Beyond the Gates of Antares, page 23
In that same instance, his body fell and rolled to the nearest thick tree, the order for cover spreading through his shard's neurolink. Coordination through the IMTel displayed an image in his mind of where his enemies should be and the most accurate spots to fire. Magfire rained down around him, trying to pick holes in his squad. Fenris reached his arm around to the right and squeezed two shots off. He heard a squeal before the voice was drowned out from blood. The IMTel never steered them wrong.
Another three, then four, went down from his squad's pinpoint accuracy before Fenris nodded to another one of his squad members, Laurice. The lead phaser leapt up from his cover, sprinting forward to the Algoryn AI. Mag fire peppered into the colorful shielding of his bio-silicon armor, and then the moment presented itself. The remaining four troopers popped their heads out, and the IMTel showed Fenris exactly where he needed to place his focus.
The four streams of energy came at Laurice in unison, and before they made contact, he stopped. His body almost seemed to vibrate where it stood, the shots passing right through him. The phasing technology was a wonder; it seemingly removed a person’s body from the very bounds of space and time. Even though use for prolonged and constant periods of time could drive a person to the brink of madness, the Isorians, and in particular phase trooper squads like Fenris’s, were trained how to properly manipulate the defensive technology for short bursts of time.
With practiced efficiency, Fenris raised his wrist to fire the x-sling at the distracted foes. Four grenades shot through the air, exploding in gouts of flame as they made contact with the targets.
Laurice's body stopped shivering and he turned to his commander, jerking a thumb at the flaming brush. “So can I assume we're all clear?”
Fenris stared at the flames as the IMTel checked for remaining targets. He opened his mouth to respond, but a red helmet popped up. A shot barked from the enemy mag gun, but not before a long, green laser burst his head like a ruptured melon. Fenris turned to the source, even though he already knew what caused it; Daveen nodded solemnly back to him once.
Something else cried across the shard, something non-human, that caused the phase commander to wince as he traced the enemy fire. Ethar was kneeling on the ground, carefully holding the camo drone in his arms as he inspected it. Fenris felt the annoyance of his group and fought every urge to contribute to it.
“Damnit,” Basch’ra's gravelly voice howled. “That thing's not standard issue! Command's going to be furious when they find out the Algoryn turned it into scrap!”
“Basch’ra,” Fenris raised a hand. “Enough. Ethar, damage report?”
“Well, it was a crippling shot, but it’s not destroyed. I'm not sure if I can fix it, but given time, I can keep tinkering with it.”
Fenris scowled, more furious with the luck of the enemy than anything his own squad had done. “Chance of success?”
Ethar took a moment to consult with the IMTel. “Four point sixteen percent chance of success.”
Tona scoffed and there was a general wash of dissatisfaction that came over Fenris from the others.
“We can't stop to worry about it. Take it with us and work on it. We cannot let them get the Fifth Age tech.”
* * *
Night had fallen and obscured the forests of Pfytorus in a thick darkness. Wherever the moon was above them, it shone no light down on the seven bodies of the phase trooper squad. Of course, that made no difference to Fenris, as he could see the others through the night vision of his helmet as if it were the middle of the day; it distorted the color slightly and gave the members thick outlines to solidify their presence in his vision. They had not made as much progress as he would have liked, moving a bit slower to make up for the lack of stealth. He knew his squad needed rest, if not for the sleep then to calm the tension they all shared; a few hours would be enough to still get them back on course.
His eyes traced the thick off-colored outlines of his squad. Laurice sat a stone’s throw away, meditating. Even though they all had been trained in phasing, Laurice’s thick frame yet nimble movements allowed him to most often be the volunteer for the trickiest of time-bending maneuvers. Phasing, while protecting the body, affected the mind in strange ways when used for long periods. It took the soldier completely out of the moment, phasing out of time entirely; and when they returned, it was as if they had not moved at all. Timing the activation and duration was a technique that took a great deal of patience and practice. And it was in moments like these that Laurice took time to steel his mind for the next bout.
Each of the troopers had their own way to achieve a personal zen. Tona leaned back against a heavy log, meticulously checking her plasma rifle and sidearm, almost as if to make sure not a single speck of dirt could invade any crevice of the weapons. Zyler found a branch to draw into the dirt with; it was hard to make out if he was writing to keep his sanity or drawing swirls to match the craze of his mind. Basch’ra passed an ancient combat knife across the knuckles of both hands, a family heirloom that his second brought as good luck. Ethar was pouring over the camo drone, a spark from his work rarely igniting the sea of pitch.
Further away from the rest was Daveen. The sniper was as still as the towering trees around them as he sat on his haunches, facing away from the phase troopers. The sound of exchanging fire was omnipresent, even through the black of night. The blasts were distant, but Daveen nevertheless scanned all around the group's encampment. His rifle would slowly sweep to one side of the forest, pause, and then carefully swing to the other. The man piloting the drone could easily have been mistaken for part of the machine.
Fenris wondered if Daveen found peace behind the barrel of his weapon, that calm being the reason for such silence.
His squad had been quite the veteran of combat, having seen at least thirty-some battles. Thirty-nine, to be exact, the IMTel called up before his eyes. Even though none were as sensitive and crucial as this one, that experience with the other five, all linked to the same shard, had given them a sense of unity like nothing else. Every emotion, every action, everything that one person of the group felt, they all felt in unison. It seemed that beyond just the shard, they were in sync with one another’s reactions and movements before they occurred. While that never stopped each person from acting as their own, they felt a collective unison that would feel hollow without every member there. Fenris thanked the IMTel’s great knowledge for putting such a skilled squad together that still remained intact since their formation.
“Any luck, Eth?” Zyler mumbled, still tooling away at his art.
“Uh… Somewhat.”
“Really?”
The heads of the squad members turned at once.
“Well, uh… No… Sorry.” He shook his head as they each turned back to their tasks. “I mean… It’s not completely broken yet, but it might as well be. I can get it to spark, as you’ve seen, but I can’t get it to come back online. It keeps trying to reboot, but after a random percentage it just shuts down. I’ve seen it get as high as sixty-two, but then as low as three. Something’s not clicking right, and I can’t figure out what it is.”
“Tona, you’re good with guns.” Basch’ra growled as he flicked the knife in her direction. “Can’t you see if you can help the boy out?”
“Thanks but no thanks, Basch. I’m good with guns, yeah – firing them, cleaning them, kitting them – but my expertise ends there. I can tell you how to fire any sort of rifle, the distance a lugger can hit, how many plasma shots it would take to kill a Rock Father, and I can even disassemble one of those Algoryn D-spinners to rework them into a functioning x-sling,” she made a swirl with her finger to emphasize her point. “Drones though? No idea how they work.”
“Just how different could they be?” Basch’ra was a dependable man, the best second Fenris could have ever asked for, but there was always the hint of something in his voice that sounded as if he would get up to start a brawl. “A drone is a weapon too. Just hovers with the suspensors.”
“More to it than that,” the female trooper shook her head. “A drone’s alive. It can think and react and make tactical decisions based off of analysis. Would you want Ethar to open you up and take a look inside you if your leg got blown off, just because he knew the inner workings of a drone?”
“Point taken,” Basch’ra turned his head in the other soldier’s direction. “No offense, lad.”
“None taken,” Ethar shrugged.
Fenris leaned back, crossing his arms as he looked over to the sniper. “Tona, you’ve got a good point. Drones are different than the standard weapons we carry – they are very much so more alive. That said, Daveen, any knowledge on the subject?”
There was a pause before the sniper spoke.
“What do you mean, Phase Commander?”
A sort of reverence warmed Fenris that he knew was more than his own. The sniper’s voice, which he rarely heard, was soft with a regal air to it that did not match the general brusqueness of most troopers.
“Your sniper rifle is more than just a weapon, correct?”
“Yes. As you can tell, it is also a drone. The IMTel flows through it, alerting both it and I of targets, allies, natural wildlife, heat signatures, and any other points of interest. Together, we are one unit instead of two separate.”
“Truly fascinating how a machine and a PanHuman can find such harmony. Is it possible that you might have information on drone schematics and diagnostics beyond what the IMTel is giving us?”
“Negative,” the sniper shook his head. “If I knew of anything, it would have been fed directly to the shard. Even though my drone and I are one collective unit, we are still in the same way so very much different. I know as much about it as your tech-savant does.”
Fenris nodded and turned back to the rest of his squad. “I figured that was the case. Ethar, keep trying what you can. Don’t overwork yourself, though. Tona, try to help however possible. You at least are a little more versed in the subject than the rest of us. Basch, Zyler, Laurice, get whatever rest you can. We’ll be on the move shortly.”
* * *
Even with the cover of the night, they treaded carefully through the maze of forestation. While their bio-silicon suits allowed them avoidance from most of the Algoryn and Ghar’s primitive signature readers, if the enemy had any sort of night vision, the squad could still be visibly seen. As the traversed on, sunlight’s golden rays started to seep in through the cracks of foliage above, which only added to their vigilance.
“Closing in on destination,” Fenris breathed over the shard. “Stay sharp.”
The exchange of mag and lugger fire grew louder, and to Fenris's chagrin, the neural display started blotting his vision with scattered red outlines. Whether the enemy knew what secrets the ruins held, whether one of the forces was using it as a defensive position, or the fates had conspired against the Isorian unit, the IMTel still gave them the same objective: recover the technology. Percentage of success: sixty-four point eighty-six percent. Not bad odds, but not at much as Fenris would have liked.
The treeline started thinning, and just past the last drooping branches towered a several hundred yan monument. He had seen the crumbling black obelisk throughout the duration of the mission, projected into his mind from the IMTel. Perched around various point of rubble were Ghar defenders supporting the ground troops and the Algoryn pressing the assault from spread angles in the field littered with black stone.
“Easy targets.” There was almost a chuckle in Basch’ra’s voice. “That is, of course, Commander, if we are heading into battle.”
Fenris furrowed his brow. He ran several scenarios against the IMTel. Trying to duck and weave their way through the spread combat yielded unfavorable results; waiting until the combat ended seemed an abysmal choice, putting the relic and the tech in danger; however, not being seen seemed the IMTel's most favorable option. He looked at the drone hovering on a suspended platform in front of Ethar; there was no visible change that he could see.
“Drone status?”
Ethar shook his head. “Nothing yet, sir.”
“Thing won't wake at all,” Tona shook her head. “Between the knowledge we both share, we can't make heads or tails of how to fix it. Nor is the IMTel giving us any options. Just keeps saying the drone's rebooting. Maybe the connection’s severed?”
“Well, then that only leaves one choice.” Fenris picked his plasma rifle up, sighting up on the enemy lines. Daveen had already trained his aim, steady on his chosen mark; the others followed suit of their leader. “Pick your targets carefully. Make every shot count. There's a lot of open space between here and that doorway. If we're going to make it, we have to cause as much confusion and take out as much of the opposition that we can. When we move, find thick chunks of cover and hunker down.”
Acknowledgment came through the shard from each of the members, including Daveen. He scanned through the targets, assessing which would be the most beneficial kill. He lined up with an outcast who had taken refuge by the doorway and tried to suppress the uneasiness from spreading through the shard. The Ghar were the less favorable of the two to take position in the ruins; the destructive minions were less likely to leave the technology unscathed.
He felt the others awaiting his command; three, including Daveen, had picked targets close to his own while the other three chose Algoryn prey. He waited for a calculation that he approved of, not for himself, but for the unit.
His finger quickly pulled the trigger in succession. Two light blue slivers of light shot through the air and struck the outcast; the first just barely missed the head and struck the wall behind while the second made impact and cleanly passed through the eye socket. The body slumped back against the foreign sleek black of the obelisk and did not get back up. The six others fired simultaneously. Some of the phase troopers fired three or four shots, but Daveen, using the power of his drone-rifle only needed one. Seven other targets fell; each trooper made their mark and Daveen's sniper shot pierced through one and then cleanly took another.
Fenris switched his aim down to the battlefield. There was more cover than he realized – if it could even be called that. The chunks of rubble were barely large enough to shield the Algoryn bodies, but enough to deflect most shots. He switched the plasma rifle from single shot to semi-automatic.
“Someone cover the defenders.”
“Understood,” Laurice aimed up at the Ghar outcasts.
“In my sights,” Tona acknowledged.
There was a third response to his command, but it did not come in verbally; Fenris knew it was from the stoic sniper.
Before either side had known where the plasma shots had come from, another volley sounded out from the trees. Fenris let the shots bark from his gun in a wave of searing blue. It was less accurate of an attack, but it killed at least seven Algoryn AI troopers. Blips of red on his map readout showed several of the Ghar outcasts go down as well – more than he expected. The kill readout from the others attributed those, once again, to Daveen.
Fenris smiled. Without the proper technology like what the IMTel provided, it would be hard for either of the opposing forces to detect where the fire originated from, standing at the side angle they were; they were too focused on each other to even suspect a third party. With less numbers of opponents and the element of surprise still on their side, the steadily increasing success rate told Fenris now was the time to move!
Fenris lowered his rifle and began sprinting forward, his pace increasing with every pounding step. He knew his squad was flanking him the moment he had decided to move. Each sure step took him through the woodland, past the grass, and into the dirt and rubble. They managed to make it several yan before Fenris noticed the mag fire licking at their heels. It was a slow trickle that could not keep up with the agile phase troopers, but Fenris still marked out the aggressors for the others to take note of. Raising his gun, he changed the rate of fire once more to automatic, and then unleashed a stream of plasma shots toward the Algoryn.
More guns turned their attention to them, and this time there were stray lugger shots in the mix as well. Lights would flare up here and there as shots peppered his shielding, rerouting the damage away from Fenris. With each hit that struck him, the phase commander's gun was up and barking across the field, echoed by the rest of his unit and the powerful blast of the phase sniper.
He managed to duck into relatively thick cover and checked on the status of his unit. Shields had taken a bit of a beating, but no one had suffered any real damage.
“Ethar, you doing okay with the drone?”
“Yes, sir.” The soldier had ducked close by, spread loosely in with the rest of the phase troopers.
“Is it weighing you down at all?” Fenris raised his gun over the rubble and let the IMTel help him to find his shot.
“No, sir. It's strapped tight to my back and not going anywhere.” It was Ethar's turn to fire a burst out at the enemies. “Just as long as a stray shot doesn't find our little buddy again, hopefully he'll have enough time to reboot.”
“Sir.” Laurice moved in closer to his left. “Is it time?”
“Not yet,” Fenris shook his head. “Too much fire still. I don't want to risk you not being able to keep phased.”
“Well, we better do something soon.” Basch’ra waved his hand at Fenris; the phase commander threw him one of his x-grenades which was then lobbed out at the enemies with a great explosion. “We're going to get pinned in here soon enough.”
Before Fenris had a chance to answer, a blinking red blip caught his attention. He turned in cover and could see the IMTel was showing him something coming his way from the enemy position. He did not need the readings to tell him what was hurling down. Fenris’s first instinct, and what the IMTel told him to do, was to brace for impact, but the explosion sounded out before it ever reached the Isorian troopers. He looked toward Daveen, who was poised out of his cover, aiming with the sniper drone. The IMTel was never wrong – they really had needed a sniper for this mission.
