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ME: Dahlia Stark - Episode 18 - Battle for Horizon

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    The Ryxera crew was on Horizon for three weeks when the sky fell.



    Hann and Elsai were volunteering at Barton Hospital in the colonial capital, wondering why the staff suddenly buzzed with activity, like a hive of bees agitated by a looming threat.

    David was aboard the Ryxera, checking in with his uncle’s family, as he did every day since landing on Horizon, but the communication cut off unexpectedly.

    “What in the…?” he growled. “Pepper, what happened to the channel?”

    “Pepper’s offline,” Jin wheezed. “Dahlia’s up to something in her workshop.”

   


    “My transfer to the new hardware is complete, ma’am.”

    Pepper’s voice chimed through the headset Dahlia wore. She heard her companion’s update despite being intensely focused on completing the work before her.

    “Good to hear. I’d say we’re about….95% percent done.”

    “Ma’am, since returning online I conducted a sweep of comm channels as per your security protocols. The colonial militia is reporting a pirate raid in progress.”

    An observer would have seen, beneath the dangling shop lights, the color drain from Dahlia’s face. She really wanted to shove her head into the helmet clenched in her hands, but she knew it was imperative that she finish integrating its communication interface.

    “How many ships?” Dahlia whispered, struggling to maintain her concentration while tracing a conduit within the helmet circuitry with her soldering tool.

    “Planetary defense forces have identified at least six distinct ships including five frigates and one vessel near cruiser size which has been converted into a carrier configuration.”

    “Where do you peg the defense force’s chances for victory?”

    “My tactical subroutines are inadequate for such calculations.”

    Dahlia wanted to scream out, demanding a guess. She held her tongue, though, knowing that it would only produce a potentially uncooperative A.I. This was a day unlike any other, and they would need each other more than ever.



    The batarian was baffled. He rushed down to check in with Dahlia, only to find the cargo hold empty. The loading bay hatch lie open, and a small point of light was quickly receding into the morning sky.

    “Dahlia’s gone.”

    “Yeah, Pepper just sent an update….” Jin gasped. “The colony is under attack...The pirates have come.”

    “Is this ship ready for combat?” David asked, clenching his fist.

    “Um….Dahlia said the shields were online….when she and Hann inspected the ship….The guns should be functional….but I don’t know if they’re loaded….I just closed the cargo hold….and the ship is pressurizing.”

    “Okay, I’ll check the guns. Get the ship in the air.”

    “We’re….we’re going to fight?” Jin squeaked hoarsely through his breather.

    “I won’t let them hurt my family again,” David growled, directing his growing ire to the sky rather than the volus.

    “Did I mention that my piloting experience….is just aircars and cargo skiffs?”

    “I don’t care, Jin.”

    “Ryxie even used to poke fun at me….for flying too slow.”

    “I don’t care, Jin!”

    Jin complied, in his own way. Watching David climb into one of the dorsal turrets, Jin resolved to keep a distance and use the colony’s defense craft as a screen - letting David pick off soft targets from a distance. The volus remembered the maneuver from a docudrama war vid he watched, depicting Saren Arterius’s geth fleet attacking Irune rather than the Citadel. A rookie wing of the Volus Bombing Fleet, unsuited for frontline combat, took up long range fire support positions behind a line of turian cruisers defending their client race’s homeworld.

    The pirate flotilla entered the atmosphere as the Ryxera curled up its landing gears and took flight. Two of the frigates showed signs of damage inflicted by the first waves of scrambled defense fighters. The unharmed, modified carrier dropped into the colony’s airspace at the lead of the force, screened by a handful of close support fighters and emerging wings of Mantis gunships deploying from its belly.

    Militia gunships took wing from landing pads along the perimeter of the colony. Interceptor fighters screamed into action from planetary defense force outposts in the surrounding mountainous highlands.

    David got acclimated to the turret controls. He narrowed his four eyes and focused on an approaching pirate gunship, lining up his first shot….which flew wide of the target. The Mantis did not even need to evade; David’s aim was simply far from the mark.

    The once idyllic skies of the garden world colony were torn asunder as the battle was fully joined. The waning morning was rent by the whine and screech of ordinance loosed from vulcan gun mounts and rocket pods. Bursts of dust and debris polluted the air from glancing hits and shells impacting on kinetic barriers. Defense aircraft worked to lure smaller enemy vessels away from the densely populated colonial capital, but the capital ships maintained position.

    David roared with delight as he scored a solid hit on a gunship, but groaned and pounded his foot against the cramped turret housing when he realized the target’s shields absorbed the lion’s share of the force.

    “Uh oh….I think you got their attention,” Jin buzzed over the comms, competing with the sound of enemy rounds making contact with the Ryxera’s shields. “What the….we’re receiving a message….from the lead ship.”

    “What in the world? Let’s hear it,” David barked as he wildly unloaded his turret’s magazine at a pair of incoming gunships.

    “You messed with the wrong people, kids,” promised the turian pirate commander. His words dripped sardonicism through the comms, followed by a patrician laugh punctuated by his clicking mandibles. “Now you’ll see why its hazardous to your health to steal from us.”

    The channel went dead.

    David watched several wings of support craft and one of the frigates redirecting towards the Ryxera. Outnumbered, outgunned, and handily overpowered, he was ready to beg Jin to hurry the ship away to anywhere else when the tail of one of the Mantis gunships, already unloading pulses from its vulcan gun, erupted in a shower of flame, sparks, and shrapnel.

    “I can’t leave you guys alone for a minute, can I?” Dahlia’s voice rang over the comms.

   


    From his cockpit, DeStefano watched Toombs struggle to keep his bird aloft. His tail stabilizers had been blown away, but DeStefano couldn’t see the attacker. The only contacts on his rear radar were two more wings of friendly gunships, backed up by the imposing silhouette of their frigate Moloch, as they hunted down their gang’s stolen ship.

    DeStefano’s eyes were wrenched from his radar screen as something landed on the prow of his Mantis, rattling the gunship and blotting out the sunlight from his canopy.

    A single figure in a hardsuit perched on his canopy, holding onto the framework between the clear panes. As she waved at him like some eager tourist, DeStefano had only a heartbeat to notice the light welling up within her gauntlet’s palm before the cockpit exploded in a shower of broken shards and bent metal. She ripped the pilot from his seat and hurled him into the river below.



    Dahlia clambered into the now vacant pilot’s seat. Seizing the gunship controls, she forced the aircraft around and aimed it for the closing frigate. The other raider gunships were still too bewildered to react, unsure what they were seeing, and Dahlia slipped the commandeered craft right by them. The frigate, despite its maneuverability, was simply too large of a target to miss. Dahlia set the gunship on a collision course and bailed out, reigniting her repulsors when she was clear of the expected impact radius.

    Balancing herself in midair, she watched the gunship’s hull sliced apart by the angular prow of the frigate. The fuel tanks combusted and the Mantis’ miniscule eezo core detonated, leaving a fiery, jagged wound along the frigate’s bow. Dahlia had little time to admire her work, though, for Pepper reported several more hostile targets approaching the Ryxera. They were more wary of the unknown, flightsuited attacker, so rather than trying the dramatic smash-and-grab again, Dahlia simply decided to pulverize their tail stabilizers.

    “Jin, focus on evading,” she called through her comm. “That frigate will tear you apart. Just fly in zig-zags, as fast as you can.”

    Once she finished with the gunships, finding that their shielding was either limited or that kinetic barriers were poorly suited to absorbing repulsor blasts, Dahlia turned her sights on the smoke trailing behind the wounded frigate hounding her friends.

    “So does anyone know how this many ships even slipped past the colony’s patrol fleet?” Dahlia asked as she flew into the frigate’s breached hull and began dropping any pirate crew within reach with shots from her repulsors.

    “I’ve been monitoring military communication channels,” Pepper announced. “Sixty-seven minutes before this attack, the bulk of the colony’s patrol ships responded to an attack by unknown vessels against mining outposts of the system’s second planet, Prospect.”

    “Great, they made a diversion,” David sneered over his headset.

    “Oh come on, don’t cry. This ship wasn’t making it back into orbit anyhow!”

    “What did you say, Dahlia?” Jin asked, very confused and frightened.

    “I wasn’t talking to you guys. I was talking to this pirate who tried to sneak up on me. I pegged him in the gut and he started crying. Oh jeez, now he’s throwing up. Anyhow, I’ll keep in touch with you guys. I’m almost finished here. Next, I’m going after that command carrier.”

    It did not take long for Dahlia to incapacitate the pirate’s frigate, Moloch. The crew were not expecting a surprise boarding, so they were lightly armed and armored. What small arms they had ready were not able to breach the kinetic barriers of Dahlia’s armor, overcharged by her arc reactor. She marched from the bridge to the command center, pelting any available console with repulsor blasts. When she was certain she’d stripped them of control over the ship’s weapons, she bid the reeling pirates a sarcastic “goodbye” and escaped out the bow hull breach again.

    Colonial defense aircraft faced a withering hail of anti-aircraft fire from the carrier, so they had difficulty closing on the pirates’ flagship. Dahlia, a target just as fast moving but only the size of a single human body, easily evaded the incoming flak. She stormed one of the launch bays, unleashing repulsor shots on anything that moved, and asked Pepper to plot directions for the bridge. Dahlia had overheard the threat the pirate commander broadcasted to her crew, and she wanted to offer a forceful rebuttal.

Things come to a head for the Ryxera crew in this episode. A pirate flotilla makes a brazen attack on Horizon, seeking both to plunder the colony and reclaim their stolen ship. With the colonial patrol fleet diverted, its up to Dahlia and the Ryxera to aid in the defense of Horizon.

Thank you kindly for reading.


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Mass Effect elements are (C) BioWare and EA.
Iron Man elements are (C) Marvel.
Dahlia Stark and other original characters belong to me.
© 2014 - 2024 Vayelan
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