8 Chapter 8: Capture Mode

When the Lightning Rod squadron is still slowly progressing towards the home base of the Blue Regimen and trying to balance any environmental damage from asteroids with their energy expenditure from shields, the vanguard segment of Red Regimen's has already pierced into the transport connection between Hebo 3 and the home base moons.

The moment Blue Regimen fighters detected Red Regimen is the moment when they open fire and breakthrough the formation from the flank. They caught the blue Regimen in the middle of their redistribution of forces and resources.

Leading the charge for the Red Regimen is the player named Summer. The top four players of the Dynasty club are granted names after the four seasons for their role on the battlefield as well as their play style.

Spring excelled at resource management and troop reorganization, making one thousand troops feel like ten thousand. Summer excelled and fast pace skirmishes and disruptive attack with extreme intensity and ferocity. Autumn swoops in like the wind at the perfect moment, hitting the perfect target and changing tides of battle while Winter shows grit and grind, toughness and discipline, standing his/her ground with no compromise. The four seasons are assigned players with those play style and build and each played an important part in this battle.

Summer's attack is extremely concentrated and quickly cutoff the lines. The transport leader immediately responded by trying to get the Blue Regimen vanguard to circle back around and reinforce the middle, but subsequent fighters under Summer's Command faced them head on and prevented any help.

Both sides released the drone attack forces and engaged in aerial dog fights. As the drones started chipping away against each other, it's all down to the individual skills of the players and their cooperation with each other.

While this skirmish is happening, the Blue Regimen sent out a medium sized group of a few hundred fighters reinforcements from each side of the attack. They are not easily startled by this attack to cut them off and this move is a perfect middle ground between minimizing losses and forcing Summer to reconsider his tactical decisions or face being attacked from all three sides.

At the exact same time, Lightning Rod (or Dolon)'s bombing squadron has finally made it through the thick cloud of asteroids and just hides out of reach and detection from the home bases.

All the resource stations are decently well equipped to handle any direct attack from spacecrafts, so it's unknown as to what the Investor is thinking at this point.

As time started ticking by, Dolon's squadron is still waiting for something. As the in game clock entered it's eighth hour, some of the ships started leaving the home base and carrying the newly produced cargo.

Only a handful of guards are around to oversee this operation as there is a massive clearing between the edge of the asteroid belt and the minor moon base is settled on so there will be enough time for a quick response if any battle occurs.

'I am going in.' Dolon said so in the conversation channel, 'Just follow the plan and start laying the traps in the routes of transport once this shipment of cargo is sent off! Once you get my signal, start the first stage bombing run on the far side of the moon. Try not to kill me.'

Then, she used the thrusters to give herself a boost and switched off all systems on her angel. It appears her ship is fitted with camouflage skin that's one of the limited edition skins that one has to earn.

There is a caveat though, as she cannot actually remain fully camouflaged when the systems are online and generating significant heat signatures. In order to land safely, she needs to coordinate with the crew so that they start a primary bombing run, or 'asteroid slingshots' where they attach drone to the back of asteroids and fly them straight into enemies.

It's arguably much less efficient with the mechanical force shields protecting against kinetic type attacks, but it will still draw a decent amount of electricity and attention for her to safely decelerate and land of the minor moon.

The ship sure takes it's sweet time moving towards the minor moon and Dolon has coordinated with her teammates to attack at the eight-and-a-half mark. The drone boosted asteroids will take a lot less time than Dolon's ship so if all went according to plan, then there is nothing to worry about. They won't have a clue until Dolon has made her presence known.

'What the heck...' As things have calmed down a little bit and Dolon is just waiting for things to happen, Rydel suddenly snapped out of it and realized he has unknowingly spent the past two hours watching the War Game and not done a single line on his write up.

As panic began to set in, he paused the stream and then dug into work full of guilt, regret and new found curiosity for this cool game. Maybe one day he will also give it a shot.

The next day, his main training objective is to improve his accuracy when it comes to placements of the summonings. Fortunately, Dolon has already left some training software for him to use in the training hall indoors.

He has also just realized that Cellica has gone off planet for a few days for holiday as some of her students have just taken their final exam and doesn't need her help for a little while. Rydel saw her off as she packs her cargo full of travelers clothing and headed off to Aquaria for a holiday like no other.

Ever since humans know of Aquaria, there had always been this fascination with the ocean planet. Despite lesser sunshine, the beauty of infinite depths and freedom is something humans always longed for. Plus a pair of contrast enhancing lenses will deal with the visual problems underwater quite easily and the blossoming tourism has pushed developments of floating hotels designed to house humans and Rockies alike.

After having a nice morning chat with Ol about the never ending journey of self discovery and improvement, Rydel finally went in the training hall for the first time. His projector synced with the software easily and lots of cylindrical columns started growing out from the floors, side of walls and extruding from ceilings.

For some reason, Aquarians seemed to be fascinated with things growing, be it organic or not, but it just kept freaking Rydel out.

The look alike column formations constantly reminds Rydel of his long to-do list.

In front of him, several balls appeared on a table and Dolon's voice came through a speaker, 'This is a very simple drill. You just use your glove to teleport the balls on to one of each of the platforms one by one. And then you summon them back to you. Easy, right?'

'Yeah...' Rydel rubs his slightly sore left hand slightly and grabbed a ball before releasing it on the platform nearest to him.

That was easy enough once again, but as the angle of the platforms gets steeper and distance of them gets bigger with each completion, he started dropping the balls. With each failed attempted, Dolon's sarcastic encouragement made Rydel feel more confident and comfortable, not.

'I wouldn't have been able to do it either.'

'I wouldn't have been able to do it either.'

'...'

'I wouldn't have been able to do it either.'

'...'

'I wouldn't have been able to do it either.'

'I wouldn't have been able to do it either.'

'...'

'This is the last one.'

As sweats started creeping from under Rydel's skin and itching on his forehead, he is finally getting ready to drop the final ball onto a small flat surface on top of a cylinder thirty degrees from horizontal about five meters above the ground.

Through two hours of constant failure, he had not only gotten better judging distances, but also releasing the items he has held onto without giving it any undesired speed, 'I better not drop the ball on this one...'

'This is the final one! You are so close!'

Suddenly, Dolon's voice pounded through the speaker right in front of him and almost made him jump up. And with that, he lost control of the ball and lets it shoot off and leaving a small crater of the ceiling. '

'I wouldn't have been able to do it either.'

'SCREW YOU!'

By the end of the day, Rydel had went through the same tasks as before, but instead he needed to make sure the balls went through hoops instead of landing on platforms. To his pleasant surprise, it seems like the projection and velocity of the balls doesn't really induce much fatigue in comparison to throwing actual balls with his shoulders and arms.

It simply demands concentration and concise thought.

It was all going fine until the hoops started moving around and rotating and he simply cannot keep track of all the moving parts and judge it correctly.

'This is getting quite hard now.' Rydel thought to himself as he lied down after his physical training and conditioning during that day, thankfully the Aquarian bed is performing recovery magic on him every single night so he barely has any sort of physical fatigue after waking up.

The only thing that could be troubling is the neural fatigue from overuse and he needs to keep track of that carefully. But since he has basically nothing to do, he figured he would just keep watching the match of War Game, as things are about to get really exciting.

Starting from right where he left off, Dolon is only a few minutes away from touching down on the surface of the home base of the Blue Regimen. The asteroids have already been slowly moved into position and her squad members has made sure that this drift is just a result of random collisions of the asteroids that pushes them into an unstable orbit and plummeting towards the moon surface.

The only difference is the acceleration given by the drones deeply rooted into the asteroids.

There is no nothing warning the guards of the home base moon of the impending attack. There were simply shades of the asteroids that flashes across the screen from time to time and then it merges back into the dark.

Suddenly, the dome of the force fields stopped the asteroids in it's track and shattering them into millions of pieces with a magnificent show of light and fire. The asteroids were cracked wide open like watermelons dropped from the second floor, There were no sound of the impact, but the force shield generator running at maximum capacity and drawing spikes of power from the grid is enough to let them know something isn't right.

'Everyone calm down. There were some asteroids that deviated from stable orbit and crashed into the moon. The force shields absorbed them and the home base takes no damage. The power spike should return to normal soon.'

An announcement was made and the handful of players guarding each corner of the home base returned to dosing off and looking at the shared vision from their teammates that's currently in the middle of battle.

The summer flame seemed to wither away as reinforcements from both home bases arrived and started to encircle the brave attack force. As Summer's Attack force started to take damage and morale began to shake as players in the Red Regimen often have to face multiple opponents at once.

'Fall back and reorganize!' Summer gave a simple order, 'Rejoin Winter's squad and push them back.'

The forces in the middle of fights quickly retreated and grouped back into formations. The space combat in this game allows for the energy shield to regenerate over time unless the shield generator is damaged so an organized retreat is often the best way for one to recharge and return to full fighting form.

The mechanical force field have only a limited amount of uses per charge. For most ships, carrying mechanical weapons isn't always the best idea as conservation of momentum becomes quite an nuisance.

Some of the Blue Regimen's got a bit too aggressive in pursuit and got instantly obliterated with cross stream of projectiles coming from ships that provides cover fire. Barrages of metal spikes and balls are perfect for retreat as well as burning up mechanical force shielding and doing a ton of damage.

The commander of the transport squadron cursed at the idiocy of the few that died, but was generally happy with how they pushed the enemy back.

'More enemies closing! The number is much higher than before!' One player at the forefront of the pursuit noticed a large numbers of Red Regimen fighters appearing inside the detectors and soon within sight. They form an orderly yet spacious wall-like shape, filling up the whole viewing port whilst being both suffocating like a membrane and flexible like a net. They opened a gap in the middle and allowed Summer's Squad sped through before closing it and facing the Blue Regimen head on.

'Damn it. Winter is here.' All Dolon had to do to slow her descent and prevent a premature death in the game is to fire her boosters a few times when the sparks and explosions of the asteroids colliding with the shields masked the sensors and treated all these massive variations as pure noise. She was already changed into her space combat gear. The light gravity simulated for this moon is extremely well suited for an Aquarian and she swiftly moved closer and closer to the home base.

After using an invisibility cloak she bought for quite some money to hide from the guards, she popped out a shield bypass and slipped through. As she walks from the fences towards the central tower of the resource station, she started arming herself. It all started with a standard energy blaster for maximum damage, an optional shock wave generator on her shoulder for rapid clearing, a shock grenade for disabling electronics and area of effect crowd control and some more guns to be held by some of her other arms.

The Aquarians don't actually have as much of an advantage due to presence of more arms as they are all relatively much weaker and have to rely both on an exoskeleton and multiple arms working together to do what humans can achieve with one arm.

Dolon is one of the stronger ones though and she is definitely no stranger when it comes to rushing into places guns blazing.

That's what she did.

As Rydel sat there and watch in awe as Dolon sneaked into the control building, sealed the exit right behind her, pulled out six more guns than she's holding now and pulled something out of her back pocket.

It was a smoke release grenade, but it's one that attaches to her backpack and releases thick smoke where ever she goes.

She obviously has the headset with infrared capabilities to go along with it. It's just another infiltration and demolishing mission.

With all guns loaded and ready, she started moving forward, the exoskeletons helping her glide through the aisles without fail. Being one of the best players in the game, she had silencing augmentations on all of her guns, three of them being projectile and four being energy based.

She saw two NPC guards standing in the hall way en route to the central control room and took them both down with a barrage of shots and incinerated them as she ran past. It was all over in a matter of three seconds and she didn't slow down one bit.

All the missions involves NPC for some extremely simple tasks, but their equipment and rating are just at the early intermediate level, barely anything noteworthy. It's only when she gets into the actual production plant that she will face real players.

With the map of a standard home base layout in hand, she quickly encircled each entrances towards the main control center where a handful of players will be at. She laid down smoke generators and set them all off at the exact same time.

She counted to three at the exact same time and busted the door open and rushing in. To her surprise, the whole control center is empty.

All the devices are turned off and the whole room is as silent as space apart from the smoke generators slowly releasing the gases and making a sound of cold and sharp airflow.

It doesn't matter. They won't be able to continue with the production if the control center is ruined anyway. She reached into her backpack for a chain explosion device that's become a standard bomb for permanent damage and taking down structures.

Dolon then turned around to put the bomb on top of the desk right in front of her, but it fell straight into the desk and dropped onto the floor. Her heart sank like cooled oceanic lava as a shot of stress put her in full alert and a bad feeling resonates within her mind.

'Isn't this a nice opportunity to finally face you?' Standing by the door was another Aquarian player dressed in complete golden outfit covered with Aquarian war signs and other traditional totems. Just from the look alone, that player is something else. He speaks with a modulated masculine voice, 'A pleasure and a honour, Lightining Rod.'

'I would be honoured to meet me too.' Dolon shot back, 'Do I know you? Nice hologram you got there.'

Having realised what this is about and how it's been done almost immediately after the bomb dropped right through the table, she bent down, picked it up and threw it in her backpack.

'No I wouldn't expect you too. But it's always lovely to see a great Aquarian player, especially the top ranked melee fighter.' The other player leaned against the door and crosses all eight of his arms, 'I am the Golden Raider, a new addition to the Turby Raiders.'

'OK.' Dolon was still on high alert, but the behaviour of the Gold Raider really peaked her interest. She only has a limited amount of time to do the demolishing before her squadron lay down the cover fire to allow her to escape, 'No rush. How do you want to do this?'

'Melee only. Even though this probably won't count towards the rankings, I am still extremely curious to see how we measure up against each other.' Golden Raider dropped his backpack right next to him and switched off the projection, revealing an entirely empty room, 'Nobody knows I am here. If you defeated me, then you get my weapons and you get to wreck whatever havoc you were planning to our home base. But if I win, you have to let the galaxy know of our duel.'

'Simple enough.' Dolon would never say no to a fight, she dropped all her weaponry into her backpack and put it on the side also. After feeling a bit of relief on her shoulders from dropping the load, she pulled out the paper thin yet deadly Aquarian Leaf Blades.

There are no real overpowered weapons in the war game, only items. A iron cooking pan could deal more damage than one of the finest knifes if used correctly and masterfully. The Aquarian Leaf Blades are ultralight and sharp blades that typical aquarian military uses.

It also has minimal drag in water, making it extremely useful in aquatic environments. Dolon always like to have the cheapest and most viable weapons around, and this one is no exception.

'Do not worry,' Golden Raider revealed his Leaf Blades like wise, except those are painted golden brown with veins creeping across the body of the blade and really honoring its name, 'It will be quick.'

'That, I can promise, Kid.' Dolon smiled slightly and charged forward.