There were no more insectoid encounters as Veronika sprinted through the tunnels, where she soon caught up to the lakionians’ who had stopped to whip out their sub-machine guns on her. And didn’t show signs of stowing them away any time soon.
“I knew she’d double-cross us.” Parlo raised his machine gun at her face.
“Woah! Easy there partner.” She held up her unarmed hands before him.
“Where’d you go?” Creed carefully eyed her.
“Can’t a girl do some window shopping on the way?” She coyly answered.
The men looked at her weirdly, but she brushed their quirks aside.
“Saw something shiny stuck in a rock and went to pull it out.” She showed them the rusty sword.
They gave her further odd looks
“Pfft. Looks like junk.” Creed huffed as he crossed his arms across his chest and looked down on the sword.
“This junk just helped me kick ten insectoid asses, while you all were taking a stroll.” She boasted as she slipped it to her back kinetic holster.
Brayan frowned as he rubbed his chin. “My scanners detected a small cave of the bugs ready to block our exits a head. Later they weren’t there.”
She awkwardly scratched her head as she said, “Yeah, that’s where the sword was. Didn’t realize they were there until I saw the many eyes. I sliced them into dust.”
It wasn’t exactly a lie, and she hoped they wouldn’t read too deeply into her reason.
“You could’ve called out to us.”
“Counterproductive. I had it all sorted. You should know that I was once called the Miracle Maker. The bugs were small fry,” she arrogantly answered and held back her sigh of relief when she could tell from their expressions they had, more or less, accepted her explanation.
Jorgen burst with laughter, thinking the Concordat girl wasn’t half bad for an idiot.
Brayan chuckled as he relaxed his caution. “Whatever you did, kept our path clear of the threat. I’ll take your word for it.”
Parlo huffed and turned his attention toward the way ahead. “Still don’t trust you.”
“And I don’t trust that your stab in my back will be more than a tickle to my kidneys.” Veronika cockily huffed.
“Hah!” Jorgen chuckled, finding it hard to hate the clone. He threw a friendly arm over her shoulder to drag her along. “Let’s go, fearsome soldier.”
It was difficult for her not to respond to his welcomed gesture with a small smile. “Yes, yes. Bust some of my fellow Concordat heads, we go.”
Creed frowned. “You don’t have any problems with that, Concordat? To kill your own kind?”
Veronika shook off Jorgen’s gesture, and stood apart from the lakionians to stare at them with a serious intent. “I do. If their determination is to harm and destroy the lives of civilians who’ve done no wrong…”
She stared with a fierceness in her eyes that surprised all of them, and firmly stated, “I will not, now and never, condone those actions. It’s the duty of the strong to protect the weak: the capable to encourage those with the potential they are yet to see in themselves. Otherwise, all is anarchy and we’d have no future.”
“Huh. A clone who’s an idealist,” said a newcomer to the conversation. Up until this point, Balak had been quietly observing her and their situation. He stood clearly before her. “If you’re determined to live up to this ideal, I won’t give you back talk. But you need to prove your actions match your mouth.”
“True. You guys like to talk a lot.” She smugly nodded: turned and strutted down the tunnel to the far exit.
Balak’s lips twitched with a smile as he shook his head and followed her lead.
Their smooth run to the main shaft ended as soon as they entered into the wide mining compound, and saw Concordat foot soldiers standing guard at a few metal crate stacks and entrances. Veronika counted twelve guards who were concealed in black, light metal body armor and matching helmets. All of them had a submachine gun and handgun in their holsters. Definitely no one from her unit. Her uniform was different.
[They are special forces’ grunts of an infiltration unit] System informed her and zoomed in on a view of the eagle logo on one of the guard’s chest plate. The logo had a letter and series of roman numerals to form the number E23.
[By their number, they’re only at an ensign level of a lower tier rank. The lakionian’s should easily counter their attacks. You should be able to defend against them with long-range weapons and your Basic Combat Dodge and Survive skill]
System activated a search-scan to gather a layout of the area, which was a large, circular chamber of two thousand square feet. Near some of the edges were metal crates stacked high to form man-sized towers. Some top crates were opened, revealing boxes of bullet cartridges and hand grenades that had a five-second time delay safety feature. It seemed they had entered into the unit’s makeshift armory. A harsh ding went off in Veronika’s head. A digital screen appeared within her internal vision, displaying her current stats.
> Level 1
> -Health points: 650/10000
> -Spirit points: 400/20000
> -Physical strength: 3.5 stars out of 10 stars
> -Mental strength: 2 stars out of 10 stars
> -Warrior skill level: still useless fodder
The stats rearranged themselves into a digital text command, which flashed with an urgency.
[Task: defeat all Concordat soldiers within the chamber. And defend every member of the lakionian party with zero casualties. The penalty for not completing the task to expectation is severe strength level reduction]
Veronika cursed when System went offline. No alerts were sounded when the soldiers attacked on sight, emptying rounds of bullets at them. She focused on the soldiers’ location noted on her internal map. Using her Basic Combat Dodge and Survive skill to dodge bullets as she quickly cooked up a strategy.
The lakionian men were returning fire and defending their positions from the cover of crate-towers. But their cover wasn’t much. The soldiers had the clear advantage of holding the most ground. Worse, the opened crates with available ammunition were behind the advancing soldiers.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
“What to do?” She frowned as she ducked low behind a crate cover, to dodge a bullet, and had a thought.
She pulled out her brush-pen and began drawing a Go-board pattern of rough lines between them, the crates and the soldiers. And pictured the lines being stone walls. She was taking a gamble that this was going to work.
“Brush, bring out the Go-board and GO!” she shouted.
Curses and shouts filled with confusion were heard when stone swiftly and sharply rose from the ground to form hip-high, heavy stone walls. They made some of the soldiers trip over, and provide the lakionian men extra cover.
The crude Go-board walls also stirred dense dust clouds to conceal the entire chamber. But, she could see her path to the ammunition, which was a straight and unhindered run.
She sprinted to the crates and grabbed as many of the hand grenades she could carry. Then switched her internal view to a heat map, to see each soldier’s position as glowing masses within the dust clouds. Fortunately, they were still hampered by the unexpected chamber redecoration.
Taking advantage of the situation, she activated her stasis spell to dull the soldiers’ movements. Then climbed over walls and raced to clip active hand grenades on the back loops of some of the soldiers’ belts. And tossed some on the opened crates next to them.
She managed to return to cover with her party, just as her Brush Activation magic had run its course and the room was in its original state.
“Get back to the shaft entrance!” she screamed as she grabbed Creed’s arm to yank him back, and drew his attention to the hand grenade about to explode on a soldier’s belt.
All the lakionian men saw what was up and sprinted to safe cover as the chamber ignited with massive explosions. Rock debris and dust showered all over them.
“What the hell?” Creed coughed.
The chamber had been completely closed off: they were facing a smoking rock wall. Quakes and tremors on the rock paths made them realize they had to backtrack for another way in.
“You’re trying to kill us!” Parlo grabbed at Veronika’s collar as he shouted at her.
“You’re welcome.” She pouted.
Balak ran his hand over the smoking rock, which activated his overlay gauntlet to run a terrain scan. “From my scans, it seems the rock is also dense within the chamber space. Despite the risk, I think our clone just took out their armory by making the explosion bury the chamber without impacting the mine’s foundations. That should weaken their resources.”
Brayan nodded. He’d accept that win. “Let’s try to find another way.”
Jorgen used his handheld scanner to search for a new way, then led them down another mine shaft and tunnel.
“Hey, System, where’s my points?” Veronika mumbled to herself as they walked.
System came back online with a sigh, and called up her stats on a screen in her internal vision.
> Level 1
> -Health points: 800/10000. Points to next level - 200
> -Spirit points: 600/20000. Points to next level - 400
> -Physical strength: 5 stars out of 10 stars
> -Mental strength: 2 stars out of 10 stars.
> -Warrior skill level: still useless fodder
Veronika frowned as she argued on her points’ increase. “Why so little points gain?”
[You caused many small explosions that leveled a chamber and nearly the entire mine. You’re lucky the mine is still standing and there are still tunnels not about to cave in on you] System nonchalantly explained.
“But you didn’t tell me I couldn’t make things explode. I did my task perfectly, in my opinion.” She huffed as she crossed her arms over her chest.
[And it’s common sense to know that small explosions within an underground mine armory can set off a big explosion to collapse the entire mine. So points off] System closed her participation on the conversation.
Veronika moped as she followed the men to an underground clearing, which had been modified into a modern and silver-white, sterile laboratory test room. Various glass benches containing testing apparatuses and scanners were positioned around the room. A rising corridor was visible at the far end.
Her expression became sober and sad when she saw trails of fresh blood leading to many bodies on the ground. She examined one and saw they were wearing the uniforms of Starcharter scientists and administration workers. All unarmed civilians.
The men were shocked and angered at seeing people they knew among the dead, but they had a mission to complete. She glanced to the rising corridor at the far end of the room, and hoped that the double doors, which were visible at the corridor’s end, were the way into the main compound.
“We’ll respect the dead after we complete our mission. If we don’t reduce the Concordat’s strength, there is no hope for the others to be rescued,” she soberly said to Balak who was grieving over a dead Cretarian.
He wasn’t moving: his eyes were still staring at the woman’s face, and hands tentatively stroking her soft fair skin and fine blond hair, which flowed around her delicate features and pointed ears. Refusing to see the woman he had cared for be slain in cold blood. It hurt him to see her body cut down with no honor. She was a woman of great thought, intelligence and care for others. She didn’t deserve this unjust death.
“Balak. Focus your energy and rage on killing those who stole her life. Let’s make sure others don’t share her fate!” she firmly said to him to bring him around.
He stared at Veronika with his acknowledgment to her words. “Yes. Kill those bastards.”
Brayan and the others patted his should with their resolve to help him seek vengeance for the woman, and everyone dead on the floor. Then return to them for proper burials after the Concordat bastards were dealt with.
“We will avenge them.” Creed soberly gave his oath.
Veronika nodded when saw the men had returned their focus to the mission.
Brayan suggested they take a quick stock of their gear.
She checked her inventory and energy levels. Despite the minimal drawback from her magic, she had used a fair bit of spirit energy. Magic was out of the question. She didn’t trust her ability with the sword could effectively eliminate squads. The only option was to fire a gun.
“Great. System, can I truly not fire a gun?”
[Scanning your locked weapon manuals that you could apply at your current levels. It is possible you can effectively and tacitly handle a cannon pistol, which can land a target at a long range]
“Where can I find one?”
[My scans detect one in the arms locker at the far-corner]
She yanked open the tall, metal gun locker door and grabbed the gun belt and ammunition cartridges on the shelf. System unlocked the cannon pistol manual in her mind and adjusted her physical and mental strength levels accordingly.
The men were waiting for her at the double doors. Brayan nodded when he saw her adjust the loaded gun belt around her hip and waist.
“Sure you can use that?”
She flashed him a smug grin as she pushed an ammunition clip into her cannon gun, which was an 80 clip feed chamber through a kinetic force barrel, with a long trigger and easy hand grip housing. A dirty silver piece of tungsten, platinum and other metals fashioned together to do some serious damage. She flipped the firing pin to stop and shoved it in the gun holster. “Ask me that after I make bloody holes in Concordat heads.”
Creed rolled his eyes and shook his head. The girl was way too cocky for his liking.
Their voices went silent when they heard shuffling and orders being called out from the other side of the doors.
“Let’s have a contest. Whoever defeats the most, the losers buy him drinks,” Jorgen whispered and flashed a competitive grin that got the men fired up.
“Him? Pfft. Just so you know, I like ale. Not the shit kind that’s only good for floor cleaning. And I want a bowl of peanuts.” Veronika threw in her winning order.
“Hah!” Jorgen chuckled as his digital scan-hack opened the doors.
Everyone whipped out their guns to light up the darkness with bullet fire.