Era of Madness

Nova-C-8394

John and Erica both were feeling strange about the current situation. It was as if, after playing a game at nightmare-level difficulty, they suddenly changed to a normal difficulty. Not exactly easy, but still terribly lacking any difficulty compared to before.

Indeed, it was as if any form of resistance had disappeared: John's mastery of the attack devices of the spatial ship allowed him, almost with every shoot, to destroy all the forces situated on one of the terminal's pieces. On the other side, the few projectiles that were reaching the ship despite Erica's near-godly piloting were easily blocked by the magnetic shield.

They progressed at an excellent speed, and would definitly manage to reach the Outergate in the next two or three minutes. It was almost too good to be true...

Feeling something was wrong, Erica abruptly drifted. Right after that, a magnetic barrier similar to the shields that spatial ships had appeared right above them. Had Erica not changed their direction at this exact moment, they would've crashed into it and met a tragic ending.

"Dammit, when did they put this in place!?" John exclaimed.

It was clearly not there last time they sneaked in the terminal. In normal circumstances, installing such a thing in the span of a few days would've been impossible. But right now, it was like a reality check to Erica and John: they were against an entire planet!

Yes, they only had to fight a certain part of Glactia-62's defense forces. After all, there were always other people trying to cause harm, other infrastructures to guard, other places to focus on, so there could only be so much soldiers sent at once to defed the terminal no matter how urgent the situation was. In the first place, those limitations were what made them conclude that they had a good chance to leave the planet alive successfully.

But no matter the limitations, no matter that Glactia-62 was only a small planet with few ressources compared to many other: it was still an entire planet, a world of its own, that had full access to fefnir technology. Of course, a war against an entire world wouldn't be so easy!

After director Arsin was captured and sector Z's manager was killed, the other higher-ups of the planet clearly realized the extent of the danger: they reacted swiftly, focusing a far larger part of their ressources to set up this giant magnetic barrier, large enough to block the entire Outergate.

It was also likely layered as, no matter how much John shot at it with the ship's attack systems, the shield never broke fully and regenerated in a matter of seconds. The situation had truly became more tense without any warning, and it was pretty discouraging to realize that even after so many tactics, measures and ennemies they managed to defeat, there were still some left.

But despite it, even if she was pretty bothered by this, Erica didn't lose hope: the Outercoat, which allowed the artificial atmosphere of the planet to exist, was based on very precise settings. Among them was the presence of the Outergate: this hole leading to space was a necessary element for the Outercoat to continue existing without further problems. If something happened to it or it was completly blocked, it would definitly lead to dramatic consequences.

Thus, she was convinced there was at least one opening left in the magnetic barrier, they just had to find where. It was still totally in the domain of possible.

At least it was what she thought until she saw them: dozens of floating ships that were entering the terminal all at once.

"Oh... that's problematic" she said.

"No..." John said, dead pale.

They had underestimated too much the ressources Glactia-62 was ready to sacrify to kill them. From the look of it, a good half of the planet's floating ships had been gathered in there. Floating ships were lower versions of spatial ships: they couldn't go to spae and had lower perfermances and battle systems. Erica, with the stolen spatial ship and her piloting skills, might've been able to destroy a dozen without too much trouble.