Just as her fist was about to connect, Leo fired an EMP round directly into her right arm. The EMP disabled the power-fist, causing Layla to stumble and literally fall over Leo. Before she had a chance to come to her senses, Leo got up and fired the rest of his bullets, point-blank into her.
“Stop!” I snapped and Leo immediately pulled his gun away. “Leo won.”
He must have been as surprised as I was. “I did?”
“You did, Leo, good job.”
Layla was lying on the ground staring at the simulated sky. Leo reached out to help her up but she wouldn’t budge.
“Come on, it’s just a simulated fight,” he said sincerely.
“Simulated, my ass,” she muttered under her breath.
“I was stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid!”
She slammed her hands on the ground like a child who didn’t get the present it wanted. The whole scene made the hairs on my neck stand up in disgust, but maybe this was what they both needed. At least today.
“You were,” I said. “You underestimated your opponent from start to finish and this is what you got. But you also learned something, so get up and stop festering there. This is not over. It’s my turn now.”
“Sir? Weren’t you supposed to fight me now?” Leo asked.
“I will fight you; I’ll fight you both. Get cleaned up, go eat something and think about this fight, but even more so, think about fighting me. Meet me here in an hour.”
An hour passed quickly and they were ready to fight. I couldn’t say I wasn’t excited, even a bit nervous to take on the two of them. One wrong step and I would humiliate myself before my subordinates, and that was never a smart thing to do. On the upside, if everything went as planned, a lot could be gained from this.
I summoned both Buzzard and Bucky before the fight, checked my O-Nan cells, and made sure to create enough ammunition for Leo. He had his ordinary slugs, but I was the one who needed to make the others: AP, Elemental, and EMP. The last of the three, if placed well, could be the game-changer when fighting robotic, nanited, or electronic opponents in general. I smiled as I handed the ammunition to him. I couldn’t help myself.
“So, are you ladies ready?” I asked with a smirk.
The battle started pretty much as I expected. Layla immediately tried to jump me with an earthquake but before she even reached me, I sent Bucky at her. That would occupy Alexeyeva for a while. Leo tried to find cover behind a rock and snipe me, but I had Buzzard following him and knew exactly where he was. I put my rifle up to my shoulder and kept from his line of sight as long as possible while I fired round after round from my splinter rifle at Layla who was trying to get Bucky off her back.
Buzzard flew in circles above Leo, zapping him with Discharge several times. Leo wasn’t used to an enemy that was so quick and too small a target for him. It was like a scene from a cartoon more than anything else. When Layla finally shrugged Bucky off her and closed the distance, I was ready.
I sent out two nanite-chains from my Blade Shield before I could feel the wrath of her power-fist, and entangled her legs. She dropped to the floor virtually biting the dirt and suffered some insignificant damage. I sent out two more chains at her left arm and dislocated the power-fist from her hand. I couldn’t hold her for long because she was incredibly strong. Still, she was practically disarmed, and besides the pistol at her hip, she was useless.
She pulled the pistols and just as she did, I used Bucky’s Charge, stunning her. One shattering blow later, she was left with a significant dent in her armor. I fired more rounds from my splinter rifle and almost finished her off with the nanite chains from my Blade Shield, but just as I was about to do so, I felt pain reverberating through my body.
Buzzard was destroyed. Layla pushed up and jumped me, but Bucky used Taunt, forcing her to face him. I fired another round into her chest, dropping her to the ground.
“You’re out.”
“Fuck!” she cursed as she got off her ass and stormed off.
Bucky was already charging to where Leo was earlier, and soon enough he found him. Leo hadn’t been smart enough to stay hidden; instead, he fired at my familiar who could easily tank a good couple of shots. I followed the direction of his rounds and managed to get behind his back.
“You still got a ways to go!” I growled from behind him as I fired several rounds. He ate the damage, but jumped out of the way and behind a pile of rubble, disappearing from both my sight and Bucky’s.
I sighed and dashed to the side, anticipating the Barrage he just released. A hail of bullets struck the ground where I stood earlier, fully going to waste. Dozens of bullets bored into the ground pointlessly.
In his confusion, Leo missed his one EMP round that went wide. It had been the one chance he had to stop me from destroying him. I charged him with Bucky again, stunning him and pummeling his chest. Leo dropped face-first into the same pile of debris.
A familiar sensation washed over me. A glimpse at the power that awaited me. I tried to shake it off again. It wasn’t uncommon for Technomancers to soak in the sense of superiority and eventually grow mad with lust for power. It was one of the things the Technomancer guild had to steadily keep track of with its members.
“That was…” Leo began, dragging himself over to me, “humiliating.”
“Second lesson of today. Don’t underestimate your opponent was the first one, but don’t automatically assume you’ll lose the fight before it even begins. This was half-hearted at best. I can’t say I’m not disappointed, but you’ll do better next time, right, Layla?”
Layla strolled over to pick her lost power-fist off the ground. Her ego was more dented than her armor, I was sure of it. Two losses in the span of an hour weighed heavy on her. It would on anyone, but especially someone with more pride than smarts. She didn’t want to talk about it. I was fine with that as long as she learned her lesson. Knowing she had, I was more than happy to ignore her mood.
The rest of the force-juice-induced week passed as expected. I didn’t press them too much because the lack of sleep coupled with extreme exhaustion would have proven deadly. We still spent a good twelve hours a day training in the simulator, but the rest we spent studying tactics, strategy, tech, and our enemy. I even threw in some R&R in the form of strategy video games. It kept their minds flexible and forced them to think about different large-scale approaches to battle situations.
Leo showed promise in that area, but he could hardly manage to defeat me. Layla on the other hand disliked the gaming part. She was rowdy by nature and the lack of sleep and constant juicing left her short-tempered and angry most of the time.
Captain Tailor didn’t let us go into a ranked simulation until we got off the juice. That was somewhat of a tragedy to my mind. We lost precious opportunities to gain experience and increase our stats, not to speak of climbing the ladder. When the last of the force-juice evaporated from our systems and we finally stopped being at each other’s throats, the three of us fell into a well-deserved sleep coma.
We were woken up by our INAS only eight hours later. Eight hours of sleep after a week of being awake and hyper-alert felt just like it sounded. The INAS informed us of the last simulation. A do-or-die type of scenario. I was completely spent when it woke me up but it didn’t take long for me to smack myself into awareness. It wasn’t just a chance to gain levels again; something much more important would happen after the last round of simulated battle. The first three ranks were promised a whole selection of rewards, one of which caused me to jump off the bed. Among other things, the reward for first place was a rank A armor, among which there was a Technomancer Fyre armor. I took a deep breath and clenched my fists. I could be back in that piece of gear by the end of this day.
“Get your asses out of bed! It’s time to do or die, soldiers,” I barked happily, but tried to sound as stern as I could.
“Yes, sir!” Layla and Leo replied over the INAS almost immediately.
“You better bring us that rank one or I’ll—”<
br />
“You will kill us yourself before the Aloi have a chance to smell us, sir?”
I almost giggled.
“Damn straight, soldiers.”
6
The numbers looked grim. I wasn’t going to lie about that, but if you asked me whether we had a chance to win, I’d say yes. With a nearly perfect game, we could achieve rank one on the ladder. We had 1,215 points and by skipping the last simulation we were ranked ninth. The first spot had 1,715 points, so we had to make up some 500 points. I said it looked grim, but it was worse than that because we’d also had to match whatever the current ranked one squad made, which would be at least another 250, so we totaled out at some 750 points.
“I don’t think we’ll make rank one, Sarge,” Leo said calmly, and he was right.
We’d have to kill hordes of enemies, receive minimal damage, get chain kills to force stack multipliers, perform genius acts of military strategy, and beat everyone to it on the timer. All of that while still coming down from the juice. My Fyre armor seemed to evaporate slowly from my mind as the thoughts passed one by one.
But then there was a sliver of hope. Just as we were to enter the last simulation, Captain Tailor stopped me.
“Got your eyes on the prize there, Sergeant?”
I nodded. He pulled me to the side so Leo and Layla wouldn’t hear.
“Yes, sir!”
“I don’t make a habit out of handing people donations, but I was following your team’s work lately and I can’t say I’m not impressed.”
I raised my eyebrows. So, he was handing out donations then?
“You pushed those rookies pretty hard even after that last fiasco in the simulation, and I appreciate hard work like that. You’re a tough man to bring down it seems, so I’ll level the playing field a little here. Not because I like you, but because I dislike the pricks in the first three positions.”
I bet he did like us as from what I gathered, he was someone who got to the position by spilling blood and not getting it handed to him.
“I’ll add another 150 points to your team. That’s the passing minimum for the last simulation you skipped. You already passed on experience and leveling so I don’t want you to fall further behind. Consider this a favor, Sergeant. Never forget it.”
My heart pushed up into my throat. If I hadn’t known better, I’d hug the grumpy Captain right then and there. Those 150 points meant the world to us, but it was still an almost insurmountable obstacle that we had to face. At least we now had an excuse to try. I didn’t tell anything to my teammates and figured I’d let them think it was impossible to win. Often people performed better in situations where they knew they couldn’t win, but they would still try like hell without the burden of fearing failure.
My INAS flared up just like the data screen of a weapons master in the middle of a space battle. This was definitely the last simulation. Not a minute passed before a whole battalion of enemy soldiers approached our position. The mission objective was simple: destroy all enemies. But points would be awarded depending on how we did it.
“We got dozens—no, hundreds of Raintroopers incoming,” Leo said as he hunkered ahead on top of a collapsed garage.
“What else?” I asked over our INAS, listening in carefully.
“Two Ravagers, five unidentified enemy assault vehicles, and—I don’t know what those two round things are.”
“Talasars, soldier. They’re spiked balls of steel and flesh specially bred for war. Those Aloi beasts aren’t really intelligent, but they’ll come at us rolling in a ball of murder. We need to create a perimeter here. Bunker down hard.”
“Sir, yes sir.”
I calculated the number of troops and the special mobs they gave us. Raintroopers now only provided us with one point per kill and there were maybe 150 of them. The Talasar were about twenty points each, while the Ravagers gave us fifty points per kill. That was 350 points in total. If we managed to get a kill streak going we could add another 200, and if we added some fancy moves and a time bonus… Damn, the numbers still depressed me pretty hard.
I stared out at where Leo was. Since his last training exercise against Layla, he had grown more confident in his skills.
“Leo, it’s up to you to spray and pray, son. Layla, you stop the ones closer than fifty yards. Don’t tank them before they reach us. I’ll have Bucky support you.”
“Sir, yes sir,” both replied in unison.
Seconds passed as the army marched our way. It was only luck that the map had spawned the way it did, giving us great cover. The first Raintroopers passed the ridge and climbed toward our position. The very earth trembled as the horde of Aloi Hegemony soldiers approached our position.
“Leo, get ready,” I whispered through our comms. “Aaand… now.”
“Sir,” he replied and used the single batch of O-Nans on his rifle. The tiny greyish machines enveloped it from all sides and then continued to spiral toward the ground where they took root. The rifle seemed to split down the middle, creating two long barrels. Leo got down on one knee, aimed, and fired a barrage of bullets that mowed down a dozen of Raintroopers in the first line of attack.
Nanite slugs plastered the ground and soldiers alike, swirling up dust and tearing into armor and flesh in equal measure. I watched as my INAS counted the casualties, flashing rapidly. Eight. Ten. Fifteen. A message appeared on my INAS.
KILL MULTIPLIER ACTIVE:
+50% points per kill
“We have to ride that multiplier!”
The enemy Raintroopers were some one hundred yards out, and if Leo spent his turret before that, we’d lose a chance to gain a massive point bonus. On the other hand, running into this swarm of enemies was a good way to end up fifteenth on the ladder. I had to think fast.
“Layla, go in like there’s no tomorrow.” She looked at me with that “finally I’ll get to kill something” look that simmered on her face whenever we had to play it safe. “Go, now.”
“Hell yes, Boss.”
She slammed her power-fists together and activated her Berserk ability. There wasn’t any going back after this. We had to go all-in or not at all. If I managed to get my hands on that Fyre Armor, the chance of my own and their survival would skyrocket.
Layla’s nanites picked up the pace as they coursed through her bloodstream, sending her in overdrive. A red glow enveloped her as she ran, jumped, and slammed into a dozen Raintroopers with Earthquake. Several flew up in the air like rag dolls only to slam into other Raintroopers and cause a domino effect.
“Bucky! Move it!”
The golem ran out from behind cover and charged into the middle of the other flank, soaking up damage instead of her. After he leveled up several times, his health had multiplied so he was the perfect distraction. His long arms fitted with power-fists and sharp hooks slammed into the softer enemy bodies, gutting and crushing them.
Projectiles flew left and right as the enemy battalion and Leo exchanged fire. We were at over thirty linked kills and the multiplier jumped to 2.0 times, which already netted us forty points.
“We’ll get there!” I hissed under my breath, trying to stop thinking about the damned points.
I jumped out from behind cover and activated Blade Shield. I wasn’t going to get as close as Layla, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to stand back either. I took down one, two, three Raintroopers with my splinter rifle, slamming drill bullets into their heads. The mass of soldiers surrounding the Brawler and the tank was a target-rich environment so the kills came easy.
I ran in closer to a small group that separated themselves and were about to get to the building Leo was hiding in. Two blade-chains sprang to life from my chest and decapitated all five of the troopers. The Talasars were coming in dangerously close by now as we were still trying to mop up the infantry.
“Leo! Focus fire on the rolling balls of death! Don’t let them hit Layla and Bucky!”
“Yes, sir!”
A Talasar was a genetically modified beast that wa
lked on all fours but would curl up in a ball to escape predators. The Aloi modified the beasts to perpetually remain in that curled up form and use their escape mechanics for attacking. Of course, they sprinkled in armor made of blades which turned the 500-pound balls into a freaking bladed, murderous wrecking ball. My INAS couldn’t even read them; they were more weapon than soldiers.
Leo was on a roll with his sniping. Just as one of the Talasar was about to slam into Bucky, a well-placed sniper round with elemental damage blasted it off its route, and the Talasar killed two Raintroopers instead as it rolled over them. The creature remained stunned for several seconds which gave me an idea.
The Ravagers were finally there as well, going crazy to join the fray. The main reason how I noticed was that the world around me started exploding. A table-sized crater appeared not even ten paces from me as the projectile from their Silkfire barrage lay there, not even having exploded.
“Shit! This was close!” I cursed and dove behind a pillar.
“You good?” Leo called out over our comms, just as another explosion threw him out from behind cover. One of the two Ravagers made its way toward Layla, who was battling it out with a comically sized group of Raintroopers. Every blow of her power-fists echoed through the whole battlefield as it cracked another silk armor, merging the flesh beneath with the bones deep inside.
Brawlers weren’t designed to dish out damage. Instead, they were there to soak up enemy damage and control the flow of the battle. However, trained and mad Brawlers were insanely effective against low-tier units like Raintroopers, where a single hit or maybe two were enough to kill enemy infantry.
“Leo! Can you barrage the area around the stunned Talasar?”
“Sure can do, Sarge.”
Starblood: A Military Space Opera Series (War Undying Book 1) Page 8
