Chapter Ten

Orkhana

Kriss grinned as he slipped into the midst of the enemy with his captured human blade in hand.

He’d originally taken the weapon for a trophy of the war, not with any real intent to carry it in battle, but the design had grown on him in short order. What warrior would not love a blade that both cleaned and sharpened itself to perfection with every use?

Of course, he’d had to figure out how to recharge the weapon’s power core, but that hadn’t been too difficult to work out. Simple electron storage in a stacked supercapacitance core, nothing particularly impressive there.

The blade’s edge, however, that was a masterwork of martial artistry.

A monomolecular edge that constantly renewed itself through the charge held in the hilt, a blade that could chip away at itself constantly, yet keep aligning the edge to be straight and true again almost as quickly as it was damaged.

Perfection.

He now strode through the Sirhan ranks with that perfect blade in hand, slicing into any that got close enough to be a threat while he fired his pulse weapon from the low ready position at any of those smart enough to keep their distance.

Kriss paused only briefly to plant a powerful kick to the midsection of a charging Sirhan, throwing him back off his feet and into a group of others, before he continued forward with gleeful enjoyment of the situation.

The Sirhan were not particularly impressive, martially, he decided much to his disappointment.

Oh, they were competent, no doubt. Possibly even good, but the skill he was seeing was the sort that you drilled into a soldier who really didn’t want to be there. Most races had that issue, few were those who truly lived for war and were suited for it as well. Most of those who loved violence were too prone to idiotic excess, not understanding that violence for its own sake was self destructive by its very nature.

Kriss, like all Sentinels, lived to test himself in the field. He didn’t exactly have no concerns about the cause for which he fought, but he believed that the Alliance was right more often than wrong, at least in reference to its member species.

For those who hadn’t joined, well perhaps they should consider the benefits of joining. Their problems weren’t really his concern, if he were being bothered to think about it at all, which frankly he really wasn’t.

The Sirhan had joined up, which did cast this whole situation in a bit of an odd light. Normally Kriss supposed he should be offering them his protection, or rather offering their enemies the pleasure of meeting him. However, this particular group was working with enemies of the Alliance… or, at least, someone working against the written legal protocols of the Alliance. That made them fair game.

An odd situation indeed, Kriss thought as he slashed through one of the Sirhan’s limbs with ease and kicked the unfortunate soldier across the corridor and into another of his fellows who was trying to aim the Ross pulse weapon his way.

That would be another odd situation.

The standard issue Alliance weapons were based on the Ross design. However, they weren’t a full match for either the power or efficiency of the Ross weapon… and the Ross did not sell their weapons on any open market Kriss was aware of.

If they did, the Sentinels would almost certainly be first in line to equip themselves with the advanced weaponry.

Kriss blinked as an Sirhan soldier nearly got through his guard while his mind was following that track of thought and wrenched his focus back, blocking the wild charge and batting the enemy’s blade away before burying his own into the central body of the Sirhan. He let the soldier drop, nodding respectfully at him for his courage if not his skill, then got back down to the business at hand.

He took cover behind a corner, risking a quick look out to see who and what was remaining.

“My superiors would be irritated with me if I did not offer you the chance to surrender,” He told the five or so who remained upright. “But I would prefer it if you did not. I’ve been healing up, you see, and do need the exercise.”

He looked around, wide grin showing teeth, “Anyone wish to surrender? I promise full Alliance military rights. No? Excellent.”

Kriss flipped the blade over in his grip and dropped it neatly into the sheath tied to his leg as he finally brought out the Alliance issue pulse weapon that had been slung until this point.

“No reason to hold back then, so let us play!”

*****

The Commander fell back from the wall that had been penetrated by the enemy, rallying his forces to his side.

“Massed fire on my command! Weapon’s power to maximum!” He snarled, leveling his own weapon on the wall, and cranking up the power.

“Commander! Desil is within the room!”

“And is already gone! Fire!”

He opened fire just a hair ahead of the massed response of his men.

The resulting destruction was so devastating that he almost missed the blur that dove through the wall just ahead of the blast.

“Ware! Track the target! Shoot it! Shoot it now!”

*****

Every hair on Sorilla’s body stood right up on end when she felt the sudden shift in spacetime from the other side of the wall, recognizing that the enemy weapons had suddenly started warping more than the tiny, though powerful, space folds they had to that point.

She guessed, albeit with some educated means, that meant that the Sirhan had just opted to up the stakes and increase power. Sorilla could feel the weapons swiveling in his direction as she glanced down at the Sirhan she held in her hands after pulling the hapless alien right through the wall.

“Sorry buddy, this is going to hurt… probably won’t kill you, though,” She said as she abruptly spun around to build up speed before she just threw him across the room to the far door and hoped it would be enough to get him clear.

She was going in the other direction, however, and made a little use of Newton’s laws to give herself a nice boost using the throw. Turning as she began to charge the broken wall, Sorilla could feel the enemy weapons charging to their critical state and fire just as she dove through the wall and into the open corridor beyond.

The twisted bundles of space time flew past her, Sorilla twisting out of the way of one that would have torn up her shoulder if she’d remained on course, then landed in a roll on the other side, bringing her right foot down flat to the floor as she slid on her bent left leg, drawing her weapons.

Proc, She sub-vocalized, auto fire, both pistols. Safeties off.

She squeezed both triggers, the final manual check the weapons needed to know that there was a live person and not merely a computer issuing the orders to fire, and just swept both weapons across the enemy line. The computer did the rest.

With safeties off, the system didn’t even check for IFF signatures, substantially reducing the response time. Every time the weapons identified a target in front of them, they sent the detonation code to the next round in the barrels, sending one more round down range as she skidded to a stop.

The sudden barrage of fire was enough to send the enemy scrambling for cover even as she entirely emptied her weapons.

Sorilla thumbed the release catch on both, holding the pistols up so that the barrel assembles dropped out over her shoulders, clattering to the ground behind her with smoking curling from them. She passed the one in her right hand over to her left, then smoothly drew two more assembles from her ammo pouch and dropped them into place in the guns before snapping them closed with a flick of her wrist.

The enemy were only then recovering from the shock of the first barrage, and Sorilla was already coming fully back to her feet with two freshly loaded weapons.

*****

“Fall back!” The commander bit out the order angrily, unable to believe that a single enemy soldier was able to tear through his men quite so quickly, but he’d never seen anyone move like that before.

The soldier the saviors had marked as a priority target was faster than any alien he’d ever seen, and powerful enough to just punch through walls.

Not even the Alliance thugs, the Lucians, were quite so casual with their own, rather formidable, physical attributes.

He was nearly certain that the alien was wearing some sort of enhancing suit, but it was clearly beyond any of the tech the Sirhan military were working on, and he’d not seen anything like it in the Alliance either, though that counted for less than one might think given the sheer size of the Alliance as the Sirhan had been able to learn.

With thousands of lightyears and more stars within their sphere than he’d been able to count, he was well aware that few Alliance races would ever be able to encounter every other race. The Alliance was more of a loose knit association of other associations. Only Species like the Saviors and a small handful of others ever crossed the entirety of Alliance space.

The Sirhan were unlikely to see more than the local member species, and frankly they were happy with that at the moment.

His men, those that had survived the assault, were falling back on his order, sending suppressive fire back to keep the target from following too quickly, but it was clearly only a delaying tactic. Unless they got in a solid hit soon, he was going to be out of men in fighting condition.

The Commander got on his communications device, “Get everyone evacuated. We won’t be able to hold for long! Even if we pin these two down, their reinforcements will be on us before we can blink. We’re abandoning the facility in accordance with our orders.”

“Evacuations are underway, Commander,” the overseer of the infiltration responded. “What of the target? The Saviors want the target eliminated.”

“They can come out here and do it themselves!”

“Commander!”

He grimaced, taking a breath, “With due respect to you, and the saviors, we’re dealing with the Elite thugs of the Alliance and a target skilled enough that the Saviors have not yet been able to eliminate them! If we take the target down, I’ll call it a bonus, but if we don’t I’ll be plenty satisfied with simply escaping. Am I clear, Overseer?”

There was a long delay before the voice ground back to him.

“Clear, Commander.”

He killed the signal, taking a moment to fire a couple blasts down the corridor, intentionally shooting low to tear up the floor and send shrapnel flying as he waved the next team to fall back.

*****

Sorilla hit the ground, peppered by chunks of concrete, rolling clear of a burst of suppressive blasts that were clearly intended to do exactly what they had done… make her scramble for cover.

The enemy were putting together a fighting retreat and doing a decent enough job of it from what she could tell. Far from an easy maneuver, a fighting retreat was one of the more difficult things to train to do, and more often than not went horribly even if you were exceedingly well trained.

This one, however, was going rather well for the enemy for the simple fact that they were retreating from a single aggressor.

She really couldn’t do much more than she was as long as they were detailing people to keep her pinned down while the rest fell back.

Linking the cameras in her right-hand pistol to her corneal implants, Sorilla edged it around the corner she was covering behind, sweeping the scene carefully.

No targets. They’ve fallen back. Damn it.

She retrieved her Alliance issued communications gear, “Kriss, you copy?”

“I am here,” The gravely voice responded. “I do hope that you are having a more enjoyable fight than I, Colonel.”

“Eh, it’s had it’s moments,” Sorilla admitted. “The remaining enemy forces are falling back, and I don’t have enough firepower to break their discipline. More interested in following them to their little nest anyway. You coming?”

“A moment,” Kriss said, grunting something out. “Just finishing… things up here.”

Sorilla had no illusions as to what exactly he was finishing, but that was fine.

“Alright, signal before you come up on my position,” She said. “Hate to shoot you by accident.”

Kriss laughed, “You have best not, Colonel. If you shoot me, it had best be on purpose or I will be rather sore about it.”

“Pretty sure you’ll be sore about it either way,” She said dryly. “Assuming you survive. Just get up here.”

“On my way.”

They closed the comms and Sorilla edged out around the corner, checking to see that there were no more soldiers for certain before she fully exposed herself and started making her way up the corridor. The bodies the Sirhan had left behind were mostly intact. Her pistols didn’t pulp a body they struck, as was their gear for the most part.

Sorilla kicked weapons away from the alien’s grips, mostly by instinct and training more than any thought that they might be faking. Her pistols weren’t particularly subtle, she had to admit that much.

They’re decently equipped, she thought, kneeling to examine the sidearms and other gear the alien soldiers had been using.

Much of it was clearly Alliance construction, making use of the advanced fabrication that allowed for seamless builds and an eerily perfect finish on every piece.

Sorilla was still checking the fallen when Kriss arrived behind her, his approaching causing her to twist, gun in hand, just to be certain she hadn’t missed anyone.

“Intending to shoot me?” He asked, amused.

“Not this time,” She replied dryly.

“Pity. Next time, perhaps.”

Sorilla rolled her eyes in her helmet, rising to her feet as she handed him one of the devices she’d been examining.

“What is this?” He asked, accepting it. “A personal comm?”

“mmm,” Sorilla hummed agreeably. “More interested in what’s still open on it.”

Kriss eyed her briefly, then flicked open the device and found himself staring.

“A bounty chit,” He breathed out. “By the Ross, no less. Long time since I’ve seen one of these. They used to have an open bounty on any Lucian Sentinel, payment on delivery of a body… dead or alive. I admit, however, I have never seen them issue one for a specific individual.”

“A dubious honor,” Sorilla said. “Any idea what the reward is?”

Kriss shook his head, “The Ross only have a passing understanding of economy, so they generally don’t issue specifics. It will be impressive, however, especially for a lower development species like the Sirhan.”

“Well, isn’t that just lovely.”

“Sienele will find this… fascinating,” Kriss admitted. “So will many in the Alliance Command structure. There are many who don’t even believe that the Ross are capable of recognizing individuals from other species… a few aren’t even certain they recognize individuals from their own species.”

Sorilla nodded. That fit with SOLCOM beliefs and even some of her own conclusions concerning the Ross. However, the bounty chit there said otherwise.

“They went that way,” She said, deciding to put that thought behind her for the moment, and nodding down the corridor. “Their base of operations is close now. I can feel it.”

Kriss stared for a moment before closing up the command and slipping it into his belt pouch.

“Very well,” He said. “Then it is time to call in reinforcements.”

Sorilla couldn’t disagree, as much as she was tempted to. She knew that she’d developed a lot of bad habits while working largely on her own during the war. Situations had put her constantly in positions where backup of reasonable training often just didn’t exist, not within any range she could cross at least.

It was hard to break a habit that rewarded you with success, even if you knew it was a bad habit and would lead to bad things if you pushed your luck.

“Alright,” She said, “I’ll scout ahead, but I won’t engage until you get your team into position.”

Kriss eyed her narrowly before he acquiesced, “Acceptable.”

With that grunt he pulled his own Comm and started talking while Sorilla slipped down the corridor in pursuit of the retreating enemy.

*****

“Envoy!”

Sienele glanced up from the documents he was examining, irritated but more so by the administration of the facility than the interruption.

“Yes, what is it?” He grumbled mildly.

“Sentinel Kriss has contacted the squad, requesting reinforcements.”

“What?” Sienele sat bolt upright. “Reinforcements for what?”

The Sentinel reporting to him gave a casual shrug, “He and Colonel located the insurgent base of operations and encountered significant resistance.”

Sienele didn’t both correcting the Lucian’s misuse of the title Colonel as a name, focusing entirely on the content of the report.

He was hardly surprised that the pair had managed to find the insurgents. Kriss was a decorated Sentinel and well seasoned field operative, and the Colonel was a particularly tenacious asymmetrical warfare specialist. This was literally the staple meal of the two. Add in the fact that they were both trouble prone action addicts by his evaluation, and he supposed this outcome was inevitable.

“Go,” He ordered. “I will follow. But inform Kriss and the Colonel that I want prisoners. The dead speak only in the most limited of fashion.”

“Yes Envoy!”

Sienele watched the Sentinel leave swiftly before he returned his focus to the documentation, marking his position with some notes to remind himself of what had come before, then closing it all down.

There were potentially more interesting things to be learned at the moment it seemed.

Far more interesting.

*****

The conclave viewed the situation with both interest and aggravation.

The infiltration species had failed thus far to eliminate Entropy, but that was not entirely unexpected. The conclave was viewing the entire, albeit brief, conflict between them from all available dimensions of viewing across the four they had recordings of it in.

She moves like none we have encountered before, not even of her own species. Anomaly.

The conclave agreed with the statement, murmurs buzzing back and forth as they tried to determine what, if anything, it meant.

It was almost as if Entropy could… see spacetime the way the Ross did, which was blatantly impossible. No species they had ever encountered, even the Sturm Gav themselves, were capable of that. Certainly, the Terrans or Humans weren’t capable of it, either in technology or biology.

And yet…

A warning tone caused many to focus on the speaker.

Speak your mind.

Silence followed the order for a moment before the speaker acquiesced and spoke again.

The humans… we monitored a closed loop system from their space, if you will all recall. A system that, to our knowledge, only the Ross were capable of building. We were forced to collapse our own loops due to extreme targeting by the Gav… and the one in human space has also been collapsed… but if they were able to construct that, perhaps they are more capable than we have been able to determine.

The gathering considered that briefly before rejecting it with near unanimity.

Effectively impossible. The observed technology of even their top tier warships was nowhere near sufficient to create a looped section of space time. The species simply does not have the base technology required.

This is not helping with the current situation, another speaker cut in. The infiltration species is withdrawing as to orders. However, Entropy is in pursuit. Options are required.

Destroy the planet!

Options are required that are not worse than the current worst-case scenario.

Once the infiltration species are withdrawn, the facility itself becomes a liability. Destroy the facility.

The conclave considered that very briefly.

Objection. Destroying the facility results in very nearly the same level of unwanted scrutiny as destroying the planet. If we are to do one, we might as well ensure we clear everything.

Correction. Destroying the facility with space-time equations would do so, agreed… however, the infiltration species has several alternative plans for creating… problems for the facility. Some of which are quite destructive without making use of The Equations.

The conclave was silent briefly as many of them scanned through the plans left by the Infiltration species. It only took seconds.

Agreed. Initiate the most destructive of their plans. If it ends Entropy, we have an excellent outcome. If it does not, it should still properly distract them from the path they are on long enough to scrub any trail clean.

The conclave was in agreement. Plans were activated, and orders given out.

The Facility would be destroyed.

*****

OceanofPDF.com