Vivid Stars Online

I could hear my drone opening fire on the advancing soldiers as a distraction, however, I knew it wouldn’t last for long. All I could hope was that it would at least give Linnea and Elana time to get to cover.

As for me, the obvious choice was to take out, or take control of, the big mech thing in the center of the men. It looked to be the most dangerous foe on the field and might swing the tide if I turned it on the other enemies.

Just as I was reaching out toward the mech, my concentration was thrown off as someone landed next to me. Cursing, I lunged for them, only to have my arm caught mid-swing.

“Calm down,” Felisa said as she held my arm in a vice-like grip. “It's just me.” Releasing my arm, she continued. “Have you used the Beacon? This is far behind anything we expected.”

Sighing as I came down from the scare of my life, I shook my head. “No, it’s jammed somehow.”

Felisa shook her head in response, looking shocked. “That’s not possible, it's imported core world tech from before the blockade. No one on the entire planet should be able to jam that."

”Well, clearly someone can,” I responded with another sigh before tossing her the beacon. We hadn’t been spotted so far in the chaos, however, it was only a matter of time. If we were going to survive, we needed to speed this up.

She tried the same thing I had, before cursing under her breath as it failed for her as well. “That changes things,” she said with a deep frown. “I can’t contact the special forces squads following us either. That might be the jamming as well, but if they haven’t spotted all this, then it’s best to assume that they're dead.”

“Right,” I responded with a nod. “I’m going to take the big thing out, is your target here?” The entire point of Felisa being here was to capture any psions that came after us. If one was here, it would help achieve that mission but it could also severely complicate matters.

“Yes,” she responded with a nod. “They're standing back and watching for now, but I can sense them even from here. They're strong.”

“Can you take them by yourself?” I asked in response. If that was true, we needed to shut them down before they could make things even worse.

At her responding nod, I continued. “Go then, we’ll deal with the rest of this somehow.” I could already hear shouts, followed by shots hitting the tree we were hiding behind. We’d already spent too long talking and were out of time.

“Understood,” she responded with a nod. “I’ll give you cover in a moment.” With that, she scuttled back up the tree, climbing at a speed I could barely believe.

As promised, the area was blanketed in that same strange darkness that covered the camp a second later. It was not a moment too soon either, as plasma bolts flew past from multiple directions.

Putting my head down, I sprinted through the darkness until I crashed into another tree further away. Most of the plasma fire had stopped once the darkness fell, allowing me to make it with only a single graze across my back.

Hitting the tree hurt, however, it gave me some more cover as I circled around it before sliding into a crouch. While I still couldn’t see, I could feel out beyond the cloud of darkness with my Psi sense.

This was actually amazing as it would let me reach out for the mech while giving me almost perfect cover. With a small grin, I did just that and soon found the largest piece of technology in the area.

Somewhat to my surprise, it wasn’t a robot, instead being more like an enormous suit of armor strapped to an operator. Right, piloted mech then rather than robotic, I thought with a frown.

Worse, I could feel that they had designed it to not allow any action without movement from the user. I suspected it was a defense against hacking rather than something set up for me, however, the result was the same.

I wouldn’t be able to set it on the rest of the soldiers as I had hoped. That didn’t mean I was helpless though, I could still break it. While I used to be unable to affect anything held by another person with Item Attunement, Technokinesis lacked that limitation.

My grin turned feral as I began reaching for critical systems and frying them one after another. It was hard going as the mech had multiple redundant systems that I had to break before I could bring it down. Worse, they had been hardened somehow, potentially against EMP attacks.

It was enough to slow me down and drain more of my psi reserves, but not enough to stop me. Less than a minute later I could feel the entire mech power down, leaving the man inside trapped. I had even broken the emergency escape before breaking the power systems, leaving him entirely unable to escape.

Best leave him there for interrogation later, I thought before a searing pain erupted in my side. It dragged me from my trance back to the real world, where I could see a soldier had advanced around the tree it was lying against.

The odd darkness was gone, and he had his rifle trained on me for another shot. Groaning, I rolled to the side while activating Skin Hardening. I wasn’t fast enough on the roll, however, my ability activated at the speed of thought and took the brunt of the follow-up shot as it struck my back.

Curling into a ball to reduce my profile, I reached out toward his rifle with my senses. I was running low power, low enough that I could already feel a small headache forming, however, I had enough left for this.

With a vicious wrench, I fried the workings of his gun as he fired a third shot. The result was more explosive than I expected, resulting in a moderate explosion even as the third shot struck me in the back.

Again, Skin Hardening took the brunt of the damage, leaving me burnt but alive. I uncurled with a small whimper before forcing myself up to my feet. With the darkness providing me cover gone, I would almost certainly have more company soon.

It was time to bring the fight to them first.

I tried reaching out for my drone, only to wince as I sensed its twisted wreckage on the ground. It had done its job as a distraction but would be no further use in this fight.

With that option out, I drew my Psi pistol and leaned around the corner. I was already down to less than half my power reserves, so I would have to keep to normal strength shots if I wanted to last the battle through.

I could see the edge of the camp from where I was, showing that the darkness was gone there as well. I really hope that doesn’t mean Felisa is dead, I thought with a deep sinking sensation. Maybe she just needed all her concentration for the fight?

Shaking the intrusive thoughts out, I focused on the men swarming through the camp. While the mech was down along with two of them, I could still count at least ten, maybe more, men searching through our tents.

Desperately hoping that Linnea and Elana had already made it out, I aimed at the closest man and fired a shot before ducking back into cover. It was beyond my normally effective range, but would hopefully draw at least a few of them closer to me.

A cry of surprise, but not pain, echoed from the camp, suggesting that I’d missed but got their attention. Then the familiar crack of Linnea’s rifle sounded, followed by what was definitely a scream of anguish.

With a relieved sigh, I leaned around the corner of my cover again. I was just in time to see a pair of missiles take two of the men out before a third took a blast from Linnea’s sniper mode to the head.

They must have been waiting for me to coordinate an attack, I thought with a grin as I realized the sisters were fine and likely hiding somewhere out in the trees. That meant it was my duty as the tank to keep the men’s attention on me while they did their work.

Letting out a battle cry, I activated Skin Hardening and charged from my current tree to another, closer one. I fired a couple of shots as I went, more to give myself cover than anything else.

I was successful in drawing the soldier’s attention and while half of them took cover from my bolts, the rest stood their ground and opened fire on me. Most of their shots missed as I sprinted past, while two stuck me in the side.

It hurt a lot, but I forced myself to keep moving and slid into cover behind the new tree. I could hear them yelling from inside the camp, trying to coordinate an assault on my position. Then Linnea’s rifle cracked again, leading to another scream of pain.

Focusing my thoughts, I reached out to one of the soldier’s rifles and broke it with a wrench of my mind, before moving on to a second. I took that one out as well, before my growing headache, combined with the pain of my wounds, broke even my prodigious concentration.

It seemed the more complicated uses of my powers were beyond me now, I would have to rely on my gun and the more instinctive Skin Hardening. Leaning to the side, I inched my gun and head around until I could just barely see them advancing.

From this position, I could see three of them coming from my right, before the third one’s head exploded from behind. Wherever Linnea was sniping from her accuracy was as on point as usual.

I could vaguely sense another drone flying around on the other side as well as hear the rapid fire of the plasma gun mounted on Elana’s drone. From the cursing also coming from that direction, I had some hope they would be distracted for now.

That left the two advancing on my right. One of them was still armed with a rifle, while the second had drawn a pistol. I aimed at the rifleman and waited till he advanced out of cover.

A few seconds later, he did so, and I met with a barrage of plasma fire. The drain on my energy caused my headache to spike again, however, it was worth it as he dropped with holes riddling his chest.

Wincing at the increased pain, I blearily holstered my Psi pistol and drew the original plasma pistol I still kept on my other hip. It wouldn’t be as powerful as my primary weapon, however, it would let me keep the rest of my power for defense.

The pistol man had noticed me by this point and I had to duck back into cover as his bolts shot past my position. Every few seconds, he would fire again, the angle of his shots changing each time.

While most hit the tree, it was enough to keep me pinned, and he would soon have a direct shot at me. Linnea’s rifle cracked again, however when his shots didn’t stop I realized she must be shooting at the other group.

Nothing for it, I thought as I crouched even further down, before suddenly exploding into movement. I rushed forward half a dozen steps, before spinning to face the direction the shots had come from.

If the soldier was surprised, he didn’t show it, striking me in the chest with two shots as I turned. Skin Hardening combined with my Toughness kept me going as I opened fire. He tried to move as the first shot him, however, I was used to tracking much faster Beasts.

I kept up my fire as I he tried to run, eventually dropping him somewhere between the eleventh and twelfth shot. By this point, I was a little bleary on the details given the pain and exhaustion.

Turning, I looked for the men coming up the other side, only to see nothing. I winced as I strode past the tree, each step jarring my wounds. Even around the other side, all I found were corpses, Linnea had already taken the men out.

With a groan of relief, I sank to the ground and began rummaging through my pack for medical supplies. The fight was finally over, only the cleanup remained.