Unsung Heroes

Colonel Scalith planted her feet and broke the neck of another approaching Coalition soldier. The red-armored foe slumped into the ashen soil, kicking up a few embers. White sparks crackled between her electrostatic gloves as she pressed her fists together. The smells of sulfur, smoke, and blood were thick in the air, bringing a smile to the Colonel’s lips.

Though her rank had earned Scalith the privilege of never having to fight on the front lines again, she had eschewed that honor long ago. Scalith understood the value of literally leading her commandos into battle. It made her soldiers fight harder, work more cohesively, and follow her orders without question. Fighting alongside her troops was what had earned her the rank of Colonel in the first place.

“Concentrate fire on that Jenzush!” she yelled to her ranks.

The alien Biomancer appeared to be one of the strongest remaining. With his powers he reflected enemy fire, his plasma pistol a blur as it mowed down Varrcaran soldiers. Given time, he could be deadly. Scalith had to deal with him now.

Her troopers responded well. Positioned at different heights on all sides, they rained down a volley of projectiles. Plasma beams, grenades, bullets, shrapnel. Scalith had learned that raising the complexity of the attack made it harder for Biomancers to dodge or deflect—even more so than extra soldiers.

The Biomancer, aided by his considerable powers, leapt high into the air to escape the bombardment. Varrcaran guns followed his ascent, peppering him with projectiles. What he couldn’t deflect with his abilities he tried to absorb as he wrapped himself in a powerful cocoon of invisible energy.

The Jenzush, injured but alive, landed more than fifteen meters from where he started. But it was only too late that he saw the grenades lying at his feet. The ensuing explosion killed the Biomancer instantly.

Scalith smirked.

She didn’t know how the Coalition had discovered their base, but she vowed to repel their assault or die trying. With a momentary pause in the battle, the Colonel spoke into her wrist communicator.

“Sergeant. Status report.”

Her reply came from a man stationed inside the facility, specifically monitoring ship activity. “One vessel landed within the last hour behind the Yunsl bluff . . . away from the Coalition,” he said. “Two more are inbound, but they appear to be heading for the far side of the ridge with the main force. And at least one infiltration team has already breached the stronghold.”

“Understood, Sergeant. Make sure all internal security measures are active and deal with the intruders. But do not leave the anti-air turrets unattended under any circumstances.”

“Copy.”

Scalith ended the transmission. Her base had hundreds of anti-air turrets that would wipe out any encroaching ships, and shields strong enough to deflect any orbital bombardments. But to maintain such a tight aerial defense left them vulnerable to ground assaults. To compensate, the stronghold housed over a thousand soldiers, but the Coalition invasion was pushing that to the limits.

In the distance Scalith could just barely see the two vessels the sergeant spoke of: both one-man fighters.

And if the Coalition only sent two people as reinforcements, Scalith thought, they’re probably the strongest Biomancers yet.

“Commander!” she shouted to one of the nearby officers.

“Sir!” he replied, using the military title appropriate for both genders.

“A ship touched down behind the Yunsl bluff some time ago. Take a squadron and eliminate the trespassers. I’ll deal with the Coalition reinforcements.”

There’s the last one, Loralona thought as she primed the detonator. With her eight explosives she was sure she had enough firepower to take down all of the Coalition vessels except the capital ship. The C4 would still damage the frigate—cripple it even—but not enough to obliterate it completely.

With the detonators set it was time to head back. Loralona crept through the darkness, moving from cover to cover. The Coalition troops were still in disarray, but they were beginning to realize someone was in their midst. As a result, one of the captains had ordered them to fan out and search the perimeter.

Her heart racing, Loralona did a quick inventory of her gadgets. She had used all her sound replicators, and her camouflage generator was out of power. There were still three motion detectors in her satchel, but that wouldn’t do her any good right now. Her only real option was to do things the old fashioned way.

Loralona circled around toward the front of the ships, closest to the massive skirmish still underway. With a little luck no one would suspect her to move around in plain sight of the battlefield. Adrenaline surged through every fiber of her body; there was nothing like the intensity of sneaking past armed guards where only a single mistake would cost you your life.

Sprinting silently to the hull of the subsequent vessel, Loralona slid underneath the nose and paused to listen. She had the remote detonator in her hand—in case she was seen, the least she would do was pull the trigger and take out a dozen Coalition warships and who-knows-how-many soldiers hunting her.

When she didn’t hear anything, she picked herself up and ran again, her boots a blur across the black, soft ground. She made it past three more ships before dropping beneath the last one to hide.

“I saw something!” one of the troopers said stupidly. Someone smarter would have motioned for backup with military sign so they could enclose on her position without her knowing.

Then again, faced with overwhelming odds it didn’t really matter. With her free hand, Loralona retrieved her plasma pistol and fired at the sound of the voice even as she rose and sprinted again, this time directly toward the main battle.

A barrage of plasma fire followed her, but between the darkness and smoke it was hard for the Coalition soldiers to land a clean shot. But with as many as were shooting, she knew it would only be a few seconds at most before one of them scored a lucky hit.

Guess this is the end, she thought bitterly. Definitely shouldn’t have come here. . . .

The plasma fire ceased, and the sound of an approaching ship caused her to glance back. The Coalition had actually scrambled one of the fighters to stop her! Instinctively she ducked as it passed overhead, the high-pitched whine of the engines hurting her ears.

Zooming low over the crush of entangled soldiers, the vessel headed straight for the stronghold as it blasted the ground intermittently. Completely confused, Loralona army-crawled across the ashen soil, desperate to use the bizarre distraction to stay alive. Between the black soil, her all-black garb, and the cover of darkness she just might have a chance—especially since Terrik had told her normal Varrcaran helmets weren’t equipped with night vision.

The guards around the ships were still watching the rogue vessel peeling off toward the building. Turrets stationed across the facility’s roof suddenly fired, destroying the fighter with a hail of missiles.

Loralona used the cover of the explosion and the resulting smoke to rise to a crouched position. Staying low, she skulked away from the battle and toward the bluff where Retribution was docked.

I wonder if Tola was behind that little fiasco? I might just kiss him for that.

Though she was only joking, she realized with a certain uneasiness that the thought didn’t seem so bad. She brushed it aside as quickly as it came, filling her mind with the mission at hand. Two more Coalition fighters were landing at the edge of the main group, and Loralona realized with disgust that the plastic explosives might not take care of them.

One problem at a time, she told herself. Tola and I need to blow up the ships we can and head into the facility. Terrik and Dex are good, but I doubt they can destroy the place without us.

Within a few minutes she reached the other side of the bluff, and was unsurprised to find Tola waiting for her.

“You’re all right!” he said with his big stupid grin.

“Yes. Thanks to you, I presume?”

“Well, I—you know—all in a cataclysmic day’s work.”

Loralona tried hard not to roll her eyes. “Much obliged. Now let’s destroy that factory.”

Tola nodded and the pair turned toward the base. They made it no more than a few steps when a squadron of eight Varrcaran soldiers came around the bend—their weapons already drawn.

Power coursed through Dex’s outstretched palm, detonating the armor of a fury commando and hurtling him seven meters back from where he began. Dex launched himself at his supine foe, his electrical whip already curving toward his target. At the last second the trooper rolled onto his back and out of the way, then fired his sonic accelerator. Dex sidestepped the blast and prepared to finish him off.

But the projectile hadn’t been aimed at him; it sheared through one of the light fixtures dangling from the ceiling, dropping it right on top of Dex. Glass shattered against his back, knocking him to the ground in a flash of pain and blood.

Were it not for the Latoroth’s incredible strength, Dex would have been killed. Still dazed and wounded, he could do nothing to stop the commando’s next shot—this time targeting him.

To his surprise, one of the prisoners saved his life. The alien—a species Dex didn’t recognize—zipped behind the Varrcaran and wrenched the gun from his grasp. Dex heard an audible pop as the man’s shoulder was pulled out of the socket along with it. A scream had barely escaped his throat when the prisoner ended his life with a point blank shot from his own weapon. An instant later that same prisoner was gunned down as well by one of the magmatroopers—his burned corpse flinging across the factory floor from the impact of a plasma cannon.

The entire exchange lasted only a few seconds, but it had given Dex the time he needed to shrug the wreckage off of him and rise to his feet. The magmatrooper who had just fired leapt high into the air—aided by jump servos in his boots—and landed atop one of the conveyor belts above the smelting pots, claiming the high ground. Dex could jump higher than a human, but nothing like that. Leaping from belt to belt, Dex reached the magmatrooper’s conveyor, still moving intermittently as the automated factory went about its daily routines.

Dex tried to instill hallucinations in his foe’s mind, but as he suspected, the man was wearing power-immune armor beneath his mechanical exoskeleton. In the moment it took him to realize this, the magmatrooper fired his plasma cannon. A powerful green bolt of energy ripped through the spot where Dex had just been standing, shredding the outer layer of the conveyor belt. The smell of melted rubber assailed his nostrils.

Two more shots followed in rapid succession. Dex ducked beneath the first, then jumped over the second. A third would have followed, but the magmatrooper had to dart clear of the automated machines fusing steel components together along the moving belt. Dex seized the opportunity to hurl his electrical whip through the air. Caught off guard, the magmatrooper twisted just enough to avoid a lethal blow, but the charged currents burned through his dominant hand, nearly severing it. The man let out a wail of agony, and Dex charged in to finish him off, picking up his electrical whip on the way.

Desperately, the magmatrooper jumped to the belt beneath them, moving the opposite direction of the first. Dex dived over another piece of assembly his own belt had reached and peered down. The magmatrooper was retrieving a repeating plasma carbine with his good hand. Before he could complete the task, Dex threw his electrical whip again, severing the metal cords holding one of the smelting pots. Superheated orange liquids poured over his enemy’s body, killing him almost immediately.

Looks like magmatrooper was a poor choice of name after all, Dex thought.

He started toward his weapon when a glance out the window stopped him cold. There, on the other side of the battlefield, was the ship of his old master touching down on the planet.

Janus.

Reflexively Dex clenched his hand into a fist. Time was running out. He had to find the armor schematics fast if he were to survive the night.

As Janus brought his ship in to land, he saw a single Coalition vessel lift off and fly toward the Varrcaran base. Of course, it was destroyed immediately. Janus merely cackled; the fool pilot had paid for his incompetence with his life, as it should be.

Once his craft was docked, Janus leapt out onto the volcanic soil, striding past where his new apprentice was landing her own fighter.

“My lord,” one of the Coalition soldiers said, bowing to one knee as Janus approached. The woman was shaking almost uncontrollably—a common reaction to his presence. “Your arrival is a welcome one; we have had trouble piercing the Varrcaran defenses thanks to their armor and shields, but—”

Janus grinned as he telekinetically seized her by the windpipe, cutting off her excuses. This woman would not waste any more of his time with her failures and sputtering. Holding her by the throat, Janus drew her back, and launched her into the air like a javelin. The woman screamed the instant his hold loosened. Her flailing body flew over the battlefield and landed somewhere in the center ranks, though whether she had struck anyone, Janus couldn’t tell.

Murder always stoked the fires of his anger like a blast of fresh oxygen. The rage swirled within him like a ravenous wolf demanding new prey. The Overlord of the Coalition, Draven, disapproved of such measures, but he was not here.

Instead, Janus’s new apprentice, a female alien named Aurora, had accompanied him. After Dextanic’s monumental failure Janus had replaced him with a much more worthy candidate, one who embraced the supremacy of the Biomancers.

Aurora stood confidently beside him, her gaze sweeping over the carnage wrought across the world. She was not fully trained yet, but she could more than hold her own. Slowly, Janus drew his chainsword and activated the engine. His apprentice followed suit, realizing that plasma weapons would be of little use against the Regime’s special armor.

Fear shone on the Coalition soldiers’ faces, fueling Janus’s hatred further. Without a word the duo charged into the battlefield, moving at an incredible, augmented speed. Janus cleaved the nearest Varrcaran troopers in two before they ever knew what had happened. Gravelly laughter emerged unbidden from his throat. Never slowing, the two Biomancers carved a swath of destruction toward the gigantic factory looming in the distance.

Janus had come with a single goal: seize control of the base to manufacture plasma-resistant armor identical to the kind he already wore. And if he ran into Dex, or the two pathetic humans who had aided him aboard the Black Scourge, he would go out of his way to slay them.

As Janus decapitated another enemy in his path, a cruel smile played on his lips.

Yes . . . their luck has officially run out.