Annals of the Keepers - Rage

by Christiaan Hile

  The fastest Korin Shai, and the first to be shot by Kason, grunted as the plasma round hit his armor. It caused minor damage except to burn the decorative surface of the armor, the Kryth grunting from the sudden force of it more than anything. The armor piercing round punched through the front armor plate with ease, tearing muscle and flesh before it burst through the back plate. The shatterspike entered the same wound and exploded into a hundred pieces of crystalline shrapnel that bounced off bones and shredded the internal organs inside the Kryth’s torso.

  The Korin Shai collapsed, gurgling in agony as he died. His spear hummed with unspent energies. Three more Korin Shai fell in similar fashion, devastated by Kason’s lightning fast and brutal attack.

  “Mark plasma,” Kason advised to the rest of the Reaver team, firing explosive rounds where Lintorth had been standing. He grinned as he saw a flash of red cape as Lintorth rolled to avoid the explosions, then sought cover from a spray of plasma rounds, fired past Kason’s shoulder from behind. He was pinned.

  Whipping around, Kason fired a long burst of incendiary shells into the roaring face and upper chest of the aythra as the beast leapt through the air, attempting to land on the Reaver’s back. The aythra’s chest and face, torn by the projectiles, erupted into flames. Many rounds penetrated deep into the layers of muscle and burned deep inside the animal’s body, boiling his insides. Others burst on the surface, combusting skin and fur, causing the wretched beast to screech in agony that turned into long yowls of pain.

  Kason watched the animal as it thrashed and wailed. He felt no remorse. His friend Jens Dryden had been eviscerated by this beast’s fangs and claws before dying a torturous death.

  “Burn and die, cur,” Kason spat. Looking up, he saw Kercy firing past him on the left. Maddox and Keelan ran past him on the right, firing at Korin Shai. Plasma bursts impacted Ramek’s huge frame to negligible effect as he lumbered into the fray.

  “Kason!” yelled Kercy into his comms channel. He heard the warning in her voice.

  He reacted out of instinct. Ducking his head forward, Kason kicked backward with one leg, hard. He felt his boot connect and push something backwards before he swept around with a blade protruding from his gauntlet. Already pitching forward from the blow that had broken its leg, the Korin Shai caught the blade on the side of his helmet. The strike snapped his head sideways in a metallic grind and a shower of sparks.

  The wounded Korin Shai spun with the blow, then fell to a knee, positioning the broken leg behind. He thrust his spear’s blazing tip at Kason’s torso. The Reaver rotated with the strike, causing it to glance off his chest. The energy-infused weapon scarred his armor but didn’t cut deep.

  Kason did not stop his rotation, instead using his momentum to spin into a roundhouse kick, catching the Korin Shai by the temple and driving him onto the hard ground. Another burst from Kason’s weapon pierced the Korin Shai’s helmet, scrambling its brains within the skull itself, as the Reaver moved to intercept his next kill.

  ∞∞∞

  After watching how the Reaver dodged and cut Avog, Lintorth grinned. Avog had grown careless hunting easy prey. He had anticipated the Reaver Kason would be more of a challenge. He had hoped Avog could wound the leader of the Reavers or pin him down long enough for the Korin Shai to capture or kill. Now, he heard Avog’s long yowls of pain and he worried.

  Diving behind one of the stone columns that were spaced across the floor and held up the large roof, Lintorth cursed, “Vuross damn me.” To the god of honor. In his haste to get out of the line of fire by the smaller Reaver who peppered the ground with plasma rounds, Lintorth had to move faster than he wanted to admit. Standing up and putting his back against the stone column, he looked to the right and saw two Korin Shai fall under a barrage of fire, small holes in their armor oozing as they twitched.

  “Attack them in triads!” Lintorth yelled into his voice actuator, firing plasma bursts that stitched up the side of another Reaver’s armor, causing him to stagger and roll to cover behind some debris. “Pin them down!” his voice boomed loud throughout the chamber. Rolling out from behind the stone column that was being cut through by explosive rounds, he fired plasma bursts from his spear as fast as it would recharge, straining the capabilities of the powerpack on his back. The tether between the two heated up from the energy output. He saw Tslar and another two Korin Shai firing at similar rates as they closed in on the largest Reaver.

  Lintorth had a brief remembrance of his first encounter with a Human Reaver on Dalyth Station. He experienced an almost feral need to ignore the rest of the battle to instead confront the massive Reaver once again. He snarled and gripped his spear so tight that the haft creaked under the pressure. Fueled by frustration at being cornered by such a small Reaver, Lintorth sprang forward with fearsome speed and attacked the Reaver that had driven him to hide behind the column like a coward.

  ∞∞∞

  Tslar swung and twirled his spear, blocking the furious attacks from the huge Reaver in front of him. The Reaver’s gauntlet blades struck the haft, nicking the adamantine composite. He couldn’t believe the Human’s prodigious strength and, instead of meeting it, Tslar deflected the blows at an angle.

  Dodging bone-crushing strikes from fists and feet, the Korin Shai struck back with his spear, stabbing and slashing with wicked strikes. The spear glanced off the Reaver’s armor, the energies arcing but having no effect. Even for his great size, the Reaver was able to move his body away from and deflect many of his attacks. Tslar was able to land a few powerful kicks, but the sheer bulk of the Reaver absorbed the blows as he continued his onslaught.

  Two more Korin Shai joined in to fight the colossal Reaver and started attacking with spears crackling. The Reaver blocked and parried as the Korin Shai dodged blasts from his weapon as he fired into the melee. Tslar struck when Ramek was engaged with the other two Korin Shai. His spear flashed with a powerful pulse of energy and scored a deep slash across the abdomen of the Reaver, slashing the dark armor and splitting the pale flesh underneath.

  He saw the red blood flow and grinned. The three of them had the upper hand and he had drawn first blood on this black behemoth. Then, his grin faltered and he stared as he saw the flesh knitting itself back together. His shock turned to horror as the armor started repairing itself as well.

  “The Four-Fold Gods protect–” he whispered when a massive fist thundered into the side of his head, crushing the helmet and sending him sprawling.

  ∞∞∞

  Kercy saw Lintorth charging towards her, his crimson cape billowing behind him.

  She was still in a crouch, avoiding plasma blasts from both Lintorth before her and Korin Shai on her left. She saw the spear in Lintorth’s huge hands thrusting down to skewer her. Kercy’s heads-up display detected more Korin Shai moving in from the right, firing as they ran. The stone floor around her was being pockmarked by all the plasma bolts, some hitting her in the side and lower legs. She was caught between multiple attackers and close to being pinned down.

  Kercy boosted the amount of battle drugs flowing in her bloodstream and decided there was one good option left.

  Lintorth thrust his spear, the blade blazing with focused blue energy, at her as she crouched on the stone floor. He drove the point towards her chest with fearsome force. He probably expected it to pierce her armor and skewer her with ease, not to pass underneath her boots as she used her powerful, augmented legs to jump straight up.

  Releasing his spear with his left hand, Lintorth slid his right hand down the smooth haft to the butt end of the weapon and rotated his whole torso, swinging the spear in a long arc behind himself. The point whistled through the air as he spun the weapon and gashed the her across the upper back. Kercy’s flip faltered and turned into a sprawling roll that still gained her some distance between herself and Lintorth.

  “He’s fast,” Kercy said to herself, thankful for the healing nanites that were repairing her wound. She gritted her teeth and fired at more Korin Shai runni
ng in to attack.

  ∞∞∞

  Selato seethed, angry that Kason had ordered him to not engage the Kryth contingent as they had exited the gunship. He had watched twenty-two Kryth warriors and Lintorth Sol himself enter the huge, deserted compound through the breach in the outer wall. Lintorth Sol! He was a powerful member of the Kryth Mahr hierarchy and a target that should have been terminated on sight. He didn’t care what that Kryth called himself, Lintorth Sol was the name of the one responsible for Earth, the extinction-level genocide, all of it! He had taken the name of their system as his own, like a damn hunting trophy!

  Selato’s teeth grinded. “What is Kason thinking?” he asked aloud as he continued to scan the structure and surrounding jungle.

  “Well, I suppose our Reaver Lead has a plan for the Kryth,” Lasko responded across the command channel.

  Selato kept himself from swearing. He hadn’t realized that he had spoken across the team’s channel. “Yes, I know he does,” he recovered. “But we’re here to fight, not sit back and listen to the others fight the Kryth alone.” His head jerked up, as did Lasko’s, at the sound of weapons firing from outside the wall that encircled the structure. Lasko moved from his position and ran closer, sliding to a stop behind a large pile of debris from a breach in the wall. He looked through the hole, watching the Kryth gunship that sat about seventy-five meters away.

  The Kryth gunship sat in silence. Two more Reavers appeared out f the jungle, running up through the open doors on the ship. Selato heard the quiet discharge of Reaver weapons. “Report,” he demanded, keeping an eye in front of him, weapons fire inside still audible.

  “Secured the ship,” came the reply from the pair inside. “Five hostiles subdued. Flight crew or support.”

  “Acknowledged,” Selato replied and paused for a moment. “Reaver Lead and team are engaged with over twenty Kryth inside the building,” he relayed to the rest of his Reaver team.

  Selato thought for a moment, then began issuing commands, “Lasko, move to overwatch position one hundred and twenty meters northwest.” Lasko confirmed with a hand signal and moved off to his position at a dead sprint. “Naro. Tabul,” he addressed the Reavers inside the gunship. “Support Reaver Lead in the structure. Now!” he ordered.

  The rate of weapons fire increased inside the building. Selato stood up and signaled to the last two Reavers to emerge from the jungle, returning from a patrol. “Let’s go,” he said, ordering most of his team to move through the breach and attack.

  He didn’t care if he was ordered not to engage. That was a lot of weapons fire.

  Then, the humid jungle air grew hotter.

  Selato had just started to run towards the fight when he saw the air ripple before the Kryth gunship exploded into a dazzling fireball that sprayed a storm of shrapnel over a hundred meters in all directions. The concussive wave and blue-green flames blasted him into the trees lining the perimeter of the building. His armored body tore through thick layers of vines and foliage.

  Snapping branches thick as his arm, Selato caromed off larger trees before creating a small trench as he slid to a stop.

  ∞∞∞

  With a wicked smile, Issara looked down at the burning crater where the Kryth ship had sat moments before. The blast had thrown a burning ring of debris at least one hundred meters in diameter. Panicked animals ran and flew in every direction from the explosion. “One small reprisal for Oxgris,” he laughed to the assembled Vrae troops. Although destroying one of Lintorth’s common gunships was in no way close to avenging his own lost, irreplaceable Gashnee ship. No, his revenge would be satisfied when Lintorth was captured, executed, and his family disgraced.

  Issara was dressed in his battle garb: a long-woven robe, crafted out of ballistic fibers, worn over low boots and a sleek headdress with an array of communication capabilities. He stood in front of his ship, the Varagant, and surveyed the towering edifice in front of him. He heard the other two Vrae ships, full of troops, landing behind him. He was armed with two zartil, one attached on each wrist, and didn’t fear the dangers of the battlefield. He almost felt exhilarated. After his meeting with Lintorth Sar, May his house wither and die, he cursed, he had put his plans into motion.

  The Kryth’s ultimatum still rang in his ears:

  Find a way to track the Human star drives with your precious Gashnee toys or your Heir dies.

  “My ‘precious Gashnee toys’ will be the death of you, Lintorth Sar,” Issara promised to the building in front of him. He keyed in a sequence of memorized pictographs on the housing of the zartil. The raised keys glowed green, changing to a bright blue that settled to a dark red when the shield activated. The Vrae’s most accurate, but still insufficient, translation from an old Gashnee text called this device a “tether of foes.” Vrae technicians had decided to call it a personal body shield, for lack of a better description.

  The shield had been proven to stop solid projectiles, plasma, fire, and various forms of energy. The relic had been a marvelous discovery by another ancestor in Issara’s family over a century prior. It had taken over a decade to decipher its pictographs and functions. Issara was proud of its capabilities and the advantages it gave him in combat.

  He did not have to worry about his own defense and could move around without the encumbrance of armor or worry of harm.

  “The covenants are moving to meet the enemy, Ascendant of Dal Karsis,” the scarred Vartis warrior, Barsa, standing behind Issara announced. His voice sounded raspy and metallic, augmented after his grievous injuries on Oxgris.

  “My thanks, Vartis Barsa,” Issara replied, pleased that the veteran had volunteered to lead the Vrae warriors now disembarking from the two additional ships. Multiple Vrae Javril houses had been quick to provide Issara with additional troops when the incident on Oxgris had been presented to the grieving families. All of the Ascendant understood the need for secrecy and speed to retaliate against Lintorth Sar. The loss of a young aristocrat could not yet be acknowledged by the Empress…yet. This veiled retaliation would become known to a select few in the Vrae Empire and the Kryth Domain, when the information was advantageous.

  “I acquiesce to your experience, Vartis Barsa. Do what you will,” he said, gesturing towards the large breach in the stone wall. “I only require that the Kryth, Lintorth Sar, remains alive so that we may execute him.”

  Barsa nodded and bowed to his superior. He turned and gestured at troop leaders in the distance while rasping orders through his communications device. The four covenants of Vrae soldiers, a contingent of two hundred and twenty, received orders from the Vartis and moved into tactical positions. One covenant moved to encircle the large stone building to trap any combatants inside that attempted to flee. Another tramped through the thick jungle to secure the Human landing zone. Issara had insisted that any pieces of Gashnee technology be captured so it could be retrieved and taken back to Issara’s holding and be studied at length after this excursion was finished.

  Issara was taken aback when he heard weapons firing at the edge of the jungle. There was a great amount of yelling and confusion near one of the Vrae landing zones. A loud bellowing could be heard over the din. He saw movement as a large beast lumbered out past one of the ships.

  The large, eight-legged beast stood about four meters high at the top of his shoulders…and was heading right for him.

  “My Ascendant, the beast!” Barsa yelled in warning.

  He suffered an instant of trepidation, watching the large creature churn up the soil as it ran at him. He was confident that the Gashnee technology would be enough to protect him from an animal. It had stopped several Vrae attempting with various weapons on a few occasions and this time would be no different, he thought to himself as he kept his fingers resting on the pictographs, stepping back as the animal slammed into the transparent shield.

  His foot behind him in reflex, his eyes widened as the creature’s size filled his vision. He was about to dodge out of the way when the energy field stopped the
beast. Its large head glanced off the surface, centimeters next to him on one side, sending ripples across the entirety of the surface. The protective barrier was not rigid, but rather pliable to absorb energy and redistribute the forces across its entire surface area.

  The confused beast stumbled, thrown off by the weight of its head changing direction, when a larger plasma blast hit the ground next to it. More blasts struck the ground, driving the beast away from Issara.

  It ran off, trying to escape the noise and pain that plagued it. The beast swerved across the burning ring of debris from the Kryth gunship when a plasma blast burned its hide. Smashing through the half-destroyed wall where the gunship had earlier breached it, the bellows of the beast echoed inside.

  ∞∞∞

  Kason smashed his fist into a Korin Shai’s face, then swept the legs out from another, sending him crashing to the ground. Firing his weapon at a third Korin Shai, he marveled that he missed. The Kryth warriors were good at anticipating attacks. He checked the status of the rest of his team. Their readouts from their battle suits showed Ramek and Kercy had suffered minor damage but were recovering. Maddox had a more severe wound in his leg but was firing from a position of cover behind a stone column. Keelan was still unharmed and engaged with a trio of Kryth warriors.

  He had rebuffed Selato’s request to enter the building and support Kason’s team. Prideful perhaps, but he felt he had the situation in tactical control. He knew at least half a dozen Kryth were dead and others wounded. A spear sliced past his helmet, missing him by millimeters. Kason grabbed the shaft as the owner pulled it back to reset from the strike, his augmented reflexes giving him the speed to interrupt the flow of the Kryth’s attack. Grasping the spear shaft, Kason brought it down on his knee and broke it in half. Plasma energy sputtered out of the broken end, bathing his armor with an uncontrolled blast. He was safe inside his armor, but the residual energy still flowing through the spear haft from the Korin Shai’s powerpack washed back on the Kryth, bathing him in crackling plasma. His armor did not protect him from the ravages of unchecked energy. Falling to the ground, writhing in agony, the Kryth’s muffled cries were audible underneath his smoking faceplate.