The Withered Land, THE EMPIRE FALLS: HELL'S AVATAR

HELL'S AVATAR -- PART FIVE

It was early afternoon at the militia outpost of Annet Galjeshir...

As a new fusillade of disruptor sear-fire ripped through the air around him, multiple rays of coherent light punching sizzling, smoking holes in steel-reinforced concrete walls, and he dove across the length of a rectangular chrome and acrylic table to land jarringly on his left side as he simultaneously scrambled for more secure cover.

His head was ringing and he was out of breath. His lungs felt like they were on fire. He cursed himself for his weakness. He should have been in better condition, his body should have been able to better handle the load he was putting on it, but there was nothing to be done about it now.

Seven enemies down, but so far as he could tell, he was the last of the protective squad left standing. How many opponents were left? Another six? Nine? He'd lost count in the confusion since the rendezvous had gone bad.

The Emissarial Protective Squad had been made up of five Outlands Marshals, deputized Knights of Central Homefront Security in service to the Emperium's Council of Free Territories assigned to safeguard the three-person team of intercontinental military and naval dignitaries touring the Outposter communities beyond the arid expanse of the Forever Plain. A naval Commodore, a thrice-decorated Martial-General, and a Legislative-Senator. It was supposed to have been a nothing detail, minor babysitting duty. They expected that there might have been a few episodes of protest from Free-Republic Successionists or anti-government Tribal Militia, mostly unfocused, disorganized collectives of bellicose civilian dissidents and radical scholars. No one had supposed that anyone would have actually gone to the effort to organize an actual armed assault on a trio of minor military ambassadors who were out-and-about fund-raising for a Defense Utilities project. Why go through such trouble and risk? What would there have been to gain?

The point was unexpectedly and explosively made moot. A terrorist militia had attacked the entourage mere steps outside the imposing marble entrance of Majestikantus Hall, while they were touring the historic Hegemonic Governance District. They were swarmed by armed, masked assailants in trauma-protective FieldOps armor. The lead Knight, a veritable legend and folk hero named Ou'Gustian-Krake, died almost immediately, burned to ash, the victim of a direct hit from an Ion Strafer assault rifle. The rest of the team had acted quickly and initiated an emergency Geo-Shunt wherein the three dignitaries were electro-phasically matter-scrambled and teleported along pre-coded transit lines back to the territorial capital at Plae'I'shein Jaharob, many kilometers away, on the other side of the Forever Plain. Yet despite the removal of the diplomatic ambassadors from the battlezone, the mysterious terrorist unit maintained their violent assault. Now he, Draekasen, was cut off from his comrades, if any of them still remained alive, surrounded by scattered clumps of smoking debris, fragments of shattered stonework, puddles of molten metal and bloody, fallen bodies.

The sudden, discordant singing hum from the discharge of ammunition from a rapid-fire flechette gun broke his momentary reverie. There was a series of dull thunks as a flurry of flying steel needles slapped into the acrylic tabletop near him. The tabletop quickly spider-webbed from the rapid multiple impacts and then shattered with a crash. He had to move.

Get your head on straight, soldier. Stay alive.

The Knight, a young man, tall and muscularly lean and a four orbital heliar-veteran of Marshal service, was named Draekasen Se'nurqille Predayas frae'Bluhd. He wore the pewter-gray and copper colored armor of a First Stage Honorman, a new Knight. He quickly surveilled his immediate area and saw, some thirty or forty strides away, a weather-worn stone gate that led down from street-level to a short stairway to a wooden door that was already partly open. He didn't know where that door led, but, for the moment, it had to lead to a place offering better safety than where he was. Draekasen lunged to his booted feet and charged directly towards the stone gate and doorway, firing his twin flame-beam pistols behind him as he ran, ducking as another series of disruptor beams slashed through the air around him. He stumbled down the eight steps past the gate and threw himself through the doorway into the shadowed gloom behind the portal.