CHAPTER THIRTY THREE
EARTH FORCES EN ROUTE TO MAELUN: 3 hours before reaching the city.
I slowly opened my eyes, once again rocking an incredible headache. The lights seemed too bright and the muffled sounds were overwhelming. It was like having the worst hangover I’d ever had.
I heard ARi’s voice before my vision cleared. “Is he okay? Is he all right?”
“He’s fine,” Tanya said.
I opened my eyes in time to see ARi try to smack me. “You asshole,” she said, but her projection went right through my forehead. It tingled and felt cold. An odd sensation.
“Damn it! I can’t even smack him,” ARi muttered.
“Well, let me help you,” Tanya said, and smacked me right in the head.
“Ow! Please don’t smack me anymore. My head hurts so bad,” I croaked.
Tanya hovered her hand over my forehead and it began to glow. I could feel relief wash across my aching head.
“Holy shit, Tanya, you can cure a headache?”
“Yeah, at this point, Gav, I can pretty much heal almost anything. Honestly, I’m pretty sure I could even reattach a limb or help somebody regrow one if it was lost. But let’s not test that, okay, cowboy?”
“Seriously, this time I was not trying to do cowboy shit. I had no idea it was going to affect me that badly. I knew it might pull on my stamina a little bit, which is why I said something, but I didn’t know it would dig into my health until after I’d done it, and a damn system window told me what had happened.”
ARi sat on the wooden bench in the compartment as we rocked from side to side. She sat there looking at me, pissed off.
“I don’t understand. Why are you so mad at me right now?”
“Doesn’t he know?” ARi asked Tanya.
Taking pity on me, Kyle jumped in. “Gav, they’re pissed because your health didn’t stop draining. Buddy, your hit points dropped all the way down to like twenty-something.”
I processed that for a moment before looking back up at ARi. “Honey, I am so sorry. I did not know that was going to happen.”
“Don’t you ‘honey’ me,” she said, still angry. I could see she’d been crying. “I thought you were going to die, Gavin. We all did.”
I slowly sat up. Tanya quickly moved down to help me.
“Again, you guys, everybody, I am sorry. I did not know that was going to happen. However, I don’t think this pulling of stamina or health is unique to my class. This probably needs to be taken as a warning for everybody. Pretty sure this could happen to you guys too.”
“And if you would have asked me, Gavin, before you did it,” ARi snapped, “I would have explained that to you before you tried to kill yourself.”
“Oh, this is so not my day,” I said, and I moved over onto the bench next to ARi. I knew she was upset, and it was killing me that I couldn’t fix it.
“How much longer until we get to the city?” I asked.
“Three hours,” ARi said, still short with me.
She sat quietly for a few minutes, leaned toward me and whispered, “You called me ‘honey.”
“My parents always use pet names with each other. Sorry, I know some girls don’t like it.”
“Well, I liked it. But not when I’m pissed off at you, ok.”
“You guys, I was planning on trying to summon three more of the Praetorians while we were on the road because I thought I’d have enough time to recover. I don’t think I’m going to do that now. At least not any more level sevens. I’ll wait till we get there and get everything secured. When we’re ready, I will summon two level threes and wait for my energy reserves to replenish before I bring more. It shouldn’t take me more than a few hours after we arrive to have two full squads of Praetorians looking after me, along with ARi and Bishop.”
“If you’re going to have Praetorians watching you, Gavin, I’ll stay within range and only dart in and out of the fight as needed so I can keep track of what’s happening. That way we don’t have to waste runners,” ARi said.
“That sounds good to me.”
A few hours later, all hell broke loose. As our constructs approached the city, the side of the lead construct was raked with enemy fire. The city below us was in flames.
ARi pulled all three of the large constructs into a line and had them squat closer to the ground. For the first time I heard our own dart launchers start wailing, a rapid-fire hum as our gunners returned fire. ARi wasted no time and cast Territorial Simulacrum.
Kyle and Tim jumped from the back of our construct. Kyle ran from the rear of the column to the front, pulled the Earth from the ground, and carved a deep trench in a line. Tim ran to Charlie and ordered him to pull all of his cohorts out of the troop carriers and into the trench Kyle had made. Another volley of bolts streaked across the side of Charlie’s carrier as both guns opened up, returning fire.
Through it all ARi’s projected avatar stepped into the clearing and raised her hands, digging the stone and earth free before replacing the voids with predesigned structures that resembled the keep. The first was a large bunker mostly underground, the top floor offering a one-foot slit running across the front, sides, and back for observers. Another structure became a staging area for a field hospital. The other was a supply depot, heavily armored with one small door for entry.
Kyle extended his trench to the side bunker entrance, allowing cohorts to move into the defensive structure safely. The rest of us followed the cohorts, and I watched as ARi phased the legs off all three constructs, bringing them down flush to the ground. With a wave of her hand she removed the crew compartments, leaving the gunners on either end of the smaller constructs as they continued firing. Stone battlements formed around each construct, turning them into fixed gun positions.
The massive forward turret on Big Gus slowly rotated and a stubby bronze barrel pushed out from the front. In the distance, three massive balls of fire rose into the air and arced toward us. Our four rapid-fire guns were joined by two smaller batteries still on mobile constructs as the sky filled with explosive-tipped darts. Two of the flaming shells detonated in midair; the third came crashing down toward our staging.
Yumi pointed her spear from the trench at the incoming artillery shell, as three small drones ripped through the air to intercept it. The drones encased the ball in a blue force field, stopping it in midair as if physics no longer applied. Yumi pointed her spear back toward the shell’s origin, and the drones rapidly carried it back toward its source and released it. The explosion that followed was massive.
We didn’t have time to celebrate before Big Gus’s cannon started barking fire. The cannon fired three massive darts in rapid succession. The turret slowly turned, aimed at the next target, and fired three more massive darts. The sound was deafening and the ground shook.
I looked back to Yumi, who was now standing next to ARi’s projection. Near the bunker entrance they watched with grins ear to ear as two more massive explosions lit the horizon.
“Gavin, get your ass in here!” Tanya yelled, snapping me back into the moment.
I ran into the bunker and found a narrow staircase as soon as I entered the door. I followed it down three stories into a massive assembly hall.
Waiting in the hall were formations of kobolds. ARi’s projection came into view at the front of the room. In the confusion and chaos the kobolds had left a lot of their equipment on the troop carriers. ARi waved her hand, and fresh equipment, rations, weapons, and shields phased to the ground in front of each of them. In addition to their standard equipment she phased banners for each squad that could be worn on the back of a squad leader. We had talked about this on the way; it would help us see where they were when they marched in open fields. The kobolds carrying them were to ditch the banners once we moved into the city.
Charlie ordered the squad leaders to join us. While the rest of the cohorts got themselves ready for battle, the rest of us stood at the front of the room as ARi projected a map onto the wall showing what information we had about the surrounding area. The ground shook again above us, and we could hear Big Gus fire his gun toward a distant target.
“What the hell is firing that massive cannon out there?” I asked ARi and Yumi.
“I may have phased in two bronze CO2 tanks the size of grain silos underneath that turret,” ARi said. “I’m pretty sure I am literally changing the weather and air pressure every time I pull from the atmosphere to refill them.”
ARi looked to Charlie. ” I need you to get the gunners out of the guns. Do it one side at a time. I’m going to change the guns over to automated platforms. Put your Velites back into formation. Yumi, I’m placing control of our mobile batteries with you. Remember they don’t have endless ammunition, so use them wisely.”
Big Gus fired again in another three-round burst, followed by distant explosions. “That was the last one, Gavin. All of the Reaper siege constructs within range have been destroyed,” ARi said. “They have another line of siege equipment further back. It doesn’t look like they can hit us from where they are, but they’ll still have no problem raining hell on the city.”
“ARi can we expand this bunker? Make enough room to evacuate the city?” I asked.
“We can, Gav, but I’m probably not going to be able to finish before I lose my area of influence here, and we’d be waiting another six hours.”
“All right, here’s what I want you to do. Go ahead and start excavating. Focus on creating the rooms themselves. Make sure they’re secure and stable so we don’t have to worry about any cave ins or a collapse, especially with all the explosions overhead. As soon as you’ve done what you can, move Bishop closer and get a message to Jack. Don’t worry about telling them we’re here — I’m pretty sure we announced that to everybody as soon as that big-ass gun started lobbin’ rounds.
“Tim, can you take the cohorts? I want you to march them straight toward those city walls from our position. We’ll give you as much cover as we can from up here. Once you reach the wall, have Kyle make us a nice new opening, and we’ll have Jack meet us with city representatives on the other side.”
“Yeah, I think we can handle that, Gav.”
“All right, if you guys can do that, I’ll be a good boy and keep my hands and legs in the vehicle at all times, okay?”
I turned as Charlie and the squad leaders began rousing the kobolds in their native language. The Shieldbearers replied by slamming the butts of their spears onto the ground in unison. The formations split and began to march, half to one side of the room and half to the other. I watched as they filed out of the bunker.
I looked back to Tanya, Yumi, Tim, and Kyle. “You guys, I can’t believe this is happening right now. All of you need to keep your heads down. Tanya, you should move with them for now, but later we’ll probably have you hang back to help with the wounded.”
“We got this, Gav,” Tim said, putting his hand on my shoulder.
Ten minutes later they were gone.
“That’s it, Gav. I’m tapped out. I’m going to have to let my reserves regenerate before I can do any more. But we have enough room for at least two hundred kobolds right now. It won’t be comfortable, but as soon as my reserves have recharged I’ll keep working on it.”
I turned to the empty room, raised my hand, and summoned two more Praetorians. ARi created weapons and armor for them and laid the gear at their feet before going over and talking with all five of my personal guards. They tapped their chests. Two moved to guard each entranceway while the other two stayed at either side of me.
“Gavin, I won’t be gone long,” ARi said. “Please stay safe and stay inside the bunker. The guns are automated, so you shouldn’t have to do much. But just in case, keep your spear with you.”
“I will,” I promised. As her projection faded.
I made my way up to the observation floor of the bunker and watched as our kobolds formed into neat, tight rows and began working their way down the hill.
I watched as the smaller spider constructs began flooding over the wall from inside and toward our troops, and our gun batteries opened up, scrapping the Reaper machines before they even got in range of our javelins. The cohorts were thorough, checking every nook and cranny down the hill to make sure none of the machines had buried themselves or were hiding in the debris or impact craters that scarred the hillside.
I watched Bishop come out of the grass near the wall, quickly scale up and over, disappearing into the city.