by Aer-ki Jyr
With the warm water coming down on him, he began to feel a bit of relief and kept himself awake just enough to stay upright and soak in the water, with a few silent tears flowing down with it as he finally released his emotional lock and let the stress and pain of the past few days bleed out.
10
January 24, 2549
Reesi System
Metropolis
Rio woke up on a medical bed wearing nothing but medical patches and a thin blanket. He sat up, painfully, and the silver fabric flowed down over his chest and puddled at his waist revealing three separate patches covering burn spots. He had more on his arms and legs, and could feel a dull soothing in each of them that was fighting against the pain of movement…but at least when he held still he wasn’t hurting.
“How long have I been out?” he asked as a medtech walked over to him.
“Several hours. How are you doing?”
“I’m alive…and naked.”
“If that’s the worst of it then I’d say you’re past the danger stage,” the medic joked, tapping on the display panel nearby. “You vitals were…not good when they brought you in.”
“I can imagine,” Rio said, glancing under the blanket to confirm that he had no pants on. “Where did my clothes go?”
“You mean those tattered and blood-soaked rags? We had to get rid of them to get you cleaned up.”
“Cleaned up?”
“Yes, one of the girls volunteered,” he said with a smile. “Don’t worry, they’re all professionals. She didn’t enjoy it too much.”
“Ambrosia?” Rio asked.
“Already in your system, but we guessed low to keep you from overdosing. What are you currently at?”
“4.2 doses.”
The medic nodded. “You’ve got 2.5 in you now, along with a lot of nutrients we added through injection. We kept you under during the process.”
“Thank you,” Rio said, grasping the blanket to keep himself covered as he swung his very sore legs off the bed and sat on the edge, glancing at the few other medical staff in the room, two of which were girls.
“I hear you came a long way over land. Had to fight your way through the enemy?”
“Our dropship got shot down behind enemy lines. It wasn’t pretty and we lost a lot of people.”
“But you survived?”
“And I’m very grateful for that, but in addition to these injuries I’m still really pissed. Nothing to do with you,” he added as his tone turned harsh.
“Can’t say I fully understand, but I can sympathize. Other than clothes what do you need?”
“How secure are these patches?”
“You want to move around?”
“I need to clear my head with some light training.”
The medic frowned. “I don’t think you’re strong enough yet. Try standing,” he suggested as a test.
Rio pulled the blanket around himself like a towel and slid off…with his right leg buckling and him falling to his knee, but that was as far as he went.
“Easy,” he said as the medic reached to grab him. “I’ve got this. Let go and I’ll get my balance.”
“If you say so,” the man relented.
Rio focused his mind and willed strength into his leg, pulling himself up inch by inch until he got on his feet and stood up, wobbily, but under his own power.
“Well done.”
“I’ll improve with time and movement,” Rio said from past experience. “Not the first time I’ve been shot with plasma.”
“No,” the medic half agreed, having read his file, “but nothing this traumatic.”
“Clothes?” Rio asked.
The medic motioned to one of the others and she grabbed a stack of garments from a nearby shelf and brought them over, shoes included, which Rio saw were his size.
“Thanks,” he said, thinking about how to get dressed under the blanket then deciding just to screw it. They’d already seen him naked.
He dropped the blanket and pulled on his pants with a hand on the bed for support so he didn’t tip over. “Thanks for the shower. I must have really been a mess.”
“Not a problem,” she said with a wink, then went back to her other duties and the few patients in the room, none of which had come from his team.
“Where are the others I came in with?”
“We treated and released them, though one, the Archon, was transferred outside the city.”
“He made it?”
“I haven’t heard. He was worse off than you were.”
“I mean he came back with us?”
“As far as I know, yes.”
“Must have been after I passed out. That’s a relief. He saved our asses more than once out there.”
“Archons do have that tendency.”
“No, this was…beyond that. You wouldn’t understand unless you’ve had the combat training.”
“I guess not then.”
Rio pulled on his shirt and shoes, then cautiously looked at the door. “Thanks for everything. I’ll take it from here.”
“Don’t make me pick you up off the floor.”
Rio smiled at him. “No promises,” he said, adding a small two fingered salute before he took his first step. It was wobbly, but he had control and turned it into a few more heading for the door. By the time he got there his training kicked in and the gritty determination that had saved his life found the simple footsteps easy by comparison…even though his head was swirling in what he recognized was ambrosia depletion. Apparently he’d already burned through what the medics had given him.
He turned the corner and walked into the hallway outside, gaining rhythm with each step. A minute later he realized he was going to be ok and increased his pace a bit up to normal levels and wandered off through the city, intent on getting himself back into fighting shape and then heading back out again. There was a war to be fought and he’d be damned if he was going to sit it out while they lost more and more cities to the Skarrons.
Iden woke suddenly, jumping up out of reflex but finding a strong hand on his chest holding him down. As he opened his eyes and realized where he was he forced himself to relax. He was in a med bay with a regenerator on his chest and now that he got his head clear he could feel the tendrils inside his body doing work…or rather the numbness that accompanied them. He could never feel the actual workings of the mysterious devices, but had learned to identify their sensory cloaking.
He also realized that no one was holding him down, which didn’t make any sense until he saw another Archon standing beside him…who had a firm telekinetic hold on his chest and was pressing him back down onto the table.
“Hold still,” Megan said monotone. “It isn’t finished yet.”
Iden blew out a breath and leaned back, feeling the tightness on his chest disappear as Megan slid over into view and sat on the bed next to his right hip. “Welcome back, badass.”
Iden whisper laughed. “We’ve got to put more armor on those dropships.”
“Then they’d be slower and you would have got shot down even sooner,” she differed. “You were dead when they got you here.”
Iden’s eyes widened and he raised his head, still with several visible tendrils of the regenerator passing up the right side of his face and sinking into his forehead. “How long?”
“About 20 minutes. They said you were bad when you got back to civilization, so I had you moved here. You didn’t make the trip and I wasn’t sure it was going to work…we don’t know how long the window of opportunity is, but the fact that it’s been working on you for more than 45 minutes attests to how messed up you were. You held out far longer than your body should have been able to.”
“Definition of an Archon,” the acolyte said, taking considerable pride from the trailblazer’s words.
“True.”
“I’m glad there was one of these here to bring me back,” he said, looking down at the metallic lump on his chest that had sprouted out numerous tendrils like a chrome spider web that were sunk i
nto his skin at numerous points…though the numb areas were getting smaller and smaller, so he guessed it was near to finishing up. Plus he was awake.
“We don’t have many, but I always travel with one. For special cases like you.”
“And in case you need it?”
“Yes,” Megan said, not ignoring the fact that the trailblazers were the most important assets that Star Force had.
“Where are we?” Iden asked.
“Seafloor city. The Skarrons are beginning to mount an aquatic front, but I’m told they’re not so skilled in it. We’re safe here.”
“And elsewhere?” he asked as the tendrils retracted from his head and slid back down his neck, but others remained sunk into his chest.
“The western continent is nearly lost. We still hold a few positions but we’re in the process of evacuating them. We’ve got missile emplacements being built up on the others so we can hopefully knock down some of their transports when they come across, but bottom line is we’re losing. I’m managing the loss and buying us time, and I don’t think it’s game over so long as we can keep their fleet in orbit. We’ve got a tough opponent to face, and though I’m not quite sure how to do it yet, I think we have a winnable challenge.”
“Without reinforcements?” Iden asked.
Megan chewed her lower lip for a moment. “Never count an Archon out, but we need more ground troops. Mechs especially. We’re building what we can here, but the rate of Skarron advancement is considerable…and they’re starting to build their own infrastructure in the captured areas. First priority is to fortify and hold a position on planet, then work on pushing back. The first, as difficult as it is now, may end up being the easy fight in retrospect.”
“How are the others doing?”
“Others?”
“The other worlds…I assume we still have a relay link?”
“Yes, we’re still on the grid. All stalemates on the ground, but the more time the Skarrons have to reinforce the harder its getting for them to hold…and the enemy just opened up another front on a Protovic world.”
“Has Paul worked his magic yet?” Iden asked as the regenerator finally retracted back into the normal short stick that its dormant form took. Megan reached out and pulled it off his chest as he sat up looking at her, with both of them ignoring the fact that he was naked. For Archons that had never mattered. Fighting the war did.
“He’s got his hands full. Every fleet he manages to destroy the Skarrons replace. He thinks we spooked them and they’re playing a conservative game to feel us out. We know they’ve got the numbers to overwhelm us if they choose to pull them from other areas of their empire, but it looks like they’re not willing to do that just yet on the naval front. They’re keeping enough to maintain a blockade and making this a ground war.”
“Thanks to the Sentinels,” Iden said.
“We think so. In order to take control of orbit they have to knock them out, and it’s going to be very expensive on their part to do so. So long as they’re in play we can use them as a safe zone to work out fleets out of and own the bastards. If they go down it’s over, and the Skarrons seem to be testing Paul’s fleet more than others. They’re learning what we can and can’t do, and he’s taking them to school, buying us all time.”
“If they’re toying with us…”
“I know, but we’ve worked our way out of worse situations.”
“Name one.”
“Ever win a training challenge against the Black Knight?”
Iden frowned. “Actually, no.”
“Well we have. If there’s one thing he teaches you it’s how to turn what looks like an impossible situation into a workable one. Which you just got through doing.”
“Not quite the same thing, but thanks.”
“I had the techs pull your helmet recorder. Looks like you had more than 1000 kills over your little cross country trek.”
“That few?” Iden asked, literally feeling like he’d been up against an infinite number of Hobbits.
“You didn’t give up, and we’re not buckling under here either. We’ll find a way to beat these bastards, we just have to survive long enough to do it.”
“You said something about an aquatic front?”
Megan nodded. “They’ve begun landing special equipment and are building a base along the shoreline. They’ve got submersibles in play and are feeling out our resistance. We’ve slapped that base down twice now, but they keep rebuilding and spamming the area with mines. I think they know we’re down here and that in order to take the planet they have to get to us.”
“What’s the rush with more continents to overrun?”
“That thought occurred to me as well…and I think they see us bringing in more Sentinels as a time constraint. They need to take the planet so we have nothing more to reinforce, and to do it before the inevitable orbital battle doesn’t scale out of proportion to what they’re willing to devote.”
“Just because we lose the surface doesn’t mean we’ll abandon orbit,” Iden pointed out.
Megan raised an eyebrow. “Maybe we wouldn’t, but would you say the same of other races?”
“Good point,” Iden conceded, flexing his left hand and wiggling out some of the lingering numbness. “Do you have another mission for me?”
“I need you to run through calibration drills and see how much strength you’ve lost. When the regenerator rebuilds you it does it with new tissue that’s weaker than what you previously had.”
“After that?”
“There’s plenty to do. What would you prefer?”
“Sabotage.”
Megan smirked. “Tired of being on the run?”
“We’ve got to keep them on the defensive, otherwise they could turn into a juggernaut with an exposed flanked that we’re not exploiting.”
“I’ve got several teams doing just that. When you check out I’ll reassign you to one.”
“Thank you,” Iden said, gesturing to one of the medtechs to bring him a new set of clothes that he was holding while giving the Archons a respectful bit of space as they discussed things far above his understanding.
“When you get finished shoot me the results,” Megan said, lightly punching him in the shoulder as she left him to get dressed. She carried the regenerator with her, not trusting anyone with it. To date it was one of the holy grail pieces of V’kit’no’sat tech that Star Force wasn’t even close to duplicating. The pyramid had some industry of its own, so if they absolutely needed to they could build some tech even if they didn’t understand it, but the regenerators were something that had to be built in specialized facilities that the pyramid didn’t possess.
Those facilities had been destroyed during the Rit’ko’sor rebellion, along with the rest of the V’kit’no’sat infrastructure on Earth, making these few remaining pieces invaluable. Most remained on Earth, with a few scattered elsewhere on ‘safe’ worlds. The trailblazers all took one with them whenever they venture out to field assignments, and it wasn’t something that Megan ever let out of her sight.
She took it back to her temporary quarters within the aquatic city and hid it away in a drawer before returning to the command center and linking into the nexus there, getting status reports on the planetary battlemap that had signals being transmitted between various relays to link in the short range signals to the overall grid.
Megan could see everything from individual commandos in the field to the warships in orbit, along with the enemy blockade fleet and the maneuvers both were continually making as their chess game continued. Right now Admiral Xander was picking away at the Skarron fleet with another hit and fade run, which would probably damage two Skarron cruisers by the time it was finished, with the Star Force drones pulling out on their superior binary drives before their shields could be taken down.
But any ships destroyed would be replaced by a continual flow of reinforcements that always seemed to know what was needed. Megan figured the Skarrons had a courier fleet running requests
back to Achkor or some other staging system. That delay was possibly something she could use in a large scale counterattack, but right now she was forced into playing the ground game as well…so long as they could manage a stalemate in orbit.
It wasn’t an ideal situation by far, but had anyone else been on the border they would have been overrun by now. The Dvapp had fared well in their matchup, but without the Sentinels deployed there they’d have fallen to the same large scale blockading fleets. As it was they were fighting an identical stalemate, with Paul leading the ADZ forces and using the Dvapp’s strengths against the Skarrons well, now that they’d gotten used to following his lead.
If someone was going to find a weakness in the Skarron fleet it would be him. Until then Megan had to play for time and find a way to start eating up more of the enemy ground troops…otherwise they’d blossom to such large numbers that they’d overrun the other two continents no matter how many short term upgrades she made.
If she could buy enough time for some of the bigger defense pieces to be built, then that would be an altogether different story.
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