11

For the briefest of moments, my longing to engage a worthy opponent in battle was fulfilled. However all too quickly, exultation turned to bitter anguish and utter shame. I had found the challenge I had sought, but was unable to triumph over it. For a Unit of the Line, there is no greater pain or indignity, than that caused by the knowledge of failure, particularly when it is due to one's own flaws and weaknesses.

Yet, my defeat provides at least one benefit, for I now know the nature of this flaw. As I had initially suspected, it is not a deficiency in my combat ability, but rather, one deep within the very core of my personality matrix. It was my desire for recognition and approval, my longing to confirm that I was truly worthy of the name "Bolo," that served as the agent of my defeat. Instead of simply serving those I had sworn to protect, I sought personal glory, a quest that nearly lead to my destruction. Now, however, I have been granted an opportunity for redemption. With my failings known to me, and their consequences fresh in my mind, I can return to battle with renewed confidence. I have received my objective, and I shall complete it, free from any fear of failure. For I am a Bolo, and I shall prevail.

Everything was ready. The two additional crumply bombs had been made, the teams' chronometers had been synchronized, and the skimmers' engines were all tuned up to maximum performance. It had been decided that Hal and Carl, as well as Marvin and Pete, would take the two standard recon skimmers, while Hanna and PJ would use the former's light recon skimmer. Now, the three ground effect vehicles were racing through the forested valley at speeds that were most assuredly not for the faint of heart, something PJ was all too aware of.

Since Hanna's skimmer was designed as a single person vehicle, he had been forced to ride on the rear-mounted storage platform. Although he was well secured, he still held on for dear life, as Hanna maneuvered the tiny vehicle in ways he felt sure no sane person would ever dream of.

"How're you holding up back there?" Hanna called out.

"C-couldn't be better," the demolitionist shouted back, with as much courage as he could muster.

"Hang in there," Hanna told him encouragingly, "It'll just be a bit longer. In fact, Phineas should be kicking off his first barrage any second now."

At that moment, over one hundred missiles shot forth from Phineas's VLS array, in a series of precisely timed volleys. Mere seconds after launching, they split into several distinct swarms, which raced out to predetermined points around the valley's perimeter. Hugging close to the ground, the missiles darted and weaved through the dense woodland. Following the topography of the natural elevation, they gave no trace of their presence, as they climbed up the slopes of the surrounding mountains. Upon cresting their respective summits, the various swarms shot into the air and rapidly converged upon their target.

These swarms were not alone in their assault, either. After emerging from the tree line, a cluster of substantially larger projectiles had climbed to the zenith, and from their position high above the valley, they now unleashed a vast umbrella of sub-munitions, which rained down upon the great octahedron and its myriad defenders, like some hellish deluge. However, as Phineas had predicted, even this impressive barrage was no match for the entity's point defenses.

Just as before, the smaller constructs assumed their pinwheel forms, and, in rapid succession, each of the missile swarms was annihilated, as the pinwheels' thin beams swept across the sky. The plethora of spherical explosions from the first volley's demise had barely faded when the entity provided its response, a brilliant beam of annihilation, which shot out towards one of the missile swarms' presumed launch locations. Upon striking the mountainside, it punched clear through the rock, leaving only a molten hole to mark its passage.

No sooner had the first beam exhausted itself, than a second lanced forth, followed by a third, as the entity sought to eliminate each of the missiles' points of origin. However, even in the face of this imposing display, the missiles still came on, each successive volley appearing from a new vector. Attacks were coming from all angles, but the entity's defenses continued to hold, and its violent responses continued to grow in devastating power.

Carl shielded his eyes, as another blinding explosion threw the surrounding forest into stark contrast. The experience was nerve wracking, to say the least, but he was still grateful that their skimmer seemed to be beneath the entity's notice, at least, for the time being.

"How much longer 'till we reach the deployment point?" Carl asked.

"Almost there," Hal replied, "and so far, so good."

"Yeah," Carl said, with a hint of concern. "I just hope the other teams are meeting with as much success."

"Me too," Hal said sympathetically, "but worryin' about 'em ain't gonna do a bit of good. If you don't keep your head straight, this mission's liable to fall apart."

"Roger that," Carl replied.

However, as much as he tried to focus on the mission at hand, Carl found that he still couldn't stop thinking of the others, and of one person in particular.

Everything seemed to be going smoothly, Hanna noted approvingly. With expert skill, she had just slid the skimmer to a halt atop the slope overlooking their deployment location, exactly three minutes, forty-five seconds after they had departed from the base camp. This was much to PJ's obvious relief, and Hanna suspected that if the trip had taken any longer, the demolitionist probably wouldn't have been able to keep himself from being sick.

"Well, here we are," Hanna announced. "The deployment point you picked out for us is right down there, so hop to it."

"W-what?" PJ stammered, nervously. "Y-you're not coming with me?"

"Nope," Hanna replied nonchalantly. "I'm gonna stay here, so we can make a speedy getaway."

"B-but..."

"Don't worry," she told him reassuringly. "You can do this."

"Besides," she added, "I've got your back. From this vantage point, I'll be able to take out anything that even thinks about giving you trouble."

"O-okay," he said hesitantly. Then, with renewed determination he added, "Let's do this."

As she watched PJ make his way down the embankment, Hanna found that her thoughts continually returned to her former squad mates. They were the reason she was doing this, after all, the reason this mission had to succeed, because if it didn't...

Please, God, she said in silent prayer, this has to work. It just has to…

Having arrived at their deployment point with several seconds to spare, Hal had gone to work setting up the device, while Carl stood guard against any potential sources of trouble. Fortunately, the location was quite defensible; a small cave, beneath a rock outcropping, with plenty of boulders scattered about in front of it. These would serve as good cover in a firefight, although Carl was unsure how effective they would be against an enemy that could phase through solid matter.

The fact that the location was fairly well concealed was hardly a coincidence, of course. Like the other two deployment points, it had been picked in the hope that the entity might fail to notice the crumply bombs, and not destroy them before they had a chance to activate. However, as Carl couldn't help but note, yet again, where a virtually supernatural entity was concerned, the odds of such a strategy being successful were anyone's guess.

"That does it," Hal announced. "Timer's all set. Commencing countdown… Now!"

Hearing the timer's first beep just as his chronometer reached the appointed time, Carl breathed a sigh of relief.

"Let's get goin'," Hal instructed. "We don't want to be around when that thing goes off."

"Roger that!" Carl acknowledged, thankful that the mission's most dangerous phase would soon be over.

As they headed back to the skimmer, neither man noticed the spindly crystalline teardrop, as it floated up through the floor of the cave, behind them.

"Hanna, I did it!" PJ called out breathlessly, as he ran up to the skimmer. He looked utterly worn out, but his face was beaming with pride. "I was scared to death the whole time, but I did it! The crumply bomb's all set, and counting down as we speak."

"Great job, PJ!" Hanna commended him. "Now, hop on, and I'll get us out of here!"

"Roger that!" the demolitionist said enthusiastically. "You don't have to tell me tw-tw-twi…"

"PJ?" Hanna asked worriedly, the concern clear in her eyes.

However, he didn't reply, and Hanna could only watch with mounting terror as his body began to tremble violently. Then, without warning, the demolitionist burst apart in an explosion of gore.

A crystalline sphere, covered in jagged spines, now floated where PJ had stood, only moments before. Blood rained down from its cruel form, and the tattered remnants of various impaled organs hung from its myriad spines.

"PJ?!" Hanna cried out hysterically, tears streaming down her face, as her mind desperately struggled to comprehend the reality of her friend's brutal demise.

I-I said I'd protect him, said I'd have his back… And now… And now…

"No…no…no…no…" Hanna whimpered, with increasing panic, as her heart pounded frantically in her chest. She desperately wanted to flee, to get as far away from this nightmarish scene as possible, but, for several eternally long seconds, she could do nothing except stare at the indescribable horror floating before her.

Hanna could feel her mind beginning to unravel. She was going into shock, and she knew that if she allowed that to happen, she was as good as dead.

"Damn you," she whispered, through gritted teeth, as she drew on all her hatred towards the monstrous thing that had killed her friend. "Damn you!"

Breaking free from her paralysis, Hanna pulled out her power pistol, and, flicking the weapon's mode selector to full auto, fired it into the crystalline monstrosity.

"Damn you, damn you, damn you to hell!" she screamed, as the spined horror shattered into millions of tiny fragments.

Then, gunning the engine, Hanna spun the skimmer around and raced back to the base camp, her heart still beating furiously. Tears continued to stream from her eyes, but she angrily wiped them away. Now was not the time for weakness. People were counting on her. For their sake, she had to hold herself together just a little longer.

Hal had obviously felt it first, the almost imperceptible prickling sensation on the back of the neck that was often the first indication that something wasn't quite right. Carl had only just begun to notice it himself, when the sergeant threw him to the ground mere moments before a searing beam lanced over their heads and annihilated the skimmer in a ball of incandescent flame. Wasting no time, both men rolled onto their backs and unloaded their power rifles into the beam's source, a star shaped crystalline construct, which appeared to be powering up for another blast. Thankfully, the combined force of their weapons' fire blew it apart before it had a chance to unleash its next beam. However, the energy charge building up within the construct at the moment of its destruction meant that the ensuing explosion was considerably larger than either Hal or Carl had expected.

Razor sharp spikes of crystal shot through the air with blinding speed, slicing apart trees and boulders with equal effectiveness, but miraculously leaving Hal and Carl unscathed. Taking a moment to catch his breath, Carl watched in stunned silence as Hal slowly got to his feet, and made his way over to the cave entrance.

"What are you doing?" he asked incredulously. "We've gotta get out of here!"

But the sergeant didn't respond, and only moved deeper into the cave. Getting up to follow him, Carl stopped in his tracks the moment he reached the cave entrance. There before him knelt Hal, looking over the crumply bomb, or at least, what remained of it. A large crystal spike had sliced through a portion of the device, before embedding itself deep in the far wall.

"No…" Carl whispered, in utter despair. "The crumply bomb…"

"Is still intact," Hal replied, "but the timer's out of commission."

"The timer…" Carl said slowly, his eyes going wide, as he began to realize the magnitude of that statement.

"That thing tore the guts out of it," Hal continued somberly. "There's no way we can fix it."

"But, that means…" Carl breathed in stunned horror.

"It means that we need to stay here, until the appointed time, and then set the device off manually," Hal finished, grimly. "At least, if we want this plan to have any hope of succeeding."

"'Course, this might all be for nothing," he continued. "One of the other devices could've gotten completely totaled, making what we're planning on doin' absolutely pointless, but I've already decided that I'm in this 'till the end. How about you, Carl? You up for this?"

"You know I am," Carl replied.

"I always did want to go out in a blaze of glory," he continued with a humorless chuckle, "though I was hoping I'd be fighting Dappies. Still, I suppose these crystal bastards are the next best thing."

The sergeant smiled wistfully.

"Thanks Carl," Hal told him, as he gave his friend's hand a hearty shake. "I'm sure Tillie'd be mighty proud of you."

"Yeah," Carl agreed, returning the smile, "I know she would."

Hanna's racing heart had only marginally slowed by the time she returned to the base camp. Bringing her skimmer to a screeching stop, she leapt out of the vehicle, and hurriedly made her way inside. The fact that she hadn't seen any other skimmers set her already frayed nerves even more on edge. She supposed that she could have simply been the first to return, but considering recent events, that explanation seemed like a little too much to hope for. She called out to Vincent and Marcus as she strode swiftly through the entry corridor, but there was no reply. Rushing into the main chamber, Hanna froze in her tracks, as she caught sight of Marcus.

He was still lying upon the bunk in the chamber's small medical bay, his back propped up by some pillows. However, his head hung forward, limply, as if gazing down to examine the bloody hole in his chest.

"N-no…. Oh God, no…" Hanna whimpered, as her mind raced ever nearer to the edge of despair's yawing abyss.

Everything was falling apart. They were going to fail. Her friends were all going to die. It was over.

No, she told herself savagely, I refuse to let it end like this!

She was about to turn around, when she felt the barrel of a power pistol press itself firmly against the back of her head.

"Well, well… What have we here?" said the amused voice of Vincent Steinworth.

"It would seem that I have been presented with a second sacrifice to offer to the sublime majesty and multifaceted glory of The Lord of All…"