The first order of business was to repel the boarders. Once they were contained, Yuriko could follow the path back to one of the ships and take over.  

The incursion cylinders struck the outer hull and plasma torches along the end fired up to cut into the Darlington Cross. The passengers spilt into the hallways. Well, squeezed into them, actually. The enemies were large, bigger than Heron by at least ten inches. And because of that, they had to hunch over to enter the narrow halls. They also had to turn slightly sideways to move. 

No sooner had the first couple of boarders entered than the defense systems activated. Turrets popped out from the ceiling and laid down a fusillade of lead. The enemy was in powered armour so Yuriko didn’t expect the machine guns to immediately neutralise them.

And she was right. Mostly.

Instead of relying on the thick metal protecting them, the boarders’ armour emitted an energy field, kinetic-based, that drained away the bullets’. The lead stopped in midair, not even squashed by the sudden stop, then dropped to the floor. Then the enemy pointed his firearm at the turret and blasted it apart. 

They did it for a couple more turrets, but evidently, they didn’t want to remain in the death trap. Yuriko noticed their energy field fading slightly after stopping so many bullets, so there was a limit to their defences. The Gold Flock Mercenaries and some of the shipboard marines had taken positions near killboxes and chokepoints. 

Stormdriven, on the other hand, were leisurely making their way to one of the entry points. Five minutes later, the invaders made it to one of the defense points and engaged the mercs. Bullets out of lead, superheated plasma, or thin needles, flew at the energy, and only the solid slugs were repealed. The plasma was blocked too but the energy fields were drained a hundredfold compared to the bullets. 

Then they shot back, not with bullets, coherent light, or superheated plasma, but with something else. The lead invader punched the air in front of him, and a translucent fist shot out. It struck one of the Gold Flock mercs and went through the man’s armour as if it wasn’t there. Yuriko felt the shockwave emerge behind the man, and he fell over and twitched. 

The Gold Flock didn’t panic, but focused fire on the spectral puncher. The invader hunkered down, allowing the one behind him to punch out a similar looking fist, with the same result happening to the next merc in line. 

Yuriko whistled in appreciation. She could still feel that the fallen mercs were only unconscious and not dead, so there was that. Perhaps another blow would have killed them, but the invaders didn’t waste time on that. They systematically brought down the dozen mercs in the line of fire. There were just three of them at that point. The other nine had spread out and were taking different routes. 

“Stop them please, Gwen?” Yuriko asked. 

“Sure,” her lover said and she ran towards that intersection. 

“Heron, take care of the ones in area 3.” 

“Alright.” 

That left two other areas where the boarders from the first assault cylinder were at. Yuriko hummed for a moment, then sent Devotee and Saki to deal with one. The last one, she headed towards by herself. As far as she could see, the brutes were advancing past the turrets after demolishing them, and none of the shipboard marines were close enough to block them. The rest of the mercs were handling the assault cylinder that struck the other side of the ship. 

Yuriko pursed her lips. Two ships, two assault cylinders, twenty four marauders. The Gold Flock was having a hard time and had already lost three men. The others that fell in the first junction had only fallen unconscious, but those three had collapsed, then subsequently crushed by uncaring boots. 

Yuriko’s Anima perception covered every inch and cranny of the Darlington Cross. She knew which weapon systems were still online and which had been destroyed. As it were, if she and the others didn’t intervene, the Voidship would be lost. 

She could hear Captain Finley cursing up a storm, her expression was tightly controlled however, even if panic oozed out of the edges. The First Officer was more taciturn and she was furiously coordinating with the shipboard marines. There was also an edge of despair behind her eyes. 

‘So I guess they didn’t expect to be attacked enroute to the outpost,’ Yuriko thought. Well, two enemy ships. 

She held out both of her hands and drew her Animus and Radiant energy. She shaped two sunblades, then infused both with Intent and Will before slicing it off from her Anima. A brief spark of pain, then some numbness. She wondered if this was how Da felt whenever he used Manifestation on his bullets. Perhaps not, she considered. The Plasma Bolts weren’t that large and all Da did was guide them around corners or set them to seek his targets. Perhaps that was the minimum Manifestation does for Imperials. 

She sent the sunblades flying towards the invaders. As the glowing, golden swords left her hand, a silhouette of her body appeared, holding the hilt of both blades. They looked remarkably like the Golden Silhouettes of her early Facet, come to think of it. Was she a manifestation too? Of Damien? She remembered that the Golden Silhouette had been male the first time she accessed it. It changed shape to match her physique so that it could impart the proper sword techniques without having to adjust for differences in dimension. 

A question to ponder at another time, perhaps. She needed all of her minds focused on the current situation. She ignored the events in Astoria for now, and actively segregated her consciousness. Both bodies could function without the need for linkage anyway, and when she stopped the partition was when her memories would synchronise. It might create dissonance, but as long as she didn’t force the separation for too long, it shouldn’t be a problem. 

She would have created more Manifestations, but just severing one from her Anima used up nearly three percent of her Intent and Will. It was a permanent investment too, until she allowed the Manifestations to dissipate. Only then would her Intent and Will regenerate. As it were, it was only the fact that her reserves were deeper than her incarnation body that allowed her to use the Bladeless Sword so easily. Where the incarnation used up 1% of Intent for a two pace wide Edge, she only used a tenth of a percent. Hence, she could basically throw a hundred of the things per minute without worry. Well, now, just forty a minute. They should be enough for this kind of foe. 

Her first Manifestation sunblade reached one of the three man squads. The brutes froze when her golden silhouette appeared in front of them, but hesitation only lasted for half a second. They immediately attacked with their spectral blows. Well, whether they hesitated or not, and whether she took advantage of the gap or just let it be would have made no difference. The spectral blows hit the silhouette, but unlike the sunblade, that was just a resonance illusion. The spectral fists passed through the silhouette as though it was mere shadow, and the sunblade stabbed into the leading brute. 

His energy field sparked to life, but the Radiant sunblade pierced through it as though it wasn’t there. The blade hit the armour, then melted through after a split second. She hit the brute directly over his heart, and the sunblade thrust all the way through the other side. She wrenched it out a moment later, let the brute fall in a heap, then stabbed the second, then the third. 

A minute. That’s how long they lasted. 

Yuriko snorted in annoyance. She had expected more, honestly, and most of her enthusiasm at her foes died down. Ah, but maybe there would be a stronger foe on either ship. 

Humming to herself, she created another Manifestation and directed it through to both assault cylinders. They went through the small space and punched through the back. Normally, Yuriko’s senses when she relied on the sunblades was limited to a pace around the weapon if they went beyond her perception range. Well, she couldn’t quite tell the difference now since both enemy ships were only half a longstride away. She could stretch her perception that much by limiting so it only focused on both ships rather than as a sphere around the Darlington Cross. 

In the meantime, she confronted one of the other marauder squads by herself. The brutes, once they saw her armoured form, didn’t hesitate to attack. Yuriko watched the spectral fist approach, then deliberately allowed it to hit her. She felt the attack shatter against her condensed aura, though it hit harder than a comparable projectile. Not by much, honestly, maybe by ten percent or so. The special thing about it is that the attack used an Ennoia that she hadn’t encountered before. She called it spectral in her head because she associated it with ghosts she saw in Astorian movies. 

Not that she knew what ghosts could do, or how their energies felt like, come to think of it. Either way, her Anima interacted with the brute’s spectral energy as easily as it did everything else, and she wondered if they utilised a form of Anima projection technique to fight. Well, she’d find out once she took prisoners. For now…

Swish, swish. 

Invisible Edges cut through both energy field and armour, leaving the brutes in halves. She moved to the other junctions and cleaned up the boarders in a couple of minutes. At the same time, her Manifestations made it to the Voidships. She couldn’t understand the letters painted on the hull, so she wondered if she could even get the enemy to surrender. She wasn’t averse to wholesale slaughter, especially considering that they were the aggressors in this little play. But then again, would she think differently if it was her ship that started the fight? 

Maybe, maybe not. Probably not, if she were being honest. Though she would likely be a bit more merciful. The Manifestations entered each ship and since she had no idea where the bridges were, she began to fight, defeat, or kill the crew members on board. They yelled curses at her, tried fighting back, but they were, frankly, no match. 

It was here that she found out what the brutes looked like outside of their armour, and she had nicknamed them appropriately. They were large, broad, grey skinned, had flat-ish faces, and were adorned with so much muscle that they made bodybuilders in Astoria look small. Some of them had tusks jutting out from their lower jaws, mostly the men, she realised. The women were so well-endowed that it looked ridiculous, with each breast bigger than their heads. The ratio of men to women was about four to one, though, and the ladies were either in the engineering stations or the bridge, as she soon found out. 

The captain of the vessel attempted to shoot her Manifestation, not with a spectral fist, but with a Plasma Lancet, or what looked like one anyway. She couldn’t call it a pistol because it didn’t fire a solid bullet. Either way, her Manifestation avoided the bolt. The captain, and the bridge guards all attacked, and they didn’t aim for the silhouette but for the actual blade. Yuriko danced through the rain of energy bullets, disarmed the guards, sometimes literally, and chopped up the captain’s weapons. One of the officers lunged for a button on one of the consoles and managed to depress it before Yuriko could intervene. The display screens blinked red then displayed a countdown. Even if she couldn’t read the numbers, the implications were clear. Oh well. The crew looked depressed, but vindicated. 

As for the other ship, Yuriko managed to disarm everyone before they hit the power core overload button. And while the first ship’s engine room melted down, she managed to capture the second ship. Well, at least the first one didn’t explode outright. 

Now it was time to claim her prize. At least, she’d have room to stretch her legs.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep