Upon Vestia: Chapter Thirty-Two

First topic message reminder :

James went into Armin's room. "Hey man, watcha working on?" he asked, seeing that Armin was sewing.

Luka frowned, but she nodded. "alright... " She tried to keep out of the fray, sneaking closer to the big ship. She was worried about Rigel though, pass out? that didn't sound good.

---

The 3rd ship managed to clamp back onto the airlock but was under attack by the dragons.

Still, dragons out here meant no dragons inside.

They'd have a bit of trouble getting through all the doors and the damage this firefight had done but they sent foot troops out anyway, to resume cutting through and getting down those corridors.

Meanwhile the ship itself couldn't really defend itself that well from the dragons tearing at it, though the electrified hull helped, they'd start suffering serious power drain if they kept it up long term.

a few smaller ships came to help, trying to shoot the dragons down but as soon as the troops were safely on Vestia, the ship would unclamp and try to get away. They were sitting ducks otherwise.

Maybe Mourn would get to stab some people after all. Horah?

"I'm fine," Ellie said. She pretty much was by now, her eyes weren't watering too much any more.

"Maybe we should retreat," Ethan said. "Have Vestia seal every blast door on the floor to keep the slavers busy, while we go help out somewhere else." He didn't know if there was any chance that could work, but they certainly weren't going to win by staying here.

~~
"Hang in there, Ivor," Moriah told him. "It'll be okay."

The other androids were helping Matt, by setting up whatever tripwires and barriers they could. They wanted to help protect the ship if they could.

~~
"Someone, tell Silence to go to medical," Tala barked. She started shooting at the slavers as they broke through, and would pull her team back again at the gas grenades. "Vestia, get us water and cloths!" she shouted. If the slavers were going to make a habit of throwing these things, then her team needed some sort of protection from inhaling the gas.

~~
"All right, we can use the shuttles to distract while some of the dragons get the wounded to safety, maybe?" Vestia suggested. She was getting the shuttles ready, setting their autopilot functions up. "I don't think the shuttles are smart enough to rescue the dragons themselves."

~~
---Hey Mourn, the slavers are breaking in again, I think it's your time to shine--- Vestia said. She queued up a song with a very heavy bass beat, and readied her bots to help the felid out.

She also made sure everything was properly pressurized, she didn't want Mourn to die in vacuum accidentally.

Mourn tensed, ready to stab stab and shoot oh yeaaah.

As the slavers broke in, he howled loudly and threw himself at whoever was nearest, claws driving into their helmet and causing them to fire randomly as they tried to get him off him.
the others wouldn't shoot him, they didn't want to shoot their comrade after all.

This Mourn knew, wrestling the gun from the first soldier, shooting them with it and leaping onto another soldier to keep this up.

The loud music didn't help matters, confusing the slavers and deafening them.

Of course, Mourn was just one person and there were at least 20 of these guys, which meant eventually he got shot.

the first shot hit his robotic arm and did nothing, the second hit him in the head and richocheted off his metal plate. He laughed and tore a few helmets off, tossing them aside as he clawed and bit at people, lashing out with his sword when he got a chance but finally someone managed to shoot him in the chest and he collapsed, howling in pain.

The slavers also tried to take out the bots who were probably a little less difficult to hit.

---

Ivor watched Moriah warily. "Are you sure?" He asked quietly.

Matt set to work repuposing whatever they had into viable weapons, or maybe a few not so viable but hey, sometimes you had to throw a chair at someone okay? you worked with what you had.

---

Silence was caught in the gas and being as she was in a room, she couldn't easily get away from it. She beat her uninjured wing and wheeled backwards, further into the room in her panic but unfortunately would, ultimately, succumb to the choking effects and collapse.

The slavers advanced.

----

Esk nodded. "get back, regroup, i'll cover you."

---

The bots would swarm in, trying to help Mourn by tripping slavers and, for the ones that had various tools or arms, drilling or pinching or, in a few cases, shooting at the slavers' legs. It wasn't the most effective attack force, but they got points for creativity at least.

Sadly, they were very susceptible to being shot or trampled, and many crumpled to the ground, twitching or lifeless.

Vestia prayed that the slavers weren't going to finish off Mourn when he collapsed, if they really wanted to do that, she doubted that her bots would be able to stop them.

She kept one of her bigger bots back in safety, ready to haul Mourn to the medics if she got the chance.

~~
"Of course I'm sure," Moriah said. She didn't look sure though.

~~
Ethan nodded. He and the others would retreat again, trying to get to somewhere safer. Staying here and fighting just wasn't working out, and it was pretty clear they were going to need to change tactics, or they'd all just end up dead or enslaved.

Ivor wasn't great at reading people's expressions, he nodded. For now believing her. "i'm scared..."

---

Esk covered them, shooting at the slavers and providing covering fire as the rest of them got back to safety. He didn't seem to much care about his own safety, or acknowledge the pain in his arm. He'd keep firing till he ran out of ammo damnit, just to be sure the others got out of here.

----

One of the slavers stood over Mourn as he writhed on the floor, raising their gun.

"Leave him, he's no threat now." the one who seemed to be in charge instructed. "move out."

the slaver hesitated, but ultimately followed orders and the group would fan out into four small squads of 5.

--

"Yeah," Moriah said. It really wasn't hard to tell that Ivor was scared, he wasn't exactly trying to hide it after all. "You don't need to be scared, all the smart, brave people on this ship are protecting us."

~~
Ellie looked back at Esk as they retreated. "Don't get killed!" she called, she might not like Esk, but she didn't want him dead either.

~~
Vestia was relieved when the slavers didn't kill Mourn. She sent out her remaining bot to go help the guy.

---Can you climb onto the bot's back?--- she asked. It was easier than making the bot lift him if he could move that far.

Esk smiled a little to himself at that. Wasn't that what he told everyone? Hearing it from Ellie, of all people, amused him.
He kept shooting, ducking back under cover to reload.
He wouldn't be able to keep this up long but he had to try. So the others stood a better chance of setting up some sort of ambush or trap.

---

Mourn stopped moving, staring up at the bot and shivering. His tail was swishing side to side, his ears flat against his skull. His coveralls were singed where the energy blast had hit him.
Yes, he probably stank of burnt fur.
He wasn't sure how much he could move at all.
He flailed with one hand, breathing heavily. This hurt, this hurt a lot.

"cl.. close blast doors." He managed. "stop... them."

on the plus side, he had managed to collect a few slaver helmets on the floor. Maybe they'd be useful. Right now he wasn't much thinking about those though, just the searing pain in his body.

E-Team:
The others would retreat to a safer distance, trying to figure out what the hell they could do to try to get the upper hand in this fight. Just shooting wasn't working clearly, and rushing the slavers was probably a good way to end up dead, so... what next?

"If we had magic, I could use my plants," Ellie said mournfully. Her plant grenades would have been perfect to take down large numbers of slavers at once.

"Well we don't, so you can't," Ethan said.

Ellie shot him a glare. She considered though. "Do we have any explosives in the armory?" she asked.

"Yeah..." Vestia said. "We might..."

"We should totally do what they did to us, blow something up in their faces," Ellie said. "Fetch us some explosives, Vestia!"

Vestia reluctantly did as she was told, sending a couple of her bots who weren't yet dead to get them. Well, this might hurt.

She put down a blast door between Esk and the slavers to keep him safe. "I think we have some sort of a plan," she told him.

"a plan? What sort of plan?" Esk asked as he hastily retreated before the slavers could blast through that door as well.
"Are you alright?" He asked. Hey, he paid attention, unlike so many he actually vuagely understood that Vestia could and did feel pain.

"A plan involving explosives," Vestia said. "Lay a trap for the slavers, hopefully blow up a lot of them." Her camera tilted a little at the question, "I'm holding up. There's a fair bit of damage, but it can be fixed later." Her hull ached from being shot and the floor where she'd been rammed hurt even more, but at least trying to assist many groups of people at once was a good distraction from the pain.

Esk couldn't tell if Vestia was lying or not so he just nodded. "Explosives, alright." He headed back to wherever the others were hiding out. They didn't have long.
"Can you buy us time?" He asked Vestia.

"A little time, yeah," Vestia said. She'd shut a few more blast doors, and start blasting some terrible Parisian Death-folk Opera Metal at the slavers.

Her hope was that it would sound so bad that they'd have to take the time to destroy her speakers before actually breaking through any more doors.

A couple bots arrived with explosives and the remotes to detonate them.

Esk got back to Ethan and Ellie and the dragons and pressed himself against a wall, trying not to let on how much pain he was actually in from the burn to his arm.
Damn energy weapons, somehow they hurt more than bullets.
or maybe he was just more accustomed to being shot with bullets.

"So how do we do this?" He asked.

"Hide the explosives so they can't be seen as the slavers come down the hall," Vestia said. "In the alcoves, maybe." She considered. "Their scanners shouldn't spot the explosives too quickly, since the explosives are pretty small. We can't hide the radio signals the explosives emit completely, but it'll have to do."

Hey, even if the slavers fled back the way they came, the blast would be following the path of least resistance, and the slavers would be in that path.

"Get to work, guys. We don't have much time."

Ellie would grab an explosive right away, going to stick it to a wall where it would be hard to spot.

Ethan seemed a little distracted though. He was looking up at a big, familiar door that stood open on one side of the hall. Oh no.

Esk got to work, not really acknowleding where they were or what they were destroying. It didn't matter, surviving this mattered.

"Ethan." He glanced at him, then followed his gaze. Ah... the library. "You can get new books." He told him unsympathetically. they were JUST books.

Ethan frowned at Esk's words. Yeah, he could get new books, but this library was special to him. It was one of the few places he'd ever felt truly safe, and he'd spent so much time working on it to try to make it into a place everyone else would love as much as he did. He didn't want to see it destroyed.

He couldn't ask the others to change their plans to protect it though, no matter how much he wanted to. Time was of the essence here, and lives were at stake.

He closed the library door and locked it, for all the good that would do against the force of the bombs they were about to set off, then forced himself to go help set up the trap.

It was always a stupid idea to let yourself become attached to something.

Esk glanced back at Ethan, well at least he wasn't letting sentiment get in the way of the job.
He went back to placing the charges.

If nothing else, they'd hopefully give the slavers a good run for their money.
He rather hoped they killed a fair chunk of them. he had no love for slavers, particualrly not after what Matthew and his crew had done to him.

The group would finish setting up the explosives, probably with not much time left before the slavers broke through. They'd have to hastily retreat to a safe distance, with Vestia shutting several blast doors in their wake. Vestia really hoped she'd done her calculations right here, but she was pretty sure that two blast doors between her crew and the bombs would be safe.

Just to be sure, she ordered them to go beyond a third door too.

Ethan was doing a pretty good job seeming emotionless now. Staying focused on the job, and all that.

Ellie seemed downright hopeful, she was really hoping the slavers were going to all die in the trap.

Esk had no emotional attachment to the library, but he did give at least some shits about the ship. This had to work, and not blow a hole in vestia in the process.

The slavers broke through, and the first wave did run straight into the bombs, not expecting them at all. They didn't anticipate the crew would be willing to damage their own ship.

Vestia would wait to detonate the bombs until a good portion of the slavers were in the hallway, preferably when they started trying to break down the next door.

If anyone noticed one of the bombs too soon though, she'd probably set them off immediately before the slavers had a good chance to start fleeing. The last thing she wanted was for all the slavers to get away unharmed.

The explosion was going to be pretty big. All the doors in that section of hall were blown in, and several sections of wall crumpled too, as well as the first blast door.

The E-Team was safe from the blast, but the boom was still pretty loud, and they could feel the vibrations of it through their shoes.

The slavers started along the hall, a good dozen of them well inside the blast radius before someone noticed the explosives.
at which point, there was nowhere to run.

Esk put a hand on Vestia's wall as the explosion went off.

---

Downstairs Armin flinched at the rumble from somewhere above abd cuddled Luna just a bit closer.

---

The explosion might travel a fair way along the hall the slavers had come from. Even those who weren't directly in the way of the blast might be disoriented and possibly even deafened by the explosion.

It was a messy solution, no doubt about that. But apparently somewhat effective.

Vestia muted her audio again so her passengers wouldn't hear her whimper of pain. That explosion had hurt.

"I can't tell what's happened in the blast zone too well. Most of my cameras are out," she said once she'd recovered a little.

"We'll have to take that as a good sign." Esk decided. How was Ethan holding up at this news? Hmm. weird guy.

--

The slavers had been pretty wonderfully slaughtered by that blast. Those far enough from it to either run or avoid the worst picked themselves up, dazed, disoriented, confused.

---

Meanwhile the slavers who'd gotten past Mourn fanned out. one group headed for the ballroom, which was a nice large space, perfect for setting up the portable short range teleporter they'd brought with them.

they set to work on that, two acting as guards in case anyone else tried to come stop them.

Meanwhile the others spread across the ship.

The explosion was loud, and though a few floors below, it was enough to wake Hewitt who opened his eyes, glowered and rose from his bed. Whatever those idiots were doing, this better be good.
He grabbed his cane and headed to the door, flinging it open right into the face of a slaver soldier.

He stared at the group for a moment, they stared back at him, neither quite expecting the other.

Then the slavers raised their guns.

Hewitt raised his cane. "I was trying to sleep you inconsiderate..."
He didn't get to finish that sentence as they opened fire.

Perhaps thankfully, Aketi were pretty damn hard to kill and energy weapons burned rather than punctured.

Shooting him only seemed to enrage him further and he beat the nearest slaver over the head with his cane repeatedly while his clothing burned and his skin blackened. Oh sure it hurt, but Aketi sense of touch was pretty muted, it was more like being slapped than burned. And it PISSED HIM OFF.

The slavers retreated, not really sure HOW to handle this irate walking shrub till one had the great idea to try to taze him.

which worked... rather too well.

Hewitt screamed as the current coursed through his water filled system, flash boiling it. Hot water and air had to escape somehow, and it did so via paths of least resistance. His chest burst open and he collapsed dramatically, oozing water and sap across the floor as he twitched.

Satisfied they're neutralised that threat, the slavers continued on their way.

Dawn shivered at the blast, putting a hand to the wall and looking tot eh camera nearest her. "Are you alright?" She asked with concern. They so did not want her to be too hurt, that would be bad in so many ways.

~~~
Starr nodded and watched the screens with a frown, shaking her head at Ellie's plan, but saying nothing to stop it. What could she say? Vestia was taking the brunt of the attack for them. "That plan sounds good, even one to take over driving a shuttle could help so much in getting the injured back."

~~~
The dragons wouldn't give up easily, if they let the ship go now, it would only be with a broken airlock at least. Preferably broken guns as well. The ones that remained unhit had taken up irregular flight paths to try to avoid getting hit and yet still get to where they wanted to get to.

~~~
Rigel watched the screens carefully, waiting for them to get in position to start firing on the big ship. He just hoped the Devil was up to the task.

Tala didn't see Silence collapse, but one of the dragons shouted the news to her.

Great, the shifter, and the others who were badly wounded, weren't going to be easy to evac then.

"You dragons and James!" she shouted, gesturing to a few of her team. "Get the wounded to safety! This is your only mission now. The rest of you! Guard the hall with me!" They'd hold their position for the moment and shoot at the slavers. They were running on limited time with all the gas in the air though, they'd have to hope that the dragons could get the wounded evacuated fast.

She was kind of tempted to keep James here, since he was immune to gas, but she realized he was probably needed even more as a medic. If they had this many wounded here, elsewhere it must be bad too.

James nodded grimly and went to get Silence.

~~
Vestia would load Mourn onto the bot as best she could and hopefully get him to the medics safely, and close her blast doors, as many as she could. It really wasn't enough without anyone to guard them though, and the slavers had that teleporter set up before long,

She watched Hewitt try to fight the slavers, first impressed with him, then horrified as she saw his chest burst open. Holy crap, the aketi hadn't been kidding when he said tasing was bad.


~~
Vestia hastily notified Dawn and Kay of the Hewitt situation, and that she was attempting to bring Mourn to them. "I'm fine though," she added in answer to Dawn's question.

~~

Vestia also notified Tori that she was needed to help out in medical, RIGHT NOW. Tori raced off, looking grim. Well, so much for everything being fine in the outer ship, then.

~~
Vestia cautiously opened her blast doors for the E-Team to go back in and finish off the slavers, or whatever they were going to do with them.

Ethan gasped at the wreckage before them when he saw it. The library's front wall was half obliterated, and pages from books scattered across the floor. The rest of this portion of hallway was all similarly damaged, but the library was all he cared about.
He yanked his eyes away from the library, and fixed them on the slavers, many of whom had been very messily dismembered by the explosion. That sort of awful was more normal him. He could handle it.

Ellie was more bothered by the goriness of her plan carried out. She went to a corner and was sick for a bit.

~~
"I'll send the shuttles out, we'll see if they can be useful," Vestia said. She sent out the stream of shuttles, they looked rather flimsy and feeble compared to everything else out there right now, but if they made a difference, that was all that mattered.

If nothing else, they would be a diversion at least. Maybe they could help the wounded too though.

Matt looked grim as Tori left, this wasn't good, this wasn't good at all.

Ivor cuddled down under his blanket like a frightened child.

---

Esk rolled his eyes at Ellie. Much like Ethan, he was disturbingly used to this sort of horrifying gore.
Once you'd seen people half eaten by their loved ones you kinda... got a pretty strong stomach.

He shouldered his gun and picked his way carefully through the bodies, careful not to slip on the blood and entrails as he sought out the survivors.

---

Kay looked to Dawn, worried. Neither of them were likely very combat capable without magic were they? But someone had to go get Hewitt. [Vestia, where are the slavers now?] He asked. Maybe they could avoid them.

---

Silence was a heavy, awkward shaped lump. She was breathing, shallowly, but she'd be awkward even for an android to carry. All claws and spikes and wings, she was such an ungainly shape.

---

the dragons managed to tear the guns from one of the smaller ships while the smallest fighters continued to attack, taking heavy losses. Even without magic, Star Dragons weren't to be trifled with clearly.

But this didn't matter much now. With the teleporter set up the large ship could start to send their troops in.

The teleporter activated and 8 soldiers teleported in, with a tall familiar looking man among them. A Keeper.

Dawn frowned and went in the teleporter to be taken where she was most needed.
~~~
Starr looked at the screen and shivered a little when the keeper stepped through. This was not good, not good at all.
~~~
The dragons with Tala would go to help James get Silence out of there, trying not to breath too much on the way. Once she and the other wounded were safely away, some would go back to the fight.
~~~
The dragons outside saw the shuttles and while some would continue to tear at the guns, the others would start gathering the wounded to take them to one of the shuttles, taking it off autopilot to get the rest.