A high-pitched scream came from overhead as he fired off a barrage, raining down death on the weak enemy soldiers. Another nine Raintroopers went to see their make-believe god as projectiles swarmed the area around the Talasar. I ran toward it as quickly as I could, keeping Buzzard near me for support as I did what I hadn’t in a while.
I put my hand on the stunned Talasar and focused. Even this rather primitive weapon had a computer chip in it. The Aloi were a highly advanced amalgamation of races, but they weren’t quite as developed as the Ka. I used my interfacing ability to get into the mind of the Talasar and wreak havoc inside.
Luckily, the simulation assigned it a mere rank one encryption. Easy stuff. At rank one, the Aloi would use simple tubular code to protect their gear. Nobody in their right mind would stop a Talasar to reprogram it mid-battle. Lucky for us, I was far from being in the right mind after a week of force-juice.
Bullets dinged off my armor and Buzzard as he strafed from side to side, soaking up damage for me. The Talasar was finally under my control. I ran back to safety while spraying the enemy Ravager with bullets to draw its attention off Layla. Buzzard joined the bullets and discharged two times in quick succession as I focused on the Talasar.
“Here goes,” I muttered as I pushed all of its abilities to the max and the metallic beast-ball started rotating again, faster and faster until vapor came hissing out of it. I focused on the Ravager that was trying to gut Buzzard and finally sent the Talasar at it.
The beast slammed into the unsuspecting Ravager just as the spider construct snapped for Layla. The collision was beyond brutal as the bladed ball tore out all three legs on the Ravager’s right side, steamrolled over a dozen more Rainroopers, and then rolled back to slam into the Ravager’s armor. The Talasar, catapulted by its velocity over the Ravager, steamrolled over several more Raintroopers and crashed into the second Talasar. The metallic bang of the two steel beasts reverberated throughout the battlefield, rattling our teeth as the two of them exploded and took the Ravager with them.
GLORY KILL!
+100 Points
“Hell yeah, Sarge!” Layla screamed into the INAS as she watched the whole shebang from the front row. Invigorated by the turn of events, Layla jumped to the heavily battered second Ravager and slammed her fists into its face with a critical, downing the bearlike head straight into the ground where Bucky took up the beating.
“Sir, I think we got this,” Leo dared to say, realizing that this last simulation had become the very pinnacle of our training. Well, we had just as much luck as knowledge and the will to win, but the progress was clearly visible. The constant pressure, the training simulations, the infighting, and the week on force-juice had turned our squad into a force to be reckoned with. At least among the weakling squads on this ship. We were no underdogs at this point; instead, we became the favorites to win this whole damn thing.
We repeated the same procedure on the next batch. The second Ravager came down with another Talasar-controlled attack. I used the last two of them to fight each other while Layla, Leo, Bucky, and Buzzard mopped up the rest of the Raintroopers. Not a single kill came outside the multiplier, and while I stopped counting our points, I was pretty sure we hit those 600 and then some. As the last of the Raintroopers bit the dust, I could already feel the power and, I might add, the comfort of my new Fyre armor.
I sent a nanite splinter into the last Raintrooper and felt the simulation around me die out. We were done with our last simulation, and though there was no questioning the joy I felt, the backlash of the last few weeks, months even, came crashing down on me. I fell to one knee and Layla rushed to pick me up.
“Feeling a bit tired there, ol’ champ?” Tailor asked as Detera disappeared and the ship’s interior returned. Or rather the lack thereof. Only barren walls remained.
“How many?”
“Why don’t you check your INAS and see for yourself?”
SIMULATION #2391 CLEARED
Battle Statistics:
157 CONFIRMED KILLS: 300 points
CHAIN KILL MULTIPLIER 2x: 300 points
GLORY KILL: 100 points
BONUS TACTICS: 25 points
21 REMAINING MINUTES: 63 points
TOTAL: 788 points
Holy shit! Now that wasn’t something I expected to see, not even close! Sure, I hoped for 600 points, but nearly 800? My enthusiasm shook me a bit and I stopped myself. Don’t expect good things to happen in the military, think of your own rules, damn you!
I hesitated to check the rankings. If the first ranked team even got 389 points, we would still end up second. The second would be good, but not Fyre-armor good. I was so caught up in the idea of getting first place that I didn’t even check the rewards for the next rank. I clenched my teeth and checked the rankings:
Battle Rankings:
Squad 88:
Sergeant Richard Stavos
Private Layla Alexeyeva
Private Leo Madrigo
GRADE: S
GRADE POINTS: 2003
OVERALL RANK: 1 / 11,230
“We’re first,” I whispered. I was happy no doubt about it, happier than I was in years, but I was so exhausted that I wasn’t even able to get to my feet. Then I felt my body give out and the world around me turned black.
I woke up in my quarters sometime later, fourteen hours to be precise. Turned out that I had fainted and they carried me to sickbay where I was pumped full with fresh H-Nan and was then put to bed. Leo and Layla took it on themselves to carry me, which was very... sweet? I couldn’t deny it, but I would never ever admit it. Every cell in my body hurt as I got up but that wasn’t going to stop me from getting into my Fyre armor.
Just as I opened the door, I found Layla and Leo standing there in the hallway.
“How’s it hanging, Sarge?” Layla asked. “You sure are one tough—”
Leo slapped Layla on the back of her head.
“Don’t talk to the sergeant like that, you redneck.”
“Sorry, Sarge,” she muttered and looked away. “They said you burned all of your Nans to get that thing to move the way it did and kill the Ravager.”
I shrugged and let out a deep sigh.
“You know, Sarge,” Leo went on. “That stuff in the simulation, that was some serious battle. Everyone watched the replay; it’s all everyone talks about now. I even heard Colonel Winters say it was impressive.”
“Winters, huh? That old son of a bitch. I couldn’t care less what he thought.” I had little respect for the man. Still, I couldn’t say it wasn’t flattering, but all the compliments could take a backseat to my real desires. “Fyre armor,” I said like a caveman.
“That’s why we’re here, boss. We didn’t want to pick up our rewards till you got back up on your feet so we could do it together. We’re late for the ceremony, though. Some fourteen hours late to be precise but our gear is waiting for us in engineering.”
I nodded again and a smile escaped my lips. Fuck it, even I got to be happy every once in a while.
Lilian was already waiting for us in her white coat when the door to engineering opened. The grin on her face told me she was more than happy to see us there.
“Squad 88. And Sergeant. It’s so nice to see you.”
“Lilian,” I said in greeting but motioned with my eyes to my side where the other two stood. She took up on the hint and nodded discreetly. I didn’t want Leo and Layla to sense there was anything between the two of us. At least not yet.
“What a spectacle you offered to us all,” she went on. “I was quite surprised to see someone so adept at hacking enemy functions while under enemy fire.”
“That’s what Squad 88 is all about, baby,” Leo blurted. I smacked him on the head.
“That’s not how you talk to an officer, you dimwit.”
“Oh, sorry, sir—and ma’am.”
“It’s fine, Private. I suppose you want to inspect your new gear?”
I did my best to try and stay cool, but a smile escaped my lips. I felt like
a child whose mom just told him to open his birthday presents.
Behind a glass door in a tubular vat, my Fyre armor hung suspended in midair. It was a metallic-black, light, power armor with gold-green streaks along the chest, legs, and arms. In the middle of the chest, the Technomancer insignia shone proudly, a black hand on a white background. The fingers separated into dozens of cubes representing the marriage of nanite and human within the core of every Technomancer.
I reached for it but stopped, unsure if I was ready to take it. Many a good memory bound me to such an armor, but it wasn’t something you could discard just like that. Still, I decided to go through when I felt three pairs of eyes stare at my back. I picked it up and felt a surge of power as the suit made contact with me. I pulled it closer to me, just before the nanites flooded over my body like a tidal wave, enveloping every single inch of my body.
You don’t put on a Fyre armor as much as you merge with it. The armor itself increased the capacity of your nanites significantly, it added to your strength, constitution, and agility while also obviously increasing defense.
Back in the day, I was a Tier 4 Technomancer when I got to lay my hands on my first Fyre suit, so the spike in power wasn’t as significant as now with my being Tier 3.
I turned on my INAS and inspected my first real piece of tech.
“By the Ka, this just feels like heaven,” I whispered as countless nanites started swirling around me. I was so caught up in my stats and armor that I hadn’t noticed a giant sizzling Warhammer swinging around me. Layla’s new weapon. She gently swung it left and right, staring at it with her big green eyes in fascination. Another kid with their new toy and this toy was really something. A Warhammer of this quality was a rarity even among high-tier Brawlers. The two-handed weapon constantly crackled with static electricity as the nanites integrated within its alloy swirled and shifted.
I could only imagine how she would wield that giant thing when the situation called for it. I wouldn’t want to be in the shoes of the first enemy soldier she tried it on, that was sure. I turned to Leo, and as expected, my Commando received a new rifle he was inspecting. An Elemental rifle wasn’t as uncommon as Layla’s Warhammer but it was still extremely expensive. It allowed the user to imbue the projectiles with a concoction of chemicals that superheated the bullets, which made firing the weapon look like you were sending fire and storm at the enemy.
“Those are some damn nice weapons you two got,” I said cheerfully. Sure, I hadn’t received a new weapon, well, not for free anyway. A Technomancer needed his armor more than a weapon, though. At least if they worked in teams.
We toyed around with our new gear for several minutes while Lilian patiently watched from behind her desk. We were beyond thrilled to get our hands on these babies, and I could already see us ravaging the enemy.
Getting back to the others, they were going to need some new armor as well, but I’d have to give preference to Layla over Leo regarding that matter. Stuck on that thought, I first checked my familiars.
They, too, had grown in power. The higher you were ranked within your class-specific tier, the greater your nanite capacity would become. With an increase in the number of nanites, the bots would become more resilient as the net of nanites woven into their structure became thicker.
“I gotta say that this is beyond what I could have imagined,” I said, then whistled. “All you guys need now is class-specialty armor. The ones we’ll get once we make landfall aren’t that bad, but it’s a far cry from what we want.”
“So what now, Sarge? Do we get some time off?” Leo smirked as he stared in between me and Lilian. The little bastard must have caught up to something. I’d have to be careful around that one.
“Yeah. We gotta celebrate first. See, I got another bottle of Black Reindeer in my room. How about you guys go to the same cantina as last time? We can have a drink and celebrate.”
“Hah! That’s what I’m talking about!” Layla laughed. “You take your time, sir.”
“Yeah, I just need her to help fine-tune some things. I’ll be there in…a bit.”
“Oh, I bet she’ll be fine-tuning you just great, Boss,” Leo chuckled and then caught himself. I cut him down with a stare, which only served to get them out of the room much quicker.
“You take your time, Sarge. We’re not running anywhere,” Layla added hurriedly as she pushed him out. “I’ll make sure Leo gets a lesson in good manners in the meantime.”
The door closed behind them and plunged the room in silence. Lilian pulled out a remote control type of device and pressed a series of buttons and stared at the door. Some kind of whirring followed and I knew she’d just locked the door. I looked up at the cameras, but none of them were working.
“So, you wanted to fine-tune that armor now, Sergeant?”
“You know I do,” I replied with a smirk of my own.
“Well then, why so shy? How about you get it off? I can get ready in the meantime.”
I was surely going to enjoy this… tuning job to my best extent. Now, who was it that said things didn’t come in pairs?
7
“We know no fear!” the captain’s voice boomed in the spacious cargo hold.
“We know no fear!” a little over a thousand terrified faces repeated. The hull of Knez’un shook as its gargantuan shields absorbed another house-sized projectile from an Aloi Crusader-class battleship. Or at least that’s what I thought was going on. After the initial info dump we got from the upper echelon, everything became eerily quiet.
“This galaxy belongs to us! We are its shield and we are its sword! We know no fear!”
“We know no fear!”
He looked around ceremoniously, nodding at several officers and beaming proudly at the soldiers. We all knew it was all an act, but everyone tried to show as if it meant something to us that he was addressing this sorry heap of meat in such a time.
“Load up, as it’s time to bite the bullet!”
Skull Company, which were several thousand soldiers made up of a little less than one hundred squads including Squad 88, entered the womb of the dropships that would carry us to Alpha Station. It may have sounded simple enough, but the fact that hardened sergeants literally shook with fear as they locked into their seats told a different story.
Carrier 8 was unloading from Knez’un and from Carrier 8 another hundred dropships would land on Alpha Station. What complicated this fairly simple procedure was the fact that an entire Aloi Armada was battling it out with Ares 3, one of the largest Federation fleets. The battle was taking place right between us and the station.
I made sure the stabilization gel enveloped Leo and Layla properly so they wouldn’t get crushed before landing, and then I sat into the seat across from them and grinned wickedly. It was better to try and change their expressions, which weren’t quite to my liking. Fear, terror, anticipation, existential questions, and many other things were written all across their faces. I couldn’t blame them, though. I had some messed-up drops in the past, but this was total insanity on another scale.
The shields of Knez’un shook again. Arcs weren’t, they were mostly just asteroid-sized transport ships with minimal defenses. The Aloi knew that so they kept taking shots as a few more broadside barrages from their Crusaders, and Knez’un with its millions of soldiers, support staff, and all kinds of passengers would go down into the tombs of history.
These kinds of drops were called panic drops. The officers knew it but wouldn’t tell the soldiers. The soldiers knew it because the officers were obviously panicking. Everyone pretended it was a regular situation, yet everyone was still scared shitless.
“We know no fear!” Captain Tailor repeated over the INAS, just as the g-force was taking over, telling me we had already left the docking bay of our mothership. No one spoke, all that we could hear were several screams into the INAS. A few sobs and some soldiers crying for their mothers.
CARRIER 6 DETACHED
CARRIER 7 DETACHED
CARR
IER 8 DETACHED
CARRIER 9… FAILURE TO DETACH
The notification on our INAS was accompanied by a serene female voice announcing the progress against a backdrop of screams and tears. The dropship provided minimal info about the war outside as there were no info-screens, no updates on the raging war, and no nothing. INAS was your bread and butter when it came to information, but they filtered everything to reduce panic.
We sat in what was a barely lit room with over 250 men and women who were locked in place by stabilization-gel. Only our heads could move to an extent, which was more than enough for me to check the INAS.
I winced as everything shook yet again. Our carrier could possibly survive maybe two or three hits from an Aloi torpedo. Maybe even a single barrage of its retribution cannons, but that was it before we became space dust. Right now, we were meatballs in a cardboard box falling from the sky while knives rained around us.
I couldn’t help myself as I had to know. I turned on my INAS to check on the battle. If I had to die, I would at least like to know how and why. That’s what I told myself. In truth, I needed the distraction, while in even more truth, I hoped Leo was praying for us.
The Aloi Armada had attacked Alpha Station four days ago in a surprise maneuver. They used this in combination with planet-wide drops on Detera to wrestle free the control as quickly as possible. Their goal wasn’t to destroy the station but to keep the Federation from sending in reinforcements. The plan had worked for a while. All around the super-planet, Federation strongholds cracked under combined Aloi attacks. It was a blitzkrieg in its purest form. The Aloi Hegemony was overwhelming the Commonwealth Federation in one extraordinarily quick offensive with sheer numbers.
The skies above Detera were aflame. More than six hundred Crusader battleships in combination with ten Martyr-class mobile battle stations and uncountable fighters and bombers rained into Federation space surrounding Detera. Ares 3, though just as powerful in its own right, was caught unprepared. The Commonwealth Federation fleet lost a hundred Star Eater-class battleships on the first day of battle.
Starblood: A Military Space Opera Series (War Undying Book 1) Page 9
