Bastions Page 21

  "There is a high possibility of having the required materials within one hour."

  "An hour?" Riley sighed. "Great, just great. I guess I could transfer back to HQ and send resources back here. Hmm. Before I do that, are you able to calculate the hit rate if we were to fire on those indicators in the sky?"

  "Calculation impossible," the system said. "No indicators detected. If you would like to fire into the sky on the previously detected indicators, you may. But I cannot estimate a hit ratio or detect if any hits are made."

  "They must've eaten the drone, because I don't see it falling from the sky. It just vanished," Riley murmured. "I could still use the guns…I could get my troopers on the roofs and have them fire in the sky, but…they're limited on ammo. They have enough for an engagement, but not to waste firing blindly. I don't know what to do that wouldn't feel like a complete waste." He shook his head. "Alright, I can't do this on my own. I need help."

  He turned and ran to the edge of the roof and jumped off. Upon landing on the ground, he hurried back to the command center. For all he knew, Golem was actually here and amassing units above the outpost. He had no idea what was likely to happen, or if his decisions or actions would affect what Golem would do.

  He rushed into the command center and headed immediately to the second floor. "System, put Trooper One back in command of the facility."

  "Confirmed."

  Riley reached the doors to the transporter room and headed in. He went right over to the teleporter and stood within it. "System, teleport me to the Crimson Alliance HQ."

  One moment passed, then another. Riley waited to hear the system give him a countdown.

  "Destination unable to be confirmed. Interference is preventing the destination from being locked in."

  Riley's brow furrowed. "What do you mean interference?" Riley yelled. "I was able to teleport last time! Is it the same interference from earlier? Is it stronger?"

  "Interference source unknown. A transport link to Crimson Alliance HQ is unable to be made while interference persists."

  "So I can't teleport to the HQ, can I teleport to…" He glanced around, trying to think of one of their other outposts. "How about Outpost Ruby?"

  "Interference is preventing a connection to Outpost Ruby.”

  "Ok, ok…let's see. Hmm. What about…Outpost Wine?"

  "A connection to Outpost Wine can be established."

  "Great! Teleport me to Outpost Wine!"

  "This facility lacks the required poryte reserves to initiate a teleport."

  Riley's tense shoulders suddenly slouched. "Of course…because I just sent everything away," he murmured. "Wait, so I have enough poryte to travel to HQ, right? You know, if there wasn't interference?"

  "Based on the last teleport that was made to Crimson Alliance HQ, that is correct."

  "But I don't have enough to teleport to anywhere else, because it's more expensive?"

  "That is correct."

  "Great, this is great. How long until I have enough poryte to get to Outpost Wine?"

  "Roughly one hour."

  "I wouldn't suppose I could head down into the mine myself and start looking for poryte?"

  "There is no personal excavation equipment located at this site, but if you have mining equipment in your inventory, you would be able to. However, there would be significant amounts of regular non-material dirt that you would need to dig through to get to where resources are extractable."

  "Of course," Riley sighed. He leaned forward on the console for the teleporter and stared across the room. "So I'm stuck here for forty minutes, at least, and I don't have a decent range on those things above me. Hmm, I have the rover…but what would I do with it? Use it as bait? If I ended up losing it already, Aaron would kill me. For the second time. I could prepare some…freezing gem traps, or poison traps?" Riley mused. "Set them all around the base on roofs and walls, make them trigger on proximity. I don't think that works on stealth. But I guess I've never tried."

  "Numerous possible threats detected, descending rapidly on the base."

  Riley's eyes lit up. He quickly tapped the band on his wrist to check the map of the base.

  "How many?" he asked, even as the map rendered and showed him numerous orange indicators descending upon the base.

  "Twenty-seven. Twenty-nine. Thirty."

  The orange indicators became red and an image popped up in his view, showing him a live-feed from one of the cameras watching the sky. It depicted a glistening black object pointed at the base, much like a dagger or an arrowhead. It looked like an elongated upside-down pyramid, but its sides weren't sharp, they were more rounded. It fell rapidly toward the base, along with twenty-nine others. "Not good, not good," Riley rambled as he darted out of the room and rushed down the steps. Even from inside the command center, he could hear gunfire outside. As he went down the steps, he saw little white specks of light on the rendered map, showing the four gun turrets lighting up the sky as the threats rained down. The base's defenses had kicked in pretty quickly. But then again, T-One was in control of the defense, along with the system. Riley could order troops around himself, but he wanted T-One to rank up again, and he figured that he'd need to focus on what he was doing if he was going to make it through this assault.

  The doors swept open and he ran outside. The rapid clanging sound from the turrets was more prominent now. He watched as tracer-rounds helped him see the lines of bullets going up into the air. It was so weird to think that it was actually night time now, even though he could clearly see. "System, hold off on mortar fire, only use troops and machine-gun turrets. Don't hit any friendlies or vital components of the structures."

  "Trooper One here," came T-One's voice over the comm. "Do you want to assume command of the base's defenses?"

  "No! I mean…kinda! Just do your thing, but obey my orders, obviously."

  "Yes sir," came T-One's reply.

  Riley didn't know if these incoming objects were some sort of explosive, bomb, chemical attack, or what. His best option was to use a freezing gem until he knew for sure.

  He quickly materialized blue gems in his hand and re-formed the slime-sling with his right. The objects were still plummeting toward him. He wouldn't have a lot of time.

  He loaded three blue gems at a time, wanting to increase his odds of hitting something. He set them for proximity triggering, since the objects could clearly be seen. He shot the first group of three, then quickly made three more and fired another volley by swinging his arm and slinging the gems into the sky. He wanted to switch his position to one of the roofs, but maybe the street was better, and for now, he needed every second he had in order to prevent as many as he could from landing.

  His thoughts were frantic. He had no clue what he was up against. He only managed two more volleys before the first half-dozen objects smacked into the base. The frost-gems that he'd tossed into the sky had hit several targets and caused their names and health bars to appear, but Riley hadn't so much as taken a moment to read them.

  One of the dark objects impacted about a hundred feet away down the street he was in, while another smashed into the roof of the storage building, and another on the printer structure. He didn't see where the others had landed, but more were about to land within just a few more seconds.

  He switched to using one gem at a time. He tossed them around onto the roofs, no longer using the sling. Instead, he morphed the amber gel into a circular shield to defend himself with, while he placed whatever traps he could. None of the objects had exploded, and step by step, he was making his way toward the first one.

  As he got halfway to it, it shifted. It broke apart in the blink of an eye. Instead of a thick arrowhead, Riley realized that it looked more like a hand or claw. It had three appendages coming out toward the front, with two slightly back to the sides. It looked a lot like how a hand would, if you crawled your hand across a table. There was no 'wrist' section, just the fingers and palm. Its 'fingers' were jointed just like a human's would be. It w
as made up of thousands of scales and with a few more moments to observe it, Riley realized that its scales were slick with an oily substance. The ground at the impact point wasn't charred, but covered with a dark oil.

  Riley flung one of the blue gems at the creature, which gradually stood ten feet high.

  The entity had no eyes and Riley couldn't see its 'palm' section to know if it had a mouth. He really hoped it didn't have a mouth.

  The blue gems were still set to proximity, meaning that he didn't have to bother detonating them with his mind. The hand crouched down, as if it was about to leap away, but the gem exploded in a puff of snow. The hand's right side frosted over, causing it to lurch the other way, unable to move the frozen portion.

  Riley didn't wait. He threw another gem at the creature's other side, even as it tried to pull itself away. The second frost detonation iced over the rest of the creature.

  The creature's name and health bar had appeared on the first hit, but only now did he spare a moment to read it.

  -

  'Golem Strike Hand'

  Health: 800/800

  -

  Riley switched to explosive gems, since the frost ones weren't capable of causing damage. He threw one, then another. He pelted the frozen creature with explosive gems, chipping away at its health until it burst into particles. At 800 hitpoints, the creatures were going to be annoying to take out, but manageable.

  With the first one dead, he redirected his attention to his surroundings. They weren't exceptionally hard to kill, but there were twenty-nine left.

  A second later, another one smacked into the ground about thirty feet farther than where he'd just killed the previous one. With a turn of his head, he also noticed that there was another one that had landed a good ways down the street behind him. It was already crawling toward him. He'd heard multiple impacts on the nearby roofs, as he was in the street between the storage and printer buildings. From time to time, he'd hear a 'pshh' sound as one of his frost gems detonated on the roof, hopefully keeping the enemies at bay.

  "Alert, new contacts arriving," came the system's voice from his band.

  He took a quick look at the map, watching as orange indicators came down into range of the scanners. He looked between the map and the threat ahead of him. In those short moments, he was able to see that the machine gun turrets were still firing on targets, but they were firing on the ground-based ones, the hands.

  Were the hands a distraction from the stealthed indicators?

  "Twenty-five new contacts confirmed," the system said.

  Riley hurled a blue gem at the creature ahead of him, then checked over his shoulder to make sure the one behind him hadn't closed the distance yet. He tossed another blue gem at the one ahead, just going off impulse now as he tried to focus on too many things at once. He was vulnerable. There were too many threats, and they had all deployed and were moving around the base.

  He could hear the rattling from the assault rifles his troopers were using. There were twenty-five of them, which helped even things out, but he was quite confident that even from a health standpoint, each of these hands was equal to three or four troopers.

  He threw the explosive gems at the threat before him. Luckily, dealing with one at a time, he was able to stop them with freezing gems, then destroy them with explosive ones before the hand had time to free itself from the freeze effect.

  With a second one killed, he turned to the one behind him. The distance wasn't a big problem, because he could still throw a small gem a decent ways. But the gem hadn't left his fingers for more than a second before something tackled him from above.

  Five oily fingers curled around him and gripped him tight as he was forced to the ground. The amber shield was still on his arm, and with a thought, he turned it into a wide blade that cut out toward the ring finger of the creature.

  The finger was severed, causing the hand to take roughly ten percent of its health in damage. He twisted his arm and cut into one of the other appendages, morphing the amber gel in various ways to get the best angle to cut and free himself. He tore and slashed until the hand dematerialized from around him.

  He scrambled to his feet. Three down. "System, how many hands have been killed?" he called out as he set his focus on the one down the street, while also quickly checking the map on his arm to make sure he wasn't about to be pounced on again.

  "Seven hand enemies have been defeated."

  "Do we have any losses?" he asked, only managing to glance momentarily at the map before attacking the hand down the street.

  "One turret is damaged and unable to function. Thirteen troopers have been killed. Solar array damaged."

  Once the hand down the street was frozen, he pelted it with explosive gems till it was destroyed. "Twenty-two left," he muttered as he looked around, not seeing any threats directly in the street or above him. He then looked at the map as he backed up to one of the buildings for cover. He could see the troopers grouped in teams of three, except for a few stragglers. The turret nearest to him had been taken out, but he didn't see any hands near it. The hands were capable of leaping, but not crawling very fast.

  He saw two hands up on the roof of the storage structure. He turned to the wall he was against and oriented his feet so he could run up it. His arms pumped, and he looked to the map again and saw two of the turrets firing into the sky at the descending indicators, which weren't falling nearly as fast as the hands had. But even as one of the turrets was firing, he saw one of the hands leap onto it and grip it while smashing one of its fingers into it from the side like a piston. The turret stopped firing as its barrel was bent out of place. Now he was down to two.

  He reached the roof and focused on freezing the two hands. He would throw a gem at one, then the next. He realized that by doing this, the hands actually had enough time to start to break out of the freezing effect, but he quickly switched to explosive gems to deal with them both. They were destroyed in no time. "Twenty," he murmured. But he wasn't sure if the other defenses had killed any more.

  Another glance to the map showed him that the stealthed units here halfway down to the base. Were they anglers? Or something worse?

  One of the turrets was still firing in the sky, while the other was engaged with hands on the ground. "System, threat and defense breakdown," he said as he spotted a hand on the roof of the printer, just as another leapt away from it and down into a nearby street closer to the wall of the base. He threw frost and explosive gems to the other roof, barely managing to hit the creature accurately enough.

  "Three troopers remain. They have withdrawn to the command center for defense. Fifteen hands remain, while twenty-two unseen objects continue to descend on the facility. Two turrets are functional. Two mortars are no longer functional."

  "Damn, those troopers didn't last long," he murmured as he checked the map. There were still—

  "Fourteen hands remain," the system then updated him.

  Fourteen. He had to deal with fourteen. He could do this.

  He checked his map.

  "Thirteen," the system updated him again. But then, a few seconds later, he heard a distinct lack of gunfire coming from the side. He looked over and saw two fists clinging to the emplacement.

  "Another turret has gone offline," said the system.

  Two hands leapt onto the roof with him, while others around the base were hopping around, closing the distance on where he was..

  The last turret was unloading bullets into the sky, but the sky targets were getting ever closer, and it seemed as though the turret was having a little trouble zeroing in on them.

  Of the two hands that had just arrived on his roof, he engaged the one on the left. But even has he froze it, the one on the right leapt into the air, coming straight for him. He dodged to the side just as the hand crashed down on where he'd been. He threw a freezing gem at it, then switched targets to the one farther away, trying to kill it off before it tried leaping.

  Another hand bounded onto the roof of
the storage building. And then another.

  He killed the one he'd started with, but then had to quickly switch back to freezing the one that had leapt at him.

  It was close enough that he could slice into it with the amber goo and that was just what he did. Seconds later, it dematerialized in gray and silver particles.

  But with a quick glance around, he realized that he was surrounded.

  The absence of the last turrent's gunfire finally reached him.

  "Turret four is no longer functional," said the system. "Eleven hands left. Nineteen unknown aerial targets."

  Riley glanced all around, unsure what he should attack when so many threats were closing in around him.

  "It's coming after me," Riley muttered. "It's here for me. It knows what I can do." He looked around with wide eyes. He turned the amber goo into a blade as he readied another blue gem. "I can't let it take me…System! Self-destruct the storage building!"

  "Self-destruct of the storage facility will commence in ten…nine…eight…"

  Riley kept turning and looking around as the system counted down. Another hand leapt at him, but he managed to dodge out of the way of it as well, only to have another leap. He had to dive out of the way to just barely avoid it.

  "Three…two…"

  Riley quickly created a white gem in his hand.

  "One…"

  He crushed the gem as another hand crouched, about to leap.

  A white light enveloped him and encompassed him in a body-sized orb of translucent, shimmering light.

  Explosions ripped through the storage facility. The structure caved in as the explosions hit the hands, along with his shield. Impact after impact, the shield's strength lowered. Each explosive hit was causing around a hundred damage to his temporary shield and with his Power stat, the shielding gem only provided around a three-hundred point shield. Riley fell down into the building as it broke apart from the detonations. He created another white gem and squeezed it, breaking it in his hand and creating another shield for himself. The only downside was that each white gem took five percent of his energy, which he was quickly running out of due to using all those frost and explosive gems. He wouldn't have enough time to replenish his energy. He had to make do.