Embers After Flames, Chapter 11.7

11.7

+++

Assault Armour, at close range, was spectacularly dangerous. All that energy, the dangerous oscillation, the destructive interference, released in a single burst.

How could it not be dangerous? How could it not be so spectacular?

In perfect condition the CATAPHRACT was armoured enough to withstand an Armored Core’s Assault Armour. It was a large machine, after all, even if it was a little ridiculous.

CATAPHRACT BALAM, after the damage that Raven and Ayre had done to it, probably still would have been capable of surviving it... if not for the fact that Raven had gotten underneath the armour skirt.

The calculation changed, with that. No longer was the Assault Armour trying to blast through thick metal armour, with nothing but air in every direction except the ground, ready for the energy to bleed away uselessly.

For one, all that energy that would normally not go into the enemy did go into the enemy. That alone would suck, because the actual amount of power that was wasted in an omnidirectional blast was quite high.

For another, however, the armour skirt sectioned off a small, relatively contained space... which meant that the energy that reflected off of the armour had nowhere to go except into places that were also a part of the Cataphract.

From the outside, the visual appearance of this was simple.

CATAPHRACT BALAM spontaneously fucking exploded.

Green-white Pulse energy blasted through the armour skirt, lightning crackling up into the rest of the CATAPHRACT. Oscillation waves crumpled and tore at the structure, literally shaking the metal with such force that it simply ripped apart. When the gaps opened up, the energy came rushing out- right into the turret, core, and legs of the CATAPHRACT.

Something detonated internally. Probably the ammo cooking off. Fire flared into existence, shaking violently alongside the air and metal that was being distorted by the Pulse energy. Plasma burst outwards, metal shrieking.

The treads jammed, and CATAPHRACT BALAM tumbled over itself as its momentum overcame its weight. It spun, and Raven got out from underneath as it crashed into the structural supports.

Without the extra force of its Boosters, they simply wrapped and bent around it. If nothing else, that did a decent job of robbing the rest of its inertia. It slid to a grinding stop right on the edge of the platform.

Ayre landed next to Raven a second later. The latter didn’t do anything, AC holding still as it stared at CATAPHRACT BALAM.

I heard a cough come over the airwave, and then a low groan. “Hell...” Michigan groaned, his voice crackling with static.

I was impressed that the transmitter survived at all.

“Nn- Nile! Come in!”

“Commander!” G2 Nile responded. It was easy to hear the concern in his voice.

“You’re in charge, now.” Michigan said. “Got it?!”

“... Yes, sir.”

“Good.” I heard him sigh, low and quiet. Relieved.

There was a groaning noise, and one of the structural supports that was still standing began to visibly bend.

“Hah.” Michigan began to laugh. “Hah hah- hahahahahahaha!”

The panel that CATAPHRACT BALAM had come to rest on began to tilt.

“Make sure you tell them all!” He spoke, still laughing. “Mean ‘ol Michigan died of a bad fall!”

The supports gave way. The panel collapsed.

CATAPHRACT BALAM began to fall.

Michigan’s laughter grew louder, and louder, until he was laughing uproariously.

Only a few hundred meters into the descent, a capacitor gave out. CATAPHRACT BALAM was consumed in a plasma explosion, blue-white flames bursting out and overtaking the previous orange. Michigan’s voice vanished in an instant.

Its burning pieces tumbled towards the ground, several thousand meters below.

A moment passed.

“Hell of a way to go.” I sighed.

Michigan... Alright, fine. I’ll respect that. That respect was earned.

I opened the file I had on the man, and added a new line.

Cause of Death: Bad fall

“Commander...” Nile’s voice was quiet.

“G2 Nile.” I addressed. “I trust that you will follow through?”

I heard him take a brief, fortifying breath. “We will. I hereby announce the surrender of Balam’s forces.”

“Please make your systems available to me. I shall ensure that all requirements and expectations are met.” I told him. “Raven, Ayre. I am closing your mission. You two have done spectacularly well, today. I’ll handle everything from here.”

CEL and SOL units were already on the way. That would ensure that no harm would come to Balam’s remaining forces, and would also make sure that the truly stupid didn’t feel like they had a good chance of causing problems.

Mmm. Nile just opened the connection to Balam’s systems. I went through it quickly, checking their available resources.

They’d taken a considerable amount of casualties over the last week or so, and their medical support was being run ragged for it. Otherwise, they’re pretty good. Self sufficient on food and water. Housing was currently the Grid itself, which... well, it worked.

I marked the medical shortage for Flatwell. He’ll send some teams over with whoever else he sends to pick up Balam.

“What a day...” Ayre hummed. “I didn’t expect it to end like that.”

LOADER 4 turned.

My thoughts ground to a halt.

There, on the right shoulder.

A small, silver line traced across the surface of LOADER 4’s shoulder. Absolutely minuscule, nearly invisible if not for how it stood out with its near gleam in the light.

LOADER 4 was painted tan and grey.

A scratch.

I dove back into the footage, checking through the entire combat record in a moment.

It had happened right in the last moments of the battle, during Raven’s charge towards Michigan. All of that ridiculous firepower pointed in Raven’s direction, twenty fucking gatling guns going full auto and fuller auto...

Almost all of it had missed. Literally thousands of bullets that had been launched in those brief moments, and almost all of it had missed.

Except one.

Right before Raven had made it in under the armour skirt, one shot had finally managed to hit. The angle had been slight, the effect minimal, but Michigan had done it all the same.

He’d hit LOADER 4.

...

It’s an odd feeling. Everything up until now, Raven had gone through with no problems whatsoever. Raven was simply something else, invincible and unstoppable.

Until now.

Raven did have a limit, after all.

...

Even so, all of that for a single scratch on the paint?!

One top five pilots on the planet, in a machine with an absolutely absurd amount of firepower, in an environment that limited mobility, and still only a single, minuscule scratch.

Somehow, it seemed more absurd than not taking any damage in the first place.

Hah... But that’s an Irregular for you.

Alright.

Balam’s side of things is done.

That just leaves Arquebus.

+++

The Firekeepers were doing well. Their mission had started at the exact same time that Raven’s and Ayre’s had, and much like Balam, they had to work their way through the cannon fodder that Arquebus sent at them first.

Unlike Raven and Ayre, however, who had been a very focused spear of destruction, the Firekeepers and the C-Weapons that had accompanied them had attacked from every direction. From the top of the Grid to the bottom, there was something coming in.

Alpha Squad came in from below, ascending up the structure using the Vertical Catapults. Beta Squad came from above, moving along the Outer Shell. Gamma and Delta both arrived at opposite sides of the Grid exterior. The C-Weapons hit everywhere else.

Arquebus had been prepared for this, of course. They had seeded their drones throughout the Grid, focusing on what was expected to be primary assault points. Where Balam had to move everything into Raven and Ayre’s way, Arquebus didn’t need to bother.

They were not happy about this particular fact.

“Section three is overrun! We need support!”

“Everywhere is overrun! There is no support!”

“Commander, come in!”

“These are C-Weapons? No- NO WAIT-”

“WE’RE GETTING KILLED OUT HERE!”

Honestly, though, who would be?

... Hmm. No resistance worth mentioning at this point.

Alright, where are the actual problems?

Snail... Is on the comms, coordinating everybody. This was of little help because there was no strategy to be had here, just ‘survive and hope for the best’. He was leaving a bunch of his troops behind while selectively reinforcing certain paths, so I was going to take a wild guess and say that if we happened to follow those paths, I’d find Snail.

Hawkins... Ah, there he is. And there’s Pater with him. They’re currently engaged with a CEL model. And not in the Grid Interior, either, where it would have significantly more limited mobility.

No, they deployed outside, and now they’re regretting it.

The CEL 240 -Oh hey it’s number 777!- was dancing around them, its drones trailing after it. As I watched, I saw a line of crimson Coral blasts fire out of them, lancing towards Pater. He tried to dodge, of course, because his AC was a Lightweight Reverse Joint, and people who pilot those have no idea what the term ‘staying still’ even means.

Unfortunately, while Pater was skilled, he wasn’t skilled enough. The beams didn’t find their targets, but they still managed hits, glancing blows that were made extremely dangerous through the sheer power of Coral. A heavier AC might have been able to withstand that better, but a heavier AC also would have taken a more direct hit.

Hawkins tried to fire at the CEL, but the machine lithely ducked through the air. It swept around with birdlike grace, before it suddenly spun as its drones came back to its sides.

Coral flashed outwards as its Oscillators activated, and drones extended the effect. It covered itself in a wide mass of its own Coral, and then shot forwards at a blindingly fast pace. Hawkins, in his Tetrapod, wasn’t good enough to get out of the way in time.

What was left of his AC fell to the ground in molten puddles.

Pater cried out, and three seconds later crowed about how he’d take Hawkin’s place as a Vesper.

Bipolar personality, that one.

Literally.

Alas, it wasn’t to be in either case. Barely twenty seconds later, the CEL was able to nail him with a Bladewave from its Coral Oscillator. Just like Hawkin’s RECONFIG, Pater’s DUAL NATURE was wiped out in an instant. The concentrated nature of the attack at least left it in only two pieces, though.

Well, that leaves Maeterlinck and Swinburne. I haven’t seen the former yet, but the latter...

Gamma Squad just ran into him.

He talked a good game for all of three seconds before he started to panic. He then promptly turned around and Assault Boosted backwards, completely ignoring the men he’d left behind.

When he got into the corridor entrance to the Grid Interior, he then proved exactly how unreliable he was, because he shot the chain behind him. It came crashing down, locking them out.

With his men still on the outside.

“What an asshole.” Gamma Ranger muttered.

“You see?!” Swinburne called out on the open channel. “You’ve been outsmarted! Hahaha!”

It took about fifteen seconds for them to clear the room. The door remained unusable.

Swinburne continued to taunt them.

“Everyone stand clear.” Gamma Support stated, before he landed on the ground in front of the door. “I’m going to knock on the door.”

The two oversized Units on his AC’s Back shifted, and Gamma Support left his main guns to attach to the supports as they opened up. The Back Units shifted, and Gamma Support reached up to grab them.

They clicked together, latching on to each other, and Gamma Support held the now incredibly oversized Unit up towards the door.

The IB-C04_UW-CO activated. Crimson lightning began to crackle around the weapon as the largest Coral Oscillator that could be wielded by an AC without destroying it charged up.

Technically speaking, this was a weapon intended for wide, sweeping attacks. It was just too ridiculously big and unwieldy to try and use in close quarters. From a long range, though, well that was a very different story.

Using it as an impromptu lockpick was not intended... but it would certainly function.

Swinburne was still laughing when the Coral Oscillator unleashed its power.

To describe what issued forth as ‘a beam’ would be wholly underselling it. It did not hit the door, because ‘hit’ implies collision, resistance, and the door offered none of that.

Swinburne’s laughter cut out. The shriek of the Surging Coral drowned out all other noise. The light painted the room red.

The beam died out.

The door was gone.

The hallway was gone.

The wall at the end of the hallway was gone.

The wall behind that wall was gone.

The wall behind that wall was gone too.

Comparing the Grid blueprint to what I could, they had just blasted through about a third of the Grid.

“Door’s open.” Gamma Support reported, completely unnecessarily.

The entire squad had a bit of a chuckle at that one. “Then let’s go find Snail, shall we?”