Ankara, Markus Haraldson

  Markus’s world turned crimson as the Executioner’s attack transformed the sky above him.

  A massive construct of incomprehensible power materialized into thin air, casting a long shadow as it loomed over Markus’s head. It was a long, thick rectangular wedge with the sharp edge pointed downward, and it slowly descended upon him with an apocalyptic finality. Naturally, the Pioneer teleported out of the way, but dodging wasn’t that simple. The blade literally teleported with him, the gargantuan attack simply vanishing and reappearing right above Markus like nothing had even happened. The veteran wasn’t surprised, but his mouth narrowed into a severe line as he watched his impending doom overshadow him.

  Perfect Execution was an ability that seemed more suited to destroying the landscape than people at first glance. To most combatants at a high level, it moved painfully slowly, trading speed for devastating power, yet that was where the Executioner’s Mark came in. Once applied, the Mark would ensure that Perfect Execution would hit the marked target without fail, turning the Capacity into an inevitable death for most marked enemies. Markus had teleported away to test the notion, but now he recognized that he had only one defense remaining. His Compounding Strike had reached its peak:

  “Layered Strike: Compounding Reality Warp.”

  The Pioneer looked like an ant trying to hold up a building as he swung his daggers upward with the most potent attack he could unleash. He also poured energy into the Psionic Blizzard, the power swirling around his body and eating into the Kharnidd’s attack with everything it had. The ground quaked as Markus’s feet shattered the concrete under him like thin glass, forming a crater with incredible speed. The explosion of the contesting energies caused great tendrils of lightning to swarm all around, superheating the air. The Pioneer couldn’t breathe as the power crushed down on him, but he would not bend.

  The world gave way around Markus as he was pushed further downward, the crater growing deeper by the millisecond. At some point, he’d started screaming as his armor had begun to fracture, blood bursting from his open wounds as the pressure only increased. His focus narrowed to a thin thread as he poured out everything he had, arms trembling uncontrollably with exertion. Then, it all reached a climax.

  The construct detonated with the force of an exploding sun, churning the earth with a chaotic rumble that dwarfed any natural thunder. The heat was suffocating as Markus finally crashed downward, completely overwhelmed. Then, he finally saw open sky.

  The Pioneer was flat on his back, pressed into a human-shaped hole in the earth. His armor was mostly shattered, and what remained of the tech soon dissipated into red blips of light. It left behind Markus’s broken, bloody form, the soldier’s clothes totally singed away by the heat of the blast. His body ached with a plethora of bruises and broken bones. His knives were shattered. The blade’s remnants were scattered in small pieces across the massive pit. Burn scars ran up and down his torso. And yet, he was alive.

  That didn’t appear to be for long as the Executioner appeared over him, blades vibrating with the power as it prepared to earn its name. In his defense, Markus only had a few words, which he said with the last of his strength: “Old friend, I could use a little help over here.”

  He barely got the words out of his lips before a dark, blurry form crashed into the Executioner.

  The Kharnidd zoomed across the bottom of the crater in a cloud of grit, digging its talons into the earth in a frantic attempt to hold its balance. A new figure stood over Markus’s battered body, broad back casting a long shadow as the newcomer interposed himself between the fallen Pioneer and the Xenos. Pioneer Commander Oran Brekinar stared stonily at the Kharnidd Executioner, each hand grasping a war axe that crackled menacingly with Psionic lightning. The commander took one mighty step forward, boot cracking the earth with indomitable strength, and the Xenos did the only sensible thing possible. It vanished in a billowing film of kicked-up dust, reappearing at the lip of the crater before disappearing entirely. Instead of giving chase, Brekinar spoke up, rumbling, “Can you stand, Markus?”

  The Pioneer colonel was shakily getting his feet, injecting a stim into his arm, and moving his broken arms gingerly. Markus replied to the commander as his wounds began to heal, “It looks worse than it is. Daggers are busted, and my tech’s out of power, so I won’t be fighting any time soon. But I’ll survive. We need to get back to the others.”

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  “Others?”

  “A group I was protecting. Civilians left behind in the confusion of the evacuation.”

  Brekinar grunted thoughtfully, “Then we’ll have to let the Xenos go, for now.”

  Markus nodded, and the two men turned and jumped away, making their way back toward the column of humanity.

  …

  Jordan

  The Greater Bonepiercer slashed through Gon’s boulder before being inundated by a new stream of blaster fire, the Kharnidd’s upper half now exposed above the rubble. It cried out in pain and fury, leaping out from under the remaining debris and away from the Pioneer threat. The creature’s body was being held together by duct tape and chewing gum, metaphorically speaking, its torso a litany of burn marks and cuts. The Xenos was so torn up and bloody that it looked half dead already, the healing glow around its body clearly working double-time to keep it in one piece. And yet, it was still alive, and Jordan felt a sinking feeling in his gut as he watched the Kharnidd dodge or deflect a new round of Pioneer attacks, the fiend slowly working itself back into fighting shape.

  There was a real possibility that the Xenos was still sitting on an Enhancement sphere, or some alternative gimmick that it could use to seize victory. Even if the creature didn’t have access to that kind of thing, the Pioneers were running on fumes. If the Bonepiercer got back to full form, it would be over. Jordan’s mind worked overtime to figure out how to prevent that, only to draw a blank. He was out of options.

  As the soldiers were coming to terms with their grim reality, the Kharnidd suddenly paused. It cocked its head and looked off into the distance, deflecting a few more plasma bolts almost absentmindedly. But before the Pioneers could process this new development, the creature straightened up, turned around, and dashed away. It slipped into a nearby alleyway, vanishing from sight as quickly as it had come, leaving the onlooking humans stunned and confused. Jordan stayed cautious, peering around him as he searched for signs that the enemy was planning to ambush them from a different shadow.

  This perplexed reverie was broken by more rumbling in the distance. The Behemoth that had been attacking their rear had abruptly stood up and taken off, footsteps slowly growing quieter as it ran into the distance. It was this event that finally sowed the seeds of hope in Jordan’s heat. Were the Kharnidd…

  “They’re retreating!” Scalia called out, his swarthy face alive with wonder, “These blasted Xenos are running!”

  A great roar of triumph and relief echoed out from soldier and civilian alike, the mighty sound rolling up and down the human column in a relieved wave. Half-hysterical with giddiness, Jordan called out jokingly, “Damn it, boys, we’re letting them get away!”

  The whole party was glad to be alive, taking deep lungfuls of the warm night air as they basked in the sensation of success, quite a few of them chuckling at Jordan’s joke. The young man grinned from ear to ear as he looked around at his friends, their elation palpable. Then, he saw something that wiped that grin right off.

  MacNeil remained pallid, growing ever more sickly as he swayed on his feet. A glassy look had taken over his eyes, and Jordan noticed purple, necrotic veins bulging over the healed skin around his sternum. As he watched, MacNeil tried to step forward, and he collapsed.

  Jordan was there, keeping his friend from hitting the pavement hard, yet he felt MacNeil’s body become completely dead weight. The boy’s breathing had grown thin, coming out in slow wheezes as his head lolled backward. Jordan’s mind froze as he held the broken body of his friend, staring downward in abject horror. He quickly snapped out of it and looked up, belting out, “Does anyone have a Tablet?!! A Scion Tablet!! Something that can lessen the damage of Psionic poisoning?”

  But that kind of resource was extremely rare, and Jordan already knew the answer as everyone around him watched with sadness and confusion. In fact, he watched as Scalia and Lao grew sicklier as well, apparently fighting their own cases of Kharnidd poisoning. The image of the D class Greater Bondepiercer appeared in Jordan’s mind, along with a single, important line from the Kharnidd dossier, “The stronger the Kharnidd, the more potent their poison, particularly for those of a lesser class. Always exercise extreme caution when dealing with an opponent of a higher class, but do so especially when dealing with a Kharnidd. Even small injuries could eventually prove fatal.”

  As he contemplated this horrific information, he heard a voice speak to him from below, “Sssir?”

  The blonde man looked into the dazed, confused face of James MacNeil, and he felt his heart break. He materialized a stimulant from his Codex’s storage, mumbling, “It’s gonna be okay, James. I’ve got you.”

  Jordan pressed the syringe into the younger man’s neck, feeling his body tense up, then slowly start to relax again. The stim would heal the man’s wounds and numb his pain. It wouldn’t save him from the poison, but it would make him more comfortable. That was all Jordan could do as he watched some of the focus come back into the redhead’s eyes. The poisoned man’s voice grew stronger, “Thank you, sir. You’re right. It’ll be okay.”

  Jordan felt his heart break again as he watched real relief break out over MacNeil’s face, even as the health boost from the stim started to wane. At least the young man seemed legitimately at peace. Jordan commented softly, “You know I was joking about calling me ‘sir’, right? I don’t actually outrank you.”

  “Yeah, but you will one day,” MacNeil responded, the focus bleeding out of his eyes as his breath grew shallow once more. Delirious, the young man’s gaze moved toward the night sky, the stars reflected in his pupils as he muttered, “Shouldn’t be hard to outrank a coward like me.”

  “You’re not a coward, James,” Jordan said emphatically, “You’re one of the bravest men I’ve ever met.”

  MacNeil snorted lightly, “I spent all my time on the missions hiding behind you and the boss. ‘Course I’m a coward. I tried to cover it up, but I am.”

  “There’s not a single coward in the whole universe who’d lay down his life for his friends. Trust me, that’s just how it is.”

  MacNeil offered Jordan a ghost of a smile as he closed his eyes, “If…if you say so. Sir.”

  There, in Jordan’s arms, Sergeant James MacNeil, age 17, gave his final measure beneath a starlit Akaadian sky.