Both of the .50 caliber machine guns opened fire at the same time, drowning out the boats’ engines. The bullets scythed through the band of Orakh milling aimlessly about the landing zone. Abe didn’t even have to aim; the Orakh were so densely packed that most of the bullets passed through one monster and hit another.
The disorganized mob of monsters tried to charge off of the embankment of dirt and mud surrounding the ship toward Dan’s team, but it only served to pack them closer, making them easier targets for the gunners.
After a brief period of hammering fire, the entryway to the landing craft was littered with bodies. Dan could almost feel his ears tingle as the System’s nanites repaired them while the ship jolted to a halt, running aground on the dirt outside the Orakh vessel. Abe jumped off the ship, causing it to rock back and forth as he stabbed his shortsword into the nearby Orakh corpses. Another soldier jumped off after him, using their armor-enhanced strength to pull the boat a foot or two up onto the embankment.
The rest of the team began filing out of the boat, their metallic bulk slowing Dan while Jennifer and William shouted from the other boat, trying to speed them up. Periodically, a gunshot would ring out as a soldier used a wrist-mounted rifle to bring down an Orakh that came too close. Dan frowned. Even if they’d cleared out this mass of Orakh, that didn’t mean things were secure. Already he could vaguely make out the forms swimming toward their ships.
Unfortunately, they couldn’t split their forces enough to defend the beached ships and raid the enemy vessel. Unless Dan left half of his forces behind, there was just too great of a chance that they’d be overwhelmed by the Orakh forces slowly congregating on the site of the firefight. They were going to have to move fast, smash what they could, and perform a fighting withdrawal.
Dan sighed as his feet hit the springy mud of the shore. By now, Abe and Jennifer had finished going through the Orakh bodies to ensure that none of them would move again. Abe wiped his blade off on a towel he kept tied to his waste. The rest of the soldiers milled about nervously, occasionally taking potshots at anything they saw lurking in the water. He jogged past them to stand next to the heavy and crudely crafted iron door into the voidship and turned back to his team.
“Listen up!” He shouted, shunting mana into his sword to make it glow purple and draw the recruits’ attention. Once most of them turned their faceplates to Dan, he began speaking. “Right now, we’re far behind enemy lines. I wouldn’t be surprised if their troops at the front have already turned around to deal with us. The good news is they will be stuck swimming. We have enough of a head start to get into the landing craft and do some damage. That said, we don’t have a whole lot of time. Everyone set your System clock to ten minutes. We are leaving at twelve minutes, regardless of who is in the boats. That includes me.
“Now,” Dan continued, flicking his wrist so that the sword hummed meaningfully. “We’re going to split up once we’re in there, so we can cause the most damage possible. I don’t want any teams smaller than three, and you all have short-range radios. Use them. If you run into something you’re struggling with, give us a call. Someone will help you out. Do any of you have questions?”
One of the suits raised an armored gauntlet in the growing twilight.
“You’re going to have to tell me your name.” Dan cracked a brief smile. “I can’t really tell who is who through the oversized power suits.”
“Ahm Remy Bushears, Sahr,” the man replied, his thick Cajun accent rasping through the suit’s speakers. “What are we tryina break? I know wirin’ prettah well, but other than that, I ain’t got the slightest.”
“Good question, Mr. Bushears,” Dan replied, mentally making a note to see if the System could clear up the thick local dialect for him. “The answer is anything that looks important. Machinery, crystals, or foodstuffs are a good guess. I will say that, if you see a large crystal, about six feet tall and thrumming with mana, let us all know before you do anything. That’s probably a mana forge. If you blow that up, there’s a good chance we’ll all be part of the same mushroom cloud together.”
He looked around the clearing. Most of the suits were nodding seriously. Well, Dan liked to think that they were nodding seriously. It was hard to tell through the impassive metal. Seeing no further questions, Dan took a deep breath to steady his nerves.
“Let’s do this, then.” He slammed his sword into the door, sawing it through the hinges holding it to the vessel’s wall. “Remember, you have ten minutes to get back to the boats, and we leave in twelve. I don’t want to leave anyone behind, but we need to keep moving, or we’ll end up as food.”
He pumped mana into the strength runes as he kicked the door, knocking it inward into the interior of the ship. Inside, the ship was dark. Not quite as dark as the swamp outside, but there were only periodic lights, simple green crystals that glowed weakly. The rest of the ship was a combination of dark stone and wrought black iron, giving it a half-finished and oppressive aura.
Dan surged forward, starting his own timer for nine minutes. A small Orakh variant, barely waist-high, tried to flee from him, but he brought it down with a Lightning Stroke before cutting it down with his sword. Behind him, the clatter of metal rang out on stone as the rest of the troops followed him in.
He set off running down the hallway in front of him, quickly outpacing the heavier armored suits. Wordlessly, Jennifer fell in beside him. He nodded at her then jerked his head toward a door lining the hallway.
Together they stopped, and Jennifer put her right hand on the door latch. Her left held up three fingers. She put down one. Dan refreshed the mana flow into his spellshield and prepped a Fireball. She put down another finger. He readied himself as she threw the door open and jumped aside.
Immediately, Dan almost gagged at the smell of offal. The room was gigantic, almost twenty feet wide and sixty deep, and the entirety of its flickering interior was filled with more of the waist-high Orakh’s moving to and from large stone tables covered in butchered animals. Dan wrinkled his nose. One thing was sure, the Orakh weren’t picky. Some tables had gators on them, missing legs and tails. Others were covered with half-dismembered boars.
Most distressingly, Dan made out one of the tiny Orakh running off with what appeared to be a human arm. Frantically, his gaze darted around the cavernous room. It only took him a couple seconds, but he made out a pile of human bodies in the corner, still clad in combat fatigues. He frowned. Apparently, the rumors about the Orakh eating their victims weren’t just rumors.
Dan ignited his flame aura, immediately lighting up the room as he stalked forward, launching Fireball after Fireball across the room. The smaller Orakh began screaming and running away from Dan. One-by-one, he set them on fire, and Jennifer quickly dispatched those that made it past him.
She stood in the doorway, watching his back and observing the inferno. Unlike Dan, she didn’t have a thermal resistance rune, so actually entering the torched butcher’s hall was far from a good idea. Still, her flickering blades of force got a good workout cleaving apart the smaller Orakh.
Finally, Dan calmed down. The fire had erased any trace of the massive amount of animals. He exited the room, frantically trying to rub the foul-smelling soot from his outfit.
“Feeling any better?” Jennifer asked, cocking her head slightly to the side.
“I suppose,” Dan replied, smiling weakly. “I’ve seen a lot of shit, but the idea that these things are eating people really doesn’t sit right with me.”
“Well,” she smiled back. “Maybe killing a bunch more Orakh would cheer you up. There should be plenty more to go around, if you need a pick-me-up.”
Dan led the way once more, the occasional gunfire of his soldiers echoing indeterminately through the ship’s hallways. Randomly, he pointed to another door. Jennifer opened it in the same fashion, revealing an almost identical scene.
This time, it didn’t hit Dan as hard as he walked through, igniting everything in the room. The tiny Orakh didn’t even try to fight him. It was strange how different they were from their larger and almost suicidally arrogant brethren. He supposed that they must fulfill a different role in Orakh society, but it hardly mattered. Between Jennifer and him, they cleared the entire room in under a minute.
He checked the System clock as he marched back to Jennifer. Just under five minutes left.
“One more room?” He questioned, cocking his head slightly to crack his neck. “We only have five minutes left. I don’t want to risk running late, even if we get turned around trying to get out. Plus, I would prefer to leave first. Hopefully, we can clear the boats of Orakh before the rest of the team gets out. I’d prefer to be ready to go the instant the clocks hit 12. This entire thing was supposed to be a diversion. I don’t want to get overwhelmed by Orakh reinforcements before we can get the hell out of here.”
“One more,” she agreed, glancing down the hallway, sizing up the various doors before they disappeared in the flickering green gloom.
“Shit!” Dan’s walkie talkie squawked. “Oh fuck, is he huge! We need backup as soon as possible.” Gunfire erupted in the background, followed by a deep, bellowing snarl.
Dan glanced at Jennifer. He’d heard that one without the radio. She took off, Dan following her as they tried to track down the sounds of battle.
“Oh god,” the walkie talkie continued, the clang of metal on metal complimenting the steady thud of gunfire. “He has some sort of shield that’s just eating up gunfire. He-”
The man gulped over the air before speaking. “He just cut Billeaux in half. Like, the defensive runes flared. It should have stopped him, but he had an axe as big as a fucking sedan.”
Dan and Jennifer rounded the corner, and suddenly they were in another oversized room. This one was a hall, the walls covered in Orakh trophies: pennants, weapons, and skulls. At least ten Orakh warriors stood in the hall, but it was hard to really notice them.
In the center of the room stood the biggest Orakh Dan had ever seen. Fourteen feet of muscle and anger towered over his subordinates, at least a head taller than the commander Dan had beheaded earlier. The behemoth of an Orakh held an axe in his right hand, maybe a little smaller than a sedan, but close enough that Dan wouldn’t begrudge the panicked soldier. His left held the metal helmet of a power-suited soldier, whose feet kicked helplessly, suspended almost a foot off the ground. At his feet were two torn-apart suits of armor, great rends ripped almost through them by the axe on his shoulder.
The Orakh made eye contact with Dan and smiled, an ugly thing of chipped fangs and tusks, before his body pulsed with mana. Then he closed his left hand, crushing the suit’s helmet and the soldier’s skull.
“Good,” he ground out in heavily accented Elven. “An actual challenger. These suits of metal are interesting, but they’re piloted by grubs. Not even worth taking a trophy. But you, human. I can feel the deaths swirling around you. You’ll make this shit invasion worthwhile.”
