Ascendance, p.9
Ascendance, page 9
The super-soldier hung his head for a moment, the scarf draped over his helmet fluttering as it caught a hint of a breeze. In that instant, presiding over his slain foes, he was the pure embodiment of martial perfection.
“Very well.”
Without another word the Dragoon drove his heel through the bandit’s skull.
7
Sunlight was fading by the time they made it out of the ravine, the skirmish leaving behind twoscore dead raiders and the corpse of Officer Nguyen. There had been no way to either bury him or haul his body along with them for the rest of the mission. Kirkland knew there was too much distance left to travel and even with the Canis drone, still too many other resources that needed to be hauled.
Perkins had seen fit to remove the dead man’s biometric tracker and his Dye-Tech identification before ripping the Strategic Response Unit shield from his jacket. Offering her fallen comrade a quick salute, she placed an incendiary charge on the body and waited as the flames consumed both the dead flesh and his exo-frame, nothing left for animals or scavengers.
Sporting a disheartened glower, she bundled Nguyen’s rifle into Mitchell’s arms.
“Congratulations, dickhead. You’ve been promoted.”
The mood within the team was dark, made all the dourer by the collective, unspoken knowledge that throughout the ambush, Mitchell had done nothing. With this in mind, Kirkland would be surprised if the red-haired officer made it to the next morning, some SRU member knifing him while he slept in retaliation for not coming to Nguyen’s aid. It seemed a fitting end for someone whose life was proving useless.
None of the humans spoke much to each other as they made camp that evening, a fire ban agreed to decrease their visibility. There was always a chance that the survivors of that raider band might come back during the night, desperate for a third chance to enact their revenge. Temur and Perkins discussed the possibility with vigor as Shokri listened in, thoughtfully stroking his goatee. Kirkland left them to their plotting and resigned himself to patrolling the area. The SRU may have perceived his actions as a gesture to offer them space, however, in reality, he needed an opportunity to collect his thoughts.
Indecision had plagued him during the ambush at the glassed chasm, his desire to be rid of his human tagalongs almost causing him to leave them to fend for themselves. And he had, initially. Right after the wheeled drone had triggered the mine, he had slipped out the back while the SRU was distracted by the explosion.
His plan was simple: scale the outside of the ravine and press on while everyone was occupied with the firefight. It would have advanced him two kilometers ahead before anyone, security officer or marauder, noticed his absence. The actual mission took precedence over killing some local ruffians.
What had made him turn back was a mystery, though in the moment he reconciled it to running into some bandits on top of the gorge. As he had dispatched the raiders, he bore witness to Nguyen’s demise and Mitchell’s cowardice down below. Was it pity that drove him to intercede? Perhaps the pragmatic realization that he might need these officers when he confronted his objective?
Kirkland shook his head. No, he did not need them. His purpose and duty were combat, no extraneous humans required.
“You are the chosen ones of all creation. You shall seek combat and train yourselves to endure any manner of test. To you, battle shall be the fulfillment,” he whispered to himself as though it were a religious verse. It might as well have been, for all the reverence it had been given during his time at the academy. There had been no playful rhymes or bedtime stories in that place, everything built around drilling home their commandments and the Code of War.
Kirkland was not even twelve years old when he had been taken there, his parents realizing as he grew that their supposed miracle child was not a human baby at all, but something greater. It had manifested itself as he outran or outmuscled children years older than himself and while initially they believed he was athletic and gifted, it was soon a phenomenon they could no longer ignore. He still remembered overhearing their arguments as his mother tried to keep him. She did not care what he was; he was her son. Her beloved Flynn, who had come to her when her faith was all but gone.
His father was less noble. They had a responsibility and standing in their community. How would their neighbors or a stranger react when they realized their son was a Dragoon? he contended. A being like that had no place in a peaceful hamlet such as theirs. It was tempting fate.
Every time this line of reasoning was badgered at his mother, Kirkland would run. Run as far as his young legs would take him. Deep into the forests or up onto the crests of highland peaks. Routinely his friend would find him, the untamed girl who lived in the wilderness. Often, she would go on about how he was lucky he had people who cared for him at all, but it never felt like it at the time. Then they would discuss the idea of running away together. It was never anything more than the idle fantasies of children, Kirkland undoubtedly would come to miss his bed or the warm embrace of his mother.
That era of his life ended the day the Alpha Clan took him away. Unbeknownst to Kirkland or his mother, his father had contacted them, informing the Dragoons that one of their own was dwelling in the village and ready to be scooped up.
There had been no preamble to their arrival, an armored jeep appearing on the horizon before a pair of super-soldiers exited the vehicle in front of his family’s home. He still remembered their initial courtesy, appreciative to his parents for having cared for him this entire time. A full-blooded Dragoon was a vital resource, no matter where it came from. The pleasantries had vanished the instant his mother refused them.
Kirkland could barely remember what had happened next, everything erupting all at once. His mother had yelled for him to run, but the super-soldiers were too fast and grabbed him before he had gotten very far. That stuck out in his mind the most. The disbelief at how swift these armored men were. There had been no fighting them either, each strike ringing harmlessly against their plate.
Crying and screaming, they had dragged him from the cottage and away from the only family he had ever known. Time lessened the trauma of those memories, especially when the academy had been determined to replace them with more painful ones.
He had been at least three to four years behind every other cadet when he arrived, this backwoods child that had been rescued from the care of humans. At first, the trainers viewed him as a curiosity, though that wore off when he was deemed too gentle, too obstinate, too human. From there, it had been never-ending abuse as the instructors strove to mold him into a proper shepherd of humanity. It had become something of a game to them, to see who could break the wild boy the quickest. His fellow students were no better; no one wanting to be seen consorting with the misfit from the north.
Fortunes changed when he had met the likes of Talia and Bryant, outcasts in their own right, who offered him kindness. Together they had formed an emotional support to ensure each of them succeeded where the individual cadet would have failed.
Determined to stamp out any semblance of joy, the instructors had thrown whatever they could at the trio, frustrated when the students would prevail. They had been arduous, brutal years but also some of the best of his life. A warmth filled Kirkland as he reminisced, until the icy claws of guilt snatched it away as he considered how he had left things with Bryant and Talia.
A brief flash of movement on his HUD’s motion tracker alerted him he was no longer alone, and Kirkland raised his rifle.
Stillness surrounded him. Not even the typical choir of nocturnal insects present. This quiet, this unnatural tranquility set the hairs rising on the back of his neck and he swept the trees with his targeting reticle, visual assistive modes cycling through his HUD as it hunted for what was out there. Mysteriously, his targeting systems identified nothing.
It was all too reminiscent of when they had encountered Vargar and, weapon sighted on the surrounding woods, Kirkland wondered if the eccentric drifter had caught up to them. However, nothing showed itself, only a soft wind drifting in to tickle the leaves. The systems in his armor were tested and proven. It was not like them to make an error. Had it been an animal? Or was there something insidious out there watching him?
In more technologically savvy places, people spoke of devices that could bend light around the user to render them nearly invisible. Such contraptions were expensive though, and the idea of encountering one this far north seemed doubtful. Then again, whoever razed the depot had slipped inside unseen and without the perimeter defenses detecting them. That realization kept his rifle from wavering and Kirkland remained motionless as the moon passed from cloud to cloud, a silver veil draped over the forest. He would make sure to maintain watch till dawn. It was going to be a long night.
As a boy, Mitchell had once gotten the chance to go camping. It’d been some kind of retreat for mid-tier managers and his mother had been invited, electing to bring her young son with her. He still remembered it being a magical few days of fishing, bushwalking, and sleeping out under the stars. Years later, he learned it had all taken place inside the safety of the company’s massive research conservatory, but that still didn’t take away from the joy of that memory.
Last night was nothing like it.
With much of the gear left behind in the trucks, Mitchell had been forced to make himself comfortable on the cold earth with little more than his daypack to serve as both pillow and blanket. It felt like a never-ending conundrum as he’d grow chilly and shift the pack to insulate his body only for his neck to start hurting an hour later and he would have to relocate the bag to its original position as a pillow. Of course, then he’d grow chilly again. By the time Temur kicked him awake to take watch he was glad to be able to move around and stretch his aching muscles.
The SRU appeared to have no issues with sleeping outside, most locking their exoskeletons into place, enabling them to rest in various positions that would be impossible for the human body otherwise. Even when Temur went back to sleep, she fell backwards till she secured the harness, assuming a bizarre supine position which rooted her feet to the ground while her body essentially hovered. And she didn’t waste any time falling back to sleep either, all the officers’ breathing peacefully save for a disturbing spell when Shokri began whimpering about dead children.
Cobalt rays of dawn were just beginning to illuminate the surrounding autumn foliage when the Dragoon ordered them to resume their march. If the super-soldier had slept, Mitchell had no idea, but he heard their kind was above such things, capable of sleeping different parts of the brain at a time to continually maintain combat readiness. Eyes bleary from fatigue, he found he was more envious than he’d ever been.
“Warning: unauthorized user,” a tinny mechanical voice stated as Mitchell fitted his hand around the grip of Nguyen’s recovered rifle.
He couldn’t help but groan. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Figures the folks upstairs don’t trust you with anything over a pistol caliber!” Perkins taunted, the rest of the SRU shaking their heads as well.
Mitchell stared down at the useless weapon. It was more imposing than his submachine gun and offered him a greater deal of comfort knowing he could engage future threats with bigger bullets. Though if it wouldn’t fire, at best it could serve as a technologically advanced club.
He offered it up to Perkins. “Did you want two?”
The other officer’s deep laugh echoed about the wilderness. “What you all think? Am I badass enough to dual-wield rifles?”
Temur and Shokri soon joined in on the joke and Mitchell felt stupid for having even suggested it. He couldn’t just toss the gun into the bush, could he? It was company property, after all. Someone somewhere would ask questions about why it hadn’t been returned to the armory post-operation, and he didn’t relish being on the receiving end of that interrogation. The zaibatsu didn’t exactly keep its power by being wasteful.
“Give it to the Dragoon. Six eight got to be better than the peashooter he’s packing!” Perkins said, as if understanding Mitchell’s dilemma.
“Can he…ah, even use it?”
“Stop being a lazy git and find out.”
With a gulp that unfortunately he was certain everyone could hear, Mitchell slunk toward the demigod, trembling somewhat when he turned to look at him. It still felt strange and almost uncouth to approach such a celestial being with trivial affairs.
“For you?” was all he managed to say as he held out the rifle.
With a degree of curiosity, the Dragoon took the weapon, looking it over as if trying to find imperfections or to decide if he wanted to make use of it. Seamlessly, his armored hand wrapped around the grip.
“Authorized user detected. Weapon release engaged.”
Mitchell blinked in surprise. “How?”
“Simply put; your administrators understand who the dominant species is. They must have installed a bypass when the system registers Dragoon DNA,” the super-soldier coolly replied.
“Well, it’s yours then.”
Much to his surprise the Dragoon handed the rifle back to him.
“I have no use for your weapons. Do what you wish with it.”
Without another word, the demigod signaled for them to keep moving and, with a faint jingle of plate, advanced through the forest. As uncertain as before, Mitchell eyed the gun, wondering how far into the wilderness he could fling it.
“Why don’t you be a good lad and hold onto it for me?” Perkins said. “Never know when I’m going to need a spare.”
Hours passed in uneventful tedium. At least Mitchell believed it was hours by the movement of the sun. It was impossible to be certain with his chronometer still broken.
From one patch of multicolored trees to another, they continued to walk, avoiding a field for fear of ambush, and shaking out their jackets after a quick bout of rain finished dumping on them. If it wasn’t for the fatigue and looming terror of their destination, it might have been an enjoyable trek, the natural world a beautiful tapestry of colors and textures.
The Canis drone was the first to spot one of the obelisks, though Mitchell liked to believe it was him.
Composed of a strange obsidian material, they rose almost two meters out of the earth like a series of ornate blades, their structure glistening softly whenever the sunlight dared to touch one.
At first, he had believed them to be a natural occurrence, the Northern Reach home to all manner of peculiarities. That was before he noticed the unusual lettering carved into the stones. It was no language he had ever seen, not that Mitchell considered himself anything of an expert in archaic dialects or extinct cultures.
The symbols were beautiful and almost graceful in their composition, elegant runes and glyphs that told a forgotten story he couldn’t understand. Timidly, he reached a hand toward one, convinced he saw light pulse along the crimson symbols when his glove drew near.
“Backcountry witchcraft,” Shokri commented, Mitchell’s hand recoiling.
Temur knelt beside one of the pylons. “They look to be some kind of marker. Well-constructed too. The moss growth on this one marks it as at least a hundred years old.”
“What kind of marker?” Mitchell asked.
“Can’t be certain, though from how the soil is piled around them I’d be willing to bet they’re some kind of gravestone.”
Grimacing, Mitchell found himself staring down at the foot of the black stone pillar he was standing before. Whoever might be buried under there wasn’t going to look too kindly on some gawking stranger.
“They’re Mortaph Stones,” the Dragoon announced as he entered the small clearing. “Graves without bones.”
Comforted he was not intruding on something’s eternal slumber, Mitchell peered closer at the unknown marks scrawled across the obsidian surface.
“So, is it like they couldn’t find something to bury?” he asked.
Without any respect, the Dragoon nudged at an obelisk with his boot. “No, they took the remains. Those would be enshrined elsewhere. A Mortaph Stone is more to mark where someone of significance died. It’s a memorial for pilgrims to seek out to pay their respects to great deeds.”
Mitchell’s eyes traced the beautiful runes, a melancholy settling over him as he imagined generations of travelers venturing to this spot to honor the site of a noble demise.
“Who were they?”
“They were Dragoons.”
The answer surprised him, though he wasn’t sure why. Of course, something so alien and majestic would be tied to Dragoons. It made far too much sense.
“These don’t look familiar,” Perkins observed. “They must belong to that Clan that filly at the bar was prattling on about.”
“The Beta Clan,” the demigod said.
Mitchell glanced between the pylon and the super-soldier as if unconsciously comparing the two.
“Beta Clan?”
“An old bloodline that was lost long ago.”
The beauty and mystery of the stones spoke to him, and a quiet temptation filtered into his mind to remain in their presence. It was so foolish that he dismissed it, although that did nothing to relieve the shadowy longing already taking root in his heart.
“What happened to them?” Mitchell inquired, desperate for some answers that might shake him from this sorrowful spell. He always knew there were other Dragoon Clans, but most had disappeared before he was even born, information regarding them sparse and carefully policed by the triumphant Alpha Clan.
“Nothing that concerns you. They’re gone, as you can clearly see.”
It was obvious there was to be no further conversation regarding the pylons and their deceased makers, and Mitchell tried to channel that awareness into smothering the burgeoning questions bubbling up inside of him. He was a mere human; knowing anything of angels was an honor few could claim.
