S00P had spent most of the first half of the battle huddled behind a tree. He wasn’t built for this type of thing. And he felt that more mentally than physically. He was a man of slight build. He was somewhat shorter than average. And he was on the thinner side even for his height. He had always been that way. It had made life difficult when he was younger. That, among other things. He seemed to have a mannerism about him that could instantly rub someone the wrong way. Such a talent was problematic when combined with a lack of talent for dealing with people either physically or diplomatically. People sucked. S00P wasn’t excluding himself from that particular group of ‘people’.
And now, here he was. Non-human creatures were coming for him and the rest of the humans around him. Part of him knew it wasn’t personal, but when people wanted you dead, it felt personal.
Another flash of fire blasted between the trees. It was followed by a huge fireball that exploded 100 meters west of them. There was an immense mushroom cloud and the heat that washed over S00P could be felt through his suit.
Arrows liberally sprouted from the ground and trees along with spikes of rock and ice. The humans were getting warnings slightly ahead of any attack that would threaten them individually, but sometimes even that forewarning wasn’t enough. Either they would be too slow to move or get caught in a crossfire that prevented any possibility of avoiding the enemy fire. The enemy made a push forward to their right.
They could see plasmas rounds from one of the Starfire turrets hitting a shield that felt too close to them.
“You, OK?” The deep baritone of Bronk sounded in S00P’s ear.
S00P couldn’t help it. He snapped back with a voice that sounded a little whinier than he would have liked. “Of COURSE I am not ok. These fucking things are trying to kill us. We are fucked!”
For the love of Luka Garad, S00P's favorite designer whose work he would never see again, Bronk could be dense sometimes. He sighed. That wasn’t fair. He was scared and taking it out on his friend. Bronk had almost literally been holding his hand through this whole process. And S00P was acting like a spoiled brat.
“Sorry. Bronk.” And he yelped as above his head a part of the tree he was hiding behind exploded in splinters.
“Meh. S’ok. I get it.” Bronk shrugged as he tried to get a view on something he could shoot at. He apparently saw something as he leaned slightly out of cover and shot several bursts. “We need to move back, or we are going to get cut off from the rest of Delta.”
They ran south while sticking to the outside of the outside of the conflict. Bronk dove behind another tree and took a few more shots. “This should be good for now.”
The bulk of the enemy was west of them. With the largest concentration spread out northwest of them. The hardest fighting was southwest of them and became worse the further they went. Bronk and S00P had moved out with a squad that was going to try and get around the bulk of the enemy force and attack them from behind. They were the only members of that squad left.
They were still on the outside of action and on the edge of the smoke screen. The com still buzzed with chatter that most of the non-soldiers didn’t understand. Bronk had worked in security with some former soldiers and so could get the gist of the conversation.
"Shit. Delta's gone." Bronk stated with all of the feeling of an easy bowel movement. "That huge fireball got them."
"What! What do you mean GONE?" S00P's voice was rising an octave with each word.
"They got forcefully respawned?"
S00P flopped back against the tree feeling lost. Bronk kept firing intermittently.
S00P didn’t know if Bronk was hitting anything but he appreciated the fact that the big man was doing something besides squatting paralyzed behind a tree. He tried to distract himself. If he thought about it too much, he started to feel the panic well up inside of him. Which irritated him. He felt so weak. He hated feeling weak.
Ok, he told himself, it’s time to do something. S00P held the rifle out so that the point was beyond the edge of the tree. He implemented the targeting sight that used the camera mounted to the weapon like a scope and brought up an image in his helmet. There was still a lot of smoke and the camera highlighted targets within the smoke. He pointed at a target and fired his weapon. As far as he could tell nothing happened.
“Stupid shields.” he muttered as he kept firing.
“Yeah, right now this whole thing feels stupid.” Bronk kept firing along with the other humans. But none of that seemed to matter as shields were holding back all their fire and neither side was trying to close the distance. Yet the humans around S00P and Bronk were pinned down.
S00P looked off to his left. Maybe they could work their way around the side of this group of enemies like they were going to originally. He didn’t actually know if that would make him any more inclined to shoot. Just then he saw a ripple in the air. In a panic, he brought his rifle up to his shoulder and flooded the area with projectiles. One of them clipped something and blood splattered as the scout came into view. Then, he could see another glow on his screen further to his left.
Bronk fired in that direction as well. The 2 scouts never got close to them.
S00P was stoked. “WE GOT THEM!” He held up his rifle and shook it like a Tusken raider.
“Nice, we....urgh!” Bronk was cut off.
S00P spun to see a spear adept grasping Bronk’s throat while thrusting a spear at his body. And S00P froze.
The spear glowed a bright yellow and seemed to leap forward completely through Bronk and deep into the tree behind him. A raspy voice spoke to Bronk, “One less human. You are all doomed.”
“Noo!” S00P screamed. “You feathered asshole!” He brought up his weapon and fired before he could think. It was enough. The Spear Adept tried to dodge but S00P’s poor weapon handling skills worked in his favor by spreading out the projectiles that the Shin was caught by one, then two, and then several more. None of them center mass.
The Shin hit the ground. Now S00P, in his anger, took more careful aim. As he stepped forward, shooting repeatedly at the Spear Adept, something hit him in the head. He reached up and felt the gouge that the arrow had left. “I’m an idiot.”
He ran forward to try and help Bronk now that the Shin lay still. Bronk had a shocked look on his face as he gaped at the spear that passed through his body. S00P went to yank on the spear and thought better of it.
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“What do I do?” S00P asked.
“Try to pull it out?” Bronk asked in return. He didn’t have any onboard medical systems. He only had a some slightly enhanced DNA and upgraded optics.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“There are no medics.” He looked up at S00P. “I’m as good as dead either way. Look in the bag.”
S00P grabbed the bag that Bronk had carried with him. One of the other lost squad members had brought it originally. It contained meal replacement bars, several bottles of water, and 4 drones.
“Ah man. There’s nothing useful here.” S00P ran his hands over his helmet as he tried to figure out what to do. He triggered his com. “Howie? Riff? Can anyone hear me?”
“Go ahead.” Riff said with a grunt.
“Bronk was, uh, run through with a spear and is stuck to a tree.”
It took a few seconds for a response to come. Seconds felt like minutes. “Ok. I can see he is alive. What do you need?”
“I need to know what to fucking do!” Panic and anger tinged the response. This was NOT what he signed up for. S00P had spent most of his life as a Sonus. He mixed music and performed at bars and weddings and even the occasional concert. He wasn’t famous, but he was good. He wasn’t a soldier or a farmer or an engineer. He was just a guy who could keep people dancing at a party. This so far had not been a skill that was in demand within the colony.
“Can you remove the spear?” Riff asked.
“Won’t he bleed out or something?” S00P really tried to keep the snark out of his voice.
“Uh. Yeah probably.” A moment passed. “Can you break the spear and move him away from the front?”
This at least sounded like a path forward. “Let me try.”
He looked around at what they had to work with. “Maybe we could shoot it?”
“No,” Bronk shook his head vigorously. “Use a machete. Monomolecular blade.”
S00P nodded. That sounded good. He pulled out his blade and went to move behind Bronk.
“Wait. Let me cut the front off first.” Bronk said through gritted teeth. The shock was wearing off and he was starting to feel uncomfortable.
He handed the machete to the man pinned to the tree. Bronk held the machete in his right hand and tried to stabilize the spear with his left. He indicated for S00P to hold on to the end of the spear. After he grabbed a hold of it, Bronk swung down. The machete wedged itself halfway through the shaft.
Bronk groaned and his head rolled. “That felt awful.” After a moment, he freed the blade and swung again. It was a clean cut. Whether by skill or luck, he hit the same spot again.
“Are you going to slide off it?” S00P asked hesitantly. The thought made him queasy.
“Uh, try cutting the shaft behind me. Then we can move back to our side with the least amount of possibility of me bleeding out.”
S00P grabbed the machete and swung down at the shaft. Fortunately, since this was next to where the spearhead was buried deep in the tree, the shaft didn’t move much. Still, the vibration of the several hits didn’t make Bronk feel any better. Finally, the shaft was severed.
He grabbed a bottle of water from the bag and offered it to his injured partner. After a moment of consideration, Bronk declined and started moving south. “Let’s go.”
S00P could see it was very hard for Bronk to move without inducing a significant amount of pain. He racked his brain trying to think of something to help his friend. He was once again frustrated with his lack. He lacked experience. He lacked strength. He lacked any meaningful skill to contribute to the effort here. Perhaps it would have been better if he had taken that spear instead of Bronk.
“Meh, without a doubt it would have been better.” He muttered to himself.
“What?” Bronk gasped.
“Nothing. I was just trying to think about what I could do to help get you back to someone who can help.”
And then they saw it. The smoke in front of them that was probably mostly from the fireball was filled with red indicators.
“Fuuuuuuuck.” S00P hissed.
“We could move east and try and go around them.”
“It’s your call, Bronk.”
Bronk looked around and his shoulders slumped. Finally, his eyes set on S00P. “I can’t go on much longer. I’m pretty sure I’m losing blood in my suit and the only thing that’s kept me alive this long is the compression the suit is providing. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” S00P asked confused. “Why are you sorry? It’s not like you planned this or are out here just screwing around making things worse.”
His lips pinched in a grimace. “I was trying not to leave you out here alone. I know you didn’t want to do this in the first place. But I appreciate the effort you’ve put into it.”
Now S00P really felt like an asshole. Bronk, for as much he was a big lug of a man, was a great guy. Under other circumstances, S00P might be inclined to show him a little more personal appreciation. Not right this second, but later. Unfortunately, that wasn’t Bronk’s thing. S00P felt his face flush as thoughts ran wild for a moment.
He looked around at the situation and reflected on Bronk’s words. He didn’t want to be out here alone. If they died, they respawned. The answer seemed obvious. “Fuck it. Blaze of Glory.”
Bronk’s eyes widened. “What?”
“I say we go out in a Blaze of Glory.” S00P motioned with his arm to the crowd of red dots as if he was on a game show indicating a fabulous new prize the contestant could win. “And we take as many of THESE lovely folks with us as we can.”
“Are you sure?”
“Look, we can stand here wringing our hands or try dragging your injured, bleeding ass all over the battlefield. Or we can punch these guys in the proverbial dick, respawn, and get a drink. I know which way I’m voting. I want to punch dick.”
Bronk chuckled. “Ok. I like your style.” He looked toward the group ahead of them. The artificial smoke was gone, but in this area, there was still quite a bit of the natural smoke that was still coming from the embers of where the great fireball blew up. “What are you thinking? Move up behind these guys and start blasting with grenades and bullets?”
While that was as good an idea as any given their situation, the chaos gremlin within him had a better idea.
As a Sonus, S00P had a few very niche upgrades to his cyberware. One of them was the ability to control up to several dozen drones. With the right hardware around him, that number could be in the hundreds or thousands. He didn’t have that hardware, and the control he had depended on the drone and was mostly limited to general instructions. Avoid hitting or bumping people. Don’t blind people with emitters. Move around and play the music loud. He had no ability to record data or even use any cameras or other sensors.
The goal of the programming was to add to the delightful chaos of a concert. In this case, he hoped confusion and the sheer incongruity of the situation, might force the Shins to make mistakes and target the wrong places while Bronk and S00P decimate the group.
They replenished their grenades and reloaded their rifles. S00P kept the machete as Bronk didn’t think he would be able to do much swinging. Plus, they each had a sidearm as a last resort.
“Ready to fuck these guys?”
Bronk looked at S00P with a grin. “That’s not how I would have phrased it. But yes.”
The drones deployed and rushed forward at about thigh level. While there was no broader concert the speakers in the drones were top quality and would have to play the music that was otherwise only in S00P’s head. Synthesized music and strobes lights lit up the smoky area. The bass pulsed and the Shins began to furiously move like ants that had just had their anthill kicked.
Bronk and S00P opened fire. They launched grenades make sure to avoid the positions of the drones and sent bursts into the crowd. The shields the Shins had were positioned forward to hold off the Starfire turret fire. Bronk didn’t know if they could reach the position of the shield mages but he launched several of his remaining grenades as far as he could in that direction. He decided to keep one or two in case he got another opportunity.
They lost one of the drones. S00P reloaded right as a group of Shins figured out where they were located. Bronk had some basic targeting software and shot the legs out from under half the group of 10 that were coming for them. The rest of the capable fighters closed in on his position. When they were close enough, Bronk launched a grenade that was too close to everyone including himself.
S00P had to shield himself from the bits and pieces that landed on him. Bronk was dead and disappeared in a few moments. “Fuck!”