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Sigma 16 - Chapter 64 - Intermission – Star Bound (Part Two)

Talia took a moment to examine her appearance in the restroom’s mirror. The elegant, form-fitting white dress hugged her curves, while a thin trail with a side slit nearly reached her boot ankles. A pair of white gloves reached just past her biceps, and the prominent gold necklace adorning her neck had a large natural diamond that had been featured multiple times in one of Argos’ most prestigiou...

A4 - Chapter 191 – Trust Issues

USD: Eighteen Hours since hostile fleet incursion.

Location: Meltisar, MNS Aegis Flag Bridge

The bridge was awash in the quiet drone of officers and specialists quietly going about their work. Admiral Parks had retired for a break. That was odd, considering the situation, but then again, he likely had a point. If everyone was exhausted by the time anything happened, they’d be worse off than if they had taken the time to rest before.

Either...

Sigma 16 - Chapter 63 - Intermission – Star Bound (Part One)

Talia awoke to the sound of her alarm, a gentle chime echoing through her apartment. She grunted and rolled over, the silky sheets of her over-sized bed shifting with her. The light level slowly crept its way up, and she instinctively covered her eyes with the back of her hand. The ethereal glow of white and gold joined the vibrant blues and whites of the sky just outside her wall height smart windo...

Short Delay On Chapters

I've had a really stressful time since last Thursday, with my dad's doctor appointments. Apparently he hasn't been back to see them since after his heart attack and the stent they put in for his blocked artery. Skipped all the tests and things, and didn't reschedule them. Then today I had Jury Duty which was extremely stressful to me, being an introvert in a packed courthouse having to talk in front of people. Luckily I wasn't selected this time and it was my last round in the jury pool so I ...

Sigma 16 - Chapter 62 – Rescue Mission (Finale)

Talia realized she still had her rifle in her hand and swung it toward the blue with one arm. He kicked it hard enough to send it flying, striking the window and bouncing further down the hall. Then he rushed her while she was still sitting with her back against the wall.

“Who the frick are you?” she shouted. The only response was a vicious snarl.

She caught a savage punch aimed at h...

Sigma 16 - Chapter 61 – Rescue Mission (Part 6)

The colossal Giant Jungle Worm’s roar seemed to reverberate through every fiber of her being. Talia gritted her teeth and watched as green plasma orbs raced through the disappearing smog to splash onto its carapace. Smoke hissed and the rocky scales where they impacted glowed green and red, but it didn’t seem to have much effect.

Raptors flew a wide circle around its head, before turning t...

Sigma 16 - Chapter 60 – Rescue Mission (Part Five)

The tunnel was a charnel house of blood and burnt Blues, and Talia instinctively raised the inside of her elbow despite her oxygen system being completely isolated from the rest of the environment.

[Notice: MIRU units cleared this area approximately ten minutes prior. Undetected stragglers could be present within the area. Caution is advised.]

She suppressed the tensenes...

Sigma 16 - Chapter 59 – Rescue Mission (Part Four)

Talia felt the plan was very well made. Her units executed their movements precisely. Why the rapidly moving enemy LAV suddenly whipped around an embankment and headed directly for the crater and her command APC was unclear. It had been driving dumbly off into the distance, and they hadn’t expected it to spot anything.

The moment its movement turned toward her, it was designated a threat. A P...

Chapter 58 – Rescue Mission (Part Three)

Senior Legionnaire Tarzlyk watched the light chariot disappear into the dusky shadows and around the opposing hill’s crest. The demons of this place were weak and pathetic, but still clearly visible on the scout monitor. Two had been picked up coming closer to the encampment and a small squad had been sent to collect or destroy them.

He pulled out his small dust pouch and pipe, leaning back a...

A4 - Chapter 190 - Technical Issues

USD: Less than thirty minutes after jump point arrival.

Location: 92 Pegasi, Theta Corvi Jump Point, A3123Y, CIC

Officers rapidly called out orders to coordinate damage control efforts across the CSS Bellerophon’s bridge. Chi Aurea stood stoically, witnessing their frantic efforts to stave off another disaster as one of the remaining Corporate battleships avoided a meltdown by eje...

Sigma 16 - Chapter 57 – Rescue Mission (Part Two)

The convoy crossed through the desert sand rapidly, a small group of four CRD-X9s and a single pod of LIRUs trailing behind it as the slower construction units fell behind. Talia had decided to bring those along as well, since they were likely going to be very important for post combat operations, but were just too slow to move with the main group.

She tapped her screen, displaying her unit li...

Sigma 16 - Chapter 56 – Rescue Mission (Part One)

Piles of wreckage had been dragged from down the hill outside the base, the remains of the attacking vehicles partially melted and processed. The equipment of the infantry had also been stacked in a pile, and she swallowed a bit of bile as she realized some helmets still had their…prior user’s remains attached to them.

She hadn’t ordered the reclamation of any of it, and in the middle of ...

Sigma 16 - Chapter 55 – Before the Storm

The Pegasus and CRD-X9s returned to the base in silence. The weight o the recent attack hanging heavily in the air of the APC’s crew compartment. Dusky and Dapple watched silently as Talia worked to direct units to return underneath the protective dome of the shield, while also specifying patrol routes for their scout drones.

There hadn’t been a single Blue survivor from the attacking plato...

Sigma 16 - Chapter 54 – Counterattack

The HEM mining operation proceeded smoothly, and with the tunnel already in place, it took much less time for the twelve vehicles to fill up their internal storage. They filled with the precious cargo she was prompted to think about how to improve future mining runs.

The CRD-X9s were slow—so slow that a majority of the time for the expeditions was actually the travel time. If she invested in ...

A4 - Chapter 189 – Conflict

USD: Two hours later

Location: Meltisar, Military Shuttle 8701-A, Rendezvous with Aegis

The shuttle hummed as it came in for its final approach to land inside one of the Aegis’ many boat bays. Alex was oblivious to the noise as she focused on scanning the intelligence reports on the incoming Imperium fleet.

An Armada.

Meltisar’s scouts had picked up the fleet the moment it had transited into the Beta Antliae system. The pickets had...

Sigma 16 - Chapter 53 – An AI and a Prisoner

ROSE-TT3 was a helpful and useful AI, in her opinion. While the others had ridiculed her for surrendering to the User’s demands and working for nearly no credits, she had been focusing intently on processing a new language. The amount of effort and work involved were at odds with the meager pittance she’d been tossed, and her attempt to secure exclusive rights to her translation had ended in fai...

Sigma 16 - Chapter 52 – A Centurion and Miner

Centurion Terraxxus sat upon his command dais, a stern and imposing figure. His eyes scanned the parchment Cornicen Verrrox had provided as his report. The cool lighting of the great hall was provided by monitors and screens in the most technologically advanced section of the Century’s planetary headquarters. It was the heart of Centurion Terraxxus’ power, and of his family’s status.

Leg...

Sigma 16 - Chapter 51 – Nuclear Arms

Talia’s heart raced as she processed the information, her eyes locked on the monitor. She hadn’t expected the Blues to be at the HEM deposit, let alone mining it. The convoy came to a halt awaiting further orders while the Raptor drones diverted themselves to encircle the mining site and survey for more hostile forces, but it appeared all the Blues were clumped up in the earthen fortress she’d...

Chapter 50 – Spider Stuffing and Surprise Operations

Talia spent the rest of the afternoon meticulously planning the operation, doing her best to cover every detail and what each unit’s specific role and purpose would be, as well as an action plan for how they’d approach the site. One thing that became clear was that they would need to hurry, or the Blues could begin to sabotage the module, or… even start to execute the spiders if they were feel...

Sigma 16 - Chapter 49 – Assembling the Team

For two days Talia agonized on what units she needed for the operation while overseeing the resource gathering efforts. Key points that she had to keep in mind were that she wasn’t able to simply shell the area with the artillery units, because that would risk damaging the research module or killing the spiders. Despite the promised accuracy of the Lynx’s main weapon system, that risk just felt ...

Sigma 16 - Chapter 48 – Preparations

Talia stood outside in the morning sun, observing the deployment process of three new CRD-X9 units. The late-night resource run had come in without an issue, and the two new maintenance drones had worked hard to replace the partially used fusion cells in the Raptor drones. Once everything had been topped off, she’d sent them back out.

Instead of immediately allocating the resources to produc...

Sigma 16 - Chapter 47 – Uncharted Territory Planning

The map the Seeker-H7 had returned with was painted as a hologram on the side of the Bootstrap Module’s hull. The blue light glowed in the dark, mixing with the ethereal blue sheen from the shield generator that now marked Sigma 16’s night inside her base. That glow would make it stick out like a sore thumb for miles, but she’d already made her choice, and changing her mind about it wasn’t po...

A4 - Chapter 188 - Cold Calculations and Hot Confrontation

USD: A month after A3123Y departure.

Location: Nu Crateris, SRS Heaven’s Fire II, Rexxor CIC.

Heeler’s metallic tipped tentacles tapped rhythmically on the command console. It was difficult to maintain a constant stream of inputs on the dozen screens laid out before him mentally, so the addition of the physical controls had been…efficient. The cold, dim lights of the command bridge cast an eerie array of shadows throughout the space, emphasi...

Sigma 16 - Chapter 46 – Chaotic Emissions

Dusky and Dapple worked together to stabilize the load while the CRD-X9 hauled it into place on the large Durasteel foundation that Talia had prepared for it. When it was finally centered, they even helped to get it to land on the little markings she’d left to show where it needed to be.

She’d feared that they would hurt themselves or suddenly let go, but those fears had been unfounded. Th...

Sigma 16 - Chapter 45 - Preparations and Breakthroughs

Talia watched as the repair module went to work on the damaged CRD-X9. Laser lights painted over the area where the main damage had occurred, melting away the entire structure before replacing it with brand new material.

While it worked, she turned her attention to the many scrapes and dings that marred the rest of the chassis, cleaning and repairing them with her multi-tool.

The Bastion ...

Sigma 16 - Chapter 44 – Engagement

Talia watched the battle unfold, her heart pounding in her chest. A second tracer from the auto-cannon flashed out, narrowly missing the damaged CRD-X9 by a hair’s breadth. Fire from the vehicle’s secondaries lashed out, hundreds of small geysers of sand erupting from the sand as shots missed. More ricocheted off the CRD-X9’s heavy shell.

A plasma lob from the lighter vehicle smashed into...

Sigma 16 - Chapter 43 – Integrated Construction

Both CRD-X9s had filled up to the brim with 20,000 units of High Energy Matter, and Talia had set her little convoy back towards base. The first order of business would be to set a hundred new fusion cells into production.

[Notice: CRD-X9 Fabrication process has completed.]

And apparently, deploy the new resource drone.

“Neo, can you show me the resourc...

Sigma 16 - Chapter 42 – High-Energy Drilling

Talia watched as the module finished its deployment. Unlike the other modules, there would be no shell to recycle, because the shell had become ramps that lead up to the raised platform. Twelve adapters each housed a drone slightly larger than her RSU-7S, arranged around the central pillar that she assumed was the communications transceiver.

She stepped up and examined the closest drone careful...

Chapter 41 - The Harvest’s End

Talia watched as the seventh tree crashed to the ground. She had spent the better part of the day locating the most ideal trees to cut. The glow bugs were beaten back from the trunks as the CRD-X9s’ lasers played over the material, rapidly absorbing the riches into their internal cargo containers.

After every other tree, they had left the jungle as a group and deposited the materia...

A4 - Chapter 187 – Of plots and Smart Munitions

USD: Several days after SR Fleet’s arrival to 92 Pegasi

Location: 92 Pegasi, Solarian Cruiser's Brig

Lavigne leaned against the cold, metallic wall of his cell, feeling the chill seep through his thin jumpsuit. The hum of the ship’s environmental system provided a constant background noise, a reminder that he was trapped within Captain Larret’s brig. He’d had a long time to think about things, but he still couldn’t suppress the mixture of frustration and resignation;...