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(BUS)Chapter 143: End of an era
🕑 Added 2025-10-13 15:01:38 +0000 UTCShortly after that Brick and Mordy showed up.
"So what's the haps?" Brick asked curiously.
"Long story short we are going ahead with the original plan except we AREN'T killing Knoxx but faking his death. To that end we are going to hang about for a day or so to get things ready on his end before we show up and make a bunch of noise at the stockpile." I explained casually.
"And this couldn't be said over the echo why?" Mordy asked confused.
"Because the lance are probably listening to our echoes. Why else do you think She masked her signal in that hilarious promotional?" I said pointing at Athena.
She nodded "It's a common tactic that Atlas uses to better control a planet they've occupied. They have whole listening centers set up for going over the echoes of the natives or special interest targets such as you five." she said seriously.
"No way around it either unless you are masking the signals like her. It's why the start of her echoes are just that promotional. Makes them select it for being ignored thinking the rest is the same." I said with a shrug.
"There's gotta be a better way right?" Lil asked with a frown.
"I mean if you were to set up a full coverage broadcast on a frequency not used by the echo sure but that's usually too much money and effort to be worth it. As busted as echo encryptions are theres a reason why they are the go to method of communication." I said with a shrug.
"Do all corporations spy on people like this?" Lil asked seriously.
"More or less though the degree of spying differs from corporation to corporation. Jakobs for example mostly only listens for credible threats or to gauge the reaction to a new product and that's it." I said honestly.
After that we all just chose to do absolutely nothing for the rest of the day to let Knoxx get his side of things ready. Lil practiced with her powers, Roland, Brick and Mordy spent most of their time in my houses sim room and I was in my workshop fiddling with the detonator. Turns out the thing had a slightly faulty power connection that made it so it could send out the signal without input which was not good at all.-
Getting the faked death set up only for the whole place to go up and kill all of us was definitely not a risk I wanted to have. Also the timer was set for a REALLY fucking short time and I had every intention of looting the fuck out of the stockpile before we blew it to bits. That was HUNDREDS of guns of various qualities and other pieces of expensive tech I'd need to find or make again. Take the Atlas Devastator power mechs for example, those things were top of the line and expensive as fuck.-
I could make better with my Eridian knowledge of course but they were made without it and that had merit for study all on it's own. It also helped that they were one of the few things Atlas didn't cut corners on the designing and manufacturing of. The materials were the best they could be and the design spared no cost to achieve the same. One might ask if that was the case why the drivers were left exposed them and the answer was simply because the operators cockpit got HOT. The open aired design not only served to let that heat dissipate but also gave the pilot a full degree of vision.-
Add on the thick armor of the mech and more powerful shield and the pilot was actually safer in the cockpit than out of it. My only gripe with the thing was that you couldn't incapacitate it and then drag it back for study. This was because Atlas built in a self destruct feature that went off when either the pilot died or the mech got incapacitated. It was literally an anti reverse engineering feature when on the battlefield. Logical yes but annoying as fuck if you have to deal with it or happen to be the pilot when one gets incapacitated.-
Anyways I changed the timer to give us thirty minutes to pack up and skedaddle with the loot once I hit the big red button so to speak. Not longer because frankly we couldn't risk someone coming to check on the general only to find the body double while we were looting the place. If that got out the whole plan was ruined so I gave us a decent amount of time to get the stuff without risking it too much. -
Once that was done I mostly just napped/ fell into a coma till dinner time. I had my food maker set out our regular feast(whatever we wanted) and we ate without any scruples. When the day finally ended we were drinking and just playing cards. At the start of a new Pandoran day we were ready to end this little spat with Atlas. Leaving T-bone junction in a Racer and a Lancer we passed through the first checkpoint on the way to deep fathoms killing those that tried to shoot us in the process. The couple of Lancers we encountered got the same treatment as the drones, blown the fuck to pieces.-
We took the exit ramp to the desert below the highway when we arrived in deep fathoms since in order to get to the depot we first had to get the bridge up. The patrolling desert vehicles were blown up as we got to the path that took us to the controls. Said path was at the side of a rocky canyon and ironically had a narrow metal catwalk bridge leading to it. I was almost insulted when there was only a single flying lancemen protecting the bridge controls.-
I pulled the lever to the bridge and immediately the energy projectors got to work making a glowing red solid energy bridge across the canyon. Completely unnecessary flare in my opinion but I wasn't the one who put it there so whatever. We then got back to the cars and drove them up to the little installation housing the bridge, killed all the lance there and then crossed the bridge to repeat the process with the shmucks over on the other side. This time there were assassins too so that was an extra layer of spice to the otherwise mundane fight.-
The desert area on this side of the canyon was called "Roads end" even though there was plenty of road left. In fact we had to drive pretty far to reach the final checkpoint outside the fortress. We couldn't go in through the main entrance so we killed all the soldiers in our way(a good sixty or so) and the last set of assassins before entering through the side door. When we arrived in the massive armed courtyard we found Knoxx with a devastator mech painted in General colors.
"Oh hey so as it turns out I really don't feel like going back to work. Lets end this fiasco once and for all shall we?" he said with a cigar burning at the corner of his mouth.
"Damnit! I really could have used your help with the company! Oh well guess that tombstone will have to do." I complained.
The alarms went off and lance poured out of the woodwork while Knoxx set his mech on us. I didn't feel like doing this whole song and dance and simply used my Phase lock on three of them that were near others to gravity well their asses to death.-
Knoxx put up a good fight before his Devastator blew up from taking critical damage.
"Rest in peace you old dick." I said with a sigh before cheering up since it was looting time.
_______________________________________________
Alexander Drake
Lifeforce: 1,277,095
Integrated Traits: [Clever mind-Rare grade],[Enhanced senses-Epic grade]X2, [Supreme armored hide-Epic grade]X2, [Energy projection-Legendary grade], [Superior vitality-Epic grade]X3,[Lesser dragon breath-Epic grade],[Regeneration-Epic grade]X2, [Disease resistance-Epic grade],[Amphibious lungs-Uncommon grade], [Thermal sensing-Uncommon grade], [Water resistance-Common grade],[Active camouflage-Epic grade], [Eridian engineering expertise-Mythical grade], [Efficient lungs-Rare grade]x2, [Biometallic bones-Epic grade], [Quick thinking-Rare grade], [Minor spatial awareness-Epic grade], [Siren(Phaselock)(Altered)-Mythical grade], [Adrenal rush-Rare grade], [Mechanical engineering expertise-Rare grade]X3, [Gunsmithing expertise(degrading)-Common grade]X3, [Mechanical Savant-Epic grade], [Embodiment of destruction(partial)-Mythical grade], [Siren(Phasetrance)-Mythical grade], [Supreme body-Legendary grade]X3, [Martial savant-Legendary grade], [Tinkering instinct-Rare grade]
Stored traits: [Agelessness-Legendary grade], [Beautiful form-Rare grade]X3
Comments
Christian Jeffress
Thanks for the entertaining chapter
