Using one hand, Stefan forced as much Reserve as he could out into space in front of him, resulting in the creation of a rectangular construct, which unlike any other barrier he had created before was not two dimensional, but instead had three inches of thickness to it. Rather than only covering a length that extended from just above his head to just below his groin, this barrier shielded the entirety of his body, starting from about a foot over his head, and ending at the ground in front of his feet. Sideways, it was also a foot wider. Although there were far more advanced tiers that could cover much vaster areas, the tier 15 was considered the ultimate barrier for protecting one’s own self.
Already his joints felt heavier, but he didn’t falter. He pulled his hand away from the barrier and was relieved to see that it had remained, confirming that it was locked onto him as long as he could continue exerting the correct quantity of Reserve.
Stefan raised the rifle he had just acquired and aimed it right at the fast-approaching Titanian’s head. With a trembling index finger, he pulled the trigger. The bullet had only managed to graze the side of the Titanian’s skull, taking off a few long, blonde hairs in the process. Despite being mindless, he still had enough instinct to dodge the incoming bullet.
“Shit!” Stefan cried. “Just aiming for his head won’t do.”
In a state of near panic, Stefan quickly reloaded his rifle, despite his joint feeling heavier by the minute. He fired off another bullet practically blindly. It ricocheted off the uneven forest floor and scraped the rib of the Titanian, causing it to again groan in annoyance.
I think… I get it now, Stefan thought, understanding that the Titanian was still capable of understanding that direct hits would come at him, which he would have to avoid. Hitting him right in the body is useless. I have to think outside.
-
“I never thought to ask this before,” Anwen asked as she tinkered with a mass of metal held together by screws and bolts which was roughly triangle-shaped, and the size of a typical tome. “But… how exactly do you know Stefan’s mother?”
“Well, I did tell you we both served in the Free Army, right?” Vigdis said, comparing her student’s construct to a hand-drawn blueprint she’d created herself.
“You did, but… I want to know more. Stefan didn’t know anything about her as a fighter, so…”
“Kallista wanted to keep her boys safe,” Vigdis said. “But fate had its own plans and brought one of them right to the thing she wanted to keep them away from. Alright, I’ll tell you a little bit about Kallista, but I will be honest. I never knew too much about her because our time together there was only about half a year.”
Anwen then spent the next 10 or so minutes listening about Vigdis joined the Free Army and met Kallista Laine. Anwen did know how her mentor got her start in engineering. Vigdis had grown up in a village near the sight of an ancient Titanian dump yard which contained the remains of unusable crafts, both for air travel and for land. While at first the old scraps had been nothing but toys she got to play with under the supervision of her elder sister, they soon progressed to putting them together into things that resembled what they had once been. Through trial and error, the two girls had managed to reactivate some of the old crafts and used them to ride around the vicinity of their village for fun. Unbeknownst to them, the Titanian military based in south Yeupis began to pick up signals coming from the crafts. They had discovered the girls playing with them. Upset that their ancestor’s craftsmanship was being used as playthings by the Terrans they had strived to quell, the dump yard had been firebombed by military craft so that their ancestors would remain the last users of their own creations. Unfortunately, perhaps intentionally, the raging fire would reach and consume the village that Vigdis had lived in her entire life. The Maas family and their surviving neighbors were forced to flee and live a semi-nomadic life, as many of the settlements they thought they would be safe in would be subject to cruel pogroms under the government of Emperor Henrik. Vigdis’ elder sister eventually came across a Free Army recruiter who had been searching for soldiers to fight in the ongoing, but largely one-sided battle against the Titanian Empire. There, Vigdis first met 18-year-old Kallista Laine.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“I was a little younger than you are now when I joined the Free Army,” Vigdis explained. “About 13 or so. I never wanted nor did I ever learn how to fight, but to my sister it seemed that it was the only community that remained stable throughout that time. So the Free Army became my home. It was a little tough trying to convince them to take me in, but they really took a liking to me once they learnt that I could use Titanian technology.”
“So…” Anwen said, thinking how to sew her words together. “If the Free Army was so powerful, how come they aren’t a thing anymore?”
Vigdis smiled as she heard her student’s question.
“The Free Army worked differently than the Black Shield,” she explained. “The leadership was changing frequently due to how often we found ourselves in active combat. So we all had to look for constants that would keep us bonded. That constant, well… it turned out to be Kallista. We called her the defender of Terra, not because she was particularly strong, but because she was almost always the only high-ranking soldier to make it through our battles. But one day, we discovered that she was expecting a child. Choosing between starting her own family and protecting our homeland was a tough choice, but she decided that she still had the chance to love and care for someone and returned to her home village to raise her child.”
“So she left to take care of Stefan and after that, the leadership crumbled, and the group fell apart?” Anwen had surmised.
“You’re right about the second part, but no. That little boy she gave birth to wasn’t Stefan. It was his elder brother, Joakim.”
“Oh, right,” Anwen said. “Stefan did mention that he has a brother, but I never remembered his name.”
“Kallista wasn’t the average humble, obedient village girl back in those days,” Vigdis said as she leaned back in her chair, gazing at the high, rocky ceiling above. “She was far from it. She was well-respected but she was also hot-headed, quick to argue with others… always wanting to do things in her own way. She was something of a tomboy.”
“I guess that’s where Stefan gets his… everything from.” Anwen giggled softly.
“I suppose so,” Vigdis said. “But, after learning she’d become a mother, she changed. She became a lot more reclusive, a lot quieter, much humbler. There was still a kind of fire in her but for the kid’s sake she had to control it. And after she came back from Titan, well… she gave up on being a soldier altogether.”
“Why? Wasn’t she captured as a slave?”
“I… still don’t really understand, but if I get to see her again, I’ll ask. I think it has to do with her being pregnant again when she returned to Earth. I don’t know what happened there, but… Stefan’s father is not the same man as Joakim’s father. They’re half-brothers.”
Stefan was born because of something that happened on Titan?
“Whatever the case… I really want Stefan to meet his family again,” Anwen said. “He’s been working so hard just so that he gets the chance to see them. To be honest, I don’t want to see him sad again.”
“Me too, Anwen. Me too.”
A short pause later, Anwen had decided to change the subject as she held up the metal device towards her mentor.
“The jetpack’s just about ready,” Anwen said. “Can we take it for a spin—
The deafening blaring of alarms interrupted her, cutting through the entire workshop. Red lights attached to the walls pulsed rapidly.
“Ah, shit,” Vigdis groaned. “A distress call from one of the crafts. I’ll grab a first aid kit. Anwen, start up one of the two-person crafts.”
As Vigdis ran out of the workshop to her quarters where she kept a first aid kit, Anwen grabbed an electronic key fob which hung from a wall and made a beeline for the hangar which was located just next door. She hurried into the front seat of a small, doorless craft which as Vigdis said carried just enough room for two people. She swiped the fob in front of a scanner on the dashboard while her mentor came sprinting back just in time.
Don’t worry Stefan, Anwen thought as she sat in the back seat. We’ll help you, just hang tight.