Havok Bringer

Chapter 39. Geronimo

About half an hour later Tiff and CJ had located the nearest faction. They were camped about 7 miles away and they didn’t seem to be preparing to move. Tiff said they would be back to base camp in 5 minutes, and she would provide me with the rest of the intel she had regarding the faction. To say the least, I wasn’t feeling overly confident that she didn’t want to give me a quick rundown over the comms.

“Okay team, Tiff and CJ will be back soon. Let’s be ready to go when they get back. Jax, it will be another few minutes before we can give you the second dose of the stim so just rest for now. Matty and Red, can you guys go prep Rover? We are gonna need to make sure it's good to go and grab plenty of ammo for the turret as well,” I said.

While I was waiting on Tiff and CJ, I took a second and dug into my interface again. I had gained three and a half levels total since this dungeon started and now I was halfway to Level 11. I needed to get up to speed on where my stats were now.

Andrew Dawes

Level 11 – Havok Bringer

Stats:

Strength – 143

Intelligence – 132

Vigor – 166

Stamina – 137

Dexterity – 287

Free Points – 15

Allocate free points now? Y/N

My dexterity was growing at a pace that was ridiculous. I definitely felt it in that last fight. I mean, I did a backflip over one of the mercenaries for crying out loud, so the free points weren’t going there. My vigor was good too, sitting at 166. Now it was my second-highest stat.

I had to start thinking about what I could improve that would help me if I had to fight without my armor though, so strength was next on the list for a boost.

Okay, let’s put them all into strength, I said to myself.

I mentally clicked on yes and dumped all the points into strength, making my new strength stat 158. I would be dumping my next several levels' worth of free points into strength, just in case I got caught without my armor and needed to fight.

I heard the Pup landing outside, so I got up and walked out to greet Tiff and CJ, “Hey guys, I have the team prepping Rover, what’s the story on the target faction?”

Tiff looked shaken as she walked down the rear ramp, “It’s the Rerek faction, Andrew, we need to think about finding a different target.”

“Wait a second, who are the Rereks? And how can they be worse than the pack of werewolves that I already fought today?!” I asked.

CJ walked up, he wasn’t in his suit since he was staying on the Pup for the duration of this mission. “Oh believe me, bro, they are worse,” he said as he sighed out heavily and ran his hands across the top of his head.

A few minutes later we were back in the HAB. The rest of the crew had finished prepping Rover and Jax had taken his second stim and was up and about again, almost fully healed. Tiff had taken some recon pictures with the Pup and brought them up on one of the monitors for all of us to see.

I blew out in exasperation, “Holy hell…. Is it demons? We have to fight demons.”

The Rerek were huge, at least seven or eight feet tall, they had red skin and horns poking out of their heads. Some had only two, but some had several. They had gnarly jagged teeth and dark black eyes. These things would not be taken down easily and we would have to have a solid plan if we were going to stand a chance.

Tiff looked at me puzzled, “Demons? No, these are Rerek. This species controls nearly one-quarter of the civilized universe and does all the wet work for the Council. Captain, the Rerek are not to be taken lightly.”

“Okay, so what do we do? It has to be them, Tiff, they are the closest faction, and we don’t know how much time we have. If the Lacertine faction gets to them first, we are in trouble,” I said.

Tiff seemed really worried about these guys. I mean she always worried, but she seemed extra worried this time.

“Tiff, you have to trust us here. This is going to be hard, and we all know that. We are all risking the same thing, but someone has to make the call, and that someone is me. We are prepped and ready to go. We are going to attack the Rerek faction, and I need to know if you have any information that can help us against them. If you don’t, then I need you to fall in line and get ready to help us,” I said.

She looked down, her hands behind her back, “The Rerek conquered my people, Captain. The Sapere fear the Rerek above all else.”

I walked over and grabbed her by the shoulder, “Then let’s go make those red assholes regret ever coming to this damn moon, XO.”

Tiff looked up, placing her hand on my forearm, “Okay Captain, you have my support, Let’s do it.”

“Everyone, meet at the Rover, and let's discuss our attack plan. Matty, Jax, I need you two here. This is your wheelhouse, and we can’t afford to go in with a half-assed plan. Everyone else be prepared to listen up and understand your role in the assault. This will be all hands on deck and we need everyone sharp and ready to fight. Jax, Matty, what do you have for us this time?”

Jax and Matty looked at each other, “Well Cap…don’t you and CJ have orbital drop suits?” Matty asked.

I looked at CJ, surprised at the idea that was just thrown at me, "Yeah, we do, but I didn’t want to put the Pup at risk if I could help it.”

“There won't be any risk, Cap. The Pup will be damn near in orbit, at least 25 to 30 miles up. You and CJ will perform an orbital drop and hit them at just the right moment to assist us with the assault. While we engage the Rerek on the ground you two will drop in the midst of them and create chaos or wreak havoc I guess is a more fitting term,” Matty said.

This was a bold plan, to say the least. I was getting very comfortable with my armor, and CJ was becoming a prop at piloting his armor but neither of us had performed an orbital drop before.

“Matty, there are a lot of variables here that we have to consider. I’ve never done an orbital drop and neither has CJ. You’re asking us to drop from a distance of 25-30 miles up and land on a space no bigger than a football field. What about the conditions in the atmosphere, what if the wind blows us off course, what about life support?” I asked.

Tiff walked over to one of the crates sitting in the corner of the HAB. She opened it up pulled out a thin, sleek full-face mask, and threw it to me.

“This will handle the issue of oxygen, Captain. As far as atmospheric conditions, you don’t need to worry about that. The Coeus created an artificial atmosphere on this moon for the singular purpose of providing breathable air for the participants. There are no clouds and no weather to speak of the artificial atmosphere is very thing and should create little resistance.”

I held up the mask inspecting it, “Tiff, I just felt a breeze outside so obviously there is some weather.”

Tiff tilted her head in a way that made me acutely aware that she was considering my intelligence, “Captain, surely you don’t think that a breeze equates to weather? The breeze was created by the uneven heating of the moon's surface, that is all. There are no clouds, no rain, and no discernible weather patterns to consider here. A small breeze near the surface of the moon is of no concern.”

I sighed and held the mask up to my face, “I can’t wear this under my armor Tiff, it won't work.”

“I have a theory about that. You said that in the vision the Coeus said that you could make the gift work in ways that helped you, that you could control it, right?” Tiff asked.

“Yeah, I guess. I think that is how I was able to create my new arms, but what does that have to do with this?” I asked.

Tiff walked over and grabbed the mask. She slid it over my head and put it securely over my face tightening the straps around my head so that it was secure. There was a hiss as the mask began creating breathable oxygen for me.

“Okay, it fits. That still doesn’t solve our problem though,” I said.

Tiff stepped back and looked at me, “Equip your armor, Captain.”

I reached up to take the mask off, shaking my head and wondering why she would put the mask on and then tell me to equip my armor. Tiff reached up and grabbed my hand.

“Don’t take the mask off, just equip the armor and see what happens,” she said.

“Uhh…Okay, I don’t think this is a good idea though. I'm not gonna be happy if I get a broken nose out of this little experiment of yours,” I said.

I took a deep breath and mentally equipped my armor. I watched the black metallic substance begin to cover my body, and then when it got to my neck it slowed. It crept up over the face mask slowly like it was feeling the foreign object out before fully equipping. Finally, after about 3 seconds the armor was fully equipped.

“That was a lot slower than normal," I said, “Hey, I have a new indicator on my interface!”

The new indicator was on the bottom right of my interface, it was a blue bar that read:

Oxygen Level – 100%

“Well, that’s pretty cool, it just equipped over the mask, and it even allows me to see the oxygen level on my interface,” I said.

“Now deactivate your armor, I think you're going to be surprised,” Tiff said.

I deactivated my armor and reached to pull off the mask, but the mask was gone. I felt around my head just to be sure it hadn’t slid off when the armor deactivated but it was gone.

“What happened to the mask?” I asked.

“The armor absorbed it and created a new ability, Captain. This is a completely unique ability; I’ve never seen any type of armor or mech-suit that can do anything like what just happened," Tiff said.

I thought about what this meant, and how I could use an ability like this in the future to upgrade my armor. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a lot of time to ponder it right now.

I turned and looked at CJ and shook my head, “Well CJ, I guess we’re gonna do a little skydiving!”