Chapter 646: Landing on Kager-1
Jace was in full armor as he walked into the hangar. It was abuzz with activity as mining vessels returned with their hauls from asteroids and uninhabitable moons. He walked towards a side of the hangar where a mech transporter carrying four knight-class mechs, two transport craft, and one vehicle transport craft with an attached heavy laser miner were staying.
"Are you sure you do not need more people?" Shilla asked.
"I do not." Jace answered. "Just make sure to double check your artillery courses. I do not want to get hit with a shell." He walked aboard one of the transports and signaled to the squad captain inside to go.
"Understood." Shilla answered.
The rear ramp closed up behind him as the cabin was lit up with a red light. Revealing the array of armor and gear they were all wearing. All of which was air tight. They had to be. The planet they were going to, Kager-1, did not have a breathable atmosphere. It was filled with various types of gases that normally would not make up an atmosphere.
Fortunately the transport crafts could still land. But they would have to modify the drill’s laser so it was not too affected.
Jace could feel the craft lurch out of the hangar. He pulled up the plan on his visor. He had selected a landing zone that was situated in the center of the ore that they were going to mine. There were plenty of Kitinol in the area but not nearly enough cover. Apparently the area they were going to was incredibly flat. Which fortunately meant they were not landing on a kitinol nest.
"Sir, we are approaching the planet. We are seeing activity in the airspace." One of the pilots spoke over the common channel that the Lance was monitoring.
"Is it coming for us, a regular pattern, or is it going for the Lance?" Jace asked as the craft shuddered.
There were a few minutes of silence which Jace used to access the craft systems to see what the pilot was talking about. He relaxed after a moment and waited for the pilot to reach the same conclusion he just had. "A regular pattern, in fact it looks like a migrational pattern for a flock of birds. A non-kitinol species."
That caused a ripple of confusion through the ship as Jace hummed in understanding. "This planet has a hive mind of kitinol and there is one smart enough to understand the concept and necessity of farming." He explained after a moment, revealing his personal analysis of the situation.
The ship began shuddering more causing the others to shift or grab hold of something as Jace looked at the screen that was installed on his wrist. They could not use holograms so they had to use screens. He looked over at the massive containers of air as well. They could not use printers either so they were going to have to recycle air and set up an air chamber as well.
"This turbulence doesn’t feel right." One of the others pointed out.
"That is because it isn’t." One of the others announced.
"We are coming up on the drop zone. We are seeing crystalline structures. They seem to not be detectable by scans. You are going to have to clean them out before we can land." The pilot announced.
Jace frowned and waved at the captain. Who then began grabbing some high tensile rope. "We are doing a rope drop through the belly of the wyvern." He announced and the others moved away from the center of the craft right before it creaked and then began opening. "Jace will lead the way. Follow his lead."
Jace looked down to see almost imperceptible giant pillars of crystal. That was only visible because of the dust that was swirling about the air. "He took a moment before jumping through the hole. He barely fell before he had to kick off the side of a crystal to avoid being impaled.
The sand and dust whipped against his armor. He grunted as he landed on the ground and pulled the wisp rifle off his back and looked around the area. He barely had a chance to think before several ropes dropped around him.
Then the others dropped around him while he moved toward one of the crystal spikes. "It is like a forest." The captain pointed out in awe while they slowly moved around.
Jace ran a hand along the surface of the crystal. He had felt it when he kicked off one earlier. But the composition of the crystal was still off. He could feel it, even see it. But it was not easily broken. That kick earlier should have shattered it, instead it did not even cause it to echo.
One of the soldiers knocked on one of the crystal towers. "Yeah no, we need explosives to take these down."
Bang bang bang!
"Sonofa-" One of them fired a burst of rounds at one of the towers and the bullets ricocheted off and barely missed the others. Jace felt a ping and his shielding flashed with the hexagonal gold as a few of the bullets bounced off him.
"Sorry Commander-" The captain started apologizing.
"It is fine." Jace grunted out and moved the wisp rifle to his back and then slid a leg back and then got ready to launch a punch. "Turn down your receivers. I am about to break the sound barrier."
The captain immediately followed Jace’s order but some of the others hesitated. Jace waited an extra moment before launching a fist forward. The air was silent for a moment as his arm blurred before hitting the crystal.
Then after his fist connected there was gold shielding covering his hand before the crystal vibrated. Followed by a crack blossoming through the crystal.
BOOOM!
The resulting breach of the sound barrier let out a burst of air that sent out a shockwave from the crystal. The crystal itself did not make any noise. But Jace’s punch let out a shockwave that cleared the nearby air of dust and sand and stopped the violent winds for a moment.
Jace pulled back his hand after a moment. The wind returned first and then the sand and dust a moment later. He looked down at his hand. His glove was undamaged and his hand looked ’fine’. But he could feel that his hand was broken. He could tell he had broken just about every bone in his hand.
"Holy shit! That was cool!" One of the soldiers yelled and Jace raised an eyebrow. He looked over at the captain of the unit.
"Behave, cadet." The captain ordered. "I suppose you could just punch the crystals instead."
"I would rather not." Jace answered as he held up his hand. "I broke just about every bone in my hand. Not to mention that I did not hold back at all. That would have sent a large vehicle skidding."
"The fuck?" The same cadet spoke in confusion. Then the captain glared at him. "Sorry, it’s just... humans can do that?"
"Spectres can." The captain answered. "Commander Jace is one of the stronger ones too. So if not explosives..." He looked at the spikes of glass and crystal. "It did not give off any sound."
Jace nodded in agreement. "The sound traveled down into the ground. Almost like a lightning rod for sound and noise." He tapped his hand against the ground as he could feel the bones and ligaments in his hand start to fix themselves. The process was painful... but it was better than having a broken hand.
"So I guess we can’t just move them." The cadet sighed.
One of the soldiers coerced by the one Jace sat next to and pulled away some dirt. "Actually... that looks like exactly what we should do. Look at this." The captain and Jace crouched by him and could see that the crystal spike did not travel very far into the dirt. They could easily move and push over the crystal if they dug out some of the dirt.
"That is weird. How are the crystal spikes this tall and not falling over from the wind?" The captain asked openly.
"No clue. We can check later." Jace answered as he kicked the dirt away from the bottom of one of the crystal spikes before pushing it over. It slowly keeled over and then slammed into the ground with a dud. It hit a few other crystal spikes and bounced off them but did not make any noise on the way down. "Let’s get room for the mechs to land. We will need them to move around the crystal spikes." Jace ordered.
—--------------------
Back on the Lance. Shilla was looking over the numbers climbed as they quickly acquired the resources. "We have objects in space. Scans show they are asteroids filled with kitinol."
"They are kitinol transport pods. The kitinol has detected us." Shilla declared. "Move combat craft and drone craft into position. Light weapons focus on smaller insects. Large kinetic weapons focus on the larger insects."
Comments