Vanguard Word Update

3097 word update. Sorry for the slight delay I have a little side project I'm working on, which I'm sure you'll all like. Hopefully. Maybe. Anway here's more Vanguard.

***

The Balokarids deployed their shields, parting a little to give Ryan and Brindley a line of fire. As they downed the two projections, there was movement on the right, Ryan looking over to see another Confederate come rushing into the doorway from somewhere deeper in the bunker.

Before the projection could fire, Tilu stepped in, her shield-arm swiping out in a backhanded motion, the Confederate shattering into black shards of glass as the curved layers of energy connected with its face. She put most of her weight in the swing, Ryan doubting the scene would have looked much different if that had been a real person.

Tilu led the way into the room the thing had come from, the team clearing out this identical room with a few bursts of coilgun fire. With Tilu and Samiha locking down the doorways with their shields, it was smooth sailing for the rest of the structure, the team clearing out the pillbox methodically. After downing the last projection, a ping from Ryan’s display signaled that the objective was complete. “Nice work, everyone,” Ryan said. “Switch out your sinks, let’s keep going.”

There was little time to take a breather, the clock was still ticking, and one more objective still remained. They hurried their way out of the pillbox, Dominic greeting them as he dropped the spent drum mag of his coilgun to the floor, wisps of smoke rising from the barrels of his custom machine gun.

“See you’ve been keeping busy,” Tilu noted, gesturing at the pieces of cover that hadn’t been there when they’d gone inside, their surfaces riddled with holes.

“Target practice is better without you in the way,” Dominic replied, the two sharing a grin beneath their obscuring headsets.

After checking their weapons, they moved back into the maze, moving towards the south. The layout hadn’t changed since last time, all twisting walkways with the occasional path leading to a dead end. They weren’t at risk of getting lost with Ryan’s map on hand, but it still gave him and the team some practice in following orders while Ryan directed them, the occasional skirmish with a Confederate keeping them on alert.

“We’re just shy of eight thousand points” Ryan said, swiping at his display to the scoring tab. “Make this one count guys, we’re almost there.”

“We’ll try not to get killed, Sir,” Brindley confirmed. “How’s my score going anyway?”

Ryan could swipe across to see a list each of their individual performances, including his own. They were updated in real time, and were intended for Ryan to use to give pointers, but it was generally used among the troops as a way of staying competitive.

“That smoke screen bumped you up above Tilu,” Ryan replied, Brindley beaming over at him.

“Ha! Hear that, Tilu? Pitchers are always better catchers, proof’s right here!”

“Keep talking and I’ll make you go in front,” the alien replied.

“What’s my score?” Samiha asked, peeking over his shoulder at his display. She’d brought her voice down, like she was afraid of being overheard.

“You’re doing fine,” he said, turning off the little screen.

“A very dismissive answer. I’d be doing better than fine if you didn’t place me in such an unimportant position,” Samiha grumbled. “Shields belong at the front, not the back.”

“Suck it up,” Ryan replied with a shrug. “I need someone to watch our backs, and you’re it. Complain after we’re done, not before.”

“Oh I will, believe me…”

They soon came across the final corridor, the walls turning in towards each other to form an arch, leading into a shadowy tunnel maybe thirty meters deep. Cubes of floor extruded from the ground, some tall enough to block Ryan’s view of the far side of the tunnel, where the mock-sunlight illuminated a giant green landing pad. This was obviously meant to simulate a final push towards an extraction zone, the team readying up for contact.

As they’d expected, the tunnel was soon filled with a squad of Confederates, the projections kneeling and leaning out from cover at various points along the final stretch, the team stacking up to one side of the tunnel mouth.

“Tilu deploy your shield and move up,” Ryan ordered. “Brindley go with her, give us some breathing room.”

Brindley tapped Tilu’s shoulder when he was ready, and the alien brandished her shield, moving into the tunnel to the first hurdle of cover a few meters inside. Dominic deployed his bipod, firing around their position and filling the air with bullets, the Confederates hunkering down as he suppressed them.

A squawk of alarm turned Ryan around, the man watching Samiha raise the convex slope of her shield moments before a burst of gunfire rained down on her from above. He looked up, seeing the shadowy figure of Confederate had appeared on top of one of the maze walls behind them, Ryan raising his rifle and downing with with a quick burst.

“Not so unimportantnow, is it?” he exclaimed. She didn’t say anything, but her feathers did stand on end in a way he came to understand as agitation. “Move right, stay close to the wall.”

The two coordinated towards the side, Ryan cutting down another Confederate that appeared at a different spot on the wall, the pieces of its armour ripping apart. Samiha joined him when she reached the base of the wall, the two finding no lack of targets as the flanking Confederates continued to appear from above.

“Dominic I need fire on the walls!” Ryan shouted.

“With pleasure, boss.”

He turned his heavy gun from the tunnel to the high ground, sweeping his heavy coilgun from left to right as he cut the flanking targets down. With the three of them, they made quick work of the ambush, but just as the last of them shattered into bits, four more began to take its place.

“Uhm, Corporal?” Samiha asked between bursts of her PDW. “Shouldn’t they be stopping by now?”

“Just keep firing, they can’t keep this up forever!”

“They’re holograms! Of course they can!”

He cursed under his breath, realising she was right, and that each group they slew was just going to get replaced a couple seconds later.

“What’s the holdup guys?” Brindley shouted from somewhere inside the tunnel.

“Got a bit of infinite reinforcements back here,” Dominic replied, the gunfire just low enough they were able to communicate. “What’s the plan, boss?”

“Into the tunnel!” he replied. “Is the way clear, Brindley?”

“Hell no! I need Dominic to give us some cover!”

“I’m almost out!” Samiha shouted.

Panic was starting to grip the team, Ryan needed to get his shit together, and fast. He reloaded while Samiha covered him, drawing up strategies in his head and failing to find one that worked, the constant racket of gunfire not doing his train of thought any favours.

“Hey Tilu, Samiha!” Brindley began. “You guys have sandwiches where you come from?”

“Now’s notthe time, Brindley!” Ryan shouted.

“No no, I got a plan! Seriously! Do Balokarids have sandwiches?”

“Yes!” Tilu answered. “Two bits of bread, meat and lettuce in between, what’s your point?”

“Alright get this, you and Samiha be the bread, right? And the rest of us will be the other stuff! We move down the tunnel together, shields up on both sides, we can make it!”

“You didn’t have to make it a whole analogy,” Ryan complained. “But good thinking. Samiha you ready?”

She holstered her weapon, bringing both her winged arms up and crossing them in front of her chest. Her curved shield rippled like the surface of a pond, forming a barrier that overtook the span of her shoulders and then some, the alien stepping out into the open. Ryan used her as mobile cover, the two moving over to pick up Dominic, the two humans staying low as they fired while on moving into the tunnel, walking backwards. The heatsinks of their coilguns were red-hot as they fired up at the flanking projections, the figures dropping one by one, Samiha’s shields the only thing keeping the three of them alive from the waves of returning fire.

Ryan ducked behind Samiha’s bulky frame to reload, turning to look back the way they were going. Tilu had mimicked Samiha, deploying her towering shield and rising to her feet, Brindley using her bulk as cover, clearing the tunnel of hostiles with his coilgun. When the two groups met, they formed a sort of conga line formation, Tilu taking point as she stalked forward.

“My shields won’t hold!” Tilu chirped, Ryan noting the cracks forming at the edges of her barrier. He directed Dominic to focus his fire on the front, he and Brindley clearing the way forward an alleviating some of the pressure on her as they dropped the Confederates.

The flanking projections were starting to swarm the tunnel mouth, there were so many of them that Ryan didn’t have to aim, his coilgun fire sending tens of them falling to the floor. They were deep enough into the tunnel that the elevated positions weren’t a problem anymore, Samiha holding her barrier low enough to protect her legs.

The team hurdled over an ankle-high protrusion in the ground, like a speed bump on a road, weaving between the sporadic cover as gunfire crisscrossed over their heads from both directions. Samiha was nearly sent reeling as she backed into a piece of waist-high cover, Ryan tugging on her arm before she could lose her balance, using most of his strength to hall her back into formation.

“Keep going, Samiha, we’re almost there!”

He could see artificial light spill onto his armoured vest, the team nearing the far side of the tunnel. A pair of machine gunners had set up in the clearing just beyond the exit, Brindley making quick work of them now that they’d closed the distance. The men bunched up between the two aliens as the sim threw everything it had at them, tens of holograms appearing every minute, Samiha visibly sagging as the sustained fire started to chip away at her shielding, the bright energy fading at the edges.

“About to break back here,” Samiha chimed.

“Move!” Ryan ordered, the team launching out of the tunnel and scrambling out of the line of fire, and not a second too soon, Samiha’s shields petering out as one last spray of bullets knocked out her shield. She hit the deck, doing her best to bundle her powerful frame behind anything she could find as bullets zipped over her feathery head. Tilu was already moving, grabbing her counterpart by her clawed legs and draggin her to safety, using her fading shield to protect her while she moved.

When they were all out of the tunnel, everything went quiet, until only the team’s heavy breathing filled the room. Ryan peaked round the corner, seeing that the projections filling the tunnel were all standing eerily still, their featureless faces turned in his direction. It was like someone had just hit the pause button on them, the mock-soldiers posed like actions figures in the middle of a battlefield.

A warning claxon sounded off, and then the area they were standing in shifted, the walls petering out until they were left standing in the middle of an endless plane made of grids. A message saying that the scenario was complete appeared on their collective HUD’s.

Ryan plucked the headset from his skull, the team following suit. He could feel where the straps had dug into his skin around the eyes and ears, itching like they were still there. The world returned to normal, his team now wearing plastic vests and holding prop-guns in their hands, the wireframe room of the sim not as elaborate as the headsets would have led them to believe.

“I told you guys!” Brindley exclaimed, running a hand through his hair. “The Balokarid sandwich worked!”

“We are notcalling it that,” Ryan laughed, and the rest of the team chuckled tiredly, planting their hands on their knees to catch their breaths. A beep from his wrist-display drew his attention, Ryan swiping at the screen and going wide-eyed at what was written there.

“Hey, everyone,” he said. “Just got our final score. We… we did it. More than that, we got thirteen k points!”

A victorious cheer erupted from the team, Tilu raising her surf board-like shield into the air in elation, Brindley whooping as he nudged Dominic with his weapon, the tiredness from all the running around mixing wonderfully with the good news. Samiha didn’t look like she’d fully processed what had happened yet, standing there in bewildered silence as her feathery head roiled.

Ryan moved over and gave her a playful punch on the thigh, grinning up at her. “Nice work with that shield back there, Samiha, not so boring watching the rear, is it?”

“It definitely has its moments,” she chuckled. It was the most relaxed he’d seen her, the alien planting a hand on one of her wide hips, throwing her headdress back like a woman might shake her hair out. Her headdress shifted hues from yellow to brown as the light reflected off the feathers, Ryan trying not to stare too much.

The door to the sim room opened, a familiar figure with his hands clasped behind his back walking up to them. “Congratulations, team,” Adamski said. “You worked through every objective without a single casualty, outstanding job.”

“Thirteen thousand points has gotta be a record,” Brindley said. “Top ten at least.”

“Top sixactually,” Adamski replied. “As for your approaches, I can confidently say I’ve not seen anything quite like it before, not that that’s surprising, considering you two being present.” He gestured at the Balokarids.

“If I could just make one suggestion,” Brindley added. “put a limit on the number of reinforcements at the end there, nobody likes infinitely respawning enemies.”

“Well nobody likes you, Private, so your suggestion has been duly ignored.”

Tilu snorted at that, the alien covering her beak in an attempt to stifle herself. “Keep up the good work, team four,” Adamski continued. “I’ll admit I was doubtful that a team of mixed species could work, but if you keep showing me performances like that, I might just start changing my mind.”

After stowing away their sim gear, the Captain dismissed them, the team heading down to the mess hall for some early dinner, ravenous after the simulation. The scenario might have been fake, but the exertion from all the running wasn’t, and the five of them were ravenous. After collecting their portions of meat and vegetables from the chefs, the Balokarid’s plates upscaled appropriately, the team found an empty table, eating and chatting about their time in the sim. Ryan was pleasantly surprised to see Samiha join in on their conversations, rather than sit somewhere else like she usually did. Maybe the forced teamwork had final broken her resolve on keeping humans at a distance.

“So ladies, how do we hold up compared to other Balokarids?” Brindley asked, spearing a piece of bacon on his fork. “Is it better or worse to fight with humans?”

“I’d say… neither,” Tilu answered. “Humans seem to put more emphasis on fighting within enclosed spaces, while using ranged weaponry almost exclusively. It’s different to what we’re used to.”

“In more ways than one,” Samiha added. “The fact that you’re all male is probably the most jarring for me.”

“You don’t have men in your armies?” Dominic asked, Samiha shaking her head.

“No. Well, not in infantry roles. Our males are better suited to vehicle combat, like landships or other ground vehicles. Everything else, like aircraft pilots or ground troops, are for females only.”

“Why’s that?” Ryan asked. “Can’t your males fight?”

“They can, but they are wingless, which makes them more suited to working within the confines of a vehicle, rather than out. The ability to fly gives us an advantage over one that cannot, as well as giving us an intuitive understanding of aeronautics. You won’t ever see a male wielding a shield or flying an aircraft, training them takes too long to be practical.”

“Wait, wait, hold on,” Brindley said. “You ladies can fly? You never mentioned that!”

“You didn’t ask,” Tilu answered, shrugging her colourful shoulders. “And it should be pretty obvious, evolution didn’t give us wings just for showing off. Well, technically she did,” she chuckled. “the colour and size of our wings is one of the main things our males look for in a potential mate.”

“Bigger is better, huh?” Brindley smirked. “We humans have the same principle.”

“That’s not necessarily true,” Samiha defended. “Wings aren’t all that makes us stand out.”

“Like you’d know,” Tilu shot back, an amused expression on her beak. The implication was lost on Ryan, but he could see that Samiha appeared a little flustered by the comment.

“You said our tactics are different,” Ryan noted, chewing on his food as he spoke. “What’s a typical Balokarid formation look like?”

It was Samiha who answered. “Ten Balokarids stand in a row, with eight more behind them, and two landships on either side. That’s our equivalent to a mechanized section or squad, as you’d call them. The ten at the front deploy their shields and advance, while the ships cover the flanks, and the eight others provide firing support. If the shields start to break, the landships come in and deploy their own barriers to cover the infantry.”

“Sounds like a Viking shield wall,” Brindley commented.

“On Balokar, there is almost no cover out on the dunes between the clans,” Samiha continued. “That’s why we steered into the shielding aspect of warfare over the years, creating our own protection.”

“You’ve both been doing your part well, that’s for sure,” Dominic added. “Think about how much of an edge we’d get against a Confederate platoon head-to-head. We got meat shields, they don’t. One-sided slaughter in my book.”

“I’d be concerned about your obsession with meat if you weren’t on my side, Dom,” Tilu said, blinking down at the human.

“Don’t worry,” Brindley chuckled. “he’s always been a bit of a psycho once his heart starts hammering.”

Dominic blinked at the pair, apparently confused by what they were saying about him. Their conversations turned to other matters, the mess hall filled with their quiet chuckling and murmured discussions as Samiha gradually opened up to Brindley and Dominic. Ryan sat back, hiding the grin on his face behind his cutlery. There was just something about having a team getting along together that inspired pride in his heart.