The Chronicles of Soone - Warrior Rising

by James Somers

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 helplessly. 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 append
age 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.