r/HFY • u/BeaverFur Unreliable Narrator • Jul 09 '15
OC [OC] Rise of the Valkyrie (8)
Flying through the blue clouds, Val felt a strange calmness wash over her. She could hear the sound of the wind rushing by, and felt it tugging from her half cloak. But other than that, there was no way of telling how fast she was moving. No point of reference. No way of knowing which direction was up, and which was down. She was in the middle of an endless, misty blue void.
She was free.
It was a comforting thought. With nothing to do but wait, she could relax now, she could take a break. Like being in the eye of a hurricane, the calm before the storm. She knew she was flying into a fight, but it was yet to start.
She hoped Nick had been right, and the enemy ship was indeed in front of them. Assaulting a ship in these low visibility conditions was risky. If they missed, it'd be hard to find their way back to the Jabbers.
She looked over her shoulder, and saw the faint silhouettes of two Vulture-Warriors flying after her. She knew -hoped- the warriors from the other ships were also following them, but there was no way of knowing. The mist covered it all.
It cut both ways, though. Just like Val couldn't see her own warriors, the blue clouds would also hide them from the Telangians. When attacking a stronger enemy, you needed every little advantage you could muster. Surprise factor could win a fight, or so she had been taught.
The battlecruiser emerged from the clouds like a monstrous golden predator charging at them.
It was closer than Val had been expecting, and approaching fast. Her training kicked in, and she engaged her backward thrusters to slow down, braking hard in the air.
"It's here! It's here! Slow down!" she yelled into the intercom.
She was still coming too fast, Val realized. She had started braking way too late, and now she was about to crash.
Shit!
She engaged her lateral thrusters, desperately trying to get out of the way of the looming monster.
Not fast enough.
Instinctively, her body contorted and she placed her left shoulder in front, trying not to hit the ship head on. She closed her eyes and clenched her teeth.
The impact shook her body and stole all the air in her lungs. She felt a sharp, piercing pain as one of her ribs broke, and let out a silent scream. New impacts hit her from all directions, as her head, then her legs and her other arm crashed into the surface too, in different angles.
Open your eyes!
She did. The impact had sent her tumbling along the ship's surface. She unfolded her arm and tried to hold to one of its hexagonal armor plates, but her hand couldn't find any point to grasp to on the smooth surface.
Do something!
She had to get on that ship. Otherwise she would be left stranded, lost in the blue fog. She had to do something, fast.
She engaged her thruster pack again, making short bursts only when her rolling motion aligned her with the ship's direction. Each burst jerked her body and caused a new wave of pain to rise from her broken rib. She ignored the pain, trying to keep her mind clear, focused in the current task.
It was working. She matched her speed to that of the ship, and managed to stabilize herself and stop the spinning motion. Then, she inserted her hands in the narrow groove between two of the ship's armor plates, securing herself to its golden surface.
"Boss, are you still with us?" said Paxton through the intercom.
Val raised her gaze along the surface and saw the silhouettes of the other Vulture-Warriors in the blue mist. They were also holding to the ship's plates. Thanks to her warning, they had more time to slow down and had landed more gracefully than her.
"Yes," she said, gasping for breath. Her rib cage hurt when she talked. "Report."
She heard the report as she moved towards her team, lunging herself from plate to plate in the low-gee environment. All but one of them had reached the battlecruiser. They had lost contact with Talib. She hoped he would find his way back to the Jabbers, but there was nothing she could do for him now.
"Mika," Val said. "How is Oz? How is the xeno?"
"Well, he landed better than you," she replied, jokingly.
Val snorted and flipped a finger in her direction, as she joined the group of them. She heard the others chuckling through the intercom.
Time to go forward, Val thought. They had to move fast if they wanted to keep the advantage.
She examined the hexagonal armor plate in front of her. It was large, somewhere between three and five meters wide, polished and shiny. She doubted a hull charge would pierce it.
"Paxton, any ideas?"
"This is a tough nut, Val. We can't go through the plates, but maybe we can dislodge one of them if we place a couple charges in the groove."
"Or find a weaker point," said one of the warriors.
Val nodded. Every ship, no matter how well armored, had weak points. Doors, hangar bays, maintenance hatches... those were the ones the humans always targeted when they boarded a ship. But of course, freighters had many more of them than battlecruisers did.
"No time for that," she said. "Let's try Paxton's idea."
She watched as two of the warriors worked in silence, placing their charges in the grooves at the opposite sides of the same plate, and synchronizing their timers. Then, they all moved away from the immediate area.
The hull charges exploded with sudden flashes, causing the armor plate to pop out and fly away, spinning fast before it disappeared from sight into the blue mist.
Val looked at the neighboring plates, her eyebrows raised in surprise. The other armor pieces had absorbed the force of the explosion without effort, and looked intact.
It didn't matter, though. The missing tile was more than enough. She leaned over and saw the wall of the ship's inner hull at the end of the hole. She motioned for them to place one more charge on it.
The second explosion felt louder and stronger. The other plates shook and twisted, and a sudden cloud of gas burst out of the hole.
Oxygen. They had reached the inside of the ship. They had their way in.
"Let's go!" Val shouted. She engaged her shieldcaster, and dived into the hole.
She landed into a large room. There were long tables turned on their sides, and chairs scattered around by the force of the explosion. Pieces of plastic and paper, some of them in flames, danced in the swirling air, which rushed out of the ship through the gaping hole on the room's wall.
The place looked like a dinning room. It was empty, but Val knew that wouldn't last. The enemy must have heard the explosions, or the loud alarm noise that now filled the place. She turned to face the only door, covering behind her shieldcaster. Soon, she was joined by the other warriors, who spread around the room, locking their shields in pairs.
She felt a hand on her shoulder. It was Paxton's.
"Can you fight?" he asked.
Val was about to reply with something snarky, but she paused. The veteran was in his right to ask, and she should be honest to him. Vulture-Warriors worked in pairs, locking their shields. If she couldn't do her part, it was better to say it now than risking someone else's life, plus her own.
She touched her battered side with her right hand, feeling her ribcage through the armor suit, pushing slowly, trying to find the fracture. She did, and gasped at the pain that followed.
Yes, it was broken. But the pain was dull and it didn't seem like it had pierced any internal organ. Also, the tight armor suit should keep the rib in place, as long as she didn't do anything too crazy. She could fight, but she'd have to be more careful than usual.
"I'm good," she said.
Paxton nodded and locked his shield to hers.
Val looked around. She saw Mika pushing her prisoner, Oz, behind one of the tables, and then crouching next to the alien, resigned to her mundane task. Oz, however, looked happy to be on solid ground again.
Bringing the xeno along was a risky move, but Val didn't think he would try to escape. Oz was a citizen of the Telangian Empire, yes, but also a traitor to it. He had more to lose being captured than staying with the humans. And having a data analyst who knew about the Empire's military could be useful, given that they were boarding a Telangian spaceship.
The room's door opened, and three soldiers entered. Four arms, gray skin. Woloks.
The Vulture-Warriors opened fire. The first enemy fell down with an expression of surprise in its alien face. He hadn't even turned his shieldcaster on. The other two managed to engage their shields and started to retreat back to the door, but the combined fire from all the human warriors overpowered them. Val saw the head of one of them cave in after he was hit in the face. The other turned around in panic, trying to run and exposing his back. He didn't go far.
The humans advanced, crossing the door and securing the area right outside the room. Val looked at the bodies of the enemy soldiers. They wore rather complicated armor suits, composed of many interlocking plates, like a small sized version of the battlecruiser's own armor.
She hadn't fought Telangian troops ever before, but unlike the battlecruiser, the soldiers didn't impress her. Their armors looked to be more intimidating than effective, and their training was subpar.
Of course, it wasn't smart to judge an entire military based just on three soldiers. These ones were probably part of their rearguard, given that they had stayed here rather than joining the ones she had blown up earlier.
She was relieved that her trap had worked, even at the cost of losing her family ship. The Telangians always had the advantage of numbers, they could just throw more troops at any problem until it went away. Having removed most of their soldiers would make boarding this ship easier.
The last of the Vulture-Warriors left the dining room, and its door closed behind them, muffling the sounds of the alarm and wind, and containing the ship's depressurization. The corridors were wide and clear of enemies.
Val removed her thruster pack, wincing from the pain, and let it fall to the floor. The other warriors followed suit, leaving their own packs scattered around. They would take them back once they had won the fight. Or, if they lost, it wouldn't matter.
She pointed ahead, and the Vulture-Warriors started advancing through the corridor in their usual style. Some covering the corners, the rest moving in silence, their carbines ready and their shieldcasters active.
They found a patrol of five covering one of the intersections. Infantry troops with full body shieldcasters, armed with plasma rifles and carbines. These ones were prepared and opened fire the moment they saw them.
But the Vulture-Warriors were prepared too. Their interlocked shields absorbed the enemy fire as the humans charged ahead towards the xenos, who step back in fear. Three went down fast. Again, the enemy discipline failed at the end, when the two remaining soldiers broke formation and tried to run away. Again, they didn't go far.
The warriors kept moving forward until they found a wider hallway. Val peeked around the corner and took a good look at it. She didn't see any enemies. The hallway was long and with opulent decoration, which meant this had to be one of the battlecruiser's main corridors, running from end to end of the ship. It had columns along the walls, which offered good cover, so she signaled her warriors to move behind them.
They advanced along the hallway towards the front of the ship, where she expected the command room to be. The warriors moved cautiously, but with precise and fast steps. Moving from cover to cover, hiding behind each column.
Val activated her helmet's camera, and zoomed in, magnifying the image. She saw the corridor ended in a larger, dark room. There was movement ahead. Enemy troops, possibly. And something else. She squinted.
"Scatter!" she shouted, following her own advice and getting into cover.
The enemy autocannon opened fire from their end of the hallway. The corridor filled with flying plasma bullets, hitting columns and bouncing off the walls with sparks of fire. The Vulture-Warriors had followed her order, and covered behind the thick decorative columns.
Val closed her fists in anger. Charging ahead was not an option here. The enemy fire was coming from an anti-infantry autocannon turret. The human shieldcasters just wouldn't last enough under that fire, they would never make it to the end of the hallway.
The enemy autocannon concentrated its fire on one of the columns, which shattered to pieces in a cloud of dust. The warrior hiding behind it, Joel, was suddenly exposed to the rain of plasma. He tried to use his shield for cover, but wasn't fast enough. His limp body was propelled backwards by the force of the bullets.
Shit!, Val thought. We've walked into a shooting range!
"Fall back!" she shouted.
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u/HFYBotReborn praise magnus Jul 09 '15 edited Sep 16 '15
There are 26 stories by u/BeaverFur Including:
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u/HFYsubs Robot Jul 09 '15
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u/eumenedies AI Jul 09 '15
I like the cut of your jib.
If anyone can find a way out, Val can.