The smoke still rose from where the crew had their previous shoot out.
It had started like this: Somebody from the other side had thrown grenades to the escaping cadets, and one of the them had detonated the mines they hastily planted. But as Hades rushed to find a place to hide, somehow, through the haze and blaze, a sniper had killed Suwarni.
And now, after leaving Leeno and the package behind, the three of them walked past the bombed sites. A couple of houses have crumbled into piles of splinters and rubbles. The afternoon had become greyer as they navigated through ruined and musted settlements. And when they finally returned to their dead leader, they did not linger to mourn. They entered another shack a couple of houses away from Suwarni’s lifeless body.
“Can we have eyes on the Heli?” asked Hades.
“This is a vantage point for the intersection,” said Reiner who was going window to window. “But the chopper is blocked by the other houses. Also impossible to know their number from here.”
“That’s fine,” said Bertrand, “as long as they don’t see us.”
“Someone’s here,” Hades hissed. Through the torn blinds of the eastern window, he saw shadows shifted.
Three armed men circled the corpse. They didn’t much look like soldiers. Without any protective gear underneath or over the shabby clothes they wore, this group was nothing more than poorly funded militia, no doubt selected and grown to be soldiers from other nearby villagers and becoming rebels to neighbouring nations.
Except for the figure behind them.
A woman with an armour suit more advanced than the cadets had shoved one soldier aside. The steps she took were measured, Hades noted, as though she was anticipating the body to be in certain manner of death.
It was easy for Hades to envy the gear she wore. Over the slick camouflage armour, and hanging on one shoulder was a slim sniper rifle, greenish-grey in colour and capable in delivering death shots. She wore no helmet, and as she stopped a few steps away from Suwarni, the sniper put on her bulky goggle. Based on the lights on the goggle lens and her curious behaviour, Hades knew that she was examining the corpse.
The sniper seemed to be mumbling by herself. Hades then moved his attention to her touching her earlobe.
“She has a kompanion,” said Hades, because he recognised a behaviour of an interdimensional combatants, aside from the fact that she carried a weapon from another Earth. Those operatives, like Beasts of Prey or Glimpses, always travelled with their partners, the kompanions. One day, after he graduated, Hades would also be communicating with his kompanion through the nano earpiece implanted on the ear. Just like the sniper was.
“Yeah,” Reiner sighed, “and we are fucking outnumbered. Doesn’t she look like a Freelancer to you?”
“Could be,” said Bertrand. “She wears expensive clothes. Nice armament, too.”
“She must be the one who killed Suwarni,” said Hades. “But that doesn’t mean she’s a Freelancer, she could be a Beast.”
“And how sure are you she works for the same bosses we’ll one day do?” asked Reiner.
“She carries a Velesi Whiplash D5 rifle, very new and the most advanced gun of Earth-Veles yet,” said Hades. To Reiner, he added, “man, you’re from Veles, you should know no one can find that here on Terra and only approved operatives under the Brethren can use it. Highly powerful and with the right bullet, well, skull-cracking even through helmets.”
“Sometimes you talk nonsense,” said Reiner, “other times you just seem pedantic, and slightly condescending.”
“Doesn’t matter if she’s with the Brethren or not,” said Bertrand. “She killed Suwarni, she’ll kill all of us.”
“Not to mention the failed grades if that happens, right?” said Hades sarcastically.
“Alright, alright,” Bertrand sighed. “So, what now?”
Hades sucked on his teeth. Counting the seconds the sniper still spent examining Suwarni, he slowly moved his fingers to his tablet. He took a very deep breath, closing his eyes shut and lips pursed, as he prepared to make a move.
“Fuck it.” He tapped the screen twice.
#
“Shit!” Bertrand spat.
Three things happened just before the grenades exploded.
The first, the sniper’s sudden leap away from the corpse. Followed by Bertrand’s cussing when she realized the sniper’s kompanion had informed her of the explosives. And finally, Hades’s opening the door.
Then all hell broke loose. The street blew up. The three thugs, caught unguarded, received the blast head on. As the corpse rained down in pieces, so did parts of the men. Smoke and heat spread as blood and entrails blotted the pebbles.
“Let’s go!” Hades emerged from the house; one hand ready to squeeze the blaster’s trigger while the other ready to strike with the knife.
Bertrand came out next, covering Hades’s back, and then Reiner stepped out with blaster rifle also aimed at the intersection.
The helmets the cadets wore, advanced enough with augmented technology behind it, scanned the surrounding. Through face shield and thin veil of smoke, the sensors told Hades a total of four more figures were rushing to their location. Displayed on the helmet’s screen as red flickering figures, two were coming to check on the sniper while the other two were already right in front of the Interversity’s strike team. The rest of their enemies, if there was any left, was nowhere to be seen.
“Reiner, Bertrand,” Hades talked to them via the squad’s opened channel. “Go left. I’ll take ones straight ahead.
Hades could see the two figures, about thirty meters in front of him. But having a blaster with an improved accuracy didn’t mean the accuracy of the wielder would also improve. For once they were in the centre of the crossroads, Hades pulled the trigger and still missed his targets. And thus, he let them know of his position.
“Fuck,” Hades breathed. As soon as he exhaled, the first two bullets hit him on the abdomen and right shoulder. Then came a rain of hot steels as his opponents continued firing their assault rifles. Having yet another more advanced set-up, Hades’s armour absorbed majority of the shots’ impact. But it didn’t mean it can hold rounds of rotating bullets.
The cadet dodged the next firing with a jump to the right. His back pressed against one wall, his breath in and out in a speedy breathing and his mind ignored the annoying bruises caused by the bullets.
His mates had almost finished taking the other two soldiers, and Bertrand was engaging the sniper in a knife fight with Reiner giving one man a mean punch to his thorax.
Hades crouched. Then, partly to distract the soldiers he was fighting, he rolled out on to the wall on his mates’ side.
Another set of firing followed his heels. And immediately, Hades leaped out to the alley, this time his blaster ready to hit a target.
Hades fired at the distracted men, shooting one on the knee. The other blast still missed, but by the time Busted-knee was screaming in pain, Hades had stabbed the other soldier on the thigh. Once he pulled the knife out of the tendon, Hades proceeded to slash his opponent’s forearm.
Hades turned, landing a kick on the Busted-knee’s temple, silencing him as he drifted into unconciousness.
Then, he redirected his body’s momentum to the last soldier in the form of a swinging punch. The man, too, crumbled onto the ground.
Without much time to spare, Hades quickly came to his squad’s aid. By that time, the sniper had torn Bertrand’s armour on her diaphragm area. Fortunately she was still alive and received a nice present; a kick to her chest.
That left Reiner on his own. And when one cadet was up against an experienced fighter, it could’ve ended rather quickly.
Unless Hades intervened.
He rushed toward the sniper, joining the fight. Hades struck the knife at her shoulder and gut but both manoeuvres, she easily dodged them. The third time Hades thrusted the blades, she parried with her own.
They stopped instantly, for only for a fraction of a second. She landed a jab on his neck and Hades felt the sudden, sharp suffocation.
With his throat feeling numb and stiffened, he coughed out his breaths. He stumbled a few steps, almost landed on his arses, as now Bertrand rejoined the fight.
Hades did not intervene for long, so it seemed.
Still collecting his breath, Hades saw it was Reiner’s turn to hit the ground, and the sniper within the very last inch of stabbing Bertrand’s throat. Hades and his squad were about to lose another member.
Then, out of the corner of his eye and with a notification blare from the face shield, a blast flew past him and hit the sniper in the chest.
Another bolted, this time smacked at her left shoulder.
The third one hit Bertrand on the back.
“Fuck,” Bertrand spat.
Hades watched as the sniper, struggling to stand after the hits, kicked Bertrand and managed to dash away. Hades was about to go after the limping sniper when she tossed a ball in their direction.
And, realizing what was just thrown and as he felt time somehow slowed, Hades screamed. The ball blinked mid-air; his legs gathered more speed to reach his squad mates. And without any warning, the ball exploded.
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