Ivan Kal - What War Had Wrought

A blue shape came into Adrian’s vision—Sora, her jaws grabbing hold of the O’fa’s left lower arm. She pulled him to the side and off balance. Adrian’s free hand flew forward, sending a kinetic blast towards the O’fa’s shoulder and the hand that was coming down on Sora’s head. The kinetic attack threw the O’fa off balance and disrupted his hold on Adrian’s other arm. As Adrian freed himself, the O’fa grabbed Sora telekinetically, dislodged her hold, picked her up, and then threw her behind Adrian.

That action gave Adrian enough time. His blade sang through the air in an upward motion. It met the O’fa’s right upper hand, and in a single slash, it cut through the O’fa’s forearm. The hand that had killed Adrian’s friend, his family, dropped to the ground. The O’fa recoiled in pain and stepped back. Adrian followed, his blade flying through the air in a move that would pierce the O’fa’s throat.

Something smashed into Adrian’s shoulder, throwing him off, and his blade sliced through the O’fa’s shoulder, making a shallow cut as he was thrown to the ground. Immediately Adrian stood, and was hit subsequently with two more blasts. He ignored them, pushing himself towards the now retreating O’fa. Another blast hit him in the chest, throwing him to the ground again, and dozens of alarms sprung onto his HUD. But Adrian was lost in his pain; he readied himself to charge.

Then his rage, his pain, dimmed, as if they were an old hurt. The world around him returned, at his side stood Sora, her eyes boring into him. She had dulled his emotions again, returned him from his rage. Adrian’s eyes took in his surroundings; Erasi forces were running towards the O’fa. Three had already reached the Gatrey and were carrying her back, and from here Adrian could see that she was twitching uncontrollably as if in great pain. The other O’fa was running, holding his stump with one of his arms. The Erasi forces were firing at Adrian from the distance, just as fire returned from behind Adrian. Adrian’s eyes landed on Akash, and he felt Sora nudge him to move. With a heavy heart, he did.

He turned and ran with Sora towards Anessa, who was struggling to get to her feet. He glanced back as a bolt whizzed by close to Sora, and saw that most of the Erasi troops didn’t have full armor. He reached with the Sha to his three spheres on the ground, raising them in the air, and with an echo of his previous rage launched them at two of the closest Erasi, a Gatrey and a Ssarath. The spheres blasted their heads clean off in a shower of gore and blood, and the troops around them faltered.

Adrian reached Anessa just as one of her Va Sun did, and together they helped her up and half carried her to the shuttle, as she was clearly dazed. With his adepts and the Va Sun giving covering fire, they retreated and reached the shuttle. Inside, Adrian spotted Lurker of the Depths, already strapped in and obviously exhausted. Adrian helped Anessa strap in, and then moved towards the front of the shuttle.

“Get me a channel to the Bloodbringer, now!” Adrian ordered as the shuttle rose from the ground and started blasting towards the orbit.

Numvani orbit — Bloodbringer

Dai Sha Garaam watched the holo in front of her as the shuttle carrying the Kar Daim landed on the planet. She was not as comfortable with them agreeing to the terms the Erasi set for opening a dialogue as Kar Daim had been, but she understood the reasons. The Shara Daim had a reputation among the other races, and one well deserved. This was all a part of them trying to change that perception. And Garaam knew that Anessa could take care of herself. She was a Dai Sha, and the Empire’s Lord Sentinel, her Dal A’sha, was with her, and Garaam knew that he was powerful as well.

But that still didn’t mean she didn’t worry. She checked up on the Erasi super battleship on the holo and saw no change. It was still in the same orbit, its drives, weapons, and shields powered down, just like her own ship. The active scans of the Bloodbringer didn’t report anything unusual; there was no other ship in close to the planet, nothing suspicious even. Garaam nodded to herself, satisfied, just as the Va Sun at the sensor terminal said, “Dai Sha, we are detecting strange readings from the planet.”

“From the meeting place?” she asked, concerned.

“No, from the storm, Dai Sha.”

Garaam frowned and brought up the information on c-board. The storm was massive, covering more than half of the planet, and its composition and charge made it hard to scan through. But the Bloodbringer’s scanners had picked up some unusual readings. She switched to visual sensors and zoomed in. For a moment, there was only the storm, and then the clouds parted.

“Battle stations!” Garaam ordered. “Navigation, move us towards the shuttle’s location, fast. Open a channel to the Legions.”

Every Va Sun around her sprang into action, as shields came online a split second before the Erasi ships opened fire. Erasi energy weapons struck the shields. If Garaam or any one of her crew had been a second slower, they would have taken heavy damage. Two of the ships exiting the storm matched the visuals of the Erasi super battleships, but the third was unknown. It was larger, but as all three ships were still mostly inside the storm, she couldn’t tell how much larger.

“Hyperspace communications are being jammed. Shuttle crew is reporting the meeting is a trap; the troops are moving to extract Kar Daim and the Lord Sentinel,” the Va Sun from the comms reported.

Garaam’s face contorted in anger. The Erasi had lain a trap for them.

“Dai Sha, the Erasi super battleship is moving towards us and the meeting place.”

Garaam glanced at the c-board and saw that her ship would be there first, but not by much. “Start priming the skim drives,” she ordered, then turned to the weapons terminal. “Load three salvos, standard missile loads, ten missiles each. Target that vessel and fire when ready. All main weapons target the largest of the Erasi vessels exiting the storm and fire when ready,” Garaam ordered.

Garaam watched the three ships as they were rising from the storm. Their shields were fluctuating, probably because of the storm, and they hadn’t fired missiles yet. The only reason that Garaam could think of as to why they didn’t was because they couldn’t; the storm must have been wreaking havoc on their systems. Three salvos of ten missiles each left the Bloodbringer on their way to the Erasi ship in orbit of the planet.

“Load another three standard loads, fifteen missiles each, target all three ships.”

Several second later, the Va Sun at the weapons spoke up. “Erasi vessels targeted, Dai Sha.”

“Fire,” Garaam said, and another three salvos launched, this time towards the three Erasi ships on the planet, which were much closer. The Erasi ships started shooting them down, but they still hadn’t left the storm’s effective range. Several missiles exploded against their shields, but a few passed through the fluctuation in their shields to explode against the hull, only about half of those missiles failed to detonate upon impact.

“Why didn’t they explode?” Garaam asked.

“It’s the storm, it is damaging the missiles’ sensors.”

Garaam grunted in displeasure as she watched her particle weapons strike against the three ships and their shields. The three ships were pouring as much fire as they could into Bloodbringer’s shields, but they were holding. The missiles that she had fired at the first Erasi warship were all taken down by their missile defense, and the warship fired a salvo of missiles in return.

“Channel from the shuttle, Dai Sha!”

Garaam immediately accepted on her c-board. “Garaam, what is the status in orbit?” she heard the voice of the Lord Sentinel ask.