“Good flying, Lieutenant,” she said. “Now get up there and give ‘em hell.”
Turning around in her seat, Ellenton broke into a broad smile, then saluted.
“With pleasure, Captain.”
Thorne leapt down to the surface. The Borrelly was gone before she landed. It arced up into the sky, drawing a hail of anti-air fire as it climbed. In moments Thorne had lost sight of it, unable to tell it apart from the thousand other streaking lines of light above. Was the Anakoni up there among them? She didn’t know, and all at once she realized she didn’t care.
“All right, then,” Thorne said to herself as she brought her eyes down to the battleground around her. “Let’s do this.”
Chapter Fifty-Five
Seventy-two minutes and counting…
Kaiden reached the cover of a small crater, threw himself down and out of the line of fire, and took a half second to glance up at the timer.
Eight minutes? Their hellacious descent to the surface had only been eight minutes long? It’d felt like half an hour, at least. But that was the past. Ellenton had gotten them down safely. That was objective one achieved. On to the next, then.
Kaiden raised his eyes to the reinforced gate that led down into Warden HQ. It wasn’t more than three hundred yards away, but looking at it now, he couldn’t help but feel daunted by everything that stood between them and it.
Chaos. Everywhere he looked. All around him the largest battle in Nova’s history was playing out. Shuttles were landing anywhere they could find an open scrap of ground, their rear ramps dropping so the troops inside could pour out. And then came the freighters. Most were shot basically to pieces by the time they touched down, but they were getting the job done. By design, the anti-air turrets in Nova had a floor beneath which they couldn’t shoot. Once the landing ships dropped below that altitude they were safe – from the anti-air, at least.
Kaiden ducked behind his shield as a Warden Corps corvette managed to pull free from the fight above – one of the few that was able to thanks to the ferocity of the fighting. The plan was to use their ships to keep the warden fleet engaged so the ground forces were free to focus on the HQ’s surface defenders. But occasionally a smaller vessel would break through to harry them briefly from above. This one came in low, weaponry blazing as it aimed to pick off a landed freighter. Return fire from the ground shredded the corvette’s shields, but its own guns got the job done anyway. The landed freighter collapsed inwards as the hull was breached. Players and NPCs fled from the ship and moments later its core detonated, killing any left on board and many of those who’d been fleeing. The blast was big enough that even a hundred or more paces away Kaiden felt the concussion deep in his chest. His ears rang with the roar of the dying vessel and lights flashed in his eyes long after the ship was reduced to smoldering rubble.
Kaiden flicked open the command module to get a better grip on everything around him. Most of their forces were landed and more were coming by the moment. The module showed the current battlefield as a hologram, projected onto his vision. Wherever it could, it overlaid data over the real-time visuals he was seeing.
“Soon as they’re on the ground, make sure your troops get to cover!” Kaiden said into the comm channel that’d been created for the commanders of the combined force.
“Will pass it along.”
“Understood.”
“Like we discussed.”
A half-dozen or so voices replied. Some, like Odditor and PlayaSlaya, Kaiden knew. Others he considered friends, like Nando, Dawson, and Ellenton. The rest, he didn’t personally know. But it was hard to know every commander in a force of a couple thousand. Especially with how quickly it’d been assembled.
“My uh, group leaders have been, have been notified,” Odditor’s voice replied next. “Ooh, that’s a big one there,” he said, sounding suddenly excited and distracted. His voice was more distant now, as if he was talking away from the mic. “Let’s see if she’s as tough as she looks…”
High above there was a resounding explosion as the guns of the Veritas – formerly Bernstein’s and now Odditor’s dreadnought – presumably tore into an opposing vessel.
“Maximus warriors know what to do. They don’t need your commands.” PlayaSlaya’s voice came last. Sounded almost offended at the suggestion “This ain’t their first landing under fire.”
It took Kaiden a moment to realize the guild leader hadn’t spoken through the comms channel, but out loud. Kaiden pulled his eyes from the raging battle to find PlayaSlaya next to him, face set in a grin. Looked for all the world like he was enjoying himself, huddled down in a crater as anything and everything exploded around them.
Burning soil rained down, hissing and thunking as it hit the ground, and PlayaSlaya only smiled wider.
I guess this is sort of his thing…
PlayaSlaya was wearing different armor than the last time Kaiden had seen him.
Nihilist’s Rage Powersuit, Warlord edition
It was all spikes and painted metal and interlocking plates that moved with surprising fluidity. Some sort of end-game gear, Kaiden didn’t doubt, but he didn’t have time at the moment to pay much attention to it.
Nando was beside PlayaSlaya, as always. The familiar face was a welcome sight amidst the chaos unfurling around them. Maybe he’d always been a bit blunt, but if their heart to heart back on Kyraxis had proven anything it was that Nando had his reasons for being here. He harbored no love for the Party and he was committed to bringing it down.
“You ready to do this?” Nando asked.
“Can’t really back out now,” Kaiden said.
“No, I guess not.” Nando chuckled. “Let’s take these bastards down.”
Kaiden agreed with a nod and turned to evaluate the situation around him.
PlayaSlaya and Nando, along with five of their elite guild members, had come down
