I was suppressing a lot as I saw them board the ship, but this could turn out to be fun as well. As they moved out of my sight, I finally relaxed, and for the first time that day, I sincerely laughed.
Even after extensive analysis of the Ka ship that destroyed Earth Fleet One, our scientists are still baffled by the technology we faced. Our intelligence reports suggest that the six drones released from the main ship were all covered in a layer of strong interaction material.
We have only theorized the existence of such materials and are nowhere even close to recreating them. The atoms within a layer of strong interaction materials are so densely arranged that there is almost no space between them on a quantum level. This means that no known material or force could penetrate such defenses.
This is but one ship within the arsenal of the Commonwealth Federation, a glimpse of the godlike technologies they wield. It is my professional opinion and is also my ethical and moral obligation to say here today that we have no fighting chance against the Federation, and in order to save our race, our civilization, and our future, I urge you to accept the terms.
—Ellaine Laramie Comtois Ph.D. Head of Theoretical Physics Department at Shanghai University
3
“Now!”
Layla sprinted down the slope and jumped into a group of four Aloi Raintroopers, slamming her power-fist into the ground and leaving a three-inch-deep dent in the metal floor. Yellow sparks crackled in the air as the discharge from the nanite-enhanced glove on her right hand stunned the Aloi soldiers. It was the opening we were waiting for.
Two shots rang out in quick succession. Both projectiles struck the Raintroopers’ skulls, passing right through. Leo was better than I had anticipated, so the special projectiles I programmed weren’t going to waste. Drill projectiles: damage on entry, damage on exit. The beauty of nanite technology was, among other things, endless ammunition if you were a Technomancer. The projectiles became a part of the rifle itself, but only a very limited amount.
The remaining Raintroopers were already shaking the stun off as Layla gathered herself and went for the one on her right. It grabbed Layla by the arm and pushed its silkspear into her torso, but before it caused a fatal wound, Layla grabbed the spear and tore it from its hands. The Raintrooper slammed a fist into her face, but she remained standing. Tough kid.
“I don’t have a clear shot,” Leo whispered over the INAS. The second Raintrooper poised to strike its silkspear into her back as she busied herself with the first one.
I raised my rifle and sent two ordinary slugs their way as Buzzard targeted the Raintrooper from overhead, sending an electrical shock.
The second Aloi soldier staggered as the slugs slammed into its chest, but it seemed only a minor inconvenience. It lunged and tackled Layla, holding her down as the other raised its silkspear, ready to execute her.
“What do we do?” Leo yelled into the INAS. He’d lost all his bravado and reasoning from earlier and was now in a full-on panic. With mere seconds to react, I gritted my teeth. The Buzzard dropped several feet and floated right in front of the Aloi’s head, dancing there as it zapped the trooper. It was only a minor nuisance to the enemy.
Raintroopers were the most basic Aloi forces and they counted in the billions. The one thing they had going for them was their numbers and how people tended to underestimate them. Just like we had.
Their stats were below average and had only one real skill besides their basic fighting abilities, but then again, we weren’t much to look at either.
There was no questioning her courage, but I never should have let her run in there like that. There was a thin line between a hero and a dead idiot. I closed my eyes and concentrated on Buzzard as he evaded stab after stab.
I could feel the nanites that made up my familiar as they coursed through the drone from the tip of its tentacle-like appendages to the grav-inhibitors. I used the restrain ability to grab the head of the second Raintrooper with the drone’s arms and increased the nanite flow once, two times, three times. The drone was heating up, overlocking as the nanites worked overtime to compensate for the heat and power exertion.
The Raintrooper stumbled trying to get the drone off his head. I kept accelerating the nanites, four times, five times, finally choking the Raintrooper. The last Aloi turned away from Layla and ran to his aid.
I had to act now so I redirected the nanites in the drone to create two propellers on its side, then activated them as Buzzard pulled on the trooper’s head. I clenched my fists and gritted my teeth.
The Raintrooper’s head popped from its neck, and white blood sprayed both his comrade and Layla who had already caught up. The drone carried the head for several yards before both machine and meat fell from the air. I overloaded the familiar and lost my connection to it. An intense shock erupted from deep inside me causing pain to reverberate through my whole body.
I fell to one knee. Before the remaining Aloi soldier had a chance to react, Layla gripped it from behind by the throat and slammed a shattering blow with her power-fist into the white silk-armor, denting the side and slamming it two more times before it had the chance to react.
Layla threw the trooper to the ground and jumped several feet into the air before she rained down a blow against its chest, crushing the organs inside. A brutal attack that, if executed right, could one-shot almost any enemy of her level or even a level or two above her.
“How the hell did you do that?” Leo hissed as he ran out of his cover with his rifle hanging to his side. Before I could answer and tell him to drop, a white projectile passed through Leo’s chest, coming out the other side as if slicing through butter. He looked at me, not in pain, but with a big ‘I’m sorry’ on his lips.
“You moron! You did it again!” Layla yelled as the world of Detera fell apart around us.
The Simulation Has Ended
POINT ACQUISITION
20 CONFIRMED KILLS: 100 points
BONUS TACTICS: 25 points
TOTAL: 125 points
The world around us disappeared and nothing remained but a big and empty hall. The simulation ended as soon as one of the squad members was figuratively killed, thus rendering the squad ineffective.
It started great, even more than great. We cleared group after group of enemies in quick succession but instead of using our advantage, we became careless. No, Leo became careless. And this wasn’t the first time.
Squad 88:
Sergeant Richard Stavos
Private Layla Alexeyeva
Private Leo Madrigo
GRADE: B-
GRADE POINTS: 675
OVERALL RANK: 12 / 11,230
The ladder screen was more than depressing. We’d climbed for days even leaving behind squads with higher levels, but this was as far as we got today. After this sixth simulation, we should have risen past rank ten today, but now that Leo messed up again, I was about to have a fit.
Layla got up in Leo’s face instead of me and started yelling insults immediately.
“You moron! You are an idiot! You are an imbecile! This is the third time you died the same damn way!”
He shrugged and flashed her a weak smile.
“Sorry, but I was just overwhelmed by your last attack that I couldn’t help and… you know!”
Leo took it stoically. He knew there was nothing he could have said to make things right and instead tried to stroke her ego. This wasn’t the first time he left cover to discuss how surprised or impressed he was by something, but it was going to be the last time or I’d personally beat him up. He was the very definition of a wha-wha, someone who was overwhelmed by the most basic things others took for granted.
A Commando-class soldier was a mid-range fighter who excelled in melee combat but specialized in ranged. I usually kept him in the back because we had Layla, a Brawler who tanked most of the damage. I wanted him to become more of a ranged specialist since he was also our medic, and if our medic got wounded, we’d have a serious problem.
&nbs
p; I couldn’t say either of them weren’t good, they were even impressive in certain situations and actions, especially his marksmanship, but he seemed to have issues following orders. It was becoming only more obvious as time went by, and that wasn’t a good thing. Funny. I expected Layla to be the pain in my ass and not Leo.
“Patch me up,” I said, motioning him over. He immediately ran up to me and knelt as he picked up a green glowing nanite cell and held his hand over it. The top opened and the green nanites floated just above his hand as he guided them to my chest. Using the ability Rejuvenation, the nanites slammed into my chest, drilling a hole so tiny as they passed through that it closed right behind them.
It was a funny thing, really. The same nanites that were supposed to heal you first made a hole in your skin and then closed the hole before they started healing you. But it was only logical if you looked at how they functioned.
There were two types of nanites: ordinary nanites, or the so-called O-Nans, and the medical nanites, or the so-called H-Nans. O-Nans were used for everyday stuff like the TV that self-repaired in my apartment and ranged all the way to military-grade weapons like my rifle, or the projectiles.
There were several grades of O-Nans, of which we only had access up to grade three, while they supposedly even went higher than that. Rank one nanites were used on cheaper items, rank two on vehicles and for machinery, especially industry-grade ones, and rank three O-Nans were used in the military. They all had one thing in common: they could self-replicate indefinitely under certain conditions.
H-Nans were nanites that were provided to us by our patrons the Ka and the Imminy. We had no way to reproduce them, so they were more costly, though there was always more than enough of the stuff to go around during wars. Just like now. The one method to control the usage of H-Nans was by only allowing two classes of human soldiers to learn the necessary skills to use them: the Medic and the Warwalker.
I recovered all of my lost health in mere seconds and most of my fatigue was already gone by the time he even closed the suitcase-like box he carried around. Since it wasn’t an open wound, the nanites just replenished themselves.
Technomancers were a different breed, however. We had another thing to worry about when damaged, especially after our familiars blew up. Sorrow-pain, we called it, mostly because it felt like both you and your nanites lost someone dear. It wasn’t a real emotion, but rather something that came to be after the nanites in our bodies were synced with nanites in our familiars so we could control them.
As soon as Leo was done, I ran up to my familiar and inspected Buzzard. He was badly damaged. The nanites were burned out but not dead so it would be possible to reestablish the connection and revive it without great cost.
My ability, advanced repair, had been the only skill that I kept using outside of military service, so it didn’t take long for me to bring Buzzard back to life. I started using the name openly as soon as we left hibernation. The others found it cute and funny until I slapped some sense into them.
I avoided using the name after I left the military because I didn’t want to be reminded of all it entailed, but since we were aboard a damn star carrier right now, I might as well have gone back to consider him a part of me. Whatever you could do to establish a stronger link between yourself and the nanite machines in your possession was beneficial. Emotional connections strengthened your control but also left a bigger hole in your heart when, life forbade, something happened to them.
Buzzard went back online and circled happily around me. Just as I gave my finishing touch, a familiar warmth coupled with a sense of increasing power coursed through me. I knew what it was because there was no other feeling in life like it; I gained a new tier within the CFF’s class ranking system.
Tier 2 was a major milestone for every single class. Everyone would get something interesting the moment they hit that milestone, and for a Technomancer it was better than most. The first thing that happened was getting the skill Blade Shield. In itself, it was as important to a Technomancer as any of his pets. It was a living shield using the O-Nan cells we could control and make a shield and a weapon out of it at the same time. It was a tiny swarm of nanites that could absorb damage and create blades that would extend from our bodies and attack anything close by.
The second thing was the ability to control a second familiar through a process called Summoning. The first two familiars were the same for everyone. The first was a drone, though it could be configured however you wanted, and the second was a golem, or a so-called tanker familiar.
There was a ranking system for specialist classes like us that was separate from the usual military ranks. There were five tier ranks and with every new rank you gained, the CFF allowed the use of more specialized gear and equipment. There was a simple reason for this: resource management. Unless a specialist truly showed potential on the battlefield, the CFF wouldn’t spend its best equipment on him or her.
It was a cruel system that ate up struggling soldiers for breakfast and made us generally very competitive when it came to battle. The better your gear, the better your survival chances on missions; if you fell behind and the CFF decided to throw you into a bunch of Aloi Templars, well, tough luck son, you’re dead.
When a Technomancer reached Tier 2, they gained a tiny glimpse into the full potential of Ka nanite technology. Up to that point we usually hung on to the abilities we had; here things started to change. Unlocking the golem was almost like adding a whole new member to our squad.
A summoned familiar had to go through the same process as we did. He had to level up after gaining experience through battle and through nanite injections, which were only legal when supervised by the military, and to our bad luck, they had ways to check if people were brute-forcing their familiars or not. That, in itself, was a major reason no one wanted to be one nowadays.
In the hands of a capable Technomancer, however, any familiar could do so much more. I was excited that I almost forgot to be angry with Leo for screwing up our battle simulation. I turned to Layla and Leo who were still arguing over the issue. Both of them reached Tier 2 in their respective classes.
I was more than satisfied with her growth. It was almost beyond expectation. Layla was hardworking, disciplined, and did what she was told. Her being totally opposite from the night we met was a blessing. Maybe it was just the alcohol? Who knew?
I wasn’t even aware that both of them stared at me as I was going through their stats. I closed the INAS from my vision and focused on Leo. But instead of yelling at him, I stood there, not knowing what to say. I hated repeating myself as I had already told him everything last time, so what was the point of doing it again right now?
Luckily, Captain Tailor arrived just then and saved me from my conundrum. I said ‘luckily,’ but in all honesty, it was far from fortune to have the captain’s attention.
“Squad 88! What the hell was that?” he snapped, not losing any time on formalities and bullshitting about. “That could have been a perfect score and look at what you accomplished! Nothing! Sergeant Stavos!” He took in a deep breath before continuing. “Why are your soldiers repeating their mistakes?”
“Because I haven’t taught them well, sir!” I snapped in turn and stood at attention. Someone had to take the blame, and in his eyes, that someone was me.
“You’re damn right, Sergeant! I had high hopes for you, but you’re letting me down time and again.” His voice changed into a threatening tone. “The next time I see that kind of shitstorm on the field, I’ll have you run on force-juice for a week.”
In my own experience, I knew that kind of threat was very serious. Force-juice was a sort of chemical stimulant that kept you up and running without sleep as long as it was in your system. A week of force-juice would leave a weaker person exhausted beyond recovery, even dead. It was great on the battlefield, but it took its toll on both the body and psyche.
It’s been a month already since we dropped out of light-speed, and in another two months, we�
�d hit our destination: Alpha Station. We had to use every second we had on training if we wanted to survive our first mission. I was pressing my squad hard, but having them run on force-juice for a week meant they would spend at least another week recovering. It was precious time they could have used to sharpen their skills and gain more stats and, with that, levels.
One of the main reasons why they gave us so long was to fodder up to a certain ‘standard,’ but the standard sure had degraded from when I joined up over a decade ago.
“It won’t happen again, Captain. You have my word.” I bit down on my lower lip as I said those words. It was a big mistake to make promises in the military, and I knew it. So did he.
“Your word?” he said as his eyes widened. “Fuck your word!” He knew I wasn’t a rookie, so there wasn’t just anger in his eyes, but also surprise. He stared me down and I couldn’t help but feel like an utter moron.
“No, sir! My word is my oath! If it happens again, I’ll beat him to death with his own limb!”
“Hah, no need to go so far, but you’ll have that juice, Sergeant. Let’s have it your way. If Private Wha-Wha here again does something stupid in the next simulation, I’ll definitely keep mine. Force-juice for a week, Sergeant, even if it kills you.”
The Captain turned away and left with an angry step, still cursing under his breath. Both Layla and I looked at Leo wanting to take a bite out of his sunken face. There was no point in yelling at him now as he knew what he’d done, and we all knew what was at stake now.
“We’re rank twelve on the ladder and that’s good,” I said as the captain was out of earshot. “See, it’s impressive even, but we haven’t moved an inch since our last battle and that is something I can’t forgive and forget. Leo, I don’t like repeating myself and you know very well what you did. Get your damn head out of your ass! The captain will hook us on force-juice for a week, sure, but you shouldn’t fear the captain as much as you should fear what I’ll do.”
Starblood: A Military Space Opera Series (War Undying Book 1) Page 4