by G R Fabacher
Letting out a yell, Damon charged into the soldiers. As base personnel the Union combatants didn’t have the full suit of magical armor that Damon enjoyed. The flechettes cast amber slashes across the wards of his armor and shield as the corpsman smashed into them. Pinning one man against the ward, Damon heard the sizzle as the man tried in vain to get himself free. With his free hand he opened fire with his main weapon. The rapid spray of flechettes tore into the lightly-armored men. He brought the shield around and bashed the edge into another man’s face. He plugged more flechettes into the gut of another soldiers. She screamed and he finished her with a single round to the head.
Stowing his shield, Damon pulled a clip of Manticore ammo from one of the downed soldier’s belt and reloaded his sidearm.
“One cup of flechettes secured.” He said. “Okay, guys and gals, I’m in. How are things; where you are?” He opened the channel to replies. After a moment all he heard was Jurza’s wild insane laughter.
“Things are going… good...” Shaya said. “We’re about five floors down give or take, sending you the coordinates.”
He put a fresh clip into his main weapon and secured the other clips of Manticore ammo he’d scrounged, stowing them in his armor’s built-in storage compartments at the thighs and the small of his back. Damon rolled his shoulders and broke into a jog.
Using the pictures on the compartments to find the nearest bank of lifts, Damon found himself headed toward the center of the massive fortress. After a quick jog he was soon standing in front of a group of elevators that were bigger than civilian models but smaller than proper cargo elevators. Using his fist to hit the button he was met with a blaring warning sound and a recorded message in Common Pidgin and Hyperion Common to stay where he was.
“Why did I think that would work?” Damon muttered to himself.
The doors opened and out charged two paladins. Their white armor and wards aglow.
“Shite!” Damon squeaked, ducking and bringing his shield to bear. He raised it over his head in time to block both downward strikes. Using his main weapon he stitched a line of flechettes at shin height, forcing the paladins to back off.
Pushing outward with his shield to throw their blades wide, Damon tried another charged; bulling his way into the lift. Now all three combatants were crammed into the confines of the car. It might be slightly larger to accommodate cargo, but not by much. Damon ducked a clumsy sword swing and brought his weapon up to fire. The other paladin—to defend his comrade—knocked the weapon from the bard’s hand. Damon cursed and pushed the first paladin into the corner.
Sparks flew as the free paladin whipped his sword through the elevator car toward Damon’s head. Springing off his right foot Damaged lunged into a right hook catching the attacking paladin off guard before slamming into the cornered paladin again to keep him out of the fight. The cornered paladin grabbed the edges of his shield. Damon could hear the sound of sizzling metal as the shield was yanked from its bracket. Damon abandoned the shield and jumped back toward the elevator door to evade a thrust from a paladin longsword. The elevator car growled and groaned in protest
Pulling his Manticore Damon fired a large flechette at the right-hand paladin’s head. The man ducked but opened himself up to a whipping from the butt of Damon’s weapon. The left hand paladin brought his sword through the top of the car. Damon dropped to the floor and shot. His round hit the paladin square in the chest before his attack could connect. It wasn’t enough to punch through the wards and magically-imbued composites, but the paladin did drop his sword. The point of the glowing bladed sank halfway through the floor of the elevator car before friction brought it to a stop.
The remaining paladin retrained his sword bringing it down to try and skewer Damon through the middle. Flexing back and holding the pistol with both hands, Damon fired a shot. This one hit a joint where the hip of the armor met the upper greaves. The paladin spun from the impact before he could complete his thrust. Damon kicked the hilt of the sword stuck in the floor. Freed from the binding friction, the blade sheared through the floor. Combined with all the other gashes and tears the car had sustained, the beleaguered floor could not take anymore. It split like a great metal fruit peel. Damon could almost see the surprised look behind the paladin’s golden faceplate as half the floor gave way.
Rising to a knee, Damon put two shots into the faceplate of the remaining paladin. Picking up the dead Unie’s sword he affixed it to his back and dusted his hands off. “Just like I planned.” He said.
The shrieking squeal of tortured metal filled his ears; Damon had enough time to look down before plunging through a hole that wasn’t there a moment before.
“Aw, shite!” He screamed. The Union fortress naturally used modern free-floating magical cars, and there was no cable to grab onto. He popped his father bubble again, but it was out of charge. He turned himself toward the wall and managed to just get his fingertips onto the wall of the shaft. The magilocks engaged, and he cranked the setting up to the maximum. His body flopped and slammed onto the wall after plummeting four stories. Damon managed to get all his hands and feet onto the side of the shaft. Even with the magilock effect at max he still skidded several feet before stopping. A ragged sigh escaped his lips and he let his head tap into the metal shaft.
Another horrendous shriek sounded from above and Damon looked up to see the magical generators on the car flicker and fail. Just when the mechanism looked to be going peacefully it flickered and exploded, forcing Damon to hug the wall as the car came crashing down. Praying to no one and everyone in particular, he swore he could feel the metal scrape his back as it dropped past.
When he opened his eyes and found himself still very much alive he let out a broken chuckle.
“This is Damon.” He said over the scrycomm. “I’m inside the elevator and I ran into some resistance, but I’m headed down to the hanger.”
A shot ricocheted right by Damon’s head and he dropped several feet before reengaging the magilocks. Damon saw his attacker, it was the paladin who had fallen from the car before. Damon reached for his main weapon and realized that it was gone. Another shot made him jump laterally to another section of a shaft.
He took another look and realized the paladin had grabbed his weapon. Just like he’d broken the protection runes on the Manticore, the paladin’s armor had cracked the Republic’s standard battle rifle.
“Really?” Damon exclaimed over the vox.
The paladin, uninterested in conversation, opened up and Damon jumped across the shaft and pulled his pistol and began trading shots. Soon the paladin ran out of shots and chucked his captured rifle at Damon. It fell short by a wide margin, falling out of sight into the darkness of the elevator shaft.
With a war cry the paladin leapt at Damon. The blade in his right wrist extended. Damon released his magilocks and the paladin struck where Damon’s head had been. Damon pulled his purloined sword and slashed at the paladin’s legs. First he felt the resistance of wards and magical armor, then nothing. The Union elite hissed and lost his grip, plummeting down the center of the shaft along with his severed leg.
“That’s the last of that guy.” Damon muttered. He climbed down to the nearest floor and jammed his own wrist blade into the seam of the door. On the floor he looked at his faceplate to see if he could track down what was happening with his squad.
According to his faceplate’s display they were a few decks below. Again, Damon was struck with the staggering scope of the fortress. He found the rest of the squad had remained mostly intact. Sparky was on the same level of the Indomitable he was. Wondering briefly what had happened on their end he broke into a run toward Sparky’s position.
Damon found the room where Hellaina was located, trying the heavy-duty handle on the hatch he found it locked from the other side. Increasing the strength enchantment he unleashed a kick, bending the hatch from the frame. Taking a step back he charged through the door almost tearing it off its hinges. On the other side he saw Hellaina
surrounded by security soldiers and paladins. Her helmet was missing, and her short hair was fluttering from the sheer magical power she was calling upon; her eyes glowed the deepest shade of purple he’d ever seen. Damon’s armor was pinging mild warnings about magical exposure.
“I’m coming, Sparky.” He said. Damon wasn’t sure if she couldn’t hear him or just didn’t care.
Damon watched as fire sparked between her fingers, coalescing into an orb of pure swirling molten energy. It was just like the fire one would find in a fireplace, but the weightlessness and unusual color unsettled him, making him skid to a stop. A shiver ran down his spine, causing every instinct of self-preservation to scream at once. The whirling blue and green ball danced in her hands, and its color reflected across the armor of the Union troops.
In a flash the ball of flame smashed across one side of the surrounding troops like a wave breaking on rocks, washing over them. Screams and the sizzling of flesh filled his ears. Damon winced. Sparky turned and shot a pure bolt of fire through another paladin’s breastplate. It exploded out of the back, scorching the wall.
“Kill the witch!” Another paladin bellowed, brandishing his sword.
The Union forces charged her. Damon rushed them from the flank, pulling his own sword. He didn’t think Sparky would be able to hold off that many. The Union troops opened fire with their weapons and angry sparks danced, biting at Hellaina’s wards. Damon watched as her eyes flashed and the intensity of her ward grew so much that its color became almost opaque. It looked for a moment as if she were incased in a nearly perfect indigo opal, before she pushed it out. The energy field slammed outward, knocking over several rows of soldiers. Damon could hear the sickening sounds of crunching armor and snapping bones.
He watched the bubble contract again and it expand into an arching wave in front of her slamming the prone men into the standing ones, and the standing ones into the bulkhead of the fortress. The sound of snapping bones intensified, but there were still a few of the Unies willing to get up and fight, especially when whipped into a frenzy by their paladins.
Damon leapt into the fray swinging the sword like a club. Hellaina looked feral. More flame built around her shoulders and she pulled it down into her hands. She pulled her shoulders back and was about to unleash a new wave of fire when several flechettes smashed into her chest, leaving smoking impacts on the metal. The fire died as she hit the ground, crying out in pain.
He watched as a paladin lunged forward, taking a leap to drive his blade down into the girl’s chest. Damon whipped his blade around and up, slicing the paladin’s hands off at the forearms. Damon brought the hilt down on the paladin’s armored neck and pulled out his pistol firing two shots at the closest two fortress soldiers. When their bodies hit the floor there were no soldiers left alive.
Except for one.
Damon glared down at the man. To his credit the paladin didn’t cry out, didn’t beg. Damon wished he would. He used his boot to nudge the paladin onto his back. Without flourish the bard brought the sword down, spearing the man straight through the chest. Pulling the sword out and letting it drop to the floor, Damon turned his attention to Hellaia. Gingerly he picked her up and moved her to a freer spot on the floor. She was breathing, but it came in ragged gasps laced with pain.
Damon pulled Hellaina’s emergency apothecary kit and popped her armor using the manual release runes. There were a few superficial wounds, and it looked like she had gotten the wind knocked out of her.
“I’m okay,” her eyes were their normal silvery gray. She tried to sit up and screamed, gritting her teeth.
“Okay, I’m not Germaine, but that’s a problem.” He pushed Sparky back down.
Damon moved his hands over her lithe form with great care, looking for injuries. She was twiggy, but it was the gawkiness of a teenager. It reminded him just how young she was. He followed a deep crimson trail of blood to her abdomen, just above her hip. There was a large union flechette imbedded into her flesh through the skin suit. Damon popped open the kit and looked at its contents. He injected her with pain killer and then pulled the flechette out with his armored fingers. A gout of blood squelched out, and he sprayed some liquid bandage into the wound. The magically imbued healing foam filled the wound and would help her heal given time. He cleaned the blood off and her wound and placed a sealing bandage over it.
“That feels really awesomely better…” Sparky slurred.
“I’ll take that as a good sign.” Damon said, proud of his quick patch work. “Come on let’s find the others and finish this crap.”
“Cool, but can I get more of that happy stuff?” She said.
Damon smiled and hefted her over his shoulder. Hellaina made a sound like she was going to be sick, and kicked her legs, but his armor made lifting her a trivial matter. Retrieving his sword, he put it at his hip and picked up one of the fallen Union battle rifles. While the Republic favored a shorter, blockier weapon, the Union liked a long weapon that almost always had to be fired with two hands. The crystal bullet it shot was also much smaller than the heavy flechettes used by Glorianan forces. If Damon had a better head for remembering all the different weapons, he might recall its designation, but he just needed to know that it shot flechettes.
Damon broke into a jog hefting Sparky and his new rifle. Following his locus, he found himself above the hanger where the Union vessel was supposed to have their dwarven scientist. He skidded to a stop, putting Hellaina down.
“Can you walk?” He asked.
“Sure.” She said, looking ashen but steady.
“Can you do your magic thing?”
She took a moment to collect herself. “Yeah, what do you need?”
“I need a hole right here.” He pointed with a finger. “I’d try it with grenades, but we don’t have nearly enough to make it through the Indomitable’s structure. So can you make with the fire hands?”
“Nah, I got something way cooler.” Sparky said.
Damon watched as she spread her hands apart and closed her eyes. She extended her hands forward, her eyes snapping open. At first Damon wasn’t sure what was happening, but then he saw a ripple of energy across the surface of the floor. It had to be the runic wards breaking on the structure. Subtly, quietly a ripple formed in the slid metal. It began sloshing back and forth like a calm day on the ocean. The ripples grew higher and higher, the metal pitched up and down, and when the frequency had reached its zenith the metal simply broke apart. Falling down to the floor below like grains of sand through an hourglass.
Sparky collapsed and panted heavily.
Damon tossed her the Manticore and a clip, “I’m going to want that back. So don’t die, kiddo.”
Damon pulled the sword and squatted to jump down to the hanger below.
“Hey, Sacreon?” Hellaina’s voice was small and timid. “What instrument did you play?”
“Crystal harmonica.” He nodded.
“Huh, I figured you for a lute guy…” She said.
Chapter 10
Damon only had a few seconds to take in the scene. The hanger was larger than most other berthing sections on more standard fortresses, but it wasn’t that much larger. The scene below was absolute chaos. Damon was right over Jurza’s Ogre, which seemed to not be a very safe place to be. The orc was reveling in the power trip that the massive suit of armor provided.
“Jurza, hold still.” Damon said.
The orc did stop his rampage, a Union soldier in his armor’s hand. Surprised by the sudden entrance of his nemesis, the armor mimicked his bathetic bewilderment. Damon hit the armor behind the head, and slid down the spine, using the friction of his magilocks and the clash of their respective wards to slow his fall. Letting himself fall into a forward roll, he whipped out his sword and took a base solider through the abdomen. Breaking into a run he headed toward Shaya, Boudira, and Joyride.
“What’s up, guys?” He said sliding to a halt.
“Well, we’re using Jurza to hold off the bulk of their for
ces while Joyride and Boudira figure out a way to hijack this ship. Where’s Sparky? She ran off to draw off some of the paladins.”
Damon took cover behind the ships landing strut and fired off a few rounds from his Union weapon. “She’s one floor up, catching her breath. She’s wounded and softshell. She’s a tough kid though.”
Shaya nodded and added more fire downrange. She turned her head toward Joyride and Boudira, “Oslo, Boudira, I hate to rush your mutual geniuses, but we really need to get out of here before these Unies decide to regroup and actually figure out how to take out Jurza.”
On the far side of the hanger a cargo door opened and a dozen troopers emerged, each one was carrying an anti-vehicle launcher. They all took knees and lifted the launchers over their shoulders.
“That! That’s what I’m talking about!” Shaya screamed. “Come on, Bard.”
Damon followed her out of cover and sprayed down the anti-armor troopers. Several flechettes struck home, felling men and women, but four plumes of pure magical energy streaked toward Jurza who had his back to the elevator.
The missiles burned smoldering holes, rocking the giant suit of armor. Jurza turned and activated his flamethrower, cooking everything in a yards-long swath of yellow-green flame. Damon and Shaya barely had time to slide down and get beneath the fire. Damon ducked his head as the fire crashed around them. Jurza tried to walk forward but the machine’s leg was too damaged; it sheared off under the strain of the larger armor’s weight. The orc punched a hand down to catch himself. Four more magical missiles streaked toward him, one taking off the shoulder-mounted missile turret. The other three flew wide.
In response Jurza opened up with the rotary cannon, spraying the cargo elevator in flechettes. Damon stood up and brought his grenade launcher to bear. After spending his extra clip blowing up the gun Damon only had what came with the launcher. He pulled the trigger and grenades flew with purple contrails. He had used the runes to set them to cluster munitions. Wave after rolling wave of explosives hit the cargo elevator until the whole assembly dropped into flaming wreckage. Damon let his arms drop to their sides and he let the spent launcher hit the floor.