by Chris Fox
“All right, people,” Aran called, turning to face the company. He hoped for a sudden surge of confidence, some sign that his old self had been a leader. There was nothing. If he was going to do this, it was on his own merits. Aran took a deep breath and mustered his confidence, trying to adopt an air of command. “Get geared up and ready to deploy.”
“We’re already gearing up.” Kez stuck her tongue out at him. “Uh, sir,” she added, as Crewes loomed over her.
“Well, uh, gear up harder.” Aran couldn’t help but laugh.
“You’re not helping, sir.” Crewes said, hovering like a disapproving hen over a wayward chick.
Aran sketched the sigil for void over the chest of his new armor. It turned translucent, and he slid inside. The armor solidified much more quickly than his previous suit, and was more comfortable. Instead of sweaty leather, he was encased in something that molded itself to his body. It felt rubbery, and warm.
The heads-up display was similar, but with five canisters instead of the three he was used to. There was also a golden icon on the far side for something called spell amplification.
Aran took an experimental step, which turned into a gliding hop. The armor was more responsive, but required a much greater degree of control. He zoomed awkwardly to a halt, trying to get his balance.
“This is our fearless leader?” Bord said over the comm. “Nara, tell me you’re not going to fall for this idiot.”
“Cut the chatter,” Crewes snapped. “We’re a military outfit, not a bunch of gods-damned kids.”
“Yes, sir,” Bord said, only a little sullenly. Then, under his breath: “I’m healing that bastard last.”
Aran turned the armor to face the planet. They had descended into the wall of white clouds; whorls of grey and black whizzed by. Finally, they broke the cloud cover. Below lay an enormous mountain range, part of a crater that stretched for hundreds of kilometers.
Terraced buildings covered the mountains on the southeastern slopes, enough buildings that it had to be the capital. A few skyscrapers poked up like weeds, but almost all the structures were built into the mountainside. A series of gondolas connected them, cars slowly rotating on a track to carry passengers from level to level.
Beyond the buildings lay a swamp, with clusters of tall trees dotting the water. Low mist hung between them, growing thicker then vanishing into a wall of white.
“Why do I get the feeling the Krox are going to make us go in there,” Aran said, sighing.
“Guess you should have taken Kazon’s offer.” Nara laughed.
“I will literally kill you people,” Crewes rumbled. “Sir. It’s not that hard. He’s an officer. You’re in the military. Seriously, how hard is it?”
The Hunter continued to shed altitude, slowing as she approached a starport where several Ternus cruisers were already berthed and moved smoothly into a berth on the far side of the station. The ship shuddered for a moment as she came to rest against the station’s gravity harness.
“All personnel, this is Major Voria.” The major’s voice rang through every corridor of the ship. “Prepare for deployment. Apparently, the governor wants us to conduct a little demonstration, to raise morale. I’ll be down in Bay Three in ten minutes.”
“All right people,” Aran boomed, this time not needing to feign the confidence. “You heard the Major. Let’s do her proud.”
41
Totally Not A Trap
Voria marched at the head of a column of infantry that snaked all the way back to the Hunter. Davidson marched two steps behind her, and behind him came the gleaming hovertanks Kazon’s rescue had purchased from the Inuran Consortium.
Aran and Nara zoomed by overhead, using their gravity magic to great effect. Both had improved noticeably as pilots, and each flew with a conscious awareness of where the other was. That teamwork would save lives. It was too soon to tell how Aran would adapt to his new role, but she remained cautiously optimistic.
Sergeant Crewes trotted underneath them, Kezia and Bord flanking him on either side. They kept back a bit, using Aran and Nara to scout as they would in a combat situation.
A hovertank glided quietly up next to her, the pulsors making a low whum, whum.
“Is that a Mark XI?” Davidson asked, gawking up at Aran from the tank’s turret.
“Indeed it is. A present from a powerful backer,” Voria said, knowing Davidson could connect the dots.
Ahead lay a broad thoroughfare that sloped gently down, finally disappearing into the swamp where it met the crater floor. It provided them a spectacular view of the swamp, but it also provided the swamp a spectacular view of them. Enemy snipers could wreak havoc on them out here.
Voria quickened her step, forcing the rest of the battalion do the same. She didn’t like being so exposed.
Their destination lay at the end of the thoroughfare, which emptied into a coliseum full of civilians. Voria frowned. This was a total security nightmare, and one she had no control over.
The odds of an attack at this exact moment were slim—unless the enemy had spies here. But then, that was a near certainty, which meant even now the enemy was learning the Confederate troop movements.
A cluster of officials stood near a stairwell leading into the coliseum. Voria immediately recognized the salt and pepper haired man in the center. She schooled her features, trying to suppress her distaste for Avitus.
“Ahh, Major,” boomed the governor, dignified in the simple business suit worn by most Ternus officials. His hair was slicked back, untouched by the stiff breeze. “Please, if you’ll follow me. I was hoping you might address my people.”
“Governor, I must protest. You should dismiss these people at once. This is an unnecessary risk.” Voria tried to be respectful, but hoped he picked up the steel in her voice.
“You’re already here. What’s the harm in a short ceremony?” He smiled warmly at her. “Please. I know we didn’t begin well, but I’m hoping to repair my mistakes. You’ve come to protect us. The people revere the Confederate Marines, and many have heard of your exploits at Vakera and Starn. Just give them something to cling to.”
“Very well,” Voria said, stalking past him and down a narrow stairwell that emptied onto a wide stage. All eyes were on her as walked slowly to the center. The moment she reached it, a simple cantrip activated, amplifying her voice.
“Citizens of Marid, my name is Major Voria, and I’ve brought a battalion of Confederate Marines to help aid you against the Krox.” Voria was forced to pause as an explosion of applause washed over her. She waited several moments, raising a hand to calm them. “Please…please…”
Eventually they quieted, and Voria continued.
“We will do everything we can to protect you, but understand that the Krox greatly outnumber us. You are all in terrible danger, and the safest thing you can do is return to your homes. Avoid going out. If you have scouts, or anybody with a good set of eyes, have them watch the swamp. The Krox will come for you sooner or later, and sooner is my guess. I don’t know how much time we have until—”
“Contact!” Aran’s voice boomed over the coliseum, and he glided over the stage in his Mark XI. “Major, there’s a wall of mist advancing out of the swamp. It’s already creeping into the lower part of the city.”
“Damn it,” Voria roared, the cantrip amplifying her voice. “This is exactly what I was afraid of. Governor, evacuate these people, immediately!” The magic made her words thunderous. “Davidson, get your Marines out on that left flank. Have the armor set up here, around the civilians. Lieutenant Aran, take your unit and circle wide on our right flank. The first thing they’ll try is probably a pincer attack, and we need to break at least one of those pincers. If we allow them to encircle us, we’re done. Governor Avitus, who is in charge of your militia?”
“That would be me, actually,” Avitus said, clutching at the tails of his shirt. “I’m sorry, but I have to admit we are entirely unprepared for this invasion. Why, I—”
Voria stopped listening. Her fears hadn’t been confirmed, but the evidence had certainly mounted. An attack at the exact moment of their arrival, and an ineffectual militia leader placed in the path of the Confederate forces? It could be a terrible coincidence, but she doubted it.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t in a position to determine the answer. Detecting a binding on the governor would require the use of a spell, and she needed her strength for combat right now. Besides, even if she exposed him she had no way to convince his supporters that he’d been corrupted.
Voria turned and sprinted back up the stairs, making for the top wall of the coliseum. The civilians had, predictably, panicked. They were stampeding for the exits, trampling their own in an attempt to flee.
The battalion moved fluidly into position, each unit executing its orders with precision and focus. They moved swiftly, watching the advancing tide of fog. It had already covered the base of the slope and now blanketed those buildings in a cloud of impenetrable white.
“Ready yourselves,” Voria called. The comm clipped to her collar picked up her voice and transmitted it to the unit. “Hold your fire until I give the word.”
A Void Wyrm swooped up from the mist, the wind from its passage so strong that many civilians were thrown from their feet. The Wyrm paused at the apex of its flight, breathing a cone of death upon the audience.
Pale grey fog whirled around them, the keening of souls whispering faintly wherever the breath touched. Hundreds of people—everyone in that wedge of the coliseum—died instantly. Just gone. The survivors went into a frenzy, trampling each other to claw their way out of the coliseum.
“Fire!” Voria bellowed, stabbing a finger up at the Wyrm.
The tanks opened up, their gauss cannons emitting a high-pitched whine each time they fired. The cannons shot two-hundred-and-fifty-kilo rounds, the heavy ammunition her mother had provided.
The rounds streaked into the Wyrm, punching through its wings and chest. It staggered backward in a desperate attempt to flee. Another shot streaked into its head, ricocheting off the skull.
The Wyrm gave a panicked screech and disappeared back into the mist.
A moment later four more Wyrms burst out, each breathing on the largest segment of fleeing locals they could reach. The carnage sickened Voria, and the sense of powerlessness made her long to crush something with her bare hands.
“Push. Them. Back!” she roared.
The tanks surged forward, peppering the Wyrms. On the left flank she heard the automatic weapons fire as Davidson’s Marines opened up. There was still no sound from Aran’s company, but that could be a good thing.
If her tech mages could surprise the Krox on that flank, they might stop the enemy advance long enough to counterattack.
42
Sacrifice
Aran glided over a row of squat buildings, only a few meters above the wooden shingles. Any higher, and he couldn’t make out Crewes leading Bord and Kez up the narrow street. The mist hard already grown too thick to see more than a dozen meters.
Nara hovered on the opposite side of the street, scanning the mist with the her spellpistol.
“I don’t like this, sir,” Crewes rumbled. “This has got ambush written all over it. These bastards were waiting for us.”
“I don’t like it either, but we’re going to have to spring their trap,” Aran said, zooming ahead of the column. The mist only thickened. It made excellent camouflage, and he privately applauded the enemy commander.
In the distance he could hear a smattering of automatic weapons fire and the occasional gauss cannon. Under those were the more persistent screams of fleeing refugees. “Nara, move ahead seventy meters and increase your elevation by five.”
It was officially the first order he’d given in a combat situation, and he tried not to be self-conscious about it. He’d had plenty of skills prior to the wipe, but being an officer had clearly not been one of them. So why had Voria agreed to put him in charge?
Crewes had endorsed him, and that probably counted for a lot. Why had the sergeant done that?
“Yes, sir,” Nara said, zipping past him. Her form was swallowed by the thick white clouds, which showed not even a hint of her location. It was a few seconds before she spoke again. “I’ve got something. Movement. Lots of movement.”
“Krox troops?” Aran demanded.
“No. Not exactly, anyway. It’s…it looks like vermin. Rats. Bugs. Other things native to this world, I imagine. They’re carpeting the street, heading in your direction.”
“I’ve seen this before, sir,” Kez said, more somber than usual. “A binder can animate joost about anything. Sometimes what they’ll do is kill everything, then send it all in to harass a town. They used this tactic on a colony where I lived. The Krox attacked right after the vermin.”
The screams were getting closer—much closer. Aran glided backward, scanning, as dozens of figures plunged through mist.
“Looks like we’ve got civilians, sir,” Crewe said. “Are we protecting them or focusing on the Krox?” His tone didn’t suggest that he favored either course.
“Sergeant, I want you to get a fire field down across the street. Hopefully that will divert the vermin.” Aran willed his external speakers on. “Citizens of Marid, you’re rushing into a Krox offensive. You need to take shelter immediately. There’s a large stone structure across this park. Make for that, and my company will keep them off you long enough to get inside.”
Most of the fleeing civilians started veering roughly in the direction Aran had indicated, but more than a few wandered about lost, screaming in panic.
“Guide them in, people. Nara, keep an eye on that fog. If anything more than vermin shows up, let me know. Like the sarge said, this looks like a great place for an ambush.” Aran dropped lower in the mist, above one of the clusters of panicked refugees. They looked up at him, so he slowly guided them toward a three-story building that he guessed must be a temple of some kind.
People were streaming in now; those too far away to see the building followed the people ahead of them. The line seemed endless, like it might stretch all the way back to the major’s position.
“The vermin are almost on you,” Nara warned. “They’re coming up the street now.”
“On it,” Crewes barked. His cannon kicked, lobbing a single flaming ball into the mist. A blinding wave of light refracted around the explosion point, then died down to merely bright as the fire continued to burn within the mist. “Man, I love this job.”
Aran jerked instinctively to the right, narrowly dodging a gob of sickly green acid as it zipped by him. Two more gobs shot out of the mist, but he rolled low and avoided both. “Contact. Nara, see if you can get eyes on our attackers. They’re firing acid, so earth magic. I’d guess Krox enforcers.”
“You’re probably right, sir. How do you want to handle this?” Crewes moved defensively in front of the stream of refugees still sprinting into the temple.
“They can see through the mist, and we can’t,” Aran said, glancing at the temple. He zipped upward, then to the right. Every few seconds he moved erratically, knowing the enemy was out there trying to line up a shot. “That favors close range fights, but we can’t take it to them if we don’t know where they are. Anyone got a suggestion?”
“Sir,” Bord piped up on the comm, “two of the potions on your Mark XI are counterspells. That can be used retroactively to cancel a spell after it’s been cast, if it has persistent effects.”
“I can dispel the mist? Great suggestion, Specialist.” Aran glanced down at the potions displayed on his HUD. “That’s the blue potions?”
“Yes, sir,” Bord confirmed.
Aran willed one of the potions to activate. His entire suit vibrated as the liquid flowed into it. A blinding sapphire glow radiated from the armor, painting the mist a hazy blue. The power was immense, beyond anything Aran was capable of casting.
“That’s a third-level potion,” Kez breathed in awe.
The light
exploded outward in every direction. Wherever it touched, the mist simply dissolved. For over a hundred meters around them it was simply gone. Beyond lay a perfectly spherical wall of fog, swirling about the edges of the counterspell.
The expression on the trio of Krox enforcers now standing in the open was a comical blend of shock and disbelief.
Aran used that instant to devastating effect. He shot forward, lining his rifle up with the lead Krox’s face. He flipped the selector to two, then remembered the fight on the station and flicked it to three. He braced himself, unsure how such a powerful spell would affect him.
The rifle tore nearly a quarter of his magic away, launching a fat void bolt into his opponent’s face. Where the level two had damaged the Krox, the level three simply disintegrated everything above the shoulders. The headless enforcer slumped noisily to the ground.
A wave of vertigo washed over him, but only for a moment. He recovered quickly, panting as he surveyed the results of the spell.
Crewes stepped up underneath him, lobbing another ball of flaming liquid. It detonated in the air over both remaining enforcers, coating them in superheated flame. Both screeched, leaping in separate directions as they desperately sought cover.
“Aran! On our right. There’s more coming from the fog.” Nara panted into the comm. “I count four so far.”
“Kez, get in there and see if you can keep them busy. Crewes, move to support her. Nara, I want you to harry the two wounded Krox.” Aran rattled off the orders mostly on instinct. “Bord, stick close to the temple. Do you have any defensive spells?”
“I can ward this place, yeah,” Bord said. “It should protect the people inside from spells or dragon breath, but it’s difficult and takes a bit of time. I’ll get to work.” He trotted off into the mist, disappearing as Aran turned back to the combat.
Kez sprinted to the Krox’s position, deflecting a gob of acid with her spellshield. She brought her hammer down on the closest enforcer, who raised a wing to block; her blow crushed the wing and knocked the enforcer prone. She followed up with a kick to the gut, and the enforcer instinctively moved its hands to cover its belly.
