Star Force: Persistent Ravage (Wayward Trilogy Book 3) Read online

  “Meaning what?” she asked.

  “My shoulders need to twist away from my waist. You’ve got to let yours twist or you lock me in place.”

  “Sorry,” she said, making the adjustment that allowed his running motion to smooth out a bit.

  “Better,” he said, coming to a stop. “Move your knees up two inches.”

  Esna disconnected and made the adjustment, putting her even higher above his shoulders. “I’m gonna hit tree branches up here.”

  “That’s why you have a helmet,” he said sarcastically as he began to run again in spurts for the next two hours as they worked out the best way for him to carry her, testing his speed and confirming that he could run far faster even with her on his back than she could run on her own.

  Then they started some target shooting, both regular and psionic from on his back, ridiculous as it looked, but as they’d both acknowledged previously she was a weapon, and getting her into the proper position to fire was the key…and until she could run as fast on her own as he could with her on his back, she was going to have to suffer the shame of being cargo.

  But if it allowed her to give the team the capability to do things they couldn’t do before, she’d gladly bear that shame. She was Canderian, whose first priority was winning.

  And winning ugly was still winning.

  25

  November 14, 4817

  Sarbran System

  Tahbrana

  Esna was woken by the alarm in her wrist communicator, with the repetitive chimes pulling her out of a deep sleep and triggering her habitual rush to get out of bed and report to her training handler…except there was none anymore and after a few seconds her mind settled and she sat back down on the edge of her bed, looking at her hands.

  They hadn’t changed much over the years, for the muscles that operated them were located in her forearms and connected via tendons that did not grow in size. Her skin was smooth with light callouses at the appropriate spots, but on the back of her left hand was something new. It was a genetic tattoo that all the Pantheons had, a little bit of team unity that had no functional aspect, but to Esna it meant a great deal.

  It meant she was legit. She didn’t feel that way until she’d gotten the tattoo in the medical station that had altered her skin color rather than inking it. This tattoo wouldn’t fade or distort, and if her skin was cut it would heal and refill in the color because the design was now part of her genetic code. A part of her. She was a Pantheon now, and today was when she headed down to the planet and got into combat for the first time since Darlek. There she had been little more than baggage, but now she had the advantage. There were no Viks on the surface, but there were a lot of bad guys doing bad things and she was here to help stop them.

  Esna stared at her tattoo for nearly 3 minutes as she woke up, seeing the T-visor helmet similar to what Canderous used on a man that wore little other clothing, but had a shield, a spear, and a long cape. The helmet had a pluff of ornamentation on top and the man’s eyes couldn’t be seen save for two glowing orbs, making it look like the helmet shaded everything within to blackness. Pantheons didn’t need names, for when they went into battle they fought as one, interchangeable and unrecognizable in their armor that also covered their faces, as well as their entire bodies.

  The tattoo wouldn’t show when in armor, and their armor didn’t carry the symbol, so it was just a little source of unity for all the Pantheon teams, not just Pantheon 7, and Esna felt it connected her to them all. Rammak had said it would take her 200 years to become skilled enough to enter combat, but it had only taken her 5 years to get here, and with Canderous no less.

  Rammak hadn’t been wrong though, because she was only here because of her Fornax. Without that she wouldn’t be allowed near a combat zone until her physical skills increased exponentially, but looking at her tattoo she realized that truly didn’t matter. Pantheons fought as a unit, and the strength of the others would overlap with hers. She could do something they could not, and her being here was going to make them stronger. She wasn’t their equal in any other way, but on the battlefield her Fornax made her an equal in an unequal way.

  But that tattoo…they had told her about it and suggested she get it, with their blessing, and that told her they had faith in her. All of them. She’d met 5 of them by now, with the other 16 still being down on the planet. They rotated up here often to get new supplies and some decent sleep, but they were pulling multiple day stints, sometimes without rest at all, in order to get the job done and she was going to be expected to do the same sooner or later. Right now they had to feel her out, but in the traditional way as they were going to do it on the battlefield and let results determine how hard they pressed her.

  Not as a rookie that had to earn her place. The tattoo said it in far greater effect than any words ever could…she was one of them, now, not later, and in full. They all had different skill levels, different strengths and weaknesses. Hers were greater, but in negative and positive, and it didn’t matter. They had sent one of their own back to pick her up, leaving them without his help for all that time because they knew she’d be valuable, and not just as a weapon to be hauled around. They knew she’d be valuable as a full member of the team, and Esna’s pride that was embodied in her tattoo was so great she couldn’t cram it into words.

  But she didn’t need to. The Pantheons were about actions, not words, and in combat they rarely talked save for when needed. Everything was about the mission, and Esna had already slid into that mentality easily enough. These were the type of people she wanted to team with, wanted to learn from, and wanted to fight alongside. In short, this is exactly where she wanted to be with her one exception being that they weren’t fighting the V’kit’no’sat.

  Esna knew she wasn’t ready for that, so she was 100% satisfied with where we she was now. This was where she belonged, and Pantheon 7 was her new family. Now it was time to start being a Pantheon and live up to her tattoo.

  Esna let her hand fall as she stood and went straight to the door wearing nothing but her underwear. She headed out to the nearest of three cafeterias on the ship and ate a quick breakfast, drawing a few odd looks but nothing the Canderous crew hadn’t seen from the other Pantheons before. There was no point in putting on a uniform only to take it off minutes later when she got to the equipment room and slid into the thin black survival suit that clad to her like a second skin.

  She wore that and a pair of matching shoes as she pulled her armor on, using the automatic encapsulation feature after getting her feet and hands in position. The black armor wrapped her up completely and she began breathing through the combat filter that put a slight crispness to the air, but otherwise she didn’t notice any difference. Her body fit snuggly into the soft inside padding of the armor, but it didn’t crush too much as she moved…just enough to make sure the blows she would land later wouldn’t transfer in full force to her body.

  Heat transfer kept her body slightly cool and would maintain that temperature no matter how much or little heat her body put out, allowing her to move and fight at full efficiency as her body didn’t need to sweat much to maintain temperature. That allowed her to live for long periods of time inside the armor without it becoming too gross, but it was the hard plates that constituted her armor that were more her concern. Sweat and smell were irrelevant where she was going, and all that would matter was how much damage she could take without dying.

  Knowing that she was going to be slow on her feet and probably have to be carried in some situations, Esna attached her pack to her armor’s back inside of which contained foodstuffs, extra ammo, a few other odds and ends, and one key piece of technology that Pantheon units usually didn’t carry, that being a regenerator.

  It wasn’t a V’kit’no’sat version, but a Star Force one. It was heavier than she liked, but if she was going to be slow a little more wouldn’t make much difference and the team having it in the field would be a nice backup. Esna wasn’t a medic, but the device didn’t re
quire one to be. Just touch it to the skin of the person injured and it would auto-activate…then work its magic and put the person back together, or bring them back to life if they weren’t too far gone.

  Hopefully they wouldn’t need it, but better to be prepared than not. Esna grabbed a Dre’mo’don rifle and two pistols, attaching all three weapons to the rack over her pack then reported to the hangar bay ahead of time. She got there 20 minutes prior to when she had to be out of prudence, then waited at the foot of the dropship for the others to arrive.

  There were three of them, including Tior, all wearing identical armor and packs, save for her partner’s that had a slight modification to the rack that gave her a better handhold. It was something the techs had whipped up yesterday for when she needed a lift, and it allowed him to run about half a mile per hour faster with her weight being better balanced.

  But right now there was no need to carry her, so she walked onboard with the others as their teamcomm activated but no words were spoken. Whatever she said the others would hear, but no one else would. The four of them sat in the passenger section, two facing two across the walkway, as the ship took off and out of the warship’s hangar before diving down hard towards the atmosphere as her teammates started to throw up battlemap data for all to see on a small side screen inside her helmet, both for the location they were headed and other places on the planet that were seeing recent activity.

  There was a war being fought on so many fronts the Canderians couldn’t get to them all, leaving the Yados to fight on their own in most cases as the various armies, pirates, and raiders slaughtered them. The Yados were large, quadruped, and deadly in close range, but weren’t very good at ranged combat. They had two short arms in addition to the four legs, and were ugly as hell, but they were able to put up some resistance. Today though it didn’t look like much as two more cities had fallen and another three were seeing fresh combat.

  But Esna wasn’t likely to see any Yados in person today, for Pantheon 7 wasn’t going to reinforce them. They were dropping in deep enemy territory and going after key infrastructure and units, hopefully drawing some of their troops away from the Yados and towards them as they destroyed as much as they could before evading and heading to another target. The dropship they were using was sensor stealthed, so if they maintained their distance the enemy couldn’t pick it up, but it wasn’t a cloaking device. They’d have to move over ground on their own to get to their targets, and that’s where Esna was going to be a liability.

  But once they got to areas where the enemy was bunkered up good, her Fornax would be able to pass right through walls and armor, and Tior had run her through multiple theoretical scenarios based on what the team had faced previously and how she was going to unlock a lot of new targets for them.

  So they were going to manage her lack of speed in exchange for her psionic, but she was carrying weapons for a reason. She wasn’t just a Fornax weapon to be carried around, and while not as good as the others in combat she was going to be more than a match for what they faced. The trick was the enemy’s numbers and avoiding running into too many of them, but Esna was looking forward to opponents she could actually kill after spending so much time running from the Viks.

  Esna monitored their approach via battlemap all the way down to the ground, with the four Pantheons standing up just prior to touchdown and walking to the back of the dropship so they were there just before the ramp began to lower. Esna and Tior stood side by side behind the other two and came out a step behind them.

  As Esna ran down the ramp and felt the transition to the native gravity, which was a touch higher than Star Force norms, she said a silent thanks to Rammak for all his lessons and for pulling her out of that Forso hell hole. He’d given her a new life, a better one, and one that mattered. She now had a purpose and that purpose started this moment as she stepped into another hell hole, only this time she was in Rammak’s place and the native Yados were in hers. Esna was the badass rescuer on a Star Force team, coming in with all the knowledge and training they provided, and Esna took a split second to acknowledge that she’d come full circle.

  She was now a Commando, like Rammak before her, and she was more than ready to make it official as Tior signaled her with a special ping and she swung up on top of his back as her three teammates took off running across the swampy landscape as their dropship promptly left them to their behind the lines mission, with the only way out being to fight their way out as they worked into areas with enemy air cover being too thick for extraction.

  Alright, Rammak, this is it. Wish me luck. I owe you more than I can repay, and I promise I’ll do everything I can to insure Star Force survives...

  Or go down fighting, like you.

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