***
“This forest is different.” The first part of the comment wasn’t needed as the short bushes they were now getting cut by were much different from the open forest before. “This might be a younger form of the trees, all fighting for early nutrients to become tall enough.”
Raist stepped on a short branch, but his boot slipped, so he reached out to the tree to catch his balance. His hand was instantly cut by of the sharp edge before he rolled into some of the sharper branches.
He caught himself before he became maimed trying to get out of the bush. He stopped moving for a bit to let his internal nanites restring the outer skin of his hand back together before he continued on, mindful to not trust the slippery lower branches.
“The blood we are spilling here is probably exactly what the trees are looking for,” Agrest mused as he slowly wove his way through the underbrush. “Regardless, looks like we are here.”
A large metallic fortress only slightly extended out from the mountain it was built in. A light patrol of robotic guards swept around the half circle perimeter of the building.
“Outlook?” Raist asked.
“Seven ground, two aerial drones…” Agrest started. “Unbelievable! Those AA cannons are Aelishan!” Agrest had laid additional nanite lens over his eyes to zoom in, and took a mental picture that he sent over ICS to the others. Raist got the picture and saw markings on the control panel that were written in Aelisha language. “Anything you aren’t telling us?”
“I really wish there was.”
The politics were not important to the Scout. “Only one entrance, but based on its various signatures and layout, I’d say a grav-charge over on the side should get us pretty close to where AKRA might be,” Philira said of the structure’s overlay, pulling a small set of goggles off her eyes that melted back into her suit.
Raist pulled out a grav-charge, priming it and looked back to the two of them. “I’m going in, and I’ll need Philira for close quarters. It’s up to you if you stay here for long range support, or come with us.”
“You should know.”
“Just had to ask.” The three of them did a quick check to ensure the cloaking was functioning, and that their weapons had full charges. “Once we get AKRA, we are blasting our way out of this forest. Get ready for a fast escape when we come back.”
“Ready?” Agrest asked. The two close range weapons floating in the air and held at ready was answer enough. They waited until he lined up his first shot.
The Silvershot’s round blasted out of the barrel, striking the first robot in the chest. The round pierced until its internal sensors detected softer material and detonated in an explosion of shrapnel. On the outside only a few joints showed anything blowing out, but the robot dropped immediately. The rifle was not quiet, and the other two took off as the battle was on.
Philira fired a Plaz-Shot at the nearest robot, the plasma bolts leaving it in pieces, some of the dispersion ruining one behind it. Raist lifted the SSAW to the two aerial drones swooping in and pulled the trigger.
The barrel was not round, in fact, it was almost completely flat, and the round that came out looked like a small contained energy field. The light blue ‘knife’ spread out about the width of Raist’s body, before it appeared to multiply, spreading into five exact copies of the body-wide energy knife. These five multiplied again horizontally. The cone of destruction was almost the full half circle in front of him, and these 25 knives each shot two lances above them and two lances below them from a strange black core contained in the center of the energy field. The result was 125 blades launched out of the weapon. Immensely powerful, but extremely limited on ammo because of how much energy it used.
This entire process took less time than it took to blink, and only the bright after-image in the eyes left any indication of what just happened, that and the cubed robot falling out of the sky.
“Grav it, I’ll cover you!” Philira was first to the wall, and turned to start fighting the remaining guards. Raist slapped the charge to the wall, sticking to anything as it was gravity bound and not friction bound. He grabbed the young woman’s arm and dragged her a few steps away.
The area by the charge turned completely black, an abyss of light in the shape of a perfect sphere. Only a moment later a complete match to the abyss of light was cut evenly into the ground and the wall of the fortress as everything within had been crushed to a singular dense point.
“Reinforcements!” Philira jerked his arm towards the main door where a massive number of robots and beings of the three respective races of who had stolen AKRA were pouring out. Raist leveled the SSAW and pulled the trigger again, cleaving out a substantial portion of the first wave. A second wave was streaming out and Raist lifted the weapon again.
Philira grabbed it to stop him. “You only have two shots left. Agrest knew what he was in for. We need to move fast. They know what we are doing.” Philira dragged him towards the hole he had blown into the wall. Agrest was putting up a good fight, but Raist knew he would not live through the horde as he attempted to defend the two of them as they went inside. Raist questioned for a brief moment that perhaps this was an elaborate plot to get a skilled and loyal team killed on a suicide mission.
They clambered up the spherical ground left behind into a fairly normal hallway. The problem was there were doors everywhere, and his scanner that was set to AKRA’s recovery chip was blinking erratically.
She leaned over, seeing the scanner acting randomly. “Shit, which way is it?!”
Anything worth hiding tended to be in the back, at least that would be logical. He put the inconsistent scanner away for now. “Towards the back,” Raist commanded as he started running in his direction, but Philira sprinted in front of him.
“Let me take point,” Philira said as she ran in front of him; he didn’t have a problem with that.
A door opened to the right and she pumped a Plaz-Shot into the room, one bolt bouncing off something reflective as it ripped back towards them away into the ceiling.
A Solarian guard leaned expertly out of one door, taking a rapid shot at the two of them. Philira went falling to the floor, rolling with a trail of blood arcing out of her leg. She brought the Scattergun to bear and ended the rather skilled guard’s life.
“Walk it off,” Raist told her as he drug her to her feet, the blood still leaking out of her leg.
“Had every intention.” She set off again, still faster than him even with a bullet through her muscles.
Further down the hall was a huge, thick door with an access panel to its right. That would be the type of place AKRA was hidden; the erratic scanner beeping madly seemed to indicate it was.
In front of him, Philira was twisting towards the ground again, and about the same time, he felt something itching on his wrist, a sensation he could not avoid. He looked down to see only the burnt stump of his arm remaining, while seeing Philira’s entire upper arm missing. Falling to the floor, she lifted her weapon with her remaining hand, each recoil of the powerful weapon seemed to be slow motion as it tore through the hallway, blowing down the enemies behind the doors with their Reflect-Rifles the two had been hit with.
“…that’s why the hallways were so bare looking. They definitely thought about an assault if they planned on using reflect technology.” She stood up, holding the heavy weapon straight ahead with only one hand, oblivious to the fact she only had one arm remaining.
He could still hold the front of the SSAW up with his left stub while his right pulled the trigger, and that’s all that mattered as they continued on.
“Wait, wait!” he called.
She turned around towards him, confused as to why he was stopping when they were so close to the huge door.
His mind was screaming at him to keep going, but something else was screaming that he was already there. If he opened that big door, they would die; it was a certainty he had never felt before. He turned to a fair
ly simple door nearby, one that didn’t even auto-open.
Raist was already here.
Front kicking the wood door off its hinge, he advanced through the door.
A woman was kneeling down on the floor, gravlock bracelets on her wrists, and a light force field around her. They had prisoners here too? Then a strange thought came to him. He remembered this as if he had known it his whole life.
“AK…RA?” Yet he had known before he even asked.
She lifted her head up to face him, and her bright teal eyes almost floored Raist with the peacefulness they radiated compared to the violence around him.
“Yes, that is the name of part of the knowledge I possess.”
“Well then you are coming with us.” He lifted his weapon and bashed the nearest console, lowering the force field as the controls sparked.
“You are lucky I can sense your intentions. I am not one who would follow threats,” AKRA said while offering her cuffs up to Raist to do something about.
“Don’t you dare talk to me about luck,” Raist said back to her angrily.
“Heh, you have no idea about reality.” She tilted her head away while he used the Vibro-Knife stuck in the SSAW to cut through the cuffs quickly. He stowed it back and stood up.
“Holy shit, you’re a Star Priestess…” Philira marveled at the regal woman who maintained a sense of dignity despite being a prisoner.
Per Philira’s exclamation, he noticed her bangle on her arm and the elaborate tattoo on both sides that caught his attention. Potential Priestesses grow up with it on the arm, and if they never let it fall off, it becomes a permanent fixture and a mark of pride showing their focus.
“I am. They sent the best, didn’t they?” asked AKRA.
“That’s what some called us,” he was not in a mood to talk.
‘I wouldn’t though…being the best is a myth’ his thought finished. ‘Even the best can catch a random bullet and die.’
“We have got to go.” Philira was holding the weapon between her legs to hold it in place of her other hand while she was loading another clip into the weapon. Raist felt a wave of guilt that this young woman was sitting on the floor holding her weapon with her legs just to reload it. She would never know a peaceful life... or things like love.
“Can you run?”
AKRA nodded, and the three of them ran out of the random room Raist had felt drawn towards. Had AKRA tapped into his mind, or was it something else?
“They will probably shoot you, won’t they?” Raist asked her, hoping that they could stage a hostage-style escape.
“Though I am valuable alive, at this stage they would now prefer me dead.”
For once, this rescuee was actually in excellent shape. She was obviously fairly fit and easily keeping stride with the two advanced soldiers. Star Priestesses were deceptively strong and fast, likely imbued with Aelisha technology.
“Cover your eyes and ears, AKRA,” Philira turned to tell her for a moment before grabbing two spheres off her suit and pitching them through the spherical hole. Raist turned, mentally triggering his nanites to block the sound. A loud retort and series of vibrations went on for a few moments before he opened his eyes. He was going to tap AKRA to keep moving, but she already was.
“Sonic pulsars…you have good connections, soldier,” AKRA said, sliding down the hole Philira was leading through.
“How the hell do you know about that technology?” Raist likewise jumped down the hole, and ran up the other side temporarily cleared by the two grenades the Scout had thrown. “Clear?” His second question was dedicated to Philira who was advancing across the open field.
“Hurry!” she yelled back. Raist was running after the two girls, seeing stunned or dead soldiers and robots around them. The covering fire from Agrest’s location had ceased, only burning pillars of exploded planet remained where he once was.
‘Thanks Agrest…’ Raist thought solemnly.
The two girls got to the deep shrub and when they didn’t dive in, he realized AKRA was not going to get through this easily; she would be torn to shreds. Even their advanced combat suits were still barely enough to get through the material.
“Saw! Saw!” Philira repeated twice, using the slang name for his weapon, turning back towards the compound to defend their backside.
Raist leveled the SSAW at the forest and pulled the trigger, the blue laser wave shot out, moments later the bushes fell apart as they were cleaved in multiple directions. It seemed a strange justice to be cutting the trees that had been tearing them this entire time. It left a wide cone of destruction in front of them, taking them to about halfway to the cliff further beyond.
“One shot left,” Philira reminded him.
“We’re good, let’s go.” He grabbed AKRA’s wrist and ran into the vast clearing. “AKRA you are going to get pretty messed up, but you should live and we can heal you back on our ship.”
“I have a name, and it is not AKRA. It is Ryluna. I possess Level-3 nanites, so I should be able to sustain more than you.” Raist never heard of levels of nanites, but loosely confirmed the idea of the Aelisha protecting their heavy investment.
“Well, Ryluna, keep running. You talk a big game; it is time to see just how tough you are.”
“I just needed the opportunity for escape, I am quite capable of effecting it myself, Raist.”
“Watch yourself, bitch.” He was in no mood given the losses they had sustained getting here.
Philira caught the subtly he himself had not, “How the hell do you know his name!?” she turned around before facing back forward and crashing through the light brush. Small trails of blood showed the cuts she was sustaining on her legs, blazing the trail for the other two of them.
In front of him, suddenly a huge black form crashed out of one of the huge trees, slamming right into Philira.
“Shit!” Her head slammed hard back into the tree, the huge creature with its horn impaling through her reared back to strike her again. She pulled her Plaz-Shot up and leveled it at the creature, sending plasma through its carapace. It fell to the ground, but she was still impaled into the tree, connected to the massive dead beast.
“Philira!” Raist stopped, his thoughts racing about how to get her out of here, but hostile forces were being mustered right behind them to kill them.
“Go!” Her cold eyes had taken a slight pleading edge to them, despite her strong words.
‘Damn it!’ His mind recalled the last Scout he lost. She too was still alive when she forced him to go on while she stayed behind, fighting to the bitter end…her young body bleeding out while Raist got to live.
Philira painfully reminded him of his training partner, Laiun, from his younger days. They were practically the same: a beautiful, youthful girl whose entire life was geared to be the ultimate spec-ops soldier with their speed and reflexes. The pain resonated from the fact they both actually seemed like gentle souls, or at least could have been, and only through not having a choice did they find themselves in this position. And the fact it was their ‘destiny’ to die for the Leader class like Raist, going down in a blaze of gunfire to ensure their Leader was kept alive.
Philira pointed her gun downwards and started shooting. The plasma bolts blew through the body, but did very little to ‘dig’ her way out of the huge mass.
“No…no way!” He yelled mostly to himself at a desperation based heavily in his own mind. He pulled out his Vibro-Knife and started sawing at the huge horn spilling the blood out of the beautiful Scout. The horn was so big even going all the way around wouldn’t sever it. He started cutting V’s into the horn, letting the pieces fall away from its vibrating edge to access deeper parts of the horn.
His mind was thinking in erratic, staccato fashion. He could get her. He would not let her die. He glanced behind him, noting he still had a little time. He started hacking faster and faster. He glanced again and thought he saw movement. He wasn’t losing Philira. Not
again. Not again.
“Raist!” Her voice was on the edge, but her sadness and anger were palpable across the air. “Go!”
“I am not leaving you!” He hacked away again at the bone. “I’ll use the SSAW, move your legs.”
“No, save it! It’s the only weapon you have left. Don’t be stupid, your type isn’t supposed to be emotional. You know leaving me here will buy you enough time to leave.”
A shot exploded above his head, a branch fell down and hit him in the back, cutting it open slightly. Philira turned behind them and shot around the tree, killing whatever it was.
Raist rapidly turned his head to look at Ryluna, her frown added to the intense realism that his good friend Philira stood a very real chance of not living through this; he would never see her again.
“Damn it, Philira, we have been through too much!” He lifted his hand way up, stabbing the Vibro-Knife into the bone. It cut deep, but the ‘ting’ sound of the handle hitting resonated loudly as his knife went bouncing away into an alcove of one of the trees. He stood there with tears in his eyes, his one remaining hand empty of the knife that might have possibly been the one way to save her if he had more time.
“Heh, noble to the end. Just go.” She turned her face away from his for a moment. “You are making this situation worse.” Her eyes were wet as she continued, “I don’t want to cry, too much pride to die like that.”
“You just want me to leave you!?”
She placed her Plaz-Shot on the beast’s head, reaching down to her leg and pulling up her own Vibro-Knife. She held out her weapon to Raist, “Here, a soldier should never be without a knife.”
His tears were streaming down his face as he took her customized knife from her. The simple act was essentially admitting the eventual death of the Scout. The fact she had chosen a girly bright pink tone with a single yellow star on one side for its handle decoration was too much for Raist as he started crying hard.
“Heu…” he choked on a sob, squinting his eyes closed as he touched his cheek to hers. Damn it! He cared too much about her to just leave her. He had closed his heart to her because of his past, and now was paying for that mistake.
Philira was crying as well, but her voice stayed even. “Hope you like that knife, I had its repulsion field upgraded. It’s my favorite…It was my brother’s gift. Hope it saves you as much as it saved me.” She frowned, blinking the tears away, looking away from him for a moment as she probably fully realized her own imminent death. “Raist, go. You are losing your lead on them. Save AKRA, don’t let our group fail. Keep our memory alive.”
He looked at her, putting his one hand on her face, his own face taking on a cold determination. He knew what he had to say to her, even if he had denied it for so long. “I will never forget you, Philira. I…love you.”
“Thanks… That’s more than a Scout could ever expect from a Leader.” Her face cringed in pain for a moment, but she shook her head back to focus. “You were a hell of a Leader, you got us through a lot more than I ever expected. Goodbye, Raist. If a Scout could ever love, I think I loved you too. That’s what it felt like for a young girl like me.”
Together they kissed; it was a violent, passionate kiss that might have led to so much if she was not dying in front of him.
Raist pulled away, then removed his hand away from her face and she nodded, her own cold eyes taking on a deadly focus.
He jumped off the huge beast and started running through the forest. He ran hard, trying to get away from the shame he felt for leaving her there. ‘It is my training, it is my training’ he lied to himself. The emotions were hurting him far more than the forest ripping at him.
He heard the ‘plaaa’ initial warm up sound of her weapon and its ‘zzzziiiii’ diminuendo combo of the Plaz-Shot all the way to where the roar of the water was too loud to hear anything else. Raist never knew how long she continued fighting. Both Scouts he was forced to leave behind fought long past his ability to hear if they were still alive.
“Ahh!” He turned around to see Ryluna take a fall to the spiky grass, her speed unfortunately gave her a few rolls across the knife edges. He turned around, dropping the SSAW as it silently wound it way up the small cord to his waist and pulling her bloody body up. She had hit something and the harsh planet ripped deeply into her legs. She could not walk easily, if at all.
“Hang on to my back.” She complied, wrapping her rather toned arms around his neck while her blood freely spilled, mixing with his own spilling out from the small cuts everywhere on his body. The intensity of the injuries was too extreme for even their advanced nanites to keep up with. He grabbed the weapon off his waist with his hand and continued running, seeing the bright gap of the trees that represented the river.
“We have a descent system here, I am going to hook into it, and it is critical you do not let go of me.”
“Alright.” He was very glad she was not running her mouth, he did not know if he could take it.
Raist plugged the moving part of the unit onto his harness, swinging the gun over his shoulder so he could use his arm to help hold Ryluna on their descent.
Even on the fastest setting there was still a long spread of time on the way down. He lifted his head and focused on the huge double moon that filled most of the evening sky. It was strangely beautiful. It was this hyper-real sense he always got for things when he was the closest to death. A messed up irony: he appreciated life the most when it was so close to being completely ripped from him. He just had to get back to Leio and Ziko and they could help him return to the recovery point.
They crashed to the ground, Raist almost falling over with the double weight on his injured legs.
“AKRA,” he began, but didn’t bother fixing his mistake, “we are going to cross this stream, and we are both too wounded to attempt any sort of swim. Comply with what I am doing.” He extended the strap on his weapon, wrapping around his back, and consequently Ryluna, cinching the two of them face to face with the cord.
He looked at her, smiling grimly while saying, “You’re cute. Hang on.” He had tears in his eyes while he said it, doing his best to try to restore the cocky charade he wore instead of the raw hole Philira left.
He pressed a button while she was still looking confused and they were pulled sideways, crashing into the water. Raist tried blocking the rocks with his body, as they were dragged to the other side. He bent his head and body around the woman, using his muscular back to hopefully take the impacts that would potentially end her life with a sharp edge. Dirty and soaked, they were unceremoniously pulled up the short rocky beach. Ryluna was still coughing from the crossing while Raist hooked up the ascent system, and they were soon lifting into the air.
She was still spitting out water when she mysteriously told Raist, “The Emotion-Field was very high back there with your friend.”
“What are you talking about?” Raist was trying to control his anger; he didn’t really want to hear her voice at all. He was trying very hard to not blame her for Agrest and Philira’s death. He actually was kind of looking for a reason to smack her since meeting her.
“I am talking about AKRA, well a part of it anyway.”
Raist stayed silent, wondering if anyone would start shooting at them from the other side, or if Philira was still fighting right now…if she was alive buying him time like his last Scout had.
“AKRA is a culmination of knowledge about our reality. To explain it simply, there are rules that exist that are somewhat beyond our experience, but also directly influence it. The term to most easily describe it is ‘field.’ So far we have found an emotion, luck, and spirit field.”
“What does that have to do with Philira? And why would knowledge like that matter at all?”
“Your two emotions were so intense you influenced the local field, for some time later that sensation will literally be sense-able if one is in tune enough. It is loosely believed this is part of w
hat makes Psionics work on some level as there is a higher dimensional aspect to this imprinting. Maybe you are familiar with the feeling of panic, or despair despite that no one has said anything? That you can literally feel someone’s panic in certain spots like cliffs, or melancholy at a graveyard?”
“Maybe.” His curiosity was starting to overpower any misplaced anger. “Do we influence the field, or does it do it to us?”
“Usually the field influences the individual, but not always. Sometimes, like the two of you, physical beings like us can have such intense experiences, we leave traces of that on the local field. It’s an emotional residue of sorts, which thereby changes it.”
They were nearing the top, and he was actually a bit regretful that they wouldn’t have time to talk while they were running.
“Ever been to those really old graveyards on some planets that still bury their dead?” She asked him. “You can literally feel something that defies conventional logic. It is that field phenomenon. Everyone is affected by local conditions that are not visible, but nevertheless exist.
“The importance of these fields, and AKRA, is the fact that our older understanding of science should not allow for this in such an esoteric fashion. But, by existing, it proves the evidence of an aspect of reality beyond our own, whatever its nature. It is that fact that makes AKRA so valuable: as much as we know…it does not even begin to touch reality. The Emotion Field can affect higher dimensions to an unknown outcome.
“Further, if Psionics, especially the Chrono branch, is based on this dimensionality, and we can cause a change in the upper dimension, it means we are changing an aspect of reality we hereto did not even know existed. It is entirely likely to say the emergent phenomenon we are witnessing suggests a degree of malleability of our very existence.”
Raist was thinking about a similar conversation he had with a different Scout when he was younger, talking about the same things about what reality might entail. She died. Hopefully AKRA wouldn’t follow the same path.
“And let me guess, you are going to tell me there is probably something beyond us that either controls or maintains these things? Demigods?”
She laughed a bit. “You are pretty in tune for a soldier. Though, anything beyond that is classified.” Raist had looked away; interested in what had been discussed, but curbed his enthusiasm given her shutdown at the end. She then spoke a final set of words on a topic she should not have but as a reward to him, “We might call them ‘Gods’, and how we communicate with them.”
They came to the top of the cliff and Ziko was waiting for them. Raist felt relief, they had made it. Ryluna stood uneasily on her bloody legs as the two men walked close to each other.
“You made it!” he exclaimed as he lowered his large assault weapon and came closer to the two of them.
“Where is Leio?” Raist looked around “We need to leave now.”
Ziko turned his head away from him as he spoke lowly, “Dead. We sustained attacks halfway through the day…the bunker wasn’t enough.”
Raist’s heart fell through his chest. Leio…dead? Raist’s eyes flashed to the rock bunker, and though there was blood sprayed around, it did not look particularly attacked at all. What was going on? Something in his soul was confused about the pain of Leio, but was also strangely angry at something he could not identify. He looked back to Ziko before the latter saw him looking.
Something beyond Raist was calling to him, and he realized he had been having these feelings his entire life; he only needed to listen to them. Somehow the legitimacy of Ryluna’s words gave credence to his sensations. The Emotion-Field was calling to him, and it was warning him. The higher dimensions were talking to him if he would only listen. Once Raist accepted what these sensations were telling him, the answers were as clear as if he had known them all his life. Leio was killed, but not by hostile animals.
“So this is AKRA?” Ziko asked, walking closer to the two of them. “Not much, really. Just some dumb little girl? My arm is bigger than her head.”
She was bleeding from her arms and face but defiantly looked at him as she spoke, “Size is but one part of the equation, you brute.”
Ziko laughed. “What a bitch.”
Raist backed up, holding his stump up against Ryluna’s chest, forcing her back a step.
“You killed her, didn’t you?” Raist said, looking at him with cold eyes. “You are an agent that was part of this group that stole AKR—…Ryluna. You sabotaged our landing too.”
Ziko took a step back, surprised, but then his face changed, and took on a dark sureness as he smirked.
“Ha, yeah. So you figured it out? This makes things a lot easier with you as the only survivor, ‘Leader’.”
Raist’s heart was pounding. Was his best friend through all of these missions a traitor? Ziko was the most recent member of his group, true, but was this syndicate so connected it had agents placed this high?! He thought back to the fortress that was even equipped with Aelisha weaponry; the conspiracy was deeper than he could imagine. Who could he even trust now that at the deepest levels it was compromised?
“You are a traitor.” Raist’s sickening tone almost asking a question, unsure if the friend he had had all these missions was only an advanced agent sent to sabotage any counter operations to his cause. In this case, the eventual rescue attempt.
“Had the three of you made it back with AKRA, things could have been harder. But this is perfect. Not only will all of you be dead, but we won’t even have to kill AKRA.” He looked at the Star Priestess. “I’ll have fun punishing that look off her face.”
Raist was frowning. “I have only one thing to ask. Is it true? Are you really an agent from this group?”
“Heh, yes I am. And if you think I am a highly placed agent, you better rethink everything you know, Raist. By the way, thanks for saving me on Reiko-3, but now it’s over.”
“That’s all I needed to hear.” Raist lifted the SSAW to Ziko, Ryluna had stepped back from Raist, but in that single movement Ziko dashed in. Batting the weapon out of his hand with an incredible force, the weapon crashed a few steps away. Assaults were strong and fast, and in close quarters is where they shined.
“Look at this nice mirror match we have set up!” He lifted his cut stub, pointing it towards Raist’s own burnt off hand. “I would have rocked Agrest, but Philira could have been some trouble.”
“You liked her.”
“Only a bit. All an act Raist,” his voice sounding as if Philira was nothing but a joke to him. That hurt Raist deeply, knowing what that poor Scout did for Raist. “Didn’t they teach you anything useful in those Leader-class trainings? Combat is one of the fastest ways to gain loyalty to later exploit.”
Ziko continued, shaking his head at the very idea of a Leader-class. “Leader-class is such a joke; don’t they know Assault is the only way to go? You realize you do not have a chance, right?” He saw the SSAW being retracted towards Raist, stepping on where the thin cord would be. “Cute.”
He stepped in, backhanding Raist with his huge arm. Raist went spinning to the ground, following the path of the SSAW. Ziko turned and kicked nearby Ryluna once, and her already wounded body fell down with little fight. Ziko jumped on top of Raist’s chest, grinding his knee into his throat.
Raist reached for the weapon as it was silently winding its way back to him, but his once-friend’s eyes saw it, and reached for the gun instead.
“You think that stupid trick will work?” Ziko ripped the weapon from his hand and pulled the trigger on the one remaining round into the forest to their side. The blue neon lights exploded outwards, taking Raist’s hope with it.
“Aww, too bad. You really wanted to shoot me too. I thought we were friends.” He dangled the empty SSAW in front of Raist’s gasping face. “What now? Too bad Leaders are so weak, huh? Well, it was fun. Bye bye, Raist. Tell the goddesses or whatever stupid shit you believe in you got rock
ed by a better man.”
Raist shot his one hand up, wrapping his fingers around Philira’s hidden Vibro-Knife in the SSAW. Jerking the pink handle out, and triggering maximum micro-vibrations in the knife, he shoved it through Ziko’s neck. The immediate spray of blood came pouring down on Raist like a balloon filled with liquid. Ziko’s hand shot to his neck trying to stop the severe severing, as the choke he had on Raist was broken. Raist kicked the bigger man off of him, but immediately got up and stayed in the grapple like the trainings he had endured with skillful Scout Laiun so long ago. Raist stabbed the knife in again, its micro-vibrations piercing straight through Ziko’s combat suit, as the pink handle was flooded with red.
“Maybe a Leader…would normally lose…to an Assault,” Raist said to the dying body as he was hyper-ventilating. “But I was trained…by some of the best Scouts…to ever be created.”
He looked once at Ryluna and hobbled over to the rock bunker they had created earlier. Leio’s dead body was strewn across the rocky ground. She likely had no idea the moment she was betrayed. He only looked enough to confirm and little more to not scar his already damaged mind.
He picked up Ryluna back onto his back, still holding Philira’s Vibro-Knife as they staggered, bleeding through the forest. “I’m so sorry for this,” Ryluna whispered to him.
He was punching the calldown button over and over on his suit as they crept onwards. When would that stupid thing think it was out of AA range from the base? Hadn’t they destroyed enough of it to decrease the range at least a little? Eventually he saw the long contrail of the escape craft homing in on his position. He fell once, the thin spikes impaling themselves into his knee.
“Ka…ahhh…” he gasped. Like some sort of mono-edge weapon, the spikes slid in so easily, he barely got back to standing as he could feel them slashing through parts of his knee.
He didn’t rest to get them out; he wasn’t sure he could start again if he stopped. Dusk was coming as the creatures’ howls started in the distance.
He dragged one foot to the next, limping his way to the shuttle. He felt the anchor spikes scraping inwards through his flesh in his knee as they refused to back out at all; some had stopped hurting, possibly having finally gotten to the bone.
Dark was rapidly closing around him, his head pounding from the strain and blood loss. His mind had long ago stopped being able to think clearly. It had been reduced to repeating random important thoughts.
‘Can’t give up…can’t…give up…Philira…too many…Scouts …dying for me…pink hair…star on her knife…Leio…Laiun…Agrest…Philira…’
Further ahead the auto-turrets on the shuttle began engaging animals that started coming out with the night. Raist’s shattering mind staggered on towards the staccato that represented safety.
He fell again, Ryluna letting out a soft cry, the grass embedding into his right side of his face. He pressed off the ground with his knuckles as his hand was still wrapped around Philira’s knife he refused to let go. The trail of blood would have been visible if it wasn’t for it slipping down into the caustic bath at the bottom of the sharp points of the ground.
The ship recognized Raist, opening the door while it gunned down the charging creatures around him. He got to the open shuttle door and fell through it, pulling his legs in and hitting the emergency take off button. He blacked out as the shuttle was going airborne.