by Ivan Kal
He and his team were on the street that was high up on a walkway, some four hundred meters above the ground. One of the pieces of the Enlightened ships had impacted in some office building about eight hundred meters from their position. The report said that the Created had spilled out of the building and spread out a few minutes after. They didn’t even know if there was anyone alive left in the building, as the impact had taken down the building’s sensor grid.
Sahib kept his weapon trained down the street, waiting. A couple of seconds later, a group of Created rounded the corner. Sahib lined up the shot and used his imp to designate targets, then he spoke over the comms. “Fire.”
Four shots rang out: two kinetic exploding bullets, a high-intensity proton beam, and a massive tank-busting shell from Misty’s sniper rifle. Sahib’s shot hit his target in the chest, punching through inside the four-legged creature. To kill them one had to destroy the chest, where they had a single organ that powered them. His bullet exploded and blew a hole in the torso. The creature next to it fell as well, but the ones behind didn’t. They had only a split second to react—less, even—but somehow the two Created managed to raise Sha shields around themselves. Misty’s shot hit the shield and overwhelmed it instantly, but the creature had moved, and instead of losing its torso it had its leg blown off. The proton beam painted the shield of the other, but it jumped into cover immediately before the beam could punch through.
Sahib grimaced. The Created could all use Sha, but from the information they had each had only a handful of abilities, and you could never know what they were until they used them, as the Enlightened could create them with whatever powers they wanted. “Gento, you’re up,” Sahib said to their resident Sha user. Of course all of them had access to it, but Gento was the expert.
The Gatrey, standing at barely a meter and a half tall, grumbled and slotted his proton rifle on his back. Then he stilled, seemingly looking at the wall of the barrier he was hiding behind. A few moments later the two creatures stumbled out of cover, screeching and twisting their heads one way, then the other. The Gatrey’s mental screech was no joke; the fact that Gento could focus it only on the enemy showed just how powerful he really was. Two bullets later, the two creatures were down.
Sahib stood and ran over to them, checking that they were all indeed dead. He placed a small incendiary device on each of their chest and triggered it. The Created could take even their own dead and build more, so it was best to burn the bodies away. Once he gave the all clear, Gento and Bross walked over, both looking around for any further threats. Bross was a Trivaxian, short, and resembled a cross between a bear and a kangaroo with two sets of arms. Covered in armor, his fluffy fur wasn’t seen.
Sahib called Misty, and she came down from her perch in one of the surrounding buildings. Over her shoulder she carried something that only vaguely resembled a sniper rifle. It might as well be an artillery barrel, one as thick as her thigh and as long as she was tall. If she didn’t have the latest genetic and body improvements, she probably wouldn’t be able to even lift it, though of course their armor helped a great deal as well. With their team of four assembled, they continued on toward their target.
They reached the site of the crash quickly. They had to climb on top of a bridge that housed a large park in order to keep their presence hidden and have a good enough vantage point of the building. The hole in its side was still smoking, and the wreckage had spilled down on the walkway around the building. It didn’t appear as if any of the wreckage had fallen down to the ground level. Immediately, they saw movement. There were Created down there, not just those that were the same type as the ones they had just killed. Those creatures were what they had designated as dog type, four-legged scouts. Below were a couple of dozen scouts, but most were a humanoid-looking warrior type. They had two sets of arms and the bottom pair was formed into weapons with empty barrels where palms were supposed to be. The upper arms had manipulators, but on their forearms were dark brown blades that were pulled back but extendable past the hands. They were placing barricades of their own around the entrance to the building, and he saw something growing into a small tower—probably some kind of a defense system.
All of the Created had a plant-like look to them. They were mostly brown or dark green in color with their skin having a bark like texture. He saw them dragging blocks of dark green material out of the building and placing them around their defenses, and he realized that those boxes were what grew into the tower-looking things.
Sahib opened a channel to command. “Go ahead, Striker One.”
“We’ve reached the target. Enemy in the process of setting up defenses, suspected weapon platforms. Numbers in the hundreds on walkway 17, level 30. No way of knowing what’s inside from our location.”
“Any chance of you getting inside and taking a look?”
Sahib looked up the building. He could see movement in the hole, but nothing else. The building was actually well defended, and it was nearly impossible to gain access regardless other than through the four entrances. The corporation it belonged to worked on some sensitive data and wanted to protect it. Guess they’d never thought about aliens dropping down on their heads.
“Not without alerting the enemy.”
“Any sign of survivors?”
Sahib sighed. “No sign of survivors.” They already had reports from the other impact points—the Created killed everything around them efficiently and quickly as they built their forces and entrenched themselves in the city. There was little hope of anyone surviving in the building.
“Keep watch, inform us of any—”
“New contact!” Sahib broke in as he saw a commotion among the Created. “An overseer type just walked out of the building.”
He had only read about them, but they were supposed to be incredibly powerful as well as capable of intelligent thought. With them present, all the other Created would become smarter and more directed.
The moment he spoke, the overseer’s elongated head turned and six eyes fixed on him. “Fuck, I think it knows we’re here. We’ve been detected,” he said.
“Retreat. Help is on the way in—” The rest of the sentence was filled with static as the Created below started moving in their direction. Somehow they had jammed their comms.
“Move!” he said to his team. They ran through the park but already his imp told him that about a dozen scouts were behind them. They jumped over a large artificial pond and sprung over some rocks, and then Sahib turned and opened fire, his team following suit. They hit the scouts and dropped a few as their weapons broke through their shields, but behind them he saw the warrior types running at them.
“Misty, rain fire!”
She pulled her massive rifle from her back and settled it between the rocks. He heard the gears in her armor lock as she took position and aimed at the incoming throng of Created. It was far more than had been in front of the building—more had to have come from inside.
A moment later, a whirring could be heard as the large mechanism inside the rifle changed the ammunition, and then she fired. The blast shook the ground, and the Created were bathed in fire. The explosion set the trees aflame and sent earth flying in all directions. Her weapon clicked as another shell was put into place. The Created screeched as they came through the flames; the warrior types had a Sha shield in front of them, layered one over the other to make it stronger. Misty fired again, just as the rest of them fired their own weapons. The shield buckled under the onslaught, and the Created were decimated, but more came from behind them. Sahib glanced behind, seeing the end of the park and the stairs leading to the street, but he knew that going there would leave them in the open with no cover.
A discharge of some kind of arcing energy hit the boulder he was hiding behind, cracking it. Sahib glanced over and saw the warrior-type Created leaning on all six of their limbs, the horns growing from their back glowing with eerie energy. He put a bullet into its head before it could fire again. He increased the speed on his
rail gun, and every bullet he fired turned into a devastating attack. The air in its path nearly ignited, and he could feel the heat of his weapon even through the armor.
There were too many of them for just the four of them to handle. Scout types were jumping into the pond, trying to cross and get to them, and Sahib wondered if this was to be his end, after all the times he had cheated death.
But fate, it appeared, was still looking out for him. One moment the Created had nearly reached them, and the next something ripped through them all—their bodies were rent apart, their insides pulled out in a swirling maelstrom of power. Sahib blinked as he saw a person floating above the pond, wearing an armored suit that he didn’t recognize. They pointed their hand at the Created at the building as their towers opened fire on the newcomer, every shot from the Enlightened weapon platforms splashing harmlessly against their shield. A small point of light appeared in their outstretched palm, and then a moment later a blinding beam flew and hit the base of the building, rocking everything around them.
Buy the time Sahib had recovered, the person was gone, and all the Created around them were dead. The entrance to the building was one massive hole that led into its interior. He had no idea what had caused it, precisely, but he could tell that it was done by Sha.
“Dear gods,” Gento said quietly. “The battle network says that that was Battle Master Anessa.”
Sahib whistled. He had met Adrian’s wife a few times. They didn’t interact much—Shara Daim weren’t his most favorite people—but he did know that she was very powerful.
“Well, maybe one day you’ll grow up and be as good with the Sha as she is,” Bross joked.
Sahib’s comms chirped and he saw that they weren’t being jammed anymore. “Striker One, what’s your status?”
“All good, thanks for the assist.”
“Good, stay there, we are sending reinforcements. That building needs to be cleared.”
“Copy that, command.” Sahib had his people set up a perimeter around the entrance, and they settled in to wait.
CHAPTER NINE
Year 718 of the Empire — Mars
Anessa teleported from one side of the city to another, providing help where it was needed. The Enlightened in the city were wrecking everything in their way, creating chaos. Every impact point had been entrenched and turned into what could be said was a base for them. She could rip them all out, or blow entire buildings to ash, but the collateral damage of doing that would be too much. There were still people in the surrounding buildings, hunkered down and waiting for rescue. Even the buildings that the Created had taken over could have survivors, and she couldn’t take the risk of killing innocents.
She couldn’t even search for them, as every building was shielded against mental interference. While inside the Sha state she could go around it, it would take her time, and she would need to do every building individually. She couldn’t afford that distraction, and the enemy was already growing too fast. What she needed was to cut their numbers. So far she had followed instructions from the city command. They had the most up-to-date information from their sources on the ground, and it allowed her to save her energy, not waste it on searching for the enemy.
A priority comm request came through as she was firing lasers down on the Created. Gathering, focusing, amplifying, and then unleashing the surrounding light was easy when she was in the Sha state. She answered the comm as she burned through a shield of an overseer type and reduced its body to ash.
“Anessa,” the voice—she recognized it as Hayashi’s—said. “We need you in Olympus Mons. We underestimated the incursion into the complex. There are types that we haven’t seen before here. They are hunting down the diplomats and emissaries of the other races.”
Anessa cursed. She knew that this attack wasn’t meant to harm the Grand Fleet. She hadn’t felt the Enlightened who had allowed those ships to skim to the planet since then. She knew just how much power that would require; even for an Enlightened, it had to have exhausted them. They hadn’t come with the ships, but instead had pushed them forward, and that was harder. Only Adrian could interfere with the nullifying field like that, and then only with Moirai.
“I’m on my way,” she said as she set off to the sky, gaining altitude and twisting to look at Olympus Mons. She didn’t know where she could bend space to, she didn’t know the complex or where it was safe, so she decided to go back to her rooms. She bent space around her, the process lasting barely a fraction of a second. She had been training constantly with Adrian and Lurker of the Depths, enough that she could do it incredibly fast.
She appeared inside of her room, and immediately made her way to the doors. She ran out and made her way down the corridors, and then out of the area where the Sentinel families had their quarters. The part with all the foreign officials was on the other side of the mountain. She made her way to the tram and, after a few words exchanged with the guards there, she was on her way. The tram would be faster than her running, and the inside of the complex wasn’t all that conductive to flying.
The trip took her only a few minutes—the tram could travel at incredible speeds. She was met with Hayashi and his Sentinels, on one corner of the room were Hand of the Empire agents, on the other Empire army forces.
“Tomas?” she asked as she stepped off.
“Safe,” Hayashi confirmed. “We evacuated him deep below Olympus Mons once the attack in orbit began. There wasn’t time to gather the other important targets, however. Most of them had insisted on keeping their own security, and, well…”
Anessa nodded, understanding. The politics of the situation had hampered any appropriately quick reaction. “What do we know?”
“The Created started here as they had on every other impact point in the city: get their immediate area secure, then start killing and creating more of their own. We got them isolated pretty quickly, and started pushing them back toward the impact point. We thought that we had everything under control.”
Hayashi sighed. “Then they punched through our defenses. They had new type of Created we haven’t seen, Powerful Sha users that looked like spiders with bone spikes coming from their backs. The second type doesn’t seem to have any Sha abilities, but is incredibly hard to take down—they look like massive beasts with wide arms that can grow thick hide and shape it like a shield. They move in tandem, the bigger ones protecting the Sha users.”
“So, they punched through. And then?”
“Then they invaded Sector Four.”
“They had to have targeted it,” Anessa mused.
“We believe they did,” Hayashi said with a nod.
“That means that they had some kind of intel about where those people were,” Anessa added.
“We have seen no sign of a breach in our systems.”
“An Enlightened was here, and they allowed those ships to skim inside the system. We have no idea where they came from, but they had to have been close, inside Sol’s borders. And if they had been here for long enough…they could’ve used their powers to scan the entire system, find their targets.”
“Without us noticing?”
“If they had taken their time, yes. I could’ve done it. Going slowly, without disrupting the Sha. Something woke me up prior to the attack, and I think it was when they used their power to allow the ships through.”
“Should we worry about a further attack by an Enlightened?” Hayashi asked.
“I don’t think they are anywhere close to Mars. If an Enlightened comes, I will know, but I don’t think they will want to risk it. They should be able to tell that I am here now. If they come, it will be a fight between us…and if that happens, Mars might not be safe.”
“I’ve read the reports on what you can do now… You think that you can threaten the entire planet?”
“I am not very good with fine control and holding back. But if I had to fight an Enlightened… My only chance would be to try and overwhelm them quickly. The city itself, at least, would be lost.”
Hayashi shook his head. “Let’s hope that doesn’t come to pass. We can’t worry about something we can’t do anything about.”
He motioned for his people to come closer and he told her about their plan.
* * *
Even though invasion of Olympus Mons had always been deemed unlikely, it—like every other building in the Empire—was built with the idea in mind. Redundant systems, corridors that could be shut down, weapon systems in all the walls: all of this made Olympus Mons a nightmare to fight in for any invading force.
Any conventional force, that was. The defenses had already blunted the Created attack, and without them it would’ve been much worse, but the Created could afford losses. Each of their soldiers that fell only needed to be recovered, and could then be repurposed for something else. Their material could be used to make a new soldier, or to create a barricade, or to create a weapon system. It was what had made the Enlightened such a terrifying opponent, even to the People. They ate the loses of both sides and grew stronger. They needed to be destroyed utterly, or otherwise they could always recover.
And they could use the Sha. Different forms had different abilities, and each could be modified for any situation. Anessa knew all of this; she had been preparing to fight the Enlightened for a long time. When she had gained the ability to enter the Sha state, she had realized just how much power the three held—but with that came the realization that no matter how much power she had, skill and control were still important.
Now, as she was running through the wide corridors of Olympus Mons, she realized just how true that was. She had the power to kill every single one of the Created on Mars. She could pull on the Sha that was inside the walls of the complex and make the entire mountain implode in on itself. If she was above it, she could fire a beam of antimatter annihilation that would reduce the mountain to ash. She had a hundred ways of wiping them out, but none that would allow the innocent people inside to survive. She couldn’t target only the enemy.
