by James Somers
Kale watched his brother from behind a nearby wall. He had made it this far with Wynn’s help, now he just had to keep Tiet alive. It was hard to believe that Wynn had helped him to escape.
Wynn must really care for Tiet and believe that Kale would actually follow him here and try to protect him. The man was quite insightful, and Kale was determined to give his life for his brother if necessary. He would never betray him again.
Wynn had apparently thought this out and had provided a uniform to allow him to blend in with the other soldiers. He activated his own data-scope lens and watched the image as he scanned out to where the Baruk were approaching from.
Flipping through several different image perspectives, he noted something odd. The main group was apparently approaching under some sort of large shield that went before them like a barricade. It appeared to be automated, and put off an easily recognizable power signature. But something else was showing up ahead of their formation.
Kale tapped his wrist pad for an analysis of the odd signature that was showing up as multiple trails heading in their direction.
Insufficient data, said the computer display.
Looking with normal vision he could see nothing. No dust trail, no visible anything. The trails continued on a steady pace along the ground as the Baruk began to close in on the outskirts of the suburban housing area. The area at that point began to slope upward toward the perimeter defense wall behind him.
Kale noticed the others getting ready to fire and Tiet’s voice came over his headset. “Lock on your targets and use multi-burst setting. Fire on my command.”
That was smart, because the symbiotic creatures that provided the exoskeleton for the Baruk could take several direct hits before allowing a burst penetration. The multi-burst would likely get shots through the living armor.
The large shield dissipated as the Baruk came into closer quarters in the housing area, as did the cannon fire from within the perimeter wall. They were too close to be hit by it now.
There was a town square with a fountain and an open area that lay between themselves and the Baruk. Tiet had given an order to wait for the enemy to reach it before firing; and only on his command. Kale could see the forces that opposed them more clearly now, and they were fearsome indeed.
It was mostly infantry but they had large carrier vehicles that carried supplies for the troops as well as large projectile cannons that were mounted to the top with various other arms. A number of large alien beasts were mingled among them as well; they all looked like the kind of mutated ravenous brutes that the Baruk were known for.
The Baruk were fanning out through the streets below, and all of them were rapidly making their way toward the defense wall. It looked like there had to be at least five thousand warriors storming toward the city and the hidden Castillian army. Kale readied his own pulse rifle and looked over his weaponry.
He was well-armed, with spicor discs in rows along his chest attached to magnetic bands. His two kemsticks were magnetically clipped to each thigh and his blade was safe within his scabbard across his back. They would need every bit of this firepower and it probably still would not be enough.
The enemy forces began to pour into the town square and come around the fountain as they advanced. Kale heard the command from his brother, “Fire!” and the battle was on. All of the Castillian soldiers blazed to life from their hidden positions, as a massive wave of pulse laser fire erupted down the slope against the advancing Baruk. Immediately they scattered and sought cover from the onslaught. Many were cut down as the multiburst laser fire punched through the symbiotic exoskeletons.
Kale noticed once again the strange signature of moving lines as he peered through his data-scope lens. They were moving very close to their position now, almost as if they were underground! But the thought occurred to him too late. Just as he raised from his position amid the return projectile fire from the Baruk warriors, the Hurutai erupted from beneath the ground.
Kale had seen them one time before, but had only vaguely remembered the capabilities of the huge worm-like creatures. They moved very fast and as their heads pushed upwards through the surface they caught the Castillians completely off guard.
Around the neck area of the creatures were hundreds of six inch spines that shot forth in every direction from the vesicles that produced them. Kale could see about ten of the worms emerging among the troops as he leapt behind a barrier to escape the spines. Soldiers all around the creatures were hit by the spines which contained a fast acting neurotoxin.
That was what Kale had remembered the most; the Hurutai paralyzed the voluntary skeletal muscle functions of their prey so that they could feed on fresh meat without a struggle. He had seen one eat up to ten men at once, holding them within its long wormy body for a slow digestion over several days.
As he peered back at his previous perch he saw it pierced with poison needles all around. He remembered his brother then and searched visually for him amid the chaos.
TIET fired his pulse rifle at every target he could find. The multiburst setting was allowing them to penetrate the Baruk armor; which looked like some sort of exoskeleton. Suddenly something blew up out of the ground nearby.
He turned from his crouched position to see a huge worm-like head pushing through the ground. He had never seen anything like it.
His men fell in every direction as needlelike spines erupted away from a colored ring around the creature’s head. Tiet raised his weapon to fire at it but his own arms began to go limp.
He looked down as the pulse rifle fell out of his hands and he saw a spine fixed in his lower left abdomen. He pulled it out as his vision went blurry and the buildings and terrain began to spin. He felt the ground smash hard into his face as he tumbled over helpless. He tried to cry out for help, but could not.
The beast reared its head around and slammed into the ground as it brought more of its body out on the surface. It opened up a huge orifice allowing long tentacle like tongues to issue forth across the ground. It latched onto various Castillian soldiers lying on the ground and quickly pulled their paralyzed bodies into its own hulking mass, consuming their paralyzed bodies.
Tiet could see it all, but could not move. He tried to use his kinesis, but he was too dizzy and disoriented to concentrate. It looked like this would be his end; eaten alive by this monster of the Baruk.
Around him, soldiers he had trained personally from among the Castillians and the Vorn were being pulled into the gullet of the creature. He would have wept for them if he could, or risen to save them, but it was no use.
He could see pulse fire still being exchanged with the firepower of the Baruk and other creatures like this worm that were spraying their venomous darts at his forces as they tried to fend off what was quickly becoming a slaughter.
In the near distance he could see the approach of the Baruk as they made their way up the slope. If the worms didn’t take him, the Baruk certainly would.
A coiled tentacle swept over his body as the creature moved its head in his direction. The horrid appendage latched onto his leg and began to pull him toward the gaping maw of the creature. It leveled its head to his position as the tentacle pulled his limp body through the dirt.
This was it. It was over. A brand new coalition of Vorn and Castillian people working together for peace and safety, his reign as King on the family throne once occupied by great men, including his own father, and now it was going to end.
The Baruk were winning. They had lost most of the Vorn cruisers trying to prevent the ground war that now was probably going to destroy the Twelve Cities, and he was ultimately responsible as their leader.
A flash of light blazed across his visual field and suddenly the tentacle was hanging from his leg, severed. From above the head of the great worm beast he could see a lone figure coming down on it with an ignited Barudii blade that was quickly driven straight into whatever brain it might possess.
The creature reared up as the soldier drove it deep again. The beast gave
up the fight quickly and the head crashed with tremendous force into the ground near Tiet’s paralyzed body.
Without warning, this person picked him up somehow, almost as if he had levitated up to him. And then they were off and running. He heard a voice as the scenery kept changing before his fixed eyes. “Don’t worry; I’ll get you out of here, brother.”
It couldn’t be. Kale? But he was in detention at Baeth Periege. And suddenly with the realization, he felt no anger, only relief that somehow and for some reason his brother was here to save his life.
He could hear Kale as he called for a retreat to behind the defense wall. “Abandon your posts and return to the city immediately, by order of the King!”
Tiet was glad Kale was taking charge. The men were getting slaughtered and he would have called the retreat himself had he been able. Hopefully, the remainder of the civilian population had been able to get behind Wynn’s ten mile front by now. They had been nearly out by the time the defense cannons were set to auto track and left running as long as the Baruk were within target range.
Kale joined other soldiers who were now in full retreat from the advancing Baruk. They had to reach the access portals quickly to get inside the wall before the enemy caught up with them. Fortunately it appeared that the creatures were busy still feeding, leaving only the Baruk warriors on their trail.
The clatter of their projectile weapons could be heard all around, as the metal shells pounded the surrounding buildings and took down more of the Castillian soldiers retreating toward the defense wall. Of five hundred elite warriors that had come to the battlefield with their king, fewer than a hundred remained standing.
Kale tried to put as many structures between himself and the advancing Baruk as he could to block the storm of shells swarming around them. He found them easier to detect mentally than pulse blasts that traveled much faster, but it was still difficult to evade all the gunfire with his brother limp across his back.
He was supporting the majority of Tiet’s weight kinetically, but his movements were still cumbersome. With the masses of Castillian soldiers dying all around him all he could think of was getting his brother safely behind the defense wall up ahead.
Some of the other soldiers had already reached the wall and accessed one of the portals through. One of the Vorn was standing at the doorway waving other Castillian warriors inside. Kale followed the others through the passageway that took them beyond the defense wall into the city. Several of the soldiers guarded the portal until they could see no other Castillian soldiers; then they followed the others through, sealing the doorway behind them.
The Baruk were locked outside of the city now. As Kale came into the open city he spotted a place where a med station had been set up and left for anyone that might be wounded in the battle. The other soldiers were congregating around several of the stations that had been set up while the city’s population was being evacuated to Baeth Periege.
Kale laid down his brother and examined him. He passed a med scanner across his limp body and determined that he was alive and well despite the neurotoxin that kept him paralyzed. He took one of the needle leads from the scanner and pushed it into Tiet’s deltoid muscle. It may have still hurt him but he needed to do a cellular muscle scan to determine how best to treat the poison. The scanner began to run through a series of tissue and function tests over several minutes. When it had finished, a series of instructions came across the screen to instruct Kale on what medication combination would be effective in reversing the paralytic effect of the Hurutai neurotoxin.
The gunfire beyond the wall was quickly quieting down, which disturbed him; they were up to something. He rummaged through the med box in the station tent looking for the prescribed drugs called for. Only two were needed, but the dosage had to be precise. He located more supplies to mix the concoction and went to work. Tiet remained seemingly lifeless on the ground.
Beyond the med station tents something was happening. The men were yelling and then he heard the screeching of the Hurutai. He went to the tent door to look out just as a spray of Hurutai spines pierced the flaps. Kale jumped back and could see several of the spines in his body.
He had the injection in his hand called for by the med scanner and immediately jammed it into a vein in his arm and pushed it systemically. He quickly began to get dizzy, but within moments the effects of the neurotoxin appeared to be prevented.
He went to work mixing another dose for Tiet. He could hear more than the just the Hurutai outside now. Kale fixed his mental senses on the area around him and found the Baruk warriors coming through the Hurutai tunnels into the city. Gunfire was erupting again as the remaining Castillian warriors tried to defend themselves against the steady stream of Baruk warriors pouring through the tunnels.
Kale worked fast to get the mixture prepared and when he had it he injected the medication into a vein in Tiet’s arm. He could sense the Baruk closing in on where they were now and he didn’t have the time to wait for the paralysis to be reversed on his brother. He quickly lifted him up kinetically and moved to the rear of the tent, where he sliced down the cloth wall with a kemstick and plowed on through to the outside.
The battle was raging again but there were hardly any of his comrades left alive as the Baruk began to capture the area the Castillians had been recuperating in. Kale ran for cover toward the large buildings ahead, but the Baruk were closing on him fast.
He could feel Tiet beginning to shift on his back as the paralysis wore off.
Ahead in their path a Hurutai worm erupted through the surface, leaving the brothers with no where to go. Kale dropped to the ground fast with Tiet as the reflexive spray of toxic spines sprayed away from the beast and sailed over their heads. Tiet was moving on the ground now, trying to regain his own muscle control as Kale drew his blade to defend as best he could.
Suddenly a flash of light appeared between the Hurutai and the buildings behind. Kale could see what appeared to be a huge window, to another place, materialize with the figures of men coming through it into the city. He could begin to make out the people as Horva warriors, and General Grod was leading them through.
They each wore a metal glove with wires trailing along the length of their arms to a small pack across their backs. The gloves were being held before them as they ran into the area, alerting the Hurutai to their presence. Streams of plasma energy shot forth from the gloves; some of them hitting the Hurutai. The creature screeched in pain and within seconds it fell over dead.
The Horva were running straight at him and Tiet, who was still trying to stand for battle. Kale raised his blade as he ignited it and prepared to fight the Horva coming at them. More streams of plasma energy issued forth like lightning from their fingertips, but the attack passed them and hit the advancing Baruk head on.
He was dumbfounded as the Horva warriors ignored them completely to fight off enemies behind him.
General Grod came right up to the pair of warriors as they stood there exhausted from the fight they had already faced.
“Come with me, we need to get you to safety,” he said speaking directly to the young king.
Tiet responded now, appearing to realize more of what had just happened than Kale did.
“I knew it, Grod,” he said weakly as he tried to catch his breath. “I knew you were a man of honor.”
Tiet could still barely stand and Grod helped Kale support the young man as they made their way back toward the energy portal standing in mid air.
“My warriors!” said Grod into his own communication headset. “Return to the transgate!”
Grod, Kale and Tiet all proceeded through the portal and found themselves immediately inside the fortress at Nagon-Toth.
“SIR, we’ve been unable to confirm how many troops have off-loaded inside the city since the other transports began landing,” said Sergeant Corbin.
“What about the power?” asked Wynn. “Have you had any success getting to the main supply conduits?”
“No sir
. The Baruk are still fortifying that area very heavily. We can’t get through.”
“It’s been two hours now and nothing from Tiet or anyone from the preliminary team.”
“With all due respect sir, it seems clear that no one survived and the Baruk have the city now; how could they possibly have made it?”
“I understand the circumstances, Corbin, but I don’t want to give up hope. And don’t start that rumor among the men. It won’t do anything for morale, and our fight is far from over. Now get the units mobilized, those Baruk aren’t going to remain in Thalidi for long.”
It was a fact, the Baruk were mobilizing their ground forces for the inevitable push toward Baeth Periege. For an hour they had seen troop carriers coming down from space into Thalidi. The defense wall was still in place and the Baruk were sitting safely behind it for now.
Somehow they had gotten into the city without disabling it and had apparently decimated the entire team that Tiet had taken to ambush their army. It looked like Kale had failed to protect his brother and considering the circumstances, it really wasn’t a surprise. The Baruk were mounting a formidable ground force behind that wall and he wasn’t sure whether they could stop it or not.
Frustrated, Wynn tapped the communication panel that was locked in with the Esyia. “Estall, what is your status up there?”
“We’re trying to hold our own up here, Wynn, but we still haven’t been able to blast that flagship,” said Estall.
“We’ve been seeing a lot of troop carriers landing inside Thalidi…”
“I know, but we’re completely outnumbered up here,” said Estall. “We just don’t have the ability to guard the surface and try to get to that flagship!”
“I understand Estall. I don’t mean to accuse, I know you’re doing everything you can,” said Wynn apologetically. “Bad news. We may have already lost Tiet.”
There was a pause for a moment before he answered. “Are you sure?”
“No. I can’t be certain, but it appears the whole unit was wiped out as the Baruk made their way into the city. We’ve not heard any word from them. I don’t want to believe it, but…”