Henry hopped out of HARP, grabbed his first aid kit, and dashed across the shattered forest towards the prone xythan body. The shield that had been protecting her was flickering ominously and it looked like a forest fire was in the process of starting but for the time being, he didn’t care. Swallowing the fear that was beginning to form a lump in his chest, he dashed around the shield and slid to a stop next to her. Quickly crouching, Henry pushed Glysia onto her back placed his ear next to the nose while trying to feel for a pulse. A few tense seconds of patting her around her neck trying and trying to find a pulse passed before he realized that he both wasn’t finding the pulse and that he could hear her breathe shallowly.
Sighing in relief, Henry quickly moved to help alleviate the problem. Swiping a few metal shards of her chest armor off of her stomach area, Henry tapped the still warm but shattered metal before changing tracts and starting from the latches on the side.
Thankfully, he mused as he peeled it off, the armor had performed its job admirably. The first layer had shattered and melted some but her chest had been protected by what looked like a kevlar jacket. Her arms were a bit of a different story, covered in scorched fur that Henry was a little hesitant to touch. He knew he wasn’t qualified to take care of much beyond bleeding and wasn’t sure if he’d make it worse or not. Still, Henry thought as he removed the gauntlets, a bit of disinfectant couldn’t hurt. Dabbing it carefully, Henry used a light touch.
Turning to address the shattered shin pads, he saw her leg armor had been shattered with most of the molten pieces thankfully having fallen off to the side. Most, not all, unfortunately Henry mused as he scorched his fingers prying the padding off. The burns in this area looked quite bad. Reattaching his own hand armor, he began trying to remove the still burning pieces when he felt an impact into the side of his armor and his world view quickly flipped
Henry felt the air quickly vacate his lungs as he found himself wheezing on the ground staring up at the smokey forest sky. To compound this, a weight came crashing down on his chest as Glysia's face came flying into view. She looked positively feral, arm raised and prepared to strike. Wheezing out a panicked complaint, Henry brought his hands up in defense to cover his face and stomach only to find the anticipated strike never came.
“Henry? What… what are you doing here? I thought you were in the base.”
Henry wheezed a few times as he tried to sit up, “Maybe if you didn’t judo-flip me so fast I could have explained.”
A grin touched Glysia’s face as she hopped up and offered him a hand, “Well, maybe you don’t act like dumbass then. Crawling all over the unconscious predator! Don’t you humans have any warnings about doing that kind of stuff?”
“No, but don’t worry, I’ve learned my lesson. I’ll just leave you next time. Actually, I probably won’t I think this is the second time you lot have tossed me like a salad”, Henry groaned as he accepted her hand, “Also who are you calling a dumbass? You literally engaged them alone!”
“So did you!”
“Yeah. In a 14 ft mech! You just had a grenade launcher.”
Turning her head up and sniffing in disdain, Glysia feigned contempt, “You were trapped and someone had to make a distraction for you to escape. Besides, I knew reinforcements were on route anyways.” Her face dropped into a frown as she tentatively touched the burns on her arm, “In all seriousness though, thank you for the help. I underestimated them and overextended.”
A grin touched Henry’s face, “What are friends for! Besides, Darana would have killed me if I let her friend die anyways.”
“Is that all I am to you? A friend of a friend?”
It was Henry’s turn to snort with amusement, “You wish.” Glancing back at the HARP, he waved the xythan to follow him while handing over the medical kit, “Jokes aside, we should probably get going. We’ve still got people in the forest and I know that wasn’t the last of those… spiiiiders? I don’t know but we need to move and since you’re up and about, you can do what you need while I carry you.”
Taking the medical kit, Glysia would give it a quick once over before nodding, “Sounds like a plan…which of these was the disinfectant?”
“Red one. Blue bottle also has a mild painkiller which should be safe for you to use last I checked.”
Nodding, Glysia closed the kit and began following back to the human’s war machine. Glancing around the clearing, Glysia let out an impressed huff as she surveyed the carnage, “You really did a number on the bugs.”
“Like I said earlier, the HARP made it pretty easy. If they had anti-tank weapons, I would have been in a lot of trouble.”
“Don’t discredit yourself.”
“Nah, you could have done it too if you had one. I just wish I’d have gotten out there sooner.”
Glysia whined quietly to herself as she pulled herself up into the HARP’s passenger unit, placing the medkit off to the side and quickly attatching herself to the seat with practiced ease. “By the way, why were you even in your base in the first place? I thought you were a pretty high-priority individual?”
Satisfied Glysia was secured, Henry hopped into the cockpit and hit a few buttons. As the HARP suit began to quietly hum to life below him, he flicked on the communicator with the back, “You and Sarlunt both. Nah, I stayed behind to cover for the engineers since they were just leaving. Realized something was going on with the scanners and when I decided to check things out, I ended up finding way too many of those… bug things ”
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“Yeah, no kidding. Put an awful lot of steel into them too. Way more than you probably needed”
As he snorted in amusement, Henry felt the HARP finish boot up. Guiding it forward, it began moving, “Had to cover the sounds of the HARP approaching somehow. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but this ain’t exactly the stealthiest of devices. Hey, actually, while you’re back there, do you see a remote control with a screen sitting around?”
“Uhh… the one attached to the other chair?
“That’s the one. Can you hit the button on the side and check and see if it’s displaying anything”
The line went quiet for a moment before the xythan, “I think I’m seeing a chair? What's this connected to?”
“It’s a lightweight drone sitting on my workbench inside my base. Just wanted to check and see what sort of range I was dealing with before I got myself into any trouble.”
”I like the sound of that. What’s the plan?”
“Here’s what I have in mind. First we need to catch up to the engineers…”
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Marching HARP carefully between the trees, Henry found himself in another clearing, this one distinguished from the many others they had passed due to the rather noticeable signs of battle, xythan and pirate bodies, and a destroyed vehicle. Coming to a stop, the two sat in silence for a moment surveying the destruction.
Henry spoke up first, “I knew it would be bad but just… yikes. ”
“Yeah,” the xythan sighed darkly, “The one good thing is there aren’t nearly enough bodies here to account for all the civilians so it means at least some got away.”
“Silver linings I guess. Let’s get going.”
The radio lit up with static as a third voice joined the channel, “Do any... over?. … West…. Holding … in a cave...”
The voice cut out as the channel returned to static and the two sat there in silence for a moment.
“Hey, Glysia?”
“Yeah?”
“If my map’s worth anything, I think I know where they might be right now. Can you tell the engineers to get the planes ready?”
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Lt. Terpen’s senses were on high alert when she caught a glimpse of one of the many roving pirates. Stepping out from the cover of the cave entrance, she fired off an optimistic shot at the closest pirate before dipping back behind cover, all the while cursing his luck.
The engineer’s warning had come just in time to prevent their forces from becoming completely annihilated but was still a little too late. The damn nightmare bugs had swarmed out of the tree lines blasting anyone not smart enough to make a run for it. Terpen had initially considered herself fortunate that her squadron had been relatively untouched and that they’d gotten as many civilians out as they did but their misfortune, they hadn’t been able to shake their pursuers. Maybe if they had left the slower ones… Terpen shook her head at the thought. She’d sworn to protect them when she took the job and she’d be damned if she was going to break that promise before she himself broke.
Terpen heard that dreaded raspy metal sound the pirates made while moving begin outside the cave again and watched as one of her remaining soldiers followed her lead and stepped out to take a pot shot. The hellish rattling seemed to retreat for a moment only to quickly begin again. It wouldn’t be long now before they braved the cave. Terpen felt a small hand tug on her armor.
“Are the monsters going to eat us?”
Turning to look, one of the pups had wandered to the front of the cave and was looking at her with concerned eyes. Crouching down, she pat them gently on the head and tried to keep any notes of worry out of her voice, “Don’t worry. We won’t let the monsters get you. You should go back and join your mother.”
“I don’t know where she is.”
Terpen grimaced, “Well, go join the others for now it’s not safe up here.”
As one of the civilians came forward to collect the pup, the lieutenant realized something had changed. She was hearing a new sound. This one was different, sounding sort of like a flying bug except but steady, and Terpen was sure she had heard it before. It was also growing louder. Glancing over the other soldier, Terpen noticed they clearly seemed to be hearing it as well. Dread began to fill her as various scenarios began to play themselves out in his head. Did the pirates have a new weapon?
Carefully peaking outside, Terpen realized the pirates had stopped their advance and were waving their tentacles towards… something. She frowned at their reaction, puzzled. It seemed to imply that whatever that sound was, wasn’t theirs and Terpen felt a bit of hope spark in her heart as the buzzing continued to grow and the tentacled beasts began tracking something above them.
Taking advantage of their distraction, Terpen flashed a handful of signs towards his troops and began stealthing forward out the entrance. Breaking the cover of the cave, Terpen finally got a look at what was making the sound, as small swarm of RC planes menacingly circling the pirates.
Unfortunately, Terpen’s sneaking was not missed and one of the pirates turned his blasters toward him and fired. It was an inaccurate and poorly aimed shot that ultimately did nothing but it did signal the beginning of the end as all hell broke loose and planes began diving out of the swarm.
Detonations began to ring across the clearing as the planes kamikaze into their opponents and the now clearly panicked pirates began firing into the impending swarm. This was also accompanied by a loud crashing as Terpen watched the human’s vehicle break the tree line.
“Sorry we took so long!”
Terpen turned back towards the cave, waving herarms for those still in to follow and calling, “This is our chance. Let’s cook some bugs!”
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The battle was decisive for the defenders with all save two of the pirates killed. The combination of the drones piloted by the engineer corp, the human’s warmachine, and supporting fire from the remaining soldiers all but ensured that. One of the pirates has managed to skitter off into the forest but the other was currently unconscious and tied up.
Terpen watched as the citizens began streaming out of the cave and began mingling with the engineers. She could only sigh in relief that things had worked out this well.
The small one missing his mother ran up to the human, crying, and began shaking his leg, “Uncle Henry, Uncle Henry!”
The human bent down and scooped the pup into his arms, “Thank goodness you’re safe. Where’s your Mama?”
“The scary spider things got her! You gotta save her!”
Terpen fought the urge to flinch when she saw the budding horror and anger bloom on the human’s face. Someone was going to have a bad day very soon she mused.