This is how I’m gonna die? Under a lake, shot at by minimum wage henchmen with aim worse than an Imperial Stormtrooper, and perforated by giant lawn darts?! Hell no!
James caught up with Levine and Nick in the chaos that was that teleportal gateway room, and they’d scrambled to fall back before the bulkhead door came crashing down, and then past another connecting hallway that led closer to the armory and secure labs. It had been preceded by a massive explosion that he figured either the Tsunderedragon, or their new explosive alchemist had cooked up. He’d almost lost his foot when that barricade missed it by inches, and he is panting, out of breath, and feels like he needs an inhaler.
This is all Drenar’s fault, like usual. He checks himself for injuries, and rolls over to his side–there’s Nick, calm, collected, and reloading a magazine in his autobow, and Levine is doing the same in record time. “I wish I had your guy's ability to not sweat bullets when being shot at.” Nick shrugs, and his long blond hair is in a bob–what an odd fashion, seriously.
“You get used to it after about the tenth time. Mage barriers mean a shot to the head isn’t usually lethal if you’re at full strength. Unless they’re firing hella deadly ammo at you.” They both look back at the scientists and people in civilian wear cowering, panicking, and otherwise out of words for the precarious situation they’re in.
The pounding at the far side bulkhead door persists for a few seconds, and Levine breathes a slight sigh of relief. After talking to Drenar and the others about yet another hare-brained scheme to keep everyone alive, James looks around. “So, what do we do? We can’t stay here forever. They’ll find a way around eventually.”
“Lad, you’re not a soldier. You’ll be cut to ribbons if you stick your neck out James, even though what you've done is admirable.” James grunts and his panic is slowly falling. It feels like his whole body is twitchy, and he picks up his autobow. “They can cut through the doors, that's what Joey was saying. Whatever it is they're planning, we need to buy them time, before the Talons decide to just level the place.” He glances back, looking at the layout–this facility is a hodgepodge of annexes, unusual architecture, and spliced-together rooms; it feels like a bona fide dungeon from tabletop gaming.
He feels right in his element. “Levine, if our game plan is to deny the area, we are in a facility that is easily defended. We have an armory, let's use it.”
“How?”
“Traps. Runes. Everything we can do to make them bleed for every inch. We are buying time for a solution. We need to get people out of the facility and deny the Talons the journals.” James dashes to the armory and peers over at the remaining functional weapons–Kyle had warned them that Curtis had disabled a number of them, though some were functional now. “Get elevation, top floor, opposite sides! Pick a field of fire not orthogonal to the bulkhead door, pick oblique angles! Zameren, right?” He points at the middle-aged man who is busily arming himself against the intrusion. “What's your experience?”
“I did a tour with SAF volunteers. Levine, your call, is the young upstart to be trusted?” Zameren looks like he’s still distraught over the betrayal of their security officer if James had to hazard a guess.
Levine lets out a small tsk sound. “He knows his stuff, for being at this only about a week and change. Zameren, the security office, have we found anything to indicate Curtis left any nasty surprises?”
“No. It seems the building locked Curtis out once we were aware of his intentions. He had planned to disable the golems that activate in the event of an emergency–”
“Then let's use them,” James says grimly. “I'll expend golems far more willingly than people. We need eyes and ears, is it like your setup at Nick's house?”
“At a glance, yes.” Nick gets the rest of the volunteers armed, while others gather staff in a heavily fortified lab, with the glass windows now covered in metal shutters. “James, people could die. People likely will die before the end of this. You need to be spot on, you understand?”
“You think I don’t know that?” James tenses when Nick looks like he’s about to say something unsavory, but shakes his head. “I can’t win a straight-up fight, but I can direct. Let's get started. I'm not letting Drenar do something idiotic without us backing him up,” he says with grim determination.
“James. Don’t take risks with people’s lives. Just be the eyes and ears,” Nick says after a second of contemplation. He’s scuffed up and looks grim, which sets the mood for the fact they are in for the fight of their lives. Which means there is no room for mistakes.
A moment later he barely touches the steel-lined door built around a hardwood core, and the door opens inwards on its own. James glances at the bank of cameras, some offline, others glitching. He taps the Arcanlink on his vest. “Kyle, I need you to patch the golems to me, every observer you've got. How many are active in your lab?” He asks. There's a grumble and Julia saying something in the background while he taps at a keyboard anxiously.
“Use the tether on your armband, plug it into a console! I'll patch you into their command controls. Direct them with the touch screen on it, it's almost identical to my setup!” He follows instructions and the screens distort–new ones come to life, basking the room in the glow of thermal imaging and false spectrum, all peering at Kyle from a high vantage point, a shelf maybe? Julia is busy loading a heavy autobow and tapping each bolt to induce a plasma charge before she presses it into a magazine.
“Okay, golems are up! Where do you want them?”
“Open the vents. Send them in there. Kyle, you guys mentioned the vents earlier, they can go anywhere, right?” James asks calmly.
“Yep. They're semi-autonomous, so give it a whirl! But don't get too close to the Talons, the optic camo is visible at close range! They also can stick to walls, find shady vantage points if you can.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
A few tense minutes go by while James multitasks, and Levine taps his shoulder. “I've got hunting to do, same as Nick. Keep our backs covered. Don't forget to watch your back.” He leaves the autobow on the counter, right by the camera bank. James nods silently.
It'll be just like his strategy games. Recon, plan, hit and run. Except his units are real people.
He is not about to lose anyone here. In fact, the Talons are about to lose some of theirs when he spots the Talons trying to burn through a door–the same door on the east side of the teleportal hub. That damn portal is still open, and these golems don't have weapons. “Kyle, can this golem do anything for offense?”
“It's got a shock gel canister. Same as the rest, for a quick zap and run. But it's not lethal, it's barely enough to knock a mage off their feet.”
James however, has other ideas. “Open the bulkhead door and be ready to run.”
“Say that again? You want them to come through?”
“Yep. Are those tripwire traps ready?”
Nick waits for a beat, then responds back to the small observer sitting on the wall, watching his position. “What’s the play?”
“Lure them in. As soon as they clear the bulkhead, I’m gonna blow up the oxygen tank that’s part of their cutter torch,” he states calmly. “When they panic, wait for the first line of troops, then detonate the traps. We’ll make this a kill zone.”
“When did you become a cold-hearted–”
“Nick. Do you want to live past today and grow old with Angela?” He asks in a way that he knows that will get his attention. “I will do what I have to, in order to drive these bastards out, the same way I saw Drenar letting loose and buying us space. We keep the wing secured until we have another play, and I think Kyle and Lavernius are working on it.”
Now he has to wait. He gets the golem to pry open the vent opening, and it clambers across the surface almost vertically. He waits for the soldiers milling about and cutting through the door to turn their backs, and then skitters the device to a small decorative bush by the door, and hides there. The torch is burning bright, and the black-clad soldier is oblivious. James practices the motions with the handset and sees the regulator on the tank. All it needs is one good hit. “Nick, pull the bulkhead door in fifteen seconds.”
He waits for another ten, tensing as the door starts to slide open, much to the surprise of the Talon soldier and a mottled orange and yellow dragon milling about, barking out orders.
“Finally, get the heavy troops up, be ready for resistance!” one barks out. “Gibbons, put down that damn torch and get a gun!”
James waits for the first line, then hops the golem up to the tank, and one soldier shakes his head and squints. It’s now or never. “Hey, what is that–”
James throws the regulator to maximum on the tank, and gas starts flowing–overwhelming and breaking something on the torch handle. He sparks the arm of the golem and there is a brief flash before the golem and the tank are obliterated, and he winces from the bright light. More alarms go off and the building shakes from the blast, and he hears intermittent gunfire and the crack of autobows. He switches to the golem in the hall, and sees Nick and the irregulars mopping up after two of the tripwires go off, devastating the Talon's soldiers. The survivors struggle to rise, and Nick hits the button to slam the bulkhead door down again, undamaged by the close-by blast.
I just probably killed people there. And I don’t even feel anything about it. His hands don’t shake, and it doesn’t feel real. Maybe it’ll feel real when he sees the corpses, he thinks grimly. Drenar had told them of the extreme unease he’d felt when they’d seen the incinerated corpses on Mount Syren.
This would be worse. But there’s no time for that now because a wisp of blue light is emitting on a console to his right, blinking angrily. Then, a throaty male voice emanates from it.
“Excuse me, but do you mind not putting giant gaping holes in my facility?!”
“Uh…that wasn’t me.” It’s the worst deflection he’s ever made in his life, and there’s a frustrated growl. “No, seriously, who the hell are you, radios with the outside world are cut off!”
“Oh, so you’re just keen on blowing giant holes in things for the fun of it?” James adjusts his glasses and sees the light twisting and distorting, like gasses dancing on their own, into a draconic shape. Sort of? He can make out the wings and head, but not the rest of it. And…a pair of glasses hanging off his horns and draped almost comically over his green eyes?
“Uh…are you like the Wizard of Oz?” James asks nervously. The figure lets out a soft sigh.
“I’m old enough to have read the books when they came out, son, and we haven’t been introduced. Where is Curtis, he’s the last registered user.”
“He’s a corpse in the garden, he sold out,” James snaps. The dragon grunts.
“I should have known those weren’t security upgrades he was running–I was distracted by another problem I’ve been running. Now, who are you, young pyromaniac?”
“I’m James, and that’s all you're getting.” Why are all these dragons in such a mood? Well, except Julia, but she's a whole other thing altogether.
“Fine, I’m Volkir. That’s all you’re getting,” the dragon says with a sarcastic drawl and a tip of his glasses with one clawed hand. “Oh, you do look like the other girl a bit…are you siblings?”
James jaw drops, and all his retorts fall apart. “Hey wizard dragon, you and I gotta have a long, urgent talk right now, after we get rid of the murder army of Valosterla Roshanikov and the Talons.”
“Oh, great. That bitch is still alive?”
Nope. This can’t possibly get worse, James realizes it when he groans at this string of impossible coincidences. This is definitely Drenar’s fault. Volkir gives him a smug look, and a light toss of his copper and green feathers on his head. “Judging by your expression, she’s continuing to cause problems.”
“Buddy, you don’t know the half of it,” James sighs and hopes he can find more opportunities to continue shredding Talons to pieces. “Help me cancel that bitch and her sadistic musical, and we’ll help keep this place intact, and the staff alive.” James now has to resign himself to rolling with the weirdness, just like always. And Julia isn’t even in the room right now.
“Finally, something we can agree on.”