Taking a peek behind him, he noticed that the artificial mist was vaguely shifting before him, creating a brief trail, like one a serpent would leave when swiveling through tall grass. He could then recognize the sound of footfalls moving away from him and detect the smoke swiftly whisper out of the chamber. The soldier hastily followed suit, pursuing the runaway’s path through the dissipating fumes, eventually entering the beginning of a long corridor. Here he could make out his retreating target half way up the hall, likely praying to the Sacred for his life, for now would be as good a time as any to do so.
Coming to a complete standstill, the warrior swiftly modified his cutting-edge weapon to its sniper form and calmly aimed the armament in the direction of his vulnerable target. While holding his inhale, the Major, like he had done countless times before, pulled the trigger twice with his unconscious memory. One shot to break the shield, the second to breach the armor. He lowered his rifle and beheld his former challenger fall to the ground. Pacing down the hall, he reached the fallen criminal, who was face down and had his blood flowing out from a wound at the center of his head. While laying his eyes into the crimson pool beneath him, the soldier noticed, in the peripheral of his vision, a scratch on his upper-right shoulder. It was from the blade encountered just a short time ago, which he evidently didn’t fully avert. An irrepressible sigh escaped him, not being to hold back the disappointment at being given a parting gift from an enemy. Nevertheless, the Major recognized that this wasn’t the main man his team had been searching for. The dead fellow was by no means the finest of the hunted pack; he was merely a mild deterrent and had no worthy information on him that the soldier was ordered to obtain.
With a break in the action, he wired an invitation to his respective comrades, but since he didn’t presume nor anticipate their arrival to be hasty, as they had separated to search the other possible enemy locations, he understood that this was his sole mission to complete or risk the data being taken off-world. He rushed farther into the hallway and headed for the area that the now muted terrorist had desperately tried to reach. At the end of the passage, passing some rooms likely used for offices and storage, he found a freight elevator patiently waiting for its attendant. The lift, despite the rust, opened its grated arms, automatically turning on some weak lights at the corners. The skilled combatant, eternally aware of his surroundings by his ever stirring mind and his ever present technological implements, regarded a heavy looking, half-rotten, wooden table pressed against the corner of the wall. Working quickly, he lifted up the piece of decaying furniture and placed it into the elevator, strategically placing it on its side and exactly parallel to the gate. He then joined his well-placed distraction, pressing his body up against a corner of the wall nearest the entry as tightly as possible, and pushed the only command the panel would accept; down.
Nearing the onset of enemy gunfire that was inevitably waiting for him at the end of the ride, the soldier proclaimed himself one with the air around him by activating his suit’s invisibility function, having to eat up his shield’s power source to do so and, consequently, making even small arms fire potent enough to puncture it. Although not dealing with ignorant souls, and he himself forgetting the sense of ignorance long ago, he knew very well that his invisibility was not going to stop his oppressors from noticing the declining lift, and would, before long, see through him and his plans. Thus, while his shielding lost power and his enemy’s minds waxed brighter, he became aware that he had just a fleeting window before the energy powering his invisibility betrayed him. At least he knew they would not likely implement explosives and destroy their access to the surface when one of their own had been left at ground level. The combatant next felt the elevator crudely begin to vibrate as the conveyance neared its terminus. It subsequently came to a stop. The anticipation rose as the door stubbornly started to open. His blood boiled, but he was soon able to master his emotions, and they practically vanished once the gate finished opening. The storm of bullets were already midway through the barrels of his enemy’s guns by the time the warrior took the moment he had, before his enemy figured out he was not behind the table, to observe the area as quickly as possible.
Time ceased to exist for a split moment. At once, his vision was struck by the brightness of the room. Since he was denied the experience of light during the commencement of his journey, the sight of it set fire to his eyes and he was forced to wait a few nanoseconds for his eyes to adjust to the penetrating rays. Once his sight acclimated to the new environment, he was able to remark the elevated ceilings and the cheap iron pillars supporting it, though ‘supporting’ seemed too strong a word. Scattered about the hollowed out vicinity were piles of decomposing wooden boxes and crates alongside a mixture of weakened rocks that couldn’t hold their initial positions on the ceiling, and numerous decrepit mining equipment lost in the minds of their former owners, if the owners themselves were not already deceased. They all laid on a ground of fissured cement that would be hopeless to repair, abandoned to endure their new home until the artificially created cave collapsed upon them. The Major was certain that the top half of the mounds of debris was the accumulation of dust and dirt from all the years past.
The warrior couldn’t proceed any further without acknowledging the two guns facing their unwanted visitor. One was several long steps away from the elevator’s entry, appearing to be a heavy duty shotgun and was appropriately being held by a muscular and robust frame of heavy armor. The shotgun wielder was undoubtedly of the ikuga species, an alien race shaped much like King Kong and whose thick, plated skin very nearly added another layer of bullet proof material. The other aggressor was located a few paces behind its comrade’s right and who, in vast contrast from the last, had a tall, slender body and was holding, also comparable to its possessor, an elongated assault rifle and sported an emerald suit of armor that hugged the contours of its snake-like body. These characteristics fitted the draken, who were notoriously aggressive to other species, or, at least, with those they did not respect, which often included fellow comrades.
Seeing the odd pair made the Major wonder about another odd feeling he experienced when he first received the assignment to recover the sensitive data stolen by the terrorist group. It dawned on him that this mission was advertised as the highest level of importance, and yet, the few details about the terrorists themselves did not seem to justify the use of his elite group. The criminals were part of an anti-corporation sect and had been involved in several raids on minor corporate facilities in human owned space. He was only informed by his superiors that the top secret data must either be retrieved (without any member of his team viewing the sensitive information) or destroyed along with the extremist group. The Major was not usually one to question orders, and he had been involved in many clandestine missions before, but his decades of experience told him something was off about this one, he simply couldn’t pin down exactly what that was.
Sooner than a full breath, the Major’s radar system turned an unfavorable red color and, shortly after, completely left him without its assistance. Someone was jamming his sensors. He fixed his sight on the only position the signal could arise from, a protracted structure two-stories high. This structure was embedded into the cavern wall to the elevator’s left and, applying the zooming function the mechanical bits of his eyes permitted him to employ, he was able to pick up a shadowy, prone body on the second story balcony holding a sniper rifle at the center of the terrace, hunting about for its prey. A rickety set of metal stairs on the far left of the construction, leaning against the earthen wall and complete with a rusting railing on the right hand side, looked to be the only component joining the lower and upper sections together. A simple wooden railing went from one end of the balcony to the other and, as prosaic as it was, it was as solidly built as though it had been set up only the day before.
Meanwhile, with the bullets escaping from their dwelling and ripping through his fixed obstacle, exactly according to his forecast, the soldier’s min
d was racing through countless judgments. He sensed the bullets coming in closer and faster with each passing glance and he knew some line of action must promptly be exercised, having only one sure fire chance at success. Proceeding with a body that was reinforced by a flood of spirit energy, or vida, as his contemporaries named it epochs ago, his chief action began with the eradication of his greatest threat, which a brutally imparted wisdom had never let him forget. Avoiding the airborne slugs to the left of him, he altered his ammunition to trigger grenades of the type used against him at ground level. Angling his rifle, he discharged a smoke/EMP grenade to the two bodies before him. His donation of thick smoke and the small pulse of electromagnetic interference instantaneously filled the air, momentarily jamming all forms of technology within its path and making the two enemies vanish underneath the dense fog for a precious few seconds.
Not forgetting his antagonist on the terrace, he vacated the lift and, to obtain more substantial protection, he advanced behind the fringe of an immense drilling machine to the right of the debilitating cloud. The machine, or what was left of it, displayed a mammoth, sordid drill linking to its equally begrimed engine. Concentrating on conquering the adversary above, he sought an accurate shot for himself, but soon realized it was an impossible feat. Fortunately, there was no need for the warrior to despair. He acknowledged, as if it was calling him by name, a tarnished fuel drum crammed in the corner of the balcony. It was encircled by its overthrown peers, as if it had defeated them in their former days and now stood victorious among them, and was now thoughtlessly being underestimated in its importance. The Major was, by this point, expecting and relying that the fuel container didn’t wholly complete its service to the mechanisms beforehand.
With no time to waver, he fired an incendiary projectile, targeting the bottom of the barrel. On its impact, the warrior’s aspiration was granted. A dull blast was heard on all sides of the battlefield. Accompanying it was an ephemeral flash in the center of the ignition, which became enclosed within a dispersal of dark smoke, concealing half the terrace momentarily. All the same, the soldier caught a glimpse of the elevated enemy plunging into the same level as the rest, but if by choice or by force, he couldn’t confirm, as the body was obscured by the mine’s remnants. When the noise and the flash weakened, all that was left on the balcony were a few burning flames in the midst of a lingering smoke that didn’t obscure the fact that much of the wooden railing was now gone.
As a few embers fizzled in the stagnant atmosphere, the combatant ascended the excavator to its highest point with a couple of nimble hops, hoping it didn’t collapse with his weight, knowing it hadn’t felt any strain for many a year. The machine, however, couldn’t feel the extra mass, seeing as the warrior’s steps were too deft to be felt. He hardly touched the metal apparatus at all. The grenade smoke he was accountable for started to clear up and the combatant perceived the silhouette of the brute-like figure against the engine below him, soon doubly confirmed by his much welcomed back radar system, which lighted up the antagonist in a red outline on his helmet’s HUD. The dynamic form underneath searched franticly for the infamous phantom, all the while, endeavoring not to get ambushed by the same specter by blindly firing his weapon in front of him, resulting in no positive results for the shooter. Conveying a nigh imperceptible grin at the terrorist’s plight, the Major extracted a blade from within his right gauntlet, taking a note from his earlier quarry, though he would never admit to attaining such an idea from an opponent, and he plummeted to the hapless target. Only a little longer than a lightning strike later, his blade severed the spinal cord of the hefty creature in one clean motion. Without any form of struggle, the ikuga buckled lifelessly onto the floor.
The haze around him had dissipated. Rising, the warrior caught sight of his third enemy preparing to pull its trigger, surely realizing he had just slayed his fallen accomplice and was still near the body, possibly even witnessing his movement in the wisp of the smoke. While retracting the blade, the Major also told his suit to quit its deception with a mere thought and, with another thought, commanded his rifle to convert to a more suitable weapon for the occasion; a shotgun. The draken fired his slugs, but the Major’s shield had returned to full power and they failed to rupture the state-of-the-art kinetic barrier. Startled, his assailant hesitated, realizing all the chronicles he and his comrades had heard of their pursuers were not mere fantasy. The slightest indecision never ended well for any of the Major’s previous opponents and, before his enemy could recover himself, the Major expelled his shotgun slugs in rapid succession, coming one step closer with each discharge. The first shot pierced the barrier, unbalancing the draken and breaking the inferior shield. The second barrage burst the armor, and the third left the underground cavity in silence.
Time urged him forward. The mission briefing indicated that one last target remained and he had gained some time to escape with his companion’s sacrifices. The Major headed for the staircase oriented against the dirt wall, ready to extend his farewell to the rock arena. Two-thirds up the staircase, he was warned of an unexpected development by his sharp senses. The sound of cracking rock above him forced a look up, where he saw some of the bedrock making up the ceiling detach and dive straight for him, disregarding the accompanying lights and beams that had held them back. To evade the assault, the soldier jumped a few steps back, sensing that the incursion seemed more concerned with hindering his departure than bringing actual harm. Much of the rocks and small boulders landed harmlessly ahead of him, but the warrior’s delay had not yet completely concluded. As the crumbling ceiling struck the stairs, fragments of rock possessed by the wall a few inches to the Major’s left became undone and collided onto his freshly established position with such force that they succeeded in pushing the warrior over the railing. He fell head first onto the cave floor, a place he deemed he would never touch again.
On meeting the beaten pavement, the warrior had to free his gun from his grasp in order to break the fall. It was an uncommon occasion an enemy could exploit, and exploited he was. His shotgun had landed near him, but prior to his endeavor to repossess it, the soldier could detect the soil, exposed through the many crevices of the surface, seize a hold of his weapon. The gravel stirred and spread over his weapon and hurled it a dozen yards farther from his grasp. The warrior made an effort to stop the process as he rose from his debilitated condition, but he could only rise to his knees before he received a reception from a familiar foe. This was his first clear view of an opponent he had already believed dispatched, although, to the Major’s chagrin, he was now in the destructive path of some expelled bullets. She stood to his right at the rear of what appeared to be a large forklift about six yards in front of him. He could just see her peering out through the slits of the lift, wearing slender, black armor that had lost its former shine and, due to the abuse it had taken earlier, was now colored with a brownish smudge. Outlining her petite frame were dark blue stripes that traveled up toward her damaged helmet. Her weapon of the past was absent, likely compromised in the blast, and was currently firing a pistol to fill the desired void. He could only assume she had stayed behind solid objects to prevent his radar from discovering her earlier.
The bullets were executing their responsibility seamlessly, incessantly striking the combatant with as good an aim that can be acquired from her angle. Even as the warrior changed his stationary state into a moving one, the slugs kept their connection with him, dangerously eating away his precious shield and slowing down his pace. Attaining any kind of cover was of the upmost importance to him and, in the interest of that goal, the warrior took shelter behind the low wheel of a flat freight car, hoping the rust holder could cart one more feat for the living. He still discerned his adversary, for she had moved to the other side of the forklift to get a better view. She continued what he interrupted, though somewhat vainly, as the warrior’s shield began to recuperate to some degree with the protection of the freight car. The only firearm left in the Major’s disposal w
as a reserved pistol, however, he knew it alone wasn’t powerful enough to force a prompt victory, even supposing the terrorist had suffered damage to her armor and shield reserve.
As preparation would have it, still within his physical arsenal were various grenades, retained especially for an incident such as the one he currently found himself in. The Major briefly exposed himself to his antagonist’s volley to throw a grenade to the other side of the forklift. His prediction that she would have to take refuge elsewhere came true. She was able to elude the detonation and began heading for a steel crate a few strides away, but the instant his enemy was unveiled, the Major ensured that he would not be exceeded by the terrorist’s earlier display of her warping talent. In fact, he was glad for the opportunity to outdo her. The warrior detained the atmosphere within his immediate vicinity, amassing it in a dense concentration around his hands. Then, precisely and hastily, he generated sparks between his fingers using the intense friction triggered by the vigorously whirling air. Making use of his extensive training, the Major culled the sparks into a single point on his fingertips and directed it to his enemy. A streak of electricity gashed the air and struck her in mid-stride, completely draining her shield and shocking her body enough to force a dead stop. With the terrorist in this defenseless state, the Major clutched his pistol and, between the speed of lightning and the bullet penetrating into her helmet and skull, he was certain his challenger had no time to comprehend what had caused her demise.
Generations (The Nimbus Collection Book 3) Page 13