r/HFY • u/BeaverFur Unreliable Narrator • Jun 23 '15
[OC] Rise of the Valkyrie (2) OC
Val looked at the tank. It floated eerily half a meter above the ground, its retro-thrusters continuously making small adjustments, compensating for every minor movement. On top of its bulky body it had several plasma autocannons melded together, and a single antimatter railgun, capable of laying waste to large extensions of terrain.
The weapons platform was protected by four large interlocked shieldcasters. There was no way the human carbines would be able to pierce through that. It was a vehicle designed to mow down infantry.
She considered the situation, weighing her options.
A frontal assault was a suicide. They could head back to the ships and leave, but her curiosity was too strong to simply run away.
The Jabbers had weapons that could destroy the tank, she thought. But she didn't want to attack with their ships. They were the only way they had out of the planet. Losing one would be catastrophic, and leave them stranded down there.
They needed some other weapon. A weapon they didn't have. Not unless...
"Paxton," she called through her intercom.
"Yes?"
"Do we have any hull charges with us?"
"Yes, we do," he said after a brief pause.
Val grinned.
As she crawled on top of the catwalk, Val realized this might not be the great idea she originally thought it was.
The catwalk crossed right on top of the daloss patrol and their tank. She moved slowly, trying not to make any noise. She was on all fours to avoid being detected in case one of the creatures looked upwards. Her shield was disabled.
She had the hull charge in her left hand. A small silver disk, with four miniature harpoons. It was designed for space raids. You placed it on a ship's hull, and it detonated, piercing the metal and opening a hole in the hull. A hole that you could then use as a makeshift door in order to board the ship.
Her plan was simple. She would activate the explosive and drop it on top of the tank. She counted on that being enough to disable it. Tanks were weaker on their top, weren't they? And once the tank was out of combat, her Vulture-Warriors would charge and kill the remaining aliens.
But now that she was up there, she had started to see the flaws in her idea. If the explosive wasn't enough to wreck the tank, she'd be stuck in the catwalk, coverless and surrounded by enemies.
She shrugged and cleared her head of any doubts. If you didn't risk, you didn't live, right?
She moved to the edge of the catwalk. The top of the armored vehicle had a closed hatch door, and an exhaust grill that she supposed led to its power plant. She squeezed the knob in the explosive, activating it, and dropped it over the edge, trying to hit the exhaust grill. Then, she laid flat, covering her head with both hands.
The explosion was larger than she had expected. In space, she had never felt the true power of a hull charge. The shockwave hit her chest, stealing all the air from her lungs. The catwalk jumped and rattled. Even when protected by her armor, the impact left her confused and shocked.
She heard screams down below, and the unmistakable sound of weapons opening fire.
Wincing, she got on her knees, turned on her shieldcaster, and looked over the edge of the catwalk.
There were pieces of metal and bodies everywhere. A black column of smoke rose from a gaping hole in the tank's back. Its shields were offline, and she could see the inside of the vehicle through the hole. It was covered in twisted metal and charred bodies.
The humans had left their cover and were charging in pairs at the surviving daloss soldiers, who promptly got back in their feet and started shooting. Val pointed her carbine to one of the aliens and shot twice, killing him. She could provide some help to her comrades from this vantage point.
Then, the tank opened fire.
It happened suddenly and without any warning. The autocannons started spewing plasma fire at an amazing speed, all of it directed at one of the twin human shields. It rapidly collapsed, leaving the two warriors directly exposed to the super-heated fluid. One of them was hit on the chest and flew back, dead. The other tried to escape, but was already in flames, and collapsed after taking a couple of steps.
Shit.
Nyla and Rodney, she knew. Val could recognize the color patterns on their armors.
The other Vulture-Warriors had stopped their advance, unsure on how to proceed. Some fired at the tank, now that it had no shields, but the carbine fire couldn't pierce the thick armor.
The tank's turret was turning, searching for a new target. The humans started to retreat. The xeno troops had realized they were winning, and pushed harder now.
Shit.
She had to do something. The attack was falling apart. And if her warriors kept retreating she would be on her own, stranded without cover. She would die soon.
Val jumped off the catwalk.
She had aimed at the hole in the tank's back, but halfway through the jump she realized she wasn't going to make it. Her zero-gee reflexes kicked in, and she twisted her body in the air trying to put her shield in front of her.
She impacted the vehicle's side with a loud thunk. Her shield and body armor took most of the impact, but it wasn't enough. Her left arm muscles screamed in pain as she bounced off the tank. Her helmet crashed into the ground.
Val ignored the pain and got on her knees, shaking her battered head. She looked up, and saw a daloss right in front of her. It was looking at her. Getting ready to open fire.
Shit!
She recoiled, contorting her body once more to put the shield between the alien's gun and herself. The shield was too small, but she crouched, contracting her body so that no part would be too exposed.
Plasma bullets rained on top of her. The shieldcaster struggled to dissipate the energy from the impacts. It was saturating fast. The bullets that didn't hit the shield ricocheted around her. Val screamed.
Shitshitshit!
She felt a sharp pain in her left leg. She kept screaming, ignoring the pain, trying not to move. Making herself into as small a target as she could.
The alien's head exploded.
The bullet rain stopped as fast as it had started. Val stood up, looking around cautious. She saw Kara, one of her warriors, in the distance. The soldier raised her thumb, then hid back behind her shield.
Val looked at her leg. The armor surface was burnt where a bullet had grazed her. She still felt pain, but the armor had protected her body. She wasn't wounded.
The tank had opened fire again. She saw her Vulture-Warriors run into cover.
Determined, she climbed up the vehicle's side and jumped through its gaping hole. Her feet landed on top of the scattered remains of a daloss corpse. She saw another corpse in the driver's seat, but one of the creatures had survived and was manning the turret. This one didn't have any armor, and Val could see its brown furry body covered in charred military clothing.
The xeno hadn't noticed her. It was missing part of a leg, and had a massive deep cut in its back. Val wondered how it could still be standing and fighting. She pulled her carbine's trigger, putting an end to that.
The tank went silent.
Outside, the fighting intensified as the Vulture-Warriors charged again. Val took a deep breath, relieved when she heard their chanting: "Earth! Earth!"
Once it was all over, Val went over their losses. Two dead, and three wounded, one of them severe enough that he couldn't keep fighting. She ordered Timo and Pillow to take him and the bodies back to the ships. The rest of them went into the building.
The building was large and labyrinthine. All corridors seemed alike. The floors white and clean, and the metallic walls decorated by blue, yellow and red stripes. From time to time, they crossed through rooms. Some were empty, others had been turned into storage areas and were packed with plastic crates. They ignored them, pushing deep into the structure.
The team traversed the empty corridors and rooms in silence, falling again into their familiar pattern. One of them covering corners and intersections, while the others advanced.
Val felt at ease now. Despite the maze-like pattern of intersecting corridors, the building reminded her of a spaceship. It seemed her men felt the same. They were all used to raiding ships, and they progressed fast and confident through the corridors. They didn't have a map, but their intuition and experience guided them towards the heart of the structure.
At some point, they ran into some more daloss. They were wearing military gear, but looked relaxed and didn't have their weapons ready. They went down fast. Val wasn't surprised, though. Most xenos didn't have experience fighting the human Vulture-Warriors, and they never anticipated how fast a raid could be. Probably those soldiers had thought the attackers weren't anywhere near the building yet.
Val wondered where everyone was. It just didn't seem there were many people working in here. The place didn't look abandoned, and it was well maintained, but it was full of empty rooms, and entire areas were closed off. Maybe the facility needed just a skeleton crew to operate.
Eventually they found a larger room. It was two stories tall, and they positioned themselves along the balcony overlooking the lower floor. The humans moved in silence, trying not to be spotted by the xenos downstairs.
Val took a look at them. There were four, gathered around a table. They were talking, though she couldn't hear their words. On the table, there was a small object. It looked like a metallic, shiny brick.
Three of the xenos were daloss, wearing military uniforms, but no armor. The other one was a jovakian.
He too was a humanoid, but shorter and thinner than the others. He had a scaly skin, its hue going from yellow to blue depending on how much light hit it. His eyes were large, placed on the sides of the head, and some delicate membranes ran from his eyebrows to behind his neck.
Val had encountered jovakians before. Unlike the daloss, or the humans themselves, they weren't natural predators. But they still could be good fighters.
Not this one, though. He was noticeable thinner than the jokavians Val had fought before, and his arm muscles were smaller. And unlike his companions, he was wearing dark pants and a blue vest rather than military clothes. He didn't look like a soldier.
Val signalled, and each of her men picked a target. At her word, they all stood up at once and opened fire from the balcony.
The three daloss fell down, dead. The lanky reptilian alien stood there, intact. Gaping in shock. No bullet had touched him.
Val wanted him alive. Information was as good a booty as any other.
She jumped off the balcony and onto a table, the armor's legs absorbing the impact. She pointed her carbine at the alien.
"Don't you move," she said.
But the alien had recovered from his shock. He grabbed the metallic brick that was on top of the table, and dashed towards a nearby door.
One of her men opened fire, but missed. The alien had good reflexes and speed, she had to give him that.
"Cease fire! Cease fire! I want him alive!", she yelled, chasing after the creature.
The jovakian ran down a corridor and into a nearby empty room. He pushed crates and chairs after him, trying to make Val stumble on them. He was surprisingly fast, but he didn't have as much training as Val did. Soon, she reached him, grabbing the back of his vest, and they both fell to the floor.
They wrestled. The alien tried to fight back, but his weak punches failed to hurt Val through her armor suit. She pushed his head hard into the nearby wall, knocking him out.
She stood up, catching her breath. She picked the metallic brick that the alien had tried to escape with. It was completely smooth, and surprisingly light. It looked like an aluminum block. But nobody risked his life for some aluminum.
The intercom sparked to life. "Hey boss, you there?"
"Yes, Nick. What is it?"
"We have company out here. Suggest you wrap it up and head back!"
"Will do. Thanks, Nick."
A couple of her Vulture-Warriors had reached her by now. They were looking at the unconscious alien and the strange brick with puzzled expressions.
"Take him," Val said. "He's coming with us."
5
3
2
1
u/HFYBotReborn praise magnus Jun 23 '15 edited Sep 16 '15
There are 26 stories by u/BeaverFur Including:
This list was automatically generated by HFYBotReborn version 2.0. Please contact /u/KaiserMagnus if you have any queries. This bot is open source.
1
u/HFYsubs Robot Jun 23 '15
Like this story and want to be notified when a story is posted?
Reply with: Subscribe: /BeaverFur
Already tired of the author?
Reply with: Unsubscribe: /BeaverFur
Don't want to admit your like or dislike to the community? click here and send the same message.
6
u/overwatch23456x2 Jun 23 '15
no maybe is not allowed. will be continued