by Isaac Hooke
The undergrowth was thicker here, and slowed him down. He gripped his beam hilt, created the Essence ax, and used it to hew through the foliage as he followed G’allanthamas. He still couldn’t use his shield, not with so many of those branches ready to interfere.
Tane completed the new Fingers of Ruin work and placed it in his second reserve.
And then the kraals reached them.
A towering reptile burst through, its big jaws bearing down on him. Tane snapped his perspective just above and behind himself, while swinging his bright battle ax at the throat of his foe at the same time, and he half-severed the head from its neck.
Momentum carried the dying creature forward. Tane tried to dodge to the side, but the huge body slammed into him and carried him backward. He managed to slip out of the way before the collapsing creature fell on top of him.
But another kraal was already coming at him.
Sinive cut across his vision, leading another six-legged kraal—it crashed into the other. She unleashed her pistol at them both.
A third kraal came at her from the side. It was the largest he had seen yet.
Tane launched an Essence Missile. It dug into the kraal’s thick side, carving a small hole while ejecting chunks of meat, but wasn’t enough to stop the creature, whose maw was bearing down on Sinive.
Tane snapped his perspective back inside himself and pointed the tip of his blindingly bright ax at the kraal. He unleashed an Essence bolt that tore into the beast, but the creature still didn’t go down. It continued toward her spacesuit.
“Sinive!” Tane said.
She spun as the sideways-oriented teeth rapidly bore down on her. The teeth were stopped half a meter away from her body as a hemisphere of blue energy flashed into existence around her. She’d activated her energy shield at the last moment.
She unleashed her pistol several times into that repelled mouth, and the creature dropped just as her energy shield failed.
Seven more kraals emerged from the foliage, surrounding Tane and Sinive on all sides and cutting them off from G’allanthamas and Jed.
One of the kraals abruptly disappeared, leaving a large Dirac in its place on the jungle floor—courtesy of G’allanthamas no doubt. However, the remaining kraals continued to stalk toward their prey. Apparently, they were too battle-crazed to even notice the pulsating crystal.
Jed flashed into existence: the warrior was on top one of the kraals, and his sword had just penetrated through the back of its long neck. The beast fell as Jed vanished from view once more.
Two of the kraals abruptly turned on their brethren and sunk their teeth into the torsos of their former companions. The two targeted kraals, larger bulls, howled in outrage and slammed their tails into their attackers in return, breaking free. They wrestled one another, rolling to the ground, and all Tane saw was a blur of limbs and tails.
Meanwhile the remaining kraal slowly stalked forward, intent on Tane. He considered releasing his reserve works of the Dark, but then Sinive unloaded her pistol at the creature. As did Jed.
Tane tilted his ax-blade toward the kraal and launched an Essence bolt directly into its throat. At the same time, G’allanthamas arced over it from behind and landed on the creature’s back, staggering the thing. G’allanthamas wrapped all of his tentacles around that already wounded neck and yanked, tearing the head off completely.
Covered in black blood, G’allanthamas leaped down, landing in front of Tane.
“Nice job,” Tane said, somewhat stunned by the dweller’s violence.
“Thank you,” G’allanthamas said. “Nasty things.”
“Geez,” Sinive said. “And I thought I had a violent streak in me. Remind me never to cross you. I’m quite happy where my head is, thank you very much.”
Tane turned toward the remaining kraals, which were still wrestling in the foliage nearby.
“Let them fight!” G’allanthamas said. “The Hated Enemy comes! This way!”
“Hated Enemy?” Tane asked.
“He means the TSN,” Jed explained.
Tane followed G’allanthamas through the trees. He glanced at his overhead map and confirmed that Sinive and Jed were following close behind. The waypoint indicated the shuttle was only fifty meters ahead.
“You caused those kraals to turn against each other?” Tane asked the alien.
“Review your level five Dark Essenceworks sometime,” G’allanthamas said.
Without warning the dweller was slammed backward by something and struck a nearby tree. G’allanthamas slid down, hitting the ground lifelessly.
“Gall, you all right?” Tane asked.
The alien didn’t answer.
In front of Tane, where G’allanthamas once resided, stood the largest kraal he had every seen, larger even than the one that had hunted Sinive earlier. It literally towered over him. Its six legs were like tree trunks.
Tane launched both Fingers of Ruin reserves, as well as an Essence Missile at the same time: four smears of unreality emerged from him alongside a bright white energy bolt. Meanwhile Jed and Sinive unleashed their blasters.
The kraal took all the blows. Black veins cracked open all along its underside, and plasma impacts carved huge chunks of meat from the fresh wounds, but the kraal didn’t seem to notice. Instead, it lifted back its head and roared. Then it hurled itself at Tane.
Tane had nowhere to run, so he dashed forward and dodged underneath that big, six-legged body. He slashed outward with his ax, cutting partially through two of the kraal’s thick legs. The beast howled, shifting instantly, and one of the legs struck Tane.
Before he knew what was happening, Tane was hurtling through the foliage. He came to a halt tangled in a big shrub several meters away. His chest area pulsed painfully in time to his beating heart, but according to his HUD, his suit integrity hadn’t been compromised.
“Damn, that hurt.”
The pain quickly subsided, and he cut himself free with his energy ax just as the kraal burst through the undergrowth toward him again.
Sinive continued to unload her pistol at the kraal from nearby, while Jed flashed into existence atop the creature. The warrior tried the same move he’d done against the last kraal, in that he plunged his Chrysalium sword straight through its upper back, but all he did was make the kraal angrier. It’s barbed tail swept over its back and knocked Jed away.
Tane fired an Essence bolt from the tip of his energy ax but it didn’t stop the kraal. If that neck wasn’t so thick he might have tried to cut off the head, but that wasn’t a good idea at the moment, what with the massive creature bearing down on him.
He retreated through the undergrowth. The branches seemed brittle here, and broke away easily. Brittle, and dry...
I can use that.
He could feel the ground shaking underneath him, which told him the kraal was close. He glanced at the rear-view video feed near the top of his faceplate. The kraal was fast approaching.
While he ran, Tane directed the stellar wind from the beam hilt away from the weapon, and the energy ax winked out. The Essence ribbon fluttered from his core, waiting for him to grow a Branchwork. But there was something else he wanted to do, first: he also stepped into the Essence via the Nova bracelet he wore. He wasn’t sure it would work, because he had never attempted stepping into two different Chrysalium sources before—he had only Siphoned through individual sources of Chrysalium and Darcanium at the same time.
But then the Essence from the bracelet blew into his core, adding to the preexisting ribbon there. A notification appeared on his HUD:
Siphoning bonus. All Branchworks are enhanced 18% due to Siphoning through Chrysalium hilt.
Siphoning bonus. All Branchworks are enhanced 5% due to Siphoning through Chrysalium bracelet.
Total Siphoning bonus 23%.
So it worked.
Tane coaxed Persistent Flame from the slightly bigger ribbon of stellar wind that fluttered before him. A flame appeared in the open palm of his right glove. About t
he size of an apple, it was bigger than the level zero flame he could create without Chrysalium, although still relatively weak. But it was enough for his purposes. A thin maintenance stream of stellar wind continually connected his core to the flame in his hand.
He held out his glove and allowed the small fire to brush over the undergrowth beside him. The dry foliage lit easily, and the flames spread rapidly. Tane swerved hard to the left, doubling back slightly so that the pursuing kraal would have to dash through the flames to pursue. He continued running for all he was worth, and ignited the jungle around him as he did so. He kept an eye on his rear view video feed, but it was difficult to tell where the kraal was as the flames took hold, and raged. He didn’t dare use his Essence sight to attempt a different perspective—he was too worried about tripping. He thought the creature must have been flagging, however, because Tane no longer felt the ground shaking underneath him.
The combination of sprinting while maintaining Persistent Flame was taxing his stamina, so he released the connecting stellar wind and the flame winked out. He decided to step out of the White entirely. He couldn’t see the kraal anywhere on his fiery rear view feed, so he stopped running.
He turned around and was filled with a sudden shock. The tiny rear view camera feed hadn’t done the scene justice: half the forest seemed like it was on fire behind him: a literal conflagration, almost like the flames of chaos that sprouted when he Siphoned the Dark Essence.
He finally spotted the kraal amid the burning foliage. Its entire body was on fire. It thrashed about, flailing its maw at everything around it as if it could physically bite back the flames.
Tane retrieved his D18. He aimed at the roaring head and let off a full thirty round burst, hoping to put the beast out of its misery.
After the impact, the burning creature stopped flailing. Instead, it stumbled drunkenly forward, still burning.
Tane waited for his D18 to recharge but the kraal collapsed before then, succumbing to its wounds, and the fire.
He had succeeded in repelling the kraal. Now he just had to get back to his friends before the forest burned down.
He glanced at the overhead map. Their indicators had frozen some distance behind the kraal and the burning jungle.
He had no choice but to pump up his broadcast range. When he did, Sinive, Jed, and G’allanthamas all popped up immediately. They had increased their broadcast range, too, apparently.
“Guys!” Tane said over the comm. “I’ll rendezvous with you at the shuttle.”
“Did you do this, Engineer?” Jed asked coldly.
“Uh, yeah,” Tane answered. “Sorry. Guess I got a little carried away.”
“Pyro,” Sinive commented.
On the overhead map, it looked like G’allanthamas was back on his feet, since he was once more leading the charge toward the waypoint, while Sinive and Jed followed close behind.
“Good to see you’re all right, Gall,” Tane said as he gave the fire a wide berth, and then headed toward the target waypoint.
“I was just a little dazed after the hit, that’s all,” G’allanthamas said. “Not as resilient as I used to be.”
“You know, it would’ve been nice if you would have converted that big kraal into a Dirac,” Tane transmitted.
“It certainly would have,” the dweller said. “Unfortunately, that particular dweller was slightly beyond my means. And I did have the wind knocked out of me, if you’ll recall.”
Tane made good time toward the shuttle—at least he thought so. Behind him, the flames continued to advance through the forest. Judging from the spread rate reported by the overhead map, the fire would overwhelm the waypoint maybe forty-five seconds after Tane arrived. The team would be cutting it close.
Unfortunately, the fire had driven out the remaining kraals, and Tane now had four of them on his tail.
He pointed the D18 behind his back while he ran, activated smart targeting mode, and squeezed the trigger. Apparently the gun had trouble picking out the heads of the kraals, thanks to all the foliage in the way, and he ended up distributing fire among their four torsos, and the surrounding undergrowth. The hits that did connect hardly slowed the beasts down.
“Damn it,” Tane said. Jed had been right to warn him about the dangers of smart targeting. The Volur just hadn’t warned him enough.
“What is it?” Sinive asked.
“I’m coming in hot,” Tane answered. “I can’t get rid of these kraals.”
He emerged into a clearing of sorts, where the undergrowth had been out-competed by a big tree. Lianas as thick as his arm hung down from the upper branches, draping over a large saucer-shaped shuttle. Dark red veins that reminded him of rust spidered across the gray surface. Not that he had all that much time to admire the craft’s aesthetics, or lack thereof.
The ramp was open, and Sinive stood at the base beside Jed, who had become visible. Sinive waved him on, while Jed fired into the forest behind Tane. The Volur’s pistol had transformed into a large rifle once more.
Tane hurried past his friends and scrambled up the ramp. Sinive and Jed followed behind him.
G’allanthamas was waiting just inside the expansive cockpit.
“Shut the ramp and take us out of here!” Tane said.
G’allanthamas made a few screeching and clattering sounds, and the shuttle replied in kind.
The vessel shifted, taking to the air at the same time as the ramp began to close.
One of the kraals reached the shuttle and rammed its head inside before the ramp sealed entirely. Jed fired off a few shots, carving deep grooves into the neck.
The kraal struggled as the closing ramp began to apply pressure to its neck. Finally the creature managed to pull its head free and dropped from view. The ramp closed behind it.
The shuttle rocked as something struck the exterior.
Tane tried throwing out his lifeline for Essence Sight, and was surprised that he could view the outside of the shuttle, despite the metal barrier.
Interesting.
That meant Volur could use the skill to see through walls, if they were close enough.
He watched as kraals leaped into the air and slammed into the shuttle with their bodies, further rocking the craft. More kraals had been following Tane than he thought: he counted about seven of them now.
“Higher!” Tane commanded.
G’allanthamas issued some screeching and clicking sounds and the shuttle rose while moving forward.
Above the flames that were encroaching behind them, a TSN drone swooped into view. A kraal leaped upward and snatched the drone from the air. Two more drones swooped into view; a pair of kraals batted these out of the sky with their tails. Meanwhile, the remaining creatures pursued the shuttle.
“More drones will be coming,” Jed warned. The Volur was no doubt using Essence Sight to peer outside, too.
“Yes, but I have no plans on slowing down,” G’allanthamas said. “Not until the AI has taken us well away.”
The flames receded behind them. The kraals, too, slowly fell behind. When it became obvious that they would never catch the shuttle, the kraals parted ways, vanishing into the undergrowth in different directions—all leading away from the conflagration behind them. No more drones were incoming.
Tane stepped out of the Essence and his vision reverted inside of himself. He turned toward the dweller.
“Gall, are you able to stay underneath the jungle canopy at least until we’re well clear of the city?” Tane said. “Is there enough clearance for the shuttle?”
“There is, and I plan to,” G’allanthamas said. “In fact, I intend to stay underneath the canopy until we reach our destination. Seems safest, that way. Speaking of destinations, I presume you have one in mind?”
“Yes,” Tane said. “I want you to take us to the outskirts of the capital city, Matahepte.”
“I can certainly do that, Doomwielder,” G’allanthamas said. The alien issued a series of clatters, clicks and shrieks, and the shuttle AI r
esponded in kind over the intercom.
“How long until we arrive?” Tane asked.
“At the safest maximum possible speed we can attain underneath the canopy?” the dweller said. “Five hours.”
“So Matahepte is where the second lens is, of course,” Sinive said.
There was no point denying it. Besides, even if she somehow betrayed the destination to the TSN, as Jed had already concluded the star navy was probably already expecting them to go there, if only because it logistically made sense that Tiberius would have created a bug-out site in the city.
There were no seats in the cabin per se, but rather large, elliptical holes cut in the floor that were obviously meant to hold dwellers. G’allanthamas resided in one of them.
Tane walked to the cabin wall, lowered himself onto the edge of one of those holes, and sat down, letting his calves dangle over the rim. He leaned his head against the wall, closed his eyes, and he exhaled in both relief and exhaustion. Well, as much relief as the Umbra allowed him to express, anyway. Relief was an emotion, after all.
“We got away,” Sinive said. “I almost can’t believe it.”
Tane opened his eyes to look at her, but he didn’t say anything. He merely gazed at her weary features behind her faceplate. She was propped against the wall as well, and seemingly staring at the cabin floor. She looked so good to him in that moment. Whoever had invented the phrase “a sight for sore eyes” had been thinking of her. Tane wanted to reach out and hold her gloved hand, but firstly she sat too far away from him, and secondly it didn’t seem appropriate given that they were merely friends.
Wait, what’s wrong with two friends holding hands, especially after all we’ve been through?
Tane dismissed the thought, too weary to care, and closed his eyes again.
He heard a clanging beside him, followed by a loud clunk. Opening his lids, he realized Jed had taken a seat on the opposite side of the same hole, also next to the wall.
