Corpo Age-Chapter 262: Race

Under the cover of my smokescreen, we sowed chaos among our enemies while we moved to reposition ourselves away from the bridge. Despite how well-equipped our enemies were, wasn’t an insurmountable hurdle to lose them.

They were busy dealing with the silverish smoke that constantly tried to seep into any cracks it could find. If it succeeded in reaching the electronics inside their equipment, it could easily fry their hardware.

At the same time, we specialized in stealth. It was only too easy to press our advantage and disappear from their sight. It was likely they prepared something to track us down, considering it’s SocialCorp we’re dealing with, but while the smokescreen was present, I doubt there was much they could do.

We made as much distance as we could while our opponents were occupied. The bridge was at the core of the entire ship, and we headed toward the periphery. It was the place closest to our reinforcements.

As we ran through the metal corridors, a voice suddenly rang out from all directions. It only took one glance to confirm that it was coming from the ship’s PA system.

“It seems you do have some capability, Mr. Halls.” the familiar voice of Silas Vexel called out. “This is your last chance. I’ve learned my lesson already. If you cannot see reason, then I’m going to have to eliminate now you lest your abilities cause problems down the road. Please choose wisely.”

We ignored him and continued running. He continued spewing nonsense on the speakers, but it soon became white noise in my mind. Even so, his message got me thinking. How would I take me out if I were in his shoes?

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There were many ways to kill someone, sure, but to ensure the demise of someone was another story. Having boarded this trap ship, I made it easy for them, but there should still be an optimal way to finish me if he was talking so confidently on the speakers.

Trap ship—of course. This entire place is a trap!

Suspicion began to sprout in my mind. I quickly had my Argus scan as much as it could to see if my deduction was accurate.

The size of the ship prevented me from scanning everything at once. There was just too much area to cover and too many electronic components everywhere, creating interference. Thankfully, I didn’t have to only rely on the sole Argus within me. We had deployed plenty of D-Mothers, our drone carrier, to scout the vessel. I only needed to send the command and an army of Nyes would be deployed along with the active scans from the D-Mother themselves.

It wasn’t long before I found something that made me grimace.

“Take a look at this—We need to tell our reinforcements to retreat immediately!”

“What?” Thorne called out in confusion.

“Just look at what I sent you and you’ll understand!”

I was wondering why I hadn’t noticed any pursuers on our tail despite Silas’ threats. There was no need for them at all. In fact, they were likely fleeing in a different direction. That was because this entire vessel was rigged with explosives.

Silas’ minions were likely going to set it off as soon as they evacuated from the area. That meant we had to escape before they did.

“Shit!” Thorne cried out, after having realized the situation we were in. “Everyone, double time!”

We threw caution to the wind and began sprinting down the corridors without checking our corners. The safe feeling of wearing powerful power armor quickly turned into a burden instead. The power armors weren’t made to achieve top speed around these types of enclosed spaces with little room to maneuver. Its ionic boosters normally would make us faster, but the confined space didn’t allow it to come into play.

We spammed our comms with commands to tell our forces to stay away from this ship. It caused everyone to scramble, but predictably, a female voice hijacked the direct line to us.

“You idiots! I told you not to go to the frontlines, how many times now? Get your dumbasses to the escape pods right now and input this trajectory!” Claire bellowed. “I’ll come pick up your sorry messes up.”

“There’s no need!” Thorne retorted. “We have the ship we came in. You stay put and we’ll be coming in just a minute!”

The two bickered, and I chose not to intervene. I didn’t have the mind to leisurely talk while running with everything I had. However, I did have the leeway to hack into the ship’s system. It was the perk of carefully preparing programs to do the bulk of the work for me beforehand.

I had been working on it since the moment we boarded. Their security software was top-of-the-line, so it took quite some time, but during this perilous hour, it finally broke through. I immediately accessed the ship’s cameras to monitor or competitors’ progress.

There, I witnessed the man in red power armor who Silas had called Gunther earlier, zooming through the corridors alone. Despite the head start we had, he had made just as much progress as we did. The only caveat was that he was miles ahead of his companions, but he didn’t seem to care.

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With every step he took, red electricity sparked by his feet. Witnessing his speed really piled on the pressure.

Shrugging it off, I triangulated his destination and conveyed the coordinates to my forces. Everything was fair game now that hostilities had broken out. There was no way I would squander an opportunity to eliminate what seemed to be a troublesome enemy.

The ambush outside was still going strong in our favor, so it didn’t take long before a salvo of particle beams pounded the location I marked. It was on the opposite side of the ship, near a set of escape pods. However, when our shots landed, they didn’t destroy those pods like we wanted. Instead, the sight of an annoying energy shield manifested.

In its wake was the flickering figure of a ship. Its cloaking tech was deactivated as it struggled to maintain the camouflage while being pelted by attacks.

“The enemy is going to get away on a stealth ship. Is there nothing we can do?” I asked our COO over the comms. “Maybe get our allies to help intercept them if we can’t?”

“We won’t make it in time, Rollo. Everyone fanned out upon receiving your message. Based on what we observed, their energy shield isn’t the outdated kind we’ve been facing. It won’t be easy getting through it.”

Hmm, am I really going to let these rats get away?

I took a moment to go through the assets we have spread across the area. As Claire had said, our ships were scattered, each heading away from the ship I was on. It would take too long for them to adjust their heading. Only the lone shuttle Claire was taking to pick us up and the ship we came in was around. No heavy armaments were available in the vicinity.

Just as my mind was racing at top speed, the entire vessel suddenly jerked. It made us stumble, but we didn’t dare let it slow us down too much. We picked ourselves up as if it had never happened. It only took a cursory investigation to find out it was due to one of the larger pieces of debris ramming into us. The other ships part of this logistic group were shot down in the opening act, and their debris somehow crashed into us.

Wait, that’s it! Ramming is a powerful move in itself. No need for fancy tech solutions. As long as there’s enough acceleration and force, it’ll do.

As I turned yet another corner, I sent out another set of commands. This time, it was the Lanus controlling the stealth ship we came in. The perks of having an AI on the ship fully displayed itself as it quickly formulated the optimal flight path and force required to accomplish my goals.

The lone ship turned back to create more space for it to accelerate. I watched the glow of its engine grow in intensity as it charged toward the ship we were on.

Thorne, Andrew, Peng, and I were all running nonstop. Silas’ henchmen were doing the same, with their field officer getting further and further ahead of the rest.

Exactly three seconds before our ship outside collided, my entire team came to a stop and braced ourselves against the wall. I watched as our opponents continued running, only to get thrown against the cold metal corridors in the next moment. A loud screech rang out as the hull was rammed. My ship outside had successfully pushed this ship in a way that tilted its orientation in an instant.

The floor suddenly became the walls, while the reverse was also true. It completely caught Silas’ forces off guard. I didn’t gloat about my success and swiftly got on our way again.

Like that, we were able to make it to the escape pods first. Inputting the route Claire had given us, the pod was shot out from the hull like a missile.

Not long after, the entire vessel behind us imploded on itself. All the metal crumpled inward, reducing it to nothing more than a sphere of metal.

The scene marked the end of this ordeal. As we got further away, we were finally able to rest and recollect ourselves.

“We’re so lucky they didn’t detonate the ship immediately!” Thorne cried.

“Well, I’m sure Silas would want to, but he unfortunately can’t,” I replied as I caught my breath.

“Can’t? What do you mean? A high and mighty SocialCorp executive can afford to sacrifice an employee or two.”

“People aren’t that stupid. Who in their right mind would want to volunteer for a suicide mission? This is a civil war right now. If he forces his men to do shit like that, he’ll just be giving them a good reason to switch sides.”

“Stupid politics.”

“War is just another form of politics.”

We soon arrived back on our flagship and were whisked away to the medical bay for an examination. During the entire ordeal, we received a mouthful from Claire.

For better or worse, it didn’t last. That was because a priority call came in not long after we were cleared. As expected, it came from NPC. It was a given his forces would relay updates to him, so it was no surprise he found out about this little incident.

The call felt like a worried parent trying to contact me after an accident. It made me gingerly pick it up.

“Well, it seems like that old weasel contacted you, after all. What do you say? Ready to stop wasting time and put an end to this yet?”

“Silas and his ideas sure was—something. I’m fully on board with stopping him, but it’s going to be done my way.”

“Hm, every day we delay, thousands more will lose their lives.”

“I understand that. I just need a little more time and I think I’ll be ready to end this.”

“It’s useless. That old weasel isn’t ignorant of your abilities. He’s the one who confronted my—The Gamer back in the day. Now that he’s confirmed your presence, I’ve been receiving reports of enemy forces retreating on every battlefront. They won’t let you pick them off at your pace.”

I paused for a moment as I closed my eyes and brainstormed ideas. It seemed things were never so simple. I managed to form a sizeable fleet that could accommodate all my soldiers now, but I was still lacking in the experience points department. It made me want to return to Elevate City and hunt down harvesters.

“Actually, I have another idea,” NPC proclaimed. “Complying with your conditions, I believe I may have found an alternative that may just be slightly less effective than my previous plan.”

He hadn’t said it outright previously, but his previous plan involved genocide via bombing random cities. Hearing him come up with another plan that was similar to that only made me shake my head.

“And that is?” I urged him to continue.

“Instead of bombing cities, we’ll bombard the wasteland.”