Chapter 398

398 Harbingers of the Apocalypse, Pt Armored assault Discordians charged through the heavily defended passageway into engineering. Though they were under constant fire, they pressed on through regardless.

They swung their halberds at the numerous turrets that had popped out of the walls and ceilings, and sliced them apart.

The remainder of the turrets’ mangled frames sparked and sizzled uselessly, even as the Discordians ran past. They went further down the passageway still under fire, and charged at the heavily armed security personnel stationed at the other end.

Their opponents’ bullets dug into the Discordians’ thick armor and struck them underneath. Despite the damage their bodies took, they powered through and cut their opponents down in a flash. The walls and floors were painted with Federation blood as their bodies fell to the floor.

And with every security personnel gone, the Discordians strode into the rest of engineering with pomp. As though they owned the ship itself.

The trooper’s captain walked up to the center, close to where the main terminal for the primary power reactor was. He looked around at the engineers on the deck, and yelled out through his suit’s sonic emitters.

“I need to have a little chat with whoever’s in charge down here,” he said. “So speak up now, or we start offing people at random.”

The Federation engineers nearby fell to their knees out of fear. Some of them proclaimed they were surrendering and raised their hands up.

A couple of them walked up in front of the Discordians as calmly and as courageously as they could.

.....

“I’m the chief engineer,” said one of them. “And please, don’t hurt my people. We’re not fighters, and we surrender.”

“You got it, chief,” replied the Discordian. “But I don’t care about surrender. What I care about is if you’re gonna keep working. Just do what you’re told, and no-one will bother you.”

The chief engineer and his assistant looked puzzled, and were unsure what the Discordian was trying to tell him. Before he could ask, the Discordian continued.

“Or, look at it like this, if you don’t do what we tell you, you die. Easy, right?”

Whatever the chief was going to say instead stayed lodged in his throat. It seemed he got all the answers he truly needed. But again, the Discordian wasn’t done talking.

The trooper turned towards the other engineers around the room and made sure many of them heard what he had to say.

“And in fact,” he said, “if you do what you’re told, and you do it really well, you’re gonna get a little bonus for your effort. And if you’re really goddamned good on top of it all, like the best damned little engineer in the galaxy, you get to join the rest of the crew officially.

“Isn’t that great? You get to not only live, but you get paid, too! And be part of the Discordian family. You and me and everyone here are gonna reap all sorts of benefits.”

The Discordian then turned back to the chief engineer, who had since come to an understanding of what was actually going on. They were getting press ganged into service, rather than turned into prisoners of war.

“The hell we are!” shouted one of the engineers.

The angered engineer leapt up on his feet, and his fury was absolutely clear in his eyes. He even gesticulated wildly as he spoke, which showed just how passionate he was about not joining the Discordians.

“I swore an oath to protect the Federation,” he said. “We all did. And we’re not just gonna abandon the Fed just to save our own skins! We’re-”

One of the Discordians interrupted his rambling and cut him down with a swipe of his halberd. Dark red energies shimmered as the filament blade swept through the man and cut him neatly in half.

His top half tumbled backwards and hit the floor with a wet THUD even as his bottom half topped forward. Blood flowed out of both halves of his corpse freely and spread out across the ground.

Many of the engineers near him shuffled back, away from the halberd and clear of the blood. They were filled with shock and horror at the violence of it. Some shivered out of absolute fear.

“Hey, you’re free to choose what you want,” said the Discordian. “You don’t have to be with us if you don’t wanna. In fact, we encourage anyone who’d rather stay with the Feds to head to the nearest airlock and let yourself out. We won’t stop you...”

Some version of that conversation occurred all through the devastator itself. Numerous teams of armored assault Discordians stormed the different critical ship sections, eradicated their security, and confronted whoever crew was left.

The various Federation teams capitulated one by one, usually through a show of violence. Though it never took more than a single bloody example. Section by section fell, from security, to gunnery, to sensors, to communications.

Last of all of them was the bridge.

Up there, more than a dozen heavily armored security personnel clogged up the entryway into the bridge itself. They had placed numerous reinforced barriers in a semicircle around it, and posted up directly behind them.

They fired down the passageway beyond, and filled it with an abundance of weapons fire. Streams from their high-powered SMGs and thermal beam rifles scarred the passageway itself. They also riddled the far wall with blackened scars and countless bullet holes.

A handful of Discordians lay dead along the path. A few at the far end, and two inside the passageway itself.

It was clear that the security team took zero chances in keeping the Discordians out. And if anything even so much as twitched in their presence, they fired on it with impunity.

The Discordian in charge of these troopers nudged at one of the others, and pointed down the hallway. Instead of protesting the obviously fatal charge, the trooper hopped up, saluted, then immediately ran in.

He even screamed all the way, which blasted through his sonic emitters.

Despite his gusto and bravery, he was quickly shot up by the bridge defenders. They fired numerous SMG bursts, which caused dozens of bullets to punch through the armor. They perforated his body violently and outright killed him before he even got halfway.

But despite the fact that his screams ended, his body kept on moving.

And even though the defense team kept on firing until they tore open the armor itself, he didn’t stop. His body was literally blasted apart by weapons fire, but nothing stopped his charge.

Or more accurately, the Discordian officer that was holding up his dead body didn’t stop. They came up right behind the trooper, held his corpse up like a shield, and kept on charging forward

The officer slammed right into the bridge defense using the corpse, and threw many of the bridge defenders to the ground. They then threw their former comrade into a crowd of defenders, which knocked them down as well.

And with an open hand, they grasped one of the defenders by the face, then slammed him into the Fed next to him. Then, with their other hand, the officer swung their halberd and cut down two more defenders.

With the defenses breached, the rest of the armored assault Discordians charged in right after.

They advanced on whoever was closest and cut them down with their halberds swiftly and violently. Some were still getting up from being thrown around, only to be knocked back down again more permanently. All it took was a few seconds of vicious slaughter before the High Admiral shouted out in surrender.

He climbed out of the commander’s chair, fell to his knees, then pleaded for the rest of the bridge defenders to lower their weapons.

The Discordian officer turned towards him, then opened up the power armor itself. Its plating slid open from the front and revealed the trooper inside.

Eris stepped out with a grin plastered on her face.

“Open up comms to the rest of the ship,” she told Kovakis.

When he didn’t do anything, one of her Discordians nudged one of the nearby technicians with the butt of his halberd. The tech quickly complied and opened a ship-wide communications alert.

Every terminal and datapad connected to the ship’s network then connected straight to the bridge. More specifically, they showed Kovakis kneeling in front of Eris to every Hegemony ship in the area.

“For those who don’t already know who I am, I’m the Pirate Queen Eris, leader of the Temple of Discord” she began. “And we have commandeered this vessel in the name of... let’s see... me. In the name of me. Can you confirm that please, mister...”

She turned towards Kovakis and prompted him for a response.

“H-high Admiral Kovakis,” he croaked out.

“Ooh, a high admiral!” Eris exclaimed. “How lucky! A serious payday this cycle, huh. Well, lucky for us. Unlucky for you. Federation ranks don’t mean a damn in a Discordian ship.”

“You... you can’t just take a Federation warship!” stammered Kovakis. “There are rules against that! You’re violating galactic convention by doing so! It’s simply uncivil!”

Eris wrenched her face at Kovakis in surprise. She simply couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“Nothing in war’s civil, mister Kovakis,” she replied. “Let me explain.”

She turned back to her opened power armor and reached inside to a secure compartment inside. Then she pulled out a couple of objects, one in each hand.

When she turned back to Kovakis, she presented both of them to him.

In her right was a pistol.

In her left was a golden apple.

“Pick one,” she said.

“I.. I don’t... I don’t understand,” Kovakis replied.

“It’s simple. Either you choose to bite into a beautiful, juicy fruit, or you chew on a bullet instead. Seems to me that the choice is clear. But hey, you never know some people, right? They could choose stupid paths that lead to self destruction.”

Kovakis frowned in disbelief. There wasn’t any real choice in front of him.

He could betray his galactic nation, the place where he was born, where he grew up, where he gained power and wealth. He was among the few elite High Admirals in the Federal Navy, and held a great amount of sway and influence.

His capitulation would mean the complete loss of all of it.

Then again, having a bullet tear his brain apart would mean the exact same thing, only in a more permanent sense.

His shoulders slumped as his head bobbed forward in defeat.

“I’m at your mercy,” he said. “This ship is yours.”

“The ship was already mine, mister Kovakis,” Eris replied. “I’m just glad I didn’t have to put a bullet in you.”

She gestured at one of her Discordians, who grabbed Kovakis’ arm roughly.

“Take him to the brig,” she commanded. “I’ll interrogate him later.”

“Wait, what?” cried Kovakis. “I thought you were making me join your crew!”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Eris laughed. “The data you have in your noggin there is far more valuable than whatever you can offer as a combat officer. Hell, you lost so easily that I wouldn’t want your so-called combat kills to taint my navy.

“No, no, no. We’re gonna pull everything we’ve got from your head instead. Ten times more valuable than anything else you can offer me.”

Kovakis began to scream and beg and plead, even as he was dragged away. But Eris didn’t care either no matter what he shouted out. Instead, she dusted off the commander’s chair then plopped down into it.

“Alright, well,” she said. “Let’s finish off this fight, shall we? Aim all broadside guns at the remaining Federation battleships around us, and fire on my marks.”