BattleMaster (The BattleMaster Corps Book 1)
Page 33
That’s all Kyle needed to hear. He floored the accelerator, steering for the heart of the fray. The order of battle no longer resembled a set piece fight.
Needing to end it now, the Chinese had charged recklessly forward. The two forces became intermixed, but the weight of the enemy was telling wherever Stanner’s shrinking swarm wasn’t. The only thing that could save them was to renew the swarm.
Long range shots zipped past his truck or detonated to spray the armor plating with bits of hot metal. His tires popped. The engine panel blared warnings of pending failure. A fragment pierced the windshield and dug into his shoulder.
Pain rocketed through him and a thin trail of smoke rose from the wound. Blood poured out and his head became light.
He drove on, undeterred.
This ends today.
***
No matter how many he killed, it seemed that two more took their place. The enemy was closing in on a hundred-and-eighty degree front and Stanner didn’t have the Wasps to cover a tenth of it.
Studying the map of the battlefield his minions created with their hundreds of eyes, he came to the grim conclusion that even a fresh force of two thousand wouldn’t be sufficient.
Not only was the area too great, but the Chinese had adapted more quickly than any model had predicted. It was amazing, really, given the heat of battle, but they had developed counter tactics on the fly.
Reprogrammed tank shells made them giant shotguns that filled the air with projectiles large enough to knock out clusters of his Wasps with each discharge.
He needed to adapt, too … or fail.
Failure was not an option.
Eight thousand new connection requests appeared before his mind’s eye. Stanner took in his surroundings with his own eyes and breathed deep. It was time to do the impossible, because that was what victory demanded this day.
Lying flat on the ground, he accepted the eight thousand requests with a thought-click. The system tried to kick off the six thousand in excess, but he overrode the failsafe.
Brain cells exploded and pain beyond anything any human had ever experienced consumed his entire person. Every nerve was on fire and freezing at the same time. The link flickered and wavered. Wasps surged ahead and retreated with no sign of coordination.
He couldn’t get around the agony, but he could think through it.
His thoughts poured into thousands of Wasps. The pain became part of the link, each Wasp taking its share of suffering. The link had truly become two-way. He felt his consciousness, his soul flow into them. He was one mind, spread through eight thousand-five hundred bodies.
The hurricane of carbon zipped into the chaos. Triple-turret tanks and infantry fired into the plague, but there were too many. The swarm ate them like locusts, devouring entire fields before moving onto the next.
Images no longer flashed before his mind’s eye; they melded into an endless stream of data. He read ones and zeros more easily than he had ever comprehended words. In that sea of information, he saw something that sparked a wave of humanity in his inhuman form.
Stephanie was in mortal danger. At the far end of the battle from his location, she fought for her life. Olsen and Veech stood at her side and battled with courage, but the enemy was within their ranks and closing in.
More of himself transferred to the Wasps. Feelings and emotions permeated the link.
Over seven thousand Wasps responded to his heart’s call as one. They bypassed targets and surrounded his beloved. She became the center of the hurricane, eye of the storm.
It swirled around her, sweeping peril away. Armor was turned to molten puddles and flesh to steaming piles of muck.
The storm expanded out, circling her in ever-widening patterns.
The Chinese lost heart in the face of such biblical vengeance. They broke and ran for the perceived safety of Shangri-La. It was of no use. The swarm pursued and smote them in a frenzy of death.
The last gun fired and scream heard left the throat of a doomed soldier. An eerie silence came over the battlefield save for the cries of the wounded and thmoop of seven thousand and eleven rotors.
Stanner bore witness to it all. No detail escaped his many eyes. Comrades looked around in disbelief. Many had been on the verge of death and now the danger had been swept away as though by the hand of God.
Their victory defied logic.
No cheer rose from them. They only gazed at the hovering cloud of black and muttered questions to themselves.
Stephanie wasn’t one of them. She knew what had happened, who had saved them. Her head whipped around, searching for him. A group of Wasps danced before her and pointed in his direction.
“I’m on the other side of the field. Follow me,” he whispered in her com-link.
She sprinted toward him. Veech and Olsen followed. Soon others joined them until most of the surviving Army was headed in the direction she chose. They had no idea why, other than that they were following the only person who seemed to know what she was doing.
Stephanie smiled from ear to ear when his body came into view and she ran faster. She dropped to her knees and embraced his still form.
Stanner tried moving his arms to hug her but they wouldn’t move. Then he realized a horrifying fact. He couldn’t feel anything that wasn’t being transmitted via Wasp sensors. He searched for his heart, his breathing, anything to prove to himself he was still him.
Then it hit him.
His thoughts weren’t inside his own head. They were divided between thousands of centers that simulated a singular mind.
Stanner screamed a terrible shriek. The signal hit the earbuds of everyone. They winced in unison, putting a hand on their affected ear. This shouldn’t be possible.
What’s happened to me?
Warrant Officer Michael Stanner was no longer in his own body, yet he wasn’t dead.
He had transcended.
***
Stephanie looked down at him with a frown, not understanding why he hadn’t moved. With trembling fingers, she touched his throat. Realization set in and she broke down, throwing her body over his as tears covered her face.
The assembled crowed understood that their savior was dead. They dropped to their knees and removed their helmets in a show of respect.
Stephanie cried uncontrollably for a minute before she noticed a lone Wasp floating near her. Her head jerked up to see a cloud hanging several yards above.
“This isn’t right.” She strained her neck to gaze up.
Olsen wiped his nose. “I can’t believe he’s gone.”
“No.” Stephanie rose to her feet and pointed at the Wasps. “If he’s dead, then who’s controlling them?”
Hundreds of faces looked to the sky.
“I’m still here,” Stanner declared in a smooth tone to her. “I’m alive and I love you.”
Epilogue
Susan Boils exited the shuttle, squinting at the stinging rays of the sun. Weeks aboard a spaceship had made her old eyes sensitive to the welcome sight. She took in a breath of fresh air and savored it.
She regarded her assistant, graduate student Samuel Danish. “Double-check our coordinates. I want to make sure we start digging in the right spot.”
The baby-faced twenty-one-year-old worked his tablet. “The GPS satellites are transmitting.” He nodded. “Yep, we’re right where we want to be, Professor. In the middle of the continent.”
“Excellent. Let’s begin as soon as we can, but don’t rush anything. A lot of good men and women paid with their lives to give us this opportunity and I don’t want us to waste it.”
“Understood. We’ll proceed just as we’ve planned. Caution first.”
“Yes, but we can’t afford to be paralyzed by it. Croatoan is coming after all.”
End of Book One
About Nathaniel Danes
Nathaniel Danes is a self-diagnosed sci-fi junkie and, according to his wife, has an over active imagination. Mostly blind, he writes to create universes where he h
as no limitations. He lives with his wife and daughter in the Washington, DC area.
Social media links:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NathanielDanes @NathanielDanes
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Website: http://www.nathanieldanesauthor.com/
Acknowledgements:
Couldn’t have done this without the love and support of my family.
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