we going to do? Hmm… Yes… Okay I’ll get my guys in.”

Placing his multi-terminal down, he stood up while adjusting his collar, looking at the clerks who were all staring at him. “Listen up folks, we’re about to be attacked in a few hours or so.”

The clerks all had different reactions, some were visibly shocked, panicking. The outer clerk was frightened, immediately trying to leave his cubicle before the supervisor pointed his meaty finger at him. “It’s too late to run! Now we need every man to put in the effort to maintain the defence, which means due to our current lack of guards, all of you will be converted into logistic support unless you have any useful skills.”

“Lets see… you, you’re on weapon storage duty. You, drone repair. You, ammunition storage.”

“As for you…” The supervisor checked his monitor, reading the skills listed in the profile of the outer clerk. “Electrician huh? Good, you’re working the maintenance of the turrets.”

“What?! Aren’t the turrets the first thing to get blown up?”

“No questions, you knew what you were going to get into when you signed the contract. Now get moving! Your temporary supervisor is shown in your multi-terminal.”

The clerks complied obediently, moving with obvious panic to their destinations. Many of them have never had any combat experience before.

“Cain, you’re with me.” Another clerk patted the back of the outer clerk. “I’ve done this before, just follow my lead and don’t be a burden.”

The two of them raced down the corridors, heading towards the base of the Barilla Defender turrets that were beginning to warm up. “Abel, you’ve fought before?”

“Yup, used to be an ex-enforcer. Busted plenty of outers like you in New Saint back then, retired now.” Abel grinned as they navigated a complex web of corridors bristling with wires that stretched forever. They soon reached the base of the turret, which opened through double doors revealing a cramped but complex command center.

“Didn’t know you needed so many people to run a single turret.” Cain exclaimed, looking around the place with awe.

“Minimum you need about five to ten people, seeing as this turrets pack a real punch. If we get hit we need immediate repairs to get it up running. Here, wear this vacuum suit in case we get depressurized.”

The two of them grabbed and donned their vacuum exosuits, reporting to the turret commander. “You two are on engineer duty. Read up on the datasheet, you begin in an hour. I want optimum performance from the turret. We haven’t fired it in a while, so double-check all the components.”

They saluted, before reading the datasheet intently. The two of them didn’t talk, with Cain focusing everything on understanding how the turret worked. At the end of the one hour, they were sent into the depths of the turret, squeezing through tight engineering access corridors that snaked infinitely to reach a few critical components.

The two of them began the tiring process of checking and replacing every component if it was too old or faulty. Abel and Cain worked separately on different sections of the turret, saving time. They were then retasked with fixing other turrets as well.

A few hours passed as the two of them were working on the sixth turret. Abel finished faster, so he logged his completion and returned to the command center of that turret. A few minutes passed, and Cain still wasn’t out yet. “Cain, come in, you alright in there?”

There was no reply on the channel, only radio silence. The commander of the sixth turret looked at Abel. “No, no I’m sure he’s just having engineering difficulties.”

“I’m not taking any chances. You two, grab your pistols and get in there. Check what Cain is doing. If Cain is dead, lockdown the turret and make sure the enemy infiltrator doesn’t escape.”

Abel and two guards moved into the cramped engineering section where Cain was. They moved as silently as they could, while Abel kept hailing Cain but received no reply.

Soon they came upon Cain’s expected location, and could only see a pair of legs stuck out of an engineering shaft. “Who are you, step out of there?”

“Huh, what? Wait wait don’t shoot, it’s me, Cain!” Cain scrambled out of the engineering shaft.

Abel let out a sigh of relief, telling the commander everything was okay. “What’s the holdup?”

“There’s a welded component I just can’t break off no matter what I use. I can’t fit a plasma cutter in there so I can’t snap it off.” Cain explained as he dusted the soot and grime off his vacuum suit.

“Ah, the usual then. This will require unconventional means. Hey you, give me your energy pistol.” Abel motioned to the guard.

“Huh? What for?”

“To cut off the component, idiot. Your pistol is small enough for me.” Abel grinned, grabbing the pistol and lying down, sliding into the shaft.

Sure enough there was a leaking catalytic convertor that was firmly stuck. Abel deftly snuggled the energy pistol through the gaps, before firing off a small slice and holding it for a few seconds. With the heat, the converter cleanly dropped, falling next to Abel.

“Easy as pie. You see Cain? This is true experience.” Abel smugly said as he shifted his body out of the engineering shaft.

Instead of seeing the two guards and Cain, he was alone in the engineering section.

“Cain? What the hell?” Abel gripped his energy pistol tightly, checking around and looking up at the ceiling.

A pool of blood could be seen on the floor, causing Abel to tense up. Has Cain and the guards been killed by the enemy? He decided to quickly head back to the command center of the turret.

He rushed back, following a blood trail that snaked through the cramped engineering section. Instead of barging through the door, he peeked through the small window of the door first, checking the situation.

Close to ten bodies were already on the floor, their limbs dismembered or riddled with holes. The commander was currently being strangled by a black armoured alien who lifted the commander by the neck, causing his legs to dangle.

“What the fuck is that?!” Abel wanted to scream, but held it back as he watched the alien crushed the neck of the commander before tossing the body apart. He quickly hid behind the door under the window, hoping the alien did not see him. “Shit, what do I do? What do I do?”

He decided to sit and hide as long as he could, his ears peeled for the sound of the alien moving. A few minutes passed in complete silence, the air of the engineering section only reverberating with the sound of Abel’s heavy breathing.

“I need to kill that alien, to defend the prison. Don’t be a loser, Abel, you’re an ex-enforcer for god’s sake.” He checked his energy pistol, readying it before steeling his resolve and peeking out through the window.

The black alien was staring back at him through the window, the black veins coursing through the tanned face of Cain. “Cai-“ Abel said before a black spearhand pierced through the door and into his heart.

The convulsing body of Abel collapsed, blood filling the gaps between his skin and organs. The black alien retracted his spearhand, flicking the blood off before heading back to the command terminal. The command terminal had a camera screen, showing the surface of the prison asteroid as well as the other eleven turrets.

[‘Dumpling’, this is it. Our ships are in turret range now.] Tyson’s voice came over his multi-terminal.

“Roger, initiating electromagnetic discharge.” Ceres triggered the electromagnetic pulse devices he installed earlier, disabling six of the turrets before they could even fire a single shot. The whirring sounds of the Barilla Defender turrets came to a halt, as their commanders tried to figure out what the hell was going on.

“Moving to cleanup, Riker, take care of the other half.”

[On it.]

At another turret, the command’s centre door was sliced open by a single plasma sword cut, before being kicked into halves. The guards in the command center were shocked as they watched an azure blue exosuit with lightning yellow stripes step through the damaged door.

Without a word, the guards immediately shot back at the exosuit, but their energy beams warped greatly, bending around the exosuit instead of hitting it. “What the…”

Before any of them could even think about switching to a kinetic weapon, the Azure Tiger exosuit shot forward, its thrusters propelling it as it sliced through the command terminal in a flurry of slashes.

Instead of remaining behind to clean the remainder of the guards, Riker leapt backwards and out of the doors, heading to the next turret while fighting off guards that came out to stop him. His objective was clear – break the controls to each of the turrets!

With haste he barged through the dozen of guards that tried to stop him. Many swapped to melee weapons upon seeing their energy beams bending, but they were no match for his prowess with the sword even in close quarters. Even though the length of the blade was long, he simply sliced cleanly through the surface of the wall whenever he swung.

Over time, both Ceres and Riker managed to disable the turrets, enabling the rebellion ships to approach the prison asteroid faster. “Clear up the remainder of the guards before they arrive!” Ceres yelled into his multi-terminal, as his black scale armour blocked a series of energy beams from a squad of guards that came to stop him.

[‘Dumpling’, the thrusters on the asteroids are activating!] Amelia warned as she watched from the Corym that was in orbit. The thrusters begin to glow blue as they pulsed out large plumes of gas, moving the asteroid’s orbit slightly.

However, it only lasted a second before the thrusters began to sputter out, the supply to the fuel cut off. Ceres had spent the two days after the observation post sabotaging the thrusters as well.

[We’re all clear for landing. All Squad C members, proceed to main prison entrance to assist with breaching.] Amelia coordinated from the Corym as Ceres and Riker fought for their lives against a wave of guards. It was the two of them against more than fifty guards.

Ceres took cover behind a destroyed command terminal, grabbing an energy rifle from a dead guard before firing back himself. He did not have his Swift Storm exosuit with him, having it left it in a secure location along with the spaceborne thruster pack. He did not have his warhammer as well.

However, with the speed and strength granted to him by the black-scale armour, he was able to sustain and fend off the guards. His armour could not absorb the energy beam, only temporarily blocking the particles in the energy beam. “If only I could absorb particle radiation…”

Five minutes passed as Ceres fired back wildly at the entrance to the command center. He did not manage to kill any of the guards with his energy rifle, the guards swapping in and out when their personal energy shield was depleted. It was like he was fighting a never-ending wave.

None of the guards dare to enter the command center, not after seeing how strong Ceres was in close combat in his black alien form.

“There must be a way to stop them!” Ceres glanced around his position, trying to see if there was anything around that could help him. As he turned his torso, he felt a slight lump in his pockets under the black scale armour.

The armour retracted to reveal three of the electromagnetic pulse devices, causing Ceres to grin wildly. With a enhanced toss, he flung the device towards the door before activating it, causing the guards’ exosuit to malfunction and stall as they tried to deal with the surge in current and magnetic field.

“Now’s my chance!” With a leap and a lunge, Ceres formed a spearhand on both arms, dashing right to the door and breaking into the formation of guards stationed right outside the door.

The stumbling guards reeling from the electromagnetic discharge were easy pickings for him, allowing him to freely stab and slice them, finishing them off as he go.

However, within a short three seconds most of the guards’ redundant systems kicked it, enabling them full mobility and firepower again. They retreated back down the corridor towards the administrative wing, continuously shooting back at Ceres.

Ceres grabbed a dead guard and used him as a shield, the body’s exosuit energy shield dispersing and armour charred with holes. With a yell, Ceres charged forward with the body in front of him, before pushing the body and slamming it into the guards who scrambled back in fear.

The fight continued slowly down the corridor, with Ceres using everything he could for cover. Walls, doors, dead bodies and containers. The fight soon spread into the lobby of the administrative wing, with more than half of the guards attacking Ceres already dead.

“How long more till the ships arrive?”

[About five minutes more, just hold on, ‘Dumpling’! Josef is almost there!] Amelia responded.

“Okay, I’ll stall them as long as I ca-“ Before Ceres could finish, a projectile slammed into the makeshift shield he was holding, knocking him back onto the floor, tumbling.

He looked up to the top floor to see a heavy exosuit with a mounted cannon on its shoulder, along with two mounted machine guns on each arm aiming right at Ceres. “This is my prison fucker, and you’re not getting out of this alive!”

A hailstorm of bullets pelted the location of Ceres, with Ceres immediately leaping sideways to avoid it. His armour was slightly chipped as the black goo tried to repair the armour automatically, drawing more energy from Ceres’s body.

The guards cheered as the heavy exosuit leapt off the top floor, slamming into the ground and cracking the lobby’s tiles with the sheer weight. It was Warden Fresia’s customized exosuit, featuring massive radiator fins on the back as the machine guns glowed hot from the barrage.

Ceres stared at the size of the holes in the ground, noting the large caliber of the bullets. If he took a direct hit his black armour was not going to survive. There was only one way out of this.