Warrior Rising cos-3

by James Somers

  “The information is being transmitted to the remaining ships, sir!”

  The Esyia came around, setting her course for the Baruk flagship. The dispersion cannon rotated as the gunner set up the targeting information.

  “Fire dispersion cannon at selected targets,” Estall commanded.

  The first volley of cannon fire struck the shields of the flagship. The cannon compensated for the appropriate shield frequency within milliseconds and the blast penetrated, striking the ship. A large portion of the hull on the port side was vaporized. Within moments a heavy firefight issued forth upon the Esyia from other Baruk ships coming to the aid of their flagship.

  “Where are those other ships?” shouted Estall.

  “Sir, they’re being engaged too heavily to aid us at the moment. The Baruk ships are attempting to ram us now!”

  “Estall!” Ranul called from his station. “The signal I’ve been monitoring…it just increased its intensity tenfold in the direction of the Baruk ships.”

  “Then it is some sort of telepathy?”

  “Almost certainly,” Ranul said. “Whatever is aboard that ship wants to be protected even if it means using the other Baruk ships as battering rams to stop us.”

  “Sir, more Baruk ships are coming at us on a collision course!”

  “Evasive maneuvers!” shouted Estall. “Fire!”

  “We’ve got to destroy that signal source,” Ranul said.

  “I know, but we can’t do it if we’re dead,” said Estall. “Helmsman, keep us elusive. Look for any way to get near the flagship again.”

  “They’re forming a perimeter to protect it,” Ranul reported.

  “Tell the other ships to keep trying to break through. I just hope they can hold out on the surface until we can break through out here.”

  Tiet watched as his troops moved throughout the suburban area of the city of Thalidi, outside of the shield wall. The shield was operational with the old thick alloy-plated wall standing behind it. Yet he wasn’t optimistic that even those things could hold the city.

  The soldiers moved quickly and quietly in and around buildings as they set up positions from which to ambush the Baruk. They were well-armed and well-trained despite the limited time the new army had been in operation. As he watched them deploy, Tiet wondered how many would be going home after this was all over, even wondering if he would.

  He pulled his long range lens to his eye and peered out toward the valley of Usai. He could see the Baruk forces approaching already. The range was two miles. Their projected speed would put them in contact within twenty minutes. The image was obscured by an increasingly large cloud of dust being churned up from the valley floor by their army, making it difficult to get much detail on exactly what they were going to be up against.

  Tiet spoke into his communication mouthpiece. “Fire the cannons at will.”

  Above him, from positions on the defense wall, large pulse cannons began to rain down a firestorm upon the approaching Baruk. He looked at them through his ocular again. Multiple explosions erupted, but it was difficult to tell if they were doing any damage, or to what extent. Tiet moved with those near him to their ambush positions, set their pulse rifles and prepared to wait for the Baruk.

  Kale watched his brother from behind a nearby wall. He had made it this far with Wynn’s help. Now he just had to keep Tiet alive. It was hard to believe that Wynn had helped him to escape. He must really care about my little brother, he thought. Kale was determined now to give his life for his brother if necessary. He would never betray him again.

  Wynn had apparently thought this out and had provided a uniform, allowing Kale to blend in with the other soldiers. He activated his own ocular lens and watched the approaching Baruk. Flipping through several different image perspectives, he noted something odd. The main group was apparently approaching under some sort of large shield that went before them like a barricade. It appeared to be automated and put off an easily recognizable power signature. But something else was showing up ahead of their formation.

  Kale tapped his wrist pad for an analysis of the odd life signature which appeared as multiple trails heading in their direction.

  Insufficient data, the computer replied.

  With the naked eye he could see nothing. No dust trail, no visible anything. The trails continued on at a steady pace along the ground as the Baruk closed on the outskirts of the village. The land sloped upward toward the perimeter defense wall behind him.

  Kale noticed the soldiers getting ready to fire and Tiet’s voice came over his headset. “Lock on your targets. Fire on my command.”

  The large shield dissipated as the Baruk came into closer quarters in the village before the wall. The pulse lasers on the wall also ceased, as the Baruk were now too close. There was a town square with a fountain and an open area that lay between Tiet’s ambush and the Baruk. Tiet had given an order to wait for the enemy to reach it before firing. Kale could see the forces that opposed them more clearly now. They were very fierce looking.

  It was mostly infantry, but they had large carrier vehicles for the troops as well and turrets mounted to the tops along with various other arms. A number of large beasts mingled among them as well. These all looked like the kind of mutated ravenous brutes that the Baruk were known for using in close combat. The Baruk fanned out through the streets below, rapidly making their way toward the defense wall.

  At least five thousand warriors stormed toward the city and Tiet’s ambush. Kale readied his pulse rifle and his blade. The coalition would need every bit of firepower they had, but it probably still would not be enough.

  The enemy forces poured into the village square, coming around the fountain as they advanced. Kale heard the command from his brother, “Fire!” and the battle was on. All of the Castillian soldiers blazed into combat from their hidden positions. A massive wave of pulse laser fire erupted against the advancing Baruk. Immediately they scattered and sought cover from the onslaught. Many were cut down as the laser fire punched through the symbiotic exoskeletons.

  Kale noticed, once again, the strange life signature of moving lines as he peered through his ocular lens. They were moving very close to the Castillian position now. It’s almost as if they were underground! But the thought occurred to Kale too late. Just as he rose from his position, amid the return fire from the Baruk warriors, the hurutai erupted from beneath the ground.

  Kale had seen them once before, but had only vaguely remembered the capabilities of the huge worm-like creatures. They moved very fast. As their heads pushed upwards through the surface they caught the Castillian soldiers completely off guard.

  Around the neck area of the creatures were hundreds of long spines shooting forth in every direction from the vesicles which produced them. Kale saw ten worms emerging among the troops as he leaped behind a barrier. Soldiers around the creatures were hit by the spines. Each one contained a fast acting neurotoxin to quickly put down their prey.

  That was what Kale had remembered the most. The hurutai paralyzed the voluntary skeletal muscle functions of their prey so they could feed on fresh meat without a struggle. He had seen one eat up to ten men at once, holding them within its long wormy body for a slow digestion over several days. As Kale peered back at his previous perch he saw it pierced with poison needles all around. He remembered his brother, searching for him amid the chaos.

  Tiet fired his pulse rifle at every target he could find. The Something blew up out of the ground nearby. He turned from his crouched position to find a huge worm-like head pushing through the ground. He had never seen anything like it.

  Tiet’s men fell around him as needlelike spines erupted from a colored ring around the creature’s head. Tiet raised his weapon to shoot, but his arms became limp. He looked down as the pulse rifle fell out of his hands and saw a spine fixed in his lower left abdomen. He pulled it out as his vision went blurry and the buildings and terrain began to spin. Tiet felt the ground smash hard into his face as he tumbled over he
lplessly. He tried to cry out for help but could not.

  The beast reared its head around and slammed into the ground, bringing more of its body out onto the surface. It opened a huge orifice allowing long tentacle-like tongues to issue forth across the ground. The horrid beast latched onto several Castillian soldiers lying on the ground and quickly pulled their paralyzed bodies into its own hulking mass, consuming them alive.

  Tiet could see it all, but he could not move. He tried to use the Way, but he was too dizzy and disoriented to concentrate. It looked like this would be his end-eaten alive by these monsters of the Baruk.

  Around him, soldiers he had trained personally from among the Castillians and the Vorn were being pulled into the gullets of the creatures. He would have wept for them if he could, or risen to save them, but it was no use. He could see laser fire still being exchanged with the Baruk. He saw more of the creatures, like this worm, spraying their venomous darts at his soldiers as they tried to fend off what was quickly becoming a slaughter.

  In the near distance Tiet saw the approach of the Baruk as they made their way up the slope. If the worms didn’t take him, the Baruk certainly would. A coiled tentacle swept over his body as the creature moved its head in his direction. The horrid appendage latched onto Tiet’s leg and began to pull him toward the gaping maw of the creature. It leveled its head to his position as the tentacle pulled his limp body through the dirt.

  This was it. It was over-a brand new coalition of Vorn and Castillian people working together for peace and safety, with him as their king. Now it was going to end. The Baruk were winning. They had lost most of the Vorn cruisers trying to prevent the ground war which now would probably destroy the Twelve Cities. He was ultimately responsible as their leader.

  A blur shot across his visual field and suddenly the tentacle was hanging from his leg, severed. From above the head of the great worm beast, Tiet saw a lone figure coming down upon it with a Barudii blade. The warrior drove the sword straight into whatever brain the beast might possess.

  The creature reared up as the soldier drove it deep again. Then the beast gave up the fight. It’s head crashed with tremendous force into the ground near Tiet’s paralyzed body. Without warning, the soldier picked him up, almost as if Tiet’s body had levitated onto the man’s back. Then they were off and running. He heard a voice as the scenery changed before his paralyzed eyes. “Don’t worry. I’ll get you out of here, brother.”

  It couldn’t be. Kale? But he was in detention at Baeth Periege. And suddenly, with the realization, Tiet felt no anger, only relief that somehow and for some reason his brother was here to save his life.

  He heard Kale as he called for a retreat of their soldiers to behind the defense wall. “Abandon your posts and return to the city immediately, by order of the King!” Tiet was glad Kale was taking charge. His men were getting slaughtered and Tiet would have called the retreat himself had he been able. Hopefully, the remaining civilian population had been able to get behind Wynn’s ten mile front by now. They had been nearly out by the time the defense cannons were set to auto-track and left running.

  Kale joined other soldiers who were now in full retreat from the advancing Baruk. They had to reach the access portals quickly to get inside the wall before the enemy caught up with them. Fortunately it appeared that the hurutai were still busy feeding, leaving only the Baruk warriors on their trail.

  Baruk weapons could be heard all around, pounding the surrounding buildings, taking down more Castillian soldiers attempting to retreat behind the defense wall. Of five hundred elite warriors, which had come to the battlefield with their king, fewer than a hundred remained standing.

  Kale tried to put as many structures between himself and the advancing Baruk as he could to block the storm of weapon’s fire around them. It was difficult to evade all the gunfire with his brother hanging limp across his back. He was supporting the majority of Tiet’s weight with his mental power, but his movements were still cumbersome.

  Some of the other soldiers had already reached the wall and accessed one of the portals leading through. One of the soldiers stood at the doorway, waving warriors inside. Kale followed them through the passageway that took them beyond the defense wall into the city. Several of the soldiers guarded the portal until they could see no other Castillian soldiers. Then they followed the others through, sealing the doorway behind them.

  The Baruk were locked outside of the city now. As Kale came out into the open, he spotted a place where a med station had been set up and left for anyone that might be wounded in the battle. The other soldiers were congregating around several of these stations.

  Kale laid his brother down and examined him. He passed a med-scanner across his paralyzed body, determining that he was alive, despite the neurotoxin from the hurutai. He took one of the needle leads from the scanner and pushed it into Tiet’s deltoid muscle. It may have hurt him, but Kale had to do a neuro-muscular scan in order to determine how best to treat the poison. The scanner ran through a series of tests over several minutes. When it had finished, instructions came across the screen instructing Kale on what medication combination would be effective in reversing the paralytic effect of the hurutai neurotoxin.

  The gunfire beyond the wall was quieting down now. This disturbed him. They’re up to something. He rummaged through the med-box in the station tent, looking for the prescribed drugs. Only two were needed, but the dosage had to be precise. He located more supplies to mix the concoction and went to work. Tiet remained seemingly lifeless on the ground.

  Beyond the med-station tents, something was happening. The men were yelling. Kale heard the screeching of the hurutai. He went to the tent door to look out, just as a spray of hurutai spines pierced the flaps. Kale jumped back, finding several spines in his body.

  He had the injection in his hand, called for by the med scanner. He immediately jammed it into a vein in his arm and pushed it systemically. Kale quickly began to get dizzy. However, within moments, the effects of the neurotoxin subsided. He went to work mixing another dose for Tiet.

  Kale heard more than the just the hurutai outside now. He fixed his mental senses on the area around them and found the Baruk warriors coming through the hurutai tunnels into the city. Gunfire erupted again as the remaining Castillian warriors tried to defend themselves against the steady stream of Baruk warriors pouring through the worm tunnels.

  Kale worked fast to get the mixture prepared. When he had it, he injected the medication into a vein in Tiet’s arm. Kale now sensed the Baruk closing on their tent. He didn’t have time to wait for the paralysis to be reversed on his brother. Kale lifted him up using the Way and crossed to the rear of the tent where he sliced down the cloth wall with a kemstick and plowed on through to the outside.

  The battle was raging again, but there were hardly any of the other soldiers left alive. Kale ran for cover toward the large buildings ahead, but the Baruk were closing on him fast. He felt Tiet shifting on his back as the paralysis wore off.

  Ahead in their path, a hurutai worm erupted through the surface, leaving the two brothers with nowhere to go. Kale dropped them to the ground like a stone as the reflexive launch of toxic spines sprayed away from the beast and sailed over their heads. Tiet was moving on the ground now, trying to regain his muscle control. Kale drew his blade to defend him as best he could.

  A flash of light appeared between the hurutai and the buildings behind. Kale saw what appeared to be a huge energized portal materialize with men coming through it into the city. Kale recognized them as Horva warriors. General Grod was leading them through.

  They each wore a metal glove with wires trailing along the length of their arms to a small pack across their backs. The gloves were held before them as they ran into the city. The hurutai was alerted to their presence. Streams of plasma energy shot forth from the gloves like lightning hitting the hurutai. The creature screeched in pain. Within seconds it fell over dead like a burnt sausage.

  The Horva ran toward Ka
le and Tiet. Kale raised his blade, preparing to fight the Horva coming at them. More streams of plasma energy issued forth like lightning from their fingertips, but the attack passed them altogether and hit the advancing Baruk head on. Kale stood dumbfounded as the Horva warriors ignored them completely in order to fight the Baruk behind him.

  General Grod came up to the pair of warriors as they stood there exhausted from the fight they had already faced.

  “Come with me. We must get you to safety,” he said, speaking directly to Tiet.

  Tiet responded, appearing to realize more of what had just happened than Kale did.

  “I knew it, Grod,” he said weakly as he tried to catch his breath. “I knew you were a man of honor.”

  Tiet could still barely stand. Grod helped Kale support the young man as they made their way back toward the energy portal.

  “My warriors!” Grod shouted. “Return to the transgate!”

  Grod, Kale and Tiet ran through the portal, coming into Grod’s fortress at Nagon-Toth hundreds of miles away.

  ALLIES

  “Sir, we’ve been unable to confirm how many Baruk soldiers have off-loaded inside the city since the other transports began landing,” said Sergeant Corbin.

  “What about the power?” asked Wynn. “Have you had any success getting to the main supply conduits?”

  “No, sir. The Baruk are still fortifying that area very heavily. We can’t get through.”

  “It’s been two hours now and nothing from Tiet or anyone from the preliminary team.”

  “With all due respect, sir, it seems clear that no one survived. And the Baruk have the city now. How could they possibly have made it?”

  “I understand the circumstances, Corbin, but I don’t want to give up hope. And don’t start that rumor among the men. It would hurt morale, and our fight is far from over. Now get the units mobilized. Those Baruk aren’t going to remain in Thalidi for long.”