They pushed their way into the main entrance clearing in a full-on gunfight. Near defying bang, sparks flying and jarring impacts against metal crates and rocky ground had Veronika ducking and diving for cover.
She noticed there was a small squad of lakionian guards firing from the cover of crates they had set up as a barricade. She caught a foul whiff of body odor from the attackers and recalled the mercenaries who had tried to kill her.
“Let’s assist those guards!” She shouted to the others, as she did an evade roll, and made a mad dash to the guards who were rapidly emptying rounds at the attackers.
Veronika and her team crouched low as they approached the guards and cover. Brayan flashed his Starcharter badge showing the Ashdon Kotta badge, of a fire salamander motif, to the highest ranking officer who was dressed in the Starcharter colors and carried the badge-rank of a lieutenant on the right side of his chest plate. He hastily asked for a status report from one of them.
“Commander Brayan Ashdon. I know you. Lieutenant Krawl Ashlak. They’ve been attacking us for hours. Came at us from within the mine. We were able to push them back to this compound.” Krawl panted as he took a moment to catch his breath while keeping low within the cover. Like most of the veteran warriors, he was sturdy and a lot of muscle, with his black-red dread lock hair held up in a ponytail. His hair color confirmed that he was from another kotta. A deep, old, scar ran a line from the bottom of his left eye to the left corner of his mouth.
“How many were on duty when the attack happened?” Veronika soberly asked.
Krawl fell silent and looked wary of her.
“I vouch for her,” Brayan coolly said.
Krawl sighed. “Fifty guards were on duty in the outer perimeters when the attack happened. With the attack being a seige we’re now down to half-strength at least. Can’t say for inside the mines. But I’m assuming our men are still fighting the human bastards. Or we’d be dead by now. Most squads scattered in pockets around the entrances.”
“What are they after?” she asked, looking genuinely puzzled.
“You tell me Concordat.” Krawl near spat back at her.
Brayan gave her a gesture to hang back and let him do all the talking. She nodded, getting the hint.
“What does these Concordat bastards want?” He rephrased her question to Krawl.
Krawl was hesitant to answer while she was there, but heaved a heavy sigh and began telling them after some nudging from his men, who were still keeping up their firing and defensive position.
“About eight days ago, the miners discovered an alien device in one of the deeper caves. The whole thing had been crawling with insectoids, so we were called in to clear the area.”
Krawl recalled what he had seen of the device. “The scientists called it some icosahedral, bioshaper device. When they activated it, they instantly went insane and started killing each other.”
“Is that why the Concordat is here?” Brayan frowned, not liking what he was hearing.
“They’ve never attacked before. Has to be,” Krawl answered and cursed when shrapnel from a bullet impact struck his arm.
“We have to clear this area and immediate danger.” Veronika suggested. She could ask her questions later.
“From their hawk pauldron emblems, they’re Ronin League Mercenaries. Disgusting human filth.” Creed wasn’t shy to show his distaste for them as he kept up his firing with vigor.
“I’m not going to disagree,” she whispered as she screwed up her nose at the stench coming off them. And reloaded her gun to take aim for one of the mercenary’s heads.
The Ronin League Mercenaries they were fighting were all bearded human beefcakes in harden khaki armor and heavy metal boots for serious hard stomping: no doubt loaded with mini jets. They carried ammo and gun belts as a standard accessory. A few of them wore ammunition backpacks that also held heavy weapons, and brass knuckles over their leather gloves. None of them were giving ground, whooping and egging each other on for more kills.
She hoped they were backup resources and the real army was running dry. And once they cleared out this threat, it would give the guards and others breathing space.
“I can shoot dem 3-eyes with one shot.” One of the mercenaries boasted as he stepped forward to empty his submachine gun on them, without caring that their shots would hit him.
“Try it stinky,” she muttered as she lined up a shot and took it.
The mercenary reeled in pain and surprise before he slumped to the ground, dead.
“Nice.” Jorgen smirked as he landed his shot in the chest of another brute.
They were gaining some ground, but Veronika estimated there were still twenty of the brutes firing on them. A few of them were priming their heavy weapons for a deadly attack. If they were to let their lasers-of-mass-destruction go flying, they would be wiped out with a few strikes.
“We need to take out those heavies.” She pointed to the row of seven mercenaries lining up their shot at their crate barricade.
[Veronika. You have enough spirit energy to lace a bullet. I can apply a hack to track your bullet’s path] System suggested.
“What do you mean?”
System called up a digital schematic of her gun’s bullet and where she could lace her spirit energy into its core, which was a small chip within the cone-head. The bullet core managed its flight and impact levels. The gun’s virtual intelligence modulate detected the target’s location signal and fed the bullet core the coordinates upon trigger release.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
[Your spirit-energy can act as the gun’s VI to manipulate the bullet’s direction and impact]
Veronika saw a simulation of her bullet punching through a line of mercenary heads through their ear holes.
“No harm in trying.” She ran her hand over her gun’s barrel and bullet chamber to pass her spirit energy into them. System applied a series of code and electric charges to perform the hack on the gun and bullet core.
Veronika charged up her gun and lined up her shot through her mind’s motion traction app. She licked her lips as she released the shot, shaking off the slight recoil she had felt to her arm.
The bullet whizzed through the air in a straight shot. It turned to punch a clean path through all the mercenaries as she had envisioned, before they could release their shots.
“Hah! I think I have the high tally now.” She flashed Jorgen her winner’s grin.
“Beginners luck.” Jorgen brushed off her feat.
“Beginners?! That was sheer genius!”
“Idiots. There’s still five more out there. You losers better pay up when my tally is the highest,” Creed soberly said, as he skillfully eliminated five oncoming mercenaries.
“Damn these 3-eye monkeys. Toss the eggs!” One of the mercenaries bellowed.
Veronika and the lakionians’ eyes widened when they saw a crate load of hand grenades rolling on the ground toward them.
“Get to cover!”
Every clung to the safest part of the barricade as massive explosions surrounded them, stirring dust clouds and the overwhelming stench of charged iron. Most of the barricade had been blown into bits or melted. Fortunately, not where they were.
Brayan flashed Veronika a smug look. “Clone. Watch and learn. This is how the pros do it.”
The lakionian’s docked their guns and rose as they focused their magic to their forehead eyes. Their eye-magic swelled and merged to form a giant glowing mass. With one synchronized shout, the combined eye-magic was released as a massive, high impact, laser beam. One beam-shot had wiped out the remaining mercenaries in the compound, so not even ash was remaining. Night winds were able to clear away most of the dust clouds. They saw the main entrance clearing was finally safe from the enemy.
“Holy crap! You guys can do that?” She gulped, blinking with disbelief at the killer oneshot moment.
“Yeah.” Creed groaned as he felt his body weak and clammy with fever-shakes.
“As a last resort. Only in numbers and where there’s a clean shot. It drains our magic right out until the next morning.” Balak huffed and fished through his jacket pocket for a flask; taking a hearty drink before passing it to the others.
“Nice work, guys.” Krawl heaved as he took the moment to catch his breath. “That’s them. Let’s hope we don’t need magic”
The lakionians took advantage of the quiet to regather as much of their strength as possible. Veronika waited for them to recover before she asked her questions again.
“Can you tell me more of what happened and this device?” she asked Krawl.
Krawl felt he could trust her enough with this information.
He told them of how four days ago, the Concordat Forces had arrived in numbers as a small army in the main and side entrance area. They had rolled in on military trucks, sandrails and land rovers and were firing as soon as they had disembarked. When the first security layer had been taken out, the enemy advancement into the mining grounds. They had used their low level foot soldiers to clear as much of the resistance as possible.
“None of the front line security stood a chance on the first wave. We were lucky we had Starcharter patrols in the area. They had been taking out your kind, which weren’t much of a challenge in small numbers. But there were lots of you. After long hours of fighting, we soon learned they were just a distraction to give their infiltration teams time to set up inside.”
[Explains how you got there, Veronika]
“Right. It explains why I woke up surrounded by own kind and some others.” Veronika mused on the information and felt horrible that she could’ve been part of that attack. Perhaps that’s why she had died so easily, and not firing a gun wasn’t because of her incompetence.
“But when I passed through Bing Bing Town, no one there seemed worried to see me. Some knew of squads being there. You would’ve thought a commotion at the mines would’ve placed everyone on alert.” She added.
Krawl shook his head. “Concordat squads always around to drop junk in the area then leave. It’s likely they didn’t know your kind was attacking. It all happened so fast.”
She kept further thoughts to herself and continued to listen attentively to Krawl. The fodder soldiers were keeping the Starcharter patrols busy, while the special forces units were infiltrating the mines to eliminate the security and personnel. When the clone foot soldiers had been exhausted, they had called in the mercenaries to push the fight to the front gates and main entrance compound. Keeping the mine guards busy while others worked their way to the device. Albeit, this was Krawl’s rationalization from his bits and pieces of information, and personal conclusions. But it seemed like a likely situation.
“This device that was discovered. How did the Concordat know about it? What do they want?”
Krawl looked grim as he explained that there was a high chance a traitor in the mines had tipped them off. The enemy had arrived knowing where to strike to give them the greatest advantage. As to what the Concordat wanted, he couldn’t even begin to imagine. Their own scientists were still trying to figure out what they had discovered.
“There are a lot of humans working in this mine. I wouldn’t even be surprised if some of them were setting us up.”
She frowned. “Are you sure about that? They were Starcharter employees.”
“Humph. Humans are a devious lot. Who else could it be? No one else but humans are attacking us!”
She nodded, not able to argue with this logic. Although, she hoped it wasn’t so, but she knew the dark side of human nature well enough to know that was a solid conclusion. “You don’t have any more information about this alien device?”
Krawl shook his head. “I don’t know, I’m just a guard.”
He added his next bit of advice to Brayan. “The moment that device was discovered, it’s been bad luck for us. Dr. Ashtra had placed a kinetic barrier around it, but it still drove most of the scientists mad.”
“Simone’s mother!” Creed blurted, not hiding his concern.
Krawl nodded and explained that no sooner had the device been sealed, the mine was facing the attack. Most of the scientists that didn’t die by the madness, were gunned down by Concordat Forces.
“I don’t know if there are others alive.”
“There are. We need to reach them before others do.” Veronika confirmed.
“So you can shoot them?” Krawl scoffed.
“No. Simone was leading a rescue party. Our job was to clear out the bulk of this threat so they would have a chance to escape. Now that we’ve done, more or less, our task. You can continue to distrust me, or you can help us save them,” she levelly answered.
“Save the others?” Krawl sounded hopeful.
Brayan nodded.
Krawl looked to his other two men, who were keen to join the rescue mission.
“Let’s move out,” he said as he nodded to Veronika.