“Are you kidding? I bet they already knew we’re here,” Norax argued. He did have a good point. A ship landing near a town isn’t exactly hard to spot. But still.
“Alright. Loot up and head out. We’ve still got at least five minutes to the target,” I said. I ignored the loot other than what popped up for us to split. I wasn’t trying to be lazy, I just really didn’t care to pick up loot. I liked the games where I could turn on auto-looting and just kill and grind and quest. Omicron Sector didn’t allow that. With a group, it sometimes felt like it though. Mostly I only ever got the c.u.’s out of it.
After the team looted the dead wildlife, we set about running and climbing again. I would have paid someone for some flat terrain. We got up another two or three ridges before we saw any new movement. I had kept an eye on my minimap just in case. Thus, it was no surprise when five red lights in a “V” pattern showed up making a straight line for us. From our new vantage point, we could see all the way down into the valley. We were halfway there.
“I’ve got five, incoming fast,” I said.
“Where?” Norax said.
Schmidt added, “I don’t see anything.”
Even J.T. shrugged. She tapped the side of her helmet, and I could hear her magnification engage and disengage a few times.
“The big ones had a stealth shield back at the science station. Maybe these are cloaked, too,” I said. “Watch for moving dirt.”
We were on high alert. After several seconds with no dust trails, I consulted the minimap again. They should have been right in front of us. Maybe twenty meters off.
“I don’t get it.”
A shower of plasma fire from above rained down on us working on our shields.
“They’re flying. Take cover!” J.T. said.
“Where?” Norax asked.
There wasn’t a good place to take cover on top of the ridge. J.T. flattened down against the rocks of the ridge. She raised her gun and returned fire.
Schmidt hunkered down next to her and yelled, “To me. I’ve got a shield.”
I dove head first next to Schmidt, and Norax slid in beside me. A semi-solid blue-green barrier sprang to life around us.
“We don’t have long,” Schmidt said.
“Let’s move and return fire. It’ll be much harder to hit a moving target if we keep going,” I reasoned.
“You mean, run in a ‘Z’ for safety?” Norax joked.
“Really? Now? That’s when you let your best jokes fly?” J.T. asked rolling her eyes.
I couldn’t help but chuckle a bit.
“Ten seconds,” Schmidt said.
“Alright, we’re headed for that ridge,” I pointed. I really hoped we could make it.
“5… 4… 3…”
“Enough with the counting. WE’VE GOT IT!” Norax roared.
The shield dropped. All hell broke loose.
06
Green balls of plasma rained down on us as we rain. Each one struck the ground or our personal shields and erupted into small fires that burned without any apparent fuel. Pretty quickly Schmidt started slowing. I dropped back and caught him under the arm to pull him along while Norax laid down some hellacious cover fire.
J.T. took them out one-for-one with her no-scope sniper rifle skills, but every time she got one, another took its place.
“They keep coming,” J.T. said.
“Just keep shooting.”
“Down to seventy-four percent in my sniper ammo.”
“Just keep SHOOTING!”
Schmidt took another blast of plasma. This one burned into his armor at his heel, and he dropped.
I stood over him and lit up the group of flyers. They weren’t armed as heavily as the big ones and not quite as maneuverable as the crawlies. Three quick rounds from my EV-7 clipped one from the sky.
-132 hp.
-134 hp.
-146 hp.
“Are any of you getting kill notifications?” I asked.
“Nope,” J.T. and Norax both confirmed.
I looked down the hill just as the first of the now-grounded flyers marched to within a few yards of us. Its arm ended in a claw with an empty chamber in the palm. It lit up with green plasma, and I was sure we were dead.
Its claw disappeared in a ball of flame. Another ball of flame took off the rest of its arm and then finally its head.
Norax laughed hard and beat his chest. “They pop when you cook ‘em. Ah… hahaha!”
“You had time to heal up, Schmidt?” I asked. “We’ve gotta go.”
“Yes, sir. Give me just a sec to get stood back up.”
“Next time, don’t stand in the fire!” Norax joked again.
“Is this a new thing with you, Norax?” I asked.
“I think I’m getting tired. I’m a bit slap happy.”
“We need to pull together. It’s time to get off this planet.”
We covered the next kilometer in about twice the time it should have taken. I thought that was pretty good, considering the fact that we were being pinned down by flying aliens that had been taken over by other parasitic aliens.
When we finally arrived, J.T. took her place popping the heads off the flyers with the sniper rifle. Schmidt limped up finally and followed suit. Norax knelt down between them and started assembling one of the largest personal weapons I had ever seen.
“That’s new,” I said.
“I told you, you should have looked through the boxes on the ship. There’s some neat stuff in there.”
He slapped a barrel into a large box and extended three leg stabilizers from the base. He lifted out two handles that then popped up buttons.
One of the flyers buzzed in close, and I punched it in the side of the head sending it spiraling into the valley.
“How long on the shot?” I asked.
“I’ve gotta heat up the plasma from my suit. Maybe twenty seconds.”
“Alright, J.T., Schmidt. I need twenty good seconds of solid cover for Norax.”
I joined them in blasting the flyers. I took care of any that managed to get back up after being shot out of the sky.
-118 hp. Target killed. +50 xp.
-112 hp. Target killed. +50 xp.
-119 hp. Target killed. +50 xp.
-111 hp. Target killed. +50 xp.
“Good job, guys,” I said after putting down what looked to be the last of the flyers. “While we have a second, is everyone mostly healed up?”
I activated Scan.
GySgt Norax. Rank 5. Rohviann Male. HP 525 / 775. Armor 45%. Spec: Heavy.
Cpl J.T. Pascale. Rank 4. Human Female. HP 395 / 498. Armor 57%. Spec: Comms.
PFC James Schmidt. Rank 3. Telisk Male. HP 215 / 495. Armor 50%. Spec: Support.
Norax and Pascale were doing alright, but I worried about Schmidt. Could he survive another onslaught?
“Schmidt, tend your wounds,” I said.
“I’m alright, Captain,” he said through gritted teeth.
“I said to doctor yourself, that’s an order,” I commanded. “We don’t have time to argue.”
“That’s the thing. I…”
“You what?”
“I’m out of medkits.”
“Crap. You could have said something sooner.”
“I just realized it.”
“Here, I’ve got an emergency stim. Take mine.”
“I can’t do that, Captain.”
“You will.”
He knew he was defeated when I shoved my stim pack onto him and walked away.
“Ordinance ready, Captain,” Norax said.
Finally. Sometimes I thought he took his time with stuff just to make me worry. I tapped the side of my helmet to enhance my vision. I zoomed in on the bank below us.
“Alright, team,” I said. “Are we ready?”
“Schmidt, healed up and ready, sir.”
“Pascale, check.”
“Norax, ready.”
“Alright, Norax. When you have a clear shot, take it.”
I could hear Norax prepping his shot. He got quiet. I watched the bank. A shadow slid across one window. The aliens definitely wouldn’t be expecting a blast like this. The window shade separated. Good. The damn thing would see it at the last second. It would be too late to do anything about it.
Then I saw the little boy’s eyes. I zoomed further until my vision got grainy and pixelated. Skin toned flesh. Blue eyes. Brown hair. Freckles. The boy couldn’t have been more than about twelve or thirteen. Shit! They weren’t in the vault anymore.
“NO! Wait!” I yelled.
Norax’s small cannon clicked. Time slowed. I dove sideways and threw my shoulder into the platform. Blinking away my zoomed vision, I tumbled with the plasma-hot mechanism to the ground. The barrel of the thing sizzled on my armor.
-399hp (-1330 dam. 70% armor) 79 / 760 hp
“What the hell are you doing?” Norax asked.
The plasma volley flung wide of its target, and I sighed a deep sigh of relief.
“A boy. They aren’t in the vault anymore. I saw a boy.”
Behind us, I could hear the sounds of Schmidt and J.T. blasting away at another wave of flyers. I raised my rifle with one hand and added to the cover fire.
“We have to abort the plasma cannon idea.”
“Damnit, Aaron. You didn’t have to smash my rig,” Norax growled. “I’m getting sick and tired of this. Are you going to lead or just get in the way?”
“It wasn’t even yours a few hours ago. Why are you so heart-broken?”
“I’m not. You just aren’t thinking.”
He was right. Again. I was starting to really hate when he was right. I gritted my teeth and slowly nodded. While I was shooting the flyers, I was really thinking about our strategy. We never should have changed up the original plan. Schmidt was a good kid and all, but he didn’t have the experience that we did.
Quest:
You may have gotten bad intel. Find out the truth of the situation with the citizens in the bank.
Objectives:
Infiltrate the bank.
Find out what has happened to the citizens.
Reward:
Personal XP: 500.
Accept: Y/N
“Alright, fine!” I stood up. “Let’s move out. We infiltrate and retrieve.”
Norax picked up his turret and used it like a club to swat a nearby flyer out of the air. The metal barrel bent and snapped over his foe. He roared his victory howl. I understood that to be pointed more at me than at the enemy, and I was fine with that as long as he kept attacking them and not me.
J.T. pulled out a few tools and some parts from her pack and finally attached a small device to my shoulder. Small green “+1 hp” notifications popped into my vision about every half second. It wasn’t a full heal, but it was better than nothing. I thanked her with a nod.
We worked our way down the side of the ridge toward the bank. This time, we were making a straight line for the bank. We slowed only when the swarm of flyers got too thick to ignore. We had still been firing into their ranks as we ran, but really that was just to keep them back as far as possible.
After a short minute or so alternately slipping, sliding, and jumping down the side of the rock covered hill, we reached the town’s outer edge. The deeper we got into the town, the more the red damage-numbers filled my vision.
“Where the hell were these things when we were scouting the place? I didn’t think there would be so many.” J.T. said.
“I don’t know, but I think we pissed them off,” I replied.
I almost considered turning off damage notifications for a minute but decided not to when I rounded the corner onto the bank road. Standing right in front of the bank was one of the largest, boss-monster looking, bad guys I had ever seen. I skidded to a halt, and my crew practically ran me over. I scanned it.
Alien Hive Boss. Rank 10. Unknown species and gender. HP 25,000 / 25,000. Armor 70%. Spec: Advanced.
“Come on, team! We took out a Rank 9 just the other day. A Rank 10 should be child’s play!” I shouted.
As if to punctuate just how wrong I could be, two more giant aliens stepped out from behind the bank. Both were Rank 9. We were screwed.
“Norax. I am very, very, very sorry I messed up your gun.”
Norax swallowed hard. “You and me both, brother.”
07
“I have an idea, Captain,” said Schmidt.
“Is it anything like your last idea?”
“Well, not really. And hey, the last idea wasn’t really my fault. We had bad intel.”
“Watch who you accuse, new boy,” J.T. chided.
“Seriously, Captain, I think we can do this, but we’ll have to split them up.”
“I’m listening,” I said backing us around the corner again.
“We’ve got to split them up. I think Norax, J.T., and I can keep the attention of one each of them, you can help take down the smaller ones one at a time.”
“That’s your plan?” Norax asked.
“Almost, to pull it off, I think the Captain should get on top of one of these buildings.”
“It’s not a bad plan, Norax,” J.T. said.
“Right. Because…” Norax started. “Why, exactly?”
“No, they’re right,” I said. “But with one difference. I don’t want you leading them around. You get to the top of that building and start shooting. Take the one out following Schmidt first. Then, get to J.T.’s. We’ve gotta keep them circling near Norax’s position, or this won’t work.”
“Got it.”
“Alright. I’ll take the big one. Schmidt, go left. J.T., go right. Norax, tell us when you’re in position.”
Norax scrambled up the fire escape for the nearest building. He hadn’t quite gotten halfway up when a rubbery tentacle slammed into the stairwell right above him. His shield flickered like he had taken a little damage.
“No!” I called out to Norax.
“I’m fine! Stick to the plan.”
“Go. Go. Go. He’ll have to get in position while we engage. Remember, kite your target, or you’re dead.”
Two rounds of sniper fire shot over my shoulders as I dove headlong into the central boss alien. It was still pulling its giant whip of a tentacle back from the stairwell; so, I took advantage of the situation and got in a quick three rounds from my rifle while I closed the distance with the giant.
-48 hp.
-48 hp.
-50 hp.
Crap. My rifle was practically useless. I hoped the others were able to do more damage to their targets than I was. At least they were firing sniper-shot instead of this plasma rifle crap. The sniper shot they were using was comprised of a special plasma blast that waited to explode until after impact was confirmed. The two additional boss aliens ran right past me. Excellent!
The boss lashed out with its tentacle. I dodged over the top and then slid under a wild swing from its meaty arm. When I got close enough to really judge its size, I almost lost my balance looking up at it. The thing must have been a solid six or seven meters tall. In one way I considered that a disguised blessing.
Gathering my energy, I launched into the most distracting attack I could think of. I called on Nova Punch, and my arm glowed with energy. I launched into the deepest full connect assault on the thing’s crotch that I could. It had left itself mostly exposed. I felt my fist connect with flesh and I released all the Nova Punch energy into that one attack. I connected with some kind of soft tissue, but the giblets I expected weren’t there. Of course, they weren’t. If I had been thinking, I would have realized that they would have been the size of coconuts. Well, at least Nova Punch packed some damage and almost always critically hit.
-738 hp. Cooldown: 1 minute.
What? No critical? Oh, I’m screwed.It was still over 24,000 hp. Shrugging away that fact, I hoped I had done enough damage to get its attention away from Norax. I dove between its legs and turned to fire off another three round burst into its back.
Rear attack (hal
f armor) -104 hp.
Rear attack (half armor) -105 hp.
Rear attack (half armor) -103 hp.
I kept Scan up more to keep track of my teammates than to track the monster’s health, but that aspect was useful too. Schmidt and Norax were still roughly in my field of vision, so I got their information. J.T. was nowhere to be seen, but then neither was her alien.
Alien Hive Boss. Rank 10. Unknown species and gender. HP: 23,804 / 25,000. Armor 70%. Spec: Advanced. Status: Aggro - Cap. Taylor
Alien Boss Add. Rank 9. Unknown species and gender. HP: 18, 154 / 20,000. Armor 70%. Spec: Advanced. Status: Aggro - PFC Schmidt.
GySgt Norax. Rank 5. Rohviann Male. HP 625 / 775. Armor 45%. Spec: Heavy.
PFC James Schmidt. Rank 3. Telisk Male. HP 467 / 495. Armor 50%. Spec: Support.
I gave myself a little pep-talk. “Okay, Aaron. You’ve got this. You aren’t really a tank, but you can kite a boss for a few minutes. You just have to keep it interested in you.”
“Umm, Captain. You’re hot-micing,” Schmidt said over the comms.
“Sorry. How is everyone doing?”
“Not now, Captain. Working!” Schmidt said.
“Almost at the top,” Norax said.
“Good. J.T.?” I asked.
There was no answer.
“J.T. Status? Do you have aggo? Yes or no?”
“Captain,” J.T. whispered over the comms. “Trust your team. Let us work. And let me be quiet. I’m not a heavy like Norax.”
Null Protocol: A LitRPG Space Marine Adventure (Omicron Sector Book 2) Page 5