The First Technomancer

by G Aliaksei C

  I looked down at her with irony. “And there, rent might change, and we may need to move again. Or that town might fall to the Beasts. Or our enemies, the ones we don’t have yet, might attack and force us to move.”

  Inna shrugged. “All that might happen. So what?”

  “So there’s always a reason to retreat. To give up. To choose an easier solution. And it’s always a very good reason. But it should never be good enough, not if we want to avoid a lifetime of fleeing from every issue we face.”

  “If we stay, we are likely to lose more than if we leave.”

  “And if we survive we will become stronger, and that much harder to touch by anyone and anything wishing us harm.”

  Inna looked back at the Driver as it hummed and thumped, sending the package of Firebolters away. I watched the trail of fire fade, and turned to her.

  “How much do I owe you for this thing?” The credit value of such a logistical treasure couldn’t be low.

  “I don’t think a monetary economy will work here. There’s too few of us, and the gap between our bank accounts is too massive.”

  “Then how do you want to be compensated?”

  The villagers, having completed their task of setting up the Mailing Driver, gathered around us. Inna looked at them, then back up at me.

  “These Firebolters of yours? We had some ideas.”

  Half an hour later I had a stack of crates and boxes in my living room. The villagers brought over their personal supplies, materials and parts they thought I might find useful. But the price of their donations was high.

  Like true Hades Ringers, they wanted weapons. In particular, they wanted custom models of the Firebolter, each to their own specifications. Of course the worst thing I could have done was argued - they were giving me free stuff, after all - so I took the materials and spent some time designing and fabricating a dozen variants of my exotic weapon.

  Some villagers just wanted more firepower, or wanted the weapon to be more compact, so I created several larger and smaller versions. Someone asked for a finger-ring-sized Firebolter. Someone else asked for leg-mounted versions. I still classified those as Firebolters of different output.

  Several, however, demanded much larger alternatives, with both more output and fire rate. The thought of a compact, light bracelet went out the window - I created an entire gauntlet, a large amassing of electronics that outmatched the original in everything but utility. This variant was not just a Firebolter, but a ‘Heavy’ Firebolter. It lacked the degrading nature of the original, which meant it could be used without limit. It was heavy, large, and only comfortable when worn over armor - carrying one otherwise was like walking around with weights on your hands.

  And each cost more than my net worth. It was still just a Class 3 weapon, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t incredibly expensive by my standards. The villagers had some serious resources and wealth - they provided me with material and parts so advanced and costly that I was hesitant to offer them my low-quality fabricator.

  For a time the villagers did nothing but destroy foam-concrete blocks. Several bots taken from wall repair duty were feverishly building pillar after pillar of stone, trying to keep up with the villager’s destructive playtesting. When the normal Firebolter variants started burning out the villagers that ordered them came to me for more. I sent them the fabricator instructions, and told them to do it themselves.

  After that I expected a boring, relaxing period between shipping and returns, a time where Rarus would be trying to sell my toys and I would be relaxing in an armchair on the roof of my bunker. That, of course, would have been a viable option had I not decided to settle on the Hades Ring.

  What I got instead was a siege.

  Now, the optimal weather for defenders in a siege is, usually, bad weather. The defender has home-turf advantage, and can comfortably sit the weather out. The attacker, on the other hand, has to deal with the weather outside the comfort of their home.

  This formula does not apply on the Hades Ring, not when local Beasts attack. We Humans had to hide behind a Comfort Dome, while the locals probably fed off of the destructive weather that kept us so suppressed.

  “Oh no,” I said, lowering my binoculars. “They are cooperating.”

  Flowing over the hills orbit and counterorbit, streaming into the valley in endless numbers, were Crawlers and Wolves. Several Wolves amassed around each Crawler, hiding behind its shields. Both species seemed better fed and maintained than any I had yet seen. Worse, they seemed entirely unconcerned by hurricane-speed winds, angry rain and constant, dense lightning discharges that filled the valley like a river of thunder.

  Wolves and Crawlers were no longer the only units on the field. Something massive, lumbering peeked over the hill, then retreated. Missiles, or some alternative form of guided projectile arched up, homing in on us. It was like a rain of steel and fire, striking the Comfort Dome from all directions. We watched through the roar and screeching of the energy lid protecting us as the munitions exploded, splashing against the glass-like wall. The strained Comfort Dome, designed for weather rather than combat, simply failed to stop the larger missiles mixed in with the smaller masses, and streaks of fire fell onto Vazanklav. The territory was mostly empty, and a majority of the penetrating shells struck nothingness. Several tore into roads and airstrips, while two narrowly missed the Waypoint tower atop my bunker, sending chunks of foam-concrete armor flying. I cringed, hoping the impacts did not penetrate the meters of stone buffer I had layered over my home.

  The barrage stopped after several dozen penetrators got through. The Comfort Dome, fed by beams of energy from three unharmed generators, began to thicken with power once more.

  Unlike me, Inna had no need for binoculars - she could probably see every detail of their armor and fur from within her faceless helmet. “This is annoying. It will take them a few minutes to reload for another barrage, though. Barely enough time to brutally murder them.” She turned to me as I began to climb over the edge of the wall. “Drake, what are you doing?”

  “Engaging the enemy!”

  “With an axe?”

  “Yes!” I grabbed the rope and began to descend the foam-concrete barrier. “Jim, light em up!”

  “Yes Mr. Frost.”

  Five RAM-Ds, already warm and aimed, roared as their mechanical lungs exhaled plasma. The blinding streams of light and fire passed through the Comfort Dome, through the wall of rain and wind, lighting up the fog with a burning red glow. The trail of burning air left behind was a decent conductor, and thunder erupted where the bolts had passed. At their destinations the bolts buried in the ground and, with glorious thunder and light, erupted, the effects blurred by the fog, deafened by the distance. Then, as if breaking through an invisible wall, the shockwaves struck the Comfort Dome. Five spheres of light and smoke, laced with powerful discharges and stone-melting clouds of heat now surrounded Vazanklav, replacing the denser concentrations of Crawlers.

  The remaining swarms of Beasts rapidly spread out. The Crawlers moved quickly, closely flanked by Wolves, in a way that would not allow more than a dozen to die in a single hit from our mighty guns. In the minute of recharge time that my five guns demanded they lost their effectiveness against the dispersing enemy.

  Inna was gone from my side of the wall. She and the villagers would handle seven-eighths of the perimeter, while me and all the Jims handled our one-eighth.

  It was an unfair division of labor. For us.

  Plasma bolts began to splash against the damaged Comfort Dome as the RAM-Ds fired again.

  Using the shockwaves as a distraction I leapt through the Dome and began to run, struggling against the mighty wind. Lightning after lightning, enticed by my conductive properties, struck at me, heating the suit’s outer armor. The upgraded, shielded servos and electronics within the joints of the suit were put to a terrible test as I closed in on the first Crawler. The engineering involved was absurd and impressive, demonstrating a level of thermal and static shield
ing that only Hades Ring’s hellish weather would require, and a durability that would be considered unnecessary and extreme almost anywhere else.

  Again bolts of plasma connected to my sides, flinging me up. Unable to evade, I took flight.

  Wolves broke out of the deflector around the Crawler. The smaller Beasts raced towards the spot of my predicted fall, rushing to intercept my inevitable landing. I spread out my limbs, shifting to stabilize my flight, and aimed a hand at the raging creatures below.

  The Firebolter spat, and an explosion threw the Beasts apart. While, normally, the knockback of the shot was sunk into the ground the user stood on, someone in flight had no such anchor. Half of the Firebolter’s kinetic energy went into accelerating the bolt, while the other worked to slow my flight. I crashed into the burning crater at a survivable speed, only to be showered by a flood of raining debris.

  What followed was an hour - just under three Earth hours - of unfiltered, uninterrupted combat. I got lucky with the Firebolter, making fifteen shots before the weapon broke down.

  That was ten local minutes into the fight.

  I learned that the Firebolter can’t penetrate the Crawler’s shields. I discovered that standing within the shield when firing it turns the inside of the dome into an oven. I noted that Wolves instantly go for a lone limb sticking through the deflector.

  And, most importantly, I learned that firing the Firebolter while the hand is pressed into the target causes the bracelet to use flesh and metal for fuel instead of air, and that the resulting explosion turns the far side of the target into a burning ruin of meat and steel more effectively than my minigun could hope to.

  At forty minutes in I took a plasma bolt to the chest, and had to shed the ruined exosuit. Healing water raged in my system, repairing broken ribs and crushed lungs as I lay in the dirt. I could not rely on sound to identify approaching enemies, too deafened by the relentless lightning strikes connecting with the ground across the battlefield. Gasping for filtered air I rose up, trying not to move the muscles in my burned chest. I realized that had killed many more than I counted in the initial attack - the Beasts were still swarming over the mountains, working their way closer to the Comfort Dome. The raw pressure of the battle made it hard to count - there was too much going on, too many factors to keep track of. My every sense was scorched and shaken, deteriorating under stress that my body was never designed to survive. The adrenalin-fueled battle rush of the earlier minutes turned to exhaustion and pain, excitement replaced as a motivator by pure determination.

  At the end of the half hour, fifty minutes of murder and combat later, Jim called for help. I had to spend several seconds figuring out where I was, and found myself significantly further from the walls than all of Jims. Another five minutes were spent in a bloody retreat towards my mechanical friend in distress.

  I found the mechs in a tight circle, hiding under a combined deflector dome. Several were missing limbs. They were taking a continuous stream plasma from all directions, constantly deflecting charge after charge of Wolves. Their laser rifles glowed red with effort, marking the fight clearly through the fog and rain.

  It took twenty minutes to free Jim from the siege.

  It took twenty more minutes to push the attack away from the Comfort Dome.

  In five more minutes, and at the end of my energy reserves, we pushed the remaining Beasts off, forcing a retreat.

  One hundred local minutes. One local hour of combat. Just under three Earth hours.

  Climbing the rope back up the wall seemed like the most impossible task in the world.

  Inna walked over a time later, and found me in a heap under a merlon. The less-damaged of Jim stood overwatch over me, stepping aside to let the Lady of War through.

  “Very, very well done Drake. We are just wrapping up ourselves.”

  “…The darker the weather, the better the man…” I sang. The speakers in my helmet had failed, but Inna heard me anyway.

  “I understand your choice of weapon now.” She picked up my axe, looking it over. “Any Class 2 melee weapon would be ruined after all that. This is barely dented.”

  I finally mustered the energy to heave off my helmet. It felt heavier than the world in that moment. Dragging out my flask, I began to drink. The Healing Water filled my broken core, soaking into crushed organs. The hole in my chest finally stopped burning.

  My eighth of the field was the least occupied. Inna’s and the villager’s sectors had at least triple the corpses I had accumulated.

  These were only Class 2 and 3 Beasts.

  Inna hadn’t even changed into her combat body.

  The fact that I was thousands of years and light years away from my time and place of birth was barely setting in. Before, I was focused on the goals ahead of me - figure out what’s going on, make friends, survive the fight, save a lady, try not to die, build a home, figure out how to make money. Now, all was replaced by the struggle for survival. I knew Inna alone could deflect every incursion, but forced myself into combat over and over anyway. I had no way to continue on with my plans without replenishing my wallet and stockpile of rare materials, and such extreme combat exercises were the best investment of my time while I waited for Rarus to make sales. I had over a billion credits of debt for the tank and construction equipment, and a growing credit for Jim’s services, yet I could do nothing but wait for the investments to pay themselves off.

  It took a while to repair the walls. The Comfort Dome let through several Wolves and Crawlers - those did significant damage to the stone-like barrier surrounding my gravestone.

  There was plenty of foam-concrete to go around though. Once the walls were put back together I set out to build roads connecting the perimeter gates, the airport and parking lot, my bunker, and the small village. The concrete was incredibly tough and easily supported the mass of my personal tank. I now spent my mornings making rounds around the base, enjoying the sound the machine made when hovering on the smooth stone.

  There was an endless supply of combat. Every day now something attempted to breach my walls and break in. The foam-concrete perimeter now had countless fresh patches where crawlers simply rammed through.

  On clear days the RAM-Ds picked off predators at range, but in nine out of ten hours a day the attack appeared on the sensor grid at ranges which made firing the rollback artillery suicidal. We all lived in shifts of sleep, work, and wall defense.

  The practical experience of fighting Class 2 and 3 Beasts with Class 2 equipment made for one hell of a training regime. The machines counterorbit built shielded, armored, armed warbots that rendered my and Jim’s ranged fire ineffective. The biomasses orbitward had speed and numbers, relying on swarming tactics and fast regeneration to overwhelm defenders.

  Which would have been bad enough, if not for the nearness of the two Hotzones. The machines and swarms, instead of fighting for resources, formed symbiotic relationships. The hybrid nature of such cooperation was visible in every single creature we deflected from our walls - the Wolves had steel skin and, sometimes, weak deflectors. The Crawlers benefited from the vast regeneration and speed of the biological, closing their melee weakness, making them that much harder to defeat.

  In two days I participated in three engagements, exhausting all resource stocks for powered armor repair and nearly ruining my axe, a task I thought to be impossible.

  Someone was clearly as exhausted as I was. On the second day I scaled the fortifications and found the top of the walls lined with small, scattered weapon turrets from the Gate Town.

  I would need to find out which of the villagers I owed more money to.

  Between hours of sleep, combat and repair, I worked. The sanctuary of my underground workshop was more welcome than the rare clear skies. As excellent a practice as the constant battle was, it wasn’t what I enjoyed most.

  In retrospect, I realized that I had an incredibly easy transition. Whoever placed me on the Hades Ring, rather than any of the others, knew what they were doing. The lif
e-saving reflexes and habits of The War which would have been more than bothersome on, say, the peaceful Green Ring were still necessary here. I didn’t have to unlearn to sleep with three guns on my body, to pass through doorways with my hand on the knife handle, to feel for the telltale pressure under my boots that would signify a mine. Not here, on the Waste Ring, where a particular species of underground plant grew pressure-petals that exploded when stepped on, where smaller Beasts snuck into the base in an effort to snatch an unprepared victim leaving their own home.

  Emergency waking has always been an interesting experience for me. I always found myself coming to consciousness already in my boots, pulling on my pants. In that order. Only when I questioned why I was out of my bed, with a knife in my teeth and locking the belt of my pants did I hear the sirens.

  I rushed outside, for once armed with my minigun, just in time to climb the passing tank, heaving to drag up the heavy gun without the exosuit.

  Jim was jogging beside the hovertank.

  “What’s the party today, Jim?”

  “Hello Mr. Frost. We got Raider contacts popping up orbit and counterorbit.”

  Entirely unphased I adjusted my thinking to the new enemy. “What Class?”

  Jim looked at me, the digital screen of his face flashing a frown. “I am assuming you are not aware of this, but the Waste Ring is where the Corporation sends captured enemy troops, traitors, criminals. Gates leading off the Ring don’t accept them, and Gems in their hands don’t work. The troublemakers are banned from entering most cities. Except for a few non-prisoners working with them, their inability to use Gems locks them to Class 1 gear, stuff that does not rely on the Gem or Gem Dust.”

  “Can they break through the…” I waved at the Comfort Dome overhead.

  “Perhaps. They usually bring siege cannons. Those use chemical gunpowder and fires heavy anti-material rounds.”