by samca » Wed May 21, 2008 3:24 pm
"Roger that Cavanaugh. It won't mean anything to me, but try to figure out what kinds of military aircraft are on the way. If Mannequin can make back aboard, he'll want to know." Journey said, his voice steady. He called over his shoulder to the others "You heard the man, we have incoming. Move to the airlocks and get ready to spit fire. You can stay with the jet or take off on your own as you see fit. I'm going to give these hijacked planes something to think about."
He then radioed the others "Ground Team, this is Journey. We have a huge number of aircraft coming in from all over the area. If Mannequin can get back here I won't complain. If not, I'll do my best. Journey out."
Now where are the weapons controls again... Ah there we go. Alright, I can do this. Oh the force fields! They are... where... there.
Journey flips a switch, and the Glaive's airlock whirs open. The worst of the slipstream around the plane is kept from tearing at those inside by the shimmering force field surrounding the plane.
With a sputtering roar, the rocket pack on Doombot's back spits fire and propels the robot out into the air. He swivels his metal face to survey the mass of oncoming aerial attackers. Closest are two fighter jets, both Soviet-era MIGs with silver nanotechnological growths filling their otherwise empty cockpits and giving the jets an oddly insectile appearance.
Doombot aims his Doom Blaster at one of the oncoming jets and fires. At the last moment, the jet tips to the side and veers off into an evasive maneuver, and the crackling energy blast shears through the empty air it occupied a second earlier.
The jet rights itself again, and fires an air-to-air missile from below its wing. The missile tracks in on its target, and slams full force into Doombot with a thunderous explosion. After the flame and smoke clears, the metal man hovers, unharmed and unpurturbed, his personal force field glowing brightly.
The other MIG looses an identical missile, this one streaking toward the Glaive. This one strikes too, but the plane swoops through the explosion, smoke and flame trailing behind it. The space plane's force field held, too.
Coming in close behind the jets is a military helicopter gunship, bristling with huge machine gun placements and heavily modified by the extradimensional technology. Camera-eyes track the Glaive, and it opens up on the plane with a chaingun. The sound is deafening, but the stream of bullets ricochets off the Glaive, leaving it unhurt once again.
A second military helicopter is closing in from the other direction. This one takes aim, mechanical intelligence calculating angles and vectors, and fires a rocket at Mannequin's plane. Journey manages to pull up in time, and the rocket streaks off into the clouds, passing less than a foot below the craft.
Journey takes aim at one of the jets, and lets loose with the Glaive's energy weapons. Once again, the jet evades the blast.
There's barely a moment's breathing room, and then several smaller choppers barrel straight toward the Glaive, en masse. These look like they may have once been civilian helicopters -- one has a faded red cross slowly being obscured by nanites; another has the callsign of a TV station. The third is unmarked. Civilian vehicles, these have no armaments, and so they simply throw themselves toward the Glaive in a kamikaze attack.
Journey makes a turn that presses him back against his seat, and pushes Xeno against the wall of the airlock, and they shoot past the first helicopter untouched. The second strikes a glancing blow at the side of their wing, and the impact on the force field shakes the entire plane, but both the Glaive and the helicopter continue on without any significant damage. Then the last chopper hits, and slams its rotors head-on into the Glaive's fuselage. The force field takes most of the impact, but the rotor blade tears a chunk out of the plane. It also tears free from the chopper, which immediately plummets out of the sky.
After the plane stops shaking, Xeno grabs the edge of the airlock and leans out of the plane. The air warps around him, and a ripple moves through space toward one of the fighter jets. This time, it doesn't evade, and the metal of the plane shifts and warps. The plane isn't destroyed, but several cracks have formed in its structure, and there's smoke pouring out of one of them.
Then another explosion rocks the Glaive, as a third jet descends out of the clouds above them and fires another missile. The force field holds again.
In the distance, a huge shape is moving through the air toward them, slower than the smaller aircraft. Once, it was a commercial passenger airliner, but it's been heavily changed. Now long, thin arms with claws sprout from the base of its wings, and the front of the jumbo-jet is mounted with strange projections and devices. Some of them look quite a bit like weapons. It will take the beast a bit more time to get here...
---
Below, Red Dawn sets back down on the ground at the base of the Changeheart, letting Path down off her back. Then, yelling the name of a martial arts move, she shreiks into action, streaking around in a flying blur, slamming fists down onto every mechanized car and truck within 30 feet of her. A pickup truck's engine block is shattered. A cherry-red sports car mounted with blades and claws *shatters*. A small white compact car has its hood torn free, exposing the engine and a host of new, enigmatic biomachinery. And a small cargo truck simply sputters and dies after Red Dawn's super human fist slams through its mechanical innards.
Path, meanwhile, raises an arm and fires his wrist-cannon at another car, a tan sedan sprouting camera-eyes and what look rather like glowing mandibles. It isn't destroyed by the shot, but a panel is cracked, its new robotic limbs waving in apparent consternation.
Then the remaining cars and trucks, seven of them, hurtle in with roaring engines, peeling rubber around the smoking bodies of their fellows. Red Dawn and Path suddenly find themselves on the defensive, dodging tearing claws, blades that whir through the air at them, metallic spears, what appears to be a city bus that has sprouted mechanical tentacles... After several seconds, none of the automatons have managed to touch them.
Yet.
---
Inside the Changeheart, Mannequin fires his ion rifle at the nearest mechanoid tendril, and shears it free of the wall. It falls, twitching to the ground, and dies.
Two more sprout from the wall behind it, as the seething nanotechnology of the structure reconfigures itself into new weapons to attack. They slash down at Mannequin, who manages to dodge back out of the way, away from the wall.
Around him, the whole inner structure is rippling, beginning to bulge with new shapes and forms, as the defensive systems engage...
