[201-400] THE MECH'S TOUCH

Chapter 326: Cut Down

When Melkor and Ves barged into engineering, they turned slightly and approached a ramp which gave a commanding view of the entire compartment. While Melkor took up a prime position to shoot down all of the huddled exoskeleton-suited intruders, Ves looked around the chamber for any signs of sabotage.

He spotted two alarming observations.

First, they placed something that looked a lot like explosives on the FTL drive. Ves found it funny that the boarding party went through the trouble of affixing its exterior with explosives when they could easily wreck it with a hefty kick from their exoskeletons.

Second, a Vesian tech specialist seemed to be digging deep into the central control console. The corpse of the previous head engineer bleeding out next to the console must have granted them access to the controls. Or, they might have hacked its outdated security settings.

Whatever the case, Ves had to deal with both these dangers quickly. The reason why he accompanied Melkor into engineering was because he was deeply afraid of just these kinds of tricks.

The moment the hostiles realized they couldn't hold their position, they wouldn't hesitate to destroy the power reactor or the FTL drive, or induce them in a manner that would blow up the entire Happy Jelly.

Ves bumped Melkor's combat suit and gestured towards the FTL drive. He held up his old laser pistol to show his cousin that he could handle himself. Even if Melkor held some misgivings about his presence here, the stealth augment had almost run its course.

No time for second guesses.

"Go!"

Once the stealth augment ran out of power, Ves sprinted for the FTL drive while Melkor pulled the trigger of the Amastendira.

Another massive, long-duration laser beam extended out of the barrel of the mastercrafted weapon. Melkor ran the entire beam along the engineering bay like a scythe cutting through wheat. More than half-dozen armored boarders lost their lives when the super-powered laser beam cut right through their military grade exoskeleton armor.

Entire bodies split in half along with their armor and any gear they carried. Instantly, Melkor neutralized over two-thirds of the threat in the compartment!

To their credit, the survivors responded swiftly to Melkor's sudden appearance. They snapped their rifles and wrist-mounted lasers at his position and barraged his position until the ramp became filled with holes.

"Agh!"

While Melkor had already begun to run, he still got hit by their uncannily accurate return fire. His light combat suit suffered a nasty series of burns and crater marks, wearing away the thin layers of armor until he dove into cover behind a thick enclosure.

One of the Vesians lifted up a launcher and fired a series of grenades at Melkor's position, causing him to jump away in haste. All the while, he fired shorter bursts of high-powered beams straight through the cover of his opponents.

At this power setting, nothing could stand in the way of the Amastendira. Though its power reserves rapidly drained and its heat capacity started to get overwhelmed, Melkor icily took out one exoskeleton soldier after another.

If he had to resort to his standard laser rifle, he might have needed to strike the same location five times in a row to get through the thick infantry-scaled armor.

Though the Vesians put up a good fight, their numbers rapidly dwindled to the extent where they sought to activate their failsafes. The commanding officer of the boarding party sent out a signal and expected and explosion, only to be met with nothing of the sorts.