Chapter 96. After the Warlord Fell

The distant smell of superheated chemicals and acrid smoke scraped raw at my throat. I had ditched my respirator along with the rest of my armor. The charred skeletons of ancient trees, blasted apart in the recent bombardment, had turned the already hellish tropical heat into a blazing furnace. My ears were still ringing from the fuel tank explosion, and a vicious migraine stabbed through my left temple from the mental overload. Thick cerebral fluid from the dead Lo'zan had already oozed across the scorched ground to my boots, coating the soles in a sticky, revolting sludge.

But every external distraction, the pain, the heat, the stench, had been buried beneath a solid slab of cold analysis. My planet is dying. Sooner or later, the day will come when we start tearing open spatial rifts into other worlds ourselves, becoming the invaders. If we can crush an enemy's defenses this easily now, what will happen when the roles are reversed? When we are the ones being ripped apart?

I gave my head a sharp shake and instantly regretted it as a wave of nauseating pain flared behind my ear. It was entirely possible the alien commander had been bluffing, trying to taint our victory with one final lie before he died.

Either way, the only source who might have known the truth was lying dead on this smoking battlefield. That meant I would have to start digging into my own chain of command, the people with stars on their collars and access to the highest clearance levels. I wanted to see the expressions on their faces when I started asking the right questions.

I looked back toward the rocky ledge I had been ordered to defend. The energy barrier over the cave glowed with a steady, unwavering light. The shelling had stopped completely. Even the heavily armored fortress turrets Leon's team had captured were no longer spitting tracer fire. It looked like the garrison's organized resistance had finally collapsed.

I gave the chief of staff's body one last look. Pure pragmatism. I condensed a small bullet of S-Power on the tip of my index finger and fired it point-blank into the creature's skull. There was no reason to leave even the slightest chance it was playing dead. The warlord's head burst apart into pulp. That settled it.

After getting my bearings, I covered the couple hundred yards back to the base of our position in a series of quick, uneven bursts.

The landscape around the tower looked like something pulled from a brutal wartime documentary. Mangled wreckage of heavy equipment was scattered everywhere: torn-off assault craft wings, twisted tank barrels, burned-out armored personnel carrier wheel assemblies. Fuel leaking from ruptured tanks was still burning across the debris. Farther away rested perfectly compressed spheres of scrap metal, silent evidence of the fallen master of magnetism's handiwork.

Enemy bodies were everywhere. Some had been roasted alive inside Sandra's polymer traps and Ted's plasma mines. Others had neat sniper holes punched clean through their torsos. The unlucky ones had suffered even worse, burned alive by their own side's acid and laser fire when panicked pilots lost control.

For the first time, I genuinely regretted tossing my helmet with its filtration system before the duel. The overwhelming stench of burned flesh and acidic fumes was enough to turn my stomach inside out.

I headed toward the cave at a brisk pace, sending precise bursts of S-Power into every faint twitch among the piles of bodies as I moved. Whether it was a survivor playing dead or nothing more than postmortem muscle spasms made no difference to me. On a battlefield, caution keeps people alive.

The defensive position itself looked strangely exposed. The rocky overhang above it was gone. The Lo'zan had blasted away the entire granite shelf with artillery, and Mary had swept the remaining rubble off the platform with a telekinetic shockwave. The main S-Power generator conduits were literally suspended in midair with no walls or ceiling around them, supported only by structural tension cables. It looked structurally questionable, but it was still operating without a hitch.

As I drew closer, I saw the soldiers inside notice me through the shimmering barrier. They immediately snapped to attention and raised their weapons in my direction. Then their expressions changed. They glanced at one another, then at the control console, before staring at me in stunned disbelief.

I stopped a yard from the energy barrier, ready to order them to let me in, but Sandra beat me to it and opened the barrier first. I stepped through, and the protective wall crackled softly as it sealed itself behind me.

The entire platoon was staring at me. Every face wore the same look of utter confusion.

"Tom... how the hell did you end up outside?" Ted finally asked, scratching the back of his head. "Weren't you supposed to be at the control station?"

I swept my gaze across the unit. The same question was written on every face. Apparently, in the chaos of the battle, no one had even noticed me leaving. It was hard to blame them. When granite was crashing down every few seconds and fuel canisters were exploding all around them, keeping track of the commander's movements was the last thing on anyone's mind.

"A high-class awakened Lo'zan capable of critically compromising our defensive system and eliminating everyone here was detected beyond the tower's outer perimeter," I replied in a calm, emotionless voice, watching their expressions shift. "To preserve the unit's combat effectiveness and prioritize your survival, I temporarily transferred command and left the defensive perimeter to eliminate the enemy chief of staff."

"The chief of staff?!" Ted's jaw dropped. His eyes went wide. "And he was awakened too? What kind of ability did he have? And... uh... where's your armor?"

"Later. The operation isn't over yet," I said, cutting him off as I walked toward the control station. "Sandra, thanks for holding the perimeter. I'm taking command of the base again. Take off your helmet and hand it to me."

"My helmet?" she asked, blinking in surprise with one hand still raised. "Why?"

"I ditched mine during close combat," I said, gesturing toward my bare head and scorched combat suit. "We don't carry spare communication helmets. I need the comm unit built into yours."

Sandra gave me a suspicious look but did not argue. She quickly undid the chin strap. While she removed the helmet, I glanced at the S-Power indicators. The generator's reserves were nearly exhausted. The capacity gauge showed roughly three minutes of operation with no combat load.

I took the helmet and slipped it on. The inside carried the distinct scent of apple shampoo. After adjusting the earpieces, I switched the frequency selector to Leon's team's secure channel.

"Radio check. You guys copy? Over."

"Ross? That you?" Leon's raspy, smoke-roughened voice crackled through the helmet speaker. "Why the hell are you calling me on Sandra's comm?"

"Mine was destroyed during close combat."

"Damn. Sounds like you guys got thrown into one hell of a meat grinder." The familiar metallic click of a Zippo came over the channel, followed by a long drag. "Any casualties?"

"Negative." I swept a quick glance over the platoon. They were hanging on every word. "Everyone is alive and combat capable. The base, on the other hand, has taken significant structural damage."

"To hell with the hardware," Leon snorted, blowing out smoke. "Listen up. The citadel's secure. We've got the whole perimeter locked down. Bring your squad to the main gate docks. Just don't get sloppy. There could still be a couple of green bastards hiding in the brush."

"Understood, sir. Over and out."

I flipped the switch on the control panel and turned back to the platoon.

"So... we won, right, Commander?" Ted leaned forward, searching my face hopefully. "Can we drop the shield and head out?"

"Not yet. We sweep the area first. I do not intend to leave anything behind that can hit us from the rear once we start moving." I switched to the platoon's shared frequency. "Miguel, what's left of our S-Power reserve?"

"About a quarter," Miguel answered, making a vague motion with his open hand. "Maybe a little less."

"Flood the exclusion zone with a dense cloud. Every target gets pierced."

Heavy, oily brown smoke billowed up through the melted layer of soil. A second later, the cloud solidified into thousands of razor-sharp granite spikes that tore through the piles of alien bodies. One of the "corpses" beneath a distant embankment suddenly sprang into the air like a rubber ball. I dropped a section of the barrier for a split second and cut it down midair with a precise burst of S-Power. Nothing else on the battlefield moved.

"Now we move." I stepped beyond the perimeter. "Destination: the Lo'zan citadel's main gate. Standard formation. Five-yard intervals. Stay sharp. Expect tripwires and possible ambushes."

The squad headed deeper into the burned forest. Naturally, the guys were dying of curiosity about where their temporary commander had disappeared to and why he had returned without his armor. I saw no reason to hide it, so I gave them a concise, matter-of-fact account of my duel with the alien warlord. Naturally, I omitted every word of the creature's dying confession about the fate of its world. Panic helped no one. As always, the less an infantryman wasted time on philosophy, the steadier his finger stayed on the trigger. Besides, the sergeants did not have the clearance for information like that.

"He seriously had an actual lightsaber? No freaking way! That's awesome!" Ted practically bounced alongside me, barely missing the bushes. "Tom, c'mon, you don't really need it, do you? Give it to me! I've wanted to hold a Jedi lightsaber my whole life!"

"Nerd," Mary said coolly from a few paces behind us.

Ted was so focused on me that he never even registered the insult.

"Trophies of that classification cannot be retained as personal rewards," I replied without looking at him. "Any enemy equipment recovered from a spatial breach must be turned over to the Corps' secured evidence depot."

"Oh, come on, Tom. Before you turn it in?" Ted lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper and looked up at me. "Just let me hold it. Five minutes. That's all."

"I would if I could, but the sword's gone," I said honestly. "The explosion sent it flying somewhere. I have no idea where it ended up."

"Man..." Ted sighed, his shoulders slumping. "We lost the coolest thing on this whole alien rock..."

Ten minutes later, after a cautious advance, we reached the towering main gates of the Lo'zan citadel. These massive doors were where the enemy had rolled its heavy tracked armor onto the battlefield. Someone was already waiting for us among the shattered remains of the checkpoint.

"Well, look who made it!" Leon stood atop a broken concrete barricade, grinning around the cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. "Congratulations on wrapping up the hot phase. And congratulations to me for not having to write reports explaining how you all managed to get yourselves killed."

The squad answered with relieved smiles and nervous chuckles as the tension finally began to fade. But the moment Leon's eyes landed on me, his grin disappeared.

"Ross, why the hell are you walking around in your long johns?" he asked, giving me a dark look. "You think you're on vacation at a beach resort?"

"This is the standard compression suit authorized under Pentagon regulations," I replied evenly, holding his gaze.

"If I see a soldier without S-Armor, he's either dead or a first-class idiot," Leon growled through another stream of smoke. "And you don't look dead."

"Discarding the armor was a calculated tactical decision necessary to eliminate a critical threat and preserve the tower."

"Start there. I want every detail." Leon shot a quick glance at the sergeants shamelessly trying to listen in. "The rest of you, take five. Look around, keep your weapons up, and don't touch a damn thing. That's what the research geeks get paid for."

The platoon quickly spread out across the plaza. Ted and Mary led the way, craning their necks to admire the towering alien arches. It was their first time inside a real citadel from another world. Much as I wanted to explore it myself, being the senior officer meant taking care of the report first.

Once Leon and I were alone among the checkpoint ruins, I walked him through the entire defense from the moment he had left, sticking strictly to the facts and leaving emotion out of it. Once again, I omitted the warlord's final speech. Leon listened with an amused smirk at first, but the deeper we got into the report, the more his brows drew together.

"So the bastard really had a laser sword?" Leon flicked ash onto the stone. "You know who carries those things among the green freaks?"

"According to Professor Langstrom's lectures, fighting with a laser blade is an ancient caste tradition among the Lo'zan. Only members of a single aristocratic bloodline are permitted to wield one."

"You do realize bringing a sword to a modern battlefield is about the dumbest thing anyone could do, right?" he said, taking another long drag. "Looks like the Lo'zan's morale is completely shot. Instead of putting a real general in charge, they stuck some blue-blooded rich kid in command just to keep the troops motivated."

I nodded silently, forcing another wave of grim thoughts back down. Their world is dying. Ours, it seemed, was heading down the same road. Maybe in a few years our own command would be sending movie stars or Shaolin monks to the front lines just to keep the soldiers from losing hope.