It's called 'busting out of the box' and sometimes its the only way to survive. - Primary Leadership Development Course, Resource War Era, Age of Paranoia, Pre-Glassing Terra

He had fought the lemurs before.

He didn't like it then.

He really didn't like it now.

The lemurs had kept the bulk of the Atrekna thrust contained behind a hill, had ambushed the vast hordes heading in to reinforce the thrust repeatedly. The lemurs were dug in across the valley and their weapons had turned the entire valley into a killzone of interlocking fields of fire, mortar and artillery fire, rocket attacks, and highly accurate sniper fire.

The Atrekna thrust had been stopped dead, hiding behind a hill, harried and harassed by artillery and rocket attacks that had taken the bulk of the Atrekna's concentration to keep up any type of point defense to protect the slavespawn and the spawnseeds that could only be used in the valley of death on the other side of the hill.

The Atrekna who had pursued the ambushing lemurs claimed to have killed most of them, claiming large numbers of lemur kills and stating that the lemurs dragged away their dead when asked to verify their claims.

As far as he was concerned, the lemurs had apparently gotten back up after being killed and followed the long lines of slavespawn.

Now, they had set up in the woods less than a half-klick from the rear of the Atrekna.

Heavy weapons fire chopped into slavespawn, shoulder fired rockets blew apart slavespawn, highly accurate small arms raked the smaller slavespawn and the Atrekan themselves.

He knew what the lemurs were doing. He didn't know how he knew, but he knew.

The Atrekna couldn't go over the hill, the lemurs on the opposite side of the valley would chop them into steaming chunks in seconds. They couldn't stay put, the lemurs had clear fields of fire on the Atrekna and had taken the time to ensure their heavy weapons had overlapping fields of fire and that their rocket attacks were pinpoint and precise.

To try to go over the hill was death.

To try to go to either side was death.

To try to take to the air was suicide.

There was only one option.

He took it.

Yanking up bedrock and dirty around him, compacting it, and keeping it constantly flowing, increasing his phasic shielding and putting up a second set of shields, he gripped his phasonium and warsteel staff tightly.

And charged at the lemurs.

Antimatter rounds and strange matter white phosphorus rounds slammed into his shields, tore through, and hit the compacted dirt and stone, blowing huge divots out of the layers.

He kept it semi-liquid, flowing, the holes filling in instantly as he yanked up more dirt and bedrock as he sped toward their lines.

Lasers hit hard enough to register to him as 22 MJ of energy being liberated at the point of impact. They formed a complex web, reaching out to him, as more and more fire was directed at him.

He'd crossed the halfway point.

He didn't care that he left an excavated line fifty feet wide and sixty feet deep of dirt and rock behind him. He didn't care that his external phasic shield kept blinking in and out, dozens of times a second as he charged.

All that mattered was getting past the lemur lines.

Two rockets hit him, showering him with dust as the penetrator came within centimeters of breaching the rock and dirt.

He responded by thickening the wall around him.

Then he was past, feeling something slam against him that fell away.

He thickened it to the sides and rear, speeding up. He felt trees shatter and added their mass to the rolling hemisphere of dirt and rock and phasic energy surrounding him.

He knew he was starting to bleed from his third eye but he didn't care.

He knew he'd like it a lot less if the lemurs got a hold of him.

Finally there were no more impact for several ragged breaths.

He could feel his heartbeat in his chest, his two chambered heart pumping hard.

He opened a hole in his protection, sealing it with phasic energy, and slowly turned in a circle, looking around him.

There was a line a hundred meters wide behind him.

He could see lemurs running through the forest at the edge of the line, all of them carrying weapons, wearing unpowered armor, the too-big looking helmets on their heads.

He opened a hole in the protective hemisphere and glided out, going stealth while leaving the hemisphere intact behind him.

He drifted into the forest in a random pattern, keeping the sounds of battle behind him.

The volume of lemur fire was dropping and he knew that the Atrekna that had stayed behind and tried to fight the lemurs were more than likely all dead.

Pattern recognition wasn't his species strong point. Like most precursors, they'd traded pattern recognition for psychic powers and dominance games of 'it is like this because I say it is.'

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But even he could see the pattern unfolding before him.

Fighting the lemurs was the same as stuffing his feeding tentacles into his own mouth and gorging on the soft tissues he found within.

All to soon the sounds of battle faded away and he was moving through the thick primal forests of the world. Forests that had been carefully cultivated wildlife and foliage preserves available only to the rich and powerful.

Twice he reacted with alarm at small mammals moving in the colorful brush. Each time he did not feel foolish.

He knew that one only had a split second of warning if a lemur jumped out of a tree.

He had learned that the hard way on the last planet he had fought the lemurs on, when the lemurs had stopped that spoke of the Spoked Offensive dead in the water.

He kept his senses stretched out to the max, to the point it made his spine tingle and burn. Looking for any trace of wrath or savage glee or cruel anticipation. Those were the emotions most likely to burn through any psychic stealth exercises the lemurs practiced.

Slowly the sky lit with dawn, the hated yellow sun bright orange as it lifted above the horizon.

He knew he should make connection with other Atrekna but he found he was loathe to do so.

He drifted to a stop in the middle of a large outgrowth of colorful plants as he examined why he was loathe to.

The first battle he had taken part in, the lemurs attacked often when three or more Atrekna joined a communal mind.

The second battle the lemurs had rapidly discovered and wiped out any Atrekna hooked to the communal mind.

The third battle the lemurs somehow had infected the communal mind with raving strands of psychic energy that ripped and tore, bit and chewed at the communal mind.

The fourth battle had suddenly ended when primal fear had swept through the Overmind, shattering the communal minds and killing many Young Ones.

The Old One mused over those facts, turning them over and over in his mind.

Other battles, against the Inheritors of Madness, linking into the communal mind had seemed to have almost no affect upon the battle.

With the lemurs, those who connected into the communal mind three of the four battles had been quickly located and killed.

Slight purple mucus covered his skin as he went over it.

Three or more and lemurs descended upon those connected to the communal mind no matter how far apart those connected were.

Quorums and Conclaves often attracted heavy weapon fire, artillery shells, and shoulder fired rockets.

There was something there. He knew it.

There was a reason he loathed to join the communal mind he could sense.

If he could only see it.

He could sense the lemurs. They were nearby. Within a kilometer of him. He could feel their cruel anticipation, their gleeful malevolence, just at the edge of his senses. Never coming too deep into his psychic field.

They would come in slightly then withdraw.

Like...

like...

they knew it was there.

He concentrated. There was a pattern there, he knew it.

He thought about how the lemurs kept moving a few meters into his radii of senses and then quickly moving out.

He drew a circle in the dirt and drew the runes for numbers to put the penetrations in order and another rune for when the savage glee tasted the same.

He stared at the circle.

There were nearly a dozen runes of glee. Thirty of penetrations over the last few hours.

He realized that the runes were all around his circle.

He blinked.

The lemurs had him surrounded!

He made keening noises of distress as he stared at the drawing in the dirt.

They had followed him despite his best efforts.

He blinked.

They were sensing his senses!

He withdrew his senses with a snap.

But it gave him an idea.

He had often worked on experiments in the Old Universe and had tried a few experiments in the strange New Universe.

He knew it might be his last experiment but he craved the knowledge.

He withdrew a crystal from his robe and imbued it with energy, carefully constructing the nearly subatomic phasic construct within the crystal.

Satisfied it was good enough, he set it in the dirt and moved away. He drifted up into the trees, nearly twenty meters up and withdrew his powers. Everything but allowing the light to bend around him to show a slightly distorted view of what was behind him.

He triggered the construct and waited patiently.

It took nearly an hour but he saw the lemur!

He held down the urge to flee, reciting mantras to stay calm.

The lemur was obviously a female. The clothing it was dressed in was camouflaged to blend into the forest. The helmet covered the back of the head to the base of the skull, the sides down to below the ears, and down the face to the brow ridge. The rifle was brutal, savage looking, with a sharp blade on the end. It had a backpack on that seemed to be without weight and an equipment harness that looked clumsy and bulky but didn't effect the lemurs animalistic grace and movement. The lemur's face was painted oddly. The high parts were dark to avoid catching light and the low parts were light, making the lemur's face seem flat somehow despite the irregular pattern.

The Old One watched, his emotions flat, his mind blank and still.

The lemur lifted an arm and made some motions.

The Old One managed to keep his cool as six more lemurs suddenly appeared out of the brush.

He could feel them now. The gleeful dark and cruel anticipation of a hunter who knows his outmatched quarry is nearby.

One pulled a sphere from the equipment harness as they all backed up from the bush that the Old One had left the construct in. They pulled a ring from it and tossed it underhanded into the bush. He saw a lever pop off the side of the sphere. He watched it arc into the brush to land right next to the construct and sit there ineffectively.

Two seconds later there was an explosion as the casing shattered into shrapnel and spooky particle white phosphorus arced out.

Two of the female lemurs fired quick bursts into the bushes.

Silence came back to the forest.

The Old One watched as smoke covered the area as the white phosphorus burned.

The smoke slowly cleared.

With horror the Old One realized he could no longer see the lemurs.

He could only feel them. That they were out there.

Looking.

For him.

He looked around wildly, then calmed himself.

Predators rarely looked up. Why would they? They were the dominant ones. Who would dare attack them?

The Old One waited, bringing a carefully constructed pistol of phasic crystals and intricately carved and inlaid metals. He changed it from a light beam to a devastating bolt. It would consume more power, take long seconds to recharge, but it would pack enough punch to blow through even an Ohm Class's weaker armor sections.

He put it on the shoulder of his robe, melding the base of it into the phasic enhanced cloth. He pulled the crystal out of his pocket and quickly redid it into an eyepiece. Three seconds of work and the former pistol was slaved to the eyepiece.

It started to feel satisfaction and quickly smothered it.

He looked around, noting which branches could take his weights, which ones could not, and which ones he could reach with a psychically enhanced jump.

He crouched and waited.

Soon he saw one of the female lemurs. She was moving away, carefully searching.

And looking up into the trees!

Feeling fear again, the Old One fired and jumped quickly, counting six jumps before he stopped and crouched, turning and looking at where the lemur had been.

She was down on her face, a hole blown through her back, through the back plate of her armor. Smoke and steam were wafting up and one foot was kicking rhythmically.

The Old One nodded when the others didn't come rushing to the fallen one's side.

No, they wouldn't.

They knew for sure he was here now.

They would be hunting him.

But had not the Atrekna once been predators?

The only way he could survive was obvious to him.

He could only do it alone.

To hook into the communal mind was death. The lemurs would sense it and be able to find him rapidly.

But if he hunted alone.

If he turned into a predator rather than acting like prey.

Then maybe, just maybe, he could survive.

He waited, still, slowly using his eyes, like a common peasant, to view around him, looking for a hint of the lemurs.

Below him, in the thick primeval forest, the lemurs looked for him.