Hundreds of bullets—both from her own mech and those around her—ripped through the barrier and shredded both the troops and their pathetic fortifications. In a matter of seconds, the enemy fire stopped. Mira looked behind and saw TTVs already inside the walls, with troops in the process of exiting the transports.
“Alright, everyone keep a clear head,” Mira said over the comms. “There are Sowir here, at any sign of telepathic interference, open comms and inform those in your area. Remember, they can’t control your mind, but they can distract you. Always move in pairs. Proceed as planned.”
After the troops that had left the TTVs started moving as squads among the Sowir buildings, Mira checked to see if her mech’s FTL comm was still transmitting operational data to the base, and then opened a channel to base.
“Company Leader, report,” the Force Commander said.
“There has been no sign of the Sowir, only their soldiers as of yet. But that isn’t unusual for their practices. They shouldn’t have had the time to wake up all of their soldiers, so I doubt that we will see a lot of resistance initially, but the deeper we move inside, the harder it will get. The Sowir must be in the center where they feel safest; once we reach their area of influence, their soldiers will get much more dangerous,” Mira said.
The Sowir soldiers fought much better when there were Sowir around to control them directly; that meant smaller groups, but also deadlier.
“I agree. Field Commander Okoro has agreed to send you some more troops from the fleet if you manage to take down the anti-orbitals,” Force Commander Mao said, and Mira shifted her sights to the large turrets in the distance.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Mira said. “Johannes out.”
Mira turned back to her troops, who had already cleared their immediate surroundings and had started placing defensive turrets. Her tanks were still bombarding the wall, as well as the buildings close to it, some distance from her force’s entry point. Most of the buildings in the base were barracks, or at least something similar. The buildings’ purpose was to house the Sowir tools, so most of them contained foodstuffs and stasis units. And the sheer number of them indicated just how much troops Sowir had on the ground; at one point, most of their troops had been housed here. Now they were spread out underground in bases built on the bones of Guxcacul cities.
Mira opened the channel to her troops and started issuing orders.
Chapter Nine
Dstrat moved inside one of the Sowir buildings in the second ring of the Sowir base, his powered armor’s sensors sweeping the room and coming back clear.
“All clear,” he said over the comms. The rest of his squad, all of whom were wearing battle suits, entered behind him. They took positions around Dstrat’s hulking form and then started examining the building.
“Another foodstuffs storage,” said his Squad Leader, Nathaniel Jürgen. “Exia, place a marker on the battle map and let’s move on.”
A moment later, Dstrat’s battle map updated with a blue marker at his location, meaning that the building had been checked, was clear, and was of no importance. They had yet to encounter the enemy—the tool-soldiers—in this ring of the base. And none of the Empire’s troops had yet encountered the real Sowir, although the Empire’s troops still had to clear the second ring of the base.
Dstrat moved first, turning in his battle armor, and with slow, hulking movements exited the building. His squad took cover behind him and followed as they moved down the street. They moved slowly, but Dstrat was glad to trade the speed and maneuverability of the battle suits for a battle armor; it made him feel unstoppable, and he could only imagine what it would feel like to pilot one of the Empire’s mechs.
The battle armor was one of the newer technologies developed, being only two years old. Its main and only weapons were the two plasma turrets mounted on the arms. And it had a big ten-centimeter-thick layer of armor that completely encased the wearer. It was operated similarly to the mechs, only without full immersion; he had the access point on his neck, but he still needed to move his limbs. The armor read his intent and his movements to assist in executing an action. It was, of course, powered; it used two newly developed batteries that allowed it to operate for five days, or five hours of intense nonstop combat. His version—as he was a Nel—had an added component to accommodate for his tail.
As they moved and cleared one more building, Dstrat couldn’t help but think about what he was doing. Forty years ago, he had been a farmer on Nuva, only waiting for the day when the Sowir finally turned to his world. Waiting for the day that he and his family died, followed by the rest of his race. Now he was hunting those same nightmares. It made him feel ecstatic. A part of him that was Nel relished in the opportunity to kill his enemy, the nightmare that had all but ended the Consortium and his civilization. But the other, more recent part of him that came from the teachings of the Empire whispered caution, restraint. He was not like his nightmare; he was here to help liberate the Guxcacul.
His squad moved to yet another building, and Dstrat used his implant to establish a connection with the door and open them. None of the buildings they had encountered used any kind of encryption; the door computers were simple, and based on those of the Consortium.
As the door opened, Dstrat moved one foot forward to step inside and then stopped. For a moment, he just stared at the opening.
“Dstrat? Do you see something?” SL Jürgen asked.
Immediately, as if a fog was lifted of his mind, he realized what had happened. He turned and shouted, “Move! It’s the Sow—” He didn’t have the chance to finish as an earth-shattering explosion threw him in the air and into the building across the street in a wave of fire and debris.
He smashed through the wall of the building, with the force of the explosion still following him in the form of red flames, and kept going, the force pushing him through the second wall as well. He slammed into the floor and landed on some crates that shattered under his weight with a force that shook him to the bones even with the layer of armor he was wearing, making him lose his vision for a moment.
After he shook himself off, he looked at the left side of his HUD and saw red indications on his armor’s systems. His communications were damaged, he no longer had power in his left leg, and he had lost a big chunk of his shoulder plate.
Slowly, he struggled to stand up, and barely managed it. He looked at the icons that represented his squadmates, and saw that he couldn’t read their suits’ telemetry any longer. He turned towards the hole that he’d made in the wall and started towards the flames, intent on finding out if any of his squadmates still lived, when something slammed into him, throwing him back to the floor.
Then something started firing point blank into his head, obscuring his visual sensors. Dstrat struggled to throw his attacker off, but it had already wrapped its limbs around him and held tightly. He raised his left arm, angled it above his chest, and fired. The first plasma bolt missed but the second hit, and he felt the hold on him weaken. With another shot, the firing on his head stopped and he rolled over his opponent. As his visual sensors recovered, he saw the body of one of the Sowir tool-soldiers, wearing a kind of battle suit he was not familiar with. Again, he struggled to get to his feet, when another of the enemy soldiers slammed into him from behind, pushing Dstrat’s head through the wall.