Hobbit height. As soon as
he was inside he emitted a Fornax field and kept it up, sliding/crawling his
way into a connecting tunnel and dragging one twitching lizard out of his way,
kneeing him in the ribs as he pushed by him.
Maintaining the Fornax field at half his maximum
radius wasn’t hard, but the longer he kept at it the more stress his head would
feel, and like pulling on a rubber band, the further you stretched it the more
power it took to maintain the effort, meaning he was on the clock.
Scurrying his way through the small tunnels he pulled
a fishhook turn that led him back to a concealed bunker that had one-way view
panes into the gap, hidden behind a clever holographic camouflage screen of
leaves and sticks that were also transparent with barely an outline showing on
the wall of the little, traitorous den. There were three lizards inside, all
lying on the floor save for one, who was twitching uncontrollably in his seat
as Travis’s head began to complain from the sustained effort.
He pulled out a pistol from his back rack and shot
them all twice in the head, then pushed their bodies over the entrance and
stacked them up like lego bricks, blocking the
entrance.
“Got it,” he told Karen via comm ,
now that she was running like crazy back through the forest to the Calavari with
an angry army of lizards following her and hopefully not noticing him. “Tell
them the trigger is secure and I’ll remain here to make sure it stays that
way.”
“You want me to double back and help?”
“No, just get clear. These tiny tunnels mean they
don’t have a chance of getting to me, and there’s a camouflaged window here I
can break out of if I have to, so I’m not pinned in.”
“They can break in too, you know.”
“I’m fine. Get the team up here and take out those
sniper positions before the Calavari start pouring through like big fat
targets.”
“Alright, see you after,” Karen said, with her soon
passing outside of his ability to mentally track. Their battlemeld and twin
link were broken, leaving Travis with only his own thoughts for a while, which
was odd considering how they did almost everything together.
But then again this wasn’t the first time they’d split
up, and they had trained themselves accordingly so that it didn’t become a
weakness. Still, the sooner his sister was back inside his head again the
better. For now though, there were lizards scurrying about in the tunnels on
the other side of his meat blockade and he intended to gum up the tiny roads
with as many sleeping beauties as he could arrange.
9
June 1, 2756
Pagaliss System
(lizard territory)
Varasiss
Liam returned to his command ship’s nexus, having
spent a very long couple of months groundside since
his last visit doing commando work and helping to take down key targets during
or in front of the massed assaults on the remaining lizard colonies. Now there
were only 7 remaining, spread out widely across the planet having been bypassed
by the Star Force troops because they were trap cities. Five of them still had
their orbital defense towers intact, but the trailblazers had decided not to
risk any more clandestine assault teams, for the last one that Morgan and Kara
had been on had turned into a wounded evacuation run.
It’d had five mages, three padawans, plus the two
trailblazers and hadn’t managed to kill the tower. After the three previous
successes and numerous other similar missions behind enemy lines in the less
defended colonies the lizards had enacted numerous new safeguards, some of
which had involved detonating entire buildings around the tower when security
breaches were noted. The team had been in one of them when it came down, but
fortunately the armor they were all wearing kept them alive, not to mention a
few hasty bioshields being thrown up in the process.
Six of them had been wounded to the point of limping,
with three having to be carried out and an air evac being impossible.
he was inside he emitted a Fornax field and kept it up, sliding/crawling his
way into a connecting tunnel and dragging one twitching lizard out of his way,
kneeing him in the ribs as he pushed by him.
Maintaining the Fornax field at half his maximum
radius wasn’t hard, but the longer he kept at it the more stress his head would
feel, and like pulling on a rubber band, the further you stretched it the more
power it took to maintain the effort, meaning he was on the clock.
Scurrying his way through the small tunnels he pulled
a fishhook turn that led him back to a concealed bunker that had one-way view
panes into the gap, hidden behind a clever holographic camouflage screen of
leaves and sticks that were also transparent with barely an outline showing on
the wall of the little, traitorous den. There were three lizards inside, all
lying on the floor save for one, who was twitching uncontrollably in his seat
as Travis’s head began to complain from the sustained effort.
He pulled out a pistol from his back rack and shot
them all twice in the head, then pushed their bodies over the entrance and
stacked them up like lego bricks, blocking the
entrance.
“Got it,” he told Karen via comm ,
now that she was running like crazy back through the forest to the Calavari with
an angry army of lizards following her and hopefully not noticing him. “Tell
them the trigger is secure and I’ll remain here to make sure it stays that
way.”
“You want me to double back and help?”
“No, just get clear. These tiny tunnels mean they
don’t have a chance of getting to me, and there’s a camouflaged window here I
can break out of if I have to, so I’m not pinned in.”
“They can break in too, you know.”
“I’m fine. Get the team up here and take out those
sniper positions before the Calavari start pouring through like big fat
targets.”
“Alright, see you after,” Karen said, with her soon
passing outside of his ability to mentally track. Their battlemeld and twin
link were broken, leaving Travis with only his own thoughts for a while, which
was odd considering how they did almost everything together.
But then again this wasn’t the first time they’d split
up, and they had trained themselves accordingly so that it didn’t become a
weakness. Still, the sooner his sister was back inside his head again the
better. For now though, there were lizards scurrying about in the tunnels on
the other side of his meat blockade and he intended to gum up the tiny roads
with as many sleeping beauties as he could arrange.
9
June 1, 2756
Pagaliss System
(lizard territory)
Varasiss
Liam returned to his command ship’s nexus, having
spent a very long couple of months groundside since
his last visit doing commando work and helping to take down key targets during
or in front of the massed assaults on the remaining lizard colonies. Now there
were only 7 remaining, spread out widely across the planet having been bypassed
by the Star Force troops because they were trap cities. Five of them still had
their orbital defense towers intact, but the trailblazers had decided not to
risk any more clandestine assault teams, for the last one that Morgan and Kara
had been on had turned into a wounded evacuation run.
It’d had five mages, three padawans, plus the two
trailblazers and hadn’t managed to kill the tower. After the three previous
successes and numerous other similar missions behind enemy lines in the less
defended colonies the lizards had enacted numerous new safeguards, some of
which had involved detonating entire buildings around the tower when security
breaches were noted. The team had been in one of them when it came down, but
fortunately the armor they were all wearing kept them alive, not to mention a
few hasty bioshields being thrown up in the process.
Six of them had been wounded to the point of limping,
with three having to be carried out and an air evac being impossible.
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