The Reign is Over – Part 10

This’ll be the last installment of The Reign is Over.  I’ve hit the point where I am no longer interested or invested in the story that is being told, and given that the purpose of this blog is to force me to be more flexible with my story-telling and to serve as writing practice for my long-form projects, that’s a dangerous position to be in.

I do not wish to miss blog posts.  I do not wish to lose the progress that I’ve made simply because I lack personal interest in the source material.

2019 opened with a lot of promise, and most of that promise has soured spectacularly.  This blog (and several other writing projects attached to it) are the only thing keeping me afloat right now.  I don’t want to jeopardize the one thing I’ve done right.

So, today will be the end of the current story.  It’s a shame that I will no longer have this to send to my old friend, but it’s been obvious over these last two weeks that he was the only reason that new parts of this particular story were being written.

UPDATE: I just took a break, cleaned my entire house, and tried to reset my mental state.  I took some medicine, so my head isn’t hurting as much now.

The way forward with this story also fell into my lap as I worked, and I’ve landed on exactly how I want to end this series.  The posts are gonna get a little longer and a little faster in pacing, but I’m going to go ahead and see it through.

I’m an author dammit, and I’m not leaving here till the story is done.

The Reign is Over – Part 10

“Thank you for showing up when you did Lieutenant Armsworth.”

Lieutenant McNamara had managed to stifle her combat giggles enough to convey her thanks.  Lieutenant Armsworth had his back against the wall, both eyes focused on the tiny screen held in his enormous hands.  He was mere feet from the melted corner of the deadend hallway where Ramirez had been so badly burned. 

He manipulated the joysticks which ran the fiberoptic snake attuned to his box.  The snake, a tiny collection of nimble coils with a camera on one end,  was occupying his attention.  He had managed to clear the corner without the snake being blown to bits.  What Armsworth saw made his mouth vanish into his mustache with a heavy frown.  It was clearly going to be a lot of work to clear out the entrenched position. 

“No problem Mara.  I came as fast as I could.”

Armsworth’s usual rich baritone was always at odds with his gruff face and reserved demeanor.  Like a velvety-smooth radio broadcaster had somehow been trapped inside a bridge-troll.  McNamara grinned a little as she thought of how that feat might have been accomplished.  She brought herself back to the task at hand.d

“How bad off are we Armsworth?”

He frowned harder, his mustache forming a ‘v’ as he concentrated.

“It’s pretty bad.  That’s a five meter mobile ballistics platform.  Not only is the energy cannon on there, but there’s also a few flak shotguns and at least six men behind a makeshift barricade.  Thankfully it appears that the platform is only tracking biometrics, so I might be able to… blast!”

The sound of a plasma rifle barking came on the heels of his outburst.  While the platform might not be looking for anything that didn’t have a heat signature, one of the goons had clearly spotted the snake. Armsworth’s mouth thinned as he handed the useless controls back to the corporal who had fished them out.  He nodded his thanks at the woman, then turned his attention to McNamara.

The gears were turning furiously, until his eyes widened and he began to smile.  McNamara was holding up an enormous pack which had been strapped across her back.  She hadn’t even been planning to use it; she had attached it and bore its weight out of sheer habit. 

The ‘it’ in question was a mobile plasmic refinement system.  Without going into too many technical and scientific details, any type of energy weapon was basically a laser gun.  Sure, the frequency of the weapon, alignment and purity of the focusing crystals, and choice of fuel affected the beam greatly, but outside of the science involved it was just energy.

The MPRS refined, focused, and amplified that energy.  It required far more power than even Brutus could generate to affect any change, but that’s why  it came with it’s own powerful external power supply.

“Mara, you mad genius, why were you even wearing this?  We were going to separate sections of the building for sanity’s sake!”

McNamara tried to affect an innocent expression, but her grin grew into the face-splitting toothy affair that some would uncharitably call ‘smug’.

The Corporal, used only to the regular SWAT engagements necessary in the Organized Crime bureau, looked quite puzzled as she placed the controller back into Armsworth’s outstretched hand.

McNamara and Armsworth got into a silent but furious argument, attempting to gauge distances and figure angles relative to the position of the platform and the position of the corner.  Eventually, the two came to an agreement on placement, and McNamara went through the heavily practiced motions of setting up and adjusting the MPRS where they had agreed. 

“Mara, it’s the best portion of 20 feet of solid marble and who knows what behind this wall.  We’re going to have to use the whole pack charge.”

McNamara blanched, but she had expected that would be necessary, so she nodded tightly and hooked up the power supply, inputting the required commands and clearances to activate the device, and cranked the power output as high as it would go.

The MPRS began to hum insistently, a sure-fire sign that it was ready to go.  Armsworth carefully placed Brutus into position, locking the barrel into place.  The whole of the MPRS was essentially one long barrel overlaid across whatever weapon it was amplifying.  Using the primary weapon as a focal point it would condense and refine the initial beam, adding its own power to the blast, and fire the newly forged beam at its intended target.  Only this time, with the use of the specialized refactors and focusing crystals and the far larger external power supply, the beam would be an entire order of magnitude more powerful than when it had started. 

Brutus growled back to life, Armsworth adjusting settings on his end to fire one single condensed blast to make the most of the MPRS.  They checked and rechecked the positioning, and once they were agreed for a second time, he spread his feet wide, McNamara and two others bracing against him to add counterbalance to the blast-to-come. 

The roar of expelled energy was loud enough to deafen the lot of them.  The backwash smelled of scorched ozone and singed nose hair, and despite the wide stance and extra support, it still sent them all sprawling backwards.  Armsworth landed hard, but he had Brutus safely pointed at the ceiling and clear of the MPRS to prevent any accidents.  Even knocked off his feet, Armsworth was still protecting his team.

There was a brief moment of silence, then a secondary explosion every bit as loud as the first.  McNamara was grinning again, because only the detonation of the ballistics platform would have sounded so loudly against her tortured eardrums.

“On your feet and charge!  Hit them like your life depends upon it!”

McNamara gained her feet and even with her ears bleeding she still managed to bellow her force to the offensive.  If there were any survivors, she intended to make sure they joined their comrades as quickly as possible, before they could do any further damage to her assault team.

She rounded the corner, six other squad-members on her heels, as they ran past the hole that Brutus and the MPRS had burned into the wall.   It was nearly a meter in diameter, the edges sagging and melted.  The ballistics platform was spread out along the hall and in the ceiling in a wave of shattered debris, and only one of the six men was alive enough to raise a rifle in their direction. 

A flurry of barking shots lanced out from the charging officers, and the last of the opposing goons were down. 

They had done it, besting the first (and second) traps laid for them and had  gained access to the honey-combed storage facilities of Reignover’s shipyard.

McNamara hoped this would be the worst of it, but a small part of her was certain that it was just the beginning.

To be continued…

MPRSfully,

The Unsheathed Quill