Cool, calm, perfect. All appellations that readily describe Ace, the dangerously beautiful Gatestrider squad leader. Think you’re tough? Try Ace. Find out.
“Tally two, heading one-eight-zero. You’re up, Ace.”
The morning sun glinted in her visor, filtered through layers of polarizing hardware. She was barely aware of it. She was the best. Everyone knew it, she most of all. “Set ‘em up, I’ll knock ‘em down.” Her voice came through, distorted and tinny. The nearby magma flow threw up static that interfered with comms.
Ace peered through the sight of her rifle. Half a click away, a trio of monsters raced across the lava flow. Shaped vaguely like spiny dogs, if any dog had ever been that ugly, the monsters shifted across the ground at terrifying speed. Ace had seen firsthand what they could do to a human body. If she ever had nightmares, not that she did, they would be about these disgusting creatures.
Clucking her tongue, Ace made a minor adjustment to her rifle scope. She was carrying the high-caliber today, as she did every day. When the bosses needed something dead, they called Ace. Her squad, sporting lighter suits and lighter weapons, perched on boulders a few hundred yards behind. They were there as her spotters and backup in case the beasts got through her.
Waste of time, but whatever. The lights got easy duty today.
Ace lined up her shot. The first of the three dogs was well within range. The thing was sprinting straight at her, oblivious to its impending death. That was fine by Ace. Simple, clean, dead.
She squeezed her trigger.
A crack of thunder split the air, a spray of gore painted the lava flow, and one dead monster fell over.
“Splash one.” She said, her voice distant.
“Copy that hammer one. Be advised, remaining targets are still inbound. Estimate they will reach you in ten.”
Ace growled under her breath, switching her sights to the second target. She didn’t need over watch to tell her; she knew better than any of them how fast these freaks could move. Ace lined up her second shot, took a breath, and squeezed the trigger.
Another spray of gore, another dead monster.
“Break, break, hammer squad, this is overwatch. We are reading inbound hostiles, twenty plus. Advise you get out of there.”
“What? Where? I don’t see anything.” Ace hissed.
“They’re coming from underground.”
Ace looked down at her feet, just in time to see it crack apart and begin falling inward.
She let out a yell and triggered her thrusters at max power. Her suit responded immediately, sending her rocketing into the air. She checked her peripherals and saw her two squad mates doing the same thing.
She looked back down and saw the ground seething with alien monstrosities. They bubbled and climbed all over each other, reaching their claws into the sky, reaching for them.
“It was a trap.” Hammer two said, softly.
“They don’t lay traps.” Ace said. “They’re just–”
“Break, break, hammer squad, advise you to leave the area now. We have readings on dozens more heading right for you.” A pause, and then, “We are enacting Thor protocol. The Strife is moving into station above you and is going to glass the area in ten seconds.”
Ace cursed under her breath. “Copy that, we’re gone.” Great, just what she needed, some hotshot newbie officer playing with his new toy. “Hammers, get moving, flow north, max thrust.”
Her squad acknowledged through radio clicks, and as one, they fed as much juice as they could into their thrusters, and rocketed the hell away from the blast zone.
Ace had gone maybe a hundred meters when the surrounding air suddenly became filled with static. Her thrusters sparked, and for a second she thought they might die on her, but the suit compensated for the change in atmosphere and she continued her burn.
She threw a look over her shoulder and saw the clouds above her beginning to swirl and spiral upwards. Then, before she could give warning to her squad, a solid bar of blue-white electricity, a solid hundred meters in diameter, came crashing down through the clouds.
A wall of pure sound and force struck Ace, and suddenly she was tumbling through the air. She couldn’t see where she was going, not even to know if she was falling or climbing. Every system in her suit exploded with sparks and static, and Ace was treated to about a million tiny shocks all over her body.
And then she slammed into the ground like a meteor, and her suit dug a three-foot trench in the soil. Her back struck a rock, her head was whip lashed backwards, and everything went fuzzy for a while.
When she came back to herself, hammer two and three were gone. The spot where they’d been was gone, just gone. All that remained of their small battlefield, and of her squad mates, was a circular plain of glass. Everything inside the circle had been flash fried with the strongest ship-born weapon the Gatestriders possessed. Someone had just fried everyone in her squad. She was the only one left.
Ace pushed herself unsteadily to her feet and balled her fists by her side.
Someone was going to pay for this.
