Space Odyssey: Spectre-Chapter 205: Entering Elder’s Church

Jace rolled in between a pair of Mar’talics who were raising their weapons. They were using some kind of plasma based weapon. But he ignored them in favor of the group that were moving into the door. Apparently him shooting through just about everything had an impact on the enemies.

Those with too weak of a will were running. That includes the ones who were closest to the structure. They had begun opening the door so they could run inside and hopefully get cover from Jace’s Wildfire assault rifle.

But they were met by another type of attack as red lasers burst out of the door as soon as they cracked it open even slightly. The laser tore threw the running enemies like they were paper. Their body’s burned instead of bled. The chunks that were left nearest the impact point of the lasers had ash surrounding it.

Jace ran up to the side of the entrance and looked inside. Then he snapped back out before any of the lasers made contact with his head. Clicking his tongue in annoyance as he took a step away from the doorway and looked toward where Uti and Josef were making their way over.

They were moving through the enemies like he was. Now that the entire area had been littered with them. They were moving about in chaos with some of the enemies being injured or killed while firing their weapons and using their natural gifts to their advantage.

Uti was smaller but more agile and that was allowing him to under and around his larger opponents while firing where he could. Only getting into a hand to scuffle a few times because of another Ola. Uti’s armor shielding was triggered a few times as he was hit. But when Jace glanced over he saw the shield go down and in response Uti used an enemy Ola as a living shield as he moved.

Josef on the other hand was sprinting in between the buildings. His large height meant that he could not stay out in the open for long. His large weapon was constantly being used in hand-to-hand combat. An attached blade on the underside of the weapon was cutting through his enemies as he moved. By the time he arrived next to Jace, the enemies knew to get out of his melee range.

"What are we doing waiting out here?" Josef asked as he glanced at the door for a moment before turning and firing his weapon at the crowd of enemy soldiers who were taking up positions to attack them. The majority were still running but the brave few who were not terrified beyond belief were taking the fight to them, at least until they lost a limb or their life.

Jace sighed as he raised his rifle and fired at a few rooftops and windows where enemy soldiers began aiming at them. His rifle fires a few shots, one for each enemy. "We are taking up position around this door until I figure out what we should do." Jace explained while he nodded at the burning bodies of the enemies who tried to take cover in the building.

"What happened to them?" Uti asked as he crouched so he was hidden behind some cover.

"Lasers originating from inside the building, I only showed an edge of my helmet and they started firing." Jace explained as he crouched down, "They were coming from an upward angle, so I assume they are firing from a higher vantage point. But there is no telling if there are other weapons or traps waiting for us."

"So how are we getting inside, because I can see the heavier duty weapons and tanks heading our way." Josef asked as Jace glanced outward and saw what he met. Their initial blitz had an effect, but now the enemy were recovering, likely because someone had taken charge of the disorganized mess they had left behind.

Jace nodded his head and then looked upward. "We need an alternate entrance they are not expecting." He pointed upwards and made sure both of them saw him doing it. He then put the Wildfire on his back and climbed the wall.

He was a few feet up when he heard a loud boom and it was followed by something impacting the wall to his left. He glanced back and saw one of the tanks had missed him. But it did end up creating a hole in the wall. He jumped through the hole landing on unsteady feet as he landed on some type of statue. But before he got a chance to get his handle on where he was he had to dodge to the side as a barrage of those red lasers came at him.

He hit something and fell to the ground. As he pulled himself up he realized he was on a balcony. He was hidden by whatever was shooting lasers by a stone and metal column. He moved up to it and peaked out the side to see what was shooting at them.

He only had a second to see it before he moved back behind the column as it started firing at him. It was not a person or enemy soldier. Instead it was an automated turret with one of the Requiem AIs attached to it. For a single second he could see it. There were not any blind spots in its positioning.

But the closest piece of cover was a small bit or railing. He would have to get close to disable the turret. Especially since it seemed to shoot at just about every living thing. He could tell because as he looked around the other side of the column he realized that there were a large number of corpses around.

"Spectre Jace should we enter through the hole?" Uti asked with a squeaky voice.

"Negative climb higher but move side to side so they have to keep guessing the angles they have to shoot you. I will meet you up on the second floor when I get there." Jace informed them as he ran in between columns dodging the turret’s red lasers. A second later the turret rotated and began firing at the entrance. He could hear screams in one or multiple Victorium languages as someone was killed.

"Understood." Josef answered before they continued.

As Jace neared the turret his helmet suddenly picked up a communication signal that was being broadcast worldwide. Actually from the message frequency it was likely going beyond just this planet, it was likely a message that was going to entire Victorium territories.

"This is Elder Pi’ali to all of our anti-Victorium forces. The rebellion has begun. It is time to take control back from the dictators and insanity of the Government and Military Council. The High Priestess has become a madwoman intent on adding the filthy humans to the fold. Unfortunately this will never happen because we have full control of our ancestors’ gifts that they left for us. But we still need help, the filthy humans have set foot on our capital planet of Yati. We request assistance in taking down these Victorium scum who have gathered on Yati. It is time to make our stand!" The transmission played on a loop while Jace moved closer to the turret.

He was behind another pillar that was the second position closer to the turret when he received another communication on another encrypted channel. "Spectre Jace, this is Isaiah. Did you hear that broadcast?"

"I did, what do you want me to do about it?" Jace asked as he took a moment before moving to the final barrier before he arrived at the turret. It was firing again at the door as another group of what he was hoping were enemies were peaking inside.

"We managed to trace the signal to the Elder’s Church which is where you are located. It should be somewhere on the fifth floor. We are shooting down anything that tries to fly over or out of the place but that will change if any enemy ships arrive in orbit. That means you have maybe an hour before Elder Pi’ali escapes." Isaiah explained.

"Understood." Jace then switched channels. "Hover bike team, what is your progress?" Jace asked as he moved to the next bit of cover. But he only stopped for a moment as the turret began firing at his cover. Then he ran forward and slid right under the turret. Raising his hand and grabbing the underside of the laser gun and pushing it upwards. Causing it to shoot at the roof while he reached in and began disconnecting the enslaving device attached to the AI core.

"We just arrived at the elevator and are entering it now, why do you ask?" Vana asked.

"Make sure you disable all the elevators after you arrive at the first floor. We do not want anyone escaping." Jace explained as the enslavement device disconnected. Then the turret stopped trying to move down and shoot him, it instead moved back to the door and began shooting the Elder Council’s soldiers who began moving in when Jace was distracting the turret. The turret was turning them to lifeless piles of ash while Jace turned and began walking down a hallway the turret was protecting.