Aura Overload

19 – Hell to Pay

Purple and green lightning danced through the stormy sky, arcing in hundred-pronged forks, illuminating the many layers of cloud cover. Some of those clouds looked almost white in the sudden light, but the deeper layers hardly went from black to deep gray. Hector looked over his shoulder, watching as the heavy rain sheeted down on the other survivors climbing the ridge behind him.

Paige and Bobby had been given resource maps of the rift area, bought at a dear price by Mathews from the IG. Using those maps, Hector had chosen a rocky ridge of small but steep mountains for a place to hole up. It wasn’t the high ground that he was after, but the cave system Bobby’s geological survey showed there. If they could find a decent cave to set up a secure base in, Hector felt confident he could range out, scouting the area and, hopefully, finding the rift in time to make their exit in a few days.

The mules whirred and clunked, trundling along in the middle of the column. Ling, the tech with the severed left leg, was strapped across the lead one. It had a smoother gait, being that all its limbs still worked; the other one had two joints so badly bent that they’d become unusable. It listed to the side, whirring and clicking as its four other legs worked double-time to compensate.

Bobby and Paige, both injured, walked with the lead mule, leaning on it for support. Not far in front of them were the other two surviving techs—Willa and Simo. Both were up and moving thanks to nanites and powerful stimulants. As for Perry, Kristy, and Frederick, the three of them were in the rear, occasionally firing shots at the big, prowling flayer cats that stalked them through the dark.

Even as he looked back there, marking their progress, Freddy waved his hand and jogged forward, skirting the mules and the rest of the loose column. Hector waited for him, watching as he leaped over a sharp boulder. Kid’s got plenty of energy, at least.

//Biologically, you aren’t much older.//

Hector snorted. Yeah, well, I’m not doing too badly, either.

“Hector!” Frederic said, coming to a stop beside him. He was a little breathless.

“Yeah?”

“We’re only half a klick from the cave. Figured I should take point with you.”

“Worried about sleeping grizzly bears?”

“Grizzly—huh?”

Hector sighed, shaking his head. “Nothing. Dangerous mammals that live in caves back on Earth. Well, they used to…” He trailed off, shrugging. He didn’t know where he’d learned about grizzly bears, but it wasn’t a lesson he felt like getting into. “Come on, then. Let’s see what’s waiting for us.”

As they hiked, he queried Evie: Status update on my archetype change? He’d bitten the bullet and gotten things rolling; he had to change the archetype before he could purchase more levels, and he had a feeling he’d need the levels if they were going to make it off the rift world. Considering the column of survivors behind him, he revised the thought: If some of us are going to make it.

Evie kicked out a report from his aura system:

//Reaver archetype adoption in progress. Pathways are being mapped and new connections are propagating. Estimated time to completion: four hours. Extra nourishment is encouraged during this transition. Dizziness and fatigue are likely to occur; take precautions.//

And my available potentia?

//Available Potentia: 108.//

Hector smiled, brushing his gloved fingers over the harvesting scraper that hung from his belt. He and the others hadn’t touched the bank of potentia on it yet, though he imagined there would be some debate when it came time to share out the units. It wasn’t critical yet, though; even after spending forty on his archetype change, he was sitting on enough potentia to purchase a couple of levels. There’d be time to hash things out with the survivors regarding the more than 1800 on the collector.

“I see it,” Freddy said through comms.

Hector tilted his gaze up the ridge, allowing the helmet’s AI to do its thing, clarifying his view through the wet and dark. Sure enough, a jagged black opening stood out among the rain-slick boulders. He nodded, pleased by the size of the cave mouth. If they could secure the inside, then the turrets they’d recovered from the bomb-blasted campsite would have an easy time fending off rift denizens.

As they made their approach, Hector gripped his rifle stock, his reflexes primed. He wouldn’t be surprised if something terrible came barreling out of the darkness. “Take the right.”

Freddy altered his course without a reply, angling toward the far side of the cave mouth. They didn’t have to wait long to find out if something lived in the cave; it made its presence known as soon as the young Royal crossed the stony ridge in front of the opening. Seven long, ropy tentacles stretched forth, each at least five meters in length, wide as firehoses, and tipped with moist, semi-transparent claws that looked needle sharp.

The tentacles snaked toward Freddy, but the man shimmered with pale purple light, and then there were two of him, one standing a few meters further down the slope. The tentacles wrapped around the nearer version of him, and as he screamed and struggled, the other copy opened fire.

Hector, too, had rushed forward, angling for a better shot into the cave. When his helmet’s cams cleared the stony hillside and got a look inside, he didn’t hesitate to unload on what he saw—a squid-like creature lurked in there, trying to draw Freddy into a tooth-filled maw. It got a mouthful of armor-piercing, explosive rounds instead. Between his efforts and Freddy’s, they pounded fifty or more direct hits into the creature’s pink maw, tearing its flesh apart and blasting deep, bloody trenches into its insides.

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Just seconds after it had attacked, the creature—one Hector had never seen before—was dead. Freddy’s doppelgänger faded away in a mist of violet aura steam, and he climbed up the hill to stand beside Hector. “Damn thing’s big. I’ve heard of them before, but my tutor said they were only about a meter long.”

Hector looked at the kid. “What’s it called?”

“Old Ebert said they’re called rock hangers; they like to lurk inside ravines and canyons.”

“That was a nice job on your mirror image—fast.”

Freddy didn’t respond, but Hector could see him swell with pride.

He could hear the whine and whirr of the mules as the rest of the party approached, so he unclipped the scraper and knelt by the big corpse. “Might as well add this to the total before we talk about the split.” The device clicked rapidly, and he felt the aura potentia stream out of the corpse toward it. It felt like a lot.

When he looked at the display, his suspicion was confirmed: 209 aura potentia gathered. He cycled the display until it showed him the total: 2033 aura potentia.

“Damn,” Freddy said, looking over his shoulder.

“Yeah.” Hector grabbed one of the ropy tentacles. “Help me drag this thing down the slope. Might keep the scavengers off our case for a while.” While they worked, pulses of rifle-fire echoed up and down the ridgeline as the others kept the scavengers at bay. Hector hoped that once they were in the cave and their scent wasn’t on the breeze, the flayer cats would back off. They had plenty to eat back at the bomb site, after all.

The “rock hanger” was heavy, but he and Freddy were strong, the kid especially so with his powered armor. They dragged it to the cave mouth and sent it tumbling down. The tentacles cartwheeled as it rolled, bouncing from one jagged shelf of stones to another.

“I hate to see you do that,” Paige said morosely. “I’ve never harvested one of those.”

“We can’t afford the mess right now,” Hector replied. They all knew what he meant; harvesting something that size would fill the air with the scent of carrion. It was better to let the flayer cats eat the thing down at the bottom of the ridge. The resultant carnage would make it harder for the other rift denizens to detect their presence up in the cave. “I’ll scan the interior.”

Without waiting for a response, Hector stepped into the cave. His helmet made short work of the darkness inside, and he pushed beyond the rock hanger’s nest—a mass of old bones and moist dirt—to find an oblong space that bent slightly to his left. Nothing else seemed to live inside, which wasn’t surprising considering the creature that had been guarding the opening. He found scattered bones, piles of dry vegetation, and lots and lots of crumbled rock. Other than that, it was empty.

“Clear,” he said into the comms. “Let’s get moved in.”

“Should we clear this nest away from the opening or track the mules through it?” Freddy asked.

“Leave it,” Paige replied. “It’s coated with that predator’s pheromones.”

Nobody argued, and before long, they’d piloted the mules into the wider section of the cave, and while Perry watched the cave mouth, the rest of them unpacked the five auto-turrets they’d salvaged. They were each good for a thousand rounds of armor-penetrating ordnance, so when they’d lined the cave opening with them, Hector was sure he wasn’t the only one who felt a sense of relief. Even a hook titan would back down from that kind of concentrated fire.

“Keep the lights away from the cave mouth,” he said when someone sparked up a brilliant white camp light.

“Sorry, boss,” Simo said, carrying the lamp deeper into the cave to the area where they’d laid out some bedrolls, one of which was occupied by Ling. Hector wanted to talk to Paige about the guy’s missing leg, but he’d only taken a step before Perry’s heavy hand was on his shoulder.

“How’d that work out?” the big man asked.

“What’s that?” Hector asked, looking up into his crocodile eyes.

“Why are you in charge?”

“Because he knows what the fuck he’s doing!” Kristy replied. “You don’t know—” she choked off the rest of the statement, glancing at Hector, apparently reminding herself that she’d promised not to share his secrets.

Hector shrugged, still staring at Perry. “I’ve been in a lot of rifts. If you want to ignore me, go ahead.”

“I’d be dead if not for him,” Paige said. “I was staring at that drone like an idiot when he said to run.”

“Sisters,” Kristy said, shaking her head. “I can’t believe Mathews is dead.”

“Mathews and Red,” Perry said, his voice grown soft and introspective.

“It’s my fault,” Freddy announced.

Hector looked at the kid, then over his shoulder to where the surviving techs were gathered near Ling. He was glad they weren’t there to listen to them speculate.

“I’m sure someone was trying to kill me,” Freddy continued.

“Huh,” Perry grunted. “Our shit luck to be with you, I guess.”

“If we get out of here…” Freddy started to say, but Hector interrupted him.

“We don’t know anything yet.”

“Come on, Hector,” Kristy said. “Who else would warrant an attack like that? He’s a Royal; I’m sure he’s got enemies.”

“Too many,” Freddy replied, nodding his winged helmet.

“Not like any of us would warrant an assassination like that!” Perry added. “Shit, imagine how the IG is reacting out there! They must be pissed. The rift moved; that’s decades of mapping and research down the tube.”

“Doubt they were targeting Mathews or Red, but those two sure didn’t get far. Makes me wonder if the drone was aimed at one of them,” Bobby said.

Hector had entertained similar thoughts. “When did Mathews hand this to you, Bobby?” He tapped the collector on his belt.

“As soon as you said run. She slapped it into my hand and gave me a shove.”

“I know why she didn’t run,” Perry said, his voice subdued again. When everyone looked at him, he shrugged. “I had her in my sights at the end—when I was trying to hit the drone with the GK-90. She was channeling aura. Man, she was all lit up with it. You know, she could do a kind of beam attack, but it was slow as hell. I think she was just about to fire it off when the bomb blew. Too bad it was an airburst; I think she only needed another second or two.”

“That’s right!” Kristy cried. “I’ve seen her do that out on the practice field. Did she ever use it in combat?”

Paige shook her head. “Not on the raids I’ve been on.”

“Too bad she wasn’t faster,” Hector said, and immediately felt sorry when everyone turned toward him. He quickly added, “At least she tried.”

One of the auto turrets whirred to life, spraying a dozen tracer rounds out into the night. A flayer cat shrieked, but the other turrets remained quiet.

“Too bad we can’t keep a drone up,” Perry said, staring at the dark opening and the circle of squat turrets.

“Need to save it to look for the rift,” Paige replied.

“I gotta sit, folks,” Bobby said, limping past them toward the mules and the other survivors.

Hector looked at Paige. “How are your legs?”

“I’ll be sore for a few days, but I’ll live.” Her rain-spotted visor followed Bobby’s progress into the cave, and she added, “I should follow him—check on Ling. Wish we had some spare prosthetics.”

“He’ll be fine on the mule if we find the rift,” Hector said.

“I feel so guilty!” Kristy suddenly cried. Everyone turned toward her, watching as she worked to loosen her helmet’s clasp, decoupling it from her armor. She yanked it off and dropped it by her feet, then she leaned forward, hands on knees, gasping for air. “We’re standing around talking like they aren’t dead!”

Nobody said anything, but a few of them looked at Hector, and he realized he’d become their leader whether he liked it or not. With a sigh that he didn’t allow to escape his helmet’s speaker grille, he stepped forward and put a hand on Kristy’s back. “It’s never fair when people die in combat; it almost always catches everyone by surprise. Anyway, it’s not your fault—not anyone’s, even Freddy’s.”

Kristy straightened up, her eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot. “I know it’s not his fault!”

Hector nodded. “Well, he’s feeling like it is.” Hector turned to include the young Royal with his next words. “The only people to blame are the ones who sent that bomb into the rift. I don’t know about you all, but I mean to get out of here, and when I do, there’s gonna be some hell to pay.”