Something exploded overhead and Kaiden ducked away as sparks rained down on him. He glanced up to see a line of ballistic rounds slamming into the surface of the gate, scouring dents and scars across its surface in flashes of fire.
“Let’s see what this big bastard’s made of,” came a voice over comms.
Ellenton! Kaiden spun to see the Borrelly drifting over the battlefield. It was at full speed, though, drifting past impossibly fast and only able to keep firing on the gate for another second before it had to pull off. Three enemy fighters were behind it, guns blazing and lighting its shields up whenever they hit. The proximity defense drones looked to have had a rough time. Half of them were gone and those that were left were clearly damaged. They struggled to keep up with the Borrelly and fire back at the pursuing fighters.
“Can’t slow down,” Ellenton said as her engines carried her up to circle back. “But I can keep making passes. Probably.” The fighters pursued her high into the sky before she pulled a hard turn and came back for another strafing run.
The second stream of bullets tore into the gate and Kaiden watched its health drop.
89%...
82%...
76%...
Good progress, but still not enough.
The Borrelly took a direct hit to one of its engines and veered sharply off course. Ellenton just managed to pull up before plowing into the ground.
“I’m here, uh, here,” Odditor’s voice suddenly sprang to life in Kaiden’s ear. “Bit busy, though. Apologies.” Crashes and explosions sounded as he spoke, crackling through the comm channel.
“We need this gate down. This whole thing fails if we don’t get through this gate.”
“Barricade the door!” Whenstone’s voice suddenly shouted out. “We’re dealing with a bit of a situation here. Boarders on the ship. I don’t think we can stop them from taking the bridge.”
“Bastards aren’t taking, taking my ship!” Odditor cursed, more malice in his voice than Kaiden had ever heard before.
“Come at me, then!” roared Eqokkhabone, the shield warden who’d been beside Titus. He was very low on health, his shield was overloaded, and he’d obviously taken a massive hit to the side considering the state of his armor.
“I don’t need a shield to tank for this par—”
He was cut off by an explosion as an enemy blast warden several paces away who’d been charging an Improved Kinetic Grenade was killed. The attack fired off anyway, though, falling to the ground and swallowing Eqokkhabone in its explosion.
Party member killed!
“I mean, he wasn’t wrong…” Thorne said, frowning at the aftermath. “He did technically tank that…”
“Odditor!” Kaiden said again, turning away from the sorry sight and focusing on his desperate plan. “If you’re going to crash... can you crash in this direction? Into the gate?”
The only response was the sounds of fighting and then, shortly after, no sound at all as the channel went dead.
“It was a good plan,” Zelda said, frowning at him. “But we’re going to need another one.”
She was right.
“Ellenton, can you—” Kaiden began, but before he could finish, another voice cut him off.
“Captains,” Acton said through comms. “This ship is insured, yeah?”
What?
Kaiden just managed to piece together what was happening as a blur dropped out of the sky.
The Veritas II was hurtling toward them. It was in a bad way, shields down, an engine and several turrets gone, but it was still flying – and directly at the gate.
“The ship’s all paid up,” Zelda said, her words heavy. She too had realized what was happening.
“Very good, then. Captains,” Acton said, sounding far too cheery about the whole thing. “It’s been a pleasure. I’ll see you on the other side.”
The remaining guns of the Veritas II blazed to life, hurling everything they had at the gate. A group of fighters was on the ship’s tail, though. They chipped away at it, tearing chunks from its armor. But the armor was doing its job, because without it the shots would have been tearing components apart inside the Veritas II. As Kaiden watched, Acton fired what remained of the Tumbler torpedoes. They jumped from the ship all at once, falling for a moment before their thrusters kicked on. Several flipped over and hurtled back toward the pursuing fighters. The rest plunged into the gate in a series of rapid explosion.
Kaiden was cognizant of the gate’s health dropping but he ignored it, flinging himself instead beneath the Improved Barrier Titus had thrown up.
He had just enough time for one last look at the gate before the Veritas II hit it at full speed.
The ground shook. Kaiden’s ears exploded with a piercing ringing. Blinding light stabbed through his vision. Fire and debris swept across the battlefield in a shockwave so powerful it knocked everyone not under a barrier to the ground.
There was a moment of near-silence as the ringing faded from Kaiden’s ears. The smoke began to clear, but he wasn’t looking at that. No, he was looking at the flashing red text in the corner of his vision.
8%...
8%...
8%...
The gate was still standing. Barely, maybe, but it wasn’t destroyed.
The Veritas II hadn’t been enough. The gate was still standing, and the Warden Corps forces were closing in on all sides.
So close, and yet so far. Damn it!
“Kaiden! Look!” PlayaSlaya had waded out of the fighting and was gesturing wildly at the gate. “It’s open!”
Kaiden squinted as the smoke cleared further. And yes, sure enough, the gate was ajar! The rightmost door was pulled back a bit, open just enough for a small group to slip through. The impact from the Veritas II hadn’t been enough to destroy it completely but it had been enough to bust it open, it seemed.
“I didn’t realize damage states could do that,” Thorne said under her breath, frowning as she stared at the opening. “Normally it’s an all-or-nothing thing.”
“What are we waiting for?” PlayaSlaya shouted, pushing Kaiden toward the smoke clinging around the gate and the wreckage of the Veritas II. “Let’s get in there!”
“One way or another, it’s open,”
