Vector To The Heavens

Template:FlagIconCarrier Prime
Template:FlagIconMarauder
Template:FlagIconMecoptera
Template:FlagIconRetribution
Template:FlagIconSilver Knight

> Shit, this reminds me of something good and bad at the same time, but I don't know what. And seems like we're already fighting, which is always good.
>
> Basilius

Armor Corps deploys to destroy a spaceship-building facility on Ascension Island.

## Summary

Approaching Ascension Island onboard the ACS Suggestive, the ACC team runs their final checks and prepares to take off from the *Suggestive'*s launch pad. Tommy attempts to convince the other pilots to let him steal one of the spaceships rather than blow them up, but is ignored by the rest of the team.

The pilots take off, either flying on their own power or being carried by their teammates. At about 1300 meters from the shoreline, the pilots start taking fire from the island's defenses in the form of a volley of missiles from the island's east end. Marauder takes the brunt of the missiles to the face, crashing into the island's volcanic shore. Valkyrie, who had been riding on the Heavy suit's back, is able to leap off before the missiles hit and makes it to the shore unscathed, spotting the two missile batteries built into the mountainside that had fired at her. Silver Knight dodges all incoming fire and makes it to the shoreline untroubled, his BIS detecting a patrol of enemy Light suits heading for them. Tommy tries to use Carrier Prime's Magnetic Force Emitter to push the slow-skimming Mecoptera across the water faster. He winds up being more successful than he could have hoped for, as a power surge sends the Mecoptera hurtling into the mountainside, causing the Fortress light damage but getting it to the island without having to worry about any more missiles. Tommy's attempts to rectify the situation cause him to miss the missiles heading for him, leading to the Mecoptera taking heavy damage, knocking it out of the air and dropping into the water.

Silver Knight notifies the others about the incoming Lights before rushing ahead to intercept them. He shorts out the generator of the first Light he hits, causing it the fall into the ocean, and splits his attacks between another three, wounding but failing to kill any of them.
From Mecoptera's vantage point on the backside of the small mountain, Ryman sees the larger Green Mountain, with two large blast doors built into its side, defended by metalstorm turrets. Acting quickly, Ryman is able to slip a spyware program into the island's defense network before the firewalls come into full effect. He's able to tell that the island garrison is being mobilized and help has been called for, and that most of the island's defenses are concentrated on the western end. The Mecoptera crawls over the top of the smaller mountain and enters siege mode, deploying its Heavy drones and preparing to assault the island's defense network.
Still knocked out in the ocean, Tommy makes a feeble attempt to repair Carrier Prime, but doesn't have any scrap on hand to do more than patch some holes in the hull.
Basilius makes it to the shoreline, but has been battered heavily by missiles the entire time and is heavily damaged. He activates his Limiter Release to get as close to death as possible.

Worried about the reinforcements, Marauder suggests to Silver Knight and Valkyrie to get back on his suit so they can rush the Green Mountain rather than get bogged down on the beach. Valkyrie hops back on, but Silver Knight is still busy with the Light squad he engaged, so Marauder and Valkyrie take off on their own.
Ryman pesters Silver Knight to accept his command link, though Silver Knight is more focused on fighting, so Pally accepts the link for him. Bas attempts to work some repairs on his falling-apart suit, stooping down and eating the wreckage of the missile batteries to digest for raw materials.

Marauder and Valkyrie fly past the blast doors on Green Mountain and head for the center of the island. Roughly below them, they see a large, factory-looking building, as well as an airfield on the west end of the island mobilizing another squad of Light suits.
Silver Knight dodges or absorbs the attacks from the Light's he's currently fighting. He spears one of them through with his sword, and the man dies clinging to him, managing to pull Mark's sword from his hand as he falls. Mark switches to his powerfists and shorts out the power to the remaining Lights with his EMP attacks, causing the remaining Lights to fall to their deaths.
Tommy attempts to hack the network of the metalstorm turrets guarding the blast doors and succeeds, disabling their autotargeting and making them safe to approach. As Carrier Prime finally hits the beach, next attempts to work some repairs on Bas, however Bas eating the scrap doesn't leave him with anything to work with.
Landing outside the factory building, Valkyrie hops off Marauder's back and sets fire to a corner of the building with her flamethrower, watching the nearest entrance to see if anyone comes outside. Marauder likewise fires some rockets at the building, intending to leave Valkyrie to her pyromania and get up to the hangar doors.
Silver Knight shakes off the aftermath of his fight against the Lights and recovers his sword.
Ryman continues to try and penetrate the island's defense network, though it puts up a stern fight against him. He manages to get in on the second try, immediately triggering his Defense Maze prematurely and spamming their HUDs with pictures of cheese, as well as disabling the Defense Maze of everyone connected to his command network.

> Ehhhh...Sorry about zhat. It's a... defensive measure. Eheheh. Heh.
>
> Ryman, closing seven tabs with facts about cheese.

Valkyrie's attempts to set fire to the building set off some kind of alarm, and Marauder's rockets blow a section of the building's wall wide open, revealing a very large machine shop inside. The Lights mobilizing from the western airstrip fly overhead before they can investigate further, dropping grenades on the both of them as they pass. The Lights then fire their plasma rifles at Silver Knight, but the plasma bolts fail to do any damage to him. He does notice that the airfield to the west seems to have a new shuttle there that wasn't present before.
Carrier Prime struggles to keep pace with Basilius as Bas starts climbing the side of Green Mountain to get to the hangar doors, continuing to attempt to make repairs all the while. Unfortunately, Tommy's repair attempts continue to fail.

Quick to make up for his blunder, Ryman works deftly to slice into the island's defense network, trying to find anything he can on the status of the island's spaceships. He finds only scrap data, however, will the island's digital network having been purged while the firewalls held off the attack, and a trap left in its place for him to stumble in to. Ryman slumps forwards in his seat inside the Mecoptera as his cyberbrain reboots without its technician module.
Ryman shuts down the Mecoptera upon waking back up after a few seconds and gets with Rymaid to try and hack his cyberbrain back into full functionality.
Valkyrie avoids the grenades dropped by the passing Lights and flies up to take them down from behind, badly wounding two of them and killing the third outright. The two unharmed Lights are terrified at the sight and attempt to flee, only to be gunned down by Marauder in revenge for not being able to dodge their sticky grenades.
Carrier Prime is able to gain control of the remaining metalstorm turrets, but doesn't share Ryman's luck(?) in penetrating the island's defense network.
Basilius, having finally reached the blast doors, deploys and ultra greatsword and gets to work battering through the heavy doors. He manages to open a breach in the hangar doors, only to greet a cannon on the other side.

The cannon fires, but is blocked thanks to a point barrier from Carrier Prime, giving Basilius enough time to dodge the second shot. Carrier Prime, suffering minor hull damage from Basilius dropping his sword on it, launches a flurry of hacks at the attacker and manages to force the suit to go into emergency evacuation mode, then shut down, causing the pod to fall and slide down the mountainside.
Ryman, dissatisfied with Rymaid's attempts to restore functionality to his brain, decides he's better off hacking his *own* brain, and, surprisingly, manages to succeed. He quickly reactivates the Mecoptera, directing his scavenger drones to salvage for repairs. Unfortunately, the drone only brings back a cape of human skin flayed from one the the Light's corpses, and a major malfunction causes his radar to explode.
Valkyrie flies towards the shield volcano to the northwest while Marauder works to get his suit unstuck. She doesn't fly too far before she gets a ping from an unknown source attempting to open a communications channel with her. Silver Knight attempts to contact Ryman to inquire about the new arrivals, instead getting a similar communications request.

Carrier Prime rolls down to the deactivated escape pod and starts taking it apart from the outside. Tommy quickly reaches the cockpit, and the pilot bursts out, firing a pistol at Carrier Prime, declaring he'll never be taken alive.
Valkyrie connects to Carrier Prime's command network, asking for Tommy to watch out for her in case she gets hacked, before accepting the comms invitation.

> Greetings, Valkyrie. I - am here to accept your surrender. You've done a great job of murdering the garrison forces here and scaring the workers, but that's as far as you go."
> "Oh no, threats from a radio. So scary.
>
> Valkyrie accepts and disconnects with the mysterious communication request.

> ... you do know WHO you’re talking to, right?” \*chuckles\* “Valkyrie will only give up arms once they’re so far up your ass you can feel the up ticking your teeth... probably an unnecessarily gross example.”
> "Then we'll cut her arms off, if that's what it takes.
>
> Silver Knight likewise tries to banter with the speaker.

Basilius retrieves his sword and looks through the hole he made in the blast doors, spying a hangar on the other side with several large hulls in various states of construction.
Inside Carrier Prime, Tommy tries to tell the suitless enemy pilot to stop. Editi, however, quickly uses the suit's tentacles to break the man's wrists, pull him inside the suit, and strap him down to a chair for future horrors unknown, before rolling back up to the hangar.

> ~Oh ho ho ho! Calling me a monster? You are CLEARLY saying so too early. My Test. Subject.~
>
> Editi promises more science crimes to her new captive.

Tommy is too elated by the sight of the spaceships to care, and declares he's stealing them. Tommy absentmindedly goes over the items taken from Editi's new prisoner; an unremarkable pistol, and a vial of glowing liquid. He then requests Ryman's help with stealing said ships, before finding the nearest terminal to plug in to. Unfortunately, by now the external networks have been completely wiped clean, leaving nothing of interest in any of ther hangar terminals.

Valkyrie flies towards the source of the comms request, which she correctly guesses to be the landing strip. There, she sees two armored figures waiting for her, one in black, and the other in white. She immediately fires her scorpion cannon at them, but the attack is promptly blocked by a point barrier from the white suit. The white suit offers the AC pilots another chance to surrender.
Ryman attempts to repairs his suit's radar, but the sensor remains stubbornly broken. The Mecoptera crawls from its perch behind the smaller of the two volcanic mountains and starts climbing up the larger Green Mountain, making sweeps with its other sensors and seeing what else it can find from the island's defense network.
Marauder meanwhile approaches Green Mountain from the opposite side, finding a smaller set of blast doors large enough to barely fit a Heavy through. Marauder blows open the doors with his Cross and makes his way into the mountain.
Basilius forces the blast doors to the hangar open and looks around, counting out four to six hulls, and enters the hangar to get a closer look, trying to see if any of them could be activated.

Valkyrie doesn't waste a breath on further talk after her scorpion cannon is deflected, charging the white suit with her melee weapons drawn. Silver Knight speeds up and falls in line with her, aiming for the black suit. An artillery shell fired by the Mecoptera lands between Valkyrie and the white suit, but neither fighter is thrown off by the attack, instead flying through the explosion at one another.
Marauder heads down a series of well-kept corridors, passing another blast door between a fork in the hall, and following it all the way to its end, coming face to face with Carrier Prime.
Tommy, while continuing to search for any useful information, also attempts to lend a hand in the fight going on outside by hacking the black suit. In doing so, he automatically triggers a counterhack, causing Editi to suddenly be ripped out of his suit's systems. Tommy is thrown off by the hack and mistakes Marauder for an enemy, asking Ryman for help over the comms network and not immediately noticing Editi's disappearance. Marauder, also on the command link, deadpan tells Tommy is him.

The duel between Valkyrie and the white suit begins in favor of Valkyrie, with the white suit's opening attacks being poorly aimed and Valkyrie landing several good hits on him. She keeps up the pressure, even having Othinus join her in hologram form to distract her opponent. Silver Knight is likewise able to get a good opening bout against his black-armored opponent, avoiding the enemy's huge sword easily.
Basilius wanders over to Carrier Prime and Marauder, asking what Tommy needed help with. Realizing Tommy made a mistake, Basilius goes back to looking at the ships, trying to see if it would be possible to fly one of them out of the hangar. Tommy brushes off Editi's disappearance, still thinking she's only been shut down, and continues to wander the hangar plugging into random terminals.
Regaining his footing, the white suit barks and order to the black one, causing wireless communications to go out across the island.

Marauder retraces his steps back to the blast door from earlier. He blows it open with one of his weapons and is rewarded with terrified shrieks and screams of the room's occupants. Marauder promptly fires a sticky grenade into the room, disabling everyone inside.
Tommy meanwhile starts to panic slightly, realizing Editi is no longer within Carrier Prime. He eventually follows Marauder's path and finds the command center, quickly plugging into the nearest terminal there.
Basilius meanwhile climbs inside one of the ship hulls, trying to see if there's some way he can reach the cockpit and fly it out of the hangar.

Outside, Valkyrie and Silver Knight continue to battle the black and white suits, with Silver Knight finally slipping up on his dodging and taking a bad hit from his opponent.
Valkyrie and the white suit cross blades, and white takes the opportunity to gloat, confirming Valkyrie's suspicions that he's definitely up to something. Valkyrie orders Silver Knight to trade opponents, firing her grappling hooks at the black suit and pulling herself towards it, shoving a wormport into the black suit's shoulder as she hits it.
Silver Knight recovers from the black suit's strike and shoulder checks the white suit, forcing him away from Valkyrie. Although Valkyrie is only in contact with the black suit for a few seconds, it is enough for her to upload Othinus into the black suit's cyberbrain, who is able to recover Editi as well as two other AI that were hiding inside it.
The black suit clutches his head and screams, and the white suit picks up the speed of his attacks in response.

> God damn it Othinus, what the hell did you bring back?"
> <Editi. And the AIs belonging to salt & pepper here.>
> "My god Tommy is never going to live this down is he."
> <Never.>
>
> Othinus rejoins Valkyrie, with some guests.

Back inside the command center, Tommy is able to piece together scraps of data from what hasn't already been wiped by the room's human occupants, finding a partially complete list of ships that either were slated for construction or where already completed.
With the comms blackout still in place and not much for Marauder to do in the command center, he decides to head back outside to check on the others, asking Tommy not to torture the incapacitated humans in the room with him before leaving. Upon exiting, he sees the two on two battle going on and immediately decides to get involved, firing a salvo at the still stunned black suit and a sticky grenade at the white suit. The black suit tanks the shots, looking several battered from the attack, but the light suit manages to avoid the grenade.
Valkyrie and Silver Knight team up on the white suit, who weathers the assault
Not having any luck finding a way to pilot the spaceships, Basilius decides the next best thing to do is to do what they all came here for, fires two artillery cannons at the ship hulls. They're poorly aimed, however, and wind up glancing off the hulls, with one blowing out a chunk of the ceiling and another bouncing further down the hangar and causing something to explode in the distance.
Tommy decides to use a recording of Editi's voice to threaten the humans for information, causing them all to start desperately shouting over one another. While doing so, he continues to probe what remains of the base's network for more information on the spaceships. However, something goes wrong as he tries and remotely primes the ship's engines. Combined with Basilius' missed shots from just earlier, Tommy triggers an explosion in the hangar that quickly expands to consume the whole shipyard, blowing out the side of Green Mountain and vaporizing Basilius instantly.

> This is why I stick to hitting stuff with other stuff held in my hands, or just my hands.
>
> Basilius' final words.

The white suit shifts his wing-shield to his back and pulls out a second sword, doubling his attacks against Valkyrie. The black suit, meanwhile, uses his jump jets to slam into Silver Knight. However, he overshoots his target, and instead slams his huge sword into the ground and uses it to jump back at his target, armed only with his fists. Ryman attempts to support Silver Knight with more autocannon fire, missing the black suit, though his Heavy drones do manage a glancing hit on the white one. Marauder has better luck, continuing to pummel him with a metalstorm. Marauder then fires a Cross shot, but the attack is blocked by a point barrier from the white suit, who manages to avoid further retaliatory shots.

Realizing he may have made a mistake, Tommy quickly grabs whoever looks most useful from the stuck crowd of workers and flees the collapsing command center. Exiting the smaller set of doors, Tommy spots the melee going on below and tries to throw out fire support, missing all of his shots, but offering up a point barrier to Valkyrie. Joined with a point barrier from Silver Knight, the first two attacks from the white suit are blocked, but the remaining attacks are remarkably on point, cutting off both of Valkyrie's arms.
Valkyrie is convinced by Othinus to retreat, firing a grappling hook at her zweihander and fleeing back to Carrier Prime. With Silver Knight busy fighting the black suit, Marauder steps in to draw attention from Valkyrie, slapping Silver Knight with some repair gel as he flies over.

Tommy has Carrier Prime enter siege mode as soon as it gets near the airfield. Valkyrie is able to reach him and once inside uploads Edtiti back into the Fort ball. Finding himself unable to administer field repairs to Valkyrie, Tommy instead tries to puts the rest of his power towards using his MFE to grab the black suit and fling it out to sea. The black suit is unaffected by the first attempt, however, instead activating its own Limiter Release and using a grappling hook to recover its lost ultra greatsword. Silver Knight puts away his own sword in response and tries to shut it down with repeated shock fist attacks. Carrier Prime's attempts to yank the black suit finally work at this point, pulling the enemy suit out over the water. However, the sound immediately bounces back on his jump jets, target switched to Carrier Prime. The black suit slams into CP, killing the prisoners Tommy had taken from the command center and actually managing to crack Carrier Prime's hull open. The black suit starts to climb inside, but luckily Mark is able to use his jump jets to ram into the black suit and pull him off Carrier Prime and into the ocean.
In the water, Silver knight pummels the black suit with his fists before drawing his sword and cutting through the enemy's left arm. This time the black suit finally seems to be overwhelmed, as his armor locks up and he sinks into the ocean depths.
Marauder continues to skirmish with the white suit, managing to shrug off the enemy's melee attacks with his heavy armor and aegis layer. With their objectives complete and casualties starting to mount, Marauder urges the AC pilots to retreat. He is joined by Lt. Lykken, now no linger squelched by the electronic interference, ordering the team retreat back to the ACS *Suggestive*.
Tommy recovers from his daze and activates Carrier Prime's emergency evacuation, hoping to get himself and Valkyrie off the island without any further troubles, while also remarking that he can't wait to get into space. Marauder hits the white suit with a sticky grenade before doubling back to pick up Silver Knight out of the water, combining with the smaller suit to boost their speed back to the waiting submarine.

## Aftermath

The traitor's ship building facility is destroyed, but veteran pilot Basilius is dead. Other pilots that had fought with him over the years would come to offer their respects as his name was added to the Memorial Wall. Valkyrie was able to successfully capture two enemy AI, transferring one to the ACS *Luck*, and the other to a closed-network avatar drone for interrogation. ACC also discovered the existence of what appeared to be a new combat drug in the hands of the traitors.