Coldstone Chronicles: The Enclave (Clip)

This is a small part of a story that I’m writing, a lot of it is on paper, so I haven’t gotten a chance to type it up yet. Its probably my favourite section, things make a bit more sense if you’ve read the rest of the story, but I think it’s decent anyways. This is a pretty shoddy first draft, so I might update it eventually, but for now it’s just this. Just a bit of background so its more understandable, Avatars are human minds linked to giant battle machines. The Enclave is a very powerful Nazi-like organization that is making an attempt to annihilate all “impure” humans (Mutants, genetic anomalies, hybrids, basically any sentient creature that isn’t 100% human.

(Editor’s Note: Story Begins)

Jason slammed on the controller. The faint rattle of the twin miniguns mounted on top of the craft began to send echoes reverberating around the cabin. Cigar sized bullets shot across the empty sky over the surface of New Chicago. The Enclave jet dived to avoid the hail of white-hot bullets sailing across the cloudless grey sky.

Jason hit the accelerator, feeding nanowats of nuclear energy to the glowing white engines. The craft shot forward, as Jason slowly tilted the joystick downward, pointing the craft directly at the Enclave jet, which had just come out of its dive. He turned the miniguns off, not wanting to cause further damage to the already decimated city of New Chicago.

He evened out the joystick, falling behind the jet by almost half a mile, according to his systems. He activated the miniguns again, pelting the titanium hull with thousands of metal projectiles. The jet accelerated, pulling farther downwards. Jason turned after it.
He looked out the large monitor that acted as a window, and watched as two flaming objects detached from the jet’s wings and propelled themselves backwards at Jason’s craft. He pulled up, turning the view to minigun control. He aimed carefully at the two missiles, hastily turning to pursue Jason’s craft. He let loose a burst of bullets at the first. Several appeared to have hit, but they did not manage to penetrate the bullet-proof armour of the missile. Only one thing left to do. After firing a few rounds at the jet, he turned back into pilot control. He pulled the ship into a dive, heading for the tallest building he could find. The opportunity presented itself in a collapsed skyscraper. He dived lower, slowing down to let the missile gain a little, then he hit the afterburners.

The ship shot through the morning sky, making a soft buzzing followed by a tremendous shattering sound as it crashed through the skeleton of the building. The missile was thrown off by the debris, and detonated in a miniature nuclear explosion. Only one of the many signs of the ruthlessness of the enclave.

But the second missile was unaccounted for, that is, until it slammed into the engines of the UES StormCrow, detonating and annihilating the small craft.

Cryo ducked as another shell exploded above them. Most of the jets had been shot down by the SAM batteries. It was not without cost, nearly the entire city of New Chicago had been levelled by the ruthless blasts of the Enclave Jet’s “Cleanser” missiles, and the occasional Shatter Bomb. Cryo could only hope that the reinforcements from Mars and MARS II would be able to prevent the Enclave transports from landing, and the Ver-Ash remnant would be able to prevent further assault craft from leaving Horus.

Cryo shot another few capsules from her Fission Rifle. She ran across the street, taking cover in the ruins of a collapsed bar.

“Avatars, nail that sucker.” Cryo said to the huge “avatars.” pointing at an Enclave mech.

There were three small clicks. The Avatars guns blazed for about half a second, before the enclave mech collapsed, at least a hundred holes in the back of his armour. Cryo beckoned, brushing dust from her puffy blue hair. With a click, the expelled the exhausted power cell in her fission rifle, and rammed a fresh charge home, locking it into place. She then took out a small computer, and called up a street directory, pressing a few keys and glancing up at the road signs near a pile of shattered glass from a fallen traffic light.

“We need to go about one mile north, there’s another Enclave transport coming in, that’s it’s landing site, a private airport. We have to take the transport out. “

“Commander, how is this getting us anywhere? We need to take out Scimnan, or else the forces will keep coming!” said a young soldier.

“Shut up you idealistic piece of crap! The Enclave is sending hundreds of thousands of soldiers down here to annihilate free Earth. With the Mars colony lost, and MARS II under fire Earth is the last pocket of humanity. We will not let Scimnan and the Enclave wipe out free humanity!” Cryo shouted.

She turned away from the young soldier, and called to one of the avatars. “Dethel, run a rad-sweep of the area, find where the next transport is touching down. I’m going to arrange a little surprise for them, but I’m going to need to bring a few friends.”

Jason tumbled from the wreckage of his craft, fumbling madly with his parachute, he was only about a thousand feet up, and even with a parachute, the fall might be fatal. He sailed downward, the shattered windows of the skyscraper racing past him as he fell. He suddenly felt a tremendous jolt, as his parachute suddenly deployed catching the air, slowing his fall considerably. He floated on the breeze, drifting away from the skyscraper and the flaming wreckage that had begun to rain downwards. A few battles in the streets were clearly visible, mostly civilians with small arms trying to fend off the behemoth Enclave infantry. He noticed another area below him, there appeared to be several Avatars and a large cluster of troops surrounded by many dead enclave soldiers. He floated over them until it was clear that they had seen him. He activated a set of small thrusters and drifted in their direction, sailing lower. He was only a few feet up when he recognized the bright blue hair of the commander.

“Cryo!” he shouted as he touched down, detaching his parachute and running towards her.

“How can I help?” she responded with an almost amused smirk.

“I was tailing an Enclave jet, that’s pretty much it.” Jason replied sheepishly.

“Well, I was about to contact you, but I guess that won’t be needed.” She spoke more quietly now. “Look, I’m trying to find the next transport to touch down, the avatars are doing a sweep. I think I know where Scimnan is, but I’ll be disobeying a direct order.”

“You never had a problem with disobeying orders when I was in charge.” He joked.

Cryo smiled slightly, then continued. “Scimnan has gotta be at MARS II.”

“What makes you think that?” Jason responded, serious this time.

“Look at the facts, he’s not going to be on Horus, after the EAP exploded, no armour in the world could resist that much radiation, even an Avatar Mark II would be toast. Mars is too dangerous. They hit the Bio Domes in the attacks and even a starship’s supplies cant last very long on Mars. Even support using plants, they die off fast on Mars.” Cryo spoke fast and squeakily.
“What—” Jason started but was cut off by Cryo.

“...and there’s no way he’s going to risk Earth, just too dangerous.” Cryo finished, looking surprised at her own insight.

“Cryo, are you suggesting that—” Jason interrupted again,

“We are going to go aboard the transport. I don’t mean crawl in, when I finish, every soldier on that piece of crap will be dead. Forget the orders, we have an opportunity, maybe the rest of the world has an opportunity too, but I’m going to pursue that opportunity. Scimnan is going to die, it doesn't matter if I have to take MARS II along with it.”

Jason nodded. “I'm with you. I might not have learned a lot from the time we’ve known each other, but I have learned that you always seem to be right.”

Cryo smiled and started to speak, but she was cut off by the sudden sound of gunfire. Reflexively, she grabbed her Fission rifle, and dived behind an overturned metal trashcan. Peering over the rim, she saw a horde of Enclave soldiers running down the street. Behind them was what looked like a giant four-legged mech that almost resembled a giant spider. Cryo heard shouts as several soldiers were gunned down by Enclave fire before they could reach cover. But the Avatars stood their ground. Cryo aimed carefully, then fired her fission rifle. A white hot metal projectile shot from her gun, surrounded by a translucent white gas. It sailed through the air, than hit an oncoming Enclave soldier. It pierced the armour, than the gas exploded into flame in side the soldier’s chest, bringing a quick demise. The spider-mech clattered into the scattered soldiers, running into range of the Avatars. The fired. The miniguns twirled for a second before sending a hail of bullets up at the mech and into the ranks of the soldiers. The mech was twice as tall as the avatars, and now that it was close, a long metal rod that resembled a stinger jutted out from the bottom of its “body.” The purpose of the rod was suddenly visible as a ray of red plasma gas shot out from it. It hit one of the avatars, then dimmed to nothing. For a moment, it seemed like there was no effect. Than the avatars armours suddenly began to disintegrate, a bright line running across it from head to foot, disintegrating the armour and it’s contents as it descended. it vaporized the Avatar in a few seconds, all that was visible was the single burnt bit of flesh that was the mind and soul of the avatar. The remaining two avatars ran into cover inside a large tall ceilinged lobby, smashing through the remaining bits of iron and glass.

To be continued

(This message has been edited by moderator (edited 03-02-2004).)