“Harper! Protect us!” Ginsk hissed and not a moment too late. I recognized the ability. It was called Stunstorm. All of his available drones dropped to several feet above the Zealots and blanketed the area with stun grenades, but he could hardly get them all as there were too many.
I turned on my Blade Shield and spread it out as much as I could, covering the seven of us for the price of 15% O-Nan cells leaving me at 65%. The Zealots exploded against the shield, but most didn’t manage to get too close in as nanite projectiles shot out from the shield, killing the Zealots before they came in too close. You could almost compare it to shotgun rounds as a single bullet wasn’t enough to kill them. But if you sent three or four their way, they tore through the Zealots and killed them in a single salvo.
Sharp pain in my limbs signaled that Bucky was out of the fight. He was down to several nanites but shut himself down to prevent full death. The damn chips and upgrades would be gone as well if they blew him to kingdom come.
Their numbers were steadily thinning out, especially once Beast’s close-range miniguns started mowing down their ranks. Still, they were right in front of us. You never let Zealots come that close since they could easily blow your brains out.
Just as I was about to fire my Blade Shield up again, Donovan and Ginsk jumped out from cover and joined Layla in there. I knew he wasn’t happy about it, but it was what needed to be done. Ginsk fought with his two axes and Donovan with his power-fists, but they weren’t even nearly as gracious as our little girl Layla. The way she swung her hammer with every strike and sent waves of energy that killed any approaching Zealot was purely beautiful. The three of them looked like something between heroically mad and madly heroic.
Despite being heroically mad, their H-Nan points dropped dangerously low as the first rows exploded against their sides. Layla jumped over to them and came down swinging her Sundown Warhammer, releasing a furious Thunderclap that echoed through the whole street.
Pieces of concrete and metal peppered her surroundings, piercing Zealots left and right, as well as sending them flying into the surrounding buildings. With no time to spare, the Zealots immediately swarmed her, but thanks to our sinister new friend Urgon Feyn, Layla’s implant modified Berserker ability now reinforced her very skin with nanite protection. She absorbed three explosions aimed at Squad 65 and Leo sniped down two more Zealots midair. The dead bodies dropped before Donovan’s and Ginsk’s feet. Layla turned around and slammed her hammer into the last of the Zealots.
She’d become a powerhouse overnight and was able to hit over 200 points with a swing of her hammer. Damn.
Once the smoke cleared, I finally noticed Ginsk on his knees and Donovan standing there while bleeding and staring in awe at Layla. Leo jumped through the window and beelined toward the Warwalker and tended to his wounds.
I let out a deep breath, knowing he would use Rejuvenation on all three of them and heal them, but his H-Nan reserves would be almost nonexistent. I took care of my own familiar and ran over to Bucky while pulling out a handful of O-Nan cells while using my Repair ability. I wasn’t happy about being left at 45% cells, but it wasn’t terrible either.
“That move!” Ginsk laughed. “What was it? A Thunderclap? And what’s with that Berserker ability? Don’t think I didn’t notice it!”
Donovan couldn’t remove his eyes from Layla as Leo healed him.
“It’s just as you said, a Berserk ability,” I replied. She didn’t know how much she could divulge, but if anyone was to come for us about the implants, it would be over my own mouth, not someone else’s.
“Just as Sarge said,” Layla added as she cleaned the blood from her hammer.
“What power,” the old veteran said as he clapped her shoulder. “I sure am happy you guys decided to come and get us, Stavos. You have both my respect and my thanks.”
I nodded and turned back to stare at Bucky as he regained his composure and got to his feet. As soon as we were patched up, we made our way south. We didn’t want to draw too much attention to ourselves, so we kept the fights we had to take sparse and silent. The usage of drones and my familiars was kept to a minimum, so Leo’s usage was put up a notch. I sent him out in his cloak to scan the area using his Sense Mark 7 implant and lead us throughout the area.
The further south we went, the louder the sound of battle became. Detera had twelve-hour nights and we were some six hours in when we finally approached the position of Squad 14. Heavy gunfire came from their position, and there was even heavier return fire making its way back to them.
“What now, Stavos?” Ginsk asked as we were hunkered down behind the wall of a demolished building.
“We move in, Sergeant. They’ll be overrun any moment.”
“Retrograde-space analysis?” Leo asked.
“No time, Leo. They’re pinned down and we’re here to rescue them.”
Squad 14, which was headed by Corporal Tiana Birch, was a copy of my squad. It consisted of a Technomancer squad leader, a Brawler, and a Commando/Medic. I haven’t had the chance to work with them too often, but I knew them well enough. They were a tightly knit squad since both the corporal and the Brawler were sister and brother.
We closed in on their position and found them hunkered down in a destroyed production facility not much larger than a house on Persei Prime. I had a read on the corporal but the other two were missing so I contacted her over the INAS.
“Corporal, we’re inbound on your position. What’s your status?”
“Stavos? Is that you?” she asked incredulously.
“Yeah, it’s me. What’s your status?”
“Shit, Sergeant, come and see.”
I didn’t expect her to give me such a reply, but I brushed it off. The facility had no roof, just like most buildings around here since the fighting broke out, but it had thick pekta-reinforced walls that easily held against larger projectiles. It was a good spot and Squad 14 had held it since landing.
“Distract the far flank,” I said over the squad channel and sent Buzzard out. Beast launched several grenades, and my drone was joined by the Farseer’s drones. The enemy fell back quickly, giving us the necessary room to wiggle ourselves in.
Corporal Birch met us on her feet, but she was barely standing. I immediately understood her somber mood as she was covered in blood from head to toe. Several deep gashes ran from her forehead and along the arms. Leo rushed in to help her, but she shrugged him off.
“You need healing, Corporal,” he almost pleaded.
Corporal Birch’s assault bot released a hailstorm of bullets through one of the windows causing Leo to flinch. She had one of those Rhino assault-bots that could take a beating but hers was barely standing. The bot was missing one front leg and its missile launchers were burned away for some reason.
“Corporal, let Leo take a look at your wounds. Zaic, get to the window and kill anything that approaches. Harper, check our surroundings, and see if there’s a place to spend the night anywhere close. We can’t stay here for long. Besides, we need to get some sleep. Corporal, what’s your status?”
I hated to ask because I knew the answer.
“My squad is wiped out. The Commando died during landfall and my broth—the Brawler was swarmed by Zealots shortly after. He died protecting me.”
“And you’ve been here for almost ten hours?” I blurted out without thinking too much. She looked me in the eyes and took a deep breath.
“I lost two of my bots and I’m out of O-Nan cells. I barely have enough ammo for my splinter cannon. Bigboy is almost out of ammo too. He’s the only bot standing, and won’t be doing so for much longer.”
Winters, that son of a bitch. This is what his damned plan was doing to us. We weren’t some infantry soldiers sent to Vermillion II to die in an ocean of blood; we were goddamn specialists! While smart officers used us like surgeon’s tools, Winters used us like expendable cannon fodder. At this point, I resented Winters as much as the Aloi.
“I’ll share some of my cells so
you can repair your bot and enough to use one or two more abilities.”
She nodded and I transferred 15% of my cells to Corporal Birch, leaving me at a meager 90/300. I really hoped the orbital battle was going well because we needed supplies ASAP.
“You did well, Corporal,” Ginsk said almost teary-eyed. He put a hand on her shoulder, and she shook it off. “I don’t need sympathy, Sergeant. I need revenge,” she said and almost lost her footing. She was completely spent, emotionally, physically, and mentally. The stress of holding out alone with her bots for ten hours had sucked the life out of her.
Leo attended to her despite her protests, and we managed to find a decent basement some fifty yards behind the production facility. The night had come, and it was best spent hunkered down deep underground as there was no holding that position anymore, despite what Winters might have wanted.
I took the first shift together with Private Zaic. I must admit that I had hoped she would volunteer when I did. The rest managed to catch some sleep as the ground around us shook from detonations scattered across the mine. I was anticipating news from HQ or Tailor, but nothing came through. The south it is then, I thought as my bones finally felt the horror of today.
16
The first night in the Sardok Mine turned out to be much better than expected. We caught a couple of hours of shut-eye, and except for several random shots in the dark, it went on without much disturbance. Luckily, I had the time to check up on several things.
Firstly, our current situation. The Sardok Mine was more like a city than a mine and it stretched some two square miles around the detrium drill at its center. The entirety of the mine entrance was rebuilt into a large processing and storage facility with an endless amount of buildings both small and as tall as skyscrapers. Most of them were housing for the workforce, though. These lay mostly empty now that the enemy had time to ship away the volatile material.
We were located in the northern part of the mine complex and steadily moving toward the center. The biggest part of Aloi forces was fighting it out to the west where they defended against Qualt’s Second Army and south where they kept reinforcing against Winters and our two regiments. There wasn’t much going on in the east except for random groups of what used to be our company moving to the center against Winters’ orders.
I planned to keep going south toward the center of the mine and to group up with as many squads and Technomancers as possible. There was no way we could support Qualt, despite Winters’ original plan, if we decided to head west now. We were too few in numbers and there were tens of thousands of Aloi in our way. Qualt wasn’t doing so well though, and neither was Winters.
The colonel sent in the Oolan’Jin underground but the Aloi were ready this time. The underground tunneling that the Oolan’Jin were so good at was met with bioweapons that filled the corridors with deadly poison. Hundreds of Oolan’Jin died before they managed to escape the tunnels and return to the surface. The only good thing that came out of this mess was that Winters would probably lose his head after this fiasco. The Oolan’Jin Teraritus, which was what passed for their ruling body, would have Winters on their equivalent of a guillotine after this. I spent several long seconds daydreaming about how his head would roll around in the mud as soldiers kicked it around.
Qualt was still holding his own, or at least that’s what I could tell from the sensor data that crept in steadily. The general of the Eres Army was one of the keenest tactical minds in the Federation, which was probably the main reason his forces still hadn’t fallen. He minimized losses and tried to wait out the storm, but the storm kept raging. Sooner or later Qualt and his fellow gold-skinned soldiers would succumb to the Aloi onslaught. It would be a crippling blow in this part of space if the Federation were to lose the Second Army. It was one of the oldest military bodies on Detera that was best known for having waged war for generations.
If I remembered reading correctly, there was mention Qualt’s own family had been in charge of the army for several centuries with first his great-grandfather leading the army, then the grandfather, the father, and now him. Just how much courage and nerves would one need to live out for generations on the same planet and waging war over a damn substance that someone else got to use?
It was custom for the Eres, and especially military families like Qualt’s, to stick to their birth-given profession and never even consider doing anything else. They were excellent at whatever they did and very loyal at that. The Imminy loved the Eres as much as the Imminy could feel anything at all. That was probably the main reason the Donnerjack was brought into this with an Imminy pilot. No human army could ever hope to deserve such honors.
The second thing that had been simmering in my mind for a while was the cocoon-thing I stole for Urgon Feyn. I drew up a picture I made of it that night and tried to juxtapose the writings with the ones from my encounter beneath the mountain. I was right; the markings were very similar but my INAS couldn’t translate them. It was all connected though. The cocoon-thing, the light beneath the mountain which I still believed wasn’t a Ka, and Tailor’s instructions. It was all connected and it made absolutely no sense to me. Some time later, I fell asleep pondering it all only to dream of the same damned things again: fires, war, the night sky losing star by star until it ended up a black canvas, sadness, and death.
“Stavos, we need to move out,” Ginsk said as he tried to wake me up. I hadn’t expected him to be so considerate, but I sure was glad to be mistaken about that particular issue as I rather liked a nice wake-up call. “We have Hegemony bastards to kill.”
“Thanks for giving me the extra time, Sergeant,” I muttered as I pushed myself to my feet. The earth trembled once more with explosions that rang out in the distance, shaking the whole mountain range.
“You earned it in my book, but don’t tell anyone I said so, or I’ll tell them you lied.” He grinned, showing me two rows of near-perfect teeth. Nanites had so much more to offer than just an extra life or protection; they kept our bodies looking good... unless we were bitch-ass ugly. There was no cure for that but surgery.
We packed up, made sure we were in our best shape given the circumstances, and then made our way south again with a new member of our team: Corporal Birch. She was a somber woman that barely said anything, and the few words she did manage to utter were grim and heavy, foreshadowing a veil over all of us.
Our first checkpoint was a third of a mile south. Ten ragtag squads had taken up positions down there, and nine of them had Technomancers of various calibers. The closer we got, the heavier the resistance was. We fought off smaller groups of Raintroopers with Ravager support, but they weren’t even meant to attack us. Instead, they were en route to reinforce their Aloi brethren to the south.
“We should hurry,” Ginsk said as he pulled his Nas-axe from a Ravager’s throat. “I bet our comrades are pretty beaten up by now.”
“Everyone’s pretty beaten up by now,” Leo said with as much seriousness as he could muster. It wasn’t like him to sound so cynical but then I realized he was just trying to comfort Corporal Birch who had lost a brother the night before.
“That’s right, son,” Ginsk said as he jabbed the butt of his axe toward Leo. “Remember this day well as today is the day we earn glory!”
I shook my head and put up a smile that was as honest as anything could be in this situation. He was right, though. We would be the people who “saved” whatever was left of the company, I’d make sure of it.
The platoon of soldiers we headed toward was bunkered down in the ruins of an Aloi temple. The irony of it was lost on no one, and I was pretty sure the Aloi wanted us out, but they didn’t dare do anything rash to anger their “gods.”
They were surrounded on three sides with the fourth side being a still-standing wall adjacent to another building. That was also the side where the Aloi altar still stood, albeit somewhat covered in dust and debris. The Hegemony forces didn’t want to attack from that side, obviously because they’d had to tear thro
ugh their holy sculptures and whatnot to get to the ten squads that made up the platoon within the temple.
We, however, had no such hindrances in our ideology so I blasted a door-sized hole in the wall with my nanites. As the smoke and dust cleared, some thirty guns pointed right at my face.
“You scared the shit out of us, Stavos!” Sergeant Herbert Masin screamed and then hugged me tightly.
“Right, right. Let’s keep it together now or someone might think you’re happy to see me.”
He pulled back and bumped my shoulder. The platoon was made of some thirty-ish specialists of all classes from Duskwalker to Farseer. Every single one of them was beaten and bloodied, but the seven of us were no different.
The platoon had been under attack since landing, but the soldiers of Skull Company weren’t your everyday infantrymen. They held steadfast against a myriad of different attacks. Technomancers and Farseers kept the sky clean with shields and drones despite the air above the temple being a theatre of exploding projectiles.
Gearlords provided a steady stream of artillery fire around the base, keeping Aloi forces at a distance while Commandos barraged incoming swarms of Zealots and Raintroopers. Brawlers and Warwalkers handled heavier units that broke the siege line, while Duskwalkers infiltrated enemy positions and sabotaged their attack efforts. It was a remarkable feat to stay alive for this long against such an overwhelming force, which only told me they had a good leader.
“What’s the situation, Masin?” Ginsk asked, his face all stern and serious.
“We’ve lost a few but we’re still in decent shape. We won’t be for long though. Our supplies are running low. As soon as the Technomancers run out of nanites, we won’t have any protection against enemy bombardment.”
“How long do you think you’ll have?” I asked, already trying to concoct a new plan.
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