Transponder deactivated.
“No point in hiding anymore,” she said. “We might as well fly true. Fly under the name Bernstein gave this ship.”
“Veritas II,” Kaiden said. “You know, I’ve never asked what it means.”
“It’s Latin,” Zelda said. “And the name of the Roman goddess of truth.”
Kaiden nodded at that. A good name. Bernstein chose well – as usual.
“Yeah, yeah. Dead languages and fallen empires are fine, but the Borrelly’s named after a comet and that’s way cooler,” Ellenton said. “Now load up. We got some Warden Corps ass to kick.”
Chapter Fifty-Four
Seventy-eight minutes and counting…
Thorne couldn’t stop her eyes from flicking up to the timer every few moments. It was strange to have everything laid out so... simply. But there it was. Seventy-eight minutes, or thereabouts, until Nova was offline. Assuming the Party had initiated Killswitch, which they no doubt had. Moran was probably screaming at someone about it now.
She smiled at that thought.
Today’s going to be a day you’ll never forget, Moran. If they were successful – if the database got out to the masses and spread like they expected – then Moran was certain to face much worse days than this one. But in the back of his mind, Thorne knew Moran would always think back to this day. Back to the catalyst that set everything in motion.
An explosion shook the shuttle and then everything was moving. Thorne flew through the cabin and face-planted into the wall, taking two percent fall damage.
“Told you to strap in back there!” Ellenton shouted over her shoulder from the cockpit.
Thorne looked back to the strap she’d been holding on to. In any other shuttle that would have been fine, but not with Ellenton at the helm.
She growled a curse up toward the cockpit then crawled to a jump seat beside Zelda and strapped herself in.
“I can’t hear you over the sound of me keeping us all alive right now,” Ellenton said, then there was an explosion outside and the game simulated all of the blood in Thorne’s body rushing into her head at once as they pulled another high-g maneuver.
They must have been drawing closer to the asteroid because Nova’s location announcement triggered in Thorne’s vision.
Well, that’s one way to put it, Thorne thought as a flight of fighters whipped by outside the windows, weaponry ablaze. One of the rear ships took a direct hit from one of the massive cruisers above and was vaporized instantly.
“Why are there so many of them?” Kaiden shouted, his face glued to the window beside his seat, watching the chaos without. It was a good question. Thorne peered out her own window, careful not to get too close lest another quick maneuver face-plant her into the glass.
The Warden Corps never kept more than two hundred ships at Custos at once, and most of those were fighters and shuttles. And yet here stood a fleet of five hundred, plus two additional carriers, to meet them. Except it wasn’t standing; it was swarming. Roaring. Blasting away with everything it had.
A common critique of Nova was that the ship combat was unbalanced compared to individual player combat. When two players went at it, they ducked and dodged, hacked and slashed, and tore each other apart with abilities. When two ships fought it was a similar experience, just without the abilities. When a ship fought a player, though, it was wholly unbalanced. Some complained about this. Thorne just figured it made sense. That didn’t make her feel any better, though, as she watched the landing shuttle next to them explode in a plume of blue flame, killing all onboard. Eight or so soldiers plus pilot – gone, just like that. The debris spun away in the direction of Custos, caught in the asteroid’s limited gravity and pulled down to its surface.
As she looked down, she couldn’t help but notice the defenses on the ground. Anti-air turrets sprayed upward, their lasers coloring the darkness with lethal streaks of light. Among the guns she could make out bunkers, guard towers, and the massive reinforced gate that led down and into Warden HQ. Everything was just as it’d been when she’d seen it last. At least down there things seemed normal. Was there a chance the unusually large fleet above the asteroid had just lucked out? Happened to be stopping by when the attack had begun?
The Borrelly’s shields lit up a brilliant blue as one shot made contact.
Shield integrity: 96%
Thorne near swallowed her own tongue as Ellenton rolled them to the side in a seemingly endless spin.
“I think the Corps got lucky,” Thorne said, answering Kaiden’s question from earlier. “I’ve never seen this many ships here before. We must have caught them during a shift change. Old patrol ships rotating out, new ones rotating in. Sometimes there’s a period of overlap.” Though it’s never more than a day or so long. “Really bad luck on our part. I should have kept note of the schedule, but never thought I’d be breaking in to HQ…”
“Whatever the reason, it’s bad news for us—” Titus’ words cut off in a clenched-teeth groan as the shuttle rolled and shook again.
“It doesn’t matter,” Dawson shouted, seemingly unaffected by the chaos around him as always. Tough as nails, that man. “The fight in the sky is a distraction. All it has to do is give our landing forces cover. Might mean we get a few less troops on the ground, though. The number that ends up making it inside is going to be lower than expected.”
“Hopefully everyone else is having an easier time of it than us.” Zelda’s face was scrunched up, her teeth gritted against Ellenton’s high-g maneuvers.
“Everyone hold tight!” Ellenton shouted from up in the cockpit.
“What do you think we’ve been doing?” Thorne shouted back. No wonder Sola refuses to ever fly with this maniac again. Something flashed up
