by Chris Fox
The smallest Wyrm had lost a wing, and fluttered helplessly as six cruisers peppered it safely from range. The Wyrm desperately tried to reach them with its breath weapon, but the cruisers danced nimbly away.
“Yes, ma’am.” Bord ducked back into his matrix, and the spelldrive rumbled reluctantly to life. “She feels damaged, ma’am. I’m not sure how much she can give.”
“I’ll take whatever’s available.” Voria shifted the scry-screen to show the asteroid. It had grown alarmingly large, and she guessed their distance at no more than forty or fifty kilometers.
Voria tightened her hands on the ring, and bonded to the ship. A wave of vertigo threatened to send her to the deck, but she righted herself. Piloting took very little energy, and she only needed to give one more order.
She focused, willing the Hunter to veer away from the asteroid. It slowly drifted wide as she fought to pull away. The asteroid blotted out the entire view now and continued to grow. The Hunter strained, the deep groan from the hull becoming a painful screech as the keel cracked.
The surface loomed; a wall of mountains blocked their path. She forced the Hunter to rise, fighting desperately to clear the mountains. She juked around a peak into a narrow valley between two stone giants. The Hunter’s prow rose and began to gain altitude again. They zipped past the peaks, leaving the asteroid’s light gravitational field.
“That is as close as I ever want to come to death,” Bord said, panting. He rested against the stabilizing ring. “I think this ring is the only thing keeping me from falling. I’m just going to stand here for a while.”
“I think you’ve earned the break, Specialist.” Voria waved a hand, and the scry-screen shifted to show the Ternus fleet. They’d driven the dragons into high orbit, away from the station. “As long as Thalas and his squad can take the station, we can call today a victory.”
30
Enforcers
“This feels too easy,” Aran muttered. The station loomed ahead of them, close enough that he could now pick out individual docking berths. Almost all were empty.
“You consider this easy?” Nara asked over the comm.
“Don’t worry, wipes,” Crewes boomed. “The hard part’s about to start. Make for the secondary access port right below station control.”
“Won’t the Krox center their defenses around station control?” Aran asked, willing his suit to magnify around that area.
“Sergeant, inform your squad that questions are not tolerated during combat,” Thalas snapped.
Silence followed.
Crewes took point, the thruster on the back of his armor firing as he zoomed toward a narrow, unremarkable door. He flipped his suit around, and his massive metal boots slammed into the deck then locked with a thunk.
Thalas slowed gracefully, hovering next to the door. Aran duplicated the maneuver, with Nara following a few meters behind.
Aran waited silently, stifling a million questions. This was the last place he’d have picked to assault. They would meet heavy resistance and force the enemy to commit everything they had to the defense. Better to establish a beachhead at an unoccupied part of the station, where the Marines could create a perimeter.
Thalas raised his gauntlet before the door, and the door opened silently. The captain darted inside, and Crewes motioned for Aran to follow. Aran ducked through, snapping his spellrifle to his shoulder as he took in his surroundings.
They’d entered a small airlock, with a large window set in a thick steel door. Beyond that window stood a pair of terrifying guards, though neither had noticed their entrance. Each draconic creature easily topped two meters, and bore a pair of wings and a tail very similar to the Wyrms outside. They were facing away from the airlock and didn’t seem to be paying much attention to it.
Unlike the Wyrms, these creatures wore body armor and carried some sort of heavy spellrifle. Otherwise, they were basically small dragons, so far as Aran could tell.
“What am I looking at?” Aran asked quietly into the comm.
“Those are Krox enforcers,” Crewes muttered. “They’re strong, resistant to magic, and have armor thick enough to stop conventional arms. They can fly, and even their tail is a weapon. Also, most are powerful mages.”
“Get the company in order, Sergeant,” Thalas said, crouching next to the airlock panel. He raised his gauntlet. “We’ll use explosive decompression to throw them off guard, then I need you to deliver me two dead enforcers.”
Aran found it more than a little terrifying that explosive decompression was merely a distraction to these things.
“Brace yourself,” Thalas ordered. He grabbed a rung on one side of the airlock, so Aran moved to the opposite side. The others took rungs as well, vacating the doorway. Thalas raised his gauntlet, and the door whooshed open.
Atmosphere flooded past them in a fierce wind, tugging at Aran’s armor as it burst out into space. Both Krox were unprepared, and one was sucked through the hole, into space. The other wrapped its spiked tail around a bulkhead.
Thalas raised his gauntlet, closing the airlock and trapping one of the enforcers in a full vacuum.
“Kill that thing,” Crewes barked. He leaned through the door, aiming his cannon at the remaining enforcer. A high-pitched whine came from his armor, and the rifle glowed bright orange like a volcano then kicked backward, lobbing a lump of superheated magma.
The Krox raised a wing to block, bracing itself for the attack. It screeched when the magma splashed across its wing, but raised a spellrifle and let off a flurry of pale white spirit bolts in the sergeant’s direction. Crewes ducked out of sight, narrowly avoiding the Krox’s return fire.
Aran took the opportunity to line up a shot, centering the targeting reticle over the Krox’s face. He flipped the rifle’s selector to level two, grunting as the weapon extracted a significant chunk of power from his reserves. It kicked into his shoulder, discharging a thick black bolt.
The bolt took the Krox in the right side of its face, and its eye and cheek boiled away to dust. The creature screeched, raising a hand to the wound. It glared hatefully at Aran and raised its own rifle.
Nara dropped to one knee beside him, gripping her pistol with both hands. She shot off a quick trio of level one spells, forcing the Krox to abandon his shot. Aran rolled behind a rusting metal console that had been half-stripped for parts.
“Sarge, how do we drop this thing?” Aran panted into the comm.
“More effort,” Crewes roared, stepping from cover. He thumbed the selector on his cannon to three. The weapon gave a deep, deafening roar that thrummed through Aran even inside his armor. The cannon belched a wave of liquid fire that rained down over the Krox’s entire body. Wherever it landed, the Krox’s scales sizzled and hissed.
It tossed away the now useless rifle. “You arrogant mortals think you are winning.” The sizzling creature boomed out a laugh, then sprinted toward Aran.
Aran stepped backward…into the Krox who had been jettisoned into space. Somehow, it had gotten through a closed airlock door. The Krox seized him, then hurled him toward the wall. Aran experienced a brief moment of weightlessness as the world spun outside his helmet. He crashed to the floor on the far side of the room, skidding into the wall in a tumbling spray of sparks.
Something snapped in his left leg, and he cried out in agony. Aran forced away the pain, gritting his teeth as he rolled behind another terminal.
Nara leapt from cover, firing the same grey spell she’d used to immobilize Aran back on her ship. The energy rippled over the Krox’s back, but was pushed backward in a spray of mana fragments. The spell dissipated, and the Krox turned to face Nara.
Aran glanced at Crewes, but the sergeant had moved to grapple with the other Krox. There was no one but Aran to help Nara. He leaned against the terminal, hastily lining up a hip shot with his rifle, thumbed the selector back to one, then squeezed off a quick void bolt. It caught the Krox in the back, driving it back a half-step.
Nara rolled away, popping
back to her feet and peppering the enforcer with void bolts of her own. The creature looked back and forth between Nara and Aran with a snarl, then sprinted back the way it had come. It leapt into the air, using its wings to glide to the far side of the room.
Aran squeezed off a shot that ricocheted off the doorway, just as the enforcer fled deeper into the station.
“Are you all right?” Nara asked, squatting next to him.
“My leg is broken,” Aran said, through gritted teeth. He writhed back and forth as shards of pain lanced through his entire leg, puffing out a series of quick breaths.
“So use a healing potion.” Nara pointed at the canisters on his armor.
“Oh, yeah.” Aran willed the armor to activate the first canister, sighing in relief as the golden fluid disappeared from the tube. It flooded the armor, which directed the flow to his wounded leg.
Intense heat surrounded the wounded area, and the pain faded to numbness. Then the warmth faded, taking the pain with it. He suddenly understood just why the major had been willing to trade away her staff.
Aran flipped to his feet, sprinting forward as if he’d never been wounded. He moved past Crewes, who was still wrestling with the wounded Krox, and circled wide to flank it. He thumbed the selector to two, then unloaded a near-point-blank void bolt into the back of the Krox’s skull. The Krox tumbled to the ground, the back of its head simply gone.
“Sergeant, secure this room,” Thalas commanded. Aran had almost forgotten the man was there. “Ensure that nothing comes through that door. I’m going to erect the teleport beacon.” He reached into his suit’s void pocket and pulled out three curved metal rods, each a glittering silver that reflected the lights above.
“You heard the man. Move, wipes. Take up positions on either side of that door. Nothing gets through.”
Crewes trotted forward, stopping behind a bulkhead that offered hard cover against anyone coming through the door.
Aran sprinted to the right side of the door, dropping into a crouch a few meters away. Nara mirrored the motion on the other side of the door. She had her pistol at the ready.
In the distance, Aran heard moans. Lots of moans. He looked curiously at Nara, who merely shrugged. The moans were getting closer and louder, so Aran crept to the doorway and peeked around the corner.
“Oh crap.” Aran ducked back into cover. “There are about seventy dead Ternus Marines incoming. Looks like they’re mostly using conventional rifles.”
“Damned corpses. Even more useless than zeroes, but dangerous if they get through that chokepoint. Light ’em up, but make your spells count. These guys are gonna soften us up, then the Krox will be back with his buddies.” Crewes extended a meter-long blade from one wrist and ignited a spellshield on the other. His eyes went savage, and he smiled. “Sometimes it’s nice to mix it up a little bit. Here they come.”
31
Make Every Spell Count
The first corpse emerged through the doorway, stepping into the room with a ferocity that made Aran want to take a step backward. A pallid glow came from its eyes, proof of whatever fiendish intelligence had animated the body.
The corpse’s gaze locked on Crewes, and it brought up its rifle smoothly, as it would have in life.
Aran was faster. He lunged, bringing the stock of his rifle down on the corpse’s face.
The blow smashed the corpse to the ground, shattering the left side of its face. The corpse started to rise again, so Aran finished it with a void bolt.
“Inform your men to conserve their spells,” Thalas called, without looking up from the rods he was assembling.
“Are you mentally deficient, wipe?” Crewes bellowed, turning to Aran. “We do not use spells against corpses, unless there is no other choice. Their whole purpose is to bleed our magic away.”
“Sorry, instinct,” Aran said, bending to pick up the soldier’s rifle. Two more corpses came through the doorway, and Aran raised the unfamiliar weapon. The firing mechanism was easy to understand—a simple trigger, very similar to what he’d been given back at the Catalyst. The safety was already disengaged.
The weapon fired a hail of slugs at the first target, making it dance like a puppet as the shots carried it back into the hallway.
Crewes barked out a laugh. “That’s more like it.”
More corpses were coming through. Aran fired again, but the weapon clicked. Empty. He tossed it to the ground as several corpses advanced in his direction.
Crewes waded into the fray, cutting down former Ternus soldiers. The bodies wore standard environmental armor, most without a helmet. The sergeant’s chrome spike punched through easily, pinning his targets long enough for him to dismember them with his gauntlets.
“You either gotta shred these things.” Crewes demonstrated by pulling the arms off another corpse. His elbow shot back, crushing another corpse’s skull. “Or you pulp their brains.”
Aran darted forward, seizing a corpse by the side of the head and slamming it into the deck. He looked away from the gore, convinced the corpse wouldn’t be rising.
More dead soldiers came through, forcing him back from the doorway. Their bodies piled in, one after another. He glanced at the Captain, but thus far none of the corpses had broken through.
Aran darted forward again and yanked one from the mass, then willed open his void pocket, seizing his spellblade and delivering a wicked slash to the corpse. The headless body toppled to the ground, drawing a grim smile.
“I think the blade is actually enjoying this,” Aran said, slicing the legs from under another corpse. The spellblade, its enchanted metal more than a match for whatever composite Ternus used, hummed through the armor. Exhilaration flowed from the blade, up Aran’s arm. Whatever it was felt even better than adrenaline. “You’re right, Sarge. Mixing it up does feel good.”
“Don’t get cocky,” Nara said, a tinge of panic to her voice. She’d fallen back, and was using controlled bursts from a Ternus rifle to discourage the corpses swarming in her direction. “There are a lot of these things, and I don’t have a melee weapon.”
“Improvise, wipe,” Crewes barked.
The gun clicked empty, and Nara started using it as a club. Her suit’s enhanced strength made every blow lethal, skulls popping like melons.
“Yes, sir,” she said.
Aran decapitated another corpse, then brought up his spellshield to block a hail of bullets fired by a pair of corpses who’d just entered the room. They staggered their fire, forcing him to retreat to cover or risk real damage to his armor.
“Those two are using something a lot higher caliber,” Aran called, ducking behind a terminal. “We need to take them down fast.”
Aran glanced from cover, noting the trio of corpses that rushed past the ones with the heavy assault rifles. These ones weren’t carrying rifles, but they did have a grenade clutched tightly in each fist. The corpses fanned out, and started lobbing those grenades in their direction.
“Scatter!” Crewes boomed.
Aran dove from cover, using his suit to accelerate into the air. He hovered near the ceiling, watching in horror as two of the corpses lobbed grenades at Crewes. They detonated in quick succession, hurling the sergeant backward into the wall.
Thalas glanced up from his ritual, but continued assembling silver rods. This appeared to be the last of three, and Aran hoped that meant they’d have reinforcements soon.
Both corpses with assault rifles were focused on Crewes, firing a stream of deafening rounds that left deep craters in the rear of his suit.
“Nara, see if you can helps the sergeant,” Aran called. “I’ll hold them off.”
He knew these things were designed to use up his magic, but if the four of them died because they didn’t use spells it wouldn’t matter. He snapped his rifle to his shoulder, thumbed the selector to level one, and picked off the first grenade-throwing corpse before it could throw.
The grenade clattered to the ground at the corpse’s feet. The explosion sent corpses fl
ying, including the pair with the assault rifles. Aran swooped low, slashing the head off another corpse with his spellblade. The mass turned in his direction, forgetting about Crewes.
Nara landed next to the sergeant and stood over his body with her makeshift club. She knocked corpses away, keeping Crewes safe while he clawed his way into the corner.
“I’ve got my back to the wall now. Don’t worry about me. Healing potion’s already working.” Crewes forced himself to his feet.
Aran wasn’t worried about Crewes; he was worried about the Krox enforcer who burst through the door. It aimed a spellcannon in Aran’s direction, squeezing off a crackling black-brown hunk of boiling stone. The rock expanded in the air, and was larger than Aran’s suit by the time it impacted.
The rock’s incredible mass slammed Aran into the far wall, and a crack ran down his faceplate. The paper doll in his HUD burst into a riot of reds and yellows, showing all the places that were damaged.
“No,” Nara roared, swooping up above the enforcer. “Not on my watch, you scaly bastard.” She gripped her pistol in both hands, squeezing off a level two void bolt. It tagged the Krox in the face, melting scale and bone.
Somehow, the blow didn’t kill the enforcer. It sketched a black symbol in the air and flung it at Nara.
Aran forced himself back to his feet, pouring power into his armor. He soared into the air and interposed himself between Nara and the spell. Raising his shield, he caught the black sigil, which exploded into a wave of darkness, billowing out around them like mist. A wave of exhaustion crashed over him.
“Get out of that cloud!” Crewes bellowed, striding back into combat. “It will sap your magical energy!”
Aran zoomed backward, suddenly able to see as his suit burst from the cloud. There was no sign of the enforcer, and only a few corpses were still on their feet. He flew lower, completing the grisly work he’d begun with his spellblade.
“Well done, Sergeant,” Thalas called, pointing proudly at the assembled portal. “We’ve succeeded. Now we have fodder of our own.”