Ryland saw the soldier swing the Panzerfaust around, bracing the massive weapon against her hip. He had a pretty good idea what she was meaning to do, and extended a hand, beginning to summon up the power to blast her with a technique before she could fire. Unfortunately, her companions had the same idea: the commanding officer and the woman by his side in what he assumed was an officer's uniform both fired their guns at him. The blasts splashed against his frame, penetrating with bruising force as if he'd been punched hard, twice, but the important part was that it jolted him, disrupting his ability to summon the technique, giving their squadmate the time she needed.
Gowan was already helping Lyon, his aim offline, so that he wouldn't be able to swing around in time. The women didn't even have ranged weapons equipped and Naomi was still fighting her last opponent so wouldn't have the chance for technique use, either.
There was only one chance left, other than trusting that the rock shelf was strong enough to survive the impact, and he could just see the bloom of the smoke and fire from the Panzerfaust's exhaust port as he took it.
~X X X~
Lyon had all but lost track of what was happening on the battlefield around her as she tried to adapt. One of the two soldiers had used Anti to erase the confusion trap's effects, and while she had managed to get back into a defensive position against them they were still doing their level best to reduce her to scrap metal. Of course, she was aware of what was in her peripheral vision—unlike an organic, she couldn't help it—but she was devoting most of her tactical processing power to her immediate situation. Thus, when Ryland's voice barked, "Lyon, trap now!" she had no idea why he was saying it or what he hoped to accomplish.
She just trusted in her partner, and ejected a freeze trap (her default, as it was the most likely to be useful in a random situation).
The roar of the rocket overhead cleared up the question of "what" just in time for her to realize some of what Ryland intended before it happened. The shot didn't hit the trap square-on, but it passed close enough by that both the rocket and the trap's proximity alerts were triggered, giving the Photon warhead a live target in its fire-line, and in the next instant Lyon was blown clean off her feet by the explosion, slamming hard to the packed earth with force that would have left her breathless had she breathed.
The two soldiers she'd been fighting weren't as lucky.
~X X X~
The Photon warhead's detonation was contained, unlike a chemical blast, to its visible area of effect, leaving Zanov, Vallis, and Marks in the somewhat odd position of having their vision blocked by the giant fireball without being caught up in the explosion.
That changed in the next instant, as the rocket explosion was immediately followed up by the Rafoie that the enemy Force had used the rocket blast as cover to prepare. Vallis and Marks were hurled off their feet, while Zanov dropped to one knee. They'd be up again, soon enough, and techniques would cure the injuries, but the pattern was clear: they were in serious trouble.
Fine, then, Zanov thought, rising to his feet. If we can't beat them with force…
He holstered his gun and snatched a weapon that looked like a foot-long rod off his belt. Triggering the Photon driver caused a spike of red light like the blade of a saber to sprout from each end. He spun the Stag Cutlery and yelled, "Come on, then! Which one of you thinks they can match up?"
~X X X~
"What is he, an idiot?" Ryland muttered. He'd burned through too many techniques, too fast, and his resources were down, so he reached for a fluid to restore his mental energy, the reserves of psychic stamina that allowed him to shape Photon into the effects he needed.
"Ego: stereotype," Gowan responded.
"Yeah," Lyon said, getting back to her feet. The android had obviously taken nasty damage, which was why she, too, was relying on healing medicine: an emergency Trimate. "He figures that we hunters have our pride, like big-shot warriors from ancient legends, and it'll give him a chance to fight one of us one-on-one instead of us concentrating our strength."
Gowan shot one of the soldiers Lyon had been fighting that was still twitching, while Naomi got her sword up under her last opponent's daggers to block a downward stab, pushed up to fling his arms out of guard position, and kicked him in the chest. He reeled, and she whipped the oversized blade down in a massive overhand swing that sheared through his armor's defensive fields, carved between its plates, and cut deep into his body. That left only the officer in his gold beret and the two women flanking him. While the hunters had been forced to expend some of their stock of (occasionally expensive) restoration medicines, they'd shattered the attack to the point that they now outnumbered the enemy.
Ryland used another Resta on himself and Naomi.
"Well, we know what to do about that."
Lyon nodded, even though the gesture was pointless when she was facing away from him and talking over a communications link; it was merely a programmed reflex.
"Yes, we do."
She put away her gungnir and drew the Durandal, the Photon saber gleaming bright in her hand.
"We give him what he wants."
She started walking towards the leader with a slow, measured pace. No one else moved; the shooters didn't fire at her.
"Query: purpose?"
"I think what Gowan's trying to say is, what are you, nuts? We could bring them down now with gunfire and techniques before they even get close," Naomi was even less measured in her questioning.
"No, she knows what she's doing," Ryland countered. And he was right. Maybe it was just how his mind worked, or maybe it was because they were partners, and while the two pairs worked together as a team fairly often, Gowan and Naomi were fundamentally different people, with a different approach to their jobs that suited their personal priorities, their beliefs.
"If we can take him alive," Lyon said, "it's hard evidence of what he was up to. He's the one calling the shots, the one who can be forced to testify. There need to be consequences for these military goons putting the wellbeing of the ship's population at risk for the sake of politics. If we just bombard them, he could Ryuker or telepipe away and let his subordinates rot. They don't have the whole story, they might even be fanatical enough to keep quiet, and they're not enough to force the military's hand.
"This guy is, and we're going to feed him to Irene and Milarose."
"Just be careful," Ryland told her. "We'll keep the other two off of you, but watch out. Most military high-rankers are expert fighters, not desk jockeys, and he'll want to take at least one of us down with him, plus it's his best chance to thin our numbers if he's going to find a way to pull this out."
That was, of course, the down side to going along with the confrontation.
A number of bantering remarks were possible, but her personality matrix returned a much simpler reply to Ryland's statement as being appropriate to the time and situation.
"Thanks."
She stopped directly in front of the gold-bereted officer, about eight feet away, and raised her sword in a kind of salute. This close, she could see a colonel's rank insignia on his uniform where it peeked out from beneath his armor.
"Shall we?" she said.
His only response was to attack at once, lunging forward with his Stag Cutlery. One end of the double saber swept down from Lyon's upper left, and she parried with her Durandal, then the colonel twisted his wrists and spun the other end of his weapon around in a low cut at her ankles. She stepped back with her right leg while at the same time pivoting her body away from the attack and counterstruck, breaking the smoothness of the colonel's combination by making him block to carry her thrust away from him, but he turned the parry into a riposte and scored along the skirt-like projection of her carapace over her hips. She'd been expecting it, though, and willingly accepted the minor damage to strike at the Stag Cutlery's weakest point, his hands where they gripped its center, making him disengage by retreating a step.
The first exchange had told her that Ryland's apprehension was well-founded: the colonel was a skilled fighter and good with the weapon. In open ground like this where the wielder had the ability to use his full range of motion, the double saber was one of the most devastating weapons in a hand-to-hand fighter's arsenal, not least because its patterns of attack and defense were so different than any other weapon, a mixed blend of sword and spear.
Lyon, though, had one advantage that most Rangers would not have had in her place: she'd used to use one herself. Her primary weapon had once been a Twin Brand before it had been destroyed in the course of a mission in late 3085, and she had a full suite of combat data built on experience from the weapon's other side which she could now turn against her enemy.
That didn't mean, she found, that she could predict every move of the Stag Cutlery, but she knew what kinds of strikes she could parry, either with her saber or forearm-mounted shield, and what she was better off evading with movement, because she knew what kinds of moves each could flow into. The double saber was at its best when the colonel could chain together strings of offensive and defensive maneuvers with little pause, and breaking these combinations was Lyon's best tactic.
He hit her twice more, once another graze on her upper left arm and once a more serious strike to her waistline that did actual damage. He'd fooled her, then, got her to defend her leg, a higher-priority target because it would hamper her movement if damaged, and struck over her guard to breach her armor and carapace. Thankfully the damage was minor, her structural integrity not harmed and the nerve-like data channels able to have their load rerouted, but it still worried her as he came at her again.
He has experience fighting androids, she concluded. He knows the kind of decisions we make, the way we prioritize matters—and where our vulnerabilities differ from an organic person's.
But that kind of realization helped her, too, she knew, finding an example in the way she broke up his next combination by recognizing an apparent overhead feint at her head as an actual strike, slipping it with a step-in and scoring off his shoulder, leaving the armor plate there compromised with a webwork of cracks. Each exchange of blows gave her updated data, letting her know what he knew and so better able to predict this man specifically instead of a generic opponent.
Of course, that worked for him as well, as they came together again in a clash of whirling, flashing Photon blades. He hit her twice more, getting both upper arms, the left one solidly enough that the damage was sufficient to cause a 16% drop in mobility. Her combat algorithms updated on the fly to account for the damage, keeping her from attempting futile shield blocks that would have worked in her uninjured state, but it still reduced her moveset, limited her options.
Lyon used her enemy's organic nature against him, though, striking out at his head. Though a harder target to hit than the body due to its size and relative ease of movement, the head was still the core of most organics' perception of their "humanity," and it took a huge level of calm to not absolutely prioritize defense when a Photon blade was lashing out at the seat of one's eyes and brain. She didn't expect that a man who'd just seen most of his squad cut down while on a last-ditch desperation mission would have that calm.
As it turned out, she was wrong.
Rather than parry her second strike, the colonel slipped the attack by juking his head to one side and came back in under her weapon arm, hitting her in almost the exact spot on her right side that he'd hit before. This time the injury was more than just cosmetic; the structural damage was enough to hamper her ability to turn and pivot, while the extent of data rerouting would actually cause a drop in efficiency, even if the delay could be measured in microbeats.
He had her on the defensive, now, pressing his attack with the awareness that any riposte would be badly limited by her need to protect herself. At some point, Ryland would step in with a Resta to bail her out, and that would signal the end of the duel. Lyon wouldn't complain about that choice—bringing the military to justice wasn't more important to her than her life, as she was a hunter rather than a crusader with a cause—but she didn't want it to come to that.
Worse, he might not be able to help; the colonel's allies were fighting defensively, focusing their attempts on making the other hunters stay back. The lieutenant had even traded out her rifle for a second firearm, a launcher that sprayed Photon rounds at multiple targets, good for crowd control. Their entire goal was to make sure that the colonel and Lyon fought one-on-one, and if they pulled it off, there was a genuine risk that Lyon might take damage that no Reverser technique or Medical Center repair work could fix.
The estimated chances of the colonel's escape were rising sharply, the risk of Lyon herself being killed or taking serious damage requiring extensive repair work also now significant. She was desperate, and like she'd tried—and failed—to provoke from her enemy, desperate people took chances.
But she was also an android, and her desperate chances were carefully calculated risks.
The advantage of a double saber was its ability to use its constant stream of movement to strike and defend with both blades relentlessly, weaving a net of lethal energy around its wielder. But in close, it was almost worthless on offense; if she could break that perimeter, she could still win. Of course, the colonel knew his own weapon well, and a bull-rush tactic could be overcome by a number of different strikes.
Which was exactly what Lyon was counting on as she lunged.
She began with a block that overextended her damaged left arm, all but requiring that she step in to follow it. He spotted it, reacted, and launched a triple strike, right-left-right, that would stop her attack and likely end with her taking a blow to her right leg, though probably insubstantial. Except that she did something that almost no organic would have done. After parrying the initial attack to her right side, she didn't try to sidestep the counter. Instead, she turned her left side into the blow, deliberately letting the Stag Cutlery tear into her already damaged upper arm just below the shoulder. It was a clean strike and a savage one, breaching Photon fields and compromised armor before tearing into the arm structure itself, cutting clean through.
But where an organic would have suffered pain, suffered shock to her system, Lyon only noted the critical damage alerts dispassionately, and in the time that cutting through the arm cost the colonel, struck with a perfect short-arm thrust under his chest plate and up into his heart.
He made a little gurgling sound, his eyes going blank, and he slid off Lyon's Durandal to drop to the grass next to her severed arm.
~X X X~
Cleaning up the mess afterwards was largely a matter of routine. With the colonel down, it had taken only a very short time for the hunters to finish the fight; the woman who'd launched the Panzerfaust rocket even surrendered outright once her lieutenant was taken out. They'd slapped technique-suppressing restraints on the soldiers, removed their weapons, gear, and emergency supplies like telepipes, and then Ryland burned through four Reversers, restoring life to clinically deceased troops, including the colonel. Two others hadn't needed it, only having been knocked unconscious, while two more had taken head injuries that caused sufficient brain damage that they were irretrievably dead. After adding Almonte to the stack of prisoners, the hunters waited patiently until Arin had finished his work and secured the test data.
Then all that was left was for Dr. Severin to report to Lab Internal Security.
"If he wanted an opportune time to tell Chief Milarose about the project he was working on, I'd say this would have to qualify," Ryland noted. "Seven military prisoners including Colonel Zanov here caught red-handed interfering with a Lab operation, plus one spy; that's quite a haul." And sure enough, the IntSec agents who took custody of the prisoners were positively ecstatic; Lyon even caught one of them in what she was 74.8% certain was a smile.
Dr. Severin, on the other hand, gave no need for estimates about his reaction when he met with Lyon and Ryland two days later. He was beaming from ear to ear as he sat down. He carried two cups, and passed one to Ryland, who had already gotten his own coffee, the cup still half-full in front of him.
"Dr. Severin, if you ever see me turn down coffee, then you can immediately assume I've been possessed by Dark Falz," the Force said, accepting the cup swiftly as if afraid that it was going to run away without him.
"He's not kidding," Lyon put in. "I've seen him stop for coffee in a firefight."
"You expected me to dodge gunfire without caffeine?"
Severin glanced from one to the other, not entirely sure whether or not he was being kidded, and neither hunter did anything to let him off the hook if it was a joke. The huge smile wavered for only a moment, though, then he pulled out his chair and sat down.
"By the look on your face, I'm going to imitate Ryland, play detective, and deduce that things went well with Chief Milarose?"
"They did indeed. Arin's reconstruction of the test data indicated that the Photon collector is a complete success."
"How did she take the surprise?" Ryland asked.
"Now that is a question I can't answer."
"Classified?" Lyon wondered.
Severin shook his head.
"No, more like founded on fallacious assumptions. I'd explained the experiment, presented her with the data, and she glanced over it, then looked at me, smiled, and said, 'Please give my congratulations to the ARIN system. He does fine work.' You could have knocked me over with a feather. I mean, I told you that I was authorized to run tests for my AI development, but—"
"But you didn't expect she'd know all of the specifics, or that he was a production model handling actual project data."
"Exactly."
Ryland drained a good half of what was left in his original cup.
"So no surprise there, and I'm guessing no surprise on the content of your Photon collector, either?"
"She didn't say, but I got that impression. Of course, I could be wrong. Chief Milarose enjoys giving the appearance that she knows everything about everything even when it comes as a complete shock to her—with the result that no one ever knows exactly when she does know everything, and when she's bluffing. If she's ever bluffing. There's that possibility, too."
"But one way or another," Ryland concluded, "you're off the hook for any insubordinate behavior or for exceeding the parameters of your assigned tasks."
"All in the name of justifiable scientific curiosity." His eyes actually seemed to sparkle. "Dr. Montague even wants to look at my work, could you believe it?"
"So how soon can we expect to see giant windmills sprouting all over Ragol?"
He chuckled at that.
"I wouldn't go that far, Lyon. For one thing, we're still in the test phase. We need to build multiple machines, experiment in different environments, try to overcome some of the technical limitations and improve on efficiency. And then again, let's be honest, as long as the monsters on the surface remain a serious, ongoing problem, then industrial-style construction is out of the question."
"Sounds like the price of coffee won't be coming down anytime soon, then."
"I'm afraid not. But in the future, who knows? Weinstine Co. has already started talks with the Lab over licensing the collection technology for future large-scale development."
"Jason Weinstine and Natasha Milarose negotiating a business contract with each other," Ryland mused. "What I wouldn't give for a chance to watch that. But really, I'm glad to hear it. I suppose it's too soon for pushback from the anti-independence faction in the Administration? Or have they just had their fangs drawn by the military's preemptive strike?"
Severin sipped from his own cup.
"I couldn't say. Truthfully, I don't know the answer. I haven't been told to clear my calendar to give a presentation to the Council on the point, so Chief Milarose must be running interference. Or, like you say, the other forces are regrouping after you spiked the military's guns."
"No point in associating yourself with a battle that's already been fought and lost," Ryland agreed. "Or else—just maybe—enough of them decided that something that helps Pioneer 2 shouldn't be fought even if it does happen to give their political enemies a leg up. You know, do the right thing for their constituents and keep their fundamentally ideological fight to an ideological level of argument?"
Silence greeted this pronouncement for a couple of tenth-beats before all three of them broke into laughter.
"You had me going there for a bit, Ryland," Lyon got out between chortles. "Our leaders not be a bunch of selfish, short-sighted bastards? Most of the time the best we can hope for is that we get competent schemes and plotters."
"But then again, that just gives we hunters the opportunities for work."
"True," Severin agreed. "And for someone in my position, it's good to have found some that I can trust, so here's to a productive partnership in the future."
He raised his cup, and Ryland did the same.
"I'll drink to that. Here's to an entertaining future."
Lyon snatched the third cup. "Why not?" she said. "If we can't count on our government to be useful, we can at least have them keep us from getting bored."
"Hear, hear!" the men approved, and the three coffee cups clicked together in a toast to the future.