Book 8 – Chapter 10 – More than Ready

With one last practice flourish, I stepped free of the mite cape, entering the light side. I’d done a few minutes of testing boundaries, and had a rough feeling of how to best use this little thing. With good enough planning, this cape could be even better than my knightbreakers. Used in tandem, with the rest of my gear and goodies, I’d be near unstoppable.

Knock on metal of course. Avalis would absolutely figure some scrapshit out, but so long as I ambushed him with the sum total of all my gear and kit out of nowhere, there is no shot that asshole could ever prepare enough for what I’ve got packing. I’ll give him even more white hair than he already has.

Time for the second problem in the area: I had my loot, I needed to escape out of this place with it. Which meant dealing with a giant snake machine coiled all around this fortress.

The screen monitors all over the area showed me the battle progress, and unlike the Dark Side, nothing was superimposed over one another. So I could see the status of the fight. Answer: Okay-ish.

Wrath and To’Orda had both handled a good amount of the fish swarm after them, but the larger snake machine was nearly impervious to damage. Wrath’s blades were like toothpicks, unable to cut deep enough through the metal armor to do much of anything. And those exposed rib cages were all moveable: In that they attacked back. The ribs would move around like the legs of a millipede, and more fish would constantly flow out of it. It was incredibly creepy to watch.

To’Orda was having even less of an impact on the snake. His hammer blows would pulse out occult, easily ripping apart swarms after him, but on the snake it would dent the metal down a few inches otherwise. The big guy gave up trying after the first swing, saving his effort for handling the swarms after Wrath.

This wouldn’t be a problem if we could outrun the thing. Slip through the giant floating chunks of land around here and get the heck out of the snow. But bigger size did not mean it moved slowly. The thing could move like an airspeeder, and if left in a straight line would outspeed even Wrath within a few seconds. Forcing the pair to keep moving erratically.

I looked past my trusty set of tools and gear on my belt and back, debating what I could make use of.

Ironically enough, the shotgun pellets of occult bullets on my hand cannons would work pretty well against the thing, since those would travel through just about everything that wasn’t shielded.

Knightbreaker shells wouldn’t do more than a heater left outside against something this big, a flaw I was starting to be well aware of. I needed more anti-giant in my arsenal. The armguard would also get caught, but wielded by occult mirrors it could potentially start slicing up the insides. Assuming I could get mirror images past the exposed rib cage filled with sharp pseudo-bones that could move and stab. And the mass of angry fish with occult teeth.

I debated how we’d get out of this biome safely. Speaker and Judge were gone, the challenge complete. The fortress coughed with power, some screens flickering, but most intact and working. All showed the outside. And those gun controls.

“What are the chances the gun turrets here work?” I asked.

“Depends on the mites and how lucid the colony that made this set piece were.” Cathida hummed. “Not going to know for sure until you try one.”

So I walked over to the nearest controls that had a targeting HUD, sat down and pulled the joysticks. The screen lit up as more details woke to life. Ammunition counts appeared, shell loading animations ran through as the cannons auto-loaded into position, safeties switched off. Everything was in a weird font and language, though there were enough icons I could somewhat guess what was going on.

The entire seat turned with me as I pulled on the levers, including the screen, which was the most convoluted thing I’d seen so far. But it certainly made me feel like I was in the turret itself. I know some of the older models of airspeeders had turrets like those, or they were grafted onto slower warfrigates. Felt a little like home. “Looks good so far. Aiming speed is a little slow, but I think I can work with this.” I flicked a few of the toggles above me, checking to see what icons turned red or green, and generally following the same command sequence airspeeder turrets used.

“So long as it can shoot deary. Blowing things up is the important part of big guns.”

If I had a hat, I’d give it a tip here. “Every now and then you actually do say profound words of wisdom I can get behind.”

I waited for a flyby from Wrath, then when I had a clear shot, I pressed the buttons down. A few things happened in quick succession.

First: The fortress was dense enough I didn’t feel anything move from the command bridge here, but I did hear the vibration and sound come through.

Second, on the screen the muzzles flashed as both cannons began to alternate fire into the giant snake. “Oh, it’s not enjoying that at all.” I grinned, keeping the fire going.

And third, everything in the biome here went crazy. Because shooting giant cannons at targets was not a silent thing at all. And none of the sound was related to the floating slabs that entombed this fortress. Each hit landed on the snake had vibration follow behind it, shattering the glass sphere. Shards started to fly all over, slicing up fish that happened to fly by it. No wonder the Odin found this place insane to fly, they’d been downplaying how dangerous that cut glass actually was.

I was watching it slice machines as if it were occult blades. And that damage was clearly dealt to the snake too, as it was forced to flee out of the collapsing environment.

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“It’s also still in one piece.” Cathida said. “Despite the damages.”

“Just a little dense is all. Give me a few minutes to pound it flat.” Ammunition count showed me I had enough for that to go around in one turret. And given the glass was doing an equally great job, I was confident in this plan.

Unfortunately, my enemy wasn’t dumb. It couldn’t dodge, so it assembled swarms of fish to tank the shots for it. They flew down the sides, clumped up and swarmed over it like a discount occult shield. The other side also had the same treatment, as fish flew into the way of the shards, tanking their hits and nudging them out of the way otherwise.

The cannons were doing damage. Unfortunately, just not enough. And then the swarms descended down at the cannons themselves, and all the icons on my HUD rapidly turned from green to red as the little scrap assholes bit and chewed through the weapons platform.

There were plenty more to go to, I could stand up and get to the next one and repeat the process.

But I had technology. I got up and started sniffing around for a central control system. I tapped a few panels, ripped off another set, and found something that looked like a plug after a bit of searching around using the soul sight for the concept of a port. Journey handled the rest. “Get in there, bring all the cannons online and open fire on that thing, please.”

“Well, since you asked so nicely, dear. How could I refuse?” Cathida snickered, then got to work