Drixen and Trikac were enjoying an evening tea aboard the shuttle when they heard a rumbling noise. Looking out a porthole, they saw a distant object overhead.
“Don’t tell me that’s what I think it is,” said Trikac.
“A star tree,” muttered Drixen.
“I asked you not to tell me,” replied Trikac.
“Ah, well. All that sneaking around for nothing,” Drixen said. He moved his raygun from his boot, where he normally kept it while flying, to his belt and opened the door. The star tree landed an almost-respectful distance from the shuttle. Trikac clicked his mouth parts derisively.
The tree’s door opened and an Astralbian knight walked out with six soldiers in tow.
“What brings you folks up this way?” asked Drixen, maintaining a smile.
“Just here to see the sites,” said the knight, smiling broadly.
“Well I’m afraid we have a Republic operation going on in this area,” said Drixen, “and I’m going to kindly ask you to leave.”
“No,” said the knight.
Drixen felt a wave of dread wash over him. His hands trembled, his heart raced, and he began sweating. It was some kind of psychic attack. He reached for the pistol at his belt, but his shaking hands slowed him down too much.
“That’s the problem with you biologicals,” said the Astrablian knight, stepping forward and stabbing Drixen through the abdomen. “Weak hearts.”
Trikac opened fire immediately, but his shot went wide and the knight cut him down.
Seeing the Human and Raki lying in red and blue pools, respectively, he nodded and sheathed his blade.
“Let’s get moving. We’ll worry about their ship after we have the coordinates.”
“Yes, Sir Traelby,” said one of the soldiers.
Traelby looked up into the icy canyon. “Let’s see if we can catch up with our friends.”
***
Far to the north, Talon Squad had continued their trek, trying to put some distance between themselves and the boar apes before setting up camp for the night. Raivyn was starting to lag behind.
“Hold up,” said Vanbrook, “Rai, what you did back there took a lot out of you. How much further can you go today?”
Now that she had been called out on it, Raivyn let her shoulders slump. She tried not to let on how exhausted she was, but it was no use. She couldn’t keep it up.
“Not far,” she replied. “Where’s the next cave system?”
“About… two miles ahead,” said Reclan.
“We’d better not camp directly in front of a cave, anyway, in case something inside wakes up,” suggested D’Jarric, jerking his thumb back towards the cave full of boar apes.
“Yeah, I don’t feel great about camping out here, period,” said Vanbrook, “but we don’t have a whole lot of choice. Let’s set up behind those boulders up ahead. A little windbreak won’t hurt.”
Moments later, five small tents had been set up in a neat row and a flood light was set up at either end. Each tent had basic climate control and enough space for a squad member and their gear. D’Jarric offered to take the first watch, since he didn’t need near the kind of rest that biologicals did.
D’Jarric admired the natural beauty of the icy valley. The night would have been pitch black if not for the flood lights, but by their illumination he took in the whites and blues of truly magnificent landscape. It was moments like this more so than battle that drew him away from Solaris Maginite. Ruling a star as a conscious miasma swirling around in a fiery sea didn’t appeal to him the way that exploring the galaxy did, seeing the many wonders wrought by the Progenitor. Solarans had a wonderful culture of philosophy and thought games, but life there lacked the textures and challenges offered by the rest of the galaxy. One day he would be called back there. He knew he would be willing and content to go, but he tried to enjoy the vast beauty of the galaxy while he could.
A noise from up above caught D’Jarric’s attention, it sounded like some small stones skittering across the ice. He looked up and saw the alpha boar ape, silently soaring from where he had leapt, a look of hate in its eyes. D’Jarric braced himself for the impact, but that was all he had time for. The alpha crashed into him and the two went rolling across the valley floor.
Grabbing D’Jarric by the arms, the boar ape bit him, driving its tusks into his neck and shoulders. D’Jarric cried out in pain, waking the others. He maneuvered his uninjured arm under the beast so his fist was against its ribs and blasted a hole clean through its chest. The boar ape slumped to the ground and D’Jarric stood up, sparks flying from his compromised shoulder. He grimaced in pain as the other squad members shot out of their tents to see what was going on.
Seeing that D’Jarric was injured, he ran over, medkit already in hand. He examined the damage to D’Jarric’s field and pulled out a small device.
“Just a little wave stabilizer to reestablish your EM field,” he said, jamming the device into the sparking region of D’Jarric’s shoulder. D’Jarric grimaced as a buzzing sensation rippled through his being.
D’Jarric looked around at the others. Reclan was still bundled as if she’d been sleeping in her clothes, Raivyn had hastily thrown on some boots and a parka over the base leotard worn under all her snow gear, and Vanbrook was wearing nothing more than some pajama pants and an undershirt, brandishing his pistol. They all looked on, worried.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
He laughed at them.
“It’s okay, guys,” he said, “I’m not gonna die. This is all an avatar, remember?”
“Yeah, but if you lose your avatar it’ll take, like, a thousand years to regenerate another,” said Reclan.
“Ah, just a hundred,” said D’Jarric dismissively.
“Well, we needn’t worry about any of that because our Solaran here is going to be just fine,” chided Doc.
“I guess the alpha held a grudge,” said Raivyn. “Sorry, D’Jarric.”
“Nonsense,” he replied, “you kept us from trying to fight an entire troop. One vengeful alpha wasn’t too bad.”
“Well,” said Doc, “I’m pretty well awake now. DJ, go rest up. Vanbrook, you’re gonna lose toes if you keep standing there like a slack-jawed idiot.”
Vanbrook looked down at his feet, which were rapidly losing color. He blinked, shrugged and walked back to his tent.
***
The next morning the squad got up and broke camp, quickly making the two mile hike to the next cave system. It was smaller than the first, and had no signs of habitation. Unfortunately it had no signs of a cairn, either. The next cave system was just three miles away, and the one after that a full day’s hike of eleven miles.
Raivyn slung her pack off her back.
“Okay, folks,” she said. “Let’s take a breather. We can hike to the next cave after and then set up camp once we’ve explored there.”
Reclan took the opportunity to try updating the pilots, but the call went unanswered.
“Hmm. Guys, I can’t reach Drixen and Trikac,” she said.
“Iron deposit interference again?” asked Vanbrook.
“No, there’s actually a lot less iron up here. They just aren’t picking up.”
Vanbrook’s face twisted with thought and concern.
“Can you send a drone to check on them?”
“No,” replied Reclan, “At best these guys have a range of five miles, we’re about twelve miles out.”
“Okay,” said Raivyn, “we’d better press on anyway. Reclan, keep trying to reach out to the shuttle when you can. If we can’t reach them after we’ve explored the next cave, we’ll reach out to the Wingspan. If they can’t reach the shuttle, two of us will head back and check it out while the others press on.”
Everyone nodded in agreement. It was clear that their brief rest was over, and everyone grabbed their gear and began hiking without another word.
***
Drixen, meanwhile, was still lying in a pool of his own blood. A gust of warm air from the shuttle's vents washed over him, rousing him from his deathbed. Despite the bloodloss, despite the biting wind, despite the voice in his mind telling him to just rest for a while, he opened his eyes. The grogginess was sharpened to sobriety when he saw Trikac lying a few feet away, his red exoskeleton already beginning to whiten in the arctic sun. There was no flicker of life in his friend’s normally shining black eyes, now dull.
Fighting for every inch, Drixen pulled himself from where he lay, stumbled up the ramp and closed the door. It killed him not to do more for Trikac, but the dead would have to wait.
Dragging himself to the shuttle's medkit, he wrapped his bloodied torso in bandages and crawled towards the comms radio.
Talon Squad had nearly reached the next cave when Reclan's radio crackled.
"T-t-talon S-squad, this is Dr-dr-drixen, come in, T-talon Squad."
"Drixen, this is Talon Squad," answered Reclan, "are you okay?"
"Astralbian Kingdom at-t-tacked us," said Drixen, his speech improving as he warmed up and the medicine in the bandages kicked in, "Trikac is dead. Seven hostiles are heading your way. Their leader is a psychic. I've been stabbed, but I'll live. I think. The moron apparently thinks human hearts are in the abdomen."
"Consider Doc on his way as soon as we deal with these parasites," said Vanbrook. Doc nodded his agreement.
"Yeah,” replied the pilot as he grimaced through the pain, “that'd be good.”
"Let's send some drones back to do a little recon," suggested Raivyn.
"Way ahead of you," said Reclan, already fiddling with her tablet. On the first sweep, they saw no evidence of any Astralbians.
"Well," Reclan thought aloud, "they may be hiding further back. Should we head that way?"
"Hmm," said Vanbrook. “No, try the cave we just came from. I'd bet money they've set up an ambush and are waiting for us to return with the goods."
Sure enough, deep in the caves sat seven Astralbians, huddled in one antechamber. Reclan kept the drone low to the ground, thrusters on their lowest setting, and avoided being spotted by the enemy.
"Can you blow up the drone?" asked Vanbrook.
"Uh, no," replied Reclan, "the one from before was the only one I rigged for that. Plus I've already lost two drones this trip thanks to those boar apes."
"Let's head down and confront them, then. We have to get back to Drixen ASAP."
The squad stealthily made their way back, reaching the mouth of the cave without incident. Vanbrook smiled and asked for Reclan's tablet, and Reclan shrugged and obliged. Raivyn rolled her eyes but said nothing.
Vanbrook grinned as he steered the drone behind Astralbian knight he recognized from the incident at the pit. Pressing a button, he gave him a small shock, causing the knight to throw himself across the antechamber gracelessly, landing in a heap on the floor. Vanbrook activated the speaker on the drone.
“Greetings, Sir Snooty. Consider yourself counter-ambushed. Come out quietly and return as our prisoner, and I won’t humiliate you any more than necessary.”
Rage twisted Traelby’s face as he deftly slashed the drone from the air with his sword. His voice rang through the cave.
“Kill them! We’ll find the coordinates ourselves!”
Four Astralbian soldiers rushed to the entrance of the cave immediately, shields up and thorn guns firing. The biological guns were essentially dwarf breeds of the star trees that were shaped like a pistol and used the same biofuel as their larger relatives to fire a barrage of deadly woody spikes with each shot. They had a limited number of shots and a short range, but they were devastating in close combat.
Vanbrook stepped into the fray with his energy buckler raised, warding off a shot and giving the others a chance to back up. His face and shoulder were gouged by some of the splintered wooden projectiles, but the wounds were superficial.
With his good arm, D’Jarric fired into the group, trying to keep their fire off Vanbrook and taking down one soldier. Talon squad retreated to a position behind a boulder, D’Jarric giving Vanbrook cover to retreat as well. Vanbrook pulled his revolver and shot a blast of blue energy that took out another enemy. He had changed out his ammunition after Drixen had reached out to them, swapping in nova crystal rounds rather than the normal ballistics.
The fight became a slog after that, with both parties entrenched in cover. Raivyn tried to break into the mind of one of the enemy soldiers, but they were clearly trained to resist psychic attacks. Undeterred, she concentrated and sent a bolt of psychic energy at him instead. The concentrated T-bolt tore through his electromagnetic form, mortally wounding him. Raivyn watched in grim satisfaction as his being collapsed into a small crystal.
The lone soldier was now joined by Traelby, who immediately targeted Vanbrook. Vanbrook felt the psychic attack, like claws clamping onto his skull. He tried to resist, but Traelby cracked through his resistance and Vanbrook felt himself lose control of his body.