Impact imminent!

A bike hit the APC at breakneck speed, sending it into an uncontrollable spin. The fragile bike itself broke into countless pieces and left a noticeable dent on her APC.

Already predicting the attack, she ignored the dizziness and grabbed hold of the steering joystick to reduce the spin.

In his attempt to make Ellowyn lose control, the hero threw more things at her, from storage creates to other vehicles, but she managed to maneuver out of the way. The few that gazed her apc had left shallow scratches.

The throwing assault ended, presumably because they needed some vehicles left to pursue her. The apc’s force field had finished activating and deflected any further shots as it sped towards the closing hangar door.

Knowing she won’t make it, Ellowyn used the rail turret to pelt a small portion of the door with high explosive rounds to weaken it. Then she used the apc’s momentum and armored front to break through into the open. Unfortunately, the impact jolted her body hard and making her cough another mouthful of blood and her vision blurry.

For a brief moment, blinding sunlight filled the screens of the cockpit before they adjusted their brightness, showing the vast landscape of sand surrounding the base. The wind current generated by the apc’s hover thrusters blew outward, stirring a snake-like cyclone in its wake.

The rear camera showed no signs of pursuit yet as she quickly put the apc on autopilot toward Carl’s marker. Then with clumsy movements inside the APC, Ellowyn made her way to the compact medical bed to strap herself in place.

She watched anxiously as the nimble robotic arm punctured a hole in her abdomen, removed the bullet lodged within and then searing it shut. Along with the System’s help, the on board automated medical tools helped stopped her internal bleeding and resupplied her body with temporary synthetic blood.

The entire procedure lasted no more than 2 minutes. But her pursuers had long caught up.

Of the countless missiles coming at her, many got pass the apc’s point defense and missile interceptors and pounded on its shield, knocking the apc off balance as the onboard computer couldn’t steer clear of such heavy firing.

More alerts came as the shield generator overheated from the onslaught of shield basing rounds. She took control and gulped upon seeing the sky above her littered with pursuing aircraft.

Immediately she made desperate evasive actions by pushing the apc’s thrusters to their limits but it wasn’t enough. She had to toggle the force field off to let the shield basher rounds splash harmlessly against the hull, and then turned it back on to soak the devastating close range miniguns. While unshielded, she drove in an unpredictable zig zag motion to partially deflect the armor piercing/high explosive rounds and missiles.

Ellowyn couldn’t have been gladder to pick the apc. Despite its slowness and low hover height, its advanced light armor protected the critical components much better. While other fast flying vehicles will loose most of their mobility from the loss of just one or two thrusters, the apc can take much more damage since the armored underbelly had protected the critical propulsion systems.

More drone bikes approached from behind, each with their own unpredictable movement patterns making it difficult for the apc’s rail turret to land a hit.

She decided to shoot the ground near them with HE rounds to keep them at bay.

The situation turned grimmer by the second. As the apc ran out of interceptor rockets, more and more missiles pounded the apc’s shield.

She stared at the empty marker, sweat dripping from her eyebrows.

She screamed.

Carl gave a nervous laugh.

After checking the apc’s condition, she shook her head and gritted her teeth. What do I do now? Then she looked at the agile bike drones and an idea materialized. She shook her head again out of exasperation, but frowned as it seemed to be the only option available.I’ll consider it when there are no other options.

Damage report

Rear proximity sensors offline

Steer thruster malfunctioned - restarting

Left side hull puncture - estimated 20%

…

The apc’s condition worsened by each second as the cockpit jolted constantly from the explosions outside.

Then came a blinding flash of light around 500 feet from Carl’s marker. The faint outline of a ship slowly emerged out of the subsiding light, its long and tall figure blocked out the sun.

Ellowyn exhaled in relief, only to freeze in horror. She was still too far away.

A high explosive round landed right under the apc, knocking it from the air.

Critical thruster failure

Propulsion system compromised

Warning, impact imminent!

The apc dropped down and tumbled across the sand.

Instead of bracing herself, she unbuckled her seatbelt and tried her best to get to the emergency exit. Even with the System controlling her thruster suit to counter the tumbling, she could feel the extreme pressure pushing on every part of her body.

The hatch flew open, flinging her out into the air at 50 m/s. Like a flying squirrel, she spread her arms and legs outward to let her own thrusters stabilize her flight.

Not designed for sustained flying, the thrusters began to overheat but she ignored them. She paid attention to the most minute details of the flight, aiming towards her target. Will I make it?

Landing on the unsuspecting bike with a thud, she latched onto it with her dear life and began extending the System’s control area into the bike, hoping to reach its controlling unit.

As tested before, the operation took an immense amount of System power. But she succeeded and gained access. With so little time, she could only deactivate its AI and switch to manual piloting mode. A small latch opened, revealing two bike handles.

She grabbed hold of them and watched another hologram appeared depicting the bike’s current speed and condition.

There was one problem, she had never ridden a bike before.

It only took a moment for her pursuers to realize what happened and resumed their chase.

...3 2 1

Shield online

Luckily, she didn’t need to lean her body since the bike could make turns by itself. The bike’s agile nature helped her shake off most oncoming missiles while the few that followed through were deflected by her force field.

Ellowyn watched as her shield braced storm of bullets. No shield basher rounds could deal damage because the System’s shield operated differently than normal shield projectors, but the System energy was dwindling quickly. She had no more than 12 seconds of shields left.

Please make it.

The ship’s figure grew bigger by the second, but still, it remained out of her reach. Its vast armaments began firing at her pursuers, holding them back.

But that did little to ease the number of attacks aimed at Ellowyn. The HE missiles exploded on her shield, threatening to push her off the bike.

Then the bike’s detectors gave an alert and her face turned pale upon reading it. A Mini Nuke was on its way to her location.

While the large warhead carried no radioactive payload, it packed more explosives than three cruise missiles. Never was such a weapon to be used in a firefight for risk of friendly fire.They are really desperate now it seems.

To prevent friendly detonation, the warhead itself was too well protected to be shot down with her small rifle and handgun, not that she could ever land a hit on such a small and fast object.

Before she could contemplate on her death, a small interceptor missile flew at the warhead from the ship and detonating it.

The resulting explosion instantly destroyed the surrounding pursuing aircraft, its powerful shockwave pressed against her force field, flinging her into the air while tearing the unprotected bike to shreds.

Energy low, deactivating force field

The protective force bubble around her disappeared, letting the extreme air shockwave pushed her away like a leaf in the wind. She tried to stabilize using her thrusters, but the wave overpowered the tiny thrust they gave.

The hard, unforgiving ground coming toward her at breakneck speed was the last thing reflected in her eyes before darkness took over.