Sampson Ventura
It was just when he thought he couldn’t take it anymore that a transport beam snagged hold of him.
As his body dematerialized, he swore his mind held on – held on in time to see that combat drone slice bullet after bullet through the lab.
Several smashed through him, but by the time they tried to tear through his body, it had already dematerialized.
It took seconds until they reappeared. A part of him thought they’d be whisked far away from Academy grounds.
That part was wrong.
Because that part was only starting to get to know who Diana really was.
The answer was a soldier on a level he could never have imagined.
She did not let them flee this fight. They appeared instead halfway up the command building.
As they touched down, several centimeters above a broken floor, their bodies thumping onto it with echoing cracks, he immediately jerked his head to the side.
“What the hell—” he began.
“No time to explain. We need to eliminate those enemy soldiers. I removed all Academy staff and every cadet from the grounds. It’s just the enemy and us now,” Diana spat.
She reached a hand out to him, but when he didn’t accept it, she simply grabbed his wrist and pulled him on.
He could feel her power in every movement, in every promise, and importantly, in every thought.
Her psychic powers were growing by the second – by the damn second.
He didn’t have time to point that out to her. As they streamed around the corner, they found two of those huge, eight-foot soldiers. Sampson couldn’t continue to refer to them simply as enemy assets. He needed a name, and though brick walls of death was a pretty good start, one came to mind, jumping into his head like oil from a burning pan.
Vendets.
It felt right. As soon as he thought it, and as soon as he split his lips wide, allowing them to whisper it aloud, he knew it was their name.
Diana jerked her head toward him. “That’s the name of the enemy soldiers, isn’t it?”
He nodded, finding the time to bring up a hand and run it over the sweat lining his brow as he brought his other hand up and started firing. “I don’t know where that knowledge came from. But—”
“You’re right. These are one of the many foot soldiers of the Force. I think they’re here—”
“To fight us psychics,” Sampson finished off for her.
Though the last thing he needed right now was the fear and confusion of having thoughts simply pop into his head, seemingly from nowhere, he had to embrace this. Because if he let it pull him down, he’d die. This was one of the most frantic fights he’d ever been in, and he needed every ounce of mental control he had.
As he dashed to the side, rolling hard, he punched up like a spring and started firing.
Though he immediately reset his gun from stun to maximum kill setting, each blast did nothing. They slammed into the shielded plating of the Vendets’ chests and simply discharged with all the ease of water sliding down closed windows. “We need—” he said, about to say that they needed an edge.
Diana provided one for him. She shoved forward, keeping low, her body sleek, controlled, and as trained as any soldier he’d ever seen. She dived to the side just as one of those Vendets lanced out with a kick. Just as she shifted past, she hooked an arm around his leg, pulled to the left, and climbed his back until the next thing he knew, she clamped both her hands either side of his helmet. “Buy me time, Sampson,” she screamed.
Though all he wanted to do was scream back at her to get down from there, he had to do as she said – and buy her time.
He pushed to the side. This time, he didn’t bother to waste good bullets firing against the clearly shielded armor of the remaining Vendet. He jerked the gun up and started firing on the ceiling instead.
In a flash of second sight, he could see that there were already several ruptured packs of neural wire directly above the guy’s head.
Even if the guy’s fancy shielded armor could protect him from the kill setting of Sampson’s gun, the neural wire would at least startle the bastard. If that didn’t work, it could eat the floor right out from underneath him.
The guy brought up his own gun, but either through training or sheer damn luck, Sampson managed to dodge back. He fired two white-hot blasts right at the ceiling, and a massive meter-wide section simply buckled.
Dripping black lethal neuro gel cascaded down like a rainstorm right over the Vendet’s head.
The guy screamed. Just not verbally. As Sampson lurched back, bringing up a hand and locking it on his temple, driving his fingers in as if he wanted to drag out his brain, he felt a psychic slam.
It was like a punch or a kick, like one of the most brutal things you could imagine, but rather than it happening to your body, it happened to your mind.
Just when he thought it would undermine him completely, he forced his way against it, bolting back to his feet and firing right at the floor beneath the Vendet warrior’s feet. Sampson let out a scream, shot off one last blast, and managed to rupture another neuro pack right beneath the guy’s left boot. It exploded outward, splashing over him and covering his armor.
Though whatever fancy shielding his armor utilized managed to ensure the neuro gel didn’t damage the plating, obviously it had some effect on the guy’s mind, because again he let out a psychic scream.
“You need to protect yourself from those psychic screams,” Diana blasted loud as she continued to lock her hands over the other Vendet warrior’s head.
Though the guy had started off trying to fight her, now he stood there limply as if he were nothing more than a mannequin. His arms were loose by his sides, and the gun that had been clutched in his hand now clattered to his feet. His head kept lurching from left to right as if it was some kind of defective robot.
Sampson didn’t need Diana’s warning. Just as the psychic scream reached him, he closed his mind off, concentrating with all his force to ensure the psychic blast didn’t hurt him.
It was hard – goddamn hard considering the chaos erupting around him – but he did it. This time he didn’t fall to his knees. This time he pushed forward. He didn’t know what he was doing until he skidded down next to the Vendet warrior.
Unlike the Vendet, Sampson’s armor could protect him easily from the lethal neuro gel. As the Vendet warrior collapsed, Sampson splattered through the black goo, watching as it struck his holographic armor only to be disintegrated by the shield. With a roar, he found himself reaching down and wrapping his hands either side of the guy’s visor, just like Diana was doing to the remaining warrior.
If there was something Sampson had established without any shadow of a doubt it was that Diana was a psychic on a level he would never be able to comprehend, let alone reach. Did that stop him from trying to replicate her attack? No. Nothing stopped him as he pushed his hands into the visor as hard as he could. Unlike Diana, who had no armor to speak of, Sampson did, and he forced all of his power into the holographic drive as he clamped his fingers and palms in until the visor started to crack.
He wasn’t about to squash the guy’s head like soft fruit underfoot.
No, Sampson concentrated. He forced all of his will into his mind, all of his energy, all of everything. He pushed it into his psyche until it felt like a knife.
Then he stabbed that knife right into the Vendet’s head. It was brutal and violent, but it was the only thing he could do.
The guy let out another psychic scream, but this time Sampson was ready for it. As he fought, he locked himself off.
“You can do it,” Diana stammered.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see as sweat dribbled down her brow, soaking her cheeks and the torn collar of her uniform. She didn’t give up.
And neither did Sampson.
A second later the Vendet warrior in Diana’s hands crumpled. The guy fell over, his body striking the floor with such force, it cracked.
Diana immediately rolled, pitched to the side, and skidded over to Sampson.
It was just in time. Sampson was about to lose his psychic hold of the remaining warrior, but just before the guy could buck back and elbow Sampson hard in the stomach, Diana reached him and crammed a hand over his face.
“Almost there, almost there,” she spat.
As Sampson fought with all his goddamn heart and mind, he felt Diana’s power. It was like a sword. A sword made of light. For that exact image suddenly slammed into his head with all the force of a cruiser crash landing.
It was almost enough to see him jerk his head back as if he’d been punched, but he held on. He goddamn held on until, together, they took the warrior down.
Sampson heard something like a crack. Maybe like bone, maybe like glass. Maybe like a great old tree that had just been sliced in half by lightning.
The exact origin of the sound didn’t matter. What it meant, did.
The warrior’s mind crumbled. The guy’s body followed. As Diana rolled out of the way, her move perfectly timed and agile, the Vendet fell forward.
Sampson, despite his training, couldn’t get out of the way fast enough, and he fell with the Vendet until his arm was pinned underneath him.
Diana didn’t wait around for Sampson to wriggle free. She locked an arm around Sampson’s middle and pulled him back.
Though it had been a goddamn hard fight, he could still stand, but that didn’t stop Diana from resting against him, her breathing hard. It didn’t last – just a few seconds – but that was enough. He brought up a hand and gently placed it on hers, tapping it twice. “It’s okay. We did it.”
“And now we need to do it again,” she said through a heavy breath as she pushed free from him. She didn’t pause again, and she threw herself forward.
Sampson had to push himself hard to keep up.
They streamed around another corner, and there were another three of those warriors.
They fought brutally. Each and every one of those Vendet warriors battled as if this skirmish would be the deciding attack of the war.
War.
… War. Sampson hadn’t had a chance to absorb that fact yet. He doubted Diana had either. Not Admiral Fenton, not Forest, not anyone.
But this was war.
It had started. It wasn’t going to stop until either the Coalition found the strength to fight the Force back, or the Force finally claimed what they’d always been after.
Though this was the last thing he should think of as he ran desperately by Diana’s side, fighting whatever force came their way, he couldn’t stop those thoughts.
They raged in his mind like a growing fire.
There would be no more peace. There would be no more growth. No more exploration. Though the Coalition had been founded on utopian principles that fundamentally believed that with enough dedication, charity, and hope, all could rise, those principles were now under attack.
Every cadet who had been whisked away would now no longer be a soldier of peace – they’d be soldiers of last defense.
“Don’t think that,” Diana suddenly said as she twisted to the side, shoved her back into a half-broken doorway, and paused, obviously using her senses to detect if anyone was down the short length of the hall in front of them.
“How do you know what I’m—” he began. He stopped. Despite the situation, he had the time to let out a tortured chuckle.
She brought up a hand and tapped the side of her head. “I’m psychic, remember?” she reminded him, repeating what he’d said to her earlier. “But I didn’t read your mind. I don’t have to. It’s written all over your face. You’re thinking about the war,” she choked.
As he took up position beside her, holding his gun hard, he nodded. “It’ll be—”
“Don’t think of it.” Her voice became hard. It had an authority behind it that he’d never heard before. It was this power that seemed to come from beyond her.
… It was the warrior she’d talked of earlier, right? The warrior she’d been in her dreams?
Though all he wanted to do was stop and question her about that, he knew he didn’t have time.
Sure enough, there was a sudden thump from further down the corridor. It sounded like a section of the roof caved in, and as he pressed his back harder against the broken door beside him, his armor detected a certain kind of vibration.
His eyes had a chance to pulse wide. “It’s another spider drone,” he bellowed.
“Dammit,” Diana screamed. She went to jerk to the side, but Sampson stopped her.
As he twisted his head, he used his second sight. It was getting easier, but he still couldn’t control it. It happened to him – he didn’t decide when to use it. But fortunately, in that moment, he saw right through the corridor, right through the broken door, and right through the wall. “This way,” he commanded in a shaking, pitching scream that could have taken down the walls.
With his hand still anchored around her wrist, he twisted her to the side, fired on the wall beside him, used his shoulder to blast through the fractured concrete, and protected Diana all the way.
She might be turning out to be a great warrior, but she didn’t have any armor on.
He extended his force field to her, and it protected them both as they skidded into some form of a discussion room.
A great big table had been overturned, and chunks of it were burned. In the middle there’d once been the insignia of the Coalition. Now it was cracked in half.
He didn’t let his mind linger on that symbolism. He leaped right over the table, slid down the other side, forced himself forward, reached another wall, and shot it just before he rounded his shoulder and again pushed through before the concrete had a chance to crumble.
He needed every single second. Because every single second was all he had between him and that soldier robot. He could hear it smashing through the corridor outside, and as a shrieking alarm pitched through the room, he realized it had just undermined structural integrity in this section.
“Dammit, come on, come on,” Sampson blared. As the dust settled around them, he pulled Diana through into the next room, and he saw what he’d already detected with his second sight. Armor.
It was standard Coalition, but that didn’t matter; it would even out the odds for Diana.
He didn’t need to point it out to her. She tumbled over to it, grabbed it up, and held it tightly to her chest.
“Slam it onto the ground,” he snapped. Though she was one hell of a psychic, and clearly had the skills to fight, he had to remind himself that when it came to Academy combat, she wasn’t the best. Diana would never have had access to standard armor and would have no clue how to turn it on.
She dumped it onto the floor and waited for it to initiate.
“Slam your hand onto the lock at the top,” Sampson bellowed.
She got down to her knee and slammed her hands down. At the same time, the spider reached them. It wrenched a section of the wall clean off, and the concrete spiraled out into the hallway, smashing against another wall and obliterating it. Dust erupted everywhere. If the command building had been functioning, atmospheric sensors would have detected it and sucked it out immediately. They weren’t functioning. Which meant they could do nothing for the fire that erupted in a lab to their left, either.
And that wasn’t to mention that the structural integrity in this section of the building was now down to 20 percent.
Sampson threw himself forward, right at the combat robot. As he did, he recognized this wasn’t the same situation he’d faced in the elevator shaft. For one, this robot was twice as shielded. For another, it was twice as well armed. It didn’t try to skewer him with its pincers. It lunged at him, showing its belly. And locked on its belly was a range laser.
It was a laser, as the name suggested, that was used over long distances. One blast from that could technically run 100 kilometers without losing any power.
Use it at close range, and it should completely obliterate whatever was in front of it. There’d be nobody left – just particles.
The laser was already armed. Sampson didn’t have any time. Diana was right behind him, and if he jolted to the side to get out of the way of that laser, she would—
Something slammed into the side of the wall. It hit it with such force, it took out a massive chunk of the floor. Before Sampson knew what was happening, he and Diana fell through, the spider tumbling with them.
The spider didn’t have time to shut off its laser, and it fired, but rather than slam into Sampson and Diana behind him, it twisted around, taking out a huge chunk of the floor beneath them and a massive section of the wall. They were simply gouged away like somebody scooping their fingers through melted ice cream.
Out of the corner of Sampson’s eye, he watched as Diana tumbled right out of the side of the building.
He couldn’t get to her. She couldn’t get to her armor.
God no.
No.
She couldn’t die—
The spider drone snaked a pincer forward and caught the side of Sampson’s body in one brutal blow that saw him fall through two floors.
The spider finally landed on a floor with enough integrity to hold it, and it pinned Sampson underneath it.
Every single alarm his armor had went wild. He didn’t care.
All he cared about was the fact that Diana was dead. There was no way she could have survived falling out of the side of the building.
No.
Goddammit, no.
He hadn’t come this far and lost this much to lose more.
But life wasn’t fair. And neither was war.