Strange Accords 5: Fire and Brimstone
24 Jun 2023Silvia Sharpe
Watching me fight a cyclops one would probably question my tactics but with the combination of thermal vents, gauss cannons and ramming I managed to expose the hearts. My hull was taking some beating but was still holding strong. I started to understand the creatures attack patterns, which to be totally honest are very predictable. After a few minutes I managed to regain my bearings without flight assist and began a strafing circle around it. Upon destroying the third heart I was caught by surprise.See I had never fought these things before and I didn't know what they could do. Venus was the one who was out here fighting them keeping them at bay and pushing them back. I am just a Xenobiologist that happens to have some combat experience. When that heart exploded it unleashed an EMP. I... was too close.
My systems went dark and I began to drift. The terrifying roar of the creature rang through the hull and the once eager demeanor of Melli quickly washed away to fear. Her screams along with the Thargoids sent me into a panic. The memory of watching the Medusa interceptors destroy their targets in the same way ran through my head. Missiles impacted the hull and I thought to myself this is it... this is where I die.
I closed my eyes and prayed to whatever entity was watching over me to help me out. Then suddenly the wonderfully welcome whirring of the ships systems coming back online. I flipped the ship over aligning myself to the creature and boosted towards them. A strange sense of hatred and anger washing over me. I fired volley after volley into the beast's body, chunks of it blasting away with each strike, then with its final heart exposed I fired off a final volley. I watched as it fell to pieces and its caustic fluids spilled out into the void.
Melli called out triumphantly and I could say I had my first solo kill of a Thargoid interceptor. While the victory was immense for me there were still threats present. I called over to Ina.
'Which one next?'
"You're doing okay, but be a bit more careful", Ina replied. "Pick another Cy...WWWOOOOOOOOO"
Ina and I turned the comms off briefly, avoiding a resonance, as her target Cyclops felt an irresistible urge to die under a rain of shards that ripped sizable chunks of its flesh.
"Yeah, pick another Cyclops. Boost to open space and turn the assist off when they EMP you, the inertia will keep you going and safe. What's your status on hull and modules?"
I took a glance over at my modules at the question.
'Modules not too bad hull is holding at around 85%. Cyclops got it.'
Ina decided it was the right time to dance with their leader. Targeting the Medusa, she hit the boosters and Marshmallow darted across the battlefield, evading some clumsy Cyclops' shots. As she dropped another heatsink, she turned her approach trajectory into a wide arc, and then, playing with thrust control, let the big angry beast lose its momentum on trying to turn its face at her. A long burst of alien projectiles whizzed in a few dozen metres off her left wing, and, as her distance slowly increased due to inertia dragging her away, Ina dropped another heatsink and boosted, keeping the trajectory closer to a circle. It took a lot of rounds to expose the first heart, but once it began to glow, she had enough time to reload and make another attacking run.
Some people say she can't keep a stable orbit around them due to being too aggressive, and she wont argue with that. But, at the end of the day, it's the Thargoids exploding, not her.
And, on another attacking run, it was a matter of a few shots to shatter the heart of Medusa, making it scream in pain and anger.
I got distracted for a moment watching this veteran go to work on a Medusa. The very thing I look at and immediately feel fear and panic. I turned my attention back as the remaining Cyclops made a break towards Ina seemingly in an attempt to flank her.
'Not today you little rat. You're mine.'
I lined up slightly advanced of its direction of travel, something I had done a couple of times with human pilots. I gauged the speed and trajectory of the Cyclops and fired. It let out an ear splitting roar as the gauss rounds tore through its body. It turned its attention to me and charged.
'Right.... let's dance'
I rolled to the right as it passed by me. I engaged FA to stop forward momentum and lined back up. Engaging my thrusters I tried to remember what I had learned from the first kill. I began a wide sweeping arc, rolling the ship to ensure I kept the beast lined up in my sights. As I fell into a tight orbit I began the onslaught. I fired a few volleys of gauss rounds into the beast and popped a heat sync as my temps began to climb.
'Easy now Silv.'
I fired off my lasers and wore it down exposing it's heart. I fired a few well aimed shots at the heart and it exploded.
"WARNING! Incoming caustic attack."
I popped a heat sync and adjusted my trajectory avoiding the missiles. I began the tedious process of wearing down its shields. The Thargoid's shields fell, whether that was my doing, or the Thargoid dropping them on its own, I don't know. The second heart went much the same.
When I popped the third heart. Celeste issued the warning for the EMP and I quickly toggled FA on to stop momentum briefly then shut it right back off, hit my boost and fired off a heat sync. I didn't quite make it far enough away from the shut down field but at least this time I was moving. The ship drifted forwards as ice formed on the canopy and Melli cowered in her cage in the back corner of the cockpit.
The ship roared back to life and I corrected my trajectory to align with the creature. It let out a roar and sped towards me. I was far enough away that I was able to fire volley after volley of gauss rounds. I watched as my heat climbed. 100.....120...180...190....200% I fired a heat sync as I engaged my booster and fired off another volley.
I yelled back to Melli as we approached the Thargoid.
'Melli hang on tight. This is going to hurt!'
I slammed into the beast at the same time I fired off a volley of rounds. Rangers' reinforced hull gave me enough mass to win that impact. I jolted forward as I smashed through the beast. It's guts coated my hull in a caustic goo. In an attempt to survive I fired my cannons and boosted as I tried to raise my temps. I closed down the ships exhaust vents with silent running when my temps weren't rising fast enough. I burned the substance off my hull and charged towards Ina and the Medusa as a memory of Venus flooded my vision.
****
'Remember Silvia you can run from this conflict all you want but you will find yourself in it one way or another.'
'Venus, what do you think of when you confront one of them?'
'You..... I think of coming home to you... if you join the fight do not let a pilot face these things alone. Always keep a buddy. You never know when something will happen.'
****
The memory faded as I ripped past Marshmallow and fired off a volley of gauss rounds. The rounds impacted the beast causing it to divert its attention to me.
'Shit!'
Ina had been dancing around the Medusa, making boosted turns and short sharp, cavalry-like attacking runs, keeping the angered beast on the run constantly, either chasing her or running away for a recharge. She had no idea whether or not they had any kind of psychology, but, essentially, what she was trying to do was to show it that it didn't have a single chance to regain the initiative, being limited only to hopelessly aiming at the blurred picture with a low thermal signature, or to reloading, still feeling that deadly shrapnel hitting it from every possible angle. Three of its six hearts were shattered already, and if they could feel the pain, it should've been pretty vicious. Wounded the beast rushed from one side of our battlefield to another, leaving trails of its green blood on its way, and roared in agony.
Or it was like that, until she saw my Challenger, already covered in Thargoid goo, and with some nasty hull breaches here and there, dashing towards the beast and firing a Gauss volley; rounds pelting the Medusa right in the center of its hull, making some of its green liquids spill out of the wounds, and immediately after that, her shards lit up a fourth heart. The Interceptor turned sharply to face me and even fired a few rounds, also forcing her to pull the sticks aggressively in order to keep her sights on the heart, and, whilst being standard Thargoid behavior, it wasn't something she wanted to see. Regaining her aim, Ina fired a few shots at it, severely damaging the limb, but then inertia forces drug her away.
As she waited for her boosters to recharge in order to smash the heart on the next run, Ina activated her comms and said loudly:
"Silvia! Fall back and take it easy! We're still waiting for Creamy to arrive!"
She gave her own tech panel a glance. One of her heatsinks worked intermittently, but everything else was okay, without any reasons to worry. Those pesky swarms were a nuisance though, and she had to reload her Flak launcher several times already, but it wasn't such a big deal.
Keeping her eyes on my ship, Ina tilted the stick aggressively, sending Marshmallow into a sharp 180 turn, and hit the boosters, preemptively placing her crosshair over the glowing heart. A few more purple Gauss tracers ripped the void, with some of them ending up piercing the vulnerable limb, and, thankfully, the Medusa still saw more threat in Ina, being relentlessly determined to attack that steel creature that caused so much pain. In other words, it didn't change its trajectory and that was exactly what we needed. Ina opened fire even a bit before entering the optimal range, and the heart exploded, sending myriads of small jagged pieces flying in every direction and a thick stream of greenish liquid shooting out of the open wound. The Medusa roared once more, twitching and frenzily rotating, and Ina pulled up sharply, narrowly avoiding a collision.
This made her activate her comms again.
"Don't try to ram it, it's hella tough. That's not the exchange you may want to have!"
'I wouldn't ram it again even if it wasn't that tough. My hull took a decent bit of damage. I'm sitting right about 60% now. One of my gauss is starting to fail. Where the hell are they?'
As I responded to Ina over comms my sensors started to go on the fritz. Modules start failing and one of my thrusters began to sputter.
'Sh..... my mo..ul... comms....fail..... go..ng....d....a...a...r.kk.k.k'
There was nothing but static as my comms cut off due to the damage from the Cyclops' blood eating away at Rangers hull. I FA boosted off into the void while synthesizing more AFMU ammo this time the premium stuff. I hit every single module I could and shut down all systems needing repair. Ranger drifted away from the battle and ice formed on my canopy. There is an eerie feeling in the silence when you are drifting through space with no sounds other than your own breathing. I watched as all my modules returned to full health with the guardian tech on board hitting 100% but immediately beginning to take damage again. I looked at my hull percentage and worried if Ranger could hold out long enough. I turned back to the fight when Ranger roared back to life with a seemingly invigorated sound. I watched as Ina exposed the 5th heart as I made my way back in range of the conflict.
'Right, you keep the heat on I'll run strafing attacks. How are things looking on your end?'
I boosted forwards and fired off my lasers as I approached. I fired a volley of gauss rounds as I passed by. I popped a heat sync and disappeared from the creatures sights. I rotated the ship over and waited for a boost recharge. As soon as my distributor was filled I emptied it again and fired another volley of gauss rounds. As the rounds struck the Medusa, Celeste warned of multiple threats.
"WARNING! Multiple Frameshift anomalies detected"
'Uh... that can't be good. Damn it Creamy where the hell are you?'
I thought to myself as I boosted past the Medusa watching it's fifth heart be destroyed. It let out a terrifying roar and released an EMP as I passed directly behind it. Everything went dark and I watched up-close the thing dart away from me.
'Damn it that thing is one tough bastard.'
I waited for my ship to roar back to life which this time seemed to take an eternity. There was a creepy croaking and groaning sound as it searched for either of the metallic beasts that had caused it soo much pain. That same terrifying silence lingering longer than I liked. A few stray rounds impacted my hull. Ranger roared back into existence and I popped another heat sync while rotating the ship in a graceful ballerina like motion. Marshmallow fired another volley of shrapnel at the creature as Celeste again called over the in cabin speaker.
"WARNING! Multiple frameshift anomalies detected."
"Ah, crap, not again..."
Warning messages made it through the droning sound of Ina's EMP neutralizer as she kept her eyes on the Medusa, waiting for its shields to drop at least a bit before attacking the last heart, and, with some luck, she managed to crack the beast open on the same run. More red markers appeared on our sensors, and this time Ina decided to take a little break. Sadly, no time to make a tea. The fight was beginning to wear on us but we had to keep our guard up. Creamy had yet to appear still and the situation was quickly getting out of hand. Ina called over the comms to deliver a brief game plan.
"I'm okay, nothing dramatic. Stand down and keep your eyes on whatever might appear. We really need to catch our breath and evaluate the situation. The Medusa is one foot in the grave already, one or two attacks and it's done."
Three Cyclopes, a Basilisk and another Medusa dropped out of witch space and began searching the conflict zone for our ships. Though, even with all that angry acid-pooping crowd around us, Ina was really happy seeing how much ammo those Modified Shards could hold. She was still worried about me though and rightfully so. She didn't want to admit that it might have been a bit over my capabilities but she wanted to see if I had it in me to keep fighting. What she didn't realize is that my determination to get her home safely outweighed everything in my mind.
"Uh. Silv. Hate to say this, but, since I want you to live to fight another day, keep it easy and concentrate on zapping their shields with those vent lasers."
She said before switching from a circular trajectory to an aggressive charge, Ina activated a heatsink and a wave of shrapnel stripped the rest of the Medusa's shields. Feeling its inevitable death, the ugly creature sent a chaotic long burst in her direction. The thing even hit her once grazing the right wing, leaving a long scorch mark. That however was nowhere near the massive wave of ordnance Ina unleashed in return. She lit up the heart and made the beast lose whatever it had for mind completely. It spun wildly firing one burst after another at her as the Thargoid desperately fought for its life and called for help.
When her boosters recharged, Ina rapidly darted towards the incoming Basilisk, slipping past it by a few hundred metres, forcing it to turn around and lose its speed, whilst her cannons were still reloading. Then with another sharp turn, she faced the crippled Medusa, with its last heart burning, she tilted the sticks to start the spiral and aimed at the heart. They certainly sound a bit different when you destroy the last heart. More... Doomed. Hopeless. Unable to resist. And, hell we both know what it is, when your life isn't yours anymore. When you're powerless to change a single little thing. When all your efforts are in vain. When, as soon as you see a hope, it's being shattered brutally. And, we were glad to translate as much of those feelings as possible to them.
Not giving the beast a time to raise its last shields, Ina quickly tapped both triggers, making her cannons thunder violently, and the Medusa's pained roar turned into a loud shriek as the beast disappeared in flames and an acid cloud of its own evaporating blood and insides.
"Now, how do you like that, you shit?!"
No time to cheer though. Ina was secretly hoping that I wouldn't didn't pull off anything suicidal, keep my distance and monitor my temperature.
"We're getting popular. Watch your distance from everything and zap them with a laser, and we're fine."
****
'OK I can do that. I'll try and keep it cold.'
As the Medusa screamed its final dying roar I watched from a distance providing Ina with cover. I wasn't about to say it out loud but I was fucking terrified. Those creatures hated us and they weren't afraid to show us that. It's really no wonder why, seeing as how we have been hunting them relentlessly for the last decade or so.
Cyclops that see Ina are generally considered unlucky, but there are still some gradations of being unlucky, with 'going to be totally annihilated' as the worst option and 'going to be totally annihilated, but a bit later' as the best. That next one got the lucky ticket: swerving in a complicated trajectory in order to get herself further away from the Medusa and evade a chaotic flurry of shots at the same time, Ina slipped past that poor bastard too fast to deal enough damage, landing a handful of rounds at its hull in a brief moment of opportunity. The Cyclops shouted angrily as its heart lit up, but she had too much inertia to lock onto it and engage properly. I made my way closer to keep my beams on it, not allowing it to recover any of the damage dealt.
Getting ready for the attack, charging the boosters and keeping her eyes on the sensors, Ina noticed a green marker getting too close to a red one. As I circled the Cyclops keeping a good distance from it and ensuring my orbit didn't put Ina in the line of fire that damned Medusa blindsided me. I was sent tumbling off course the, G-forces caused my vision to go black as I was sucked back into my seat. Try as I might I couldn't correct the spin. The impact had caught me off guard and caused a severe amount of disorientation. From a wide variety of targets to collide with, I got hit by the heaviest one, and my Challenger went into an uncontrollable spin.
"Silv... Ffff... Fuckety fuck!"
Rotating around all three axes and tumbling away, and, what was the most heinous: another Cyclops locked on my ship and engaged, turning straight at me and gaining speed.
"Not today, you cheeky little scumbag."
Lining up and equalizing her speed, while dropping a pair of heatsinks to completely vanish from their view, Ina unloaded all four cannons right at the middle of its sorry arse so quickly that Ina swears its roar had a slight echo of 'what the heck' in it, and she hoped that the guts he dropped weren't moving fast enough to hit my ship. I watched as the universe around me spun wildly then my vision went completely black as I lost consciousness.
****
I hear Venus' voice faintly as the world around me sits in darkness.
'Hey there little moon. Time to wake up. Look I even made you breakfast this morning.'
'Huh wuh? Venus? You're here? Does that mean.... I'm dead?'
Blinking vigorously I tried to comprehend what the hell was happening. Venus replied to me seemingly confused by my response.
'Silvia what are you going on about? You're not dead. Did you forget we are on our honeymoon?'
I looked out the French doors and noticed that I was on the beach in the bungalow Venus and I had rented for our honeymoon shortly after our wedding. I looked down at the food on the bed. I blinked and the world shifted around and next thing I knew Venus and I were walking along the beach. I was in a blue bikini with a white swimsuit cover up and Venus was in a pure white one piece with a gold ring on her stomach. We were both holding woven baskets and collecting seashells.
'Hey Silvia, Raya sent you a message this morning. She has a gift for you but you will need to head to the research station in Hawking's Gap.'
'Did she say what it was?'
'No just that it was a project you two had been working on.'
The world around me faded back to black as the sound of proximity alarms began to blare.
****
I regained consciousness enough to force a hand to the controls. I hit the FA on button and the ship stopped spinning with enough force to throw me out of my seat. I slammed into the top of the cockpit then back onto the floor. I made my way back to my seat and groaned out in pain.
'That mother fu.... Melli you ok?'
No response came from her. I looked back and saw her head poking out of her cage eyes closed but she was breathing. I took a moment to regain my bearings still feeling dizzy and lightheaded. I targeted Marshmallow to find where the conflict was taking place and rushed back to the conflict zone. Ina thought about removing the Basilisk, but returning to the Cyclops with a glowing heart seemed like the optimal idea, and, doing so, she forced said Basilisk to turn around again in attempt to catch her, effectively delaying its attack. And, shortly after removing the first heart, Ina saw my tracers hitting her target right in the middle. I fired my gauss cannons striking the Cyclops square in the middle of its body and resumed firing my laser not allowing the Cyclops to take a break to recover any damage. As I corrected my trajectory, I let my frustrations out unfiltered.
'That wee bastard! If I were in my damned Anaconda I'd shove 2000 tonne o steel up its fuckin arse! Fuckin check me like that!!... Gah! You rotten, mangy, pile o' lizard shite in a fuckin swamp!'
Ina called over comms after my outburst obviously worried about what she had just witnessed.
"Goddammit! Give me a damage report!"
At that point any amount of fear I had before that impact was replaced by pure unhindered rage. I was out there doing what I could to help and that fucking.... thing.... decided I was the weak one and wanted to pick on me. It was at that moment I wished I was in something heavier. May not be as agile as Ranger but those AX Condas were something to be feared. I checked over all of my modules and hull before I called over to Ina, keeping an eye out for the big one.
'Systems ok, hull is hovering at 58% thankfully shields took most of that hit. Ooo I'd really like for that little blonde fellow to show his arse right about now.'