Chapter 141: She Is Tripping
Twenty minutes before ETA of Spartari ships, The office of president Geoff had been silent for a while until. "Hehehehe." All eyes turned to Aeletha. The sudden presence of the gaze made her giggle again. "Uh oh, its started. Hehehehe."
"My Seer are you ok?" Geoff said as he attempted to get up, but was restrained by a large hand. "Worry not fat man, The Seer has taken a psychedelic blend to help navigate where she needs to go. She does it all the time."
What Rekosh said was true. Usually Aeletha uses the blend to make her visions clearer. However, in this case, she was using them to try and activate her gift while still being trapped in her subconscious.
Five minutes later, Aeletha suddenly stopped giggling and a face of sheer concentration took over. She took no heed for the people around her as she stood up and jumped out of the window behind her.
"On that note fat leader, I wish you many kills in the war to come." Rekosh said as he too jumped out of the window alongside the Qen who gave a simple middle finger of respect, which got lost in cultural translation, causing Geoff to think. "What did I do?"
Aeletha was not seeing or hearing anything around her as voices that were not her own had begun to guide her form. "To the edge of the city that remains unguarded, above the ruins of what could have been. Wait for the fighting to start and the hunger to descend and there your power shall return upon witnessing terror."
It should be said that the voices speaking to Aeletha were not normal. To any other being, they would be unintelligent, people would claw their ears out as their minds began to break. This was the Starforce's greatest gift. They were 'chosen' by this galaxy to protect it. Most had forgotten that among their kind, but not Aeletha who was old enough to remember being a completely different species.
The Psionic energy that swirled around her was actively trying to aid her in a way only she could understand. The psychedelic tea only amplified her brain to allow it to do so. Aeletha made her way to a vehicle that she did not know how to drive. The vehicle started immediately as she sat down and proceeded to wait exactly 12.25 seconds before she took off like a master.
By the twelfth second, Rekosh alongside the two Qen had just barely made it to the vehicle.
...
I was looking up to the sky, as were the rest of the mercenaries. Kathrine said any moment now, the Spartari fleet would finish its warp lane travel. I was honestly excited. The only armada of ships I had seen before were Jewel's and they all are technically jewel adjacent so they don't count in my eyes.
Silently, because space..., I saw the first ship suddenly emerge from the void. Followed by another and another and another until roughly 300 ships had shown up. In my eyes, it was beautiful. There were some cheers among the Mercenaries when the ships arrived. However, an 'oh shit' from my left curtesy of Kathrine drew my attention to what she was looking at.
On the far horizon, Thousands of ships began to emerge from the void. I heard a mercenary in the crowd curse with rage. "The Thurx!" A lot of other mercenaries too grew into an angered state. I witnesses Mindy walk to my left, She too looked pissed off. "What are the Thurx?" I asked.
Mindy looked at me a moment, before looking back up. "Robots." Simple explanation, simple reasoning. The mercenaries just lost a good amount of brothers and sisters to a group of robots, they felt both pissed and thrilled to take out some lesser quality bots.
It was not even a second after I asked my question that the Spartari fleet began to Hail fire towards the Thurx fleet. Spartari may be out numbered, but they are better equipped. After the initial volleys, The Thurx took damage, but did not just sit around and wait for more. From the large ships, hundreds of thousands of smaller drone ships emerged and flooded the space above us.
Spartari retaliated by releasing their fighters. Unfortunately, I could not watch the space battle as we had a job to do. "All right, everyone form up!" Kathrine yelled. Those who are staying behind man the anti air cannons as the Thurx will send troops down. In the meantime, Everyone else get into an APC as we are going straight for the city.
The sooner the city is cleared of the traitors and we establish a defensive point in there, the sooner Spartari has a safe landing zone and we can get out of here."
All in all, around 500 mercenaries made there way into the armoured vehicles, while another 300 stayed behind to protect the ships.
In my APC, Only Kathrine Janine and I were present. I suggested Janine takes the mounted gun position so she can scout while we drive to which she seemed happy with. As she was stood in a semi squat, her rear was close to Kathrine's face, and she could not help but admire the taught rear in front of her.
"I'm surprised you can think of such a thing right now. We are about to enter battle." I teased, causing Kathrine to fumble the helmet in her hands. "What? Oh right." She smiled. "Why should it matter? It may be the last nice visual I have.
You aren't jealous are you?" Kathrine teased. "No not at all, look away, It is a nice ass after all."
"Apollo, you mention my ass again, you will experience a random stray shot in the middle of the battle." Janine said as she blushed under her helmet at the thought that Kathrine liked her ass.
Kathrine did not know why, but she wanted Apollo to feel jealous for some reason. Putting her silly thoughts to the back of her mind, she equipped her helmet and unconsciously her eyes moved to the rear in front of her again that seemed to be swaying just a little bit.
It only took a few minutes of driving for the APC convoy to reach the city line. From what was observed on our way over, there seems to be no current anti air coming from the city which makes our job much easier. Even with that said, I had a feeling something bad was coming soon.
As if fate heard my inner thoughts, as we rounded a corner... Nothing happened. 'Hmm. I felt like something was about to-' Suddenly, the APC two cars back was riddled with bullets. Passing over head was a swarm of fifty Thurx drones that had entered the atmosphere. Fortunately the armoured cars were well armoured and every APC had a mounted gun on top.
All guns began firing at the drones. Those towards the back of the Column had flak rounds and the drone swarm was almost entirely cut down.
Once the coast was clear, we got a report that everyone inside the hit vehicle was fine, except for the gunner who had an instant kill shot to the head.
As we ventured further into the city, we were attacked a few more times. each time one or two casualties would be added and in the last attack, The drones seemed to either have gotten lucky or were carrying stronger ordinance as they managed to blow up one of the vehicles.
We drove on further until we found an open city plaza. This would be a good defensive point due to the chokepoints and varied elevation of steps and platforms. We began to set up our APC's in tactical locations to act as barricades and turrets.
Once satisfied that we could hold out for a while, Kathrine sent instructions to the Spartari ships that west from our location would be safe for dropships to land as the city was indeed clear of anti air.
The spartari responded back with a fast affirmative. However, they still had to get past the Thurx and take out a few of the planets orbital cannons before they can mobilise the drop ships.
We weren't in our defensive location long and were midway reinforcing it with sandbags and any extra debris we could find when a group of humans began walking into one of our chokepoints. The humans seemed to be surprised by our presence, but carried on walking down the chokepoint.
Many of the mercenaries seemed conflicted on what to do against seemingly harmless civilians, but I kept my eye on them closely. Once they had gotten a bit closer, I noticed a box shape on one of the men's chest that he was trying to hide under his coat. He was still far away from the makeshift fortifications, but I was taking no chances.
I picked up my Deimos rifle and shot the laser straight at the mans torso. It seemed I was not the only thinking something was wrong as to the left of the man I shot, the other mans head exploded as a laser projectile passed through it.
It seemed I made the right call, as the man with his head now missing keeled over and dropped 12 grenades he was hiding under his coat, while the man I gouged a hole into Spontaneously exploded alongside the grenades on the floor.
Having heard the explosion, a small battalion of Planetary guard started swarming from the nearby chokepoints, leading to the start of a large battle.