Big Girls Don't Cry: Shadowdragon War Diaries Vol. 1

by J. C. Rudinsky

  "Shards," she grumbled as she crouched back behind the wall and clicked her EComm.

  “Thirty-plus boosted scripties approaching in staggered formation!” she said, “Shiv Nine with me! Switch JAMs! Rangers, hold the line!"

  She lifted her goggles and glanced, almost dismissively, at Westlan.

  “Sheryl Lanis, 33rd Arcane," she said succinctly.

  “Cory Westlan, 212th,” he replied, unsure how to read her tone.

  Westlan had heard his share of rumors about Arcane Corps troops, battlemancers, in particular--arrogant elitists who thought their fancy enchantech and runeboosted gear made them special. While Westlan generally dismissed those stories as overblown soldiers’ yarns laced with a bit of envy, he wan't too surprised at how, after less than a minute on the scene, this ARCHie channeler had pretty much taken full command of the situation. In different circumstances, he might have been offended.

  The simple fact was that she outranked him and had every right to take command. Heck, the thunderbolt logo on her collar would give her authority over anybody short of a Brigadier, if she chose to exercise it. For his part, Westlan was just glad the rumors he'd heard had been untrue. It was nice to have some backup.

  He snatched the magazine from where he'd dropped it.

  "Thank the Sovereigns you showed up, Lieutenant. We’re getting shredded out here," he said, tapping the snow out of the magazine before loading it into his rifle. "My Comms have been out. What’s the situation?”

  Lanis glanced over the wall at the sound of a grenade exploding up the street, then turned back to Westlan with a impatient glare.

  “Listen, this sector’s rolling up fast,” she said, “We don’t have much time.

  “Evac hoppers from the Landry are standing by. Get your wounded ready to move and we’ll cover you.”

  That time Westlan felt a little kick to his pride.

  "With all respect Lieutenant, we still have some fight left…”

  "MOVE!" Lanis yelled emphatically, startling the young sergeant a bit.

  Suddenly her expression changed to one of surprise.

  "Shards!" she blurted out as she turned and grabbed Westlan by the collar of his armor vest. Without explanation, she yanked him to the ground and huddled over him an instant before the wall next to them exploded, engulfing them both in a shower of snow and dust.

  Lanis instantly turned and pulled her EP rifle to her shoulder even before the debris had slid off the spherical surface of her hastily channeled barrier. Blue-green bolts of ethergenic plasma illuminated the cloud of dusty snow as she fired a long burst at a pair of scripties that were charging toward the breach. Distorted ripples and showers of bluish sparks obscured the two men as the magical bolts shredded apart their armors’ ward schemata and dropped them mid-stride.

  The attack sparked a full-on engagement, and the air was immediately filled with the sound of automatic gunfire as both forces opened up. Rune-boosted rounds zipped through the air, kicking up plumes of snow and exploding into showers of blue and red sparks as they ricocheted in random directions off the barrier. Westlan flinched as one of the rounds penetrated the shield, impacting just centimets from his hand.

  The startling sensation of a round glancing off of her body armor did a lot to help Lanis shake off the residual dizziness of firing the Banshee. She grabbed Westlan, and with a quick tap on the schemata of her left bracer, she activated the strength enhancement of her armor and yanked the young sergeant out of the exposed gap and back to the relative safety of the remaining wall.

  At that moment, the rest of her team arrived and dug in, taking turns laying down bursts of suppressing fire at the enemy. Gray hunkered down next to Lanis. He winced just slightly as a burst spattered the wall above his head then glanced up with a wry twist of his mouth.

  "What's the word, Chief?" he asked as he yanked the standard magazine from his rifle and replaced it with a blue-striped one containing jacketed-anti-magic rounds.

  Lanis turned to face him.

  “D formation. We'll take them straight on.”

  She looked over at Abes, who was crouched nearby with the heavy ATR leveled across his knees.

  "Abes, you're my angel," she said with a wink.

  The stone-faced sniper acknowledged the order with a quick nod, then scurried off to find a suitable overwatch position.

  Lanis turned her attention to the Rangers who had taken position further up the wall.

  “Shaeffer!”

  Sergeant Shaeffer, the leader of third squad, glanced up then quickly shuffled along the wall in a low crouch, ducking repeatedly as the Imps took shots at his head.

  “L.T.?”

  Lanis switched her attention between him and the battle as she yelled out orders over the noise.

  “We can’t hold here! Form up a detail to get these wounded out! Second squad will secure an LZ and call in the hoppers! We'll cover you!”

  She pointed at Westlan.

  "Westlan, right?" she asked, not waiting for a response, “Every able body you have left is on stretcher duty!"

  Westlan started to protest, but quickly thought the better of it.

  "Yes, Lieutenant," he replied, a bit sullenly.

  Shaeffer gave the younger non-comm a pat on the shoulder.

  "C'mon, let's get your boys out of here," he said with a smile.

  Westlan nodded and the two headed off toward the rest of the unit.

  Lanis watched them go, and content that at least that part of the mission was in hand, she turned her mind fully to blunting this little Imp probing attack.

  She hesitated briefly as another wave of etheric distortion flowed over the area, reminding her that time was not on her side. Ignoring the tiny voice in her head urging caution, she channeled a reinforced barrier techniq and gave her team the signal to move out.

  Triggering the techniq, she boldly hopped over the wall and advanced at a quick pace with her EP rifle at the ready. Her team followed behind, staying in a well-practiced formation that kept them behind both her and her magical wall of compressed force.

  Tempted by such an obvious target, the Imps unleashed a withering fire at the approaching team. Lanis' shield was riddled with visible distortions as the hail of lead poured in. Red-orange sparks splattered off the barrier's surface as the impacting rounds melted under the thermal transfer of their own kinetic energy, sending steaming blobs of molten lead raining down into the snow. The occasional loud crack and hazy, blue flashes indicated that at least a few of the rounds were JAMs. Lanis made sure to pay close attention to the harmonics of her booster as it the barrier matrix took repeated jolts of magic-disrupting energy.

  Impressive as it appeared, the small arms fire was not really much of a threat. But the two men setting up for a shot with a recoilless rifle from the cover of a nearby doorway were another matter. Lanis caught sight of the men just as they were preparing to fire. The barrier might stop the anti-tank round but the shrapnel and concussion would definitely get through.

  Just as Lanis was about to give the order to take cover, the head of the soldier aiming the weapon burst apart, showering his comrade with a fine red mist. The second man dropped the round he was holding and ducked back into the dark recesses of the doorway. It was doubtful that he would be poking his head out again any time soon.

  "Nice shot, Abes," Lanis whispered, then turned her attention to the small group of scripties that had taken up position behind some overturned vehicle wrecks about sixty mets up the street. She took a few snap shots with the Banshee to keep the enemy’s heads down and, with a quick series of hand signals, indicated her intentions to the rest of the team.

  Her barrier was beginning to weaken under the assault as Lanis reached a large pile of debris that would provide her unit with adequate defilade from the enemy line of fire. They'd advanced a good thirty mets, putting them in a decent position for the next part of her plan, as soon as she came up with one. Pointing toward the rubble, she flashed her team the signal to take to
ground.

  Once her teammates were safely out of the line of fire, she took a few more shots at the enemy with the Banshee, then dropped the barrier and took cover alongside her team. She took a moment to catch her breath and assess the situation.

  The main group of enemies were entrenched about thirty mets away and tucked nicely behind the rusted shell of an abandoned vehicle that lay half-buried in bricks and snow. From the relative safety of their position, they were taking turns popping out and laying down suppressing fire, providing cover for several of their comrades who were advancing up the other side of the street in an attempt to flank the CAF troops at the wall.

  Lanis had no intention of getting pinned down and losing the initiative. Revising her original plan, she gave her team the signal to activate their EVI's and began to channel an amplified force strike techniq into her Booster.

  Semi-jokingly called "the hammer" by Corps Battlemancers, the force strike was a powerful, but unfocused techniq. Easy to channel and amenable to boosting, it was a quick and dirty means of causing a lot of damage, as long as you weren't too concerned about subtlety or accuracy.

  Unfortunately, properly kitted REBAr would negate most of the direct effect of the blast, making the techniq little more than a distraction to rune-boosted troops, like the scripties up the street. In this case, Lanis had a slightly different use in mind.

  She flashed another signal to her team, then rolled out from cover, immediately directing the amplified force techniq toward the enemy. The shockwave from the blast stirred up a blinding cloud of snow and light debris ahead of it as it roared down the street. With a crash that sounded like a truck being dropped off a building, the raw force sheared through the enemy’s cover, showering them with shards of brick and metal shrapnel with the force of a fragmentation mine.

  As Lanis expected, the actual damage to the troops was minimal. An unlucky few dropped from shrapnel wounds, but most were simply knocked back by the concussion.

  But mitigating such a broad attack had engaged the full suite of their armor's defensive wards, which was what Lanis wanted. Stunned and stripped of their cover, the enemy soldiers scrambled away, unaware that the defensive schemata that had just saved their lives were now betraying them.

  Obscured by the cloud of dust and snow and using their EVI's to full advantage, the members of Shiv Nine broke cover and laid down a fierce volley of fire, focusing on the clearly illuminated schema of the enemy's armor.

  Two of the fleeing scripties instantly dropped in a storm of hazy blue distortions as the antimagic JAM rounds ripped apart the remains of their temporarily weakened wards. A few managed to fire back blindly as they ran, hoping to discourage pursuit.

  In the crossfire, Lewis suddenly took a hit that sent him stumbling backward in a brief flash of etheric sparks. Lander quickly ran up and pulled the cursing soldier out of the line of fire as Denio and Demas stepped up to provide some covering fire.

  Heiko reacted quickly, braving the random enemy fire as she scurried to Lewis's side and began to check out his condition.

  “I’m good! I’m good!” he yelled, pointing at the sizzling round imbedded in his chest plate, where it had come mere millimets from penetrating. He shot a relieved grin at Lander and Heiko as they pulled him back to his feet.

  Lanis ejected the burnt out Vimstones from her booster and loaded a fresh set as she advanced through a haze of windblown snow toward the remains of the enemy position.

  Suddenly, an enemy soldier revealed himself from behind cover and unleashed a poorly aimed burst in her direction. Lanis reacted instinctively, ducking for the cover of some nearby rubble as the rounds churned up the ground around her. She felt several light impacts across her back and shoulder as she spun out of the line of fire but the rounds failed to penetrate her warded armor. Apparently, her attacker didn’t realize that, and the thought of taking down an enemy battlemancer was just too much for his ego to resist. He broke cover and pursued.

  His mistake.

  Lanis rolled back around and brought her EP rifle to bear, taking aim at the exposed enemy as she channeled Vim into the weapon. The pulses of ethergenic plasma caught the surprised soldier across the chest, searing straight through armor and flesh in a splash of blue-green energy that sent him reeling back into a nearby wall.

  Lanis got to her feet and advanced, keeping her weapon trained on the downed soldier as she approached. She took cover behind another nearby pile of rubble and glanced back at the body, finally getting her first decent look at the enemy.

  He was clad in T’Lanthan styled body armor and the remnants of a partially scrapped off unit insignia on his chest plate confirmed Lanis's earlier suspicions. This soldier had belonged to a Salceian provincial defense unit. Salceia was one of the central T’Lanthan provinces that had surrendered to the Imperium a few cycles ago.

  Apparenty this guy forgot to read the fine print in the Imperium's "peace treaty." Lanis almost felt sorry for him.

  Almost.

  So the Imps were forcing the traitorist units in first to soak up losses and probe out weaknesses in the Coalition lines. It was typical of Imperium tactics, and if true to form, a larger force should be following on the heels of the conscripts to take advantage of any openings.

  That meant that there was probably an Imp Legion not far off. One Shiv Team and a handful of Rangers weren't going to do much against a concentrated assault by a force that size, unless…

  Lanis suddenly got an idea.

  She concentrated her Vimsense, trying to sort through the chaos of overlapping spell harmonics and the wailing of ethergenic weapons that echoed across the battlefield. The effects of the disrupted zone muted and jumbled the harmonics, but mixed within the tumultuous noise she managed to isolate what she was looking for--the distinctive, sickening spellshocks of netherdragon channeling.

  As she thought, a Netherdragon was leading the main assault force. It was fairly typical of them--arrogant bastards that they were. What did surprise her was how close the shocks actually were. A little too close, in fact.

  How had she not noticed before?

  A wave of anxiety and apprehension washed over her as she realized her mistake. The disrupted zone was distorting the spellshocks, effectively masking the dragon's channeling.

  It was careless on her part, once again not accounting for the effects of the DZ. The only consolation was that it worked both ways. Otherwise, the Ned might have homed in on her channeling as well.

  Of course, there was still no guarantee that he hadn't. Netherdragon Vimsense was terrifyingly accurate. It was even theorized that they could sense the minor harmonics of a living creature's aura, something even the most skilled human 'sensitives couldn't do without the help of detection techniqs or special enchantech sensors.

  She tuned her senses back to the Etherum, listening for any sign that the Ned, and his presumed assault force, might be headed their way. Now knowing what to listen for, she zeroed in on the spellshocks almost instantly. To her relief, they were still at least a kilomet away. Their frequency suggested that the dragon was in combat, probably with another garrison unit--as she detected no signs of human channeling that might indicate that another Shiv Team had engaged the creature.

  The idea of that monster blithely carving its way through effectively defenseless garrison troops turned her stomach. Unexpectedly, old and eerily similar feelings bubbled up from the depths of her memories, and, for just a moment, a sense of fear and claustrophobia welled up inside her. With practiced determination, she pushed it back down, chastising herself for the brief moment of weakness. Her anxiety quickly turned to anger and, in that instant, she made a decision.

  She was so absorbed in her thoughts that she was a little startled when Gray suddenly took cover next to her.

  "They're pulling back, Chief," he said, his breath forming dense puffs of mist, "Looks like that techniq took the fight out of 'em."

  Lanis peeked around the edge of the pile and put her mind back to the situa
tion at hand. Sure enough, the enemy units were scattering back into the maze of rubble to the northeast, apparently having had enough for now.

  Inevitably, an Imperial Legionary unit would gather them up and drive them back into the fight. Scriptie morale tended to be fairly fragile, but fear could be a powerful motivator.

  Gray did a quick inventory of his remaining ammo. "So what now? We bugging out?"

  Another wave of subdued ambient Vim rolled through the area and Lanis clearly noted the wards of her armor struggling to remain active. She considered her plan--weighed the risks. Through the haze of magical distortion, she again felt the disturbing sensation of a Ned spellshock.

  "No," she said as she stood up and headed back toward the cluster of Rangers and CAF troops at the wall. "Form up the unit and tell them to prep for a hunt."

  Gray started to follow but hesitated at the last part. He eyed her carefully for just a second, then ran to catch up before she reached the rest of the squad.

  "You picked up a Ned," he said. It wasn't a question.

  "Yeah.

  "Almost missed him in all the distortion," she replied, her frustration apparent, "but he's here."

  "And you plan to take him on--in this?" Gray said, glancing around at the heavily falling snow.

  "Yes. The visibility and the DZ will give us an edge."

  Gray sighed.

  "Maybe. But we're not really out here to take on Neds this time, Chief," he said, trying very hard not to sound insubordinate. He'd always been allowed to speak his mind with her, up to a point.

  She stopped suddenly and turned to face him, her expression hard. Might have just passed that point.

  "We're out here to buy time," she said, "That Ned is probably leading the assault on this sector. Taking him down will disrupt their advance.

  She paused to let him consider the argument.