by Yakov Merkin
While she dreaded losing any of her felinai—soldiers—in combat, Nayasar took comfort in the knowledge that any that fell had died as heroes, fighting for the greatest cause of all: The safety of their fellow Felinaris, and to avenge the dead. It never got any easier though. And, fighting was the best way to get one’s mind off unpleasant thoughts.
Nayasar ceased tracking the other teams as her own group approached another door behind which, according to her equipment, were six enemy soldiers. Nayasar was readying her weapons when she saw two more indicator lights go dark. Nayasar growled, then kicked open the door with one blow and opened fire. The four Darvians that had been in view fell to the ground, wounded or dead; it wasn’t always easy to tell with armor concealing so much.
She ordered the rest of her team to provide cover, then walked over to each of the fallen Darvians and put a shot through their head. As it turned out, three had already been dead or at least unconscious. The last had attempted to surrender, but had tragically been unable to complete the necessary actions before his death. Darvian scum.
Though even if he had surrendered, Darkclaw would have most likely had the Darvian executed regardless. Nayasar hadn’t let herself contemplate the executor’s policy of executing captured enemy combatants. On one level, she was uncomfortable in its harshness, but it did make a sort of brutal sense: Expending too many resources on holding prisoners could prove problematic, though her forces had taken thousands of prisoners after the battle over the planet. She had refused to have her own soldiers carry out these executions—and would not kill prisoners she captured—but had never objected to it in principle; there was no need to potentially jeopardize her growing connection to the executor by starting an argument over the lives of enemy soldiers, Darvians least of all.
A shout from one of her soldiers, followed by a metallic clang alerted Nayasar to the grenade bouncing, then rolling toward her. Without hesitation, Nayasar burst forward and kicked the sphere away, then dropped to the ground. Almost as soon as she hit the floor, the grenade went off, and she was buffeted by the shockwave and her shields took some damage from the shrapnel. Nothing serious. The distinctly Darvian scream of pain was reward enough. That, and the lives of her and her soldiers.
Before she even had a chance to stand up, Nayasar heard a sound from above and instinctively rolled to the side and came up in a crouch a split second before a Darvian more than twice her size landed were she had been lying, the end of a leap that looked to have begun halfway across the room.
Her unit did not immediately come to her aid, but Nayasar had no time to worry about them with the Darvian charging her. Nayasar stood up and had just started to raise her rifle when the Darvian collided with her, knocking her weapon aside with a swing of his own rifle, which sported a bayonet almost as long as one of her long knives. His weapon must have failed.
Nayasar landed on her back, skidding across the floor, and rolled back to her feet as the Darvian ran in for a clumsy follow-up attack, then seized her opportunity. Nayasar leaped into the air, completely clearing the Darvian’s head, and in a single fluid motion drew her long knives and buried them in his skull, letting her downward momentum do most of the work of piercing both helmet and armored bone. Now this was how war should be fought!
Nayasar, her heart racing, retrieved her blades from the fallen Darvian, and resisted some primal urge to spit on the corpse—which would have been a bad idea, as spitting inside one’s helmet was not a pleasant experience. She glanced around the room, locating her rifle, and recovered it as she checked the battle network for her soldiers, officially her bodyguards. As if she needed guarding.
Fortunately, they were all still alive, though two were seriously wounded. Apparently the Darvian that had attacked her had thrown several large pieces of furniture across the room as the grenade had gone off, managing to hit the group, which had been standing near the door.
Nayasar summoned a pair of units for backup and first aid for the wounded, then helped the three who could still stand to their feet. Once the other units arrived, Nayasar ordered them to see to the wounded and secure the area as she took stock of the larger offensive, now that she had seen a satisfactory amount of combat and her adrenaline was flowing. But she had to keep busy, or risk her mind returning to her failure during the fleet battle, and Darkclaw’s damned callousness. Later, she reminded herself, and focused on the familiar, sharp smells of battle.
She found a suitable spot out of the line of fire from the door, quickly cleared the floor, then quickly set up a portable holographic projector. Its image and functionality was severely limited when compared to the advanced stationary models that were set up at the base camps, but it would serve.
The initial offensive was going quite well, and Darkclaw might yet accomplish his goal of capturing key points in the capital city and a handful of other major cities today, a key first step in taking the planet. Darkclaw had initially hoped to subdue enough of the planet quickly enough to allow the majority of their forces to depart and leave a token force to hold the planet and begin a gradual push to conquer the rest.
Nayasar had told him point blank that to hope for such a swift, complete victory on Darvia was pure fantasy, and most definitely only something only a flawed, emotional being would hope for.
Despite his mysterious High Lord’s wishes, and Nayasar suspected in part due to her comments, Darkclaw had agreed with her assessment without argument. He had even justified modifying his directives by pointedly stating that the High Lord had given him leave to make war-related decisions on his own, in large part, and stated that the first such choice had been his decision to seek out the Felinaris as an ally.
It was an interesting, candid statement, and unlike Darkclaw. Nayasar had tried to press him on it, but Darkclaw had adamantly insisted on dealing only with the matter at hand. It was almost as if he felt he had let something slip and was trying to pretend he had not made the remark.
Before Nayasar could analyze the executor’s actions further, an explosion rocked the building.
“What’s going on?” she demanded, speaking into the battle network.
“A pocket of Darvian holdouts tried to implement their self-immolation protocol,” a lieutenant informed Nayasar. He sounded shocked. “The Tyrannodons stopped them before they could reach our positions. They lost almost an entire unit.”
“Understood,” Nayasar replied. “Do whatever you can to assist them. I’ll dispatch Sirron-Felikhai units to assist and prevent future attempts by the Darvians to blow themselves up. Cowards.” Sirron-felinai, which meant armored soldier, were much more heavily armed and armored than the standard felinai soldier, fully capable of stopping an enraged, suicidal Darvian in his tracks.
But as deadly and disconcerting as Darvians making suicide runs was, they were not particularly interesting. It was the Tyrannodons and their tendency of selflessness, Nayasar noted as she examined the operation status in her sector of operation, the government center. While she’d agreed with Darkclaw’s assessment of how long it would take for the capitol to fall, she had privately expected it to take far longer. The Darvian resistance was far less organized than she had expected. Even now, their allied forces were pushing in on the last Darvian strongpoint in the area.
Nayasar sent out a few quick orders, but there was not a great deal for her to do. The Felinaris command structure was deliberately decentralized for ground operations, with higher ranking officers acting as regional commanders while loosely maintaining the chain of command, conferring with one another as the battle unfolded. It made the army much better able to adapt quickly, and kept the command structure intact even in the event that an admiral or grand admiral was killed in action.
And of course, it gave officers like Nayasar the opportunity to fight alongside her fellow Felinaris as a good leader should, while at the same time not disregarding her duties as the supreme commander of their armed forces. It was even more important following the near disaster in space.
&
nbsp; As more reports of success trickled in, Nayasar let herself relax, just a bit, in her improvised command center. At least this part of the battle looked like it would end happily. She took a moment to sift through the debris littering the floor of the room, a security office, according to her map of the building, and found a miraculously intact chair. “Small luxuries,” Nayasar laughed quietly as she extracted the chair and set it in from of her holographic map, then sat down. It was surprisingly comfortable, if large enough to fit three Felinaris her size. Maybe she would take it back to her cabin on the Felinar.
A few moments later, a terse report came in from Executor Darkclaw who, as the true commander of the fight, had only just joined the fight himself, though at least he had come. He was leading an offensive into Stronghold Tiran, one of the most heavily fortified Darvian army bases and one of the final locations that had to be secured.
In fact, the executor had decided that it would be his forces that assaulted all of the military targets, the most dangerous operations. Darkclaw seemed to have done whatever he could to both speed up the conquest, and protect the Felinaris and Snevan forces, whatever the cost in his own men. Even the Darvians had been surprised when Tyrannodon shock troops rained down in drop pods behind their defensive perimeters. Nayasar would have to find some way to integrate orbital drops into Felinaris military tactics. Despite the unexpected, rapid success, the Tyrannodons were taking heavy casualties, more so because of their peculiar actions, sacrificing themselves for the lives of their allies. Programmed clones or no, it was odd.
What is your aim, Darkclaw? She wondered. You’ve given us so much by simply existing; what’s driving you to sacrifice so much for us?
* * *
Darkclaw took cover behind a door frame as the Darvian defenders frantically fired at the advancing Tyrannodon force. The door frame had supported an enormous armored loading door until a few minutes earlier, when his forces, still without tanks, had managed to plant enough explosives to destroy it.
Darkclaw sent a command through the battle network and ordered both the heavy and light attack vehicles, newly arrived from Selixan Station, to press into the increasingly smoke-filled hangar.
Almost immediately, one of the light attack vehicles took a direct hit and exploded, its dead crew landing near Darkclaw’s position just before he moved to enter the hangar himself. He froze, and surveyed the battlefield as he fought to keep his mind—and body—in line. He had been able to maintain control at first, but after all the killing, all of the broken, lifeless bodies, his control had vanished. What was the point to all this? Why was all of the killing necessary? Surely the Tyrannodons, superior as they were, could exist alongside the other races, letting their innate superiority gradually increase their influence over time.
Instead, Darkclaw was here, fighting alongside allies he would soon be forced to betray, and yet ordering his forces to protect those same allies at the cost of their own lives, while simultaneously ordering a direct assault that would not even allow for the wounded to be evacuated efficiently, which would lead to more deaths.
He, more than any of the inferior, emotional races, was the one acting illogically, letting his feelings and desires control him, failing in the central tenet drilled into him: obey your superiors without question.
Darkclaw put his hand to his head for a moment, then activated his armor’s battle interface, the holographic display appearing over his left gauntlet. It would have been simpler to do back on board the command vehicle, but Darkclaw had no desire for its safety at the moment, and despite everything he was still fully capable of commanding his forces. Thank the High Lord for that.
The Darvians had known that their outer defenses would not hold, and had retreated into the interior of the base, likely in the hope to either force the Tyrannodon soldiers into close quarters combat or force the destruction of the compound.
The High Lord’s orders were to take the compound intact, and Darkclaw would do as he commanded, no matter how many lives it cost.
Their initial push had been enough to force the Darvians back, but instead of scattering, the defenders had immediately fallen back to this hangar for reasons unknown, thanks to electronic interference.
Once he confirmed that the heavy vehicles had gained a foothold inside the room, Darkclaw ordered the rest of his forces into the hangar, then charged through the smoke himself, firing through the seemingly never-ending cloud at targets he only knew existed thanks to his armor’s sensors—and fortunately, his armor’s internal systems filtered out both the smoke and the smell that doubtless accompanied it.
Finally, Darkclaw cleared the cloud and found cover behind one of the heavy assault vehicles. And then he saw what the Darvians’ intention was.
There were eight transport ships sitting at the opposite end of the hangar, protected by a shield. In front of each ship was a tunnel that did not look like it led outside; they likely led through the mountain the base was constructed in, to a different location to take off. If they launched, they would likely be able to escape, given the damaged state of Darkclaw’s fleet.
“All forces,” Darkclaw ordered verbally, “concentrate on the shield. It must be brought down at all cost!”
The heavy vehicles began firing at the shield, but their new directive gave the Darvians assigned to defend the shield an opening.
They roared, and charged out from behind the shield, over a dozen units strong, heading straight for the vehicles. They clearly lacked the firepower to effectively deal with the heavily armored vehicles from afar, but if they got in close enough they would be able to disable or destroy them, which would force Darkclaw to send his infantry on a suicidal run into the shield or let the transports escape.
Darkclaw quickly checked the battle interface and saw that the infantry was only just entering the room, and they were not particularly organized yet. But it would have to do. He quickly marked the advancing Darvians on the battle network as priorities for the infantry, then moved out of cover to engage them himself.
He went to one knee next to the vehicle, took aim, and expended a plasma cartridge unleashing a torrent of automatic fire on the Darvians, who were completely exposed. The plasma rounds tore into a group of four Darvians that were too close together, overloading and disrupting their shields in moments and piercing their armor even faster, reaching the vulnerable flesh beneath. The Darvians fell screaming as Darkclaw ejected the spent cartridge and inserted a fresh one.
He had aimed his rifle to fire again when a shadow caught Darkclaw’s eye. He looked up and stepped back just as three heavily armored Darvian soldiers, each slightly larger then he was, landed right next to the assault vehicle. Darkclaw instinctively fired the rifle without aiming, and caught the lead Darvian square in the chest with a four-round burst. The Darvian fell to the floor, but in the time it took Darkclaw to raise the rifle the other two opened fire.
Darkclaw dropped his weapon and dove around the front of the vehicle as plasma rounds pelted his shield; the display inside the armor stating that the shield was at thirty percent strength.
Darkclaw grabbed a pair of grenades from his belt, primed them, and rolled them around the front of the vehicle. Its armor would hold. The grenades went off moments later, and Darkclaw remained still, sidearm now in his hand. Several seconds went by, and when nothing came around the vehicle, Darkclaw took a step forward.
Then a Darvian, bellowing something unintelligible at the top of his lungs, his armor and hardened skin beneath it a charred mess, barreled directly into Darkclaw, sending him down to the ground, his pistol out of reach. The Darvian’s right arm was raised, an axe-shaped blade extending out of his gauntlet as he prepared to bring it down.
Darkclaw pressed a key on his own gauntlet, and a bright green fluid, highly acidic, sprayed from a pair of tiny nozzles at the top of his helmet, into the Darvian’s face. The acid blast was a one-shot defense mechanism, meant to simply buy him a few seconds. As the Darvian roared in agony, Darkclaw rolled t
o his feet, extended his armor’s wrist blade, and lunged forward, stabbing the Darvian straight through the chest.
The Darvian crumpled to the floor, which was all that allowed Darkclaw to see the other Darvian, the one that he had shot in the chest as it had landed, taking aim with his rifle. Darkclaw was astonished that the Darvian could still be standing, but there was no time to think on how unlikely that was. He pulled an emergency beacon from its compartment on his armor and hurled it at the Darvian as the soldier fired. Darkclaw stiffened as two shots impacted his shield, taking it down to fifteen percent, but fortunately took no more hits as the heavy beacon struck the barrel of the rifle, knocking it slightly off its mark. Darkclaw took his chance, and burst forward, burying the blade in the Darvian’s chest. Too low, he realized as the Darvian jerked to the side, sending Darkclaw into the side of the armored vehicle and snapping the blade in two.
Despite the shock-reducing qualities of the armor, Darkclaw felt slightly dazed from the blow as he impacted the vehicle and caught himself before he hit the floor, his shields drained. Where were his soldiers? They should have been there already!
The Darvian grabbed the broken blade, still stuck in his chest, and pulled it free in one try. The soldier held the blade in his armored hand, and triumphantly brought it down on the unarmed Darkclaw.
But Darkclaw had one weapon remaining. He swung his left hand at the falling blade, his black claws cleaving through the weapon with no resistance at all, and sliced the Darvian’s throat with his right. As with a Zarian he had killed as a demonstration upon conquest of that world, Darkclaw’s claws cut the flesh and cartilage seemingly out of existence, leaving empty space where there should have been rent flesh. But the result was the same. The Darvian staggered forward, blood pouring from the hole in his throat, and collapsed just in front of Darkclaw. It felt surprisingly good, natural, using the claws as a weapon.
