Re: The Adbot's Revenge!
(A blink is a very short-range teleport that’s mainly technological, but also has a small element of magic, making it unlikely to be stopped by the hive’s teleport shielding (assuming it’s got teleport shielding like I believe the SGA ones had). It also works in a more ‘Screw reality, I can do what I want’ way than other forms of teleporting, which are more ‘we found a way to teleport that works without needing to screw with reality’.)
The Black Raven’s mount rushed at the hive, and a few feet from it, disappeared entirely. A reply of ’We’re through.” from the radio was the only indicator that the blink had, indeed, been successful.
The eight Banshees were the only non-keeper air units in the whole Lurker force. Only the best could have piloted the craft upon which the entirety of Lurker air superiority relied. That said, war is hardly a forgiving place. While most dodged, one was unable and struck full force… but not before managing to eject. Lurkers are not ones for half-measures, and this was evident when the ejector seat was shown to have it’s own engine, flying it away from the hive. The other banshees retreated with it, having heard Siphon’s warning when he momentarily took Host’s Lurker-side radio and not wanting to be around in case the crazy bastard really tried what he said he’d try. Besides, Host was too busy trying to Stop Siphon to give them any other orders.
“Siphon, while I am never one to complain about additional plans, yours will hopefully be entirely unnecessary. My bomb is capable of taking out – FUCK!”
What had happened was very clear… painfully so to someone looking directly at it. He’d have to get one of the clerics to cast ‘remove status ailments’ on him, again. His vision still spotty and realising that the radio had been taken out by the nuke’s EMP effect, Host actually began to panic.
Oh shit, even if those two survived, the ionic disruption from the nuke might have killed the bomb!
But then the interference cleared up and the radio started working again.
”This is The Black Raven. Might I enquire as to just what the hell that was, exactly?”
”Our allies piloted a nuke into the hive. It may have killed our bomb, but we have to try, at least. Where are you?”
”The correct location for the detonation. The map we got from the team scouting the other hive wasn’t really applicable here, but it got the general locations of the important things right. …Though aside the mission, this suit is capable of handling the full blast of radiation from being this close to a nuclear detonation… correct?”
No reply.
”…Host? …Host!”
”I’m sure they can, Black Raven. If they can’t, well, we’ve got radiation scrubbers aplenty back home.”
”Superb.” The Black Raven responds, with evident sarcasm.
The Black Raven’s passenger placed the bomb and imputed some code or other into a panel, then pushed a button and moved back to the mount with The Black Raven. For a minute, they stood there, waiting to see if the device had been rendered a dud by the nuclear explosion… and then the outside of the bomb seemed to melt into sludge, pouring onto the floor of the hive.
“Oh yes, it’s definitely working." he turned off the radio, turned to his passenger, commented ”I think now would be a good time to leave!”, and flew at speed through the hive till he came to a wall that was part of the hull. His passenger preformed another blink, and they were outside again, allowing them to take stock of the battle.
A lot of the trench guns had been destroyed, a good – or more accurately, bad – number of soldiers had been killed on both sides (though most of the Lurker dead had already been brought back in zombified form… yeah, they do that. The majority of the broken guns, SAMs and suits, too, had been made ‘undead’ by some weird form of ‘magic’ a few may recognise as Technomancy). The Wraith were abandoning ship en masse, escaping any way the could manage, giving the people in the trench something to do.
The hive was being eaten from the inside out.
And everything was about to go horribly, horribly wrong.
Host looked at a video feed of the hive taken from one of their satellites, noticed the top beginning to turn into sludge, and decided that it would soon be time to turn the bomb off. He walked into a guarded and still covered cavern with a screen, one of a few such command rooms that had been set up (though most had been destroyed). He looked to the status of the GG bomb that had been used to destroy the hive.
The failsafe was not responding.
Oh… Fuck… Fuck. Fuck, fuck fuck fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck- No! Plan C. Plan C can deal with this. No need to panic.
He switched his Lurker radio to one of their channels.
“Activate Plan C.” He said.
There was a list on the screen containing the words ‘Node Inactive’ six times. In the next couple of seconds, five of those changed to ‘Node Active’. Host waited for the last to come on and complete the network…
…
“Turn on the bowl.” He said, managing to cover his fear with annoyance.
…
“Activate! Plan! C!” He cried, desperation reaching his voice.
…
“TURN ON THE GODDAMN SHIELD!” he shouted, completely panicked.
Oh shit, don’t tell me the nuke killed my shield generators – it would explain why I’m not getting anything from the radio. Or maybe a lucky hit from wraith weapons – but they weren’t cloaked or active, they would have just seemed like useless lumps of metal; unless they actually preformed a mineral survey of the place they wouldn’t have found them! Fuck, what could do this that I could fix? I suppose that it might just be that their radios are down. Or maybe they’ve been killed by wraith? Fuck, I hope so. If one of those shield generators is dead, so is everyone else.
He turned on both his Lurker radio and the one keyed into member frequencies, and spoke into both at once… and, for once, actually failed to hide the panic in his voice. There was also an eerie echo effect if one of each radio were nearby.
”This is to anyone, anyone at all. Follow the yellow line on the wall nearest to you until it ends. There should be a room in front of you, go into the room. Turn on the device there. Go quickly. …I-… Inform me if any are broken, or disabled. …That is all.”
The wraith turned to look at the group that had been in the room, now lying on the ground in a heap. A couple of her kin mulled around with her, waiting for some sort of order that would likely never come. They had definitely been guarding this thing, but it didn’t seem to be of any actual use. The wraith moved closer to it, contemplating it for a moment. It was a smallish, circular machine in the middle of the room, half as high as a person and as wide as a person is tall. There were a number of screens and readouts, but nothing that she could make sense of. It would probably be better to just destroy the thing... if she were lucky it’d go up in some sort of chain reaction and take the enemies of the wraith with it.
(Don’t worry, the Lurkers can handle this one if no-one else jumps to the rescue.)
