Chapter 2: Maverick Extraction
1401 자
*BOOOOM!!!
“What’s going on!?” Admiral Barlin demanded after their flagship received a violent hit.
Presently, they are crossing the dimensional stem, the stable inter-dimensional tunnels connecting the realms of the Galactic Tree, in order to return to the Imperial Capital.
It is not without danger though as remnants from destroyed realms, both living and not, recent and ancient, occupies these stems. However, leading a fleet with the best weapons and defensive measures, any possible accident that might arise can be countered. On top of that, he’d crossed this passage several times before and knew it like the back of his hand. Therefore, this unexpected development had truly caught him completely off-guard.
“Debris are raining down on us!” The airship captain replied with alarm.
“What!?” Barlin exclaimed in disbelief. “Then why didn’t the deflector barriers activate!?”
“It did, but the debris pierced through them.”
“Impossible!”
However, despite the denial, the fact before him was undeniable. There are hundreds of blazing debris flying towards them and they are passing through their barriers unhindered. His judgment suggests that this is unnatural.
He wasn’t wrong. Zooming their visuals to the source of the bombardment, a creature is seen setting the surrounding debris ablaze before kicking them to their direction.
*BOOOOM!!!
“What is that thing?!” Barlin demanded again after giving order to the fleet to open fire to the creature’s direction.
“It appears to be a Dragon, sir.”
“Damn it!” Barlin cursed.
Naturally, it is quite unlikely to encounter a Dragon within the stems of the Inner Branches of the Galactic Tree where they presently are as they are natives within realms in the borders of the Outer Branches and the initial ventured worlds of the Unknown Reaches. However, Dragons are among the few creatures that can naturally perform the dimension leap or more commonly known as the hyperjump, a navigation maneuver that by creating a tear in space-time enables the airships to thrust into the back channels. Navigations through the back channels ignores distances and obstacles and thus, allowing travels akin to teleportation. Therefore, the Dragons can sometimes appear in realms and stems far from their native worlds.
Dragons are fierce and powerful beasts that are naturally hostile to other creatures and pair that with their natural ability to freely travel the back channels, chancing upon them are navigators’ worst nightmare. On top of that, each Dragon is unique with unique and unrecorded abilities such as the flames of this one that can bypass the deflector barriers. Fortunately, despite such facts, there’s only one of such beast in question and the firepower of their flagship, much more of their entire fleet is more than enough to rid of this single pest.
Or so he thought.
Barlin soon realized that the Dragon was not a stray and a savage that’s attacking them by chance. It is assaulting them with an specific pattern and target in mind.
‘Don’t tell me?’ His eyes widened when he realized that the Dragon was targeting the cargo ship where a very important ‘package’ is covertly stored. “Shoot that pest down now!”
But it was too late. With the Dragon’s speed and its flames which disregard their barriers, the cargo ship was in a wreck in seconds along with two figures jumping out from it and towards the Dragon’s back.
◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇
*PEW! PEW! PEW!
“Why aren’t we taking the hyperjump yet!?” The general’s daughter, Magenta, inquired fiercely as Magnum streaked the dimensional stem and through the belts of debris to evade the countless of shots aimed at them by the chasing cruisers and the deployed Horns, the signature blaster ships of the One Empire.
“I can’t just thrust into the back channel, you know,” Magnum countered.
“Why the hell not?! You’re a freaking Dragon!”
“Exactly, he’s a Dragon not an airship,” he replied for him after striking down a couple of Horns that got too close. “First, he’s not guided by a waypoint.”
The waypoints are a marking system which guides airships to coded beacons, depending to their affiliation, to serve as a secured and predetermined exit points for back channel navigators.
“Exactly!” Magnum seconded, then he took over from there so he, his Boss, can place his full attention back to repelling the chasing Horns. “Second, I’m not powered by fuels and generators. The power I consumed whenever I dimensionally leap requires gradual recovery and for your information, I just bust my Mana to get here and get you out.” Then he shifted back to him. “Boss, let’s be real here, we didn’t think this through.”
“We accepted the commission by impulse,” he said back as a matter-of-factly to him. “What do you expect?”
“Alright, not the point right now!” Magenta snapped at them, pointing the fact out. “We can’t outrun them without leaping to hyperjump, that’s for sure. So how do plan to get out of here?!”
“Honour me with a few moments of your silence and we will do just that,” he told her.
True to being the well-mannered noblewoman that she is, she behaved as asked and he retook the peace he needed to prepare their escape.
While Magnum does his best to evade and gain distance and the general’s daughter helping with whatever she can with her held ray rifle, Wanda shook the Reviver downward, triggering the break-action to expose the cylinder.
Then, with a second shake, the three capsules occupying the capsule chambers jumped out. Each containing sand grains of differing hues of blue, they were caught and slid back into the ammunition belt wrapped around his waist while at the same time, three new capsules of red, green, and then black were pulled out and loaded.
Jerking the Reviver up to straighten and lock, they were roused one after another and the prompts of their activation were delivered into his head.
[ECHO BLACK] + [SHATTERED RED] + [CALM GREEN]
He then aimed the Reviver towards the chasing fleet and pulled the trigger.
*BANG!
Sensed exclusively by himself still, another prompt echoed.
[HOWL! LORD OF SILENCE!]
*BOOOM!
The spherical blast released by the Reviver exploded upon reaching the range of the fleet and the generated wave caused their machineries especially the swift blaster ships and cannons to temporarily halt.
“That shall give us ten seconds,” he said, pointed to the general’s daughter.
“Holy molly,” she gasped, impressed. “I want a gun like that.”
“Pay an eye or two and you might get one.”
Answering her vaguely, she faced him and bewilderedly frowned, “What?”
“Nothing,” he dismissed, then directed to Magnum, “Prepare for hyperjump now.”
Prepared to what would come next, he enthusiastically replied, “Okie-dokie!”
The grand exit maneuver is free to be initiated.
As Magnum triggers his entrance to the back channel, something he still has no power to execute, Wanda freed the Reviver of its capsules again and unlike the initial batch’s unloading, the contents of the capsules this time had turned grey, implying the complete exhaustion of the essences it previously possessed.
[EVERGREEN] + [LIGHTNING SKY] + [SANCTUARY SAGE]
Two hues of green and a hue of blue, three new capsules were loaded and roused.
[RESTORE! HEAVEN’S MERCY!]
*Bang!
He fired a shot again but directed to Magnum this time who is, aside from the lack of power source, all prepared to complete the hyperjump.
Receiving the Heaven’s Mercy, Magnum’s body was suddenly filled with Mana and with a powerful flap of his wings, *SWOONG!* the surrounding reality distorted, shifting everything into a swirling red tunnel. The exit from the material space is completed and into the unhindered tunnels of the back channel.
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