Codename: Freedom - Book 4 - Chapter 35

The cavern was dark, but night vision through my headset made the room as clear as day. Freedom’s training was once again paying off. The manticore was curled up against the far wall like a sleeping dragon. Dragon probably would’ve been a better word to describe the beast.

We’d been needing to test rank E psionics against it, and I’d finally recovered enough to give it a shot. I had only recovered half of my psionic energy in the recovery chamber, but it should be enough.

“Mel?” I said in hushed tone through my headset.

“I have eyes on,” he replied. “Ready to intercept if you have to fall back.”

The manticore stirred. It looks like I hadn’t been quiet enough. Not that it mattered.

Destiny chimed in. “I’d give this one a tentative attack rank A and defense rank A+. Let’s go with Attack rank A+ just to be safe. Just be careful of its size. A head on charge could yup its attack by at least a rank, but there’s not a lot of instances where they use their size in such a manner.”

“Sounds fair.”

Lucius

Rank: Major

Atk: B+/A (More data needed)

Phys: C

Psi: E

Tech: E

Def: B+/A (More data needed)

Phys: C

Psi: ­E

Tech: E

If I dare to face this thing without my psionics I’d be little more than its afternoon snack. The only thing that made me tentative with psionics was my limited experience with my gear. I’d gone through one battle with it, but that was without even getting a chance to train with it first. As long as there weren’t any surprises, I believe I had the basic concepts of how to make use of it though. I just had to channel energy into my shield, sword, or belt instead of using them like normal…

“Wink,” I said aloud, seeing as the monster was already crotched low watching me.

There was a sudden strobe of light from the manticore’s far flank followed by a deep growl.

With the same crazed grace of large cat, it scurried to face the sound and found nothing. Wink was already gone and had activated stealth mode.

I picked my shot and sent a silver bolt of energy flying out the end of my spear toward it.

The manticore reacted immediately, but not fast enough to keep the bolt from punching it in the ribs.

I watched as it staggered back a few steps. There wasn’t enough force to push it back that far, so it seemed to have a strong effect.

“There’s no external sign of blood,” Destiny said. “But this level of psionics seems to bypass it’s armored skin like it would platemail. I estimate it left a mild injury.”

“Beautiful. Once our men level up these should be little more than a nuisance then.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself. Kill it and we can do the real assessment.”

“Yes, mom.”

“Excuse me? Your mother is amazing, but technically I’m younger than you. Does that seem appropriate to you?”

“Okay, little sis.”

As I teased her the dragon-like creature started closing the distance between us. Its head stayed low like it was ready to pounce, and its tail was back, readying to skewer me.

“Little sis?! I practically raised you, bonehead.”

I held on to my retort, unwilling to give way to the manticore. It was a powerful beast and far larger than I was, but that didn’t make it the dominate creature in the room.

I sprinted forward with energy driving me forward through each step. In just a few steps I’d already reached what would’ve been my top speed just a year ago. But now this was controlled and steady.

Its spiked tail shot forward.

Dipping sideways, I skirted past it.

It lunged.

A mouth of knife-like teeth was opened wide enough to swallow my head whole. The paws of a lion reached for me with their claws extended.

I thrust forward with my spear. Energy flowed through it, but I didn’t focus on the kind, only fed it. My spears point slipped past its claws and teeth to jab it high on the neck. Its point sunk in, but only just.

I saw its feline slits for irises roll back into its head as it widened its mouth. It thought it had me.

I wasn’t using my spear as an attack at all, but to gauge the distance. My shield struck out and downward with its cutting edge. Rank E psionics sizzled through it. As it caught the manticore on the nose, I rolled all my bodyweight into it. Its head rushed toward the ground.

My spear left my hand as I continued to roll. Its momentum was far too much for me to stop with brute force. Making use of it, I somersaulted across it’s back. My psionic layer of armor protected me against any spiky surprises. Reaching the end of my roll, my feet were only halfway down the length of its back, so I jumped.

A psionic push allowed me to control my jump with charming precision. I hovered above the monster for an instant as it slide to a stop. A surprise target reveal itself.

With a practiced yank, my Lethality Psword left its sheath.

Its tail was directly below waiting for me. The deadly appendage was arched back like a scorpion’s tail. My sword glowed as I chopped down from overhead. It severed through the spikey end with little effort. The root of the tail was as thick as a human torso, but it failed completely under rank E weapon bolstering.

As I danced away it roared in obstinance.

“If I’m a bonehead, then I guess drone-head is going to be sticking around indefinitely,” I returned pestering Destiny.

She mimicked the monster’s growl to show her displeasure. She was quick to put our game on pause to advise me. “It’s going to run—Mel’s direction is likely.”

He had a squad of his best casters waiting, but if this thing was willing to plow through them without concern for its life in some desperate attempt to flee, how many of them would die?

“Oh no you don’t,” I called. Sheathing my sword and tossing my shield to the side, my shadow drone caught it before it hit the ground and darted off. Extending both hands, Voli flew. I couldn’t fire off bolts nearly as fast as Mel could, but I was above average and a whole psionic rank higher.

My first bolts it in in the rear and haunch of its left side. It hopped and scampered to get away until one of my bolts hit its rear leg near the joint and it twisted under itself as it tried to keep running. With it down, I saw its entire rear end spasming. My bolts had done more damage than could be seen on the surface.

I had to remind myself that it was a simulated creature to keep myself from going for the quick kill. Instead, I took a few long moments to fire off bolts at different locations across its body so that Destiny would have better data. It could save lives.

Mel was already walking toward me casually as I moved toward the creature’s head.

“Top of the skull seems to do the most damage with rank F bolts,” he said, obviously curious as to how much different it would be with a high rank.

I indulged him. A bolt to the head sent a shiver through the beast’s body, but then it was over.

“It wouldn’t have been an easy shot, but you might’ve been able to one shot one this thing,” he said.

For some reason it immediately made me thing of LadyHeadshot and HandshakeDeath’s recent falling out. Why I’d think discovering that a headshot could kill these things would help their relationship left me shaking my head, but even if it was a stretch, it might be worth mentioning…

I’d spaced out on Mel, but he’d turned his attention on the manticore at our feet.

“Oh, by the way,” I said. “I’m getting some of the old crew back together to do some focused training and I want you to join me.”

“Just say the word, Major, and I’m there.”

“I’ll need you especially. Victoria has me focusing on developing unique ways to use psionics in these missions. You’re the most talented psionic user we got, so…”

“Me? You’re a whole rank above me, and I still haven’t gotten a hang of healing or push.”

“Yeah, but I sort of had certain abilities beat into me at exactly the right time. You’re figuring them out yourself.” Not to mention that I have access to one of the best psionic users in the entire galaxy to help. I didn’t deny I was talented, but I’d heard the way Victoria and Peter talked about Mel. He was just a natural.

He shrugged.

“Take the compliment, fury,” Olivia sounded loudly from his headset. “He isn’t wrong.”

“You’re right, honey.” He looked up at me rolling his eyes. “She thinks I struggle with confidence, so she’s been on an encouragement kick. How can someone so beautiful be so annoying?”

“What?!” I replied. “Who are you and what have you done with my friend?”

He shrugged again.

Olivia didn’t let that go. “Very funny you two. Like I can’t hear and see everything you’re doing.”

“I think you’re doing an awesome job, Olivia. Mel forgets not all of us have someone there to remind us.”

“Exactly.”

I changed the subject. “Uh, I gotta ask. What’s a fury?”

Mel’s eyes went wide, and he looked away as if I’d missed his reaction.

“Mel has a hairy chest,” she replied.

“It’s not that hairy,” he retorted.

“Maybe not, but I like it.”

He looked at me like I should do something about her.

“I like it too, Olivia.” I said, holding back laughter. “And no, it’s not too much.” I smacked him on the shoulder. “Don’t you realize we would’ve been making fun of you since the first day we ran shirtless in Freedom if you really were excessively hairy? I thought we were friends. That’s what friends do.”

“Call him a nincompoop,” Destiny said suddenly, addressing Mel. She’d directed her voice through our general comm channel.

Mel looked at me like he wasn’t sure what was going on.

It was my turn to shrug. I responded to her, “Shut up, drone-head.”

“Lucius, return to basecamp to report,” Victoria interrupted. Everyone went silent. There was a round of unvoiced chuckles.

I said farewell to the others and headed toward the entrance of the mine we were clearing today. Once I’d passed by the forward platoons and was mostly alone, I spoke where I knew Victoria would hear me. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have let things get that carried away.”

“Then take this as a reminder,” she replied evenly. “But I saw it too. There’s been a lot of darkness in Mel since Freedom. Olivia has been able to shine some light. It’s good to see him like that.”

“It really is,” I replied. “And her. She’s like a different person.”

“Do… Do you wish things would have ended up different between you?”

I could imagine Victoria’s downturned face the moment the words slipped from her mouth.

“Stop it, Victoria,” I rebuked. I wasn’t angry, but it was probably one of the harshest tones I’d ever used with her. The worst thing was that I couldn’t even tell her directly not to try to push me into the arms of another woman. I couldn’t even say aloud that she was the only one I was interested in. People were watching. Maybe I was angry.

“I’m content seeing two people that I care about happy. Which reminds me.” I couldn’t help but to think back to my early days with Victoria in Freedom. “I almost wish Treetop still drank. Watching him throw himself off that barrel to land on his back and pass out was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.”

She laughed. “Yeah. That one will be hard to top. What made you think of that?”

“You want to sneak out tonight and get into trouble?”

“You’re seriously asking me, your superior officer, if I want to get into trouble?”

“Yes.”

“I… I can’t tonight, but soon, okay? Don’t forget.”

“Deal.”