Chương 70: 2.11 Reaper

Hector's rifle had an IMD built onto the end of the barrel—an Integrated Muzzle Device —meant to manage three different functions: dampen muzzle flash, suppress noise, and reduce recoil. As a result, it was very easy to burn through an eighty-round mag as he pointed his gun at the incoming shapes and pressed the trigger. The gun thrummed against his shoulder, and his optics, which were tied into the gun's onboard AI, traced the rounds in streaks of neon orange through the strange, dark world.

The bulbous, horse-sized creatures tumbling toward them, octopus arms flailing, were known as lurkers, and he'd fought thousands of the things in his day. They were low-tier rift spawn that lingered near open rifts—sort of the bottom-feeders of the rift world ecosystem. The fact that they were present was a good sign; it meant there probably wasn't something more dangerous nearby. Hot gasses and fluids burst forth from the creatures he shot, and they fell to the ground, sliding with their forward momentum.

Before long, other streaks of rifle-fire joined his as the other members of the security team came through the rift and got their bearings. It was an unprovable rule of rift crossings: nobody ever emerged in the same spot. Hector swapped mags and spun; with no further enemies in his forward arc, he scanned the edges of the rift, waiting to see if any lurkers came around. Kristy was on one knee, her rifle tucked into her shoulder, watching the direction they'd just cleared.

Matthews and Freddy were turning in circles, scanning. Meanwhile, the rest of the raid team pushed their way through, most of them stumbling or falling onto the strange, blue-black grass. Hector counted them off—Paige and Bobby, the thirteen technicians, and then Perry and Red bringing up the rear.

"All present," he announced in comms. Mathews barked orders, sending the technicians to drag the lurker corpses close and begin harvesting. They had equipment—scrapers that would perform on par with his integrated one—to gather potentia. Maybe more important to Mathews, though, they could also harvest biological matter that would sell for thousands of bits. Lurkers might be at the bottom of the food chain in the rift ecosystem, but they were still valuable.

Hector and Kristy moved to the front of the line, furthest from the rift and the strangely muted light it threw on the scene. The grass wasn't really grass but some kind of mossy hybrid, and it squelched under their boots. Hector almost slipped once as the slight downward slope grew steeper.

"Damn!" Kristy cried.

"The rift wasn't this dark last time." She twisted her boot in a thick clump of blue… stuff.

"I don't remember things being this moist."

"Different solar cycle—different weather." Her helmet turned to him, and her chrome rabbit eyes shone in the rift's glow.

"Have you been on a raid when it was like this?" He nodded, tilting his head upward and increasing the light gain on his helmet's optics to the maximum. Dark clouds swirled about, drifting on currents that didn't come close to the surface. They were on a planet; that much had been proven with drones and by launching high-orbit satellites—none of which survived more than a few minutes in the upper atmosphere. The world was like a waystation between Sol and other dimensions and worlds.

Soil samples seemed to prove that it was all the same planet, though the evidence indicated that it was simply enormous with a massive variety of flora, fauna, and minerals. Most believed the rifts were the source of the diversity. Gravity on the rift world was similar to Earth's, but that didn't mean much as far as the planet's size was concerned; hadn't the gravity manipulating tech originated from the study of rift materials?

Mathews spoke through comms, interrupting Hector's idle thoughts, "At least the welcoming committee wasn't too rough. Nice reaction time, Hector." She must have reviewed their helmet footage.

"No shit," Kristy said through her speaker grille, not the comms.

"You were up and at 'em damn fast." He thumped her on the armored shoulder.

"You get used to the rift sickness. Give it a few more transits." She jerked her helmet the other way and lifted her rifle.

"What's that?" Hector followed her gaze, readying his own weapon as he scanned the dark environment. Further down the slope, he saw craggy outcroppings and willowy trees. It was hard to tell in the dim light, but he knew their leaves would be magenta with black vein lines, and that they'd drop caustic sap on anything that passed beneath them. A shadow, darker than those around it, shifted as it crept up the hill toward them.

"Shit," he whispered.

"Good eye."

"What is it? A spine thrasher?" Hector shook his head.

"They're not ambush hunters. See how it creeps along the ground. Damn, it's a big one."

"A big what?" Her gloved finger touched her rifle trigger with a soft click.

"Don't shoot yet! It'll run before you can kill it."

"What—""It's a reaper." Kristy stumbled back, and her voice sounded in the comms as she switched off her helmet's speaker, "Heads up! Reaper incoming!" Hector groaned. Everyone behind them broke into a panicked flurry of activity.

"Why'd you do that?" he whispered, his voice hissing through his helmet grille. Kristy looked at him, and he knew her face would have been incredulous if he could see it.

"It's protocol!" He spoke into comms, ignoring her.

"Don't advance. We've got this one."

"We need—" Perry started to say, but Mathews, proving her experience, interrupted him:"Everyone, stay back. We don't want to chase it away." Hector nudged Kristy.

"Lower your gun and look away from it. Keep it in your peripheral vision, but don't make any sudden movements." A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. She continued to stare at him, but after a few beats, she reluctantly lowered her rifle and turned her head slowly so her helmet's wide-view lens could pick up the creeping shadow. It was evident she'd never encountered a reaper, and that wasn't too surprising; among rift denizens, they were uncommon.

As a result, reaper bio-mass was extremely valuable; at least it had been during Hector's day, and that didn't seem to have changed, considering Mathews's reaction. She didn't want to let the prize, dangerous though it was, escape. More than the bio-mass, Hector was interested in the thing's potentia. That single creature would provide everyone with a significant boost when the team divvied out their shares after they made camp.

"Just relax and breathe," Hector whispered.

"Reapers are dangerous, but mostly because they catch people unaware. We know it's coming, and I'll take it out."

"You?" Kristy didn't look at him; she wanted to keep the reaper in her vid feed. Hector nodded, lowering his weapon, allowing the gimbaled sling to stow the rifle tight to his side, just behind his right arm.

"Better I do it so we don't destroy any of its organs. Some of them are worth enough to pay the bill for those subcontractors back there—we'll be in the black before day one is over." The world was silent, and he didn't like that. He opened comms and said, "Keep working. Process those lurkers. The reaper is going to get suspicious if you're all staring at us."

"Just give us a damn heads up if you're about to die, yeah?" Perry asked.

"Stow it," Mathews growled.

"Freddy, you keep an eye on Hector and Kristina; everyone else get back to work." Hector had eyes only for the reaper, so he didn't see the kid's response—probably some kind of mocking salute.

"Stay calm," he said as the reaper crept up the slope, its long, six-limbed body close to the ground. Even only twenty meters away, it was hard to see the thing; it blended with the dark, mossy grass so well. Purple-black skin absorbed any light shone on it, and it crept, hugging the ground like a reptile, even though it could run or fight just as easily upright on its long, powerful hind legs.

Hector had seen reapers clinging to trees, climbing cliff faces, scurrying out of tunnels that would make a human claustrophobic, and he'd seen them charging over flat terrain at sixty klicks an hour. Their four front limbs were capable of gripping things, but in a fight, they relied on claws and the dagger-like fangs in their maws. They had four sets of eyes, and a field of view that was damn close to three-hundred-sixty degrees.

There was a reason people called them reapers; they were damn-near perfect killing machines.

"It's looking right at me," Kristy murmured, the quaver in her voice coming through her helmet's speaker loud and clear.

"Good."" Good?"

"Yeah. I'm gonna act like I don't have a clue. Stop looking at it; it's making you too nervous. Open a vid on your UI or something."

"Are you nuts?" While Kristy balked at his plan, Hector went about it, stepping forward and turning his back to the creeping creature. He'd dialed up his audio input and was confident he'd hear it make its move. Reapers were big, and there was only open ground between them and it; when it went for the kill, it would drop the stealthy act.

"Hector, I'm gonna shoot this damn thing. You're not even looking!"

"Don't do it. You're fine. I'm not gonna let it get to you." He heard her stow her rifle with a whir and click of the gimbal, and then the faint snick of her knife sliding out of the sheath she wore strapped under her left arm.

"Fine. I won't shoot, but if that thing comes close enough to stab, I'm going for it." Hector grunted in approval. She was smart and fast; maybe she'd learn something from the— With a ragged inhalation and a whining, eager growl, the reaper lunged up the slope, its powerful rear legs gobbling up the meters three at a time. Hector's body ignited with a crimson glow as he fired his Speed Boost and summoned his Aura Blade. Before Kristy had even turned toward the creature, he was already sprinting to meet it.

Reapers, native to the rift world—at least as far as anyone could tell—were steeped in aura; their bodies took in so much potentia from their environment—the air, the water, and the creatures they killed and consumed—that they had natural abilities that were much like aura boosts. For one thing, it was fast. For another, its hide was tough and it would regenerate rapidly.

If you wanted to kill one, you had to either utterly annihilate it with a hail of bullets or blaster plasma, or you had to sever its brain from its spinal column; decapitation stopped the regeneration, so long as you didn't put the head back into close contact with the body. Hector pushed his luck by driving four aura into his Speed Boost, he felt his aura channels burn, knew he'd be raw for a while, but was fairly sure he hadn't done any permanent damage—nothing that would require a dose of cleansing nanites.

With four aura driving his boost, he was fast, even faster than the reaper, though the creature didn't have to rely on short-term boosts; it was always quick. Hector didn't need a lot of time, though. He ducked under the reaper's long, hooked claws, snagged its top-most left shoulder, gripping the dry, leathery skin with his left hand, and then mounted the thing.

He slid his left leg up and over the monster's hip, squeezed with his knees, and then hacked his shimmering glass-like blade against the back of its long, wide neck. There were plenty of human-crafted weapons that could cut the head off a reaper—a mono-blade, a plasma knife, hell, even a vibroblade could do it—but Hector's Aura Blade was like an extension of his arm; he was like a surgeon with the weapon, having spent more than a decade mastering it in his old life.

There was more to it than that, though; built from the potentia in his body, it really was a part of him. He could feel it the way a person knows where their fingertip is pointing. There was a kind of muscle sense to it, and so he rarely missed his mark when he made his cuts. The blade hit home perfectly. He drove it in beside the reaper's spine, and then he jerked the knife to the right; it was sharp enough to slide through the dense flesh, severing muscle, tendon, and bone.

The monster collapsed, smashing into the soft, damp loam to slide several meters toward Kristy. Hector didn't let up; he hacked again, slashing left and right until he'd cut all the way through. When he was done, he tossed the head a meter from the corpse. Kristy watched him, eyes wide, vibroblade in hand, a shimmering azure aura limning her shoulders and head. Hector nodded in approval. At least she was ready. //Hector, the techs just got a survey drone in the air. It's taking measurements of the rift pulses.

// Yeah? Hector took Kristy's offered hand, allowing her to pull him to his feet. The reaper's corpse looked huge lying there.

"Holy shit, man! Tell me the truth, please. You were lying about being level seven, right?" //The rift is still quickening. // Evie announced. Hector pointed at the corpse and the slope leading away from the rift.

"Keep an eye out." Then he jogged past her, looking for Mathews. The commander was standing beside Bobby and Paige, staring at a crystal-glass tablet. When he approached, his boots thudding, Frederick called out.

"Nice one, man. Saw the whole thing on Kristina's feed." Mathews looked up.

"You noticed?" Hector nodded.

"The rift."

"Looks like we might only get a day in here. Maybe less. Thank the fates you killed that reaper. At least we're not gonna lose money." She turned to the train of subcontractors.

"Get your goddamn asses moving! I want us all half a klick from this rift in the next ten minutes!" She singled out their boss, Gomer.

"Pick two of your people to process the reaper. Perry—the guy that looks like a crocodile—will watch over them."

"Come on, Commander!" Perry's voice whined, loud and edged with static from his helmet's speaker.

"Let's go! We've got a lot to do and less time than we wanted!" Hector hurried back to Kristy, glanced at the reaper corpse, and had to fight the urge not to scrape it then and there. It was bad form when people were working for shares, and would earn him far more animosity than it was worth.

"Come on. See the waypoint?" Kristy's evil bunny head nodded, and she started down the slope. Mathews had given them a destination, and it was close to the acid trees. He wondered if she'd gotten intel from the IG databases; there was no doubt the Empire had mapped this rift site, but they didn't tend to share. Even as he and Kristy trudged ahead, one of the drones buzzed by, doing just that—mapping.

"I bet Mathews knows something," Kristy said, echoing his thoughts.

"I've never seen them in person, but I know what those trees are. Why would she be moving us closer to them?" Hector didn't reply; he had an idea, but he didn't like it. One reaper had come crawling out of those woods. Are there more?