Gravity Fluctuation (12)
The hull had been infected. I had already anticipated that this could happen if the pureblood supremacists failed to obtain control and left the Albatross in the special storage bay.
For us, the crucial point wasn't whether it was infected or not. What mattered was to what degree the infection had progressed.
Was it simply that Creep had covered the outer surface of the hull? Had Creep spread inside the ship? If so, how extensively? And was there a Lamprey inhabiting that Creep? We needed to know all of this to assess the rest.
If it was just superficial Creep that hadn't infected the engine system, bridge, or other critical sectors, it could be purified with a flamethrower. But if it was any other situation, giving up the Albatross was the wise choice.
Even if we had an engineer capable of emergency repairs, we didn't have the time or spare parts to replace the entire engine.
Celestia hurriedly spoke up.
"The infected parts are the wings, the cargo compartment, and part of the main engine. The Creep in the wings and cargo sector can be burnt off with a flamethrower. The problem is the engine—it's so badly infected that we have no choice but to abandon it... Probably the entire main engine, at that."
Of all places, a problem arose in the engine responsible for output. She said it was only part of the engine, but replacing only the infected part was impossible. It wasn't modular.
If any portion was infected, that whole engine would have to be scrapped at this point. Losing the town was unfortunate, but not this urgent—I was going to leave that home anyway.
But losing the Albatross was deeply painful. That was the key to escaping Titan.
What should I do? As that thought began to take over my mind, Kanna, who had brought the news first, spoke.
"It's not entirely over. If we ditch the infected main engine, we won't have enough thrust to take off by ourselves, but the auxiliary engine is still operational, so gliding is possible. That means we just need to get into the air once."
So the solution proposed was towing. Griffin would lower a towing wire, and we'd connect it to the Albatross.
Whether it was feasible was the second concern—the problem started from the beginning of the process itself. The towing wire isn't infinitely long.
There's a limit, and it's definitely within the range of Military Base Keter's defensive facilities.
"Have the turrets been hacked?"
"I've only received a no for now."
"Can the Griffin and the Albatross withstand that attack?"
"... Griffin's armor is designed to withstand some assault, but as for the Albatross in its current state, I have no idea how much it'll endure."
Unknown. That meant we could get shot down on the first hit, or, if lucky, endure a few more. The size difference between large and mid-large ships was immense.
The minimum condition for Griffin towing Albatross was that its wings must be intact. That would reduce the strain on the Griffin.
And we didn't want a broken-down Albatross. We weren't suffering this much to gain a pile of scrap.
Licorice wouldn't fail, right?
She's the one who would say it can't be done if it truly can't. Licorice also wanted to survive here, so there was no point in stubbornness. That's what I believed.
"Try everything you can. We'll be right—"
Since we'd taken care of the Deathworm, I was about to say that Nadia, Carry, and I would join the others in the special storage bay. At that moment, the Creep swamp beneath our feet suddenly began to quiver in fine vibrations.
"... Hyun-woo."
Sensing the ominous trembling, Nadia stopped emergency repairs on the power loader arm and called out to me in a tense voice. Her gaze was directed at the Creep.
The Creep, bubbling as if boiling, pushed whatever was underneath to the surface before we could leave.
What emerged was something resembling a cocoon. When I shone the flashlight on it, the membrane-like shell revealed the inside. Inside was a tightly coiled Deathworm.
"... This is a serious problem."
Watching the eggs begin to hatch as soon as they surfaced, I glanced briefly in the direction of the special storage bay. Just then, Celestia called over the comms.
—Hyun-woo, you can join up now, right? You took out the Deathworm.
"No. I don't think we can. We did kill the Deathworm, but it wasn't alone."
Celestia, hearing the frustration in my voice, shouted that joining up was even more urgent now. But we couldn't. Because I had seen it.
"Even in egg form, its eyes are locked on the storage bay. The Deathworm must have done something before it died; if we leave it alone, it'll all head that way. Then the Albatross will be so badly damaged it won't even be able to glide."
Even if they were newly hatched or just molted, they were still Deathworms. A single splash of ultracorrosive fluid, and the Albatross (would) become scrap.
Should've brought Whiteout's head as a totem.
I'd left it on the Griffin after confirming the totem effect had completely worn off. Maybe I should've brought it—even as bait, it might have helped.
「Kirrrk—」
「Kiiiieee...」
Thud, thuck. As the cocoon split, the Deathworm's pincer-like jaws appeared. The characteristic wailing underneath was just a bonus.
The Deathworms now hatching were about 2 meters long—much smaller than the one we'd just killed. Yet they were already bigger than me, and already filling their acid sacs. The biggest issue was that there were dozens of them.
"Nadia, sorry. Looks like we have to buy as much time as possible."
"What's there to be sorry about? Partners should always stick together. Here, Hyun-woo—let's at least thin them out."
Nadia tossed me the pulse rifle and spare magazines that Carry had been holding onto. I swiftly caught and readied it; at the same time, the power loader mounted a pulse rifle on each hand.
Even if the rifle looked small compared to the power loader, it could still be fired. After exchanging glances, we pulled the triggers at once.
Tudududung! The bullets in the magazines fired rapidly with electrical reaction, sweeping through the eggs and the space where the Deathworms were.
「Kiaaaah!」
Some exploded inside their eggs; some, emerging from the cocoon, were pierced by rounds and splattered their fluid; some survived, using their siblings' corpses as shields.
The swamp kept vomiting up Deathworm eggs. Apparently, the huge Deathworm we handled was like a queen. I fired as if to empty all my magazines.
With each heavy report, the number of eggs decreased, and more Deathworms died. While I was reloading, the power loader covered the gap.
Just three rifles, but the firepower was nothing to dismiss. However, their numbers yet still surged, outstripping our efforts.
Tsk, click-click. I squeezed the trigger, but no more shots fired. Tsk, I tossed the empty magazine aside.
"Nadia, you don't have anymore mags, do you?"
"No... I'm out too."
"That's the problem with ranged combat."
Accuracy made the shooting easier, but the limited ammo was a huge downside. With all bullets spent, only melee combat remained.
Everyone on the Albatross crew was busy with infection purification.
The interval between Roxy's bomb drops was getting longer—he must be running low on supplies.
The moment the distraction ends, the creatures on the ground will swarm us.
We'd caused every possible commotion. It was a miracle that none of the pack had broken off to attack us so far, but it wouldn't last. The moment the dam burst, the sudden whirlpool would become a single tide.
"Don't overexert yourself."
"You too, Hyun-woo."
Having used up all our metal spears, we switched over to close-combat weapons and struck out at the Deathworms rushing toward us. Shhhk. Blue lines were drawn in the air; everything caught in those lines was cut down.
Since they'd just molted, their skins were thick, but still slashable. Unfortunately, the nerves in the severed parts didn't die easily; even split in half, they moved almost as if they were separate creatures.
"Don't slice, just bash!"
"Got it!"
Nadia operated the power loader. She extracted the pole of the polar impactor, steadied herself, and swung with all her strength.
「Kiieeek!」
Thwack! Deathworms that took a direct hit fell into comas, and those beside them that were also struck were sent tumbling, twisting wildly. That's the kind of power typical of a power loader.
"That's it!"
I shouted, not even thinking of wiping the sweat clouding my vision. Outwardly I tried to look calm, but we were desperate.
No matter how many we killed, there was no end—they began to surround us, and more and more started attacking from behind. Evading them was extremely difficult, with the swamp grabbing at our ankles.
The number of Deathworms whose acid sacs had filled up also rose, and each time they spat super-corrosive fluid, we dodged in panic. The tables had turned; now we were the ones getting hit by "take this!" attacks. The instant the globules made contact, the already expanded surface tension would burst, and we'd be swept away at once.
Getting pushed back with no other options, I soon felt the storage bay doors at my back. It was manageable when we still had flamethrower fuel, but once it ran out, this happened.
"Are we not done purifying the Albatross yet?!"
—Purification is done for now but the towing wire from Griffin hasn't arrived yet...!
"Then send over any crew left! We're about to be overrun—!"
—Support impossible! Support impossible! As the distraction ended, nearby mutants swarmed us!
They'd opened the storage bay doors a bit to enable a quick take-off, but that meant monsters were already swarming thickly outside.
"Damn it...!"
I couldn't help but curse as acidic spray filled my vision. Had Nadia not quickly extended the power loader's arm to take the hit for me, I might have lost an arm.
While shaking off the power loader's hand, now hazy with fumes from acid, Nadia cried out urgently.
"Hyun-woo, I can't hold on! We have to get into the storage bay! If it's a mess in there too, let's just link up!"
"Understood!"
I immediately turned and opened the gate leading to the storage bay. Grinnnn—heat blasted in with the sound of metal scraping. It was the heat from the jets of fire the soldiers and Kanna were using to purge the infection.
"Hyun-woo!"
Celestia, who had been holding back mutants atop the Albatross, spotted us. Her suit was severely damaged, proving how fierce her battle was.
Not because she was inexperienced—if she had been, she'd already be dead.
The storage bay doors were strong enough to block infected power loaders, but not creatures like Cramper.
Already, in the cracks between the doors, swarms of Lampreys and Ghouls were pouring in. If it weren't for the fire grid formed by the soldiers, the door would have been completely breached.
In the end, it would all melt down under the acid, but to buy what time they could, Nadia and Carry shut the storage bay doors again when they saw the situation.
Our words were the only thing that stopped. Our bodies were already in motion. Even if all we had left were melee weapons, adding ourselves to the defense didn't change the tide of battle; but it did boost morale.
The conveyor belt connected to the Albatross kept moving, feeding something inside. Apparently, this was the storage bay's emergency supply function. Some of these supplies were confirmed to be infected as well, but it was impossible to remove everything now.
"How much longer can you hold out?!"
"Two more minutes! After that, we'll be out of ammo!"
I grit my teeth at the soldier's report.
Should I give up now?
Clinging to further hopes would only reduce our survival prospects. The defensive system hack was making no progress, and battle supplies were nearly exhausted. There was no time to search containers on the moving conveyor for more ammo.
Griffin, surveying the situation on the ground, sent a transmission.
—Shouldn't you just retreat...! It's too hard to approach!
"Shut up and just lower the line!"
Kanna yelled, "Don't talk nonsense!"
—Damn...! Fine, we'll try to push through! We'll lower it as much as we can—just make the connection!
As soon as that transmission from Griffin came, the ship entered the turret's firing range. Of course, the turrets trained on Griffin.
To neutralize the turrets, Griffin's weapons fired preemptively and launched the towing wire. The hook-shaped anchor embedded in the special storage bay door.
Meanwhile, one infected power loader was pierced in the rear and went limp, losing power. To connect the anchor to the Albatross, we had to break through the gate. But with it swarming like this, opening the gate would mean instant destruction.
Kanna, who had gained the Albatross' control rights ahead of time through Celestia, shoved the remaining crew toward the Albatross.
"Hyun-woo! We have to break through the gate!"
"Alpha!"
I gave orders to the Alpha series, who had been helping the soldiers. Right now, rush to the storage bay gate and self-destruct.
True to their programming, ready to do their duty even at the cost of their own frames, the Alpha series stopped holding back mutants and charged straight for the front with their cores about to go critical.
Their metallic frames glowed blue as they cut across the battlefield. Ghouls occasionally lunged to snatch the robots, but Celestia stalled them just enough. The Alpha series managed to make it to the gate.
Well, "managed" wasn't quite right. Some had lost an arm; others had chunks of their torsos torn away. But one thing was clear.
The Alpha series carried out their orders.
「Core forced overdrive. Opening the path via self-destruct.」
The Alpha series glowed blue, their whole frames cracking, and then came a massive explosion.
POW—!
A blue firestorm and a violent wind swept away everything crowding the gate. Only a very few mutants at the explosion's center couldn't move again, their cores destroyed.
Most were also disabled, but only temporarily. With their regeneration abilities, they'd soon start moving again, as if they had never been stunned in the first place.
"Nadia, get aboard first!"
"Hyun-woo!"
Nadia gasped my name in shock, but I didn't stop. As the storage bay gate slowly opened, the Albatross began launch procedures and the emergency resupply was halted.
Now the only thing left was to connect the towing wire to the Albatross. I ignored the pounding of my heart and grabbed the wire that had been bounced loose from the gate by the explosion.
Perhaps because it was a ship towing anchor, it was as large as I was. Maybe that's why— pulling with all my might, the wire's weight nearly forced me to my knees.
Griffin wasn't sitting still either to dodge bombardment, so the pulls and yanks were brutal. If it were anyone else but me, they'd likely be dead already.
"Ghh...!"
Blood oozed between my clenched teeth. The Albatross was slowly approaching the gate. The mutants around the spot where the wire had been yanked loose were already regaining their senses.
I had to drag this anchor all the way to the Albatross, but it felt impossible. At that moment, anxiety peaked.
"How the hell are you planning to do this alone?! Even with your strength! Huh? Why do everything by yourself?!"
I heard heavy, pounding footsteps and then saw Nadia, piloting the power loader, grab the same wire and pull. Through my blurred vision, Nadia looked furious. Carry wore an even scarier expression.
「(ꐦ°᷄д°᷅)」
I was about to collapse from exhaustion, but seeing them, I couldn't help but laugh. Drawing on all their strength, and with their help, I wrung out every last bit of mine.
Screech. I wasn't sure if the noise came from my suit or my body, but something significant shifted in our previously stagnant progress.
"Uryaa—!"
Nadia, shouting, maneuvered the power loader. Fueled by her determination, the power loader spewed clouds of steam from its overheated joints and yanked the anchor.
Once we'd dragged it as close to the Albatross as possible, a towing connector extended from the Albatross itself.
At some point, the Albatross had already closed the distance to us. We'd held out so the wire wouldn't get pulled off somewhere else before it arrived.
"... Nadia, please. Can you jump?"
"Of course. Only one shot left, but once is enough. Trust me, Hyun-woo."
With all my strength gone, that was all I could manage. Nadia poured all of the power loader's remaining energy into its boosters. As it slammed into the ground, five jets fired, propelling it and the anchor up in one explosive move.
The power loader soared, hooked the anchor into the towing connector, and, still swinging from the wire, managed to land again.
Then scooped me up and dashed for the Albatross' cargo bay.
「Kiaaak!」
Mutants, no longer incapacitated, screamed at the sight of us escaping. With a whole horde shrieking at once, our eardrums nearly burst. A moment's hesitation, and we'd have been eaten alive.
"Go! Go—!"
Climbing aboard, Nadia shouted, and the Griffin instantly increased output. The Albatross' loading bay door began to close to prevent stragglers.
The wire, previously slack, went taut, and the Albatross unfurled its wings for takeoff. As Celestia controlled the previously folded wings over the extended runway, the ship seemed twice as large.
Naturally, that increased its target area, but without the wings unfurled, it couldn't fly. As our speed increased, the ship entered minimum turret range.
Whiiiir...
The turrets originally aiming at Griffin and Roxy's shuttle now turned, locking onto the Albatross. The nearest defensive turret opened fire on Albatross.
Bang!
With that earth-shaking sound, we squeezed our eyes shut. That was all we could do—the Albatross was already in its takeoff sequence.
Please, don't break all at once...
Could that desperate prayer have worked? The Albatross was unscathed. I'd expected it to shake violently, but nothing happened.
It wasn't as if the attack missed; I'd heard the impact clearly. Soon, I learned the reason.
—Friend, I blocked it this time! But there won't be a second! That one shot took out the whole tail of the shuttle!
"Roxy...!"
If Roxy's shuttle hadn't blocked it, the Albatross would've been destroyed. Seeing his shuttle billowing black smoke, I shouted urgently. He'd said there'd be no second time.
"Licorice! Please! Hurry up!"
***
—Licorice, hurry! If the turret starts firing, it's over!
A desperate, urgent transmission from Lee Hyun-woo.
"Just a bit, just a bit more...!"
Licorice, likewise wracked with anxiety and urgency, frantically tapped on the hologram panel. The screen displayed the control rights for Military Base Keter's facilities, now glowing red with warning messages.
「Access denied.」
「Access denied.」
「Access denied.」
"No... no...! Why won't it work...!"
On the verge of the last step, Licorice slammed her chair in frustration at the lack of progress. She'd said she could do it; she'd been told to trust her.
Licorice had thought hacking a military base wouldn't be difficult. She'd tinkered with it several times in the past.
But what unfolded was nothing like her expectations. The pureblood supremacists must have installed new programs, for none of her hacking tools worked. It kept getting blocked just before succeeding, and she couldn't find the reason why.
'I have to prove my worth... my value...'
Licorice anxiously bit her lip. She'd only survived all this time by always proving her worth.
By proving her value, she could gain the upper hand in relationships and help Lee Hyun-woo. That was how Licorice had lived.
Now, she was threatened with the impossibility of doing that any longer. Realizing that, her heart felt like it dropped in her chest.
Blam—!
The Griffin Licorice was aboard shook violently under turret fire. The shock was even stronger than before. No matter how much of an assault variant, even Griffin's armor had its limits—and it had reached them.
Griffin's weapons battered the base, but destroying one turret made little difference. When a turret was destroyed, it just went down, and another rose in its place to resume the attack.
The turrets had turned to shoot down Albatross, and Griffin was pitching dangerously in midair. Roxy's shuttle staying airborne at all was a miracle.
'Without proving my value, Lee Hyun-woo will die.'
That realization left her breathless. She frantically tapped the panel with her fingers, desperate to break through, but nothing changed.
Then, a mysterious whisper echoed inside Licorice's mind.
'Poor little clone of mine. So anxious because you can't prove your worth. Want some help? I can make up for your lack of skill, for a little while, at least. How about it?'
"... What? Where is that voice coming from...!"
Licorice whirled around in panic. But there was no one, nothing around her. She was alone in the room.
'Should've given you a bit more sociability. Or was it potential? If you're still at this level, you'll have a hard time surviving.'
Whether Licorice was confused or not, the whisper—mimicking her voice—continued. As though her opinion no longer mattered.
'Anyway, let me borrow your body for a minute, okay? You're my clone, so this much is fine, right? Think of it as paying back the favor for keeping you alive so far.'
"What?!"
Licorice tried to rise in protest at the voice in her head. Or, she would have—if control of her own body hadn't slipped to the whisper.
By now, Licorice's limp body settled back into her chair at odds with her will. Her pupils lost focus; her usual crimson eyes dulled. Had there been no hologram light reflected in them, they'd have been abysses.
Like a puppet with its strings cut, she hung slack for a moment, then as if headphones clicked on, Licorice started moving her hands, eyes vacant, guided by loud transmissions from outside.
Invisible threads moved her in place of her own will. The progress bar, which had barely budged, now raced forward, quickly leading to a successful hack.
"Hacking complete~. I'm so kind, aren't I? To call me 'evil'—Mother really was too mischievous."
Licorice—no, Lobelia, who had taken over Licorice's body—cast a glance at the hologram showing the outside. She wasn't looking at the Albatross as it took off.
Lobelia's gaze reached farther. Out there, a fourth bud, stirred into a frenzy by the continuous tremors, was rapidly approaching. In the sea of stillness, a storm was raging.
"Ian, I wonder what name you'll receive."
Sensing the coming turning point, Lobelia laughed softly.
-------------= Clacky's Corner -------------=
Maybe Fairy King?
【ദ്ദി(⩌ᴗ⩌)】