Tales from the Drift: Old Lessons, Hard Futures

Chapter 6 - Closing Thunder

PLANET GAAMA-HELIKE // CITY OF TRISKALIA // MISSION TIME +26:31:77

"Holy... contact! Contact, I've got contact!" shouted Cort.

"Hold position! Confirm. Confirm location, confirm hostile contacts!" bellowed Okoda.

He rose from behind the mound of bones. The fog churned wildly overhead, disturbed by the explosion's shockwave. He searched for the source, but apart from the blooms of dust and fog he could find no visual evidence. He'd felt it though. Heard it, and so had Nono; tiny hands clamped hard over her ears.

"Negative visual," came the chorus over the squad com.

"Zadru?" Okoda still had no idea where Zadru was.

"Hold position. Incoming friendlies. Hold fire."

"Say again?"

Silence.

"Confirm last!" bellowed Okoda. His knuckles strained against his gloves.

Nothing.

"Hithspit! Hold fire, hold fire. Incoming friendlies," he snapped.

Out of the roiling gloom emerged an entire section of House Norr soldiers. Okoda counted almost twenty troopers, before a patch of fog obscured the broken formation. Their combat armor, streaked with grey from the grit and the grime, was stained black and emblazoned with sharp patterns of vibrant silver. House Norr's bright red emblem was branded to their chest and shoulder plates. They were moving fast. A squad of five fell away at the rear, slowing to spew bolts of glittering red plasma into the shadows behind them.

They were immediately answered by a barrage of return fire. One of the troopers fell, smoke spilling from a rupture in their chest plate. Two of their cohort rushed over and hauled them to their feet.

Four skath death watchers rushed out of the fog and into the street. Their weapons leveled at the retreating Norr troopers. Weapons' discharge crisscrossed the air between them.

"Covering fire! Down those lizards!" ordered Okoda.

"Tracking targets. Left-side two," drawled Cort in a cool, refined voice.

"Tracking center-right."

"Tracking right-side."

Miraj and Irsa respectively. Okoda tracked the two individual targets as he best could. Alternating bursts of fire from Miraj and Irsa forced the lizards to shift and alter their path.

"Taking my shots." Cort's voice was flat.

Two shots sounded. Two skath flinched, stumbled, and dropped, holes scorched into their broad skulls. The remaining two ignored the fallen, unrelenting in their pursuit of the Norr troopers.

A streak of red lanced out from the thick cover overhead and burned its way through the center-right skath's chest. The four-armed reptilian jerked to a stop, not understanding. It attempted to resume its forward sprint but failed, instead collapsing to its knees. Another red lance blazed through the center of its skull. The back of its head burst apart, the force from the small explosion wrenching the scout off its knees before toppling it backward.

"Tracking right-side, taking the shot," said Cort.

Another red beam flashed in the haze. The right most skath's throat boiled away in a flash. It staggered. Cort's plasma bolt seared into the center of its skull. The skath crumpled on itself.

"Skath armor incoming," stated Zadru.

"Hunker down," ordered Okoda. He primed the assault cannon. It gently rumbled inside his hands. "Get me a trajectory."