Several things happened at once in those key fractions of a second.

  The Kharnidd glowed yellow as they hacked up large droplets of Psionic power at the Pioneers. These attacks rippled like real liquid and were tinged at the edges in a dark, unhealthy purple. Most of the soldiers were taken on the back foot, unable to react in time as the projectiles bore down on them. Fortunately, one man was already a step ahead.

  As the person to discover the hidden enemies, Daniel had already leapt into action after he alerted the others. He manifested the Raphael Protocol and activated one of its most powerful abilities: the Sphaera Scuti.

  A dome of translucent white energy blazed into existence around Daniel and several of the men nearby. Before anyone could react, Daniel pushed the barrier outward, the shield growing more transparent as it expanded to cover the entire Pioneer company. It was just in time to block the whole Skulker barrage, the Psionic attacks sizzling with energy as they struck the barrier and exploded into puddles of liquid. The Pioneers were shocked at the sudden turnaround, but their training had already kicked in. With firearms in hand, they aimed the Xenos on the ceiling and started blasting away. Daniel’s barrier admitted passage to his allies’ attacks even as it kept out the enemies’, a fact that the Pioneers had collectively intuited.

  The Kharnidd shrieked in consternation, bodies glowing with power once again as they took evasive maneuvers. Their movements resembled Emily’s when she used her ability, the Skulkers scuttling around enigmatically and leaving behind illusory images that threw off the Pioneers’ aim. Even so, there were a lot of soldiers, and they peppered the zone with a wave of emerald blaster bolts. Several Kharnidd were scorched to death in the blink of an eye, their bodies falling onto Daniel’s forcefield with a SPLAT.

  Despite those successes, Daniel was a bit vexed. He’d managed to hit a couple of targets, but they’d shrugged off the attacks with little more than a few scorch marks. His blaster was built to deal with Epsilon-class opponents, not enemies of this level. He could damage the Skulkers, thanks partly to their low Constitution, but he couldn’t land a decisive blow easily. Dismissing the weapon, he settled on a new tactic. Daniel manifested one of his backup spears, a simple, once forged blacksteel weapon, and got into a throwing position. He took aim and activated two Capacities. At first, his arms shone with the yellow glow of the Destroyer’s Strike before they changed, glowing brighter before taking on a vibrant green. With all the might of an Overclocked Destroyer’s Strike, Daniel threw the spear without hesitation.

  It flew across the room in a flurry of motion, much faster than even Daniel’s eyes could track it. The weapon practically teleported on top of one of the Skulkers, giving the creature no time to react before it was hit with a sickening SQUELCH. The weapon wasn’t designed to combat D class enemies, but that didn’t matter. Daniel could’ve thrown a pebble, and it would’ve caused damage at those speeds. The spear dug through the Kharnidd’s body even as it shattered into pieces, tearing the enemy apart from the inside. The fiend exploded in a rain of purple blood; the remnants of its body evaporating as they hit Daniel’s defenses. And with that, the Kharnidd had had enough, and they began to make their way back to the tunnels. They shot off a few more attacks against Daniel’s barrier as they retreated, but these attacks fared no better than their predecessors had.

  Not content with a simple victory, Captain Moravan let out a savage cry and leapt out of the protection of Daniel’s barrier at the crawling enemies. He hoisted a long, twin-bladed weapon with a handle in its center, the captain spinning the blade to deflect the enemies’ projectiles as he ran. The blades were long, flat, and made of a snowy white material, with a thin crimson line running down the center of the entire weapon. Moravan’s body glowed green with a full-body enhancement, his blade tearing through several Skulkers with practiced ease.

  Moravan, unsatisfied with the death of just a few enemies, began fueling another attack. One of the halves of his twin-blade was elongated by a bladelike construct of Psionic energy, the power glimmering as it caught the light. He swung the weapon mightily, cutting through a swath of the retreating enemy and scattering their bodies across the floor. The Pioneers behind him also contributed by gunning down as many as possible. Some unleashed beams or lances of yellow light on the enemy, whose dodging abilities could only take them so far. The Pioneers took a serious toll on the enemy before the last of them could scurry back down the tunnel from whence they’d come. The soldiers chose not to give chase, thanks to their orders to guard the machine, but the damage was done. They’d decimated the enemy's ranks without losing a single person. Daniel released the shield and deactivated his Protocol, only to be swarmed with curious questioners:

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  “What was that? Your tech?”

  “Did that armor enhance your throw?”

  “Is there anything else that thing can do?”

  This riot of questions was broken up by the captain, who shouted, “All right, leave the man alone! Keep your discipline. You’ll see what he can do before the battle is over, I’ll tell you true.”

  With that, the crowd dispersed, and the Pioneers returned to their battle stations. Daniel’s squadmates remained by his side, with Bob Forsythe slapping him on the back and congratulating him, “Nice save. You pick them up on the scanner?”

  Daniel nodded, saying, “The Skulkers have some of the best camo of the Kharnidd. They need to sit still to activate it, but it’s hard for even high-class Pioneers or basic scanning abilities to catch them when they do. I’m happy that my scanner was able to see them before they gathered in larger numbers.”

  That’s what the Skulkers had likely been doing, waiting for more of their number to join their ranks before ambushing the Pioneers with a stronger force. Daniel’s detecting them had incited the Skulkers to attack before it was ideal, and his shield had rendered their ambush impotent. As several of the others were congratulating him, Emily tapped Daniel on the shoulder and gestured elsewhere, commenting, “Looks like someone’s getting popular.”

  She was pointing to the captain and his three lieutenants, who’d conferred briefly before walking over to the group. They gave a salute, which the COs returned, before the captain said, “At ease, soldiers. You all fought well. Especially you, Sergeant Hardgrave. If you’re not a first lieutenant after this is over, I’ll eat Ol’ Colarna.”

  Lieutenant Alron’s eyebrows frowned with exasperation as he interjected, “That’s what the captain calls his weapon. It’s actually a priceless treasure, passed down in the Moravan family for generations, so I wish he’d-“

  “Oh, quiet you!” the captain exclaimed, swatting playfully at his subordinate and commenting, “Alron over here is too darn serious. What I’m saying is, keep up the good work. And also…”

  He manifested a sleek black Toshak rifle and tossed it to Daniel, continuing, “That baby should do better against D class nasties. We only have so many of those, but I’ll have the lieutenants distribute what extras they have to you newcomers. Should’ve thought of this earlier, but it slipped my mind.”

  As he said that, the lieutenants in question were already taking out rifles and handing them over to the Pioneers in Daniel’s squad. As this continued, the captain asked, “How’s the battery on that tech o’ yours?”

  Daniel checked, then answered, “It’s holding up, but that shield was expensive. I can’t make a habit of doing that.”

  Manifesting the armor, creating the shield, and then expanding that shield had cost him more than he was comfortable with. He’d gone from 89.9% after using the battery to 88.7%. Not a catastrophe, but this battle was likely to be a marathon, not a sprint.

  Technically, the Archangel System could draw power from his body to regenerate its battery. At Zeta class, it could do little more than keep the passive functions of the System running in shutdown mode. At Epsilon class, he could get a fraction of a percent per week. Now, he was closer to 0.1% per day, which wasn’t terrible, but he would still need to be conservative.

  The captain frowned slightly, saying, “You have a scanning ability that lets you see the Skulkers?”

  Daniel nodded, and the captain continued, “Be conservative with your shield, but keep scanning. We haven’t dealt with those Skulkers yet, which makes me think: ‘What else haven’t we seen?’ We’ll be relying on your ability to alert us. ‘An ounce of prevention is a pound of cure,’ as they say.”

  It was actually ‘An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,’ but Daniel didn’t bother correcting his CO and just nodded again. With that taken care of, the officers walked away, and Daniel and his squadmates turned their focus back to the tunnels. He did as ordered, regularly scanning their immediate environment, and it unfortunately wasn’t long before he detected another pack of enemies coming their way. They hadn’t bothered with stealth, so it was Reggie who first informed the group of Pioneers instead. The Colare had been using his own scouting ability, just for good measure, “Incomin”

  Daniel elaborated on his little friend’s report, “Over 300 tangos, E class and above, coming our way from those tunnels.”

  He set waypoints at three tunnels, and the Pioneers tensed up as they waited with bated breath. The scratch of stone on stone was their only other warning as a tide of Xenos barreled toward the Pioneer fortifications.