A Greater Duty (Galaxy Ascendant Book 1)

by Yakov Merkin

  Nayasar leaped to the side and dropped to the ground as an explosive fell where she had been standing. She sprung up a moment later, but Darkclaw’s attention turned to the source of the attack. Whoever it was would not live long. He rapidly calculated the trajectory and speed of the explosive, to determine where it had come from. Praetor Keeneye was much more skilled at such calculations, but Darkclaw had been given gifts from the High Lord as well. He aimed and fired, shattering a window, and a few seconds later a body fell from it. Darkclaw felt a satisfaction he had never felt before, even though there was no way to tell if he had truly hit his intended target.

  Darkclaw finally reached the entrance, followed closely by the rest of his Wraith soldiers from the disabled vehicle. He had his armor’s internal system run a quick diagnostic check while Nayasar ordered the carriers to stop firing at the building. His shields had taken a few, non-direct hits. Nothing to be concerned with.

  “You were right, you know,” Nayasar said while they waited for the other vehicles to drive up to the building and unload their occupants.

  “The information contained here is important, but not worth allowing our militaries to be decapitated.” And, to be honest, Darkclaw did not know what the High Lord expected to find in museum or government databases about the Reizan’Tvay that would not have been in Atheneum Alpha’s databases, but he was not created to question, only to obey. And despite the importance of the information to the High Lord, Darkclaw was sure that the High Lord would prefer that his right hand remained alive.

  Nayasar nodded, and Darkclaw realized that he had gotten used to her facial expressions explaining what she was thinking; with the helmet that completely concealed her face, Nayasar was almost as unreadable as he was.

  They waited in silence for almost twenty minutes, doing little except watching for any attack by the Algen police from the upper floors. But they knew better than to leave their entrenched position. Finally, the Felinaris and the rest of Darkclaw’s Wraith forces arrived at their location. Nayasar didn’t give any complex orders; there was no need, and they began to go through the building, room by room. The ground floor was predictably empty; its ease of access to the outside and many windows made it almost completely indefensible. They found the stairs, and proceeded to the second floor of the sixty-floor structure.

  Nayasar raised her hand to halt them once they had all made it up the stairs. She took a small device from her belt and held it out in front of her for a few moments. “It’s an explosives detector,” she explained to Darkclaw through their private channel. “While I doubt the Algen had time to prepare any sort of significant explosive traps, it never hurts to check.”

  As if we needed a worse way to die. Darkclaw wondered again why he had allowed himself to get talked into such foolishness.

  Nayasar waved a hand forward, and the party moved onward. Darkclaw kept himself wary and his eyes open, though he did not need to move them all that much; his armor, despite its T-shaped visor, primarily relied on visual capture devices for sight, giving him and an almost three-hundred and sixty degree view of the world from within the helmet.

  They cleared most of the floor without incident, and then they came to what appeared to be a large, archaic record storage room, with walls and shelves covered in boxes that either held papers or older information disks. It would be a fair place to station forces, though not ideal; while the many shelves, alcoves and side rooms would give some advantage, most would not protect against laser or plasma fire. Still, the Algen did not have many options. Darkclaw was about to enter the room through its narrow door, but stopped when he heard a noise from within.

  Darkclaw stayed just outside the door, and shifted his helmet’s display to infrared. Sure enough, he spotted at least three dozen armed figures waiting inside. “There are at least thirty-six enemies in here,” he told Nayasar, who had stopped next to him. “We need a distraction so we can enter the room without being killed one at a time.”

  “Leave it to me,” Nayasar replied as she completed her scan for explosive traps. She signaled to one of the Felinaris, who tossed her what looked like a grenade. “Don’t worry, it doesn’t explode,” she explained before Darkclaw could even ask. “It’ll temporarily deactivate anything electronic on this level, our equipment included. We’ll do this the fun way. The Algen are making things quite boring.” She made a hand signal that Darkclaw assumed told her forces what was about to happen. He informed his own forces verbally.

  Darkclaw disagreed on the concept of risking one’s life being fun, but hooked his rifle onto the back of his armor, and extended a long blade from his armor’s right gauntlet. He nodded, and removed his helmet, then secured it to his belt as the rest of his force did the same; the Felinaris helmets, apparently, would still sufficiently function without power. The Tyrannodons, on the other hand, would have very limited vision with their helmets on. Fortunately, the air inside the building was less acrid than the air outside.

  Nayasar took another device from her belt and threw it into the room, then, a second later, rolled the other inside.

  The first was a simple audiovisual grenade, emitting a loud bang and a blinding light, which had little effect on Darkclaw other than to slightly raise his heart rate. The second was silent, but Darkclaw noticed his armor power down. He ran into the room just behind Nayasar, who shouted something in Felinari as she charged.

  The Algen forces inside the room had not been expecting the attack, many were still disoriented as Darkclaw entered, and most had not realized that their rifles were not functioning. Darkclaw stabbed the first Algen he ran into straight in the chest. The officer had not even had a chance to draw his only close-quarters weapon, a police-issue club. As the man’s eyes darkened, Darkclaw searched for another target in the chaos that was engulfing the room as the Tyrannodon and Felinaris forces poured inside. The Algen forces began to retreat deeper into the labyrinth of shelves and small rooms in tight groups. Darkclaw rounded a corner and found himself face to face with one of the Algen, who shouted and charged, his rifle pointed at Darkclaw, a bayonet affixed to its end.

  Darkclaw forgot everything else, and met the Algen head on. Darkclaw stepped to the side and pushed the rifle away as he stabbed downward, into the man’s chest. As the man fell, blood pouring from his wound, Darkclaw stabbed him again in the throat, then moved on.

  The next few minutes passed by in a blur; Darkclaw pressed onward, killing any enemy he came across. He was dimly aware of the fighting and shouting going on around him, but all of Darkclaw’s focus was on killing the enemy. It was like nothing he had ever felt before, exhilarating and satisfying. In that moment, he understood why Nayasar had been so eager to change the dynamics of the fight.

  Suddenly, however, Darkclaw realized both that he was alone and that he no longer recognized the room; he must have outpaced the rest of his allies in the melee. He slowed his breathing as he turned the corner around a shelf sturdier than the ones he had seen earlier, which held a myriad of electronic devices. He must have fought his way clear across the level, into this room. If any enemies remained, however, they would be here. While Darkclaw neither saw nor heard anyone, he was positive that he was not alone. I know you are close, he said to himself, when a loud scream and a crash broke the silence. Darkclaw looked up to see what had made the sound, only to find himself falling to the floor. An even louder crash sounded as a shelf fell where he had been standing a moment before.

  “You okay?” Nayasar asked, and Darkclaw, startled, turned to look at her. She was pulling herself out from beneath his legs.

  “I did not see you,” he said. And how did you knock me down? He wanted to ask. He weighed at least three times as much as the small Felinaris and he had not been off balance.

  “It happens when you’re as short as I am,” Nayasar said with a laugh. She picked herself up, and offered a hand to Darkclaw. He accepted and stood up, though her hand was completely unnecessary; he doubted she could have pulled him up even with both hands
. “So, I think you owe me one,” she said, glancing at the fallen shelf, with its contents fallen in a confused pile of twisted metal.

  “I owe you what?” Darkclaw asked.

  “I saved your life,” she stated simply. “One of the Algen knocked over a shelf rack, which knocked down this one.” She pointed at the mess. “You were almost at the bottom of that pile.”

  Darkclaw nodded, and he realized how close it had been. While the falling debris may not have killed him, he would have definitely been trapped, easy prey for the enemy.

  Suddenly, Nayasar moved. She charged at an Algen who had darted around a corner not a meter away, a combat knife in hand. Nayasar redirected his stab, then wrenched the weapon from his hand and stabbed him in the chest until he lay still. Another thing Darkclaw had failed to notice. He was beginning to think he was more a liability than anything else, in his current, distracted state.

  “I think we’ve mostly cleared the room,” Nayasar said as she retrieved her own weapons from the edge of the pile that had been a shelf. “And not a moment too soon. Power should be back on momentarily.”

  Sure enough, ten seconds later the lights in the room flickered back on, and Darkclaw felt his suit’s internal environmental functions resume. Darkclaw put on his helmet as Nayasar did the same. Darkclaw noted that both his chronometer time and internal positioning location were off. He had his armor run a diagnostic to correct the error just as a piece of the machinery in the room began to hum. A few seconds later the room seemed to flicker, and Darkclaw felt a strange sensation for a brief moment.

  Then he realized that they were no longer in the government building, but in some sort of enormous warehouse, by the shelves and stacks of crates that towered over even the shelves in the previous room, which appeared to have traveled along with himself and the grand admiral.

  “Where are we?” he asked before remembering that his armor could tell him that. Darkclaw berated himself silently for his foolish oversight as he ordered his systems to pinpoint his location.

  “I don’t know,” Nayasar replied needlessly, though at least she was willing to admit that something unexpected had happened. She was silent for a long moment, then spoke again. “I think we might have been teleported,” she said in a tone Darkclaw could only have described as shocked—because he felt the same way. This was not good; however it had happened; if the Algen had planned this… Before he could voice his concern, however, a Felinaris voice came over the general communication channel.

  “Srei Felitzvah! Executor!” the Felinaris called. “We’ve been unable to reach or locate either of you. We feared the worst.”

  “I hear you, Srei Felikhai,” Nayasar replied, using a Felinaris term that Darkclaw had only heard in passing before; it was likely the officer’s rank in Felinari. “I have the executor with me; I ordered a berion grenade used so we could clear a room. We seem to be separated from the rest of our attack force, however. I’m not sure where we are, however.” She paused for a moment and glanced toward Darkclaw. He pointed to his armor’s display panel on his gauntlet and nodded. “The executor just managed to pinpoint our location, actually. I’m pretty sure we’ve been teleported.”

  Darkclaw nodded, then began to scan the room. If this had been done to them intentionally, then it was a trap, and the two of them were in very real danger. He would have to speak with the grand admiral once they were safe. This was an unacceptable danger, and all because of her stupid notion of honor!

  “You were teleported,” the Felinaris officer replied, “and with intent. We’ve managed to intercept enemy communications; there are nearly two hundred Algen converging on your location. It was a trap, and a well-planned one, given the limitations of teleportation technology. They knew you were leading and planned to isolate you. There are over two hundred miles between you and the nearest of our forces.”

  Darkclaw shook his head. He shouldn’t have been surprised, though he still did not quite comprehend exactly how the trap had been set, nor how they had so blindly stumbled into it.

  Nayasar shouted a number of words in Felinari that Darkclaw could not translate, though he felt certain he knew their meaning. “We walked right into the damn thing!” Nayasar concluded as she reverted back to standard. Darkclaw tried but failed to keep himself from smiling faintly. The grand admiral was amusing when angry.

  “There is a piece of good news,” said the officer. “Apparently, your use of the berion grenade messed with the teleporter’s settings, and you weren’t brought right to where their forces were assembled, though they’ve clearly pinpointed your location already.”

  “They must be tracking us through our communication channel; they have been active ever since we regained power,” Darkclaw said. “We need to go deactivate them now,” he concluded perhaps in a slightly more urgent tone than he should have.

  Nayasar nodded. “Get my army over here now!” she ordered sharply. “I’m cutting the communication link now. We’ll hold out until help arrives.”

  “En-ozar Felikhan, Srei Felitzvah,” the officer said, then ended the communication. Darkclaw would have to properly learn their language at some juncture.

  “Well, this certainly ended up being more interesting than it had to be,” Nayasar breathed.

  “Had we done as I advised, we would not be in this situation,” Darkclaw reminded her, maintaining his flat tone. “The enemy expected our actions, and capitalized on that knowledge.” Darkclaw felt no satisfaction in being proven right. All that mattered now was that he, and the grand admiral, survived and were not captured.

  Nayasar shook her head. “How could I have known they’d use a teleporter offensively?” she asked sharply. “Those things are notoriously sensitive and impossible to use except for when a large room is designed deliberately to house the thing. Though it’s not surprising that they have one here, in hindsight; most seats of government have them as emergency escape systems. They require so much power that the building would go dark after one, maybe two activations. And they really only send things to one pre-planned location.”

  To evacuate their leaders like sensible beings, Darkclaw noted. A device so limited in use, and somehow both he and the grand admiral had stepped into its trap.

  Nayasar shook her head. “It’s not worth thinking about that now. Can we track their approach?”

  Darkclaw had already begun scanning; if the Felinaris officer had been right, there would be little time to prepare. Fortunately, the scan yielded good news. “My equipment is unable to determine their exact number,” he said, “but there is a large Algen force approaching, as you might be aware. Additionally, I have detected six of my soldiers and three of your own in the vicinity. They must have been caught in the teleportation field as well. I have ordered them to join us here.”

  “Well that’s good news,” Nayasar replied, her face still irritatingly unreadable behind the helmet. Darkclaw had not realized how much he had come to rely on her expressions. “Once they get here,” she continued, “we’ll need to find a suitable place to hold out until help gets here; the Algen most likely have vehicles, so running won’t do us much good.” She sounded perfectly calm, but her twitching tail said otherwise. Darkclaw quickly checked his own, which was still.

  A few long minutes later the soldiers arrived. “In case you aren’t already aware,” Nayasar began immediately, “we’ve been teleported here, cut off from the rest of our forces, and there are couple hundred Algen heading our way, and not to surrender. Help is incoming, but it will take time. We need to hold out here until they arrive.”

  “Our first objective,” Darkclaw interjected, “must be to select a location suitable for a sustained defense.” He was willing to allow Nayasar to maintain the lead role in their action; she was still in command of the invasion, but Darkclaw did not intend to allow himself to be sidelined, not after this debacle. He would give orders, not take them.

  Nayasar drew one of her long felinite knives, and took the cover off of a wooden crate, and d
rew what in Darkclaw’s best estimate was a fairly accurate, if simple, sketch of the building, at least based on what they had been able to see. “We’ll use the shelves and their contents for protection; knock most of them down to block aisles and slow their movement, and use a few as cover. It should also make us harder to find.”

  One of the Felinaris soldiers nodded. “On the way here we passed by what I believe is the building’s master electrical control panel. We might be able to use it to shut off the lights,” he said, needlessly pointing up, toward the bright lights embedded in the ceiling.

  Nayasar turned to Darkclaw. “Can your armor compensate for darkness?” she asked.

  “It can,” Darkclaw replied. Darkness would likely give them another small edge; the Algen would likely not be adequately equipped.

  “Go find the panel,” Nayasar ordered the Felinaris. “Once we finish the rest of the preparations, get rid of the lights and rejoin us.

  “Understood, Srei Felitzvah.” The Felinaris officer darted off, the other two close behind.

  “Come on,” Nayasar said once the others had left. “We should find a corner to back ourselves into. Maybe near an exit, in case we have to leave.”

  “We should avoid doors,” Darkclaw disagreed. “The Algen will surround the building before they enter. Fleeing will not be an option, and a nearby door will only give them another, closer avenue of approach.”

  “True,” Nayasar replied. “Besides, if we do decide to make a run for it, we can always blow a hole in the wall. In fact, we should prepare something for that, just in case.

  While he doubted that such a measure would provide any use, Darkclaw did not argue. The grand admiral was attempting to maintain in her mind that the situation was fully under control, to hide her fear. Darkclaw himself fortunately felt nothing; the gravity of their situation was providing enough of a focus for his mind.

  A few minutes later, they found a suitable location. It was a literal corner of the room, far from any entrances, and only approachable through two narrow aisles, easy enough to obstruct despite the shelves along the wall being secured to it. “We should station one soldier on top of one of these shelves along the wall, a short way away from the rest of us,” Darkclaw suggested. “Our location will not be completely compromised if they are spotted, and we will have better knowledge of enemy movement as well as the potential for a first strike.”