It has now been three hours since the start of this training exercise. To Rydel's surprise, he managed to make it to the top of the little hill top and found a vertical tunnel going straight down into what he thinks is the core of this city sphere. The tunnel is about one meter wide with a ladder attachment on one side.
Rydel didn't waste any time, and jumped in. The descend is surprisingly long, as he quickly lost count of how many steps down he had been. The light over head began to dim incrementally as he goes deeper and deeper, and soon he is surrounded by the blood-red light given off by the LED's attached to the walls. He has a feeling that this is supposed to be the final stage of this training exercise, and from the make of the walls as well as the increasingly rusty hand-rail, the theme of the party is abandoned factory.
It only took another minute or two before he finally reaches the bottom. From here, he would only see a distant flashing white dot that represented the bright forest and the flashing is most likely due to others climbing down the ladder too. Rydel pointed the gun upwards and shuts one eye to aim, but didn't bother shooting. There is no point. The width of this tunnel is designed so that you should be able to hold on or wedge yourself in between and not fall to your deaths even if you are shot from a point blank range, and those people are definitely not working alone like he is.
Rydel had hoped that by acting alone since the start of this training exercise will at least leave a good impression to Officer despite the fact that working in teams will largely increase your chance of success. However, things didn't exactly go according to Rydel's plan since the beginning, and he should know better by now. He started with a couple standard confrontations when trying to loot for items and equipment, then faced off against Selena and ran away from Kay. Not exactly the best record around.
To truly leave an impression, he will have to do something in this stage, before his air runs out. There are another five minutes on the clock, it's time for him to move. He took off the 'medical treatment pack' he attached to his shoulder since the beginning of the descent and looked around.
He now stands in the middle of a empty chamber around five meters each way with exits in all four directions. The room appeared red with the spinning warning lights attached on the wall and the shade and the light chased each other across the realistic looking rusty walls. The space fleet really aren't holding back when it comes to training. Rydel shut off his personal interface and the light blue lights of the hologram and listened carefully in completely silence. There is a persistent 'voove' sound of spinning turbines or some sort of similar mechanisms that echoed from the exit right in front of him and it almost sounded like a sort of invite.
With the rifle in hand and his previous injury no longer impeding his movements, he carefully marched forward. He is ninety per cent certain that whatever's making the sound is the gravity field generator for this city sphere, and the cause of the compass going all bunkers on the surface above. The aisle he is walking on became wider and wider the further in he goes, and the sound became louder and louder. Soon, he reached a T shaped junction with an open room on the left.
Unfortunately, he is not alone here. Alongside the mechanical hum of the gravity field generator are very quiet chatters. It would easily blend in with the environment if not for the extremely noticeable crackling voice of Pun and him complaining about the general format of this drill and how it really isn't the best in terms of team work and all the breakfast chat ended up being wasted. There are two other recruits in the area some what agreeing with him from what Rydel can hear.
He quickly popped his head out to see for a second before pulling back. The room next to him is wide open, and a level above that actual gravity field generator that's rapidly spinning around, grounding everybody in this block. They have all taken cover somewhat with guns pointing at the entrance but actually not really paying attention. They must have been here for a while now.
As much as Rydel refuses to believe it, Pun can always put together a hell of a team on the spot. From that brief glance, there is someone that can take care of the close range melee fighting, and two that posses rifles with Pun taking his favorite non-functional yet visually impressive dual pistol wielding. Even though Rydel have not been spotted just yet, there isn't any realistic way for him to get in unnoticed without his artifact.
Unless he does something really stupid. Like shooting the gravity field generator.
Now it's time for the international super spy Rydel to leave, and for the nerd engineer Rydel to appear. He did take quite a few modules on applied sciences back then, and had spent a few months digging deep into the most common types of gravity field generators. It's a wicked combination of high energy physics and carefully designed mechanisms that work together to do their best to simulate earth's gravity. It typically works somewhat well except for the obvious limits of inverse square law. Most people of this age have already gotten used to its impacts due to all the time spent in artificial environments however, and it's barely noticeable once the constant lightheaded-ness is ignored.
Going back to the theory of gravity field generators, the main risk factor involved is the potential disastrous consequences of the high energy part going unstable and causing a massive explosion, and also the mechanisms having some sort of mechanical faults that upsets the steady state the machine operates in. Something as simple as a damaged lever or electrical circuit can very easily destroy the delicate balance. This is why in most ships and space stations, the G-field generator is always carefully protected, serviced often and being designed with multiple redundant features that will kick in once the main mechanism is damaged.
No, no, no it sounds like a horrible idea. Rydel shook his head, if he does something like this, he might destroy the whole city sphere and kill everyone in this range. Now is no time for this sort of recklessness.
As he debates within himself, the sound of a couple different footsteps coming from the ladder area bounced off the walls and right into his ears. Rydel immediately turned around and saw a couple dark figures walking towards where he is at. Fortunately, he is right around the corner in the shadows and haven't been noticed just yet.
At most, they are about thirty meters out. And it won't be long before Pun and his team heard about
Shit. Rydel looked all around, and immediately activated his magnetic boots before attaching each of them carefully on the walls and bringing himself towards the ceiling. He tried to tuck himself into the corner and held one pistol in his free hand while carefully positioning his body so that he won't strain a knee while remaining out of sight. There are three of them in total, and Rydel saw that one of them is Kay while the other are the male and female recruits he saw back in the very first few stages.
They are all fully armed, and it seemed like Kay convinced the other two to team up for the final stages, in anticipation for Pun perhaps. They also stopped before entering the open area and Kay sneaked quickly and quietly to the other side of the door way without being noticed. He indicated a four for the number of recruits on the other side, and reached into his pocket to grab a grenade.
Rydel's eyes opened up wide: there are granades in this training practice?
He indicated to the other two before pulling off the safety and counted the seconds in his head before gently tossing the grenades out towards Pun's group. Before the release, he mouthed the following: cover me.
The other two nodded, and stormed out once the grenade's in the air.
'Grenades! Shield!' One of the recruits on the other side yelled out, and the small buzzing sound of shield generator turning on popped into the background noise alongside the weaving of the spinning generators before the large 'BANG' of the grenades.
Kay is slightly gutted that those people reacted this quickly to the grenade toss, but that's what you expect from Pun's team. He grabbed onto the edge of the door to rapidly change direction and sped towards the three teammates of Pun behind a cover. They immediately started firing towards Kay, but he had a full energy and physical shielding on from his two teammates. Behind him, they also came out and uses Kay as a distraction to lay a barrage of fire towards the enemy.
Kay covered the distances quickly as two of the teammates of Pun were taken out quickly as their shields are worn out. He flipped over the barrier set up by Pun and kicked the third recruit right in the head and knocked him out cold. Seeing Kay approaching quickly has already made Pun realized that they probably lost this battle and started his retreat back towards the lower levels.
All of this action is taking place on an elevated balcony type area that overlooks the actual gravity field generator, and Pun just took all of his equipment and started sprinting towards the edge. Pun is decently fast, but Kay is faster. A lot faster.
Before he got to the edge, Kay had already caught up to him and hopped into a long last step before taking off and tackling him off the balcony.
From where Rydel is hiding, all he sees is a big flash of the initial explosion followed closely by the rapid flashing of guns firing and bullets blazing. He have to move now. The gas is alreadey out, and there is no better time to use Kay's group as the necessary distraction and maybe even ambush them from behind to get another tank going.
With a swipe of his hand, the magnetic setting is deactivated and Rydel flipped onto the ground gracefully. All of the various movement and gymnastics training come into play and they are all paying off big time. He held the rifle and walked out carefully.
The two recruits that backed up Kay had given up their shield generators for Kay for this assault, and Rydel quickly laid one down with a barrage of bullets.
'Damn you!' The other one turned around and charged at Rydel with a blunted practice knife, but Rydel met his knife with one of the table legs and got in close with an elbow strike towards her chin. Equality and that. Her head was flung backwards and she was knocked off balance, but still standing.
'You are Rydel, right? You always have that smug face and are always trying to impress the officers?' She rubbed her face with her hand and dropped her guns to the side before holding the knife right in front of her in a combat pose.
'Damn, is it that obvious?' Rydel felt a little embarrassed by his obviously noticeable facade, he is not usually this sort of person, and it's quite uncomfortable for him to be called out like this, 'Sorry.'
'Don't give me this shit.' She shot back and started to approach him, 'if you truly want to impress, do it with your combat ability and skill, not attention seeking demeanor.'
'Alright....calm down now!' Rydel chuckled and charged ahead too with the table legs on both hands after he squatted down and took the gas tank of the male recruit he took down, 'but I will keep that in mind!'
The knife and the table legs touch, and both combatants felt the impact through their fingers, wrist and straight into their elbows. She is fast and skilled with the blade for sure, and Rydel do particularly enjoy a good fight. The speed and the angles of the knife indicated that her style of movements and martial art is the standard military taught version, but polished to an extreme. It is nothing like the Aquarian storm of blades and attack though, so Rydel can comfortably knock her blades around.
'Stop playing!' She yelled, and Rydel immediately stabbed her stomach with one stick before stepping back and keeping a safe distance once again. She growled painfully, jabbed the knife a few times before charging in again. Rydel swung one leg in response, and she caught it with the free hand. The two had a wrestle for the possession of the weapon before Rydel immediately lets in go and grabbed onto her wrist before spinning around and throwing her on the ground with a typical wrestling move.
He thought it would be a simple finish after this, but she is still fighting on. With her iron grips, she held onto him and stabbed him in the legs a few times, causing an instantaneous numbness due to the tightening of the protection fabric. Rydel knelt down due to the constraints of the fabric and she took the opportunity to throw her hand around and delivers a killing blow towards his head.
Rydel looked at the blade as it approaches him quickly, and raised his left hand to block it. The blunt tip touched the glove, and was snapped off immediately. The impact also traveled back down the blade and shattered into many rectangular pieces.
'You would be dead if it's a real blade.' She threw away the blade handle angrily and gave up, 'fine, I lost, I don't have any more gas in the tank.'
'Well, you fought well.' Rydel squatted down next to her and took out the 'medical packages' for trauma care and applied it onto the 'stab wounds' on his leg, 'but I have sparred against people that are more powerful, and...you know, have more arms.'
'Yeah, you were just toying with me, aren't you?' She turned her head and looked at him.
'Well...' Rydel shrugged and looked down at her name plate on her chest, '...Leila, what do you think?'
'You are either the most annoying person in personality and skill, or you are just pretending to be like this for some reason.' She said the following words as she unplugged the tube connecting between her face mask and the now empty gas tank.
'Yeah...Maybe.' Rydel sighed and stood up as the effects of the trauma mediaction sets in and he is once again to freely move around. He walked towards the edge, and that's when he saw a grenade flying threw the air towards the gravity field generator, with the red LED light blinking ever quicker.
As Rydel is facing off against Leila, Kay and Pun both got up from the fall and went straight into a tussle. When they landed, Pun rolled a few meters out and almost immediately reached for the pistol despite the pain and overwhelming numbness. Before he could fire however, Kay have already came close and flicked his hands to the side. Pun continued to step back and just lets lose on the trigger, but all of the shots missed to the side as Kay enters a state of continuous movement and flow.
All of the seemingly nonchalant arm movements keeps knocking Pun's arms around and didn't give him an actual opening to hit him good. Finally he got frustrated and returned the guns back to his belt. That's when Kay took the chance and kicked him right in the stomach, knocking him backwards. Pun locked his arms in front of him just in time and absorb most of the damage, but now his forearms are out of commission.
'I told you, I will beat your ass.' Kay went into a showboating post with an exaggerated Hollywood-movie style lunge with one arm in front and behind of him and an open palm: the ultimate showboating move for a martial artist.
'Not so fast.' Pun laughed coldly, rolled his shoulders back and forth a few times to loosen it up and shook his hands around to reduce the pain from that powerful kick before regaining some measure of control.
'Give me your gas tank, and I won't embarrass you too much.' Kay said.
'Oh come on now...' Pun walked forward to step before opening up his strides and sprinted towards Kay before sharply decelerating and gave him a low sweeping kick at the knees. Kay saw this right through and simply picked up his leg, bends it at the knee and meets Pun's shoe with his own by externally rotating at the hip in something that resembles yoga's tree pose. The impact was light, as that's not Pun's true intention.
Using the stretch reflex and the power from Kay's feet, Pun bounces his feet backwards before turning from the ankles all the way up through the knees and hips and attacks Kay's sides. That attack was also nonchalantly blocked by Kay who held Pun's leg with one hand simply kept it there.
'Take this!' Pun threw out a punch with his left hand but Kay simply used Pun's leg as a leverage to dodge back by pushing Pun forward. But that's not it, and Pun threw his right fist holding onto something, 'a taste of your own medicine.
It's a live grenade with the safety already off and the explosion set to go off in no time.
Kay's eyes opened up wide and focused fully for the first time. He never expected that he would be put in this situation, but now isn't the time to reflect. It's time to react.
With blinding speed, Kay returned with a strike of his own towards the right forearm of Pun with a half clenched fist where all the fingers are bend at the second joint instead of the base. The rock hard fingers hit the lower arm tendons of Pun like a train running into trees to the side of the track and completely changed the trajectory of Pun's arm. The massive shock and subsequent shortening of the tendons also caused Pun to release the grasp onto the grenade and flicking it backwarads.
This is when Rydel reaches the edge of the balcony. As the grenade drifts towards the gravity field generator, many things sped through his head like water rushing through the flood gate. All of the raging thoughts spun and jumped around but all slowly recollected into a single worry:
Will the gravity field generator hold up?
If Rydel is being honest in a later time of reflection, he would undoubtedly say no, as the safety mechanisms of such things really isn't developed for grenades, but then why would the trainers put an actual generator in this training exercise knowing the potential risks?
All of this is hindsight, really. Maybe it's for the sake of realism and putting the recruits at real risks?
Hold on, did he sign an agreement and no responsibility will be put on the special forces training division shall one die in the midst of training or missions?
Shit, Cellica took care of the forms.
'Oh Shit....' Kay, Pun and Rydel both said the exact something as the grenades gently pops along the surface of the spinning gravity fielde generator and disappeared into the structure. There were a couple loud clanking sounds as the grenade is knocked around by the fast spinning structures before the actual explosion.
Rydel didn't hear anything initially, but then a wave of EMP expanded out from the centre of the generator and knocked out all of the electronics nearby including the personal interfaces of each of the recruits in the room as well as all the monitoring devices here. Sparks are ejected out of all the instruments like a wave of small fireworks extending from the areas closest to the gravity field generator to where Rydel is standing, and then the clanking sound became louder and louder as the broken pieces are snapped off and fed into the high energy area. Those metals are immediately vaporised, and lines of hot gas and radiation began to shot through the gaps slowly, but surely.
'What have you done!' Pun yelled at Kay, who stood there motionlessly and stared at the impending disaster without a word.
'There is no time to waste! The reactor is getting unstable!' Rydel popped his head and yelled at the two.
'Rold? Where did you come from?' Kay asked.
'I was right behind you! There is no time to explain, you need to get the two people out of here!' Rydel said the following as he also hopped over the handrails, landed and rolled forward to reduce the impact of jumping.
'What are you going to do?' Pun asked as he went towards Rydel and picked him up, 'why did you come down here? Get out of here!'
'No! You take all of the people and get them as far out as possible. I will figure something out to stabilize this thing!' Rydel replied as he quickly assesses the situation. The gravity field generator did not go into the negative feedback of energy that he thought is going to happen, instead, and breaking pieces reduces the overall weight of the moving mechanism and actually causes it to speed up in this case and increases the rate of reaction more and more. This dangerous positive feedback brings the generator into a vicious cycle, and Rydel need to figure out how to stop this.
'Why do you think you can stop this thing?' Kay grabbed onto Rydel's arms and asked.
'Well, I used to learn about this. I can figure out how to stop the whole power increase by cutting out the source and... No time to talk! Get everyone out of here as far as possible. If I don't reduce the impact of this blast, maybe the whole city sphere will...' Rydel pushed Kay and Pun backwards as thoughts and ideas continued to race through his head, there won't be enough time to really do any sort of delicate engineering job.
He knew what he had to do, but he wanted to make sure that no one will know the secret of his artifact. The EMP from the radiation is actually a blessing in disguise, and he really get this thing done, and save the recruits.
He won't let anyone else die if he have the power to save them. Not anymore.
As Pun and Kay helped each other carrying as many people as they could and even dragged a few out by tying their clothes together, Rydel simply took a deep breath and tried to calm himself down. He needs a clear head in this situation, and no distractions.
The shear size of the generator is magnificent, and Rydel haven't really grabbed anything as big as this before, but if there is a time to surpass his limits, the time is now.
Rydel reached out, with the fingers on his left hand outstretched. The dormant purple bled orange and began to shine in the dark room. The light it's giving off rivals that of the unstable core of the generator, and gets ever brighter as Rydel concentrates more intensely and purposefully.
He can feel it now. The smooth and warm edges of the gravity field generator, and weight, and the 'gentle' vibrations it's giving off. He began to close the hand, and the space around the generator got even darker if that's possible and began to stir the light around as the curvature of space is being manipulated by Rydel's glove. He have to be careful here, an exploding generator isn't exactly the same as a piece of ore, so he is as careful as it gets. The space continued to move and fold upon itself as the generator began to get swallowed up like a gas giant being eaten alive by a black hole. The lights and sounds it's giving off is slowly cut off.
Rydel is making great progress, and he almost have the whole thing under control.
That's when the first bit of explosion occurs, and giant shards of red hot steel is shot out like a dragons breath, barely missing Rydel. He is not fazed, and closed his eyes before finally closing his fist.
The surroundings are quiet, and the room dark.
He now has the field generator under control, quite literally within his palms.
The amplitude of the vibrations became greater and greater, but to him, it's nothing like that of a mosquito struggling to get itself out of a spider's web. And then, it blew.
Rydel didn't feel a thing, but the generator became cold, and the vibration also stopped. He is sure the radiation is going to be nasty, but hey one cannot get everything in life.
He looked around, and dropped the generator back into reality, and the charred pieces of metals, instruments and melted plastics populated the room.
Rydel looked around once again, and walked out of the room, but before he could get anywhere, he began to lose control in his legs and his head felt light. In another meter or so, he clipped his foot on the ground and fell.