Taran E65 looked at the six continuum soldiers in front of him. They weren't the most powerful or skilled, but they were the most dangerous. Taran turned his eyes from the squad colloquially named superb seven and then turned his eyes back to the two warders moving away and towards the next trial. The squad didn't look happy letting them go. Taran turned his back to them and touched a button on his Armour's wrist. It projected the landscape over his open palm.
"Are you just going to stand there and do nothing?" Taran A197 asked in a belligerent voice.
Taran E65 didn't respond.
A197 turned his gaze to his squad "Why are we listening to this youngling anyway?"
The squad didn't have a response to his words and looked at each other with contemplative looks.
E65 turned back and looked A197 in the eyes "Because the high councillor and the assault commander put me in charge of this operation."
A197 didn't look pleased with the reminder of that fact. In his mind Taran A197 who liked to go with the name Tar was the best of the Taran who were of a combat class and to be overshadowed by a kid who was unpodded five years after he had slotted his shards just rankled.
Tar scowled "Son, I have eaten more dangerous things than you have imagined. Do us all a favour, step back and let us lead. We are the superb seven."
E65 looked at Tar spread his hands to highlight his team.
He wasn't wrong, His team was a sight to behold. Two large men, Jays 83 and 84 flanked the group. Ruby F435 was their aerial support, Parvati M141 was their medic. Aditya A303 was their silent sniper and the biggest damage dealer. But they weren't the decision makers it was their leader.
Taran E65 turned his eyes to Parvati A333. The one everyone called Trips. She was scowling at Tar and E65 knew that by his words, Tar had put whatever plans Trips had into question.
E65 looked calmly at Tar and in a non-confrontational voice asked the air above his upturned hand "Marshall Lara, who is in command of this operation?"
The hologram above E65's hand pulsed and transformed into a glowing blue ball "You are E65."
E65 finally smiled "Marshall Lara, what were your recommendations to me earlier?"
The AI above his hand hummed "Confronting the warders when they were perturbed after the battle with mentalist was not recommended. We need them to be stable before we approach them. My recommendation was to let them find a trial. Help them clear it to gain their trust so that we could bring them in without any conflict.
E65 nodded and looked at Tar "See, A197? My reasons for letting the two warders go are valid."
Parvati 333's scowl turned harder "That maybe so E65. But they are close to completing their class one transition. After they have another couple of shards from the trial, apprehending them will not be so simple. The situation will become harder, and we will have to resort to violence."
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E65 sighed "That's where you wrong Major Trips. Warders don't just have 8 shards. We don't exactly know how many shards they need to transition but I estimate that it should be fifteen or sixteen." The squad in front of him sucked in a breath in shock.
"Bull!" Tar muttered.
"Nonsense!" Ruby F435 spat out.
"Impossible." Trips chimed in.
E65 pointedly looked at the holographic ball in his hand "Marshall Lara could you please clarify our doubts."
Marshall Lara's ball representation pulsed green, red and then back to blue "The information I am about to reveal is classified. And I am only revealing this because you have two Jays in your squad. They most probably know some of this because their progenitor Jay Chandra was a warder. Warders don't have the soul structure of an ascendent. They are far more complicated than normal ascendant. Even more complicated than me, an ATI created with ten shards."
Everyone looked at the two Jays standing silently on their flanks. One of them nodded.
Tar looked ill "Then we need to stop them, right now. We need to get our hands on them and force them to come with us before they get more powerful."
Ruby F435 nodded emphatically "I agree. If we don't, we might not be able to get them to come back with us."
"I say we roll out right now. Overpower them, tie them up and throw them in the back of our assault craft." Tar added.
E65 looked at the Jays. Following his gaze Trips turned from one Jay to the other.
Finally, 83 in a bassy voice stated "That boy, he was fast."
Jay 84 looked at the ashes getting swept up in the winds of the oncoming storm "The girl, she took the gravitron shards. She will be hard to deal with."
Parvati M141, the medic of the group, turned to look at her people "If we fight, there is a high chance of casualties. Both on our side and theirs. In either case, we would have failed the mission. Do we really want to take that chance?"
"Oh, come on needles. You know we are better than that." Tar protested.
"Are we though?" M142 asked "These two warders, they, have been here in the trials for how long? Six? Maybe seven hours? And they have somehow gotten their hands on over ten shards that we have seen with our own eyes. How long did it take for you to accumulate your shards, Tar?"
Tar snorted "I could have gotten my eight shards much earlier if I just took every shard that I got in a fight."
M142 sighed "But what if you had double the number of slots? Would you have given up on a shard then?"
Tar looked at his medic in annoyance “Whose side are you on needles?”
“Alright that’s enough, Tar.” Major Trips put her foot down and then turned to look at E65 “What’s you plan kid?”
E65 smiled “I am going to help them get everything they want and then sweet talk them to come back with me?”
Parvati 333 raised an eyebrow “And how are you going to do that?”
E65 flicked the hologram in his hand and transformed and zoomed out until it showed the trails the two warders were heading for “By going into the trial with them.”
“Do you think that will actually work?” Tar asked the younger Taran.
“It will if you don’t come with me.”
Tar scowled and E65 rushed to clarify “I mean all of you. I don’t want them to get overwhelmed by our number or intimidated with your bionic augments.”
“What’s wrong with our augments?” Ruby F asked in a challenging tone.
“Nothing. But you have to know that to the normies they look dangerous, right?”
Ruby lips twitched upwards “That’s because they are dangerous.”
E65 smiled back “And that is why I am glad that you are here watching my back, L.T.”
Ruby chuckled.
Major Trips looked at her team and then nodded “Fine, we will go with your plan E65. We won’t be able to support you in the trails if we stay back but outside it, we have your back young man.”
“Thank you, Major.”
Parvati 333 rolled her eyes “You can thank me by completing our task E65. Not by kissing my behind. I swear all you Tarans are sweet talking scheming politicians.”
“Hey!” Tar protested.
“Not you Tar.” Major Trips corrected her statement and A197 smiled until she finished her words “Your obnoxiousness is the exception not just amongst the Tarans but in all of the continuum.”
E65 hid his pang of guilt as the whole squad chuckled, laughed and snorted. These were good people he was going to betray with his actions and not for the first he wondered how he had gotten to this position.
E65 smiled as the team bantered and kept his peace.
Major Trips watched the tension drain out of the confrontation E65 and then smiled “Taran E65, but if those two give us any problem, we will blow their limbs off and then drag them to High Councillor.”
Taran E65’s smile faded off his face “Major…”
“No E65, I don’t want to hear it. I don’t know why the politicos are doing what they are doing but I don’t play politics. I just do my job. And I am going to do it no matter what happens.” Parvati 333 said with a stern expression on her face and then nodded to Taran E65’s vehicle “Now get into your over engineered trike and lead us to trials the warders are heading to.”
Taran E65 sighed and walked to the trike. He got into it and recalled General Athena words when she had addressed them in her secret address. One of the lines had stuck with him and he muttered it as he hit the ignition.
“We will have to break them to make the continuum better.”
The problem was that he did not know whether he was supposed to break the warders who had just popped out of nowhere or the Rakshasa. And without more context he was just another lost traveler in this sea of sand and sometimes that just got to him.