What were the odds of finding an old Soviet nuclear submarine in the middle of a Rift that opens up in Brighthaven, Massachusetts? To Adam, that was both a fat chance landing right in his lap and the opportunity he needed to do something insane.
Rifts opened everywhere on Earth, from mountaintops to the depths of the ocean, so it was natural that something like this would get dragged into the Rifts. Actually, on the day they entered the Rift, they found traces of human activity, discarded items, a broken car, and Earth-originated writings in languages like Chinese and Spanish on trees and stone. All of this meant that the theory that each Rift was something like a standalone dungeon was wrong, now that they were some sort of interconnected world network.
But that wasn't what Adam had in mind right at this moment. As the Gigantic True Jotnar started advancing with the Freeze storm surrounding it, ready to devastate Adam's base, he wasn't even focused on the True Jotnar, or the retreat of his soldiers behind the hill's defenses; he had rallied all those jobs to his Lieutenants after all. What he was focused on was coordinating with Strike Force Ajax and their operation in Montreal, just 250 miles northwest of here.
How or why he sent them there was his biggest gamble to date and also the hardest he had worked, effectively extending his reach far beyond what he could ever hope for. And those Warheads he collected from the submarine would win the bitter fight.
TRANSMISSION (Wills, Ajax) — "Ajax to Base, I don't know if my message is reaching, but we have scouted the entrance to the Rift from the sky, and it turned out to be a full-on Fissure in the Earth. Traces of the Freeze activity inside were confirmed. The Harbinger Gunship can fit through the entrance, and the Torchlight will keep it active. The pilot said the submarine's missile launch pod needs to be stable for launch, so we're going in to proceed and pray we make it back before we get caught in the blast."
Just as the communication died, Adam watched the giant approach, pushing hard with the Freeze against the holy barrier produced by the Holy Furnace's eternal flame. The great barrier that had withstood the Freeze for almost ten days finally showed cracks.
Adam gritted his teeth as his heart sank. He had learned that this Freeze was something that needed some sort of a link to extend into Earth, a link probably carried by the True Jotnar hidden in the storm, but, to his logic, each link must start at a node and end at another.
Adam's theory was simple, and almost everyone, including the alien sisters Kahori and Samara, agreed to it. All he needed to do was pray that his hard work was enough to put a stop to the encroaching disaster.
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Adam, Kave, Ajax, and Elena stood in the shadow of a hill that they stumbled upon on their way to the Boss of the Rift. Their ongoing theory was that since Captain Creed had closed a Rift by slaying a great monster and taking away its Seed of Light before, the boss monster of the Dire Wolves would turn out to be something similar to that, possessing a Seed of Light, and whose death would close the Rift.
But it wasn't going to be easy, as everything had been lately, especially since the task force had been marching towards the direction the Dire Wolves were coming from for hours, and it seemed that this hill was their home, which they were now reluctantly leaving and ferociously defending.
Adam had used the bombard above the Warwolf many times to try and draw the monsters out instead of having to go into the caves they inhabit, but this proved to be a logistical issue since they didn't have the shells to level a whole hill to the ground, and it seemed the sun was getting low.
Looking at the sky, Adam noticed that whatever part of the universe this world was in, its day and night cycles had little to do with orbiting a star and more to do with spinning in the center of a galactic dome. Rather than a sun, it seemed like the galactic center was the source of light and life, and the day hours would show star clusters and nebulae, as if they were branches of a great tree holding the sky together.
No wonder the Alfari and the System call the Rift world the World Tree. To them, these ways between worlds were also branch-like, extending through many worlds almost endlessly.
This intrusive thought under the Rift's sky brought Adam's mind back to earth just as he started glaring at the Dire Wolves' stronghold hill with narrowed eyes, prompting him to suggest something.
"These are not some caves in a mountain we are looking at; it's a cave network." He said, leaving the group. He started walking back to his Warwolf walker.
"What do you mean?" Kave asked, looking between him and the others.
"Think about it. You're a prideful predator the size of a horse who lives in a cave of your own, like the rest of your pack. If an invader came at your doorst…cavestep, and they started throwing explosives and collapsing it, you wouldn't just stay inside and get trapped, would you? You'd run out furious, and try to take a bite at them."
"That's what the dire wolf me would do." Kave nodded in total agreement.
"But since you don't come out, you'd have a way to get away from the collapsed cave entrance and get out from somewhere else. You're not particularly worried, right?" Adam asked.
"Yeah, feels right." Kave nodded as the other two joined in.
"We can't sustain a siege on a monster den," Elena said with a grim voice. "We either draw them out or retreat since our supplies won't last for two more days."
"We must draw them out then." Ajax agreed but, looking back, made a wry smile. "That Paladin seems ready to be going any second, Sir."
Adam nodded with a regretful smile, knowing full well that Captain Creed was fully intent on leaving the strike force behind to go into the wolf den and do the deed. However, this would take a long time, and according to Creed, this type of monster is stronger than the one he faced before, making their Boss more dangerous than the one from last time, the very same monster that destroyed two Solymer armor parts of a Paladin's Power Armor.
Adam wasn't going to risk Captain Creed, so he had to come up with a plan, and it had to work effectively. Usually, drawing enemies out of caves would require fire and smoke; suffocation would either kill or draw them out. However, a cave network surely had a lot of ventilation, and it would be difficult to suffocate someone inside. For that, Adam turned to Elena and asked:
"Can you hotwire a HE shell?"
Elena paused for a second before nodding.
"And will an HE shell cause enough fire if exploded inside the Wolf Den?"
"Hopefully, there are enough things to burn inside, but yes, there will be a lot of heat and explosive force." She nodded.
"Alright." Adam formulated a plan and started giving orders. "I want the drone operators of the two squads to start giving me scan feedback for every cave entrance you can spot while Pennant Sergeant Elena hotwires an HE shell. With the feedback, I'll use the Warwolf blazer cannons or heavy fists to start wrecking them down, except for one. Captain Creed will take the hotwired HE shell, go in quick, try to get into the center of the den, then come back out. The HE shell explodes, the wolves find that the ventilation system is ruined, and come out to bite our asses. Good plan?"
"Better than trash-talking the Dire Wolf boss to death." Kave agreed with a shrug.
"Or capturing a few wolf cubs and making them squeal for their elders to come out," Elena added with an evil grin.
Even Ajax shivered from that last bit, whereas Kave was maniacally delighted, and Adam utterly disappointed.
"Fucking Grimdark Syndrome." He said and returned to his mech to proceed with the plan.
A few minutes later, the operators sent their drones up to the sky and started sending Adam's mech all their data about the cave system entrances where the wolves should be. Adam moved the mech to a vantage point where he could have a full view of the hill and started blasting his Blazer cannons in slower bursts, increasing their destructive force to that of a medium tank cannon.
The implications of the destruction that followed were immediate, as Adam's scanner showed multiple life signals flowing out of the caves, which he transmitted immediately to the other squads. A defensive perimeter was set, but what seemed rather strange was how the wolves acted, as rather than attacking, they trailed off the battlefield and started scattering about; close imagery showed many wolf broods being carried by elder wolves.
"Looks like the natives are making a run for it, sir," Buzz, the drone operator of the Trench Dogs, gave Adam a report. "Orders, sir. Should we blast in their direction?"
"Negative," Adam denied culling the wolves. "None of those were big enough to be an actual threat, let alone the horse-sized Dire Wolves. It seems the civilian wolves were evacuating."
"Which means there is a higher lifeform among them to make such a coordinated decision." Captain Creed intruded on the radio conversation.
"Higher lifeform, Boss Monster, it's all tometo tomato at this point," Adam replied before checking his screen. "The other side of the hill, has it been scanned yet?"
"The other side almost has no caves, sir. But…" Chips from the other squad, Ajax's squad, was the one to reply, his voice a mix of caution and hesitation. "I think you need to see this."
Adam then received a video transmission on his screen, showing the hill in a top-down view with a clear crater on top of it. The drone then descended and switched its vision mode, doing several scans before showing the opposite side of the hill with a steep and rough surface, yet with one smooth-looking rock protruding from inside out.
"Perfect. Now even the terrain is sending us eggplant emojis," Adam laughed as he looked at the image while squinting.
"It's not natural, sir. Scans say it is some sort of steel alloy construct." Chip replied.
Adam frowned and leaned forward towards his screen, before giving the command: "Get me a closer look."
As ordered, Chip got the drone much closer and even hovered around the construct for a bit, showing that this was indeed a man-made construct. Since it was on the dark side of the hill, however, it took a few seconds and different scan modes to discover the writing on its side.
"That's Russian… I think," Adam said and tilted his head sideways now that he had an inkling of what he was looking at. "That's a submarine!"
"Never seen one before, sir," Chip replied.
"Give your damn goggles to Sergeant Ajax; let him see this," Adam retorted, and after a little while, Ajax joined the call.
He checked the shape and confirmed what they were both looking at was indeed a: "…Project 670 Skat Soviet Charlie-class attack boat… What on Rift is that doing here?"
Adam blinked twice just as Ajax blurted the class of the submarine like it was written on his system screen, which prompted him to ask: "And you two know each other, how?"
"If I had been born in the sixties, you'd be seeing me married to one of these," Ajax replied with a laugh. "Submarines are my nerdy pleasure."
"A man of culture, I see," Adam nodded. "Looks like your old crush got here through some underwater Rift."
"And it's looking damn fine," Ajax said as he told Chip to get him closer to the submarine's front. "Look at the nose, right here! See how the bow looks bloated? Those are the launcher bays. This beauty was the premier underwater sniper of the Soviet Navy. It was the first boat in human history capable of launching cruise missiles while completely submerged. We used to have nightmares about these things popping out of the thermocline to ambush our carrier groups back in the Cold War!"
"Cruise missiles, you say?" Adam asked and leaned forward. "This one is one of those nuclear submarines, right? Does it have nuclear warheads inside?"
"Yes and yes…" Ajax replied enthusiastically before pausing and asking, "You're not thinking what I think you're thinking, right?"
"If you're thinking I'm taking nuclear warheads and throwing them at the Jotnar in Brighthaven, then nope," Adam replied.
"Well… thank God," Ajax replied.
Adam then continued: "But if you're thinking I'm taking nuclear warheads and throwing them at wherever those Jotnar came from, then…" A short pause made Ajax sweat. "Yeah, I think I'm doing just that."
"Oh, boy!" Ajax nodded in clear worry, but considering they were in an apocalypse and had nothing better, he seemed to agree with Adam, prompting him to answer: "If the internal seals held up, those tubes are packed with P-70 Ametists. We're talking three-and-a-half tons of solid-fuel rocket tech, tipped with a two-hundred-kiloton tactical atomic warhead."
"So…" Elena's voice came from Buzz's channel, intruding on the conversation. "We have city-killer bombardment ammunition in that tin can."
"You can take the missiles off?" Adam asked.
"I'll have to take every mechanic and auxiliary here to form a welding team; the Blazers we have will do the trick, but we'll need a Monk to ordain those atomics. I'm not looking forward to lying in bed for a week from some mild cancer." Elena replied casually.
"The nerve of those Wartopians!" Ajax commented, still not at peace with the whole thing about the Solarium treating cancer like a common cold.
"I'll also need a crane and a few supplies. As for transportation, your Warwolf is basically a Lunar Service Mech, so it can carry tons without a problem." Elena added, ignoring Ajax.
"I'll see what I can do. I'll have my radio guy contact the home base through that mobile scanner. Sergeant Wright will bring us what we need. Hopefully." Adam said with clear excitement, finally ready to get this advantage, gifted to him by the universe.
Atomic weapons are bad even by Solarium standards since they are worse than fossil emissions. However, loading those bad boys into starcrafts and nuking xenos worlds was like a virtue in the Solar Dogma, which brought Adam back to the present as he radioed Captain Creed:
"I think most cave entrances are now collapsed, my lord, except for the main one and the upper crater. Those oversized delicious puppies aren't going anywhere." Adam spoke while reviewing the scans. "You take the hotwired HE shell, run in with it, rig it to go off with a timer, and come back out."
"It's a fine plan, Adam Clay." Captain Creed said, holding the small hotwired near his chest.
"I've taken the liberty to instruct the Lord Paladin on American Football tactics. This will work." Kave joked over the radio.
"You did, bud? How did it go?" Adam asked.
"He said he loved the idea and can't wait for his Super Bowl debut," Kave replied.
Adam basked in the thought and smiled upon imagining some Solarium Paladins playing American Football with an explosive shell, feeling the lore implications of it, a thought that put a smile on his face.
"Alright, my lord quarterback, you can kick off."
Adam basked in the thought and smiled upon imagining some Solarium Paladins playing American Football with an explosive shell, feeling the lore implications of it, which put a smile on his face.
"Alright, my lord quarterback, you can kick off."
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