About half an hour later, Tiff and CJ had located the nearest enemy faction. They were camped about 7 miles from our FOB, and they didn’t seem to be preparing to move. Tiff said they would be back at base camp in five minutes, and she would provide me with the rest of the intel she had regarding the faction. To say the least, I wasn’t feeling overly confident that she didn’t want to give me a quick rundown over the comms.

  “Okay, team, Tiff and CJ will be back soon. Let’s be ready to go when they get back. Jax, it will be another few minutes before we can give you the second dose of the stim so just rest for now. Matty and Red, can you guys go prep Rover? We are gonna need to make sure it’s good to go. Grab plenty of ammo for the turret as well,” I said.

  “On it, Cap. We will have enough ammo to rain metal on those bastards!” Matty said as he and Red went outside to outfit Rover.

  While I was waiting for Tiff and CJ, I took a second and dug into my interface again. Since this dungeon started, I had gained two and a half levels, and now I was halfway to Level 11. I needed to get up to speed on my stats.

  Name – Andrew Timothy Dawes

  Race – Human

  Level – P-10

  Class – Havok Bringer

  Stats –

  Strength – P10 – 56%

  Intelligence – P11 – 03%

  Dexterity – P10 – 63%%

  Defense – P10 – 86%

  Current skills:

  Make me feel good, Daddy – Health stim activation

  Baby needs his baba – Stamina Stim recovery

  Current abilities :

  Pulsar Blast – Planetary class ability. Upgrade status - 12%

  Big Bang – Planetary class ability. Upgrade progress - 0%

  Immediately, I noticed Big Bang was added to my ability list. I also noticed the description added to each ability. Tiff and I had some discussion about the P designator attached to my level and stats. The description added to my abilities must have been unlocked at level 10. This was important. I now knew that the P stood for planetary class. I still didn’t know what that meant or how it could help me, but based on the description, I could upgrade my abilities and progress them to something higher than the Planetary class. Tiff and I would have to discuss this when she returned. I kept digging into my stats. All of my stats had jumped significantly since leaving the tutorial. I definitely felt it in that last fight. I mean, I did a backflip over one mercenary for crying out loud. I noticed my intelligence stat had already exceeded level P11. It seems that the time put into planning our trap worked out. I was starting to understand how each stat progressed and what I could do to focus on individual stats. I had to think about what I could improve on that would help me if I had to fight without my armor though, so strength was next on the list for a boost.

  I heard the Pup landing outside, shaking me out of my stat-induced stupor, so I got up and walked out to greet Tiff and CJ, “Hey guys, I have the team prepping Rover; what’s the story on the target faction?”

  Tiff looked shaken as she walked down the rear ramp. “It’s the Rerek faction, Andrew. We need to think about finding a different target.”

  “Wait a second, who are the Rereks? And how can they be worse than the pack of werewolves that I already fought today?!” I asked with a frown.

  CJ walked up. He wasn’t in his suit since he was now staying on the Pup for the duration of the mission. “Oh, believe me, bro, they are worse,” he said as he sighed out heavily and ran his hands across the top of his head.

  A few minutes later, we were back in the HAB. The rest of the crew had finished prepping Rover, and Jax had taken his second stim and was up and about again, almost fully healed. Tiff had taken some recon pictures with the Pup and brought them up on one monitor for all of us to see.

  I blew out in exasperation, “Holy hell…. Is that a demon?! We have to fight fucking demons.” The Rerek were huge, at least seven or eight feet tall. They had red skin and horns poking out of their heads. Some had only two, but some had several. They had gnarly, jagged teeth and dark black eyes. These things would not be taken down easily, and we would have to have a solid plan if we were going to stand a chance.

  Tiff looked at me, puzzled. “Demons? No, these are Rerek. This species controls nearly one-quarter of the civilized galaxy and does all the wet work for the Council. Captain, the Rerek are not to be taken lightly.”

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  “Oh, believe me, Tiff. I am not taking the literally 8-foot-tall red demons lightly. These things are straight out of a nightmare! When were you going to tell me that space demons are a thing?”

  Tiff sighed, “I will say it again. These are not demons,” she pointed to the screen and spoke slowly. “This is a Rerek. A species of sociopathic warriors that are bred only to do the unsavory tasks the Council can’t find anyone else to do. Are we clear?”

  “Looks like a demon, quacks like a demon, must be a really big scary fuckin demon!” CJ said with a shrug.

  “NOT A DEMON!” Tiff said through gritted teeth, obviously losing patience.

  “Okay, not demons,” I said, raising my hands in surrender. “So what do we do? It has to be them, Tiff; they are the closest faction, and we don’t know how much time we have. If the Lacertine faction gets to them first, we are in trouble.”

  Tiff seemed really worried about these guys. I mean, she always worried, but she seemed extra worried this time.

  “Tiff, you have to trust us here. This is going to be hard, and we all know that. We are all risking the same thing, but someone has to make the call, and that someone is me. We are prepped and ready to go. We are going to attack the Rerek faction, and I need to know if you have any information that can help us against them. If you don’t, then I need you to fall in line and get ready to help us,” I said.

  She looked down, her hands behind her back, “The Rerek conquered my people, Captain. The Phylaxians fear the Rerek above all else.”

  I walked over and grabbed her by the shoulder, “Then let’s go make those red assholes regret ever coming to this damn moon, XO.”

  Tiff looked up, placing her hand on my forearm, “Okay, Captain,I don’t have any information that will be helpful in the fight, but you have my support; let’s do it.”

  “Everyone, meet at the Rover and let’s discuss our attack plan. Matty, Jax, I need you two here. This is your wheelhouse, and we can’t afford to go in with a half-assed plan. Everyone else, be prepared to listen up and understand your role in the assault. This will be all hands on deck; we need everyone sharp and ready to fight. Jax, Matty, what do you have for us this time?”

  Jax and Matty looked at each other, “Well Cap…you aren’t gonna like this, but don’t you and CJ have orbital drop suits?” Matty asked with a wry smile.

  I looked at CJ, surprised at the idea that was just thrown at me. “Yeah, we do, but I didn’t want to put the Pup at risk if I could help it.”

  “There won’t be any risk, Cap. The Pup will be damn near in orbit, at least 25 to 30 miles up. You and CJ will perform an orbital drop and hit them at just the right moment to assist us with the assault. While we engage the Rerek on the ground, you two will drop into the middle of those red assholes and create chaos or wreak havoc, I guess, is a more fitting term,” Matty said. This was a bold plan, to say the least. I was getting very comfortable with my armor, and CJ was becoming a pro at piloting his armor, but neither of us had performed an orbital drop before.

  “Matty, there are a lot of variables here that we have to consider. I’ve never done an orbital drop, and neither has CJ. You’re asking us to drop from a distance of 25-30 miles up and land on a space no bigger than a football field. What about the conditions in the atmosphere? What if the wind blows us off course? What about life support?” I asked. Tiff walked over to one of the crates sitting in the corner of the HAB. She opened it up, pulled out a thin, sleek, full-face mask, and threw it to me.

  “This will handle the issue of oxygen, Captain. As far as atmospheric conditions, you don’t need to worry about that. The Coeus created an artificial atmosphere on this moon to provide breathable air for the participants. There are no clouds and no weather to speak of. The artificial atmosphere is very thin and should create little resistance.”

  I held up the mask, inspecting it, “Tiff, I call bullshit. I just felt a breeze outside, so obviously, there is some weather.”

  Tiff tilted her head in a way that made me acutely aware that she was considering my intelligence. “Captain, surely you don’t think that a breeze equates to weather? The breeze was created by the uneven heating of the moon’s surface, that is all. There are no clouds, rain, or discernible weather patterns to consider here. A small breeze near the surface of the moon is of no concern.”

  I sighed and held the mask up to my face, “I can’t wear this under my armor, Tiff, it won’t work.”

  “I have a theory about that. You said that in the vision, the Coeus told you that you could make the gift work in ways that helped you, that you could control it, right?” Tiff asked.

  “Yeah, I guess. I think that is how I created my new arms, but what does that have to do with this?” I asked, lowering the mask to get a better look at Tiff.

  Tiff walked over and grabbed the mask. She slid it over my head and put it securely over my face, tightening the straps around my head to secure it. There was a hiss as the mask began creating breathable oxygen for me.

  “Okay, it fits. That still doesn’t solve our problem, though,” I said, my words slightly muffled from behind the mask.

  Tiff stepped back and looked at me. “Equip your armor, Captain.”

  I reached up to take the mask off, shaking my head and wondering why she had put it on, and then told me to equip my armor. Tiff reached up and grabbed my hand.

  “Don’t take the mask off; just equip the armor and see what happens,” she said.

  “Uhh…Okay, I don’t think this is a good idea, though. I’m not gonna be happy if I get a broken nose out of your little experiment,” I said with a scowl. I took a deep breath and mentally equipped my armor. I watched as the black metallic substance began to cover my body, and then when it got to my neck, it slowed. It crept up over the face mask slowly, like it was feeling the foreign object out before fully equipping. Finally, after a few seconds, the armor was fully equipped.

  “That was a lot slower than normal,” I said, “Hey, I have a new indicator on my interface!” The new indicator was on the bottom right of my interface; it was a blue bar that read:

  Oxygen Level – 100%

  “Well, that’s pretty cool. It just fits over the mask, and it even allows me to see the oxygen level on my interface,” I said excitedly.

  “Now, deactivate your armor; I think you’re going to be surprised,” Tiff said.

  I deactivated my armor and reached to pull off the mask, but it was gone. I felt around my head just to be sure it hadn’t slid off when the armor deactivated, but sure enough, it was gone.

  “What happened to the mask?” I asked.

  “The armor absorbed it and created a new ability, Captain. This is a completely unique ability; I’ve never seen any type of armor or mech-suit that can do anything like what just happened,” Tiff said.

  I thought about what this meant and how I could use an ability like this in the future to upgrade my armor. Unfortunately, I had little time to ponder it right now. I turned and looked at CJ and shook my head. “Well, CJ, I guess we’re gonna do a little skydiving!”