The crack of detonating grenades was punctuation as I fired the Tempest again into the third school of squids. This one had gotten far too close when I was preoccupied with the Nagites. They had spread out, moving to envelop Regar and me. The rift's distortion effect snagged all but three of them, crushing them in its invisible, whirling teeth.
Two on the right went for Regar, the Nanites still streaming from him as he crouched by the edge of the shaft.
"Regar, look out!" I yelled, holding down the Gazer's trigger stud and spraying the Nagites with the deadly beam. The rear one fell in two parts, while the second dove for Regar. He smashed it with an armored fist, knocking it away for the heartbeat I needed to cut it in half.
The final squid monster latched onto my left arm, teeth scraping ineffectively against the armor. The tentacles curled around, bright sparks dancing. I had no drones to save my ass this time, and the Gazer was in the wrong hand.
I released the Tempest's trigger and dropped it. It hit the ground with a clank, and I pulled Excalibur free from my waist, the chisel point glowing bright blue. With a growl I drove it into the triangular head fastened onto my arm. The squid struggled, shaking my arm. Pushing and pulling on the bar, I moved the charged Voidcutter point around inside the head of the Feral. The tentacles drooped as it began to die.
Regar ran past, snatching the Tempest off the ground at my feet. "Time to go!"
I looked up. Our spike was almost completely across the shaft, but that wasn't what caught my attention. It was the acceleration blocks pushing out of the walls. A payload was coming.
"Oh shit!" I yelled.
Regar beat me to the edge, diving off of it. I knew he couldn't fly, and despite being a badass he couldn't survive the fall. Even with that in mind, it would still be better than being anywhere near the Spike when the payload hit.
I stuck Excalibur and dove after him, grabbing him with my right arm and engaging every gecko patch I had. Once I was sure I wouldn't lose him, I leveled out and went full throttle. Direction? Anywhere but here.
The thrust that the propulsion units in my boots could deliver was amazing, far more than I had imagined from such tiny units. I knew that without Transcendent Flesh I'd probably already be unconscious from the blood pooling in my feet. I freed my left hand by sticking the Gazer and used the propulsion units in that hand to add even more thrust. We needed distance.
I saw the explosion before I heard it. A blinding flash behind us, just like on all those nuclear war documentaries. I angled up, aiming for the upper atmosphere. The shockwave would be propagated through the air, so the less there was of it around us, the better. It wasn't enough.
The shockwave hit us, the air superheated. I tumbled wildly, the atmosphere still thick enough to toss me around. My HUD flashed a temperature warning at me. Naked flesh would be turned to ash in that air but the armor held. I cut the thrust until I could stabilize.
The shockwave passed and I fixed our tumble with some work and the proper visualization.
"I told you, Jake. Positivity," Regar said. His voice sounded rougher than normal.
Regar was smiling at me through his helmet's visor, but his right arm was gone just under the shoulder. The pod with Kiril was still attached to the back of his armor and seemed untouched by everything we had gone through.
"Damn, you lost your arm."
"It really hurt, too. I'll grow it back when we get to the outpost. Speaking of which, can we go? It's been a long few days."
"Yeah, of course."
I spun in the air, trying to orient myself. A mushroom cloud was rising over the ruins of the city in the distance. It was beautiful in its own way. I could see the mountains around the valley, but had no idea which one had the outpost in it.
"Brick, can you guide me back to the outpost?"
"Of course."
A blue waypoint marker appeared in my vision, labeled "Outpost."
The wind roared as I flew toward the outpost at high speed, the mushroom cloud slowly dissipating and turning the sky a rainbow of strange, alien colors.
Chapter Five: Aftermath of the Rescue
NOT LONG AFTER, I WAS sitting on an unmade bed in the outpost's barracks, watching Regar's missing arm regrow. It was a simple matter of the proper materials and an adequate amount of Nanite Clusters, and a Union citizen could restore almost any missing appendage. I thought that the head might be an exception.
Regar had removed his armor and was sitting in a ragged ship suit, identical to the ones I'd been wearing on the station until I'd used a Manufactor to make some more familiar, Earth-style clothing. The man's beard was indeed epic, a thick waterfall of black hair. He was broad with dense musculature. If anything, he reminded me of a dwarf from fantasy novels, but it was clear he was just short.
Metra was hovering nearby, looking odd. I'd say she was nervous. I still wasn't good at reading Horgrim body language, despite the skill implants’ help and some weeks of practice with Metra.
"Once this is done we can pop Kiril out of his pod and fix him up. Kiril's a bit of a pessimist. I think he might be surprised to wake up again. It'll be a good lesson in the power of positive thinking for him," Regar said and laughed at the last bit.
"In all seriousness, Jake, thank you. I owe you a life debt."
Metra gasped, covering her mouth with one of
