Chapter 33 #2
Though all of these soldiers should be incredible pilots, it would have been nice to know who I was eliminating and who was still left.
I had a distinctly different fear threshold around the guys I didn’t really know versus the ones who I knew held grudges against me.
Theoretically they wouldn’t know I was the one in the single Shinka unit either, but I would be stupid to think my biggest fan wouldn’t be able to guess just by the way I moved.
I waited until the Ghul’s back was turned to move in.
Silent thrusters propelled me forward, just off the ground, and my small, quick, thigh mounted blade was readied in my grip.
Before he had the chance to turn around and notice me, I activated my knife, and I plunged it through the back of his core, destroying the cylinder that housed its pilot while leaving the trackers intact with a surgical level of precision.
Nice little throw back to my medical training.
Who would have thought I’d be using my scalpel skills to execute war machines one day?
I caught the machine as it collapsed into a pilotless heap, preventing a loud thud and the potential for dust to plume from the impact.
If I were to guess, it was likely and possible that everyone on the other side had been informed of the loss via their HUD count and a ‘ping’ that was quiet enough to not be distracting, yet clear enough to understand the implication.
It was always possible he was actively in contact with another soldier when I eliminated him though, so I couldn’t assume that had no bearing on approximating my location.
I needed to keep moving and quickly. Now that I broke the seal, everyone would be on high alert, and I was about to have nineteen other angry soldiers ready to fight.
I changed trajectory, staying low, and continuing to leverage the rocks and landscape for the stealth my Shinka couldn’t provide.
A cloaking device was absolutely the first thing I would be figuring out once I got my own unit, but for now, this Earth-based landscape was doing a fine job of providing cover.
The whole environment was genuinely fascinating in its natural, non-artificial structures.
I’d seen plenty of images and videos of our origin planet, but to exist in this replication was a completely different experience, and if I wasn’t so hyper focused on staying alive and undetected, it would have been nice to appreciate it.
The pale, reflective light of the full moon shone across the shoulder of another unit.
He was searching the area without lights, prioritizing stealth from a distance just as I had been.
His orange core glowed in the center of his chest, and I waited for the light to disappear, indicating he’d turned his back to me.
Just like the first unit, I waited, executed, and caught him without creating unnecessary noise or theatrics. I returned to the walls, and continued to cover one kilometer at a time toward the magenta tower on the horizon.
I managed to take out three more units in my careful advance. The wind had started to die down as the environment opened up, and the night had become so quiet. So still. It made detecting the approach of units easier, but it made moving forward much more difficult,
These solo assassinations had been simple and clean enough, but with fifteen people left on my hostile count, there were plenty of challenges still ahead.
I covered another twenty clicks, my range still far outside my potential blast radius, but now in visual range of the first perimeter wall.
Just over the first barrier, I found units clustered in small groups.
That was troublesome. I’d expected it, but I’d not come up with a good plan of attack yet.
I practically crawled until I was pressed against the physical perimeter of the base, crouching behind a high barrier wall.
I listened for the footsteps of a pair of units patrolling the outer limits.
A very careful peek over the wall, and I watched as they passed each other, one moving west, the other moving east. I didn’t have time to think on it.
I leaped over the wall, drew both of my swords, and rushed in.
Both units immediately picked up on my charge, but they were both too late to counter as I shove my blades through both of their cores before they got far enough apart to require individual battles.
I sheathed my blades, and it was by a hair’s breadth that I caught both units by the wrist before their limp shells could fully collapse into the dust. I lowered the units gently to the floor, then I shot to another wall for cover.
That was lucky, but I doubted I was going to get many more opportunities like that from here.
I’d barely finished the thought, when I heard the whirr of an energy blade activating at my flank.
I held my breath, and I whipped around, clashing with the orange light of the enemy Ghul’s battle hatchet.
I deflected, but every synapse in my brain told me I needed to end this immediately or I would have the entire remaining army on top of me.
Our blades clashed once, then twice, then I ducked his blow, pulled a gun from my thigh holster, and I rapid fired straight through his core cylinder, until the blasts weakened the metal enough to penetrate.
His Ghul toppled backwards from the force of the shots, and he hit into a metal barrier wall with a loud clang, a wild spark of electricity, and a punctuating boom.
His machine exploded in a burst of flames, and fuck me, I basically shot up a signal flare with my location for all twelve of the men still standing.
The revelation shook through me a second before I found myself throwing up my blade to stop the attack of another Ghul, while two more were rushing towards me in the background.
My sync rating dipped down to 99% for a fraction of a second, then I forced it back to 100% as I deflected, sheathed my weapons, and activated my fighting staff. I readied every fucking shoulder cannon and defense in my arsenal, and I prepared to fire.
The stealth game was over, and now it was time to fight.