Proxy War

by Adam Sampson

  Or at least he tried to. But his skill couldn’t penetrate the housing. He couldn’t “feel” into the engine. His sense skill could see the inner workings, but he couldn’t do anything about it.

  Seeing his frustration, Lola shot a fireball at the housing. It glanced off the housing without leaving a mark. Undeterred she whipped out her crossbow and fired a quarrel from a few feet away. Twanging off the housing, the quarrel imbedded itself in the wall behind. This shot did leave a mark, but it was a shallow scratch.

  Just then they heard a bang from the front of the ship. Thudding steps were heard walking down the passageway headed their direction. A troll must have shut down the force field. They only had moments before it got here.

  With a flash of inspiration, Peter realized that the gravitron generator probably used gravity in some way. Another thing that he knew that affected gravity was his void bolt. His black hole generating void bolt could eat through rock, it could probably pierce the housing. As soon as he thought it, he mentally selected the skill and fired. Jet black void bolt streaked across the room and impacted with the housing.

  It didn’t pierce the housing.

  A small black hole formed just outside the housing and didn’t affect it at all. The housing wasn’t the target though. The gravitonic engine inside the housing relied on a delicate balance of gravity waves. A miniature black hole right next to the engine threw that balance out of whack, starting a cascade of failures.

  Gravity waves exploded out from the center. Sideways gravity waves threw them out of the room and plastered Lola and Peter against the bulkhead. Less than a second later, gravity went back to normal and they slid to the passageway floor. The ship lost power and the lights went out.

  Much too close for comfort, a loud rumbling growl was heard. An enormous troll must be close by.

  This fear was realized when the troll roared out,

  Activating his darkvision Peter looked down the hallway to see the troll that was cursing him. Tall and imposing, the troll started stalking forward.

  But before he could get far, the floor beneath him started to glow slightly. Four Noldor floated up from the floor. Like vengeful ghosts the Noldor attacked the troll all at once, sucking his life force out of him. The giant troll twisted and turned and shot blast after blast. Four against one, the unprepared troll was quickly beaten and killed.

  As one, they stood from their meal and cried out.

 

  One of them was talking, but none of their mouths were moving. Peter couldn’t tell who was talking or responding.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  With that, one Noldor left, the other three following after a moment.

  Peter and Lola sat in the dark for a moment. Rex appeared out of stealth and sat down next to them.

  “That’s it. Every protectorate troll is dead. We are free,” Rex said with a sigh.

  “That was the whole Protectorate? Just twenty-one trolls? There has to be more Vindilar out there than that,” Lola said.

  Rex shrugged and said, “Well sure, there are thousands of Vindilar out there, but the Protectorate was just these few high-level trolls. They were like a clan, and we took them all out. No one out there wants to take revenge, so we should be safe.” He leaned his head against the bulkhead and said to himself, “What do we do now?”

  Chapter 25

  Lola laughed and answered the question, “You do whatever you want!” Taking her own advice, she grabbed Peter and drew him in for a kiss.

  Kissing her back passionately, Peter started to relax. He leaned back on the bulkhead and smiled. It was over. For the first time since he was abducted from his train forever ago, he could relax.

  After resting up they made their way out of the ship to see how the rest of them had fared. They came out to a smoldering war zone. Bodies, mostly trolls but some humans and Noldor too, lay strewn about the field. The buildings surrounding the landing zone were all collapsed, and human soldiers crawled over wreckage.

  Sergeant Yarrow was standing near the entrance to the ship, directing healers and soldiers in search and rescue. As the three of them exited the ship, Yarrow turned to Rex and said, “Good to see you still alive, Rex. The Noldar told us the job was done, but we didn’t know if you had made it. Congratulations on completing your mission. The Valkyrie said to give you her thanks if I saw you first. She is around here somewhere, saving lives.”

  “Thanks, Sergeant. But I didn’t do it alone, Peter and Lola were the ones to actually shut down the engine,” Rex replied.

  Smiling, the sergeant said, “And I am sure they did it in a creative and dangerous way,” apparently not having forgiven Peter yet for beating the unbeatable challenge of YingLong caves. He continued, “I will make sure all three of you are properly recognized.”

  ...

  Peter stood on the stage and resisted the urge to fiddle with his collar. Lola was to his right and Rex to his left. They were back on Earth, waiting for their part of the victory ceremony. He wished he wasn’t even here, but he was the only human to personally kill a troll. No one cared that it was essentially an accident. He would give almost anything to jump off the stage and disappear into the crowd.

  Glancing at the podium, Peter smiled. At least he wasn’t the hero of the whole war though. The Valkyrie, Brunne Thompson, stood at the microphone talking about heroism. None of this would have happened without her. She was a level 35 warrior that survived a Noldor attack that killed all her squad mates on Decapod. Instead of dying herself, she struck a deal with them to betray the trolls into their hands. She contacted the galactic mercenary guild that the Noldor worked for and set up a contract. The Valkyrie made everything else happen too, she convinced command to go along with her plan, arranged an accident on the other ship on Decapod so all the trolls would be on Omicron for the ambush, and fought alongside the Noldor in the pitched battle.

  All that heroism made her a celebrity and she was in the news non-stop. Peter considered himself lucky that this was the only public appearance he was required to be at. The Valkyrie was famous worldwide on three planets and adoring fans demanded much of her time. Peter, on the other hand, was only famous among the little old ladies his mom knew. The way his mom told it, Peter led the charge and took on a battalion of trolls on his own. He would be glad when these celebrations were done and he would be able to fade into the background again.

  The celebrations were necessary though. The Valkyrie had learned that Earth was in danger. Killing the trolls had put a target on their backs, and they needed to build up an army to defend themselves. Earth was woefully under-defended by galactic standards. This celebration was a recruitment drive more than anything. Omicron had been completely revamped into a real boot camp to train soldiers for the United Earth Army. The UEA wouldn’t kill their recruits as the trolls did, they would just give them more power than they had ever had before.

  They gave all the conscripted soldiers from the troll’s regime home leave. They asked all of them to re-enlist, but it wasn’t mandatory this time. The UEA needed their
help but wanted it to be voluntary. Peter’s squad had exchanged contact info and split up when they got back to Earth.

  Yoon had officially quit and went back to Korea to raise her son. She sent a video of a tearful reunion at the train station. Unlike the previous visitors to Earth from the time of the trolls, she was able to stay home long term. The UEA had arranged a steady delivery of orbs for everyone who wanted to say home, so the cuff wouldn’t end up killing her from a lack of orbs.

  Emma had wanted to re-enlist right away, but the UEA wouldn’t let her. They promised she could join in a year when she was 18, though. Until then she was staying with her Aunt and Uncle in Utah.

  Dima had rushed home to his husband in London. They were happy for a few weeks until their house got raided by Interpol. It turns out that Peter was close when he pegged Dima for a mob enforcer. His husband was actually the enforcer for the Whitechapel mob. Dima’s husband James had agreed to a plea deal and enlisted in the UEA. Dima had re-enlisted to stay near him and asked to be a trainer at Base Alpha to be close to his husband.

  Jonas promised to re-enlist but planned to take at least a few months off before he did. His family wouldn’t let him leave any sooner than that.

  Peter promised his mom that he would stay on Earth. His mom wouldn’t accept anything else and threatened to enlist herself if he ever left the planet.

  Lola wanted to get back off-planet as soon as she could. Her reunion with her father and brother turned sour only after a few days. Her father had wanted her to take a manager job at the Nike factory and acted as if she had never left. She was not polite when she reminded him that she didn’t want to work at a shoe factory even before she left. Now that she had found a purpose in life out among the stars, she had no desire to be chained to a desk job on Earth. She would leave for Decapod in two weeks.

  Peter planned on going with her. There was no way he would let someone that wonderful out of his sight. If his mom ended up enlisting, he would be glad to give her some pointers.

  The only frustrating thing was that the thorn in his side was still there, literally. Flynn was up there on the stage with them. Lord only knows how, but he had somehow talked himself into a spot in the celebration. As far as Peter knew, Flynn’s only claim to fame in the battle was that he took part in the fighting and didn’t die. Peter had tried to use his own hero clout and serve Flynn some justice, but it hadn’t worked.

  Sighing, Peter looked out into the bright lights and listened to the cheering crowds. This ridiculous thing would be over soon and he could get back to something that really mattered, celebrating with his girlfriend Lola. Rex would probably come along too, he had no living relatives on Earth.

  Rex hadn’t been able to get his arm healed, so they issued him a replacement cyborg arm. Crafted with a mix of human and alien technology, the new arm was a marvel. It felt and acted just like the limb he had lost, with a few extra abilities. At least Rex told them it had extra abilities. He promised to show off the new arm when they were off planet. He buffed and shined it so he could show it off at the celebration. He said the shininess got him all the chicks.

  That night at the bar, Rex asked them to join his squad. Thor had died in the ambush, and he was starting a new squad. This squad wouldn’t be part of the regular army the UEA was building, they had a different mission. Humans needed money if they were going to integrate into galactic society. The UEA was exploring a lot of different ways to make that money, and Rex had volunteered to pilot one of those money making programs.

  “Why pick us, Rex? How would we be making money?” Lola said.

  “I need people I can trust on my team, and you two were pretty dang awesome back on Omicron. I know a few other specialists to round out the team. We will make so much money. We get to keep ten percent of the profits too,” Rex said.

  “You know we love you Rex, but get to the point, what is the job?” Lola asked.

  With a wild glint in his eye, he said, “Mercenaries! We will go from planet to planet across the galaxy and kill things. Well, sometimes. There is a job board full of things we can choose from, and we can choose anything from guard duty to pest extermination to bounty hunting. It will be freaking awesome!” Rex said.

  “I don’t know Rex, some of that sounds like fun. But mercenaries have to do a lot of questionable things. I don’t want to be stuck in a situation where I have to do something immoral,” Peter replied.

  Spilling a little of his beer, Rex waved away his concerns, “No no, we choose all of our own jobs. No one will force us to pick any job. We will just pick the good ones. It will be fine.”

  Lola and Peter looked at each other. She gave him a small nod. Peter smiled and raised his glass in a toast. “We are in,” he said.

  Soon enough, they would be back out among the stars. He was looking forward to finding new and exciting ways to spend the thousand orbs he had gotten from the death of the troll. He still regretted killing that troll, but that didn’t stop him from looking forward to the future.

  Adventures on different planets sounded like a lot of fun when it was his choice.

  Thanks for reading. The more reviews I get on this book, the faster the second book will come out. Hint hint.