Into The Fire

Prologue-1

PROLOGUE

Dating a Justice Keeper was hard.

The gray light of an overcast evening fell upon a plateau where pine trees sprouted from the ground. An autumn breeze carried with it a slight damp chill. Not the absolute worst weather for a military strike, but not the best either. Especially if you had been hiking for three days.

Novol’s squadron had gathered on the ridge that overlooked a shallow slope. Shallow, but littered with all sorts of obstacles. Anyone who tried to run down that thing would be dodging around trees and hopping over roots. Lunacy!

To call them a squad was being generous. They were a rag-tag band of farmers and factory workers in rumpled clothing instead of uniforms. Tag was a short man, plump with tanned skin and tilted eyes. His nose was a little too thin – almost delicate – and the way he choked up on that assault rifle made it clear that he was frightened.

Shaz was a tall man with an olive complexion who carried his gun with the ease of a well-trained soldier. He was one of those who had chosen to stay behind with Melissa when the Scrappy came to rescue her.

Dorana was a slender woman with gaunt cheeks and dark-brown skin. She kept her hair in a series of braids that clung to her scalp. Melissa called them cornrows. What an odd name.

Their squad leader, Avrin Bryse, was tall and pale with neatly-trimmed blonde hair. He stood on the ridge with one hand on his hip, the other clutching a Leyrian rifle. Even from this distance, you could hear the sounds from the base that the Ragnosions had established here in the mountains of Shalovka. The occasional whir of shuttles taking off and landing. The rumble of land vehicles driving past.

Novol paused.

He had just thought of the enemy as “the Ragnosians.” He was Ragnosian. Those were his people down there. When had he started to dissociate himself from his brothers and sisters?

He knelt behind the trunk of a tree, rifle in hand, dressed in simple green work clothes. They would help him blend in with his surroundings. His head was shaved now, a decision that he had made when his hair became an unruly mess after several months on this planet.

Melissa leaped onto the hill, dropping to one knee and looking back over her shoulder to make sure no one was following. She stood up slowly. “It’s pretty much what you expected,” she reported. “The base’s defenses are designed to guard against people coming up the hill. They don’t have much to protect them from people coming down on them from above.”

Tag approached the ledge and frowned as he peered down at a thick forest. “That’s because they didn’t think anyone would be stupid enough to hike through three days of backcountry just to get here.”

In green pants and a light jacket, her dark hair tied up in a shoulder-length ponytail, Melissa met his eyes and nodded once. She was the most beautiful woman that Novol had ever seen. “It’s an old Shalovan facility,” she added. “The Ragnosians have only had a couple months to fortify it with their technology. It doesn’t have a shield grid or anti-aircraft weapons.”

Bryse grunted. “Of course not,” he said. “You don’t install anti-aircraft cannons when your enemies don’t have aircraft.”

Some of the Salusians looked crestfallen after that comment. Did Bryse even notice? No doubt he had meant it as a simple statement of fact, but it would sound like a condemnation to the people of this world. Sometimes Leyrians came off as arrogant even when they didn’t intend it.

The lack of a shield grid wasn’t just a consequence of there being no aircraft to defend against. For the people of Salus, electric lightbulbs were still a new invention. The base simply didn’t have the infrastructure to support advanced weaponry.

Melissa turned around, standing beside Bryse on the ridge. “Shuttles are parked in a line overlooking the hillside,” she said. “They have a few troops in place but nothing that we can’t handle.”

Bryse hit Novol with an inquisitive stare. “You’re sure that you can fly one of those things?”

A frown tugged at the corners of Novol’s mouth. He shut his eyes, nodding slowly to reassure the other man. “As long as we can get past the security protocols, I should be fine,” he said. “But that won’t be easy.”

Bryse hoisted up his rifle as though he were preparing to charge down the hillside. A hateful expression passed over his face. That man wanted to shoot something. “Larani brought a nanobot program that should circumvent biometric ID scanners.”

“I’ll go first,” Melissa said.

Novol sighed.

Dating a Justice Keeper was hard. He hated watching Melissa put herself in danger.. He had dated several women during his time with the Space Force. Accepting danger was just part of the life. Melissa might die on this mission. Novol knew that; he accepted it. But what made her different from any other woman he had dated was that he couldn’t help. Half the time, she would just sprint away with that incredible strength of hers, and by the time he caught up, she had already dispatched the enemies.

“Slow advance,” Bryse said. “Let’s move.”

The squadron raised their weapons and proceeded down the hill in a line. Novol slipped around the trunk of a towering pine, ducking under one of its branches. Needles scraped the back of his neck.

The once-straight line was now a staggered advance, several squad-mates having fallen behind thanks to the difficult terrain. Bryse was taking point, his assault rifle pointed dead ahead, his eye peering through the sights. “Steady. Stay together.”

Novol gasped when he noticed a flicker of motion at the base of the hill. Ragnosian soldiers in drab, gray uniforms. They crept through the trees, jostling branches, moving slowly over the uneven ground. One of them noticed him, spun around and shouted. “Up There!”

Turning sideways, Novol threw his shoulder against the trunk of a tall pine with drooping branches. He winced as bullets sped past him. “They know we’re here!”

Melissa was lying prone behind a fallen log, occasionally popping up for a glance at the enemy. “I need a distraction!” she shouted in Leyrian. “Something to keep them off me for a few seconds!”

Novol had his back against the tree trunk, a soft hiss escaping him every time he felt the whoosh of a passing bullet. He unclipped a smoke grenade from his belt, brought it to his mouth and yanked the pin out with his teeth.

Then he threw it down the hill.

Five seconds later, a thick cloud of smoke expanded, blinding the enemy. He heard the shouts of men and the rustle of branches that flexed as the Ragnosians spread out. The tempest of incoming fire died down a little. These Haloren weapons were primitive, but they got the job done.

“Thank you, honey!” Melissa yelled.

She stood up in the haze and leaped, grabbing a low-hanging branch and swinging her body like a pendulum. She let go, curled up into a ball and somersaulted through the air, vanishing into a thicket of trees.

Novol heard the distant thump, smack and crunch of fists and feet striking flesh, and then a man in gray screamed as he went flying out of the thicket. He landed on the hillside, slid down the muddy slope and collided with a rather large rock.

Novol sighed.

Dating a Justice Keeper was hard.

He set his rifle for stun-rounds – the LEDs on his weapon turning blue – and aimed around the tree trunk. A young woman came stumbling out of the thicket, nearly tripping over an exposed root. Novol drew a bead on her, squeezed the trigger and stung her arm with a charged bullet that had her trembling before she passed out.

The smoke was dissipating.

His squad-mates were moving carefully down the slope, firing on the people below. Somehow, the enemy had detected Melissa when she was scouting the base. That was the only explanation that made sense to him. Bryse had scanned the area with his multi-tool before sending Melissa in. He insisted that there were no landmines or proximity sensors on this hill, but somehow, the Ragnosians had discovered them.

Melissa emerged from the thicket, dusting her hands and shaking her head. “Took out five of them!” she said. “But they’ve got reinforcements on the way. If we’re going to take those shuttles-”

She cut off abruptly, stretching a hand out to her right, a shimmer forming at her fingertips. Bullets that should have left holes in her body instead curved upward and streaked off into the heavens.

The rest of the squad fired on those Ragnosians who had tried to kill her. Novol heard grunts, yelps and the soft thud of bodies hitting the ground. For all the difficulties, dating a Justice Keeper did come with some advantages. For one thing, he didn’t have to worry about whether his girlfriend could take care of herself. Perhaps the hardest thing of all was the stone-cold revelation that Melissa didn’t need his help. He had that particular epiphany at least twice a week.

Bryse was taking cover behind a tree near the base of the hill. The man shot a glance back at them, snarling like a caged beast. “Let’s move!”

He took off at a sprint, disappearing between two pines. The others hurried to catch up with him. Despite the instinct to prove his worth – both to his girlfriend and his new C.O. – Novol moved slowly. He was no Justice Keeper. And he had no desire to become one. Charging down a muddy hillside without enhanced agility was a good way to break his damn neck.

The last trees parted before him, and he found a large, flat plateau jutting out of the mountainside. The entire area was paved. He saw twelve shuttles parked in a line near the cliff’s edge, small blocky craft shaped almost like cars without wheels.

Two officers in gray were taking cover between them, hiding from whomever had the guts to raid this base. They were ashen-faced, exchanging glances as the rebel troops came charging out of the woods.

Novol had to suppress the urge to laugh.

Off to his right, a long, green building with tiny windows on each of its two stories stood behind a chain-link fence. The alarms were wailing. Novol half expected to see a flood of soldiers coming out of the main entrance, but that wasn’t what got his attention.

Two men in hulking suits of mechanized armour stood on the tarmac, one on his left and the other on his right. Except for the colour, those suits were identical to the one that Corovin wore. These were green and orange respectively, each with a silver visor that reflected the fading daylight.

Melissa skidded to a stop, her jaw dropping when she saw them. She gave her head a shake, dispelling her fear, and then drew her sidearm. “Go!” she shouted at the others. “I’ll handle them!”

Groaning, Novol slapped a hand over his face. He slowly pulled that hand down, peeking through the cracks between his fingers. “Why does she do this to me?”

Before anyone could protest, Melissa was loping toward the man in green. The rest of the squad took her suggestion and ran for the shuttles. All except Novol. He stayed behind and walked toward the man in the orange armour. His girlfriend couldn’t fight two of these brutes, and they both knew it.

The armoured fellow lifted his chin, studying Novol through his visor. “Brave of you,” he said in Vanasku. “But ultimately pointless.”

Taking aim with his rifle, Novol set the weapon for High-Impact rounds. The LEDs changed from blue to red. He wanted his enemy to know what he was planning.

Sure enough, the other man extended his left hand, and a force-field snapped into place, a crackling wall of white static. Novol didn’t fire; there would be no point. Instead, he ran sideways.

Even with a few seconds’ head start, the force-field nearly clipped him as it rushed past. He just hoped it wouldn’t hit Melissa. He didn’t have time to check and see what she was doing.