Tempest

22 - The Dragonhearted

Tobias heard the roars of the dropships streaking through the sky before he saw them. Turning KT around, he looked upwards to see them finally break the cloud layer and enter a bombing formation.

"Lieutenant Four, this is Lieutenant Rose of the WOH. You've got eyes in the sky on your position. Suggest you move back while we bring the pain."

Taking the man's warning seriously, he moved himself and KT back until he was sure they were out of the blast zone. "Just enough to destroy the rocks should do it; I don't want to damage the structure underneath."

"Understood. We're going to give it a once over, and wait for your word if more is necessary."

The ships began to dip from the sky, and performed a flyby of the site. One by one, they began dropping munitions onto it, mostly times explosives. He wasn't too worried about the safety of the array; its infrastructure had proven to be quite resilient, not to mention that they'd have to break through two feet of rock before they even reached it. But still, better safe than sorry.

A warning lit up on the HUD, and he looked towards it with a renewed interest. Something big was approaching them from behind.

Fearing that it was another one of those melded-Amalgamates, he quickly spun around with the chain gun ready to fire-

But it wasn't an Amalgamate. It was Skids.

He gave a sigh of relief. "Vale, thank God. I thought-" He froze at the sight of Skids' hull, the door of the cockpit torn clean off.

"Pilot Vale was ripped from my hull when we became hopelessly outnumbered," the Ronin explained. "The Amalgamates dragged her out and dismembered her current body. She'll have to be reuploaded into another Simulacrum framework after this is over. But in the meantime, I followed your path to help defend your location."

Well, at least she wasn't dead. Tobias glanced at him curiously. "Defend the location from what?"

Skids returned his view towards the fields that led back to Chorus. "From them."

Peering over the Titan's shoulder, his face grew pale. The Amalgamates in the city had been an onslaught, no doubt about it; but this was an apocalypse. Every hill was swarmed, completely covered with the fleshy, mindless atrocities. They surged forward, still a few hundred yards away, but gaining fast. They would overrun the array in seconds if nothing was done about them.

The Seed tried to break through again, and yelled with a voice that demanded worship; WE ARE ETERNAL, WE ARE UNDYING, WE ARE ONE! WE WILL NOT BE IMPEDED BY YOUR INTERFERENCE-

But he blocked it out. Now, he knew that he wasn't alone in the mental fight against this thing. He had Kay to back him up, and support him whenever he faltered.

He wished he could say the same for her.

He glanced over at the rocks which had been cracked apart pretty heavily. Most of the structure was visible now, including the obviously non-functioning portal. However, the actual array portion of it was still unrevealed.

"Rose, I need you to do another half of a run or so; focus fire on the center of it if you can!"

"Understood. Coming around for another pass."

He watched as the jet-like ships began to pull a massive u-turn in the sky, their turn radiuses preventing them from simply reversing outright. But it'd all be for naught if the Amalgamates caught up to them before the array was fully uncovered.

"Alright," he muttered, psyching himself up. "Everything comes down to this! We need to hold off the Amalgamates until the array is clear. Skids, you with us?"