by Will Crudge
The opening salvo of small-arms fire from the right flank would only be from a fixing force. The bulk of the troops closing in on them would be coming from the other direction. Rather than allowing them to gain any sort of initiative, Shadow counter attacked before the enemy could get into position… The pools of blood and gore to follow, would be Shadow’s acquittal.
Sheba was already slashing through the lines of shocked humans wearing body armor. She struck into the midst of half a dozen commandos that attempted to rally on a position on Shadow’s blind-side, but the smaller panther was just as deadly as her even more massive husband.
“Zeff, Condor, Killjoy… Clear the right flank, and then focus on those drones!” Darius ordered. The three didn’t take time to reply, but rather sprang into action as if they didn’t require any instructions at all. Darius gave his visor one last wipe to clear the fine moon dust, and then sprinted in the direction of the panther-infused-carnage.
Ballistic rounds blazed from the barrel of his rifle in precise bursts of three to five rounds each. Darius picked out individual targets by threat level. The target that posed the most immediate threat to his two feline comrades would be dropped with deadly efficiency.
The terrain was flat and open, so there would be no place for the enemy to hide. The gentle downward grade dipped down further away which just enough for Darius to see how the commandos maneuvered unnoticed. Now these fuck-heads are acting like the well-trained fuck-heads I know and love!
He replied.
A moment later, Darius picked his rifle back up, wiped his visor once more, and then took a quick glance at the motionless form of wrecked spec ops armor on the ground. He cracked a smile, and then turned to head in Shadow and Sheba’s direction.
Sam just sent a shaking head icon to his HUD in response. Soon Darius arrived in time to watch the last five commandos running in terror. They failed miserably. The spec ops armor was easily capable of giving its wearer the ability to sprint over fifty kilometers per hour, but that was barely a trot for a panther that weighed half a metric ton.
Darius watched the final moments unfold, and he wondered if he should have insisted on mercy for those poor souls. But instead, he only felt detachment. It was strangely comforting. He figured that Jep was rubbing off on him. The old War Master would give away his last meal to feed a hungry squirrel, but could also slaughter a dozen human beings without blinking an eye. Jep! The thought came to him in a flash. He’d forgotten to give Jep any orders, and had no idea where he and Growl were.
“Get on.” Shadow’s voice startled him.
“What?” Darius asked.
“I’m your mount, remember?” Shadow crouched slightly as if to invite Darius to climb on his massive back.
“I thought that the title was just symbolic?”
“Kaylen rode Sundown into combat as a rule, now get on!” Shadow insisted. Darius could sense that the big cat wasn’t kidding. In fact he never even thought about riding Shadow like some kind of horse before. He figured it would be degrading to ride on an animal that could probably beat him in a game chess. But in the end, he complied.
Sheba just let out a snarl of joy, and came along-side her husband. Then Shadow lurched forward and began to sprint at an amazing speed.
Not even close.
Shadow’s heart rate and respiration was remarkably relaxed. Darius didn’t know if the moon’s atmosphere made is easier for the big cat to breathe, or if Shadow was truly built like an unstoppable battle-tank. Either way, they were covering a lot of ground, and very quickly.
“Plasma bolts up ahead!” Sheba called out. Darius focused in with his advanced optics, and could see the engagement in stunning detail. The smaller flanking forces must have been taken out, Darius suspected. Now Zeff and Condor were exchanging small arms fire with the approaching infantry drones that bore mocked up commando armor. Darius suspected that the mock armor had no protective properties at all, and were likely made of some form of plastic.
Shadow slid to a halt, and Darius was nearly thrown off in the process. He recovered from his awkward slumping position, and sat back up straight. Shadow stood on the edge of the crater, and Darius began to zoom in with his optics. He verified everything that Sam had reported, and then reached down to pet Shadow’s neck.
“You seem to be enjoying yourself, Darius.” Shadow said sarcastically.
“It’s good to fight on an open field for once. Especially when you can see the enemy activity from a long distance. It provides time to organize and counter them.” Darius replied while still petting the big panther.
“You just jinxed us.” Shadow scoffed. Just then, a wall of enemy soldiers charged out from nowhere, and were within a few meters of their position.
“What the hell?” Darius spat, and then grabbed the gravity hammer that was clipped to his back. Shadow leaped on a pair of soldiers wearing standard Crimson infantry armor as Darius swung low and wide with his hammer. His strike hit true, and one soldier was struck dead-center of his chest plate. The soldier was flung backwards in mid-air for about five meters, and collided with three more Crimson troops. They all toppled over clumsily, and before they completed their fall, Shadow was on the move again.
Darius could hear the familiar sound of a War Master’s sword slice through metal and bone
with easy. The victims had no time to scream in response. Darius refocused his awareness towards the heap of soldiers trying to regain their footing. The first soldier was obviously dead, and his chest plate formed a roughly parabolic indentation, which was a common symptom of Gravity hammeritus.
The first soldier Darius could reach with his hammer had barely regained his footing as he was trying to line up a shot with his ballistic rifle. But he was too slow. The gravity hammer was swung true once more, and the impact embedded the man’s entire head – helmet and all - into his chest cavity.
Two more successive swings sent five more enemy troops flying in several directions. None of them would survive the impact. Shadow wheeled back around towards the crater no sooner than the notion had formed in Darius’ mind. He realized that riding Shadow melded their mental link even deeper than usual, which was turning out to be extremely effective in close combat.
Darius could see Zeff swinging his rifle like a baseball bat, as the old Soldier managed to crack the helmet visor of an enemy soldier nearby. Pulse blasts and ballistic rounds bounced off of his heavy infantry armor as if they were merely rain drops. Darius kicked another enemy in the chest hurling him back, and then he spun around and snatched a rifle out of another enemy’s grasp in one fluid motion. Shots flared out at point blank range, as the enemy was killed by his own rifle as a result.
Zeff followed up with a kick to the soldier’s knee, and crushed it backwards with an audible crunch. Darius shouldered the rifle once more, and began taking carefully aimed shots at dozens more enemy soldiers rushing in with guns blazing.
Condor was deflecting fire with his forearm mounted shield generator, and then swung it wide to smash the shield into another enemy that was trying to rush him from the side. The repulsive effect of the shield sent the soldier flying like a rag doll, and Condor reached back to draw his sword once more.
Darius, once again mounted on Shadow, rushed in to counter-attack the troops beginning to rush the War Master. Condor was separated from his mount, had light armor, and his shield would likely be overwhelmed in a matter of seconds, so Darius decided to draw fire.
Shadow charged headlong into a dozen soldiers, and Darius had just slapped a fresh charge unit into the base of the gravity hammer. The panther’s mighty paws trampled and maimed several troops before Darius could get a swing in, but his turn would be up next.
Two more lifeless bodies littered the ground, but dozens more were charging from every direction. “Where in the fuck are they coming from?!” Darius shouted, but the question was rhetorical. He figured that nobody could possible know the answer.
“Ask Val.” Shadow said as he clawed two more enemy troops to death with his forepaws.
“Val’s here?” Sam asked. But Darius could feel his presence all too clearly. He could sense monk was nearby, and fully engaged in hand-to-hand combat…alone… without a weapon.
Darius smiled slightly. Not like he needs a weapon anyway. He thought to himself. He could see the ancient monk switching martial arts styles with every attack, and Darius just shook his head in amazement. If I had four millennia of life, I suppose I could master every known fighting style too!
Shadow sprinted to where Val was making his stand, and intentionally knocked enemy troops aside in the process. A few managed to stumble back to their feet… most were rendered motionless.
“Thought you could use a hand!” Darius shouted with a smile.
Val finished snapping a soldier’s neck with, what Darius supposed was, a Praying Mantis Kung Fu maneuver. The monk looked up at Darius on top of Shadow and smiled. “That’s a good look for you! Classic War Master!”
“Where did these troops come from?” Darius got to the point. “They seem to pop on scan as soon as I see them, but not a moment sooner!”
“What’s the matter? Don’t like a challenge?” Val laughed. Then a new wave of enemy troops seemed to manifest out of thin air, as they rushed towards them in droves. Darius and Shadow stood firmly as the enemy came at them. The soldiers seemed too busy sprinting at full speed to take any shots, but a few managed to break off and took aim.
A ballistic shot hit Val in the shoulder, and knocked him back slightly. The monk let out an ‘Oof!’ but seemed to recover in an instant. Darius wished he knew how to consciously change the density in his own body on demand like Val did. But he had no time to finish the thought… Val began to act strange, and Darius shifted his focus on the monk.
Val got into a side-facing stance with his left shoulder pointed toward the enemy. He began to let out a slow humming noise that gradually got lauder. He then formed his hands into a strange open palmed gesture. Seconds later, Val just shouted something nonsensical. “Ha-du-ken!” As he pushed his open palms towards the enemy, and shot a blue fireball out of his bare palms. The fireball struck the oncoming horde of enemy troops, and bowled them over like flaming bowling pins.
“Time-out!” Darius shouted, as he formed the requisite ‘T’-shaped hand signal. “Stop sim!”
Immediately the images of the enemy forces disappeared, and the world went black. Darius opened his eyes, and flipped the simulation pod door open.
He stepped out of the pod, and into the empty space in the center of the room. The other pods were arranged in a circle and faced the empty space where Darius now stood. One by one the pods began to open, and three larger crate-like pods cracked open, as well. Condor, Val, Jep, and Zeff stepped out of the more similar inward facing pods, and the three Zodiacs emerged from the crate-like pods in turn.
Darius scratched his head and looked at Val. “What the hell was that?”
Val grabbed his stomach and began to laugh hardily. So much so, that he was unable to form words. Jep, Zeff, and Condor just exchanged awkward glanced.
“What was what?” Jep asked Darius.
“Val babbled some weird words and shot a fireball out of his hands!” Darius answered incredulously as he shrugged his shoulders. Jep’s head tilted, and the War Master turned to Shadow. The big cat just nodded in acknowledgement.
“I have no idea what that was.” Jep frowned. Val seemed to laugh even harder at Jep’s response, and had to grab on to one of the pods for balance.
“So, that’s not one of Val’s abilities?” Darius asked while darting his head around to the others. He used his ability to peer into their minds, and he was quite sure they were just as confused as he was. After several moments, Val began to catch his breath, and his skin tone faded into a lighter shade of red.
“I always wanted to do that!” Val gasped. He was all smiles, and seemed to be fighting off a third round of laughter.
“You built that into the sim, didn’t you?” Sam asked.
Val was still catching his breath, so he seemed to have elected to nod in response. “Well, now I feel stupid!” Darius chuckled.
“Gentlemen!” A new voice sounded off. All eyes shifted to the direction of the new voice. A female Unum Officer strode into the simulation chamber. She had dark skin and jet black hair tied into a bun. Her garnet colored dress uniform was well fitted to her feminine form. Darius noticed she was wearing colonel’s insignia.
“Colonel Esperanza, welcome.” Val spoke. Esperanza stopped and looked at him.
“Sir, the Foehammer’s and the Star Fury’s CO’s have opened their mission cube, and should be entering their next phase of the mission.” Esperanza reported.
>
“I was expecting to hear this a little sooner. Was there a problem?” Val replied.
Esperanza shook her head. “No, Sir… Nothing they couldn’t handle, in any case.”
“Meaning?” Darius chimed in.
“The data burst containing the details was classified at the highest level encryption the Star Fury was able to transmit. It’s classified too high for me to explain it audibly.” The Colonel replied.
“Very well, Colonel.” Val winked, and then he looked around to the rest of the group. “Looks like we have to make it to the CIC, and read a report then.”
The Lost Warrior
Location: Blood-Reaper, Berthing Area, Docking Bay, Orbital Habitat, Titan Moon
Date Time: Post Interstellar 10/25/4201 1111HRS UAHC Standard Zulu
System: Sol, Mid Region
Jimma checked her gear one last time before exiting the hatch of the LRF-90. She looked to make sure her power unit on the hilt of her sword was at full charge. Satisfied, she slid it back into the scabbard. She checked her vintage Desert Eagle ballistic pistol, and proceeded to rack a round in the chamber before checking her spare magazines. The nickel plated handgun was massive and powerful, and as such, she was more than pleased to bring it along.
“What’s with the wrist-cannon?” Grinder chuckled. “That thing looks like it belongs in one of Val’s museums!”
Jimma just gave the massive K-9 a crooked smile. “It was in one of his museums. My father recovered it from a pirate horde several decades ago, and Val insisted he keep it to pass along to me.”
Grinder tilted his head in confusion. “Normally, War Masters hand down ancestral swords… I’ve never known any of them to give side-arms as heirlooms.”
“Kindle, help me out here?” Jimma asked. “You know Val better than anyone alive, besides Midas.”
“Sure, dear.” Kindle, the LRF’s NAV, system chimed in. “The ancestral sword that Kindle would have received is long gone. Given the traditional transfer of heirlooms within the War Master lineage, she would have received Kayne’s sword.”
