The raiders froze at the sight of her suit, as their kind so often did. Saketa could have gone on the attack, but chose instead to make use of the moment to stretch her awareness out and get a full feel for the situation.
She sensed the ground teams, angry and fearful, the desperate terror of the villagers, some locked in containers, some held at gunpoint, others still hiding. She sensed the ships, the little buggies and bikes that the attackers were putting to use, and the freighter up above. The ranger behind her was stolid and brave, ready for more fighting. She sensed the pain, the disturbance in the universe itself that all of this caused, and would continue to cause far down the line, rippling out far and wide.
She was a Warden. And this was what it was all about.
The collective shock passed, and the time for fighting came. Saketa charged. One of the raiders shouted into a helmet comm, and she caught a word for her people. She kept the guns inactive. How easy or hard these kinds of fights were was often decided by how quickly her foes realised they had to switch to melee weapons. These people were on the slower end of the spectrum, and as she reached her first raider he had nothing to defend himself with save for a gun stock.
It wasn’t cut out for the job, and she opened his neck. She kept on going from there, switching smoothly into blow after blow, slashing into more raiders. Her bloody rampage spread fear and chaos, which fed upon itself and made things all the easier, as raiders panicked because their comrades were panicking. And because she was killing them.
Saketa finished cutting down the one group, and it was only then the rest started drawing melee weapons. Their big problem was that they had come to capture barely-armed farm villagers, and so many didn’t have any, or had simple batons or shock prods.
A couple of men came at her, with desperate cries and crackling electricity at the end of their weapons. Her awareness warned of more foes coming from the north, a three-man attack from behind, and of the two still-hovering dropships. But for the moment she sidestepped a lunge and slashed a raider in the back. The other one had come too far to fall back, and so launched his own attack. Saketa chopped at the joints in his body armour, severing the arm completely at the elbow.
Behind her, the ranger rammed his bike into the people coming at her back, sending them flying. Saketa caught up with the rest of the group those two had come from, as they fled from her. She slashed one in the back of the knee, then another. The last one heard her comrades’s screams and falls, and turned for a terrified last stand. A bayonet sprang out of her rifle, and she thrust it as Saketa with little skill.
Saketa, in turn, stabbed her sword through the woman’s shoulder, and then her other one. Saketa kicked her feet out from under her, and with that the group was out of the fight. She turned to the ranger, who was looking her way. The rest of the raiders in sight had fled.
“You can shoot again!” she told him, as she released her grip on that tiny piece of the universe. “There are more that way!” she added, and pointed.
He gave a sharp nod, and drew a bulky pistol before buzzing off.
Saketa ran around a corner, and now saw one of the assault teams that had come out of the dropships. They were equipped with heavy rifles, a couple of launchers, and several had brought swords. They reacted a bit more quickly than their comrades had, and drew aim.
Saketa Shifted, and materialised behind the group. She had cut two down before the rest realised what had happened. The Shift, unique as it was, tended to have a very confusing effect on people; a weapon in and of itself.
She didn’t freeze their guns, choosing instead to focus her energies into boosting her bodily strength and speed. She wove between the men, making it all the harder to draw aim on her, and hacked away. Those swords were finally drawn, but she stayed mobile, using her greater speed to avoid getting caught in a clash of blades.
One man finally took a shot. She dodged it, and the bolt hit a swordsman instead. She evaded the second shot too, dancing around it on her way to thrust into the shooter’s unprotected neck. As he fell down, clutching as a mortal wound, a man behind him took a shot with a heavy rifle. Saketa batted the weapon aside with her blade, sidestepped, then gave him a kick.
Her elevated strength sent the man flying into two sword-wielding comrades, and before anyone could react she was on them. She delivered two finishing blows, but before the third could land, her target, his face hidden by a dark visor, activated a grenade.
She kicked it out of his hand, and the thing went off in the air. Then she stabbed down, and with that the entire group was dealt with. She sensed the fighting the ranger was engaging in, and the fighting that was left, marked by the still-moving groups of raiders, as they attempted to set up some sort of organised defence. But above all else, she sensed the incoming heavy shot.
She thrust her arm out, and sent a Push against it. The dropship’s plasma blast exploded against a far greater force, out of reach of anything it could harm. She then locked her gaze on the cockpit window, focused on her knowledge of the ship type and its interior, and Shifted.
There was a yelp at her sudden appearance, as usual. The pilot and the gunner were the only two people on board, both seated, and she had materialised behind them. Neither could draw a weapon or do anything at all before her sword cut their necks. Saketa reached over the pilot’s shoulder, took the controls, and steered the ship towards an empty field, where the crash would hurt no one it shouldn’t, and then Shifted out.
She appeared on a nearby rooftop, and a moment later the dropship smashed down. She looked towards the third one.
# # #
Qwern watched it all play out, from multiple feeds from multiple angles.
“Well. This isn’t good,” he admitted in a flat voice.
“What do we do?!” Konno asked.
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On two of the feeds, the remaining dropship was annihilated, by some terrible but unseen force. One three others, the ranger was gunning people down as he buzzed around at extreme speeds.
“We do the sensible thing,” Qwern told him in response. “First of all…”
He hit a button on his armrest.
“Melee weapons on the bridge! NOW! Team in here, NOW!”
He happened to look at a feed that had a close-up of the Warden, and he could swear that the bitch was looking right back at him. Somehow.
He hit another button.
“Engineering! We’re going for the nearest leap, fast as we can! Keep the engine going, and squeeze every drop of performance you can out of it! I don’t care how we’ll have to replace, just do it!”
He released the button. Behind him he heard, to his great joy, doors sliding open and heavy feet rushing in with weapons.
“Helm! Straight for the nearest lane! And…”
He quickly brought up the readout for their cargo containers, and selected one with a low number attached to it.
“Lock down the bags on this one.”
“What are you doing?” Konno asked him.
“Insurance,” Qwern replied. “Just a bit of insurance.
# # #
With the ships and many of the raiders dealt with, Saketa had a moment to spare for the villagers. She Shifted to the front of one of the closed containers. Her aim wasn’t perfect, and she crossed the last few metres at a run, as she heard the sounds of the ranger’s ongoing engagement with the ground vehicles.
She held her hands out, although one still clutched the sword. Sending energy directly out into the physical world was always a crude matter. The Push was the simplest to use, and generally the most useful, and so was the first one learned in the mountains of Kalero. Pull had its uses, though it was trickier to pull off.
This next part was trickier still, and not to be attempted with anything other than a calm and focused mind. Her sword did its job; serving as an aid, a balancing pole amidst the powers she drew upon.
She threw her arms wide, and performed a Split. The heavy metal doors were torn off, folding up like paper and bouncing away on the ground. The people inside yelled out loud, and squinted at the sudden intrusion of daylight. She didn’t understand their language, and settled for gesturing away from them with her sword. Then she kept on going.
A quick Shift to the tallest rooftop around let her add eyesight to what awareness was telling her. The fighting spirit of the raiders was crumbling fast. The biggest remaining threats seemed to be the vehicles, and a group that was coming together and rushing inside a temple.
Saketa inhaled, gathering her strength a bit, and Shifted once more. She reappeared down on one of the longer streets, between the ranger and two armoured bikes that were chasing after him. She sidestepped a bit of gunfire, as she drew on power, and unleashed a Push.
Both vehicles were smashed, and their riders were thrown up into the air. She was about to continue on, to seek the next part of this battle, when the ranger did a quick turn and came her way. She stopped, and he brought the bike up next to her.
“We are winning this, I think!” he said.
“There is a large group over there,” she replied, and pointed. “Two streets over. I will soften them up for you, then deal with the temple, then go for the freighter.”
“Alright! Go!”
He turned around again and sped off, and Saketa shifted. Her memory of the village’s layout guided her, and she found herself near to one of the largest remaining groups. It took them a moment to notice her arrival, and in that time she’d managed to prepare a Push. It went out in a wide wave, throwing eight people off their feet with bone-breaking force. She heard the ranger’s bike coming, and felt confident he would mow them down before they got their bearings.
Now for that temple.
# # #
“We’re picking up speed, captain!” the helmsman announced.
“Well, pick it up faster!” Qwern told him. “Don’t worry about burning anything out, it’s do or die!”
The captain’s chair gave him a good view through the main window. They were still in atmo, as the freighter blasted up at a horizontal angle, but were now high enough to see the curvature of the planet.
Disaster could often contain a little nugget of fortune, that a quick and clever person could wriggle through. And it just so happened that the planet was passing very close to a lane entrance. This was a mess. This was a dreadful, costly mess, and they were taking off with a far smaller cargo than he’d promised the buyers. But this wasn’t unsalvageable. He just needed to make it, out of atmo, out of orbit, and into that lane.
A little bit of luck on the dice roll, followed by smart decisions, followed by a bit of smooth talking, and-
The Warden stepped into view outside the window, standing on the ship’s nose.
“Guns!” Qwern shouted, as the woman stabbed her sword into the metal under her feet, apparently for support, as the ascension whipped her hair about. “Aim the-”
She thrust her palm out, and the window burst inwards. It was a deafening crack, accompanied by the screaming of air and the roar of huge thrusters. Every bit of warmth was immediately sucked out the bridge, rocking every person in it in the process. Every single loose little item went flying, people screamed, and the Warden hopped in.
The screens automatically slammed down, sealing the bridge against the outside once more. But it was too late. She was in.
Most of the bridge crew didn’t carry weapons, but a man who had always seemed rather wild undid his seatbelt and rose with a pistol in his hand. The Warden slashed through the wrist before shoulder-ramming the man aside.
The melee weapon team sprang into action. Five men and a huge woman all came at her from six different directions, carrying swords, a couple of axes, and one pike of sorts.
She did that damn disappearing trick of theirs, and came back into being behind one of the axemen. She cut him down before Qwern could shout a warning, and with that she had an axe in her off-hand. She threw it, and it lodged in the huge woman.
The bridge crew were out of their seats, most of them simply crawling beneath consoles or between monitors to escape the ongoing melee. Qwern undid his own belt and dropped down on all fours. No, it wasn’t dignified, but at least he was less noticeable for a moment.
Something damaged the lights. Sparks flew, and the lighting started flickering, making all of this even more of an assault on the senses. He heard metal on metal, grunts, screams, and a wet, horrible chopping noise. But he reached his destination; the main cargo console.
As the lights flickered, the fighting continued, and an alarm continued to blare because no one shut it off, Qwern brought up a holographic display of a certain part of the exterior. Then he shifted it to maximum size, the sort designed to be visible to the entire bridge crew.
“WARDEN!” he shouted as he got to his feet, with one hand on a lever.
Two men still stood against her, but one was injured and was staggering back, while the other was backing away slowly, holding his sword out as if trying to ward off a dangerous animal.
“WARDEN!” he shouted again, and the woman’s cold, terrible eyes shifted his way.
He pulled the lever, and Container 08 was released from its rails on the outside of the ship.
“I disabled the bags!” he went on. “They are falling to their deaths! You-”
She vanished.
He stood still and silent for a moment, as he assured himself that the Warden was indeed gone. It was only then that he could feel the pit in his stomach, and the iron-hard clenching of his buttcheeks.
“Everyone back to your posts!” he then shouted. “This isn’t over!”