Chương 12: Arc 0 - Chapter 12 - Ambush

Thea's vision blurred, and she found herself back in her own body, pitching forward. She took a quick step and caught herself just before tipping over, but a crushing wave of nausea and head pain slammed into her. She tore off her helmet and dropped to her knees, vomiting violently onto the trench floor. Behind her, the medic who had helped her with the vision stumbled backward in a daze.

"…Ahh… What in the fucking void is wrong with you?" he muttered between pained groans, steadying himself against the nearest trench wall.

"Just what in the Emperor's holy name did you even do?! I've never seen anyone burn through this much Focus. I thought we were going to die!" He snapped, once he managed to steady himself against the nearby trenchwall. By then, Thea had finally stopped retching, having emptied her stomach completely onto the ground. The nausea and unease, however, refused to fade. She turned toward the medic, driven by the sheer terror the vision had left behind—and froze. Blood was running from his eyes, nose, and mouth.

He was hurriedly smearing med-gel over the wounds, quiet curses slipping out as he worked, each one making it clear how bad things really were. Still, it hadn't been for nothing. She had gained invaluable intel from the vision—assuming it really reflected her memories. But if she wanted anyone else to act on it, she needed confirmation.' You can act cautiously on a single confirmation of intel yourself, but you always need at least two, to get others to act.' Old Man James' Golden Rule #4 echoed in her head.

There was no way she was ignoring it now. If she wanted to report this, she had to see it herself—and get the medic to see it too.

"…H-he… help me," she croaked, fighting another wave of nausea.

"You need to get me to… the western edge of the hill… to the slope." She could only hope the medic still trusted her enough to help. In her current state, she had no chance of making it there alone. A part of her feared he might end her for what she'd just done—but she just had to reach the slope. No matter what. The medic stopped applying the med-gel and stared at her for a few long seconds, blood still leaking from his eyes. Then he slowly stepped toward her, his gaze fixed on her weak, hunched form.

Just before he reached her, he visibly hesitated, his eyes flicking between her and the direction of command. The heavy backlash from the sheer amount of Focus she had burned had seemingly made him suspicious. But then, with a pained grimace and a heavy sigh, he finally made his decision. He suddenly grabbed her arm and hauled it over his shoulder, forcing her back up onto her feet.

"Just so we're clear," he muttered weakly, "I feel like I'm dying here. You nearly Overdrew us both. This better be damn worth it, or I swear to the Emperor himself I will Zero your ass out…" He started moving them toward the western edge of the trench line…

"... Faster… don't worry about my injuries… just get us there… quickly!" Thea pleaded weakly a few minutes later, barely able to keep her voice steady as she urged the medic on. She felt like she was seconds away from blacking out, but she just had to warn the UHF—if what she had seen was truly real—no matter the cost. Much to her surprise, the medic somehow actually managed to pick up the pace, despite his own dilapidated state.' I'll make it up to you one day,' Thea promised quietly.

The amount of trust he had placed in her, based on Kellerman's words alone, was far beyond anything she had expected. She flicked her gaze to the bottom-right corner of her vision, checking the HUD provided by her armor, and felt a fresh wave of dread. Her health had dropped to 16%.' No idea what the fuck that actually means, like physically, but damn if it doesn't feel accurate right now. I absolutely do feel like 16%.' Her whole body felt like it had been soaked in acid, every cell screaming in pain.

She silently cursed the simulation for offering such a cruel, double-edged way of gaining an advantage. As much as she appreciated the chance to stop whatever disaster that strange, shifting valley might trigger, the agony and unease it caused were almost enough to make her quit. If not for her stubborn nature—and the promise she had made to Old Man James that very morning to give it everything she had—she probably would have ended the challenge already…

After what felt like an eternity of agony to Thea—but in reality had only been about ten minutes—they finally reached the westernmost edge of the trenches they had been stumbling through. During their frantic march, they had drawn a lot of attention. They were clearly heading away from the medical facilities instead of toward them, and that hadn't gone unnoticed. Three separate squad medics had stopped them, each trying to redirect them to the field hospital once they saw just how bad their physical state was.

Despite the protests—and in one case, quite forceful attempts—Thea and Kellerman's squad medic had pressed on, ignoring every warning and plea. When they finally arrived at their rough destination, Thea felt her anxiety dip for the first time since waking up on the field-bed.

"... We need to… get to the edge…" she forced out through clenched teeth, barely holding herself together. As before, the squad medic practically dragged her along, following her directions. Without him, she wouldn't have made it even a third of the way through the trenches before blacking out completely. When they reached the western edge of the hill, both of them collapsed onto the ground, breathing hard as they tried to recover.

"Alright, Private… this better be worth all this shit," the medic muttered after a few seconds, between labored breaths.

"What now?" Ignoring every scream from her body telling her to stop, Thea forced herself forward and crawled toward the very edge of the hill. She looked down into the valley and took a few seconds to really take it all in. It was just as barren as before, but now she saw it from a different angle—about three hundred meters higher than the last time. The red-brown dirt stretched out in dull monotony, broken only by the occasional larger chunk of rock.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. And it was those rocks that Thea focused on now. They had been her self-designated distance markers for her rifle, set from the position inside her foxhole. The idea behind earmarking them like that had been simple.

If the UHF ever came under attack from the western valley while she was still dug in, she could use those rock chunks as quick reference points—one for roughly one hundred meters, another for two hundred, and so on—to judge the distance of any incoming force. She had done so for reporting reasons, but also in case she had to indicate distances for any non-laser weapon wielding Marines, as they could also double as zeroing aids.

Properly zeroing a scope at longer ranges was crucial for projectile weapons, especially in a non-zero-G environment where bullet drop still mattered. As she adjusted her mental image to the new viewing angle, elation and terror washed over her at the same time." Fuck … I was right," she muttered under her breath. The valley in front of her no longer matched the image she carried in her head. The vision had been true.

The rock chunks had been moving—slowly, almost imperceptibly—and were now only around one to two hundred meters away from the start of the steep slope leading up to the UHF fortifications. She tried to move her arms to grab a nearby red-brown rock, medium-sized at best, but she knew instantly she didn't have the strength to throw it far enough. With a pained groan, Thea turned her head toward the squad medic.

"Take a rock… medium-sized or bigger… toss it toward the center of the valley… shallow and as far as you can…" The medic gave her a brief look of pure exasperation, then pushed himself back to his feet with a grunt. He picked up a fairly large rock and readied himself. Before Thea could stop him, he hurled it with a speed and accuracy that felt outright impossible to her.

She had wanted to tell him to pick something smaller—the rock looked far too heavy to throw cleanly—but she once again had clearly underestimated a UHF Marine's raw physical ability, which was just downright inhuman. The rock flew in a nearly perfect arc toward the center of the valley, hovering about four meters above the ground along the slope for roughly a second. Then it simply vanished. One moment it was there—the next, gone, as if it had never existed. Wide-eyed, the squad medic turned back toward Thea.

"Did… did you just fucking see that?" he mouthed.

"What the fuck was that…? Am I losing it?!" His voice rose with every word, all concern for his own injuries completely drowned out by disbelief.

"Call up Kellerman… tell him to fall back to the tenth trench line… bring as many as he can… it's a massive flanking maneuver," she spelled out the next steps, her voice as steady as she could muster. Without waiting for the squad medic to respond, Thea reached for her wrist and activated her armor's comms, dialing the only person she knew who could act fast enough—and had the authority to make it matter. As the connection tried to go through, she gathered the last scraps of strength left in her body.

She could not fail now. If she could just get this out, she could finally rest.

"Private Thea…? You calling me does not bode well. What do you have to report?" Captain Sable's voice came through the comms. Relief washed over her that he had answered so quickly. She didn't waste a second.

"Captain Sable… I have personally confirmed intel that the Stellar Republic is using some kind of illusion tech along the steep western slope of the west front," she reported, speaking fast but firm, the edges of her vision turning dark.

"They're still inside the valley as of right now, but parts of the illusion have already reached about a third of the way up toward our fortifications." She swallowed hard, pressing down rising bile, and pushed on.

"I can't gauge the exact size, but it covers at least a third of the valley. Enough to hide a force as large as their main attack group, which has been pushing toward us from the front." A violent coughing fit cut her off. Blood, bile, and spit splattered onto the dirt beside her. She dragged in a deep, ragged breath and forced herself to continue.

"I… I recommend an immediate evacuation of at least the first nine trench lines… The tenth and beyond are high enough that the slope shouldn't be usable as a flanking point. I won't be able to report this to local command in time... Please, Captain Sable—sound the retreat." Silence followed. In her condition, time barely made sense. It felt endless and instant all at once before the comms chimed again.

"Well done, Private," Captain Sable said, a note of admiration in his voice.

"I'll take care of the rest. Get yourself to a medical facility immediately —that's an order. We'll still need you in the hours to come." She barely heard anything past " I'll take care of the rest." Her mind latched onto those words, and then the darkness finally took her, washing away the pain and agony of the past hour as her body gave in at last… PoV: Renzak Kellerman"What do you mean we should immediately retreat to the tenth trench line?! Give me some void-damned usable intel, Orion!"

Kellerman yelled into his comms. What in the fuck had happened to his Squad Medic since he'd left for the field hospital with that Private? The fact that Orion's voice had been utterly suffused with sheer horror and pleading desperation, was the very reason that Kellerman's blood had frozen to the very core. Orion had always been his most stoic and level-headed squad member. That calm had made him an exceptional medic, able to do his job with near-perfect precision no matter how bad things got.

It had saved Kellerman's life, and the lives of countless others, more times than he could even remember. And yet now—after what, an hour at most? —with that strange Private, Orion sounded utterly unhinged, demanding an immediate evacuation all the way back to the tenth trench line.

"Listen—I don't know how, but the Private burned an insane amount of Focus. I linked with her because she wouldn't let it go—said it was critical," Orion rushed out.

"She was right. We almost Overdrew, but it was worth it. The Stellar Republic has some kind of stealth or illusion tech in the western valley." His voice cracked.

"It's fucking huge, Renzak! It could hide their entire main force down there. They're moving up the western slope any moment. Get the squad out of there. Now!" The report ended in a violent coughing fit, wet and painful, like Orion was hacking up his own lung. In the middle of it all, he'd used Kellerman's first name—something Orion was the only one of his squad to ever do, and only because he had access to Kellerman's medical records. That alone was enough.

By the time the transmission cut, cold sweat was already running down Kellerman's back.

"Everyone, pack your shit—we're leaving. Right now!" Kellerman barked at his squad. The sudden order caught them off guard, but the tone of his voice shut down any questions before they could even form. They grabbed whatever was closest—ammo crates, spare weapons, grenade boxes—and moved fast, following Kellerman toward the center of the trench line to reach the higher positions up the hill. As they moved, Kellerman broke off at every squad outpost they passed.

He stopped just long enough to speak to the squad leader there, then sprint ahead to repeat the process at the next position. By the time they reached the midpoint of the seventh trench line—where the access path to the eighth branched off—the squads behind them started moving as well. Kellerman was evacuating the entire western side of the trenches. His squad exchanged stunned looks beneath their helmets as they realized what was going on, years of shared combat making words unnecessary.

He had never led them astray before, and he obviously wouldn't start now—especially not with something as serious as pulling whole trench lines during an active engagement. Five minutes later, every comm in their squad lit up at once: [Priority Message: AMBUSH IMMINENT — IMMEDIATELY EVACUATE TRENCH LINES 1–9.] [Priority Message: LARGE ENEMY FORCE INCOMING FROM WESTERN SLOPE. SUSPECTED STEALTH-TECH IN USE.] [Command Message: FORTIFY TENTH TRENCH LINE AND BEYOND. REDEPLOY HMGs FROM LOWER TRENCHES. PREPARE FOR HEAVY CASUALTIES AT WESTERN SLOPE.] Kellerman grimaced at the sight, but also breathed a quiet sigh of relief that his trust in Orion had not been misplaced.' Looks like the battle is going to take a bit of a turn, huh? Going to be damn bloody…'