Week 26: Where They Wanted Him [Unedited]

Sometimes, people looked for the home run ball when a couple singles and a stolen base would have sufficed. For Boyd, he had already lain down a successful bunt to get himself on base and taken advantage of a soft, late-inning no-doubles defense in order to steal his way into scoring position. What more could have been asked of the Enforcer other than to use sound judgment in this position as a threat to score, moving forward? He had an entire team coming to bat behind him - willing to go to bat for him to see to his safe passage and arrival at home (base). The potential for doing too much and getting picked off was always a concern, but what happened when there was a real, lingering possibility of not having done enough?

An adult among children, Boyd had to know that his individual power in and over this situation was the kind of stuff of legend that Galaxy Bloc's leadership could only dream about with helplessly dangling tongues - salivating in anticipation for just a taste. And who was he to deny them at least a sip?

Plus, it was clear from the specifications which scrolled across the screen on Boyd's minicomputer that this military assortment of Nakamura XRTP's, FRHT's, AUCD's, HNFV's, and a whole host of other acronyms that he did not have time to figure out were acquired by the unincorporated planets with the idea in mind of them being able to provide for their own defense. As was Galaxy Bloc's prerogative to seek out a third-party supplier, the sleek XRTP tanks, flashy FRHT fighters, ability-augmenting AUCD combat suits, and intriguingly complex HNFV personalized weaponry of Nakamura Industries apparently won a closed bid session where the Space Force had not been invited. Whether it was the bells and whistles of the synchronization technology or the underwater cost that these weapons had to have been sold at in order for them to even be able to afford the technology when food had to have taken precedent, there seemed to be a growing misconception going around that dominance could be purchased and respect would be earned.

But that was not how this universe worked. In fact, that was not what history showed either. A faction's dominance always came from stolen technology, and respect needed to be taken as well. The Space Force did not become one of the largest empires in the universe because they bought a lot of military equipment. Other factions, either already reigning from the top or seemingly on the rise, would never have allowed that. Technological leaps and bounds were sequestered through deceit, murder, and treachery. So Boyd decided to call an example of this to his aid with some quick keystrokes on the minicomputer's touchscreen.

"He thinks that this is a game," General Lise Canoy (the name of the troop leader according to Boyd's minicomputer) said disgustedly of his blatant reluctance to surrender. And it burned her up as the intruder dismissively typed away on that device like this army was not even posted there! From standing atop the lead XRTP turret aperture, she commanded, "Take...him...out!"

The spacing was good - professional. Boyd continued to scope out the positioning under the third eye of his minicomputer that he so missed while previously running around underground without its technical luxuries.

The XRTP's held back a ways from the entrance so that they could get a clear shot at Boyd with their swivel cannons and a clean shot which also would not obliterate the topside portion of the Power Authority. This was all occurring within the middle of a city block where rush hour congestion could grind the main thoroughfare to a tedious, bumper-to-bumper halt. The tanks made use of the spacious areas surrounding the main complex for them to be able to spread out, but only a semicircle of seven units built up that front line. The others gummed up the streets as a spacious grid-point spattering which formed an outer circumferential perimeter around the city while allowing their dexterous armaments to fill in the gaps to the aerial defense around the area.

Boyd was pinned down, but he was not necessarily trapped. The threat of damaging the Power Authority could be used to back the XRTP's off, but retreating toward the facility defeated the purpose of him escaping Dio Qze. As a result, the Enforcer danced to his right side when the initial and incessant barrage of swivel cannon fire (which was meant to destroy vehicles) blasted both him and the location that cratered under the strain of laser bursts. Thankfully, the gauntlet technology in the combat gear continued to radiate its protection, but standing there and getting pummeled was not a long-term solution by any stretch of the imagination.

It was the place of the LUNC to come to the rescue here, and the weapon did so with a vengeance. Boyd first unleashed a spread of laser pulses to either side of his body which sent the six tanks on the wings reeling aimlessly backward. They looked like a car suffering from the concussive force of a head-on collision with their brakes engaged but futilely holding back the rear tread from raising off the ground under the pressure. He then took aim with a more centered shot that cut through and negated a much larger burst from the lead tank while meeting the conclusion of its flight within the opening of the swivel gun turret.

General Canoy hopped down from the XRTP and braced as the tank exploded with a deafening boom which had to have shaken the entire city. The brunt of the eruption could likely be seen in the instant of its happening, and many who were not familiar with what was going on might have likened the occurrence to a (power) transformer explosion. As a result, the General's body was sent skidding a few yards across the pavement, and the rest of the posted Galaxy Bloc soldiers were sent from their crouched positions in the forefront to uncomfortable landings - crashing throughout the vicinity.

If the AUCD accouterments were of any quality, the troops would probably survive that. And they each still had their HNFV's - an awkwardly shaped form of laser rifle which really looked like a pole with a six-inch diameter and a knobby head. The weapons seemed to be tethered to their combat suits via some sort of connector cable that actually wound up coming in handy with their bodily displacement from the closeup annihilation of the lead XRTP.

During this disarray, Boyd made his way out further into the open. He remained cautious of the enemy-laced skies but did so for other reasons. The chaos of the area called for a hot evac, and finding higher ground would make it easier on his Class V Fighter when it swooped in to scoop him up. The Enforcer kept his head down but his eyes peeled to the sky when streaking across the front landscaping for one of the XRTP's while dodging the newly-introduced attempts at cutting him down from above.

None of the unincorporated planets had seen the Class V Fighter all the while Boyd had been on missions because of its stealth capability, so there was no chance of the Galaxy Bloc soldiers seeing its attack with missiles gobbling up the XRTP's along the main thoroughfare from behind. Similar to a rug being pulled up from under an object, the tanks were blasted over one another as they flew forward in the succession of obliteration. When the ship came in low and fanned the flames of destruction by skimming over the damage, its lasers began to seek out and destroy the ground-based troops who had yet to recover from Boyd's initial assault. Everybody was running around frantically, but this was only the result of known Space Force tech.... Missiles and lasers had been a part of Space Force fighter design since the Class I version from a generation ago, and one vessel had these troops scattered - scurrying around in disarray. They could actually thank the poor Carriveaua for the Class V's stolen stealth technology.

With the FRHT's holding pattern no longer held in check because the ground forces had failed to hold the target at bay with his back up against the Power Authority wall, what had once been a one hundred and eighty degree limitation since the main complex would have been within their targeting reticules had now became a three hundred and sixty degree opportunity to test those ships out. Each happened to be constructed like a glider, meaning that the cockpit was on the bottom of the ship and they were flown from a sprawled-out position on the pilot's belly. Due to their interesting design, the people who had a chance to grace the reverse-type cockpit had to feel like they were really flying from that vantage point. Perhaps borrowed technology, it was a respectful and lighter play off the more sophisticated Doran flight controls.

Threats on the ground had not been neutralized as for when General Canoy's punished frame finally decided to slow because of the friction of the ground that she was tumbling across, her body spun around to a stop position which happened to have placed the intruder square in her sights. Naturally, multiple shots were taken, and once recovered, the other troops joined in on the attempted skewering - now more spread out than ever (because of previous explosive dispersions) to make an interesting, repositioned go of stopping their target.

Charging through fires as unscathed and climbing up over a mound of XRTP carnage with wide, purposeful steps, one might have thought to hang it up when Boyd jumped from the upturned tank into what was quite obviously a ship's cockpit within an otherwise invisible plane. To the Galaxy Bloc soldiers' credit, they never gave up. But to the Class V Fighter's Repulser Shielding, those laser pulses were easily deflected back the way that they came - sometimes striking the ground troops and FRHT's that shot the lasers in the process of the unforgiving ricochet return-fire! He sat down comfortably, holstered his LUNC, and closed the canopy prior to taking command of the fighter's controls. The Enforcer effectuated a vertical takeoff while the canopy closed off any vision of physicality beneath the veil of stealth, skied for the upper atmosphere, and effortlessly broke orbit to leave Dio Qze in the stardust and the Galaxy Bloc army battered before turning on target of his eventual arrival at SpaceStation Konxerus.

One ship did all that, and Boyd had even refrained from using its most powerful offensive weapon: The Pulsars. Those, like the Repulser Shielding, were technology that the Enforcers had also lifted from the New Alliance. This was the point of his mission. How in the universe were the unincorporated planets going to stand against a faction worth of similarly lethal fighters without the Space Force's assistance? He only hoped that his point had finally gotten across to them, and yet there he was having considerable trouble in putting the plight of this particular planet behind him. But that was what autopilot was for. The Enforcer put his head back and closed his eyes to not only contemplate Galaxy Bloc's stubbornness but to try and decide on what he was going to tell his superior officers when he arrived at the spacestation. It bothered him that what seemed like a completed mission with unexpected intel having been gathered did not provide that natural feeling of accomplishment. For all the positives, this uneasiness from the gut level sure felt like something else was just getting started.