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“I entrust you with the safety of my mate,” Ravik said.
Voltar snorted, jerking his head in a way that eerily reminded me of a nod. With one last glance towards me, Ravik smiled then rushed towards the others to join the fray.
Four men stayed back, close to me, all from Krygor’s and Pattel’s clans. Among them, I recognized Gorav, Anton’s youngest, pureblood brother. He would escort me to Varrek’s home to secure it before I entered. It upset me at first that these men couldn’t partake in the hunt in order to babysit me. But I quickly realized that I was only an extra task for them to keep an eye on. They were actually tracking the movements of the predators on the terrain and directing the men towards the hot spots.
Even from the relatively short distance, the battle looked like a well-choreographed ballet. In spite of their massive size, Braxians didn’t lumber about, their speed akin to that of the Xelixians, but slightly slower than Veredian Warriors. But their strength left me reeling. They didn’t only strike the creatures with their weapons, but also with their fists. Their blows knocked back the beasts or rattled them. Each joarkal easily measured three meters long—not counting their also very long tails—and a little less than two meters high. Between their impressive muscle mass and stony carapace, shoving them around had to require tremendous strength.
Ravik took my breath away. As the beast charged him, he swung his battle axe, striking the joarkal on the side of its face with the flat back side of the weapon. He obviously intended to stun, not kill. The creature’s head jerked far to the right, and it stumbled, losing its momentum. Still, halfway through regaining its balance, the beast swiped a massive paw at Ravik, the blade-like claws aiming for his face. He blocked it with the staff of his battle axe, holding it with both hands, and then parried a second, and a third swipe. On the fourth, the joarkal pressed with all its weight, probably trying to break the staff. Ravik’s muscles bulged under the effort as he shoved back the predator just in time to dodge out of the path of its scorpion tail stabbing into the location Ravik had just been standing in. Spinning on himself, he swiped his battle axe around, giving it greater velocity, and struck right under the pit of the joarkal’s front leg, cutting deep through the leathery skin and muscles of the underbelly.
The creature reared its head up, roaring in pain. Without missing a beat, Ravik spun in the other direction and slammed the blade of his axe into the softer underside of its neck. A dark-blue liquid gushed from the critical wound. The beast attempted to back away, but my mate rammed into its wounded side with all his strength and weight. Toppling to its side, the joarkal tried to get back on all fours to protect its vulnerable underside, but Ravik backhanded it and then punched its bleeding neck wound. The beast toppled on its side, clawing feebly at empty air as its lifeblood poured out of him. Another swing of Ravik’s battle axe put an end to the creature’s agony.
Watching my mate battle proved quite the humbling experience. As a Veredian of the Warrior breed, I possessed excellent combat skill. It had significantly fueled my already cocky and self-confident personality. But I could clearly see that without the assistance of the advanced technology developed by my Veredian Sisters and the Tuureans, I couldn’t have defeated that creature in single combat. I didn’t even know that I could win against a Braxian. A single blow from them would crush me. One mistake would suffice to ensure my demise.
It was a sobering thought.
As Ravik turned to aid one of his men trying to finish off its target and with a second joarkal charging him, my armor suddenly went active. The black nanites unraveled the celesium shell from my belt and armbands, covering my body in the most impenetrable armor in the known universe. Startled, I looked around me, seeking what threat could have triggered its auto-defense. The four Braxians by my side all gaped at my transformation, their expressions going from shock to wariness. Aside from my horns, clad in my armor, I looked exactly like a Tuurean female. With good reasons, too, but ones that I couldn’t share with them.
However, I couldn’t focus on their worries right now. Voltar tensed next to me, the slit of his reptilian eyes widening as he suspiciously looked around, but he, too, didn’t seem to see anything.
As with the Tuureans, the armor automatically covered my face with a dark visor and my braid with an intelligent armor. The nanites in the braid’s armor synchronized to my neural waves so that they would respond to mental commands. Added to my natural combat skills, this priceless gift from Admiral Lee, the military leader of the Tuurean army, turned me into a lethal war machine. Within seconds, the celesium completely formed around me, its systems going online.
The graphic display turned on inside my visor, the scan indicating the presence of multiple people surrounding us. As the enhanced vision of my visor kicked in, it revealed the blurry silhouettes of a dozen Guldans. Weapons drawn, they were stealthily closing on us, camouflaged by a cloaking shield.
“INTRUDERS!” I shouted.
The Braxians closed protectively around me, looking this way and that for their invisible foe. The fools didn’t realizetheywere the ones in danger right now, not me. I raised my fist in front of my chest. The air shimmered around it, then an energy shield formed in front of me.
“Shields up!” I shouted, squeezing past Gorav just as a few of the Guldan took aim at us.
Unable to see them, and therefore unaware, he tried to stop me until the sparks of a few blaster shots bounced off of my energy shield. One of my four companions collapsed, hit by a couple of shots directly to his chest. The remaining three raised their own shields and armed their blasters.
“Fall back,” I ordered.
The Braxians complied. I doubted it was so much out of obedience than in response to the blaster shots raining on us. They closed ranks, their shields touching each other to make a single protective wall before us. While blindly shooting at our invisible attackers, we slowly backed away.
Reaching into my pouch, I retrieved a few seeker nodes, which I held in my palm. I pushed a ‘disrupt Guldan shield’ command at the nanites contained within them, using my Veredian power. Over the years, I’d learn the hard way to be precise in the simple commands I could give to avoid disaster. Had I not specified the specs of a Guldan shield, the nanites would immediately have begun attacking my own shield and that of my companions. I flicked the seeker nodes individually in the direction of the closest Guldans. Once in motion, they would use the planet’s magnetic fields to travel up to 300 meters—or before that if one hit a target—and then deliver its payload.
Within seconds, the targeted Guldans’ cloaking shields collapsed, making them visible at last. Angry roars arose from my companions, echoed by Voltar who took on a menacing stance, hovering protectively next to me. The revealed Guldans rushed us. Voltar and the other karvelis belonging to my four companions, charged our attackers in response. Thankfully, they provided the necessary distraction for me to repeat the process with the seekers and reveal the remaining Guldans.
“That’s all of them,” I shouted.
The words no sooner left my lips than two of the three Braxians still standing, jumped into the melee, Gorav staying by my side.
I tapped my braid, its armor parting at the base to eject the wide, silver ribbon I’d woven into my hair. Pushing my Veredian power into the ribbon, the ‘tassel’ stiffened into a pommel while the rest of the ribbon turned into a blade. It didn’t come anywhere near the quality of my celesium sword—another gift from the Admiral—but it would cut any bastard who got in my way.
Gorav stared at it with disbelieving eyes.
“Let’s go kick some ass,” I said with a broad grin.
“Ravena, no!” Gorav exclaimed.
Ignoring him, I dashed towards two of the Guldans on our flank who were pointlessly firing their blasters at the karvelis. Their thick scales appeared to deflect the shots, but not the pain caused by the impact. The first one, with short, brown hair aimed his blaster at me while his companion armed himself with his sword. My shield absorbing the shots convinced him to switch to his sword as well. I didn’t slow down as I barreled towards him. His eyes widened, and he braced himself, no doubt ready to use my momentum to toss me to the ground.
Just as he raised his sword to swipe at me, I slid to the ground, my speed carrying me forward. Startled, he didn’t have time to jump out of the way before I knocked him off his feet, my raised sword taking a good bite into his thigh. He screamed and rolled to his side, raising his shield just in time to avoid being bludgeoned by Gorav.
Without missing a beat, I jumped from the slide back onto my feet and whipped my head around at the second Guldan rushing towards me. Obeying my neural command, the tip of my braid extended, wrapping around his neck. Before his hands could even reach for the armored braid, sharp blades protruded from it, severing his head. His face took on a surprised expression before the braid released him, the tip shrinking back to its normal length. The Guldan’s head fell off, his beheaded body advancing a few more steps before collapsing to the ground.
I turned around just in time to see Gorav kick the shield out of the hand of the Guldan, still on the ground, unable to get up from the blows my companion rained down on him. The Guldan tried to swipe his sword at Gorav who just dodged it before catching his opponent’s wrist, squeezing it hard enough to break his hand and make him let go of his weapon with a scream. Still holding the Guldan’s wrist, Gorav brought down his fist on his victim’s thigh. With a cracking sound, the Guldan’s leg jerked, folding in the wrong direction as he bellowed in agony, his eyes rolling in his head. Gorav grabbed the wounded man’s horn, lifting him up with one hand, like a weightless ragdoll, then slammed his head on the ground. The back of his skull exploded like an overripe fruit, spilling blood and gore. The Guldan’s body twitched violently, then went still.
