Gravity fluctuation (28)
Nadia, who had been blankly staring at the sight of the long, red-hot tail stretching out, hastily snapped back to reality. She hurriedly shoved the combat suit—still not even stripped of its previous corpse—toward .
"Uh, uh, uh! H-Hyun-woo! Quick! Put it on, fast!"
"I'm doing it!"
I shook out the combat suit to clear off the dead pureblood supremacist. Since it was an exoskeleton-type combat gear that draped over the outside rather than sothing you wore like a suit, it wasn't hard to equip.
This kind of thick gear really wasn't to my taste, but this wasn't the ti to complain. For now, I had to wear it and run for my life.
"Done?! Can we go now?!"
"Wait...!"
Obeying Nadia's urging, I was about to take off when I suddenly stopped. There was no helping it. Instead of aiding the user, the equipnt was actually hindering my movent.
'What's wrong with this thing!'
Barely holding back my impatience, I checked and found the system was offline. The pureblood supremacist had just been using it, but since the user changed, the security protocols must've kicked in and locked the functions. Typical for military stuff to be this strict.
"Licorice! Help! Help...!"
- She's out of her mind right now! She's hacking the pureblood supremacist's ship! Let help instead!
It was Celestia, not Licorice, who replied earnestly to my call. She imdiately recognized my predicant and tried to resolve it.
- Hold your bracelet up to the data exchange device! I'll transmit the code!
According to Celestia, while main bases or shuttles were too high-security for remote authentication, this kind of equipnt should work. Following her instructions, I pressed my bracelet to the reader.
As the long tail beca steadily clearer behind , the lock disengaged thanks to the authentication code Celestia sent. Almost simultaneously, a notification popped up indicating the bracelet and exosuit had linked and powered on.
"It's done! Run!"
"Yeah!"
「ε=ε=(っ*´□`)っ」
As if we'd rehearsed, we sprang out in sync the mont those words sounded. The power loader thundered ahead, with following right behind.
I was moving awkwardly since I'd never used this kind of gear before. Still, the gap didn't widen. I was gradually adjusting.
"What is that! What IS THAT—!"
Nadia couldn't hide her distress at the objects falling in a curved trajectory, accelerating towards us.
"It's debris from orbit!"
I knew Nadia wasn't looking for an answer, but I couldn't help blurting it out.
KWA-AAAA—
It wasn't teors made of rock—it was unmistakably wreckage from ships, raining down from above. The fall was so fast, the pieces grew noticeably bigger every ti I blinked.
CLANG CLANG.
The equipnt's parts shed to generate kinetic force, propelling forward until I reached the edge of the floating debris.
But it was impossible to simply outrun the falling field of debris. Still, staying put wasn't an option.
- I'll mark projected debris trajectories! There's an error range, but it's better than being blind!
"The drop zone... damn it! It's right here!"
- Then get out of there! As far as possible! Even just to another piece of debris!
Sure enough, so debris was falling right onto the one we stood upon. Gravity fluctuations were constantly shifting the trajectories, but the future where this chunk was shattered didn't change.
"Hyun-woo! Jump!"
"If I fall, you have to catch !"
"Trust ! Just jump...!"
"Uaaaaaah!"
Trusting Nadia, I jumped high. I was only just getting used to the movents. Thrown right into action, it was a nightmare.
As my body left the ground, the exosuit detected it and activated the thrusters. Instead of a plunging sensation, I felt my stomach tickled by buoyancy.
My joy at the equipnt finally working properly was short-lived. I felt sothing pass overhead, and then a violent shockwave struck my back.
"...!"
I knew without looking. The place where we had just stood had been smashed by falling debris.
A chill ran so deep my senses felt scrambled. The shockwave spread wide, shoving us forward—like invisible hands forcibly pushing our backs over and over.
My vision spun. Even though the thrusters were working, it was difficult to retain my balance under the aftermath of the impact.
"Hyun-woo, just co to !"
Unable to watch any longer, Nadia operated the power loader. The machine giant threw away its pulse rifle and caught with its hand instead. The jarring force of being snatched out of the air struck my entire body, but then I felt a steadier sense of security than before.
The spinning slowed considerably. Now at least I could recognize my surroundings. Debris once orbiting Titan was falling, at blinding speed.
Friction heat from forced atmospheric re-entry was causing the wreckage to burn fiercely. The light soon beca rciless projectiles.
BOOM! KWAANG—! KWAKWAKWANG!
Was this what it felt like to be in a battlefield under concentrated bombardnt? Explosions erupted everywhere, and we couldn't utter a word. We just relied on the propulsion system to reach another chunk of debris.
'The Maker really did bring down the Reformist ship!'
I could still vividly rember Celestia laughing, calling my theory cute. But I turned out to be right.
Supposedly, if a gravity fluctuation could drag down that much mass, it would cause a planetquake or whatever, but that didn't happen. Only a rain of falling debris.
To be precise, it looked like a planetquake, but it wasn't what we'd expected. The ground didn't just split and levitate chunks randomly—that's not what a planetquake is.
Celestia overlooked that these gravity fluctuations weren't normal phenona; they stemd from the Maker's special abilities after engulfing the terraforming device.
CLUNK!
The power loader landed roughly on a smaller piece of debris across the gap. It was far smaller than the last one, but that barely mattered now.
Larger debris just ant when it got hit, it would shatter even more spectacularly. Not that a smaller one was truly any safer.
We'd just landed here, but we needed to move to another one straight away—staying still was too risky.
So, as we leapt through the air toward the nearest debris—
KWAANG!
I turned my head at the explosion echoing by my ear. The pureblood supremacist ships, fighting around the Maker, collided and battered each other under the falling wreckage.
Depending on the angle, so ships survived with just dented hulls, while collision reduced others to pieces midair.
This definitely wasn't what the pureblood supremacists wanted. No matter how insane they were, they wouldn't waste their forces like this.
With so many landmasses rising from the gravity fluctuations, and those following the Maker, breaking into fragnts, and now the supremacist ships caught in between—chaos reigned.
All of this was because the Maker moved—and because the Maker stopped.
I had no idea why the Maker had stopped.
- Keep running! Roxy's just made contact with the Albatross, so hang on a bit longer!
I could see the Albatross and Griffin in the distance. Our ships, seeing the Maker paused, seed to be trying to escape the gravity fluctuation's range, but the pureblood supremacist ships wouldn't let them go. They clung desperately.
No matter how much of a pilot god Roxy was, he couldn't do everything. Transferring cargo required cooperation from the other side. Gaps inevitably ford, and the Griffin covered those with its own hull.
Enemy attacks relentlessly battered the Griffin's hull. When we leaped to the next debris, three small ard shuttles soared up from below.
KWA-AAAA—
The shuttles' thrusters spewed out energy, blocking our way. It was a pureblood supremacist pursuit squad.
"They're still after us, even now?"
I muttered in disbelief. Even as the ship right behind them exploded, the maniacs didn't care and pressed the chase.
Their numbers had grown, perhaps from an ergency call for reinforcents; escapees from a split-in-half ship naturally joined up.
"Tsk...!"
Deciding she couldn't push further, Nadia clicked her tongue and braced her shield in front. It was battered but still usable.
As the machine giant hastily equipped its pulse rifle, the ard shuttles aligned their weapons and aid at us—it all happened simultaneously.
- You impure mongrels shall et your end today! The Holy Tree wills it!
With a rattling scrape, the shield absorbed a barrage of heavy impacts. The autocannon fire shredded the shield in real ti—it was daunting to see it dent so deeply. A person taking that head-on would be blown to bits.
CLACK. A missile pod on one of the shuttles swung open. No matter how good our shield, it couldn't block the blast. This wasn't a bunker—the explosion's heat would sweep right past the shield.
'This isn't good.'
Nadia was gritting her teeth, holding the rifle to keep the shuttles at bay. But a single power loader couldn't handle multiple flying ard shuttles, especially with only a pulse rifle and a giant shield as armants.
I could only fight monsters—there was nothing I could do about those shuttles. Still, I fired like mad, hoping to at least throw off their aim.
Pureblood supremacists with military-grade jump gear were landing around us, hemming us in. Just then, my comm linked with Licorice.
- Lee Hyun-woo, trust and run—straight ahead.
Before I could ask what she ant, my body responded.
Maybe I would've questioned it if anyone else had said this without context, but I'd already asked them in the past to act as they saw fit if they could help us.
Licorice knew the danger—we trusted her instead of doubting.
The power loader hefted its shield and barreled forward. Us, cringing in defensive turtle mode, suddenly making a break stunned the supremacists.
Only briefly—they were glad for the easier job and opened fire. Bullets poured down, and portable rockets launched our way.
"I'll block them!"
Nadia hurled the battered shield hard. Even in midair, it fulfilled its duty to the end, heroically vaporizing with old-school rockets. Shrapnel scattered everywhere.
"Kraaaagh!"
Pureblood supremacists near the blast were felled by shrapnel, but many still targeted us.
"I'm really trusting you on this! I an it!"
- I told you to trust ! I don't speak lightly! So go!
"Uaaaah...!"
Licorice's direction pointed at open space. There was so debris, but with our current thrusters, it was too far to reach.
Jumping like this would only make us easy targets, and we'd end up slowly falling. Still, I trusted Licorice and hurled myself into the void.
Gravity fluctuations brought both the feeling of falling and floating at once. Just as the ard shuttles aid and prepped to launch their missiles, suddenly, another shuttle beside them lurched its thrusters and ramd the one about to fire.
THUD—
The move was short-range, but it was enough. The impact was far from trivial.
KWAKWAKWANG!
The shuttle shuddered out of alignnt, becoming our shield. Missiles aid for us detonated on their own friendly shuttle instead.
"... Oh."
Even amid the chaos, that sight was burned into my mind. The loss of control wasn't a one-off—shuttles wobbled all over, out of position.
And it was happening to the pureblood supremacist ships as well. One ship abruptly pulled a steep climb, clearly suffering a system control failure.
A foothold, just in the nick of ti. Instinctively, we leaped to it. What I felt wasn't floating nor falling, but the sheer weight of gravity's pull.
- I'll keep making footholds! I'm not who I used to be!
Licorice was hacking so systems of the military ships seized by the pureblood supremacist group. She didn't have ti for a total hack but could pull off stuff like this.
- Keep running! Roxy's almost there!
"Yes!"
A ferocious wind blew. The Maker still sat unmoving. Would it move, did it an to? It was impossible to guess. All we had to do was et up with Roxy here and escape, and for the mont we'd survive.
KWAANG! BOOM—!
"Go after them! Chase them!"
"Damn it! The controls aren't responding!"
- Of course they aren't! I've cramd all kinds of bugs in their systems!
Even as the supremacists panicked, Licorice's hacking didn't stop. Starting at a single ship, the range gradually spread.
She'd force thrusters to spike, sending ships smashing into each other, or eject every escape pod into crossfire lines. She layered chaos upon chaos.
Thanks to her, Nadia and I made it to a floating chunk that dodged the debris's path, unscathed. A ship, broken in two and burning, was sitting at the edge of a landmass.
It had violently exploded, likely killing everyone inside, but not all the supplies were destroyed—a fair amount had spilled out and was intact.
"Hyun-woo, over there!"
"Let's go!"
We ran over without hesitation. Licorice's manufactured chaos had stopped the pursuit from advancing. Now was our only chance to resupply, and we'd run out of ammo, too.
I grabbed anything useful—pulse rifle magazines, grenades, flashbangs, you na it.
There were extra parts for the power loader, but unfortunately we couldn't use them now—a professional setup was necessary. I was going to give up, but Nadia had other ideas.
She lifted a torso-mounted missile pod, adjusted the angle so it could be fired at any ti, and pre-activated it, ready to go off.
"There's no ti, so I can't aim it myself, but it doesn't have to be , right? You get what I an?"
- Ha, Woof-woof is testing . I was already preparing, just set it up properly.
Licorice snorted as she replied.
- Friends! I'm almost there! I would appreciate a little welcoming committee!
"Okay! We'll be waiting!"
We hurriedly finished resupplying and stood by, holding off the incoming supremacists. It was impossible to advance or retreat. Debris kept raining from orbit, and there was no end in sight.
Luckily, this floating chunk had escaped the debris path. Other chunks around were being smashed in half or turned to fragnts by continual impacts.
With plenty of magazines, I no longer had to fire single shots. I could control the recoil, so I pulled the trigger with confidence.
How long did we hold out? Finally, I saw Roxy's shuttle making a spectacular approach, breaking through intense fire. It was already battered; the armants were lted from overheating. He'd risked his life to get here.
"Crazy Roxy...!"
- Hah! I'll take that as a complint!
"Of course it's a complint!"
- Thanks! Get in, quick! I can't hold much longer!
Roxy's shuttle zood in and opened the cargo bay toward us. There was no need for a door—with holes everywhere, we could just climb in.
Roxy's piloting was top-notch. I was sure we'd live as long as we boarded.
... BOOM!
Or so I thought, until the shuttle's thrusters suddenly spewed black smoke and exploded.
- Power...!
"Roxy!"
We'd almost made it—just one last leap into the shuttle and we'd have survived. But now, right before my eyes, the shuttle tilted and fell away beneath the debris.
I scread Roxy's na in panic, but only static stabbed my ears—a comm malfunction.
- ... Damn.
Licorice sighed, realizing what had gone wrong. I could hear Celestia catch her breath.
Nadia and I watched as the shuttle trailed black smoke in its fall. No, I should say, we watched as black smoke ate away at the hull.
As it was pulverized without a trace, the thruster's stability dropped, causing the explosion, and Roxy's shuttle lost power and dropped. It hadn't quite fallen yet, but it wouldn't be long.
Artificial black smoke. I knew who manipulated that. Gritting my teeth, I quietly scanned the surroundings as the supremacists landed one by one, encircling Nadia and .
Among them, one pureblood supremacist radiated overwhelming intimidation.
"Hoo, things are just getting started, but it'd be a sha if you left already."
"... Cystus."
I was certain it wouldn't be easy to get past this.
-------------= Clacky's Corner -------------=
How will the beat the Maker?
【「(°ヘ°)?】
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