Starblood: A Military Space Opera Series (War Undying Book 1)

by N. D. Redding

  “Well, you better ask Private Neumann here,” he replied and turned toward a young man. “He’s been coordinating the Technomancers as the Aloi have been jamming us since we hunkered down in here.”

  Coordinating the Techomancers? That had been my job, though truth be told, I hadn’t been trying to do much coordination on the last day of running for my life.

  “Private Neumann, I think you know Sergeant Stavos,” Masin said, pushing the young Technomancer forward. He was a good ten years younger than me with frizzy hair, and dust and dirt sticking to his face. His Tier 4 was pretty impressive, and I bet he was close to getting his first Fyre Armor. I knew him just as well as any other Technomancer in the Company, which meant not very well.

  “It’s an honor to finally meet you in person, Sergeant Stavos,” the man snapped and saluted me. An honor? I never heard anyone use that phrase in combination with my name.

  “Why is it an honor, Neumann?” The question struck him by surprise. Before he answered, a Talasar broke through the artillery fire and rammed itself into the temple. A group of Warwalkers and Brawlers immediately jumped the rolling death-ball and beat it into submission before it could roll around causing more chaos. Luckily no one was hurt.

  “Forget I asked,” I said and stared at my INAS after we joined the platoon. “Your O-Nan status is below 35%. How long can you defend this position without new supplies?”

  He calculated for a moment and then nodded weakly. “Two? Maybe three more hours at the rate they’re coming for us. The Farseers have done the brunt of defending but they’re running short on drones. We picked up with our Blade Shields as you taught us during landing. That was some maneuver, sir. Where did you learn that?”

  “I made it up sixty seconds before I jumped out of that dropship. Learn to think on your feet, kid. Don’t forget that you’re a Technomancer with limitless ways of using your nanites.”

  Neumann’s eyes lit up as if he’d gotten an epiphany.

  “Will do, sir.”

  I turned to Sergeant Mavis with a rather unpleasant request.

  “Sergeant, I have more bad news for you. I need your Technomancers.”

  “Like hell you do, Stavos! How many?”

  “All of them,” I replied with a stern look. My eyes were cold as steel, and he knew that I wasn’t fucking around for no reason. Mavis shook his head as if he hadn’t heard right but smiled and asked the same question again.

  “No, seriously, how many? I need to know so we can work around—”

  “All of them, Sergeant Mavis. If we want to get out of here alive, I’ll need a dozen more. I have a plan to disrupt the enemy defense lines and let Qualt into the mine, but I can’t do it alone.”

  “Stavos, you may as well kill us here and now! If we let our Technomancers go, we’re sitting ducks and will be dead within the hour! Think of something else, man.”

  “I already have,” I said, expecting that answer. “Where’s the closest comms jammer?”

  “There’s one not far east of here. Why? What do you plan on doing?”

  “I’ll get us the supplies we all need.”

  “They’ll never send a supply drop into this hellhole, Stavos. The damned sky is on fire!”

  “I’ll take care of that, Sergeant. Do we have a deal?”

  Mavis grunted and muttered something before he turned around.

  “Millwall, how are we on ammo?”

  The Commando that was taking cover behind a window shot Mavis a death stare.

  “Sarge, I have 5% cells worth of nanite ammo, and that’s courtesy of a Technomancer. The rest are slugs and I’ll be out of those by noon. Can’t imagine the others have more unless they sat on their—motherfucker!” Millwall screamed as a round of white projectiles rammed into the frame of the window and showered him in debris.

  “Mavis, you’ll have the supplies by noon. You’ll see.”

  I had no grounds for such certainty and no reason to promise anything, let alone guarantee it. I was breaking my own damn rule and Mavis knew I just promised him a black-winged white unicorn with a rainbow horn, but we really needed one to get out of this situation.

  “Fine, you get the unicorn—I mean supplies. I’ll give you your Technomancers under one condition, though. You have to leave your Commando and your Brawler with us. We need every hand we can get around here and those two look barely dented. Just look at them! He has a bloody elemental rifle and your Brawler—” He turned to Layla and decided on not saying anything. There was nothing to explain, Layla was Layla, everyone in the Company knew Layla Alexeyeva was one mean war machine. The two of them looked at me expectantly.

  “Ok, you got it,” I said and eyed the two.

  “Sarge, come on. You can’t consider going out there alone. Let me go with you and have Layla stay,” Leo protested.

  “Hey, you flap-mothed giglet! You don’t get to decide for me!” she snapped.

  “What’s a flap-mothed—” he tried to ask but was cut off by her again.

  “I decide for myself and I say I go with the sergeant!” she snapped at him. “Someone needs to protect his delicate… bone structure.”

  “Layla, you’re staying here,” I said calmly but firmly. Our eyes met and I almost imagined her thinking I was about to betray her, but it had to be done.

  “Sarge, this is insane! You could run into a Templar party out there! You need us! Please, reconsider,” Leo said.

  “Ah, leave the boss alone. The sergeant is the only one who bested me around here, so if anyone can do it, he can,” she muttered.

  “Bested you twice,” Leo added and stuck his tongue out, to which Layla gave him the stink eye. I appreciated their concern and I honestly wanted them to come with us, not only because traveling alone through the Sardok Mine was dangerous, but because I was afraid of what I’d find once I returned. If I managed to return at all.

  Chatting time was over, however, and I made it known by snapping my fingers once.

  “Stay, follow orders, and show them why you’re at the top of your class. I’m placing you under Ginsk until I’m back.”

  My words were met with several other stink-eyes and mutters as no one wanted to hear they weren’t as good or better as the others in their class, but they really were top of the line. What’s more, they had grown on each other, which meant that Ginsk would give his life to protect them. The damn man was like Santa if Santa wore two Nas-axes steeped in the blood of Krampus.

  I left the base the same way I entered: through the hole in the holy wall. Beast and a fresh new Bucky walked after me while Buzzard hovered to my side. It was too dangerous to send him scouting before I left the vicinity of gunfire as a stray round could disable him.

  Mavis marked my INAS map with the location of the comms jammer. Ever since we landed, all we got was garbled stuff and trickles of radar info. This was the drill with all mines and usually, when a competent officer planned the mission, the comms jammer stations were some of the first objectives. We could communicate within the mine over our INAS but the distance was reduced to several dozen yards. If I could sabotage the jammer, I could call for a supply drop at our location. How those supplies would come through enemy fire, well, that was a problem for future Richard Stavos. We had to take it one life-threatening thing at a time, they said.

  I made my way toward the station, avoiding the enemy, and managed to come rather close to the station without anyone getting wind of me. It wasn’t easy to be stealthy with a 300-pound tank bot tagging along but Bucky did well and so did Beast. I finally sent out Buzzard to scan the area around the station. The building was small and propped on a small elevation that was surrounded by living quarters. It had no visible antennae that I could target, so I knew I had to enter the station and use my hacking skills to break through the Aloi code.

  “What’s the situation?” I asked more to myself than my drone. He would do what I wanted him to, but it was an old habit that died hard.

  Buzzard’s scans showed me a dozen Raintroop
ers guarding the place. No problem. Beast alone could take them on, but I had to keep noise to a minimum. I could fight dozens of Raintroopers but I wasn’t ready to take on Ravagers, or life forbid, something even bigger.

  My O-Nan cells were full, courtesy of my Technomancer friends from the temple. They all chipped in, some more willingly than others, but they trusted me, and I would have to prove them right.

  Buzzard got in as close as possible. If I could get into the security network from afar, I could block the jammer without firing a bullet. There was an access point at the entrance where four Raintroopers stood with rifles in hands. That complicated things. I had to end them before I could send in Buzzard to connect with the network. Bullets it is, I thought and recalled Buzzard for the time being as I slowly made my way up to the station. I climbed the roof of one of the houses awaiting Buzzard’s return when a projectile hit my familiar, almost plucking it from the air. Damn bastards managed to scan him somehow, for there was no way they’d see him with the naked eye so easily.

  Changing my approach at the last moment, I jumped off the roof and into the main street leading up to the station. I turned on my Blade Shield as Buzzard flew up into the sky so he could give me a better view of the position.

  Bucky stayed close by and in front of me, but I didn’t turn on the Vibro-Shield just yet. Beast stayed close behind as it didn’t matter if I was in the way. He towered over me by at least three feet with the barrels of his miniguns already spinning but not spewing any fire yet.

  A part of me was glad that my stealth mission failed as I wanted to see Aloi blood flow through the Sardok Mine in rivers. A part of me was burning with the desire to punish those soulless monsters that would enslave a Technomancer’s mind, and that part was now in full control.

  Raintroopers streamed down from the station and ran right toward me as more joined in from the sides.

  “You called and I answered!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. “You wanted a Technomancer’s soul? Here’s a Technomancer’s vengeance!”

  I spread one hand toward Bucky, sending thirty cells worth of O-Nans toward him. The nanites enveloped him, streaming around his metallic body like a swarm of mosquitoes. I concentrated on increasing the nanite’s velocity until he was close enough to the group rushing to meet us. Bucky charged them in turn and slammed into the squad of Raintroopers. Instead of stopping, he mowed through them, cutting their legs at the knees, and kept on charging.

  The Raintroopers that managed to evade his charge now attacked the bot, but I moved the nanites around like flying blades, cutting into them with ease. Numerous damage notifications flashed by in front of me but I swapped them all aside and cut into the enemy.

  Power. It was finally there again, just like during my previous life, though not quite as strong. The dangerous allure of the Technomancer class was filling me up with something that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to resist. No, it was time for the Aloi to feel what the Federation scientists said they could hardly feel: fear.

  The remaining Raintroopers lunged back and spread out around Bucky, fearing for their lives. They packed their spears and started firing at him, going so far as to avoid me. Beast’s miniguns finally started spewing fire as Bucky fled around the corner, waiting it out as a hailstorm of bullets cut through the Aloi.

  More Raintroopers started swarming in from all sides as alarms blared like crazy. The weak infantry was no match for me anymore, especially since my Blade Shield had been beefed up with a higher O-nan capacity. I was practically invincible to their pathetic projectiles and didn’t even receive a single shot but for a salvo that hit me from behind, doing little to no damage.

  Just as I expected, Ravagers came into the mix sending down their Silkfire barrages on my position, but I was ready for them. Bucky now lay on his back on top of Beast and had his Vibro-Shield activated horizontally. The hits were still very powerful and they rocked both familiars, but it bought me enough time to use 5% O-Nan cells to spike the two disgusting spiders that sped through the ground and impale them. I was down to about 85% O-Nans but three squads of Raintroopers and two Ravagers were dead.

  I had a moment of respite, so I ran up to the station and hooked up to the access terminal at the front door. I didn’t need to enter the building, all I needed was a connection to their security network.

  More Raintroopers, and now even Zealots, streamed in from the alleys and roofs of the housing quarters. I kept Bucky and Beast on guard mode to protect me while I interfaced with the access point. I used 10% O-Nan cells straight away to make it as short as possible. There were several octangular Aloi firewalls blocking access to the comms jammer, but it was just a matter of time before I broke those. An octangular firewall was seeded with false pathways and it took me a while to eliminate the false positives, all while trusting my familiars and their armaments to keep me safe.

  When I made it through, I immediately hailed Captain Tailor. The thing with blocking a jammer is that it’s not a permanent victory. The Aloi would cover holes in their network quickly so I had to be concise. Luckily, I had a direct way of contacting the captain, so I used it to my benefit.

  “Captain, this is Sergeant Richard Stavos of Skull Company’s Squad 88. I request support drops within one hour at this location. Please respond.”

  “Captain Tailor here. Nice to hear from you, Stavos. Give me an update.”

  “No can do, Captain, I’m under fire as I speak. Please confirm a supply drop in one hour at this location.”

  “We can drop the supplies, Stavos, but they’ll never reach the ground.”

  “Sir, please do as I say, I got it covered.”

  I bit my lip after saying those last words. That wasn’t how you should talk to a superior, but the adrenaline and pressure of the situation called for it and the captain knew it.

  “You got it, Stavos. You should also know that the battle outside the Sardok Mine isn’t going great. We managed to establish orbital superiority so if you can contact us again later, we’ll be able to drop but don’t expect ground reinforcements anytime soon.”

  “Roger that, Captain. Do you have any information on—” and that was all I managed to ask before the Aloi managed to cover their blind spot within the security network and shut me out. Fuck it, I thought. I did what I came for and now all that was left was to return to our base and hope the other Technomancers had enough cells to unravel the second part of my devilish plan to get our hands on new supplies. I turned around and my INAS flared up with a big-ass red dot.

  WARNING!

  ALOI TEMPLAR DETECTED.

  If you see a Templar and you had no support, it was best to run. Then the second part of that equation came into play. What if you didn’t have anywhere to run to? The only way was to go through that damn Templar. All around me Aloi forces closed in on my position. I was positively surrounded, and in front of me in the middle of the damn street, the Templar stood in full fucking Doomguard Armor with two swords in his hands. Each of the blades were as tall as I was.

  Raintroopers and Ravagers alike stood to both sides of the monstrosity with their heads bowed. It seemed as though they wouldn’t be taking part in this battle but remained there so I wouldn’t run. Was this something personal? Or just another one of those ritualistic things the Aloi did. Who knew? I sure as hell didn’t, and to be honest, I cared even less.

  “Doomguard armor? You’re an old one,” I muttered. “Just how many of us have you killed ever since coming to this place?”

  The Templar looked at me and frowned, or at least gave me something that could pass for a frown. At that damn moment, I felt as if an army stood between me and salvation. The Templars on Alpha Station had been incomparably weaker than this one. He seemed to be a commander of a sort or an exalted warrior since his Doomguard armor was streaked with religious decorations and reinforced with pekta materials. It was made from the same damn stuff they used on their spaceships.

  I took in a deep breath and checked my nanites. I was down to 75%
O-Nans while my H-Nans hovered in the green. All three of my bots were alive and almost unscathed. Fine, I thought as my teeth ground against each other. If I’m supposed to go out in this very place, then I’m going out with a big fucking bang!

  17

  The sun reflected off the Templar’s white-gold Doomguard armor. On his giant metallic chest proudly shone the Aloi Hegemony insignia: a gold triangle on a blue background. It was a symbol that represented the merging of the two major Aloi races with the rest of its subraces. I could never even begin to imagine what life was like as a subspecies within the Hegemony, but I assumed it was as close to a living hell as anything else in the universe.

  The Templar before me was no subspecies. He was Cantari, at least in stature because one never knew how much of a mix of genes any Aloi was. It was no secret that they bred abominations of all kinds and this was the best example. The Templar was eight feet tall, weighed at least 2,000 pounds, and it extruded white vapor from its helmet like a mad bull on a rainy day.

  The Templar was the Hegemony’s answer to the Technomancer in a way. It was the antithesis of everything we were. We had summons; they fought alone. We brought death from afar; they stuck it up their enemies’ noses. We used our intelligence; they used brute force. We fought to stay alive while they fought to kill.

  The sun hung high in the sky, telling me it was almost noon. That’s when the supplies would land in the temple, and if I wasn’t there, all they’d catch would be burned debris. I would betray Mavis’ trust. I would jeopardize all the lives in the temple, not to speak of Leo and Layla… Bah, I had to snap out of it. What good would guilt do me if I was dead? I had to focus on the Templar. He alone was my world now, and what a world he was. Every hair stood ramrod straight on my back.

  My splinter cannon rose from my forearm and the Blade Shield came alive, whizzing around me. The familiars were ready to wage war, but deep within, I was far from ready. It was one thing fighting a Templar together with a group, but it was a whole other situation to fight a much stronger Templar by myself, even though I was a powerhouse right now.