Gravity fluctuation (28)
Nadia, who had been blankly staring at the sight of the long, red-hot tail stretching out, hastily snapped back to reality. She hurriedly shoved the combat suit—still not even stripped of its previous corpse—toward me.
"Uh, uh, uh! H-Hyun-woo! Quick! Put it on, fast!"
"I'm doing it!"
I shook out the combat suit to clear off the dead pureblood supremacist. Since it was an exoskeleton-type combat gear that draped over the outside rather than something you wore like a suit, it wasn't hard to equip.
This kind of thick gear really wasn't to my taste, but this wasn't the time to complain. For now, I had to wear it and run for my life.
"Done?! Can we go now?!"
"Wait...!"
Obeying Nadia's urging, I was about to take off when I suddenly stopped. There was no helping it. Instead of aiding the user, the equipment was actually hindering my movement.
'What's wrong with this thing!'
Barely holding back my impatience, I checked and found the system was offline. The pureblood supremacist had just been using it, but since the user changed, the security protocols must've kicked in and locked the functions. Typical for military stuff to be this strict.
"Licorice! Help! Help...!"
- She's out of her mind right now! She's hacking the pureblood supremacist's ship! Let me help instead!
It was Celestia, not Licorice, who replied earnestly to my call. She immediately recognized my predicament and tried to resolve it.
- Hold your bracelet up to the data exchange device! I'll transmit the code!
According to Celestia, while main bases or shuttles were too high-security for remote authentication, this kind of equipment should work. Following her instructions, I pressed my bracelet to the reader.
As the long tail became steadily clearer behind me, the lock disengaged thanks to the authentication code Celestia sent. Almost simultaneously, a notification popped up indicating the bracelet and exosuit had linked and powered on.
"It's done! Run!"
"Yeah!"
「ε=ε=(っ*´□`)っ」
As if we'd rehearsed, we sprang out in sync the moment those words sounded. The power loader thundered ahead, with me following right behind.
I was moving awkwardly since I'd never used this kind of gear before. Still, the gap didn't widen. I was gradually adjusting.
"What is that! What IS THAT—!"
Nadia couldn't hide her distress at the objects falling in a curved trajectory, accelerating towards us.
"It's debris from orbit!"
I knew Nadia wasn't looking for an answer, but I couldn't help blurting it out.
KWA-AAAA—
It wasn't meteors made of rock—it was unmistakably wreckage from ships, raining down from above. The fall was so fast, the pieces grew noticeably bigger every time I blinked.
CLANG CLANG.
The equipment's parts meshed to generate kinetic force, propelling me forward until I reached the edge of the floating debris.
But it was impossible to simply outrun the falling field of debris. Still, staying put wasn't an option.
- I'll mark projected debris trajectories! There's an error range, but it's better than being blind!
"The drop zone... damn it! It's right here!"
- Then get out of there! As far as possible! Even just to another piece of debris!
Sure enough, some debris was falling right onto the one we stood upon. Gravity fluctuations were constantly shifting the trajectories, but the future where this chunk was shattered didn't change.
"Hyun-woo! Jump!"
"If I fall, you have to catch me!"
"Trust me! Just jump...!"
"Uaaaaaah!"
Trusting Nadia, I jumped high. I was only just getting used to the movements. Thrown right into action, it was a nightmare.
As my body left the ground, the exosuit detected it and activated the thrusters. Instead of a plunging sensation, I felt my stomach tickled by buoyancy.
My joy at the equipment finally working properly was short-lived. I felt something pass overhead, and then a violent shockwave struck my back.
"...!"
I knew without looking. The place where we had just stood had been smashed by falling debris.
A chill ran so deep my senses felt scrambled. The shockwave spread wide, shoving us forward—like invisible hands forcibly pushing our backs over and over.
My vision spun. Even though the thrusters were working, it was difficult to retain my balance under the aftermath of the impact.
"Hyun-woo, just come to me!"
Unable to watch any longer, Nadia operated the power loader. The machine giant threw away its pulse rifle and caught me with its hand instead. The jarring force of being snatched out of the air struck my entire body, but then I felt a steadier sense of security than before.
The spinning slowed considerably. Now at least I could recognize my surroundings. Debris once orbiting Titan was falling, at blinding speed.
Friction heat from forced atmospheric re-entry was causing the wreckage to burn fiercely. The light soon became merciless projectiles.
BOOM! KWAANG—! KWAKWAKWANG!
Was this what it felt like to be in a battlefield under concentrated bombardment? Explosions erupted everywhere, and we couldn't utter a word. We just relied on the propulsion system to reach another chunk of debris.
'The Maker really did bring down the Reformist ship!'
I could still vividly remember Celestia laughing, calling my theory cute. But I turned out to be right.
Supposedly, if a gravity fluctuation could drag down that much mass, it would cause a planetquake or whatever, but that didn't happen. Only a rain of falling debris.
To be precise, it looked like a planetquake, but it wasn't what we'd expected. The ground didn't just split and levitate chunks randomly—that's not what a planetquake is.
Celestia overlooked that these gravity fluctuations weren't normal phenomena; they stemmed from the Maker's special abilities after engulfing the terraforming device.
CLUNK!
The power loader landed roughly on a smaller piece of debris across the gap. It was far smaller than the last one, but that barely mattered now.
Larger debris just meant when it got hit, it would shatter even more spectacularly. Not that a smaller one was truly any safer.
We'd just landed here, but we needed to move to another one straight away—staying still was too risky.
So, as we leapt through the air toward the nearest debris—
KWAANG!
I turned my head at the explosion echoing by my ear. The pureblood supremacist ships, fighting around the Maker, collided and battered each other under the falling wreckage.
Depending on the angle, some ships survived with just dented hulls, while collision reduced others to pieces midair.
This definitely wasn't what the pureblood supremacists wanted. No matter how insane they were, they wouldn't waste their forces like this.
With so many landmasses rising from the gravity fluctuations, and those following the Maker, breaking into fragments, and now the supremacist ships caught in between—chaos reigned.
All of this was because the Maker moved—and because the Maker stopped.
I had no idea why the Maker had stopped.
- Keep running! Roxy's just made contact with the Albatross, so hang on a bit longer!
I could see the Albatross and Griffin in the distance. Our ships, seeing the Maker paused, seemed to be trying to escape the gravity fluctuation's range, but the pureblood supremacist ships wouldn't let them go. They clung desperately.
No matter how much of a pilot god Roxy was, he couldn't do everything. Transferring cargo required cooperation from the other side. Gaps inevitably formed, and the Griffin covered those with its own hull.
Enemy attacks relentlessly battered the Griffin's hull. When we leaped to the next debris, three small armed shuttles soared up from below.
KWA-AAAA—
The shuttles' thrusters spewed out energy, blocking our way. It was a pureblood supremacist pursuit squad.
"They're still after us, even now?"
I muttered in disbelief. Even as the ship right behind them exploded, the maniacs didn't care and pressed the chase.
Their numbers had grown, perhaps from an emergency call for reinforcements; escapees from a split-in-half ship naturally joined up.
"Tsk...!"
Deciding she couldn't push further, Nadia clicked her tongue and braced her shield in front. It was battered but still usable.
As the machine giant hastily equipped its pulse rifle, the armed shuttles aligned their weapons and aimed at us—it all happened simultaneously.
- You impure mongrels shall meet your end today! The Holy Tree wills it!
With a rattling scrape, the shield absorbed a barrage of heavy impacts. The autocannon fire shredded the shield in real time—it was daunting to see it dent so deeply. A person taking that head-on would be blown to bits.
CLACK. A missile pod on one of the shuttles swung open. No matter how good our shield, it couldn't block the blast. This wasn't a bunker—the explosion's heat would sweep right past the shield.
'This isn't good.'
Nadia was gritting her teeth, holding the rifle to keep the shuttles at bay. But a single power loader couldn't handle multiple flying armed shuttles, especially with only a pulse rifle and a giant shield as armaments.
I could only fight monsters—there was nothing I could do about those shuttles. Still, I fired like mad, hoping to at least throw off their aim.
Pureblood supremacists with military-grade jump gear were landing around us, hemming us in. Just then, my comm linked with Licorice.
- Lee Hyun-woo, trust me and run—straight ahead.
Before I could ask what she meant, my body responded.
Maybe I would've questioned it if anyone else had said this without context, but I'd already asked them in the past to act as they saw fit if they could help us.
Licorice knew the danger—we trusted her instead of doubting.
The power loader hefted its shield and barreled forward. Us, cringing in defensive turtle mode, suddenly making a break stunned the supremacists.
Only briefly—they were glad for the easier job and opened fire. Bullets poured down, and portable rockets launched our way.
"I'll block them!"
Nadia hurled the battered shield hard. Even in midair, it fulfilled its duty to the end, heroically vaporizing with old-school rockets. Shrapnel scattered everywhere.
"Kraaaagh!"
Pureblood supremacists near the blast were felled by shrapnel, but many still targeted us.
"I'm really trusting you on this! I mean it!"
- I told you to trust me! I don't speak lightly! So go!
"Uaaaah...!"
Licorice's direction pointed at open space. There was some debris, but with our current thrusters, it was too far to reach.
Jumping like this would only make us easy targets, and we'd end up slowly falling. Still, I trusted Licorice and hurled myself into the void.
Gravity fluctuations brought both the feeling of falling and floating at once. Just as the armed shuttles aimed and prepped to launch their missiles, suddenly, another shuttle beside them lurched its thrusters and rammed the one about to fire.
THUD—
The move was short-range, but it was enough. The impact was far from trivial.
KWAKWAKWANG!
The shuttle shuddered out of alignment, becoming our shield. Missiles aimed for us detonated on their own friendly shuttle instead.
"... Oh."
Even amid the chaos, that sight was burned into my mind. The loss of control wasn't a one-off—shuttles wobbled all over, out of position.
And it was happening to the pureblood supremacist ships as well. One ship abruptly pulled a steep climb, clearly suffering a system control failure.
A foothold, just in the nick of time. Instinctively, we leaped to it. What I felt wasn't floating nor falling, but the sheer weight of gravity's pull.
- I'll keep making footholds! I'm not who I used to be!
Licorice was hacking some systems of the military ships seized by the pureblood supremacist group. She didn't have time for a total hack but could pull off stuff like this.
- Keep running! Roxy's almost there!
"Yes!"
A ferocious wind blew. The Maker still sat unmoving. Would it move, did it mean to? It was impossible to guess. All we had to do was meet up with Roxy here and escape, and for the moment we'd survive.
KWAANG! BOOM—!
"Go after them! Chase them!"
"Damn it! The controls aren't responding!"
- Of course they aren't! I've crammed all kinds of bugs in their systems!
Even as the supremacists panicked, Licorice's hacking didn't stop. Starting at a single ship, the range gradually spread.
She'd force thrusters to spike, sending ships smashing into each other, or eject every escape pod into crossfire lines. She layered chaos upon chaos.
Thanks to her, Nadia and I made it to a floating chunk that dodged the debris's path, unscathed. A ship, broken in two and burning, was sitting at the edge of a landmass.
It had violently exploded, likely killing everyone inside, but not all the supplies were destroyed—a fair amount had spilled out and was intact.
"Hyun-woo, over there!"
"Let's go!"
We ran over without hesitation. Licorice's manufactured chaos had stopped the pursuit from advancing. Now was our only chance to resupply, and we'd run out of ammo, too.
I grabbed anything useful—pulse rifle magazines, grenades, flashbangs, you name it.
There were extra parts for the power loader, but unfortunately we couldn't use them now—a professional setup was necessary. I was going to give up, but Nadia had other ideas.
She lifted a torso-mounted missile pod, adjusted the angle so it could be fired at any time, and pre-activated it, ready to go off.
"There's no time, so I can't aim it myself, but it doesn't have to be me, right? You get what I mean?"
- Ha, Woof-woof is testing me. I was already preparing, just set it up properly.
Licorice snorted as she replied.
- Friends! I'm almost there! I would appreciate a little welcoming committee!
"Okay! We'll be waiting!"
We hurriedly finished resupplying and stood by, holding off the incoming supremacists. It was impossible to advance or retreat. Debris kept raining from orbit, and there was no end in sight.
Luckily, this floating chunk had escaped the debris path. Other chunks around were being smashed in half or turned to fragments by continual impacts.
With plenty of magazines, I no longer had to fire single shots. I could control the recoil, so I pulled the trigger with confidence.
How long did we hold out? Finally, I saw Roxy's shuttle making a spectacular approach, breaking through intense fire. It was already battered; the armaments were melted from overheating. He'd risked his life to get here.
"Crazy Roxy...!"
- Hah! I'll take that as a compliment!
"Of course it's a compliment!"
- Thanks! Get in, quick! I can't hold much longer!
Roxy's shuttle zoomed in and opened the cargo bay toward us. There was no need for a door—with holes everywhere, we could just climb in.
Roxy's piloting was top-notch. I was sure we'd live as long as we boarded.
... BOOM!
Or so I thought, until the shuttle's thrusters suddenly spewed black smoke and exploded.
- Power...!
"Roxy!"
We'd almost made it—just one last leap into the shuttle and we'd have survived. But now, right before my eyes, the shuttle tilted and fell away beneath the debris.
I screamed Roxy's name in panic, but only static stabbed my ears—a comm malfunction.
- ... Damn.
Licorice sighed, realizing what had gone wrong. I could hear Celestia catch her breath.
Nadia and I watched as the shuttle trailed black smoke in its fall. No, I should say, we watched as black smoke ate away at the hull.
As it was pulverized without a trace, the thruster's stability dropped, causing the explosion, and Roxy's shuttle lost power and dropped. It hadn't quite fallen yet, but it wouldn't be long.
Artificial black smoke. I knew who manipulated that. Gritting my teeth, I quietly scanned the surroundings as the supremacists landed one by one, encircling Nadia and me.
Among them, one pureblood supremacist radiated overwhelming intimidation.
"Hoo, things are just getting started, but it'd be a shame if you left already."
"... Cystus."
I was certain it wouldn't be easy to get past this.
-------------= Clacky's Corner -------------=
How will the beat the Maker?
【「(°ヘ°)?】