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Avalon, Part Four; Chapter Thirteen: The Flight
Posted By: Triad<m.eelkema@student.tudelft.nl>
Date: 13 June 2006, 9:01 am
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Avalon; Part four: Semper supernumerus, numquam superarmatus
Chapter thirteen: The Flight
0800 hours, September 23 2502 (military calendar), Ring-surface, Avalon nebula
The moment the last doors separating the underground structure from the surface opened, Steven squinted his eyes, along with the rest of his crew. The light outside wasn't nearly as intensive as that on most colonized planets, but was still a hell of a lot brighter than the lights inside the compound.
The Humans, Elites and the remaining Jackals ran through the woods, which looked like the same forest Christine and her team had explored prior to being captured. Once the group reached the edge of what seemed a large grass plane, Osso ordered his Elites to halt, and turned to Steven. "Now it's your turn, Human. Contact your dropships, or I'll have you for dinner."
Steven took his XO's com-equipment, and cautiously turned it on. "This is Commander Fisher calling the Flying Dutchman. We are on the surface of the Ring and need dust-off, over."
When the answer from the Dutchman didn't come, Steven checked to see if he could find the Dutchman's homing beacon. To his surprise the distinctive bleeping was easily picked up, meaning that the ship was still in orbit. Yet, there was no one answering to his hails. The Commander worriedly turned his radio to a different frequency. "This is Commander Fisher calling Petrel-dropships One through Four. Any Petrels in the vicinity; call in now. We are on the surface and need immediate evac. Over."
Fifteen seconds passed in silence, in which Steven repeatedly glanced at Osso with growing concern. "Commander Fisher calling any Petrel in orbit around, or on the surface of the Ring. This is not a trap. The codeword is Elvis. I repeat; Elvis. Come in, Petrels."
Suddenly the radio crackled into life with the voice of Lieutenant Bantini shouting the answer to his Commander's codeword: "Sideburns! This is Petrel Four, calling in. Commander Fisher, is that you? You were out of touch for almost a day! We were starting to get worried. What happened, sir?"
"We don't have time to explain it now, Petrel Four. Can you read our position?"
"Affirmative. I'm receiving you five-by-five. I'm fifteen minutes away from your coordinates."
"Then get your ass over here on the double, over. We desperately need to get out of here!"
True to his word, the stubby nose of Bantini's Pelican peeked over the treetops in fifteen minutes flat, inciting cheers from Humans and aliens alike. After touching down, the crew-chief hastily began to fill up the Pelican's crew-hold. Christine was one of the first aboard and quickly moved up front to Bantini and his co-pilot. "Nice to see you, Lieutenant. Where have you been all this time?"
"After the Commander disappeared as well we've been engaged by huge unmanned flying objects. At about the same time they attacked, contact with the Dutchman was lost. I've been busy evading those bastards ever since. They've shot down every Pelican except this one. But what happened to you, Commander?"
"We were captured and imprisoned. Some of us were taken away, but I don't know what happened to them. I think Commander Fisher does, but he hasn't told me yet. It suffices to say we have taken quite a lot of casualties and may have been followed."
"You can scratch the 'may have', sir. My scope is showing multiple bogies inbound on our position."
Steven and Enno were the last to step aboard the cramped dropship. "Pilot," Steven yelled, "take us to the Dutchman as fast as you can!"
The moment the Pelican lifted off, Bantini shouted over his shoulder: "Someone get on the rear-gun! Enemies should be coming into view right about now!"
The Lieutenant wasn't kidding; as the Pelican burst through the lower cloud cover, six ominous looking flying robots emerged from the clouds as well, accompanied by a large flock of smaller Sentinels. The six machines were much bigger than the Sentinels they had encountered before. These things consisted of a main body with two large arms sticking out of it pointing downwards. The front end of the metal dreadnaughts were protected by a transparent shield, covering the 'eyes' of the thing like glass elephant's ears.
As soon as the Pelican came in range, the machines opened fire with thousands of pink shards, which homed in on Petrel Four at relatively slow speeds. Bantini banked sharply on seeing the barrage of pink glass closing in on his tail. Every single piece of coloured shrapnel changed direction with him. When the pink cloud was close enough, Bantini turned the Pelican in a steep climb. Almost all of the projectiles shot underneath the Petrel, except for a dozen that adhered to the right aileron and exploded, severely compromising the integrity of the right wing.
The acrobatics Bantini performed to shake of the needles had put his plane in a head to head with the assailants. "Major Morris, get on that rear-gun! As soon as I blast through them, you smoke their asses, copy?"
"I copy you, Lieutenant! Give'm hell!"
"Anvils locked on, Lieutenant!" Bantini's co-pilot noted.
"Firing!" Jimmy yelled as he pulled the trigger on his stick. Six HE Anvil-rockets shot away from the Pelican, completely depleting their missile-supply. Co-pilot Ensign Cindy Maas had targeted three of the attackers with two rockets each. When the first couple of missiles had reached their target, the first impact annihilated the machine's front shield and sent it spinning backwards as if it had gotten a left hook from Ali. The second Anvil turned it to scrap.
The same thing happened to the other targets, which didn't even change course in the path of the oncoming rockets. After every rocket had found its prey, there were only three bigger drones left, still assisted by as much as twenty smaller Sentinels.
"Hang on back there! We're breaking their lines!" Bantini punched the Pelican's throttle into the fire wall and steered it straight towards one of the remaining living dreadnaughts through a rain of pink needles, yellow mortar-rounds and orange energy-beams. Seconds before his plane was going to hit one of the bigger robots head-on, Bantini fired the chain-gun mounted on the Pelican's chin. It quickly obliterated the front shield of the target and then tore through its body, turning it to Swiss cheese before it exploded.
As soon as the Pelican had punched through the cloud of malicious metal, Major Morris opened up with the machinegun mounted from the roof of the crew compartment. The hail of seven point six-two millimetre tracers ripped through the shiny blue-grey body and winglets of three Sentinels that had avoided collision with the plane by mere centimetres. Two other metallic falcons soon followed, shot into burning wrecks on their way to a fiery crash six miles down.
The sight of his bullets shredding through steel and semi-conductor fired up Frank's suprarenal gland, which began secreting adrenalin in high quantities. "Haha! Get some! Get some! I've got you, I've got you!" It didn't take the Major long before every little Sentinel had either exploded or gone down in flames. The only opposition left to him were the two bigger machines, which were by now gaining serious on the human craft.
"Get some!" Frank shouted and directed his barrage of tracers towards the crab-like behemoths trailing him. These targets were not the easy hit their smaller cousins had been. As soon as Frank's bullets had chipped away one of their front shields, the vulnerable robot would hide behind its brother like a show-wrestler, who tapped out when he was about to be knocked out, allowing his partner to take his place in the ring. It was impossible for the Major to find a chink in their translucent armor, and he knew it. "Damn it! Can someone give me a hand back here?"
"With pleasure, sir," Sergeant LaMarque said and stepped beside Frank with a Jackhammer rocket launcher she had obtained from an onboard locker. "Hasta lasagna, suckers!" she shouted as the targeting mechanism locked on the metal dreadnaught. After pulling the trigger two fin-stabilized rockets sped their way towards the nearest enemy. Just like the Anvils, the first Jackhammer lived up to its name and obliterated the front shields, while the second missile closed the deal and sent its target to robot-hell.
Missing its partner for cover, the remaining assailant was now at the mercy of Frank and his machinegun. It didn't take the Marine long to pound the electronic centurion into oblivion with relentless precision.
"Nice job, Major," Lieutenant Bantini shouted over his shoulder. "The scope is empty. It looks like our path is clear all the way to the Dutchman. We're going feet vacuum in five."
To be continued
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