Sean-Michael Argo - Ghost Faction

Jada was already moving, passing through one of the now familiar cold spots that were so common in these forgotten landscapes, marveling that even that oddity had become normalized in the eternal grind of conflict. Projectiles chewed up the stone street as she sped across the open ground towards the base of the building. As she ran, she heard Poe’s rifle go off, and by the time she reached the base of the scaffold and looked up, the broken body of the creature was falling limply into the street below.

“Overwatch, I have a security bunker that has been completely stripped, easily forty-plus small arms slots on the rack are gone, all magazines,” observed Berg over the company channel as Ranec ran up the gangplank to join his battle buddy while Poe made the jump and crossed the street to join Jada. “Looks like they cannibalized most of the restraining joints, too.”

“Copy that, Raid Alpha,” crackled the voice of Marcus in everyone’s comm-beads. “Recon showing half a dozen or more posted in the site. Working theory is that this particular hollow horde has had more time to transform, so their modifications are more complex and effective.”

“I’m not seeing any ammo belts on these guys,” added Poe over the squad channel. “They probably just have the one magazine in each appendage and then they’re out.”

“Hence the teeth and claws,” Strega replied, nodding as she shuffled up to the scaffold with Osric pulling security behind her.

“Push through it, mercs,” growled Womack over the company channel. “We’ve got them stirred up now. Proceed to the master ring, frags authorized once all elements converge.”

Jada looked at the three mercs standing with her and could see that it wasn’t just Strega who had been hit. In the chaotic, running firefight, both Osric and Poe looked to have taken a few glancing hits and Jada herself was still nursing minor wounds in her thigh and shoulder. Likely, Berg and Ranec were suffering similar injuries. They were lucky that the creatures were outfitted with small arms weapons and nothing tremendously high caliber. The price they’d paid had brought them well into the enemy’s territory, and soon they would reach the beacon and past that, the ring awaited.

Jada could see parts of the base of the ring looming on the horizon, illuminated by the sickly green light of the multitude of flares fired by the various assault squads.

The sound of combat was all around them as Dire Sword mercs fought running battles against the hollows, but in that moment, Jada felt at peace.

Battling against terrible foes on a distant scrap of rock in the light of a dying sun, did have something of a spark to it. Perhaps this was not the tale of heroes and villains that she had grown up on, but here she was, standing alongside what could be considered knights and making war with abominations as terrible as any storybook monster. They served no king, had no country, the glory was not as important as the gold, and even the money was only a pretense. After all that she had seen and done, like every Dire Sword, there was no life but this one, no calling in life but the drop siren.

Jada watched as the green light of the flare illuminated the skulls on the helmets of the assembled warriors and knew that they saw the same light upon hers. They stood like that for a moment, each watching the other as battle raged around them, then Ranec and Berg opened up on a new clutch of enemies that approached. The four mercs in the street moved as one, surging forward on the ground as the other two mercs kept pace with them from the rooftops.

After the fury of the initial assault, it seemed that resistance had lessened now that the Dire Swords had broken through the outer perimeters and into the city proper. Their drop coordinates had spread elements evenly throughout the city, just on the outside of the excavation site so that they could push in without immediately having enemies at their backs.

Jada moved through the winding streets with an increased sense of unease. If the abominations had still been hurling themselves at her, she’d have felt better, but the enemy resistance had thinned to the point that Jada finally stopped in her tracks.

“Hold up,” she said as she raised her clenched fist, halting the other five mercs. “Do you hear that?”

“I got nothing up here,” answered Ranec from the low rooftop adjacent.

“That’s what I mean, I don’t hear anything,” said Jada, straining to ensure that she wasn’t just hallucinating. “Two minutes ago, we were in a citywide firefight, now all I hear is the wind and distant thunder.”

“Raid Alpha, be advised, five Helion battle barges airborne and inbound,” warned Marcus over the company channel. “A frigate slipped past our picket line from the other side of the planet and launched away craft before Sword Base could engage.”

“We don’t have the armor or air support to take on a dynamic response force,” announced Womack. “Get the Tasca skiffs moving. First raid elements will reach master ring in minutes, toggle in on my beacon. Once the Objective is sighted, we paint the target and Tasca extracts while we hold position.”

Moments later, a fresh flare sailed upwards from near the base of the master ring and Jada’s HUD fixed on the position, prioritizing it over Berg’s now flickering and dying flare several blocks to her left.

“So, I guess nobody is going to talk about how this place just went silent as the grave?” asked Poe over their private channel as he and Jada ran across a series of gangplanks that carried them over several dig pits.

“The closer we get to that ring without a fight, the worse I think it will be when we get there,” responded Jada, swapping out her half-empty magazine with a full one in anticipation of the heavy conflict to come.

“The Objective is calling its horde home,” said Ranec over the squad channel. “Probably going to be a boss fight like back on Gedra Prime where they huddle up and battle as a mob, trying to protect the leader.”

“If it turns out to be more than a tomb lord, which is dangerous enough, I hope those Tasca goons are up to the task,” said Osric, who had served as ops security aboard Sword Base prior to being given the opportunity to advance to being a full-fledged Dire Sword. “Defending a hard point in this environment will be tough enough as it is without them running late.”

As the mercs ran, more flares went up from the base of the ring and the shooting started in earnest. They could hear the strange report of the modified Gedra rifles mixed with a cacophony of small arms fire that they assumed came from the hollows.

Berg and Ranec leapt across one building, and as they landed upon the flowstone adjacent, they were able to see what was transpiring at the master ring.

“Overwatch, the master ring is unoccupied at the center, the Objective is not present,” growled Womack over the company channel.

“Sat photos were taken over time, indicating the figure is stationary,” replied Marcus in everyone’s comm-bead, “Confirm observation.”

“Overwatch, I’m telling you that dais is empty, but I have what appears to be a temple construct just beneath the ring, hollows are concentrating their defense of the substructure instead of the ring,” snapped Womack. “Gregor and Qais, I want your squads to clear the steps and take the ring. Baylock and Indra, get a loose perimeter around the base of the structure. I’m taking the temple; Berg, you’re second wave on me.”

“We are circling the perimeter, taking no ground fire at present,” said Najib over the company channel. “If the Objective is down there, tag the thing and we will drag it out one way or the other.”

“Yep, it’s a boss fight,” snarled Ranec as he and Berg took a running leap off of the building and landed in the street alongside the rest of the mercs.