On the Front S5: Alpine Attack Pt.2

(Read the previous part here)

The highway into the mountains had collapsed many years previously, as was obvious from the vines and other semi-parasitic organisms that had ensnared the torn and discarded pieces of concrete that littered the area.

The two tanks, and single Sparrow stood at the precipice of a gap in the highway.

“So now what?” Drew asked over the comms.

“Hang on a second.” I said, pulling up the Mission Brief.

Pages upon pages of Scout reports, sat feed pictures and recommended objectives filled the holefeed before me.

“The Legion has a bridge to allow Goliaths and Troop Carriers in and out, but it seems to lead to nowhere.”

“That’s helpful.”

“This is why I like One Day Operations. Get in, kick ass, get out.” Mick said,revving the engine on his Tank.”

“They used to call me One Day A. Cuz i was so good at themwhat the fuck are you doing?!” Drew called.

I looked up from the tactical brief just in time to see a Drake, in midair.

Mick’s tank shakily landed on the other side of the gap.

He skidded slightly, before slamming on his squealing brakes.

The gap between the two sides of the chasm widened.

“Good job moron.” Drew said, backing on his sparrow and igniting his afterburners.

His Sparrow flew across the gap, nose increasing pointing skyward, before bouncing off the edge of the broken highway.

He grumbled, dragged his Sparrow back to a position where he could launch himself over the gap once again.

I analyzed the situation as Drew revved his engine in my rear camera view, and kicked the Afterburner pedal into the open position, and turned on the engines.

Critically, I grabbed the firing control stick and swiveled the main gun around and pointed it downward.

I pulled the rounded, comfortable plastic trigger and an artillery shell collapsed the support of the elevated roadway.

It collapsed, forming an onramp of sorts.

I drove my Drake off the elevated edge, and up the ramp, watching as Drew pulled himself out from beneath the charred remains of his Sparrow.

“I hate you.” He said, hopping aboard my tank.

“Work smarter, not harder.”

He sighed at that.

Our little convoy trundled up the mountain pass, following the remains of the roadway, and remarked upon the stabilizing measures the Legion put in place.

After 3 hours of trundling upwards into the mountains, Drew caught sight of the base.

A massive, upside-down trapezium shaped structure built at a precarious angle on the side of a steep cliff face.

A bridge extended across the valley, linking the two sides.

“What do they do in there anyway?” Mick asked as we continued upwards.

“It’s an Intelligence Hub, huge banks of information on the City and Guardians, apparently. They also build and maintain those Injection Rig things up there.”

“God I hate those things.” drew said, speeding ahead.

A Flare went up from the base, and a large deflector shield situated in the lower half of the building disappeared.

Two Threshers flew out of the newly revealed hanger bay.

“Oh. That’s not good.”

The twin ships banked and honed in on our position, volleys of rockets firing from their hull mounted cannons.

“Switch to Anti-Aircraft fire.” I told Mick, before tapping a glowing button beneath the weapon control stick.

I angled the main cannon towards the oncoming Threshers, and depressed a small red button on the top of the control stick, with my thumb.

Several small red boxes appeared on my HUD overlaying the Threshers.

Without taking my thumb off the Lock-On button, my index finger tightened around the trigger.

A barrage of Anti-Aircraft Missiles flew off from the flanks of the Drake, their Red Tracers marking them out as AA fire.

The first Thresher took an entire side’s worth of the damage, culminating in the complete destruction of the attack craft’s starboard engine, causing it to spin wildly off course and collide with the cliff above us.

The second Thresher swooped overhead and away, back into chasm, as I loaded another Barrage of AA missiles into the Missile tubes.

“Mick, why aren’t you firing?”

“One sec, tryin’ to find the fire button.”

“What? How do you not know…”

“I’m sorry, ok?! I’m not some genius.”

“Dude, these things are literally idiot-proof.”

Drew laughed as a shell from Mick’s tank shot out of the Barrel and hit in the Thresher in the stern.

It swerved wildly in the air, before exploding in a massive fireball.

“Found it!” Mick yelled excitedly, before revving his engine and chucking the tank closer to the base.

“Drew hop on, we’re going in.”

The Hunter clambered aboard and I mashed the accelerator into the floor, and we set off.

Mick lead charge as we approached the bridge. Shots fired off into the air and destroyed a watchtower at the far end of the bridge as the vehicles charged along the bridge.

Another Thresher swooped out of the Hanger, and I locked onto the ship.

It exploded with astonishing ferocity from the force of my missiles, its charred remains spiraling into the gorge below.

The two tanks came to a halt at the base of a massive gate.

“Great. Now what?”

“Drew, do ya wanna drive?” I asked, unclipping my seatbelt.

“Sure. What’re you gonna do?”

“I’m gonna get this gate open.”

“Ok.”

I hopped out of the side hatch, and allowed Drew to slip into the Driver’s seat.

The dust had settled, and the bridge was abandoned but for the two tanks and myself, staring up at the 30 foot tall gate, locked shut.

“Right.”

I walked over to the massive gate and looked it over.

“Single-source security?” I asked Ghast as he scanned the connections within the door.

“Yes, but they’ve cut the power to the controlling terminal. Effectively, we’re stuffed.”

“Great.” I mumbled.

“The door is held shut by explosive bolts though.”

“This is going to be good.” Mick said, stepping out of his tank.

“He’s gonna fuck this up.”

“Yup.”

I ran past the Titan and jumped up onto the gate climbing up it, and flipping over the top.

Sure enough, the other side was covered in a massive locking mechanism.

“I’m sure I don’t need to point out the bolts to you.”

“Nope.”

A Golden Sword appeared in my hand, and wings sprouted from my shoulderblades.

A sent a blast into the first set of bolts, and a series of loud pops told me I had succeeded, as the gate was forced violently open.

The two tanks rumbled in as I charged ahead, defying gravity as I went, raining down firey light onto the assembled Cabal forces, who screamed and snarled as they were incinerated.

An Interceptor appeared before me and I drifted through the air to a position far above it, and plunged downwards, the flaming sword completely destroying the enemy craft.

The sword faded away as Drew and Mick’s tanks caught up with me.

“Nicely done.” Drew said.

“What do we blow up next?!” Mick asked excitedly.

“You two head to the hanger, destroy any Rigs you find, if the Cabal are known for one thing, it’s overreacting, so we probably don’t have much time.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to purge the data systems, this base sends Tactical information to Red Legion forces across the system, imagine if it all went up in smoke.”

While they were imagining, I took off towards a door, and pulled the lever before it.

The circular logo on the small screen rotated, and turned green.

The door opened, and I dashed through it, before it closed behind me.

The corridor was empty save for the blaring alarm and flashing lights.

“Wait!” Ghast called, pointing out a small access terminal I had sprinted past.

He scanned it, and turned back to me.

“I’ve got a fix on the main Data Center, this way.”

An objective marker appeared on my map.

Following it up two ramps, through a large empty space, and up one more ramp, I came to a locked door.

“Now what?” I asked.

“I can fish around for the encryption key if you want, just get me some time.”

“Got it.”

I pulled an Auto Rifle off my back and pointed the barrel back down the ramp I had just scaled.

“Ghast, what was that space we just came through?”

Ghast was silent for a moment.

“The map I found has it listed as a ‘Raiser’ which I assume means elevator. I think it leads to the roof.”

“Might make a good escape route.”

“Good point.”

“Hey, uh, Sarech, we may have a problem.” Mick’s voice filled my helmet.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, worried.

“The Injection Rigs seem to be turning themselves on, and priming their engines for takeoff. Also, we’re being swarmed with base security, but that’s just cannon fodder as far as I’m concerned.”

“Do not let those Rigs take off.”

“Got it.”

“Wait…” I said, slowly putting puzzle pieces together.

“We’re through!” Ghast exclaimed as the door opened into a semi-circular room, filled with computer screens, and a larger screen, suspended on a dais.

“That one.”

“Got it.”

I leaped up to the dais and released Ghast into the machine’s systems.

The alarms faded.

“Did you do that?” I asked my Ghost.

“Yeah, they were annoying.”

“Fair enough.”

Lines of code scrolled past as I looked out the window at the rear of the room.

It overlooked the hanger, which was filled with gun fire and Tank Shells, massive flares of Solar energy leaping up everywhere.

“Everything good down there?” I asked.

“Yeah, just a lot of shit coming at us.”

“Fair enough. I’m going to need a way out. Can you kill the window?”

“Which one?”

“Have your Ghost follow my voice.”

A pause.

“Got ya. Stand back.”

A Tank Shell smashed into the window. And glass flew everywhere.

“Thanks.”

The shooting continued, unabated by any of it.

Ghast continued to delete terabyte upon terabyte of files, video clips, and tactical readouts.

“Man, the Red Legion is bad at compressing files.” Ghast quipped.

“I’m just going to overheat the archives, and that might, just make everything go boom, so we might want to leave.”

“Right.”

Ahead of the Data Center, the coolant filled chamber began to glow with the overheating drives of the Red Legion’s files.

“Already reading outgoing packet loss.” Ghast said, a hint of triumph in his voice.

The whole base began to shake.

“What’s happening?”

“The Archive’s emergency override system’s kicked in, and locked me out, it’s raising the archives to the roof.”

“Why?”

“Air cooling, I don’t know, just destroy those files!”

I nodded and opened the door I had entered the room through.

A Colossus filled the doorframe and backhanded me across several desks filled with computer screens.

The hulking beast raised his cannon as I slid beneath his spread legs, fired off a couple shots from my Scathelocke auto rifle and kept running to the elevator, pulling down a lever as I jumped aboard the rising elevator.

“Let’s do this.”

The elevator reached the roof, as massive banks of data rose to the height of building.

I raised my Rifle and fired the entire magazine into the nearest bank.

It exploded in flames.

I turned my fire to another as a Phalanx shield was planted in my back and I was sent flying into a another back of computing towers.

Arc Energy crackled all around me.

Inside me, I felt a crackle touch my Inner Light.

Arc crackled from my fingertips, worming violently into the archive systems and data storage.

Disk Drives exploded with excess Arc, as I moved through the towers effortlessly.

Small electrical fires broke out in the tangle of wires between banks, and they began to spread, a swirl of flame engulfing half of all the servers within minutes.

Overheard, an explosive sound as a Cruiser slipped into our plane of existence.

“Oh, that’s really not good.”

“What?” Drew asked, a hint of worry in his voice.

“Cabal are cutting their losses and running.”

“That’s good right?”

“Remember what I said about Cabal and their tendency to overkill everything?”

“Ah. Shit.”

“Yup.”

“Do we leave then?”

“Yeah, before that Cruiser brings a mountain down on our heads.”

“Meet you at the Data Center window.”

“Ok.”

I returned to the elevator, and pulled down the handle.

Within minutes, I was outside the Data Center door.

“Open it.”

It opened.

A barrage of fire from the Colossus I had castrated earlier hit me in the chest.

A Drake shell hit it in the back, igniting it’s jetpack’s fuel supply.

Needless to say it died.

I jumped out of the broken window the hulking beast had been guarding and landed on the back of a Drake.

“Go!”

The Tank spun up as an unseen trapdoor opened, and War Beasts ran out snarling.

I clicked a new magazine into my Scathelocke and began firing, the main cannons focused on bigger fodder.

The Beasties died in their dozens as the first bombs from the cruiser above hit the base, and the mountain quivered.

We roared onto the bridge as I turned back and continued to fire into the oncoming crowd of War Beasts.

The next missile hit, and the bridge began to part in the middle.

Mick and Drew both put their foot down, and the two tans crossed as the War Beasts began to retreat, resigned to death.

The next missile hit the base, and ignited a fuel line, a massive wall of flame shot into the sky.

The hangar was filled with a flame that rushed out the open side.

The base slipped slightly, tanks and mangled bits of flaming metal falling away from the hangar as we drove down the far side of the pass.

It took a full hour of constant bombardment for the base to finally concede and plummet far, far below.

At that, we all let out a sigh of relief.

(Read Titanic Flow Pt.1 here)

//And that’s that. Titanic Flow begins next week, so look out for that. Other then that, Yah! Seasons! Cool. Anyway, I’ll see you all next week. The game makes me want to write more and more, which is a great feeling! Until next week!//

(Read the whole series here)