SSS-Tier Extraction: From Outcast to Overgod!-Chapter 89: The Siege of the Enclave

The red alert alarm blared through the ancient habitat, a frantic, screaming pulse that resound the frantic, terrified beating of Ryan’s own heart.

Outside, the Void Marauder fleet had formed a ring of death around the small, fragile Enclave. They were like a pack of colossal, metal sharks circling a single, wounded swimmer.

"They’re hailing us," Zara said, her voice tight as she sprinted back onto the "Odyssey’s" bridge. A face appeared on the main viewscreen. It was a creature that was half-reptilian, half-machine, its lips curled back in a cruel sneer that showed off rows of sharp, metallic teeth.

"You have something that belongs to us, little mice," the Marauder captain hissed, its voice a gravelly distortion. "The shining bauble. Give it to us, and we might let you live as our slaves. Resist, and we will peel this little tin can open and take it from your cooling corpses."

Ryan didn’t even have to think about it. "Emma, tell him his ship is ugly and his mother dresses him funny."

Emma blinked, then a small, fierce smile touched her lips. "With pleasure." She cut the channel.

The response from the Marauders was immediate and violent. A storm of raw, angry energy erupted from their fleet. Crude but powerful plasma cannons, missiles made of scrap metal and volatile minerals, and beams of crackling, chaotic energy slammed into the Enclave’s failing shields.

The entire habitat shuddered, the ancient metal groaning under the assault. The lights flickered wildly, threatening to go out completely.

"Shields at forty percent!" Emma yelled from the "Odyssey’s" bridge. "They’re not going to hold for long!"

The battle for the last hope of the Precursors had begun. It was a desperate, impossible fight.

Lyra, the First Weaver, and the other four Precursors glided to the center of the Enclave. They raised their faint, translucent hands, and a soft, silver light flowed from them, wrapping around the habitat.

The shuddering lessened slightly as they poured their own fading life force into the shields, trying to keep them from collapsing.

<We can bolster the defenses, Lyra’s thought-voice echoed in their minds, laced with a weary strain. But we are faint. We cannot hold them for long. You must be our sword.

"A sword is no good without a shield!" Ryan yelled back. "Emma, Zara! Is there any way to connect the ’Odyssey’ to the Enclave’s power grid? We need to share our ship’s strength!"

"I’m on it!" Zara replied, her fingers flying across her console. "Their systems are ancient, but the basic principles are the same! It’s like trying to plug a smartphone into a wall socket from the 1920s, but it might just work!"

Sparks flew from her console as she forced the two systems to talk to each other. A moment later, a thick, humming energy cable extended from the bottom of the "Odyssey" and locked into a port on the hangar floor.

The lights in the Enclave brightened, and the shields outside shimmered with new strength. They had bought themselves a little more time.

Now, it was time to fight back.

"Scarlett!" Ryan roared. "You have control!"

"Finally," Scarlett said with a predator’s grin. She was in her element. She took direct control of the "Odyssey’s" weapon systems, which Ryan had linked to her pilot’s chair. Thanks to the upgrades from the Beacon, they weren’t just simple laser cannons anymore.

A Marauder frigate, emboldened by its size, moved in closer, preparing to fire a massive plasma torpedo.

"Target locked," Scarlett said, her voice cold as ice. She pressed a button.

A beam of shimmering, rainbow-colored light shot from the "Odyssey." It wasn’t a normal energy beam. It was a "reality-warping" projectile, a trick they had learned from the Beacon’s archives.

The beam didn’t slam into the Marauder ship’s shields. It simply ignored them. It passed through the shield as if it weren’t there and hit the plasma torpedo just as it was launching.

The torpedo didn’t explode. It just... changed. The plasma inside it suddenly and inexplicably transformed into a giant, harmless glob of what looked like lukewarm gelatin.

The gelatin splattered uselessly against the Enclave’s shield. The Marauder captain stared at the jiggling mess on his viewscreen, his reptilian jaw hanging open in confusion.

Ryan, meanwhile, had taken on a new role. He stood on the bridge of the "Odyssey," his eyes closed, his Weaver’s Gauntlet glowing. He had become the ship’s co-processor, his mind linked directly to its systems. He was using his Imposition talent on a scale he had never dreamed of.

He saw a volley of scrap-metal missiles heading for them. He reached out with his mind and "imposed" a new physical property on them. In mid-flight, the missiles suddenly became incredibly brittle. They shattered into dust against the shield, doing no damage.

Another Marauder ship tried to use an energy harpoon, just like the scout ship had. Ryan focused on the energy chain connecting the harpoon to the ship.

He "imposed" the concept of "unraveled" onto it. The crackling energy chain fizzled and dissolved into nothing, leaving the harpoon to float uselessly into the void.

They were fighting a brilliant, desperate defense. Scarlett’s impossible piloting and pinpoint shooting, combined with Ryan’s reality-bending tricks, made their small skiff a nightmare to fight.

They were a tiny, nimble mosquito that the big, clumsy Marauder fleet just couldn’t swat.

But the Marauders had numbers. For every ship they disabled, two more moved in to take its place. The sheer volume of fire was relentless.

The Enclave’s shields began to flicker again. A lucky shot from a heavy cannon slammed into the side of the habitat, and the entire structure groaned in protest.

"Hull breach on deck four!" Emma yelled. "Their boarding parties are coming!"

Ryan’s eyes snapped open. "Scarlett, keep them busy out here! Emma, Zara, stay on the bridge! I’ll handle the welcome wagon."

He raced out of the cockpit and into the dimly lit corridors of the Enclave. He could hear the grinding sound of the Marauders cutting their way through an inner bulkhead. He arrived just as a section of the wall exploded inwards.

The first Marauder to step through was a giant, brutish creature with four arms and a face only a mother could love, if that mother was also a giant, brutish creature. It held a wicked-looking axe in each of its four hands. It saw Ryan standing there alone and let out a triumphant roar.

Ryan didn’t even blink. He used Chrono-Haste, the world slowing to a crawl. He sidestepped the charging brute’s clumsy attack, and as he moved past, he slapped a small, glowing disk onto its back, a "kinetic charger" he had pieced together from spare parts.

He slid to a stop behind the creature as time returned to normal. The Marauder, confused as to where he had gone, turned around.

"Boo," Ryan said.

He triggered the disk. All of the kinetic energy from the Marauder’s own charge was instantly absorbed and then released back at it in a single, focused blast. The brute was launched backward as if it had been hit by a cannonball, smashing into the rest of its boarding party and sending them flying like bowling pins.

The fight for the Enclave was now a battle on two fronts: a dazzling space battle outside, and a brutal, close-quarters brawl inside. Ryan was a one-man army, his diverse skillset making him an unpredictable whirlwind of death.

He used Phase Step to appear behind enemy riflemen, Chrono-Slow to dodge power-axe swings, and his poisoned knife to finish off anyone who got too close.

But he knew, with a sinking feeling in his gut, that they couldn’t keep this up. The Marauder fleet was too big. The boarding parties were endless. The Enclave’s shields were about to fail. They were buying time, but time was running out.

He ducked behind a pillar to avoid a spray of plasma fire, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He was getting tired. He looked at the center of the Enclave, where Lyra and the other Precursors were desperately holding the shields together, their faint light growing dimmer with every passing moment.

And then he looked at the cracked, flickering Genesis Seed on its pedestal.

There was only one way out of this. They couldn’t win by fighting. They had to win by creating. He had to repair the Seed. And he had to do it now, in the middle of a raging battle, with everything on the line.

He sent a final, desperate message to his crew. "I’m going for the Seed. Buy me as much time as you can. Whatever it takes."

He turned and sprinted towards the heart of the Enclave, towards the last, desperate hope of a dying universe.

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