“This should be interesting,” the slayer said. “Let’s see how the Grendels fair without prot-fields.”
A countdown floated in front of my eyes, and I watched the numbers tick away in anticipation. When it hit zero, I was thrown from the Ecomese chamber and into an old temple.
A minimap in the corner of my vision showed the map’s layout. It was a multi-leveled building with a staircase along the eastern wall. A square atrium gaped in the center, and the hole was about five meters on each side. A balustrade with detailed metalwork skirted around it, and I could see the ground floor by peering over the edge. The drop was about twenty meters, and the minimap indicated the Blue Team’s base was on the ground level.
Behind me, a blue flag hung from a pole on a raised platform. It was the prize the knights would try to steal from us and the object we needed to defend.
The fog of war on the minimap obscured everything except the lifeforms in a five-meter circumference around me. I noticed a pulsing blue dot and turned to see a Grendel Warrior beside me. My combat instincts sent my hand to my prot-belt, but then I realized I wasn’t wearing a prot-belt, and my hands were scaled monstrosities. The Warrior grinned and gave me a thumbs up with a claw.
“Weapons are behind us,” the creature said in a hissing voice. I could understand Neville clearly although he spoke in a language I didn’t know. The virtual systems replicated Grendel speech patterns accurately, but I guessed it wasn’t the actual language of the lizard-men since they didn’t quite communicate like humans.
My senses were much stronger than a human's, and I could feel the vibrations beneath my feet as Neville moved toward the equipment rack. The items were all variations of Grendel weapons and armor. I’d studied most of them while at the Academy, but I would have never thought the information would be useful to me like it was now.
I took a pair of gauntlets with spiked knuckles and fitted them over my massive hands. My middle fingers had the longest claws, and I noticed a glistening substance on their ends. I guessed they were infused with poison.
Neville donned a breastplate and strapped it to bulky shoulder armor. They were made of a lightweight black metal that absorbed kinetic energy to redirect through a propulsive firearm. I found a broad-barrelled cannon on the weapon rack and handed it to Neville. I explained to him how the gun synergized with his chest armor.
“You really know your stuff,” he said.
I shrugged. “I studied hard at the Academy.”
Neville grinned at me, and I quickly turned away. I couldn’t look at him for more than a few seconds without the terror of true Grendels flashing before me. During the fervor of battle, I never really examined the lizard-men closely. Now, I was speaking with one, and I couldn’t help but stare at the razor teeth and bladed claws. Rationally, I knew the scaled creature beside me was Neville, but the primal fear of snakes all humans shared still set my teeth on edge.
I noticed another chest piece, and my eyes flickered strangely. Grendels had multiple eyelids, so I guessed the involuntary reaction served for surprise. When I picked up the item and inspected it, I realized my disbelief had been justified.
This particular chest piece was one of the most powerful Grendel items in the Caledonian Kingdom’s database. Its hardened exterior would withstand almost any bullets and continue stopping them for a good while. The alloy’s composition was unknown to the explored regions of the universe, and it was never used for Runetech. The RTF didn’t employ the metal since bonding runes to the surface was impossible, and prot-fields rendered its ability to stop bullets redundant.
But in this particular scenario, it would be a very valuable item. I considered leaving it here since I thought it might be cheating, but I really wanted to beat the knights at this game. Olav and Leith had kicked our asses in the sparring match, and then they’d almost cooked us inside our quarters on the Ark. I knew why they wanted to punish me, but I also wanted some revenge for their chiding.
So I chose to equip the chest piece into my selection of armor and weapons. The armor seemed to mold over my scaled form, and then pieces of it extended over my arms and legs as though it were alive. As I reached for a double-barrelled plasma rifle, I saw my scaled hands again. I was having trouble feeling like this was a simulation because it seemed so real. I raised my nose and caught a musky scent like a wild animal on heat.
“There you guys are,” someone said in the strange language. I turned to see two Grunts, no taller than my lizard waist. Ten legs scuttled along the bricks, and I guessed these two Grendels were Nathan and Richard.
“You need to choose some gear quickly,” the one on the left said, and I guessed he was Richard from the way he spoke. “The scenario begins in thirty seconds.”
I turned back to the equipment shelf and grabbed the plasma rifle. The weapon felt like nothing in my clawed hands. My nose itched, and suddenly a barbed tongue flashed from my maw to scratch the spot.
“Neat,” Richard said. “Do I have one of those?” He poked his tongue out from behind needle teeth, and his golden eyes went cross-eyed as he tried to inspect the forked appendage drooping down from his scaled chin.
“I’m guessing I have a cloaking ability since I’m an Elite,” I said as I searched my armor for some way to activate it.
“I think you found it.” Neville’s tear-drop shaped skull peeled back into a fanged grin.
I glanced at my body and realized it had almost completely disappeared. All I could see was a shimmering form that reminded me of the cloaked Elites I’d fought on Tyranus. I shuddered a little as I gripped the plasma rifle, a weapon identical to the one that had murdered Alice Jones.
I scanned the minimap to form a plan, and then a siren blared.
“Capture the Flag has begun,” a robotic voice announced inside my helmet.
“Grunts scout ahead,” I ordered Richard and Nathan. “See if you can draw the knights here.”
“Won’t that make it easier for them to get our flag?” Nathan asked.
“Yeah, but I figure they’re going to storm us anyway, so we want to lead them into a trap.” I glanced over the twins’ small forms. They were basically dog-lizards, so the knights would probably dispatch them with ease. The Grunts wouldn't be completely useless since their little legs could move fast. “You won’t be much good in a fight, but you’ll be much faster than our opponents. Take the flag while Neville and I provide you with suppressive fire.”
The twins clicked together, and I stifled a smile. They seemed almost ridiculous in the form of Grunts.
There were rows of sarcophagi on the raised platform, behind the Blue Team’s flag. Neville and I could take cover behind those and fire at the knights for as long as we needed to keep the Red Team’s flag at our base.
From that position, we stood the best chance. I wasn’t sure whether this game had a respawn feature, but if we killed Leith and Olav, the Grunts would be fast enough to retrieve the Red Team’s flag and bring it back to our base before the knights respawned.
“Think you can do that?” I asked the Grunts.
“We do have ten legs,” Richard said as he lifted five of them. I tried not to show my disgust, and I half-wondered what a Grendel’s repulsed expression would look like.
The twins made a clicking noise I guessed was agreement and shuffled out of our base on their insect-like legs. Neville and I followed behind them, and we moved from one pillar to the next, careful not to walk in each other’s line of fire. The knights weren’t idiots, so they’d probably know we’d be covering the Grunts. I just hoped my reformulated plan might throw them and we’d nail a victory.
“The knights are about ten minutes ahead of us in another chamber,” Richard said on the Grendel comms. “They’re wearing massive suits. I think we can get past them, but we’ll need some help.”
“Got it,” I said as I spun out from behind a pillar and moved toward the two blue dots on the minimap that represented the Grunts’ locations.
After Neville and I
took cover behind a wall, I checked over the plasma rifle and calculated whether my weapon’s accuracy would be affected by the distance to the chamber. It was about fifty meters away, the top-end of decent accuracy for a plasma rifle of this type. I’d probably have to wait for the knights to get a little closer before I revealed my position to them.
It wasn’t ideal, but surprising them was the only way we were going to win.
“We’re ready to go,” I said. “Grunts, make a run for the chamber in 3 . . . 2 . . .”
I heard Olav roar, and something stirred in my chest, causing an involuntary hiss to burst from my mouth. My reaction startled me, and I realized it came from a primal hatred. Grendels despised humans, and all it took for me to react to the presence of one was hearing the berserker's voice. I feared what would become of my humanity when I actually saw a human.
“Shit!” Nathan yelled. “They spotted us!”
Heavy gunfire filled my ears, followed by the death shrieks of my companions.
Space Knight Olav Kjeldsen - Warsuit killed Squire Nathan Culbert - Grunt.
Space Knight Leith Manzo - Warsuit killed Squire Richard Culbert - Grunt.
I wanted to sprint free from cover and blast the shit out of the knights with my plasma rifle. I could sense Neville desired to do the same, but I cautioned him by raising a clawed hand.
“We’ll wait for them to come to us,” I said. I didn’t know what a warsuit was, but I figured from its name that it possessed enough firepower to take us Grendels down easily.
“You feel that?” Neville asked me, and then a series of tremors rippled beneath my feet.
“I think we’re about to have a visit from the knights.”
With a mental command, I activated my cloaking ability, and my body shimmered into invisibility. My exhalations hissed from my maw, and I could feel a dual thrumming in my ears as I waited for the knights to show up. Twin lizard hearts pumped green blood through my veins at a pace of at least two hundred beats per minute.
A crashing sound came from two meters to my right, and the bricks beside me exploded in a cloud of dust. I rolled away from the debris and saw a bipedal mechanical giant burst through the hole in the wall. I lifted my plasma rifle and let off a burst of fiery balls at the giant armored suit painted crimson. The enemy whirled around to face me, and it raised a giant shield to absorb my fire.
“Why are you hiding from me, Lyons?” Olav’s voice boomed out from the mech.
A heavy laser cannon jutted out from one mechanical arm, and a rotary machine gun was attached to the other. Lasers zapped and bullets burst from the twin firearms, and I twisted away from them. They struck the wall with explosive force, showering me in brick and dust.
I’d made the mistake of firing on the knight too soon, and now he knew my location. I sprinted away even as the powerful weapons seared and peppered the ground behind me. I didn’t know whether the knights had some way of tracking me even when I was cloaked, but it didn’t matter because I suddenly flickered into view.
“There you are!” Olav roared, and I jumped toward the raised platform. I twisted in the air when a bullet nicked my ribs and then rolled on the floor as I landed. Pain seared through my chest, and I felt rage bubble over.
I wanted to tear apart the mech like a tin can and find the human inside. Then I would drive my claws into his guts and feast on his entrails.
“Nick!” Neville screamed, throwing me out of my Grendel rage. Green blood glistened on Neville’s lizard body, and I wondered how long it’d be before the knights obtained our flag. The Warrior was firing on the twin mechs, and they were taking cover behind a pair of stone pillars.
“I’m almost out of ammo,” Neville said. “We have seconds until they get our flag. Do you have any ideas?”
“Do you think Richard and Nathan will respawn?”
“Not in time to help us,” he replied.
“They can’t obtain our flag if it’s not here.” The conditions of the match hadn’t said anything about removing your own flag from its base. The way things were going, we were going to lose anyway, so I decided to risk it.
Neville’s plasma rifle provided me with suppressive fire, and a series of whomps echoed through the base as kinetic energy pounded into the knights.
My lizard body vaulted up the staircase in a single leap, and I was gliding toward the flag in seconds. I heard Neville yell, and his cover fire ceased while he reloaded. After the knights sprung from behind the concrete walls, their weapons flared and battered the surrounding area. Olav’s machine gun spat out hundreds of bullets, and Leith's cannon added to the metal rain.
Without a prot-field, dozens of the projectiles hit me, and my body rocked back and forth with the impact. I crouched behind a pedestal and allowed the stone to take the fire. Bits of rock flicked over my face as bullets struck the bricks.
Luckily, my armor protected me from any fatal wounds, but I knew it couldn’t take much more hits without crumpling. Then I’d feel the full force of the knights’ weapons.
I rolled out from cover and used my tail to spring onto my feet. The long appendage responded to my mental command instantly, and I smiled at the usefulness of it. Bullets slammed into my armor, each one throwing me off my course. I leaped onto the raised platform, and my razor-claws cut the Blue Team’s flagpole in half. I clenched the part of the pole with the flag between my teeth and spun to fire my rifle at the knights.
Orange balls of plasma rocketed toward the knights, and they jumped behind a trio of giant statues for cover. The fiery substance melted the face of one monument and bore a hole through the chest of another.
Desperate, I cast a look down the atrium. I could leap from this level and allow gravity to take me all the way to the bottom. I’d already seen how my lizard legs could handle a fall, so I figured I could weather the impact of a twenty-meter drop.
I heard Neville snarl, and a deafening roar ejected from his mouth. I turned to see Leith drive a three-meter-long sword into the squire’s lizard abdomen. From point blank range, Olav let his machine gun sing. The bullets tore apart Neville’s scaled skull, shredding it like paper. Green ichor and grey brain matter sprayed all over the statues in the chamber.
Without another thought, I jumped free of the platform and over the balustrade. The Blue Team’s flag flapped around my face as I fell, and I brushed it aside as my feet hit the ground level. I winced as pain ricocheted up my legs, but the heavy fire from above meant I couldn’t wait around.
Space Knight Leith Manzo - Warsuit killed Squire Neville Holloway - Warrior.
I glanced around the lower chamber and found the Red Team’s flag on an elevated platform. I started sprinting toward it when I heard two booms from behind me. A quick look over my shoulder confirmed both knights had landed on the ground level.
Their mechanical armor jerked and hissed as they lurched toward me. Each footfall of their metal feet cracked the marble, and I fired a few bolts in their direction. Olav raised an arm, and the plasma balls disintegrated on the burnished metal rather than his mechanical skull.
I guessed they were out of ammo since they weren’t firing at me, so I ran for their flag. The Blue flagpole was still clamped between my fangs, and I tossed my head to stop the waving cloth from blinding me.
I reached the raised platform and snatched the Red Team’s flag. The fabric tore from the pole, and I clenched it in my lizard hands like every thread was composed of Alpha Dust.
“Thirty seconds to return flags to bases,” a robotic voice resounded through the temple.
A countdown timer appeared on the left-hand corner of my vision, and I didn’t need any more incentive to run from the platform. I was about to escape into the doorway leading to the staircase when Leith jumped in front of me. His armored form was like an upright tank, and he lifted a laser cannon toward me.
“Let’s see how your armor fares against this!” the slayer screamed.
A millisecond before the weapon fired, my tail lashed out and wrappe
d around his lower right leg. With a screech, I threw Leith from his feet. I remembered how the Grendel Elite had performed this trick on me on Tyranus, and I used all my strength slamming Leith into a stone pillar. The bricks around the pillar crumbled, burying the knight in a mountain of rubble.
Squire Nicholas Lyons - Elite killed Space Knight Leith Manzo - Warsuit
The ceiling lurched, and I feared it would collapse on top of me. I jumped out of the way as a massive stone almost crushed me. Another boulder almost struck my head, but a quick flash of my tail crushed it into a shower of pebbles.
“That’s quite the trick,” Olav said from the safety of the exit corridor. “Too bad your tail can’t get you out of here now. Tell me, traitor, do you enjoy being inside a Grendel’s body?” The berserker was blocking the staircase leading to the upper levels, so I decided to try something a little risky.
I knew Grendels were expert climbers, so I jumped onto the wall. I used my claws to find purchase in the gaps between the bricks, and the talons on my feet were able to grip as well. My muscular limbs took my weight, and I used my tail to push against the wall and propel me upward to the next block.
“Come back here, Lyons!” Olav roared.
I glanced down and saw the berserker take a running start. He zigzagged to avoid the falling rubble, and he jumped at the end of his sprint. His mechanical legs vaulted him into the air, and his empowered gauntlets punched into the stone wall. Olav continued slamming his fists into the brick as he scaled the wall toward me like an expert climber, and I rushed upward as fast as my claws and talons would take me.
I had fifteen seconds to get to the top level, or I would automatically lose. I couldn’t allow Olav to slow me down for even a second. My desperation made my lizard body surge with energy, and I ascended the wall like a scaled chimpanzee.
Space Knight Book 2 Page 10