The drop ship rattled, buffeted by shockwaves as chaos filled the skies. Zee clenched her armrest tightly, attention glued to the illusory display that showed a desolate world below. Unlike their first mission, the blood gorgers were ready and waiting.
The few ships which had been in orbit had either been destroyed or fled behind the fortresses' defensive arrays and now the assault had started in earnest.
Hundreds of objects lit up the display, explosions lighting up the sky, and surface, as the battle group unleashed hell on the defenders.
It was a full-on bombardment from orbit, with a prismatic barrier as large as a city lit up the sky.
It shuddered with each impact, cracks spreading along the surface under the relentless barrage.
The blood gorgers were not just sitting around and taking the beating lying down. They were out in full force, their defensive arrays returning fire through the one-way barrier at the fleet above.
Zee watched the display with growing anxiety. It wouldn't be long now before that barrier broke. She wasn't the only one shifting in her chair. She could see the tension in her squad, the white-knuckled grips on their chairs, and the tense atmosphere said it all. It was utter madness below.
It wouldn't be long now before they were ordered to descend into that storm of violence and engage with the enemy. It came much sooner than expected.
With an eye-watering explosion, the prismatic barrier enshrouding the blood gorger outpost shattered. Watching the destruction didn't make her feel excited in the least. All it meant was their job was drawing closer.
Seconds later, her comm crystal lit up, and a voice echoed in her ears.
"I just received orders from command. Follow us close, red viper, we going in,'' came a deep gravelly voice.
"Copy that Black Raven," Zee replied, her palms suddenly sweaty.
She took a deep calming breath, reaching up to activate the crystal embedded in her environmental collar.
"Alright people, that's our cue. Tag, keep a tight formation with Black Raven. Rosco, if anything out there looks even vaguely insectoid, blast it! The rest of you, game faces on people," Zee said.
The illusory display shifted as they dropped their camouflage, following Black Raven as they dove through the thin atmosphere of the dead world below.
It wasn't just them. An entire fleet of drop ships followed close in formation. A fleet of star team drop ships, with dozens of others following behind. It was a full-scale invasion, to root out the blood gorgers who doubtless hid in tunnels under the fortress.
All the while, the bombardment from orbit continued, pummeling the blood-gorger outpost on the surface into submission.
Tungsten slugs, rail darts, and dampening pulses targeted array towers and weapons platforms with extreme violence. With each passing second, dozens of explosions rocked the surface of the dead world, with just as many slamming into the barriers of the warships above.
Zee wiped her sweaty palms on her robes, her heart racing as a bolt of light as thick as a tree shot up into the sky. One of the drops of ships plunging through the thin atmosphere nearby was engulfed, the ship exploding.
She swore as their own ship rocked from the shockwave.
"Rosco, find whoever shot that lightning and give them hell," Zee said, one hand resting on the crystal at her neck.
"They are coming!" Rosco said, panicked excitement in his voice.
The illusory display shuddered, with hundreds of objects filling the skies below. Even with the prismatic barrier destroyed, the battle was far from over. A swarm of blood gorgers were using their wings to fly up to meet the descending drop ships.
All at once, the fleet of drop ships released their deadly projectiles.
Dozens of blood gorgers were knocked out of the skies in the first salvo, but it hardly made a dent in the numbers. In seconds, they were in the thick of the swarm; the ship rocking madly side to side.
Their shields flared up as they were hit repeatedly, even with Tag weaving side to side like a madman. All most of the crew could do was hang on for dear life while the ship plunged towards the ground below.
Going out into that chaos looked like insanity, but Zee couldn't just sit around. She had a job to do.
If she didn't get out there and protect the ship, it would be ripped apart long before they reached the surface.
"I'm going out. If we are separated, Brick, you know what to do. Stay together and proceed to the objective," Zee ordered.
With that, she turned to a cloud of mist disappearing from the troop compartment. Brick scowled over at their officer's empty chair.
"So much for sticking together," Brick grumbled, and the rest of the squad nodded in agreement.
Zee reappeared outside of the ship, grasping to the hull as it plunged towards the surface. Chaos raged around the ship, its barrier flickering chaotically as it was hit by projectiles.
The blood gorgers were everywhere, swarming around her, the sky filled with arcs of energy.
Clinging to the back of the ship, Zee conjured one spear after another, hurling them towards approaching enemies.
With their rapid pace of dissent, It was a lot harder to hit an enemy than expected. Not to mention the fact that none of the blood gorgers were sitting still.
They swarmed around the descending drop ships, their attacks cracking barriers and ripping into hull plating.
Having missed her third hurled spear in a row, Zee glared at the six blood gorgers hot on their tail. Those overgrown bugs were surprisingly agile in the air, changing direction to avoid her spears without much effort.
The rocking of the ship, as it juked side to side, didn't help her aim, either. But it also was the only thing helping them dodge a barrage of attacks. Just as she had that thought, one of the bugs threw a bolt of lightning crackling as it flashed by the drop ship's shield.
Zee swore, blinking rapidly to clear the spots from her eyes. She narrowed her senses on the blood gorger, who still had lightning crackling around its body. It was gathering energy for another attack, this one making her skin crawl.
That was undoubtedly the same asshole who destroyed one or their ships earlier. If she didn't do anything, her squad would meet the same terrible fate.
Zee released her hold on the hull plating and was swept off the ship by the rushing wind. She flailed for a second, grasping the hilt of her sword as the swarm drew closer.
The heart of fire thudded loudly in her chest, but she didn't use her movement skill to get away.
With a mental nudge, her sword shattered into several dozen pieces.
The first blood gorger to arrive darted in, quick and agile, intent on goring her with its spiked claws.
She flicked her wrist, and a thumb-sized shard of razor metal enshrouded by spirit echo tore right into one eye, lodging in its brain. She didn't have time to congratulate herself on the lucky shot, as the swarm was upon her. They attacked her on all sides, in a coordinated assault to rip her apart.
Zee flexed her mental muscles, and the cloud of razor metal spun around her. A cyclone of metal turned the three blood gorgers into bloody ribbons.
She nodded to herself as the bugs fell from the sky, their wounds burning with dark blue flames.
Her recent breakthrough with her soul and inner world was already paying dividends.
Not only was it easier to direct the shards of metal, but she could move them faster, and with much greater force.
Zee was like a hurricane of violence, as she conjured a sword with spirit echo, and activated her wayward walk skill. Her body turned to a cloud of blue mist, and in defiance of gravity, she rose upward, right toward the lightning cultivator.
Its large buggy eyes widened and it claws crackles with power as it directed its attention at her.
Her instincts screamed of mortal peril as it thrust its claws in her direction. Zee's perception was slowed in her mist form, and she moved much quicker than normal.
She frantically weaved below the bolt of lightning, pain lancing along her back as it narrowly missed.
Zee had known her movement skill wasn't all-powerful. There had to be a weakness. And as it turns out, that weakness was lightning.
Her mist form had seemed nigh invulnerable before until she was nearly flash-fried by a bolt of blinding electricity.
It hurt like hell, and she was forced out of her mist form, her uniform smoking. Her hair was singed and the back of her neck burned, but she gritted her teeth.
She forcibly ignored the pain, as her spatial ripple warned her of another oncoming attack. Two of the swarm darted in to capitalize on her weakness but failed to realize their mistake before they were ripped apart. The lightning cultivator wasn't so foolish as to get into melee range with her, having witnessed just how potent the hail of metal was.
Flapping its wings, it created distance, keeping out of her range as it conjured another bolt of electricity. Zee wouldn't let it conjure another one. Her body vanished, and a dark blue sword plunged through the lightning cultivator's back.
It was too bad for the sparky bug. It was powerful, but it hadn't put up defenses. To be fair, it hadn't known Zee could teleport right behind it, but it should have at least put up a defensive skill.
Going limp with ichor gushing from their back as the lightning cultivator fell towards the ground far below. This was a reminder of just how fleeting life could be.
That was an Early D-grade cultivator, and yet they died in one hit, all because they got cocky. It was a reminder to stay on her toes, metaphorically speaking. The wind buffeted her, her hair whipping around her face as she fell.
Whirling, she searched the skies for another target, finding one in range after a few seconds. It was an odd dance, fighting in the sky.
Without channeling the power from her inner world, she couldn't fly, but that didn't mean she was helpless in the sky.
Her mist form could mimic flight, but she could only use it every thirty seconds. Using the teleport function of her movement skill was more costly in terms of energy drain, but she could use it repeatedly with short breaks in between.
She used her movement skill to appear right above her chosen target, attacking as she fell past them. It was not exactly flying, but it was close enough. She wreaked havoc on the swarm, appearing only to cut the enemy down.
She wasn't the only one taking advantage of the chaos.
Over a dozen members of the star teams were outside of their ships, using a variety of skills to either mimic flight or even to outright fly.
Most of them stayed close to their drop ships as they descended, while others got distance, unleashing incredibly destructive skills that lit up the skies.
"We could use a little help Enisgn,'' came Brick's deep voice over the crystal embedded in her collar.
Still falling, she rolled, glancing down to see her own drop ship a few hundred meters below. It was being harassed by about a dozen blood gorgers. The rear door was open, and Brick was swinging his axes, unleashing terrifying arcs of energy that bisected the enemy at a distance.
Activating her movement skill twice in rapid succession, appearing right amongst a clump of blood gorgers near the ship. Ichor rained down around her as a hurricane of razor metal ripped through the clumped-up blood gorgers.
Not all five of them died in the salvo, but their wings were shredded and they plummeted towards the ground like a rock. Given their panicked flailing, most wouldn't survive that fall. With cold eyes, she turned, using her spatial ripple skill to find a new target.
It wouldn't be long now, they would land soon, and then the real battle would start. The fortress on the barren surface was still being pummeled from orbit, but the tunnels underneath were safe.
It was their job to go down there and root them out. Dropping fast, the drop ship swooped down into a deep crater, pulling up to kill speed at the last second. With a loud crash and a plume of dust, it settled down. It was more of a crash landing than anything. The ramp was open on the landing and was ripped off by the ungraceful touchdown.
"Tag, be more gentle, you just broke the ship," Zee chastised, appearing in a cloud of mist near the back hatch.
"Sorry mam, we took a few hits that damaged our propulsion arrays," Tag said, not sounding sorry at all.
"That's fine. Good flying Tag. Everyone out, including the pilots," Zee ordered.
About twenty meters away, another drop ship settled down, this one much more gracefully.
More and more ships landed around them, with many more still descending. Zee winced, as the shorter of the twins, Geleta rushed over to her side, placing a hand on the burned skin of her neck.
"Stay still, that's a nasty burn," Geleta said. An icy chill ran down Zee's back, soothing the burns from that lightning, and even repairing the damaged muscle.
She bit back a swear, as muscle and skin regrew, a wholly unpleasant sensation.
Just then, a deep gravelly voice echoed from her command crystal.
"Form up on your assigned commanders. On the double people, these blood gorgers aren't going to kill themselves," said the star team leader.
Zee glanced towards the creature in question. The star team leader was a bizarre entity, one of the rare shapeshifter species. It was currently in the shape of a three meter tall crag gorilla, its fur and large muscles made of metal, seeming to tower over the surrounding humans.
It carried no weapons or armor, but it didn't need to. Its hide was stronger than etched steel, and its massive fists were strong enough to rip through metal like it was paper.
As she watched, the towering star team leader led his strike force out of the crater, his long loping strides forcing his team to use movement skills to keep up.
A shock of white dangling from under a helmet caught her eye. Decked in fully etched armor of the star team, Allison moved near the middle of the squad.
Zee smiled. Allison had actually done it. Surviving the training to join the star team as an E grade cultivator was no easy feat.
Looking across the uneven crater, she glanced around at the dispersing squads, trying to catch a glimpse of the others.
With the flurry of drop ships landing, and the squads running for cover, not to mention the battle still raging in the sky, it was hard to pick out familiar faces.
Deciding she had delayed long enough, she rolled her shoulders and wincing at the pain, Zee pulled away from the combat healer.
"Thank you Geleta," Zee said.
It had lessened the pain by quite a lot, but they didn't have the time to repair all the damage.
Gesturing the squad to follow, they headed to a nearby drop ship, whose crew was already outside moving to cover. Half of them watched the volatile situation in the skies, while the others watched the crater rim with serious expressions.
The commander of their strike team waved at Zee as she jogged over.
"There you are, Red Viper! Form up, we are moving out. Our target tunnel is ten minutes away by foot," Black Raven said, the air shuddering with conflict as he spoke.
Without preamble, they made a B Line towards their assigned target. They scrambled up and out of the crater, revealing a wasteland of deep craters and smoking ruins. The once fortress was reduced to rubble, not a single building unscathed after the bombardment from orbit. Other areas in the distance were still under bombardment, but their proximity was fairly calm for the moment.
Wary of attack, they cautiously made their way through the ruins, the thick smoke reducing visibility. Occasionally they caught sight of bodies half buried in the rubble, letting her know these buildings were occupied when they were destroyed.
Zee thanked her lucky stars for the environmental collars. The arrays embedded in her collar gave her fresh, breathable air and protected her from the inhospitable environment.
It also kept out the stench of burning carapace and the malignant odor of decaying ichor on the air. It only took a few minutes into the maze of destroyed buildings to find out that not all the blood gorgers on the ground were dead.
All around them, the rubble exploded, as over a dozen blood gorgers leaped from hiding places.
The combined squads reacted quickly, fighting off the attackers after a few minutes of brutal fighting.
The fight didn't last long, with the attackers fleeing back into the maze of rubble once the element of surprise was gone. The blood gorgers were outnumbered three to one and paid a heavy price, but they attacked anyway.
It cost the blood gorgers seven soldiers, but the Lorocan's lost three in return.
Seemed like a victory on paper, but it was a bitter pill to swallow. After all, one of the three to die was from her squad. Genevieve, who was hunched over Halder's prone form, shook her head.
"Sorry Ensign, nothing I can do. The arrow punched through his back and pierced his heart," Genevieve said sadly.
Zee nodded.
"Put his body in your spatial storage. We will give him a proper sendoff later. Brick, let Geleta heal that gash in your forearm. It looks bad," Zee ordered.
Brick nodded.
The strike group took a few minutes to gather themselves before setting off again.
This time they were well aware of the bugs lurking in wait, advancing cautiously.
Zee, along with several others with sensory skills scouted ahead of the main strike force, not wanting to walk into another ambush.
Even so, they paid a heavy price with every step forward, as the blood gorgers leapt from hidden tunnels, using hit-and-run tactics to harass them.
They had already lost five people by the time they reached the main tunnel entrance.
It was a dark hole in the ground, doubtless crawling with blood gorgers and booby trapped at every turn. Going down there would be a bloody proposition, with them being forced into the tight corridors.
Thankfully, they came prepared.
Olson gripped a small control crystal, channeling energy into it. Beside him, a small metallic bird flapped its wings, shooting forward and diving into the tunnel.
Nothing happened for a few seconds, before a tremendous explosion rocked the tunnel.
A cloud of dirt, rocks and smoke billowed out of the tunnel mouth.
"Go, go," Zee said, and Dern didn't hesitate.
He leapt into the tunnel feet first, following right after a bulky rock elemental.
Zul was going down as well, though she couldn't sense him amidst the dust and smoke.
This was one of their strategies to help mitigate the risks of invading the tunnels.
And as it turned out, Yukna's hunter killer bombs were extremely effective.
Too bad they only had a dozen of them. It wasn't near enough to root out all the bugs in the labyrinth of tunnels below.
They would have to do most of the work the good old-fashioned way, by clearing one tunnel at a time.
Leaping off the edge, she followed in Dern's wake, expanding her senses down into the tunnel.
Dust and smoke filled her vision, her boots thudding as she lit in a crouch. Down the hall, the rock elemental charged over several mangled bodies without any concern for its safety.
It ran right into a hidden defensive array, and one of its legs was violently blown off. The earth elemental hardly slowed at all, as if losing a limb were a mere inconvenience.
Dern followed in its wake, a few cracks already forming from the shrapnel.Zee and the rest of the strike group, who were entering the tunnels behind her, were a lot more cautious than those two brutes.
She watched her every step, carefully eying the walls, floor, and ceiling. Unlike Dern and that rock elemental, none of her strike team could simply regrow a limb through being re-summoned, nor come back to life if her body was destroyed.
Therefore, they moved a lot more cautiously, following after Dern and that noisy elemental.
Hours later, Zee trudged back up the tunnel, and out under the dark, gloomy sky with a rag-tag group of soldiers in tow.
Exhaustion lay heavy over the group, with some needing to lean on comrades to stay on their feet. Not one of them were left unscathed after ten hours of near constant fighting in the tunnels.
Not even the combat medics were spared, having been wrung dry from repeatedly healing the squad's injuries. Some had even passed out from energy starvation.
Tag had to carried Genevieve after she passed out. Zee wasn't much better off, half dead on her feet. She was exhausted. Her body was covered in blood and ichor, her uniform ripped and gashed.
The blood gorgers had made them fight for every single tunnel, and were extremely creative when it came to booby traps.
More than once she had narrowly avoided being decapitated from walking into a tripwire, or blown up by a cleverly concealed array.
Her nerves were on end, her energy and strength severely depleted.
Her stomach clenched as everyone assembled just outside the tunnel. The battle was over, and yet, it didn't feel like they had won.
Only half of their strike force had walked out of those tunnels, with seven more being carried.
In all, they had lost thirty percent of their strike group.
Thirteen people had died in those damnable tunnels, a failure on her part.
If only she had been more cautious, had spotted the ambushes, or traps sooner. Her stomach clenched. Of her squad, four had died. She had personally trained with them for months, and their deaths were a heavy weight on her shoulders.
Brick paused next to her, his expression hard to read.
"Thanks for getting us out of there," Brick said in a tired voice.
"I got four of our team killed," Zee replied bitterly, looking away.
He gave her a telling look.
"Deaths were inevitable. The casualties would have been far worse without you and your summons scouting ahead," Brick replied.