The Wars of Zegandaria by Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov (find a book to read .txt) 📕

Suddenly there was a strange noise behind them. It was like a humming. They had walked into a trap.

The guarrons had developed a rather effective fighting technique, which they called ‘Tul ai sor’ or translated as ‘sack’. Apparently those with the laser cutters had somehow managed to signal the others, but how? They didn't have any time to do it!

It was necessary to mention here that the representatives of this race were not strategic geniuses, but relied mostly on the tactics of sudden and lightning attack. Their strategic plan involved the constant exhaustion of the enemy with a series of such attacks. Every average platoon commander knew this. Moreover, Zorin had serious combat experience behind him. Before the raid on the Diomedes base, he had fought two other military campaigns with a more limited range. The first had been in the defense of the Elohyn's interron fuel refinery, and the other had been so long ago that he didn't even remember it anymore! Back then he had trained himself to become an ‘Angel of Imgradon’ and defend it.

It turned out, however, that their opponent wasn't as smart as they expected, he was sneaky, but not smarter than them. At least not this time.

There were only five or six other guarrons in the next section of the command center. Hearing the strange sound of the kinetic weapon, they had come to check out what was going on.

Zorin took them down with his assault rifle without further ado, but it wasn't until the corpse of one was falling that he spotted a small pouch of quisson in which, from the outline of the object, his trained eye recognized an Aesonian thermobomb.

- 'Get down!,' he didn't even have time to shout.

Such an enormous mass of earth and rock debris rose that it overwhelmed the others. Their shattered legs and arms were charging around as if they were part of a cannibal feast. The abomination was complete! Torn parts of their heads had mingled with the hydraulics of their nanobots. And it wasn't fun at all! Zorin knew that the practice in bombing was to open your mouth and plug your ears to keep from going deaf from the sound wave created by the explosion. With bombs in the advanced future, however, this was relatively useless. The bomb itself produced a specific thermal wave that could melt even the strontium aronault of the ziruarxs. That was exactly what happened to one of them. Specifically, with their machine. It burst into flames and began to slowly melt. Then, naturally, it exploded. The fact that there wasn't too much interron fuel in the tank helped keep the mighty ‘Boom!’ from overtaking it.

Zorin looked around. It seemed he was the only survivor. He tried to turn on the cyclonic synthesizer. His ears hummed. The greenish sensor light reported that the device was working. The small display reported something different, however. The straight line transformed into an irregular sine wave and he heard:

‘Nobody's getting out of here! Ughorn Legol!’

It was beyond belief, whoever that voice belonged to could reproduce human speech without much difficulty. What the hell was going on here?

If they've left two whole platoons hanging around a ruined base that no one is going to benefit from in the near future, and it's going to take a lot of resources to rebuild it, there's obviously something important going on!’ he muttered under his breath, preparing to fight from any position.

He tried to contact the ziruarx who were only a few miles away. Again he got no reply.

'I'm not going to let some reptiles torture me like a dog,' as it briefly crossed his mind to blast his own head with his blaster, but after a brief moment of hesitation he changed his mind.

He crawled over to the nearest ziruarx that had been left almost untouched by the explosion and crammed himself inside. The communications equipment was intact. He made a third attempt at communication using the encrypted frequencies. He heard some strange whisper-like noise. No voice or response.

He instantly darted to the cockpit and sealed the machine for seconds. The ozarium hatch made the machine absolutely inaccessible to any kind of lighter weapon, except for esonium bombs and proton bombs. No amount of machine gun fire, laser cutters, or plasma rifles would even scratch its composite alloy.

Suddenly the buzzing in his head intensified and blood dripped from his nose. He sensed something was wrong.

- 'This machine will be your grave, man!,' the strange voice sounded again.

After a while the high pressure made his head burst like a ripe watermelon. He was dead in every sense of the word. Rodrigo, Duolors, and the others too.

The focus of long and exhausting preparations had not prepared them for anything very important. To expect the unexpected. Even if that unexpected, was beyond their imagination of anything possible. And the enemy was well versed in just that. And he had won this battle. With minimal casualties.

Now Diomedes' base seemed more forlorn even than before. And scarier even than Rodwell. A veritable abode of death. They were never coming home. But even if they had that chance - it wouldn't exist in just a few hours. They simply had no way of knowing it anymore. Nor could they sense it. They had already lost. Forever! Or maybe not quite?

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: ZORIN

When you've had a silver spoon in your mouth almost all your life, when your parents have provided you with a good education, and when you're a military doctor on top of that, you somehow begin to see the world with different eyes. Neola was strangely trying to forget about her poor childhood before she was adopted by her wealthy guardians. The immense hardships she had to go through to reach the top. And that same peak was definitely not what she expected. That peak was deceptive and built on too many illusions. Disastrous illusions. But this 'stain', as she called her origins, would stand as long as she lived and remind her that she had accomplished almost nothing on her own. That her false brilliance had been bestowed upon her by fate.

Her studies in the Medical Corps had been entirely covered by the many ex-cal credits that were the currency of the future. To do even the simplest math, it was equivalent to the annual upkeep of an entire platoon of elite soldiers. The reason they valued it was far different than being able to perform base manipulation. For example, she was also responsible for putting Narenzie identification chips on some soldiers' heads. And that couldn't be done by just anyone.

The headhunters Radsoil and Edward might have been insufficient to get her where she was going. That was more than clear. And Endwhite was a hidden lemon, too.

While Neola was busy with her thoughts, Sasia had already finished repairing the speeder. Behind her back, Endwight was preparing to land the insidious blow and carry out her plans to get away. But suddenly something unforeseen happened.

As if out of nowhere, Zorin emerged, bleeding and barely breathing. But how was that possible since he was already dead? Actually, he wasn't. Few knew, and were indeed aware, that any commander, even the most inferior, was too precious to be sacrificed. That's why the one killed in the ziruarx was his clone. But why wasn't this told to the young recruits? For one simple reason - they would in no way accept such inequality! Moreover, he was expected to encourage them to boldly enter combat! Zorin was capable of telepathic communication with his clone-double, but it was definitely affecting his health. He had felt a strange interference with the thoughts, or semblance of such, as the irenegetian nanocode of the humanoid androids was curtly called. Someone was very expertly fingering as if they were stretching the strings of some musical instrument. But who was this someone? Communication was via an embedded chip in the brain's limbic system, where incoming information was stored. Sometimes Zorin received too much information from his clone, which caused him a huge headache, but the foresighted bioengineers had arranged for a special method of shutting down the communication, in order to avoid overloading the brain, and thus possible brain death. The creature that had deliberately 'killed' the android was apparently trying to get to Zorin's brain as well, but still without success. This was what was called bio-object impact, but in this case Zorin wasn't even sure if his opponent was flesh and blood. And what was going on anyway? Apparently someone was quite seriously interested in killing him, and rather sneakily at that.

He'd taken the huge distance from Synthros to Rodwell with one of the nirangaiters. Why hadn't he gone back to Imgradon? Very simple - going to Rodwell was a sure way to get more serious weapons, or at least some communications equipment. And he wasn't wrong. Of course he'd been wandering around the piles of junk in the cemetery for a while. He'd been trying to find something he could use. He hadn't taken into account the small fact that that was where the pirate deserters were lurking, with dubious intentions of cooperating with a representative of the military in Imgradon. There was no telling him that they even had an upright aircraft.

Had they seen him earlier, they probably would have gone into hiding, but it was too late and there was no moving. Something just had to be done.

- 'Legitimize yourself right now,' Endwhite tried to look scary, pointing his blaster at the sergeant.

Zorin wasn't going to deal with any nonsense. It just wasn't his style. He raised his hands hypocritically, but with no real intention of surrendering. As he approached, he twisted his hand behind the back of his head in a flash and pointed the blaster at his head. Sasia had a trained eye and reflexes, but even she couldn't react this time.

- 'Where are the others?,' asked Zorin. 'Take me to your boss?'

- 'I'm Sasia ...,' the pilot began.

- 'I don't care my girl who you are,' Zorin cut her off. 'Do as you're told. Otherwise, shoot,' his finger ran down the trigger.

Neola almost squealed when she saw who was standing in front of her. But she hurried to hide. But Zorin didn't particularly care. He was determined to show them that they had to take him seriously.

Radsoil and Edward tried to reach for their weapons, but Zorin shot them without blinking an eye. That left only Sasia and Endwight. They were definitely going to be of use. And he asked one last question:

- Can this speeder fly?

- 'It can,' was Sasia's answer. 'I just fixed it.'

Zorin didn't want to take any chances, having stunned the two large men, he tied the pilot down so as not to get in his way. Endwight was paralyzed with a special kick that Zorin hadn't taught the rookie. Still, no matter how sellout the command was, his chances of shining were considerable. Even without Governor Elmbaum, there was no one to evaluate him. But all in good time.

Zorin picked up a metal rod, which he began using to hit the two wherever he could find them. They were tied securely