Above Replacement

Engaging was a last resort.

Even ignoring the risks inherent to letting ourselves get caught in a fight, the objectively correct response was to stay hidden and wait for Nai.

None of the five Adepts I sensed registered too intensely on radar, but I was leery to trust that impression. Nai and I hadn’t gotten to explore what quirks might emerge with me using the radar from within her mind.

So for now, I was staying patient and watching their movements. What I found was not encouraging. All five of them were converging roughly on our location.

I told Tasser.

he said.

I suggested.

he said.

The Adepts were drawing closer to our building on three sides. Unfortunately, our building’s fourth side overlooked a wide street connected to the exterior superstructure encircling the colony.

So we couldn’t really flee away from them. We had to slip through their encirclement.

It would come down to the moment we leapt rooftops. In this gravity, even the longest gap would be trivial to clear. But there was no way to reduce our visibility the moment we did.

The moment we were seen was the moment bullets would fly.

I asked. East was the only truly poor option. It would only put us closer to the remaining Vorak forces.

West would give us the best cover with the fewest Vorak eyes to spot us, but Nai had moved further south. Going that direction would let us reconnect with her quicker.

Tasser decided.

I agreed.

We plodded across the rooftop to the south side. Every footstep crunched some gravel and I worried the sound would give us away.

But no, surely not. Vorak could get hearing damage like any other person. Even inside voidsuits they wore earplugs for gunfights.

I materialized a small mirror for Tasser to peer over the edge with. There wasn’t time or reason for me to look too, so the only thing to do was trust his judgement when he called.

<…Now,> he said calmly.

In one easy motion, I put a foot on the short ledge fencing the rooftop and kicked off the ground. I got a look at one of the Vorak on the ground as I sailed over their head.

Their rifle was aimed down the street instead of up at the roofs. That was good.

I touched down on the next rooftop with no trouble and a second later Tasser tumbled next to me, not quite so gracefully, if I were to brag.

I helped him up and we stayed on the move. But before we could cross this rooftop to leap to the next, I felt the Vorak behind us change direction, going back the way they came and once again towards us.

I froze on reflex, and Tasser didn’t question it, dropping to a ready-kneel. How were they following us?

No…were they following us at all?

I said.

I asked.

she frowned.

I loosened my grip on the superconnector, intensifying the flow of information between us. Receiving my thought process directly would tell her everything she needed to know.

Sendin Marfek had utilized a similar ‘pointing’ based tracking construct. But it didn’t indicate a range, only a direction. The radar I’d given Nai was more robust than that. But this Vorak seemed to have a similar tool.

With mirrors on our minds, both of us should be hidden from its notice. Nai hadn’t retooled her own mirror, so now the arrow was pointing at her. It was intentional on her part, I realized.

Nai ordered again.

I said.

Tasser asked, scanning for a place to hide.

I said, dragging him to the very edge of the roof.

We crouched down and I materialized a box around us. Nothing fancy, just a plain box, colored the same as the fan units on the rooftop. I left a tiny slit to peek through.

The Vorak climbed over the edge of the roof immediately unslinging their weapon. They did not scan our rooftop very carefully. Instead, settling into a jog while they advanced past us.

I told Nai.

I bit off the message as our pursuer slowed, noticing something at their feet.

A disturbance in the gravel a few feet from them.

The strewn gravel wasn’t chaotic either. It was a faint, but messy trail that led straight to our fake box-unit thing, tucked into a corner.

Oh shit.

I was quicker on the draw than the otter. Before they could bring their muzzle up, I let a cloud of orange smoke explode outward.

Gunshots rang out and Tasser and I both leapt off the edge of the building. My blood ran cold when I felt a sharp tap on the side of my helmet.

Tasser twisted mid-air, his rifle barking off shots at the Adept. His jump was actually better than mine this time. He cleared the next rooftop easily, but I fell short by a foot. But I caught myself by magnetizing myself to the wall and hauling my way up.

We were alright, but they definitely knew we were here.

Tasser said.

I tossed him a small square creation. The square grew in seconds though, forming itself into a transparent riot shield in a second.

he said.

I asked. Those were the two typical counter-Adept tactics.

he said.

I nodded, staying crouched while he stood tall.

Holding the shield in one arm and keeping the rifle steady against it with the other, Tasser could shoot and stay behind cover simultaneously.

he asked.

He punctuated his gratitude by firing a burst at our attacker.

They sent a few bullets at Tasser on reflex before diving below cover, their shots failing to penetrate the shield I’d made for him.

It was a small thing, but I took pride in my work at that.

I noted.

he said.

Checking the radar revealed he was right. The two furthest Adepts weren’t moving as directly though. Positioning themselves to still be ready for Nai when she arrived? But she still had to be at least another two minutes away. Crap.

The remaining three Vorak against Tasser and me, then.

Doable.

Tasser said.

I grinned.

If it looked like Tasser was dropping the smoke bombs, then these Vorak might not realize they were fighting an Adept along with him.

Keeping the shield up, he shifted his rifle on its strap and pretended to grab something at his waist before throwing his hand at the ground.

On cue, I materialized another burst of orange smoke.

Being discovered forced us to move west instead of south like we’d planned, but it was only a difference of a few dozen meters so far.

As we ran behind the smoke’s concealment, we drew closer to the edge of the colony again. We’d need to move further south or else the Vorak would pin us against the wide open street encircling the colony.

Tasser said.

I lied.

he said.

I materialized as much rope as I could in the second before I jumped off the building. Imbued with an Adept-made magnetic charge, it stuck to the wall and the opposing charge I gave it, and I slid down the rope.

Tasser dropped the shield without a second thought and took hold of the rope to follow me. We were both on the ground safely in just a few seconds, and I dissolved and rematerialized the riot shield for him.

He took it with a grin.

he grinned.

I didn’t wait for him, sprinting ahead to the next corner.

Our strategy relied on me staying out of sight, and on my access to the psionic radar. Tasser trusted me to position myself most optimally based on information he didn’t have. I trusted him to know when to correct me.

I had to match his grin.

Otters chasing us, ready to shoot on sight, death and failure just one mistake away, but God it felt good to have Tasser at my back again. Trust in friends paying off felt every bit as good as being betrayed felt awful.

It was up to me to pick our route. I had the rough map from Coalition files, but the version I was using wasn’t particularly three dimensional. From the rooftops, the colony’s vertical depth was almost invisible, but down on the ground told another story. The colony’s street level had pedestrian streets and limited vehicle access, but absolutely tons of stairways running underground.

Cirinsko colony on Archo had been crisscrossed with public tram lines. This colony wasn’t big enough to justify more than one tram loop, but it shared the design sensibility, with a myriad of tunnels crisscrossing beneath us.

So when I felt one of our Adept pursuers go under ground level and suddenly accelerate, I had to reevaluate our route.

I didn’t get to finish my question because someone started shooting at her.

That was good and bad. A third of our five Vorak had peeled away toward her. That left just two coming after us.

Nai asked.

I said.

Tasser said.

I said.

Tasser said.

I pointed out.

Staying out of their line of sight was getting harder, not easier. We had to cover more distance on the ground level. The rak still on the rooftops could move in direct lines.

Nai sent.

Evasion, it turns out, was not viable.

A spike shot up from the ground at the end of the alley we were running down. Radar said the other rak was somewhere below ground near that spot.

How were they tracking us? I’d hidden us from their quasi-psionic tracking.

At least…I’d hidden from the one I’d detected.

Outside context problems weren’t impossible. Just because I couldn’t sense it, didn’t mean another tracking method couldn’t exist. No, it didn’t matter if we knew how. They were tracking us all the same.

I asked Tasser.

Tasser and Nai both asked.

I sensed the enemy above us cross onto the building closest to us. Any second they’d be dropping down onto us.

I told Tasser.

he said, nodding toward the far end of the alley.

I agreed.

The way I actually made these smoke bombs was in two stages. First was a solid lump of fine powder wrought with a decaying binding agent. As soon as the binding weakened enough, the whole solid poofed out into a big plume of smoke.

Until now, I’d created the bindings to decay immediately upon existing. But giving them a few extra seconds let me throw the chunks beyond my range by hand.

When the rooftop Vorak reached the edge, all they could see was orange smoke billowing up out of the very alleys they wanted to fire into.

The second rak would appear at the far end of the alley any second. A heartbeat before they did, I threw myself aside, ducking behind the nearest stoop.

Tasser continued his charge ahead, hefting the riot shield in front of him.

The underground Vorak came back to street level shooting, showing no hesitation between rounding the corner and opening fire at Tasser.

My shield held, deflecting the bullets. And Tasser was much further down the alley than the rak expected. They only had the chance to fire three shots before Tasser barreled into them with the riot shield.

I had a split-second decision whether to help or not.

If I was seen, every rak on and above the moon would know where I was. But Tasser was in hand combat with a Vorak Adept, and even weak Adepts could learn to kill with just a touch.

Yeah, it would be a stupid decision to go help…

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But not a hard one.

Tasser pinned the rak to the ground under the riot shield and drew his pistol with the other hand. He squeezed off two shots before a tight cluster of ground spikes thrust up from one side.

The shield took the brunt of the strike, but it gave the Vorak crucial maneuvering room.

Or it would have.

My bullets cracked against the Vorak’s faceplate. If their voidsuit was anything like mine, it would be the most vulnerable part.

I didn’t stop firing either. My revolver was a classic six-shooter, but the magic of Adeptry was that I could reload cylinders without interrupting fire.

Fire, cycle, replace the spent round, repeat.

It was just one of the many things I’d practiced in our workshops.

The Vorak didn’t take the bullets lying down through. They were hurt, but not killed. They quickly materialized extra armor on their forearms, bringing them up to shield their face.

Tasser and I both adjusted our aim, firing for center mass now.

I swore when I picked out the sharp sound of something rigid under their voidsuit.

We weren’t the only ones wearing plates.

The Adept only took a handful of rounds to the belly before they erected a barricade of metal spikes to hide behind.

Tasser instructed, and I didn’t question him.

As we turned to run, I dispelled my gun and the riot shield to recoup enough mass to blast another cloud of orange smoke on top of the shield.

This was textbook counter-Adeptry. Strike hard and fast, then fall back just as swiftly. We’d taken precious seconds to attack, and now it was time to run again.

If this Adept had been alone, we could have pressed the attack, but the Vorak on the rooftops wouldn’t be blinded by the earlier smoke for long.

I bolted while Tasser took his rifle back up, laying down covering fire at the closer rak.

We’d been quick, and kept our opponent off balance. They definitely knew they were fighting an Adept alongside Tasser. But in the chaos of our attack, it was possible—probable, even—that the Vorak hadn’t realized I wasn’t Farnata.

Between seeking cover and taking a bullet somewhere near their head, they couldn’t have gotten a good look at me. Even if they had, I was wrapped up in a voidsuit. I just looked like a very broad-shouldered Farnata until the helmets came off.

The one on the rooftops hadn’t shot at us yet either, so they must not have a good vantage point. But they would be hurrying.

I said, sprinting down a perpendicular street.

Tasser agreed.

I nodded.

Tasser said.

she said.

I told Tasser.

he decided.

I said.

I pulled us down a covered alley that wasn’t visible on the colony map we were consulting.

he said.

I agreed.

Through the covered alley and up one of the walls on the other side, we got into position.

The buildings in this section of the colony were almost entirely prefabricated. Very little original architecture. The rooftops weren’t gravel covered like before, but the larger prefabs still had parapet-like walls encircling the rooftop accessible portions, so we crouched behind those.

Sure enough, the Vorak were still tracking our position somehow. But they couldn’t have a precise fix on us. It had to be vague. Our general area, but nothing more.

The one still on the rooftop noticed a trap first. They stopped atop the building opposite ours. I materialized a mirror for Tasser again, giving him a subtle way of seeing what was going on.

The rooftop Vorak was aiming at the alley we’d passed through.

Good.

The ground level Vorak stopped at the alley entrance for a moment. The two otters must have been deliberating with each other.

I asked.

he said.

I complained.

Tasser grimaced.

I agreed.

The one below was climbing up the wall, trying to circumvent where they thought our trap was. But Tasser had successfully read their instincts, and I heard a small scramble on the rooftop across the street.

Tasser brought his rifle up and fired at the airborne Vorak in one motion.

I moved to do the same, leaping out and shoving my revolver into the face of the Adept climbing the wall. My opponent reacted lightning fast though, their claw clasped down on my wrist, trying to control the direction of the muzzle.

Fine then.

Letting myself be pulled over the edge, I slammed my boot into the Vorak. Gravity was so light, I didn’t think a two story fall would harm either of us. So when I went over the edge, I pushed downward off the building, slamming the Vorak into the ground.

Vorak didn’t take falls well, but even with me helping us down, the impact wasn’t heavy.

It was certainly an effective surprise attack, though. The rak was totally off balance. I squeezed the trigger again, and a bullet cracked against the street next to their head.

We struggled for the gun with neither one of us giving ground. The Vorak was stronger, but I had better position and leverage. Neither one of us could turn the gun on the other.

So I dissolved it, snapping their focus like a twig.

With all their attention and grip on the now empty hand, my other fist slammed into their helmet’s broken faceplate.

I had to hand it to this Vorak; they didn’t know the meaning of the word quit. Even with me doing my damnedest to turn their face into pulp, they still fought. Contorting their body beneath me, they swung their legs up, kicking me away with their own body for leverage.

What came next didn’t surprise me, though.

Vorak Adept combat had some common starting points, and short fights didn’t give idiosyncrasies time to show.

Most of them were trained to resort to armor on reflex, adopt weaponry to suit the distance from their opponent, and use primarily ground spikes to control that distance.

We’d already seen the first, and we’d already struggled over my own weapon. Making a new one would only repeat that score.

So when two metal stalagmites speared up at me, I was ready to leap forward, past them, instead of backward.

Stay. On. The. Offensive!

I went with fists. The split second it would take to make a more damaging weapon would afford a similar opportunity, and the incremental benefit didn’t feel worth it. Because I could outpace them at this range.

Being punched in the head was one hell of a disturbance when you were trying to materialize a weapon. This Vorak wasn’t one of the few capable of flash formation.

And their arms weren’t long enough to block or deflect my strikes, so in a split second I was pummeling them against the wall of the building we’d fallen down. High, low, and high again, I found the gaps in their guard. Every other blow felt like it was stopped short by a piece of armor under the voidsuit, but there were still gaps, especially around the face.

There was a telling crack from something under their helmet, and that was my chance.

I grabbed the collar of their voidsuit and hurled them off their feet. The pain of the facial injury and being thrown on the ground occupied them for the split second I needed to rematerialize my gun and—I’d miscalculated.

The same moment I fired, the otter forged a creation of their own.

A curtain of liquid metal splashed onto me, ensnaring me in a second. Not molten though, liquid. Like mercury, it was silvery and reflective, but sticky!

Some kind of metal glue?

My bullet caught them high in the chest, right at the base of their neck and purple blood splattered out. I’d missed the armor. Would they be getting back up?

It didn’t seem like it. They were barely moving, trying to crawl away from me.

Nai said.

I started to ask Tasser. But gunfire from the rooftop told me he was busy too.

He wouldn’t ask for my help though. Not while he knew I was fighting my own enemy.

The metallic glue was insidious, completely trapping me in place. Worse, materializing incendiaries didn’t do a thing. It didn’t seem like I could make knife capable of cutting myself free of the glue.

Tasser needed backup, and I was out of time.

Crap.

I couldn’t cut the glue, but it wasn’t penetrating my voidsuit, and I could cut through that.

Moving quickly and carefully didn’t come easily, but I was motivated to get it right. Materializing loose powder to fall on the glue would keep me from getting more stuck. After that, the helmet needed to come off first. Then came the tricky task of pulling my arms out of the voidsuit’s sleeves.

From there, I materialized a knife and cut open the suit from within.

My boots were the most troublesome. Footwear rated for the vacuum of space couldn’t really be ‘kicked off’ without destroying them first.

The glue wasn’t affected by incendiaries, but my boots were not so impervious.

I pulled myself up the wall, extricating myself from the voidsuit.

I told him. Climbing was trickier without boots. That slowed me down.

Tasser’s rifle tumbled over the edge toward me, and his arm was a moment too slow to catch it before it fell. I caught the weapon, but wasn’t in a position to throw it back up to him quickly enough.

he sent me instantly.

I could only see his one arm outstretched over the street, so that was where I put the weapon.

My revolver, sans trigger guard, materialized in his hand and he took it.

A heartbeat later, two gunshots rang out.

The body tumbled over the edge, falling motionless on the street below. Tasser poked his head over the side.

I told Tasser, holding up his rifle. I climbed up to the rooftop and handed him his rifle.

he noted.

I quipped.

he said.

I panted, materializing a pair around my feet.

he frowned.

I agreed.

Tasser said.

I asked. Our respective fights hadn’t taken more than a minute. Most fights were short like that, but still exhausting.

he replied, gesturing to my face.

I muttered. I had seen fit to keep it in my pocket.

He and I started making our way toward Nai, slower than before.

We trotted across rooftops for a minute or two, before a bad possibility dawned on me.

<…I screwed up,> I realized. Thinking back to my opponent, I’d definitely won, but I’d become focused on helping Tasser out.

What was worse, I might have been able to free myself more simply if I’d just made sure to finish them off. Nine times out of ten, killing the Adept dematerialized any creation not already tied off.

Tasser acknowledged.

I said quietly. Just how badly had I screwed up?

They’d been out to kill me…or had they? Tispas’s announcement wasn’t very ambiguous about their hopes to bring me in alive.

I didn’t like killing people, and I wasn’t ashamed about that. But I also knew I might need to. Tasser was counting on me every bit as much as I was him. If an enemy I’d had an opportunity to kill managed to hurt him…

The adrenaline pumping through me made it hard to keep calm.

You did your best, I reassured myself. I’d won. Head to head against a trained alien soldier, and I’d come out ahead, pulled my own weight and then some.

I’d shot the rak. They were bleeding badly. But I’d sealed too many of my own wounds to forget how easily Adepts could patch up their own bodies—however temporarily. If that Vorak survived, and had realized I was the most infamous human alive…

Later. There was nothing I could do about it right now, and we had other priorities to focus on now.

Nai was just a few buildings away now, and there was a strange lack of gunfire coming from her AO.

Mine and Tasser’s battle had stayed outdoors, on the streets and rooftops. But Nai’s battle was trespassing more. She’d taken her fight indoors, having carved away a wall of an older brick building.

Bits of it were on fire, most of the glass was shattered, and half the structure appeared to be ensconced in a mixture of violet-tinted crystal and dappled granite.

One of the Vorak was already defeated. Their body lay half-covered in rubble—and noticeable missing an arm. And—

Oh that was just creepy…traces of their mind still lingered on radar. I couldn’t actually tell if they’d died or not. Same with the two Vorak before…

Radar still found the other two to be active, swiftly darting around the interior of the building, taking turns to keep pressuring Nai on the defensive.

Tasser asked.

Nai didn’t respond immediately.

He and I exchanged nervous glances. This was Nai we were talking about. Even if she was avoiding her fire to keep a low profile, she couldn’t be beaten by just these Adepts…surely.

Nai put that question to bed when a blast of Vorpal Fire belched through every window on the third floor. The two Vorak’s radar signals went still.

I asked.

Nai blasted out a window and leapt down to our rooftop.

she hissed.

I said.

Nai said.

I told her.

she nodded.

I asked.

she said plainly.

<…I’ll do whatever you think is best,> I decided. Saying so stung, but I refused to be too proud to defer to experience.

she said, reaching for a radio on her hip.

<141 megahertz,> he answered.

she said, tuning her walkie talkie. “Tudsen ground, this is your support. Reply?”

“Are with Ase Serralinitus?” the radio crackled back.

“That’s us,” Nai said. “You need to deploy units into the colony. We smashed the Adepts with the group heading for your garrison, but we need to defend Coskit’s power supply for another five hours at least.”

“…I don’t suppose this can be authenticated?” they asked.

“Does this look like an AO the Admiral has her eye on?” Nai hissed. “Things are unfolding pretty loosely out here. You can follow doctrine and hunker down, or you can get aggressive about helping us and defend this colony properly.”

“It’ll be taken under advisement,” the voice said.

Nai rolled her eyes. But that was all she was getting out of that Casti for now.

she told me. Putting a hand on my head, she wrapped it in more invisible armor. Her first batch had been wrought into the voidsuit. So she repeated the creation with my limbs and torso until I was re-armored.

You wouldn’t know it by looking at me though.

I realized.

<…Damnit,> she swore. My brain heard English, but I knew the word had actually been Speropi.

Tasser finished.

Nai said, shaking off the mistake.

I nodded.

Five hours. Maybe even more like six. How long had it been since we landed? I had a clock in my mind and I was still losing track.

I didn’t feel awful though. Tired. In some pain. Afraid.

But not bad.

No, if Tispas wanted me…he might be able to get me. But for the first time in months, I felt like I could measure up when he and his stepped onto the mound.