by Aer-ki Jyr
Puar growled seeing that they were going to beat the bipeds to the other side, so he took off in giant leaps ahead of the others with a few Scionate doing their best to keep up, but the Essence enhanced jumps almost allowed him to fly he was going so far.
He got to the far side, seeing clear space ahead of him…only to have a large glob of material fire at him from the Dumbo. He dodged to the side easily enough, with the acid attack splashing on the downed minions and eating through their bodies rapidly as it created a column of steam rising up and obscuring the others behind it.
Puar threw a smaller amount of Lian’no to the left, then more to the right, taking down the leading minions and using their falling bodies to trip up and slow the others behind, allowing his pack to catch up and get to open ground as another acid attack landing nearby them, but it was too slow firing and the combat computers in their armor were too good at predicting trajectory. They were able to dodge each one as they got their footing again, then they were off sprinting towards the Dumbo with only a scattering of minions between them and their target, and the Scionate were quick to dispose of those as they came to them.
That left the Varkemma with their primary target isolated for the moment, and armies of minions converging behind and ahead of them as they redeployed from everywhere to protect what they had thought was a safe Ultra minion. Now that it wasn’t the call had gone out, and if they didn’t take it down quickly they were going to be surrounded in a sea of minions they most likely could not escape from.
10
“Take out the point defenses!” the Scionate said as soon as the hail of water balloon shaped charges began firing out, hitting the ground, and expanding laterally for 30-40 meters of radius that was washing destructive energy against the group’s shields and draining them with every hit in addition to the beam weaponry that was mostly missing, but tearing large furrows in the ground wherever it landed.
“I thought you said it would wait until we were under it?” Juuma pointed out.
“We are under it,” Puar answered, looking up at the high back of the Dumbo from a little over a mile away. “Shall I?”
Just then one of the beams hit the group, whether by accident or design who knew, but it punched through what was left of their group shield and hit one of the Scionate. That quadruped went down and did not get back up, his armor smoking but his body seemed mostly intact.
Two of the other Scionate swung back to cover him as another beam shot near the same location and almost hit him twice.
Keel’vo leaned backwards and dug his heels into the ground, skidding to a halt and causing one of the other Scionate to jump over him to avoid a collision. Take out the point defenses, he told all of them telepathically as he ran back and jumped in front of the three Scionate as one of the orbs hit a second later, but the Essence-enhanced shield he threw up over them didn’t allow it through…then a beam hit it square on and disappeared from the negation effect.
“Behind you,” Puar warned as he ran forward with the rest.
“Worry about the target. I can handle these vermin if you get rid of…look out!”
Puar saw it a moment before Keel’vo spoke. The ‘ear’ of the Dumbo that had been stretched out horizontally was rotating down and backwards, sweeping the ground and tearing off the top meter or so as it did with the leading edge cutting across their path. It missed short, but then reversed and dug down even deeper, forcing a wall of dirt flying towards them with the heavily armored ear behind it going to do the most damage if it hit.
The Scionate pack veered right, trying to get clear of its reach, but Puar didn’t go with them. Instead he turned left and headed directly for it, jumping up and over the dirt plume to hit the top of the ear where he clung to it using an Essence technique and not even bothering to activate his armor’s grip pads.
“Go for the underside,” he told the others. “I’m going for the head.”
“Can you see inside it?” Timnim asked.
“No.”
“Then what…”
“I can still do damage. Maybe enough to disorient it.”
“Don’t waste time,” Juuma argued. “Go for the kill shot. You may not have enough Essence for that on your own and we don’t have time for anything else.”
“You can’t…” Puar started to say as he ran across the ear at a steep angle, but it moved again, flattening out somewhat as the entire Dumbo stopped walking forward and turned to face the little attackers as the special minions beneath it continued forward and away from them. “The Scionate can’t take that and you can’t get…”
“Take it down,” the Scionate interrupted as most of them accelerated so fast the two bipeds couldn’t keep up. “Get on our backs, now!”
Two Scionate ran up next to Juuma and Timnim as the giant ear rotated and dug into the dirt again, now repositioned within range to scrape them off the ground.
The two Varkemma did as instructed, jumping up onto the backs of the Scionate as the tiger-like cats took off sprinting towards the others faster than the bipeds could have run. They didn’t make it clear, rather having to punch through the dirt with their own jumps and slam into the armored ear…where they also stuck and began to run up it.
“The point defense turret ahead,” one of them said, with Juuma seeing the spot on the ear marked on the battlemap for him.
“Get a little closer,” he said.
“It cannot turn to target us. Wait until we are on it,” the Scionate said, and Juuma switched from a ranged attack to summoning a Fruc’zo over his left hand. He balled it up there, with the light passing through that spot twisting as it was heavily distorted, then when the Scionate ran him up to the pimple-like lump on the ear he threw the disintegration energy into it and flinched as the steam-like explosion knocked them to the side, but the Scionate kept his footing enough to keep them from rolling, which was damn hard considering the ear was continuing to move beneath them.
“A good hit,” the Scionate beneath him said. “Can you do another?”
“I can do as many as you like…”
Puar was far ahead of them now, both those on the ear and those circling around to try to get at the rear of the Dumbo, for the ears were attached to the head and couldn’t sweep backwards past the stubby tail, which was itself too high off the ground to attack anything back there. It was the weakest point on the heavy minion, and that was probably why the Dumbo was rotating around to not let them get there.
Puar took an expanding water balloon attack from one of the point defenses on the back when the ear dipped lower, but it didn’t stop him. He had to maintain foot contact the entire time or he’d fall off, but while that slowed him considerably it also allowed him to maintain a rhythm that was bringing him towards the point where the ear attached to the body, and that part moved the least of all.
Several flying minions swooped in and started shooting at him, but he threw a Lian’no up at them and within seconds they were falling out of the sky as their hearts seized up. That plus every step he took drained him of Essence, but nothing like what he was about to do.
His second sight was not Pefbar. Had it been he could have seen inside the skull of the Dumbo and scrambled its brain. His telekinesis didn’t work that way. He had to have line of sight for it to work, so he couldn’t touch the inside…except to use a pure Essence reach and grip, which cost a great amount of power the further away one tried.
As he got close enough to try, Puar decided Juuma was right. He had to go for a kill shot, and neither of the other 3 Varkemma had telekinesis that worked the way the Archons’ did. They were going to have to blast their way inside, and the skull was the worst place to do so. It was three times as thick as the rest of the Dumbo’s body, because that’s where it wanted to take the most attacks.
The eyes were armored over too, for they were incorporated into the stiff material rather than being soft and squishy like most lifeforms. They were literally made of rock, and it had so many that there was no effective wa
y to blind it.
Puar could see the hordes of minions all around them in the distance converging on their location. They didn’t have time to waste, and as long as those giant ear plates were being used as weapons they were not going to get an easy shot at the underside.
Puar growled and took off along the head, ignoring the point defenses as he went to save Essence. Up ahead was the spot where the skull ended and the body began. That was his target now, though it was going to take him far from the brain.
He took down a few more flyers as some of the Scionate finally got up to the rear left foot, then the ear collapsed on them and they had to run underneath the Dumbo to keep from getting hit…then the entire Ultra sat down on its 6 legs and tried to smash them. Fortunately the Scionate were moving better than 100 miles an hour and were able to get out the rear before that happened, but Puar instantly realized they’d baited the Dumbo into doing so, because for the moment it could not turn again. Not until it stood up.
That allowed Juuma and Timnim on their mounts to get around to the rear, where they both started using the Dre’mo’don in their jewels to snipe away the point defenses in the area with Essence-enhanced green beams. The Scionate were also shooting them with blue Dre’mo’don orbs and adding to the damage, but there was no comparison in firepower. Even though the Varkemma’s cannons were much smaller, the Essence addition allowed them to melt through the turrets while all the missed shots barely scratched the armor around the point defenses.
The Dumbo was so concerned with those directly behind it that the weaponsfire headed to Keel’vo and the downed Scionate ended, giving them a chance to pick up and move closer as the minion wave crashed forward less than a minute away. Puar had to kill this thing now, or at least give the others an opening to finish it.
He let go of his grip and started to free run across the back in great leaps, then skidded to a stop when he got past where the intel report had said the base of the skull was. He immediately started to disintegrate a section of the armor in front of him and channel the debris out in one direction. Without a charge first, his damage was like a constant water squirt that peeled away an inch or two of the heavy armor per second. As it cleared away he stepped into the two meter wide hole, with the debris now being channeled around his head with considerable effort so not to blow him back out.
In he dug, slowly disappearing inside the armor as he drew heavily on his jewel’s reserves to get through the armor layer, which he finally did after expending 79% of his reserves. The goo underneath didn’t gush blood like the other minions did, but it was oozing fluid and he began to tear through several feet of it per second.
“I’m through,” he said, with no response. In fact, his battlemap signals had cut out entirely now that he was inside. The armor wasn’t letting the signal through, and there were no Star Force assets directly overhead to relay it. Plus he couldn’t get a feel for any of the minds out there, so telepathy was not an option.
Puar walked through mush as he disintegrated and shoved the material back behind him, not all of which made it outside as he pushed his way just underneath the armor layer headed towards where the brain was, but he knew he wasn’t going to make it. He cut as much of a tunnel as he could before his jewel’s reserves wore out, then he stopped, using a little of his own Essence to cut a room at the end large enough for him to turn around so he didn’t have to try and back his way out of the claustrophobic tunnel that was now two foot deep in bio ooze.
He slogged back out, having to trim a little of the tunnel back with Dre’mo’don blasts from his armor as the wound began to reseal, then the gore-covered Varkemma pulled himself up the solid vertical tunnel through the armor until his head poked out the top an orange/purple mess in the center of a giant goo splat on the back of the Dumbo where all that material had been shot out.
“Juuma, Timnim, I need you. I’m through the armor, but can’t get to the head. My jewel is expended and I don’t have enough personal Essence to finish it.”
“Already on my way,” Timnim said, with his marker not appearing on the battlemap until he was within 200 meters of Puar.
The Trigorma pulled himself the rest of the way out, then began shooting with his armor’s weapons at the flying minions swirling around the top of the Dumbo, reserving his Essence for when they got too close to him. If he could take them down conventionally he would, because he didn’t want to become nothing more useful than a slightly larger Scionate.
“It’s resealing, hurry,” he urged.
“Oh that’s gross,” Timnim said, as he looked into the pool of goo down inside the armor, then he dove in head first, counting on his armor’s backup system to supply him with oxygen while he was under there. Puar stayed outside, swaying a bit as the Dumbo continued to move and rotate to get at the Scionate underneath that were distracting it. There was no way it could ignore the damage to its back, but its ears couldn’t rotate this direction and Puar was inside its point defenses for the most part, and it looked like Timnim had already cleared those nearest to his location.
The minion waves were almost to the Dumbo’s feet when it suddenly fell to the ground and ceased to move. Its ears were partially extended, making two huge walls dug into the ground protecting triangular sections of dirt on either side of it.
“I think Timnim did it,” Puar said over the comm.
“Where is he?” Keel’vo demanded, with his icon on the ground and pulling back into one of those triangular sections along with what looked like most of the Scionate. A few others were still roaming outside and shooting point defense batteries that hadn’t gotten the word yet that the Dumbo was dead. They must have had autonomic functions, or either this beast was not a single person, but a collection of minds fused into one body.
“The armor is blocking signals. My telepathy won’t get through either. Do you have enough reserves to hold here, or do we make a run for it?”
“We have to clear the residual anti-air defense, then we will be air lifted out,” a Scionate told them.
“What’s left?” Puar asked, then he got a number of target positions painted onto the battlemap.
“I’ve got them,” Juuma said, climbing up the side of the now still and mountain-like Dumbo. “Save your Essence Puar.”
“I will take one,” Puar argued, running away from the hole to another bump that was still active. He searched for a mind there, looking for an Essence signature as well, but found neither. These turrets had to be autonomic, or perhaps Timnim hadn’t destroyed the part of the brain that was operating them.
Puar used a Totanni technique instead of a disruptor to preserve energy, sucking heat out of the target until it became frigid inside the light armor on the ‘pimple.’ Then with a jerk of Essence-enhanced telekinesis he fractured whatever was inside and saw an immediate deflation of the bump as it retracted back a bit. They extended out when they needed to get more lateral firing angles, so he assumed this one was now inoperative, but he stayed near it for a moment to be sure, walking closer and closer to see if it would fire at him. When he stood directly on top of it and nothing happened he knew it was dead.
“Done,” Timnim said as he pulled his goo-coated armor out of the hole and made comm contact with the others again. “What now?”
“Hold till evac,” Puar said, running back towards him and over the descending side with Timnim following him. Eventually they just slid until freefall between the ear and the side, using their armor’s anti-grav to cushion their fall down to the dirt where the rest of the team was waiting and firing with their conventional weapons out into the bit of the minion wave visible approaching the triangle.
“Is he alive?” Puar asked of the downed Scionate.
“He is, but his Regenerator is broken, as is his front leg. We’ve stabilized him using ours, but it’s not a full heal. He remains unconscious and I don’t know why.”
“Pull his armor off. I can heal him,” Puar said, popping off the leg segments of his own to reveal his front two paws,
one of which held the Varkemma symbol. Archon armor was retractable, but static armor like they all wore here was much stronger, and they’d decided they wanted the extra protection before coming down to the planet. Apparently the Scionate had felt the same way.
“You can?” Keel’vo asked.
“I can perform Jata’llo.”
“I will cover you,” the biped said, standing over both of them and creating an Essence shield that sat like an upside down cup over them.
Puar used his own Essence this time, pressing his paws against the now exposed shoulder blade of the Scionate that was missing both skin and muscle, along with part of the bone that had been burnt off, but the collision or the explosion had also fractured the leg bone enough that it broke in three other places, which he could see with his Fremmav vision as the weaponsfire at the opening of the triangle began to become frantic.
Juuma and Timnim were there with the rest of the Scionate, but the gap was wider than they all were between Dumbo ear and body, meaning they had a lot of territory to defend unless they all wanted to retreat back into the crevice further, which no one wanted.
Puar concentrated, trusting in the others enough not to even look or defend himself as he empowered his own immune system’s microbes and redirected them towards his paws, and through them into the Scionate. His Essence kept a link to them, and through it he sent some of his own biomatter to those locations and let the mystical power of Essence do the rest.
Those places regrew tissue using the material provided, and Puar had to pick the worst spots to repair, for he didn’t have any other source of material besides his body and the Scionate’s, which was smaller than his. Puar became faint after a few minutes and finally stopped after putting the leg bone back together and reconnecting the muscle tissue enough that the leg would work again, though how well was questionable.
Why the Scionate hadn’t woken was a mystery, but he woke him easily enough with a wash of his brain with a rejuvenating technique known as Smaoo. Puar put a paw on top of his head and used his telekinesis to hold him in place as he got his bearings, then he slowly let him get up.