Stargazers: "Athens"

Athens: 

            Two ships appear just outside of Athens’ orbit.  Siegfried follows and leads them from the center.  After taking initial fire, Agamemnon twists slowly through space, firing back as it moves.  Their cannon muzzles flash purple as magnetic propulsion hurls large spheres of steel noiselessly through space.  The spheres glide harmlessly into the enemy shields and drift off.

            From the surface, the battle cannot be seen but imagined.  Galahad takes charge, turning his soldiers back toward the facility and dragging Arthur and Chastity after him.  He leads them back inside and stows them in a waiting room with two soldiers on guard while he returns to the facility’s interior.

            Arthur keeps a firm watch on the monitor and the doors.  Warnings flash along every screen.  Outside, he can see guards hurrying to Gigas Armors and hears the roar of their engines as they take off.  Swirling clouds of smoke drift across the asphalt in a dizzying display.

            Chastity settles against a wall and hugs herself.  Arthur kneels beside her as she begins to hyperventilate.  “Hey, don’t worry.  We’ve been through worse.  We’ll be fine.”

            “We weren’t fine on Canaan.”

            “This is different.  Athens is far better outfitted.  It’s a proper military facility, and we have both Agamemnon and Galahad here.  We’ll be okay.”

            A Federation transport crashes outside and erupts into a sphere of flame.  The soldiers inside of it die on impact.  Two Federation armors land beside it, checking the wreckage before turning their gunfire on circling Republic Hunter armors.  Arthur watches briefly before returning his attention to Chastity, putting his body between her and the door.

            “Hey, hey,” he says, squeezing her shoulders as she cries.  “You listen to me.  We survived, didn’t we? Chastity?  Chastity, look at me.”  Holding her by the chin, he looks her in the eyes.  “WE survived, didn’t we?”

            She sniffles and nods.

            “Then we’ll survive this, too.  Won’t we?”

            This time she hesitates but relents, nodding.

            “Good, thank you.  I promise you, I’ll get us out of this.  For now, do your best to think about something else.”  Arthur stands and checks outside again.  The armors have left.  Behind him, a door opens.  Galahad enters with his arms folded behind his back and his face stern and lined.

            “Arthur?”

            Arthur frowns.  “What now?”

            “Come with me,” says Galahad, and turning, he adds, “Leave the girl.”  Galahad waits for no response.

            Arthur hesitates.  Kneeling, he pulls Chastity close to him and holds her gently by the wrists.  “Chastity? Chastity, can you hear me? I’ll be back.  I promise you; I’ll be back.  You just try and be brave until then.”  He waits, and when she doesn’t respond, he pats her head.  “The Lady and I will be counting on you to hold down the fort.”  When finished, he stands and hurries after Galahad.

            Galahad walks ahead of him, keeping a brisk pace.  Arthur has to run to meet him.  They move through rushing people, the crowd thinning the farther they walk.  The base interior, Arthur finds, is a series of wide, well-lit tunnels built into the soil.  Doors line the halls.  The walls are white and largely similar.  Beyond these doors, Arthur imagines, are trillions of dollars’ worth of top-secret experiments.

            They move seamlessly through the halls, turning and walking, led by flashing lights toward an unknown destination.  Every hall looks the same to Arthur, who passes white walls, white panels, and bright lights.  The floor is reflective and glossy.  His boots echo with each step.  They stop at an elevator and enter.  Arthur watches his own reflection in the polished steel as the elevator slides smoothly downward.

            “Where are we going,” Arthur asks as the elevator vibrates gently around.

            “I was afraid that they would follow our dive trail,” Galahad says.  He picks absently at his beard.  “That Guide is as dangerous as she is revolutionary.  You are aware of the Three Party Accord, I am sure.” Arthur nods, and Galahad says, “That is why they are here.  Their attack isn’t sanctioned, but it won’t be considered a provocation if we’re found out.  We’re in deep here, Jameson, and all the intel says that the Feds have been waiting for a reason.  We’ve just went and given them one.”

            “But we won’t give her up, will we?”

            Galahad barks a humorless laugh.  “No, of course not!”  The elevator stops silently, the cessation of movement is made known only by the gentle rocking of the elevator as it halts.  The doors open to reveal a vast, underground hangar lined by platforms and Gigas Armors.  Most have been lifted to the surface.  What few remain are being manned and sent to the surface around them.  Arthur follows Galahad inside and is led to a lone, red Gigas Armor near the far wall.

            “That is the prototype,” Galahad says, Arthur staring at his side.  “P.T.G. Mars.”  They step onto the platform at Mars’ feet, and Galahad leads Arthur around to the back.  Up close, Arthur can see the armor in fine detail.  It is smaller than usual and only lightly armored, with jump-boosters on the back and a sizable energy cannon affixed to its left shoulder.  Light blades are fixed to the forearms, but from the looks of them they are not fully equipped.

            “It is untested,” Galahad says, turning now to look Arthur in the eyes.  “Unfinished but still deadly in the right hands.  You were an adequate pilot, if my memory serves me.  You could do some real damage out there.”  Galahad pulls the Gigas key from his breast pocket and holds it out to Arthur.

            Arthur eyes the key for a moment, a small bit of plastic and iron with circuitry house within.  He thinks of Chastity waiting in the foyer, alone as the world shakes around her, and he thinks of the Lady housed somewhere inside, scientists examining her, soldiers scrambling around her.  A part of him wants to turn around here to watch the battle from Chastity’s side and keep her safe.  The rest of him knows that to keep her truly safe, he will need to end the battle quickly.  He takes the key.

            “Good decision.”

            Arthur passes Galahad, pulling himself up the armor’s ladder and opening the back hatch.  He looks over his shoulder with one foot inside.  “You watch Chastity and keep herself,” he says.  “She’s been through a lot, and she needs to be protected right now.”

            “I have other priorities right now.”

            “Then so do I,” he says, hesitating inside of the open hatch, hoping his bluff will work.  To sweeten the deal, he adds, “Think of it this way, she’s one of the brightest minds of our generation.”

            Galahad gives a long stare before relenting.  He sighs and rubs his temples.  “Fine, I will babysit your friend for you, but you had better bring this to a swift end.”

            “You, of all people, should know what I can do when pressed.”  Arthur ducks into Mars’ cockpit and closes the hatch behind him.  Settling into the seat, he straps himself in and inserts the key.  The armor hums to life around him as he fills out the log, his muscles taking over for wherever his mind forgets.

 

-Stargazers part 1-

 

            The facility shakes, and Chastity shakes with it.  Left alone by Arthur, she stays in a corner hugging herself.  Each jarring explosion sends her back to Canaan, as does each shout or stomping foot.  The lights flicker, and she is alone in a room, struggling to hide her breath as the people around her are murdered in where they stand.  Desperate, she calls out to Cipher, and she gets nothing in return.

            Canaan followed her.  It followed her onto Hector, where Lancelot beat her for information.  It followed her to Charon, where Arthur killed to keep her safe.  It followed her to Hades after that.  She had thought, aboard Sigfried, and aboard Agamemnon that the battle was over.  Arthur had convinced her that it was, but he was wrong.  It had followed her to Athens, and it was raining down on the facility as she shook.

            She thinks of the Lady.  Arthur was wrong about the war, and she feels certain that he is wrong about the Lady, too.  Everyone she worked with had died for the information that the Lady held.  Cipher had died.  Chastity was the lone survivor because she as the only person who could unlock the true potential of the Lady.  Her life was justified by her expertise, and here it was invalidated by an Admiral with grudge.

            She wonders how the Lady will be used, and she wonders how far she will be hunted.  If the Federation follows them to Athens, if they start a war, then she is sure that they will leave the world awash in nuclear fire if it got them the edge in this cold war that the two governments are fighting.  They will shoot their way through anyone and everyone.

            They will shoot their way through her, too.

            Chastity imagines the Lady laid out on a table and opened up, insides moving and glistening.  She imagines doctors standing over her impartially, their eyes glossed by science, interested only in the pieces and not in the person.  She imagines soldiers in their place, interested in even less.  To them the Lady is not a miracle but a trophy.  It makes her ill.

            She draws a breath and wipes her eyes.  Using the wall for support, she lifts herself and goes to the reception window.  The room is empty.  The building shudders again and, though frightened, Chastity glares through her fear.  She is no soldier, but she is ready to fight this way.  Reaching through the reception window, she angles her arm to the keypad below and, with few keystrokes, prompts the door open.

            Chastity sneaks through the door and into the hall.  She walks the wall and ducks into the first supply room she can find.  There, she searches for a white lab coat and does it up before entering the hall again.  She moves among the rushing people, behaving as best as she can as if she belongs.

            The halls are crowded with researchers compiling data.  Chastity remembers this, trying to back up information or else send it out before the facility collapses.  The soldiers will pretend like they are safe, but the researchers are worried anyway.  They don’t believe anything they can’t see or quantify themselves.

            Chastity walks brusquely, like she knows where she is going.  She passes a room used for experimentation on bacteria.  She passes another holding different types of atypical flora from around the galaxy.  Across from that is another room housing atypical fauna small enough to be kept there.  She moves deeper, passing doors, slipping by with other researchers past different gates.

            The deeper she goes, the more the numbers thin.  She keeps to the back, slipping by just as doors close until she is left alone.  No one stops her.  No one knows to.  She finally meets a gate which she cannot get open and stops there.  There is a panel beside the door, one which is similar to those she had on Canaan.  Carefully, she pulls the front panel off and, after examining the circuitry closely, begins rewiring it quickly so that she does not draw notice.

 

-Stargazers part 1-

 

            The battle has been raging for some time by Mars’ arrives at Athens’ surface.  Airborne armors whip by overhead, carried by high-powered rockets and firing on each other with abandoned.  Ground armors make a slow march toward each other, staggering as their hardened-light shields flare and fade.  Anti-air turrets keep dropships from making direct landings while soldiers sprint across the battlefield.  High in the atmosphere, Agamemnon does battle with Siegfried and the two other vessels that arrived with it.

            Before entering the battle himself, Arthur takes a moment to survey the assault.  Federation Hunter armors, known for their light armor and quick movements, lead from the front while the heavier Viking armors back them from the rear.  Conversely, lightly-armored Vanguard units of Republic meet the on-coming forces in small, short frays, focusing on hobbling, not hurting. 

            As practice, Arthur levels his shoulder-mounted energy rifle—the lone functioning weapon on the prototype—and pulls the trigger.  A blazing red-orange flash erupts from the muzzle and tears a hole through the approaching enemy forces.  Their plating is light, and their armors equally insubstantial.  Twelve of them disappear into a smeared, smoldering mess of red-hot steel and melted stone.

            Comm. chatter explodes across all frequencies at the arrival of this strange, new armor.  Arthur gets a whoop of success from his side and can imagine what his enemies are saying on their end.  He fires again, and the Repubic forces refocus their assault.  The Vanguard armors stop with their hit and run and take to cleaning up the scattered armors separating to avoid Arthur’s cannon fire.

            The army before him clears, and Arthur ignites his jump jets and slides across the battlefield.  The rockets are small and suited for experimentation.  They cannot grant him flight, but they do allow for increased lateral movement that, when paired with his dual-layered, side-mounted hardened-light shields, makes his armor into a tank.  He hovers around the battle ield, planting only long enough to squeeze off a shot before retreating back into the protection of his allies.

            The Republic forces rally behind Arthur, defending his flanks and following him from the rear.  Arthur keeps his back to the research facility to minimize collateral damage and, shouting orders over the communications, begins coordinating strike teams.  Galahad, meanwhile, watches from the facility and organizes his own airborne support for Agamemnon, which is beginning to show wear.

            The battles tide turns until static erupts over the comms.  One of his strike teams disappears in a series of explosions.  The armors behind it fold in, fearful shouts echoing into oblivion as their owners die.  Arthur looks up to see a squadron of armors disappear in the wake of a single Federation armor descending onto them.  It is thin and sleek, red like his own, with medium back-mounted thrusters and a strange, claw-like attachment built into the left armor.

            The new armor latches the claw-like appendage onto a Republic armor, and the claw flashes.  The Republic armor’s plating melts off.  The pilot boils inside until they pop.  Then, the armor is dropped to the ground before the remaining armors around it can fix their weapons on the Fed.  Their bullets fail to even mark its light-shields.

            This lone enemy armor clears a path through the Republic defenses with a series of quick flourishes.  Arthur trains his rifle and fires.  The armor shudders around him from the recoil, and his screen goes blank from the muzzle flash.  The enemy armor catches the blast to the side of its light shields, which fracture under the force and the heat.  Distance, however, had weakened the beam and left the enemy alive.

            Arthur receives a hail from the armor and opens the channel out of stupid curiosity.  Robin’s voice fills his cockpit.  “So, you’re the one, the red devil they were calling you.  Well met.”

            “Retreat while you can.”  Arthur keeps his tone firm, playing poker with his voice.

            “Ah, Arthur.  I shouldn’t be surprised.  With your background, they would be fools not to put you to good use.”

            “This battle helps no one, Robin.”

            “You have something.  You hid it from me, hid it from the worlds.  Possibly the greatest discovery in human history, and your government intends to keep it to themselves.  We are well within our rights to be here.”

            “Then petition diplomatically, if you are so concerned.  All this attack will do is start a war.”

            “We are here for a reason.  You’re a soldier.  You understand.  People have already died, and I intend to do their sacrifice justice!”

            Arthur kills communication just as the Robin fires his jets and closes distance.  He keeps low, hovering just above the ground, leaving a curtain of dust in his armor’s wake.  Arthur jumps backward and orders his allies to keep formation, using the armors as his flank.  They match his movements perfectly, the space between them an enormous gun barrel so that they always keep the vector clear.  Arthur fixes the enemy with his rifle and fires.  Another white-hot flash swallows his vision.

            Enemy armors sizzle as Robin’s support is melted away in the wake of Arthur’s attack, but Robin in his Tyr armor is missing.  It isn’t until Arthur hears screams over his comm that he realizes what has happened.  Three armors to his left erupt as Robin dances the Tyr around them and through them.  He cuts clean through two light armors with his gleaming red claw before Arthur can even respond.

            Arthur turns the Mars and readies its rifle, but his allies block his shot.  He watches the Tyr jumping from armor to armor, rending them as it makes its retreat, keeping itself deeply imbedded in the battle.  Two Vanguard armors turn on the Tyr and lunge with their hardened-light blades.  Tyr disposes of one with its claw while using its shoulder-mounted turret to fire directly into the other’s cockpit.

            The ally formation breaks as the left dissolves.  The right-side spreads to compensate, Enemy fire sails into the openings, catching Arthur and the Republic forces by surprise.  Mars’ shields flicker under the sudden strain.  The armor jerks from impact.  Arthur turns at an opening and fires again.  Five enemy armors are caught in the blast, but so are three unlucky friendlies.

            Arthur curses as shouts fill the comm channels.  A warning flashes in front of him, reminding him of that Tyr is at his back.  He fires his thrusters and sidesteps just as the Tyr closes in.  Its claw misses by inches as Mars swings around, and Arthur hesitates.

            Robin has the base at his back.  Arthur thrusts backward, pulling away from the battle and out of range of the facility.  Allies die around him as the enemy floods the surface. Tyr follows closely, killing anyone who moves to intercept.

            Arthur scans his maps, searching for a way to catch Tyr.  Robin is clearly a skilled pilot and knows the range and power of the Mars at a glance.  Arthur cannot fire on the base, and he can’t keep firing on his own forces if he is to stay alive.  The longer the battle goes on, the less strength the Republic will have to stay in it.  Above them, Agamemnon struggles in a battle against three enemy ships while the Federation ground forces are galvanizing into a hammer to scatter the Republic defense.

            Scatter.  Arthur pulls up the rifle’s parameters and reads through them while retreating blindly.  His search is haphazard but leads him where he needs to go.  Pulling up the O.S., he reprograms the rifle’s code and sets the rifle to scatter the light, diffusing the field and firing in a wider range.  The blast’s intensity will dim, but he can hit more targets at once.  Then, he turns the Mars about and sails into the Federation forces.

            Arthur fires as they swarm him, swiveling his armor and cutting a broad, red hole into the approaching enemies.  Armors explode around him in a semi-circle.  Those that survive the blast are left inoperable by it.  Moving through the field with the base to his back, Arthur cuts a path through the encroaching enemy forces.  He cannot do enough damage to stop them, nor can he cut deep enough to slow their assault, but his efforts help to level the field.  His allies, seeing his act, follow him, killing stragglers in his wake and opening his flank.

            The enemies that come to meet him head on find his shield solid.  He jumps into them before opening fire, melting away those at point blank and leaving a blossom of half-burnt armors after them.  He continues this until he sees a group of nearby allies torn apart by Tyr, who lunges after him with its claw gleaming.

            Arthur wheels Mars around and fires.  A spray of light catches Tyr in the front.  It isn’t enough to penetrate its shields, but it forces the Tyr into retreat.  Republic armors close rank around it with Arthur leading.  Now, Arthur pushes the assault, firing whenever a Federation armor falls in range.  He backs Tyr into a wall and pulls the trigger, and his rifle explodes.

            Warnings explode across his screens, announcing the heat overload just before the systems die.  Only his comm remains and enough faint light to see by.  Mars slouches, and Arthur finds himself hanging from his seat, suspended only by the seatbelts.

            He unfastens himself and climbs out the back, forcing the hatch open with a controlled explosion.  Peeking out through a haze of dark, oily smoke, he listens as the Tyr’s claw whirs to life.  He can hear the crackle of energy around it.  Then, he hears a call over the comms as an unfamiliar voice announces the fall of a Federation ship.

            Arthur and Tyr look up to find a red streak cutting through the sky, a trail of black smoke following after as the ship enters atmosphere. Tyr fires its thrusters and lifts off, racing off into the sky to help.  Over the comm, another voice cuts through.  This time it is Galahad announcing the arrival of reinforcements—Daedalus has arrived.