Balada: When death did not exist, nor yet Eternity Part I 008

10:56 Local Planetary Time.

The rebels all stared eyes wide and mouths open at the carnage that happened before their eyes, but the so called ‘silence’ which was a word used loosely in its proper meaning since this was a battlefield, was broken by Tubarin.

“Something’s up there on the second floor!” he shouted as a shaped appeared from where the initial deadly salvo was launched.

A form emerged from the building, it appeared to be humanoid in appearance, but as the smoke from the barrage cleared the shape retreated back into the mist and disappeared.

7,    38

“Fire two salvos of several high caliber energy arrows west of your location with the green building as your target, but make sure they are fire and water arrows and launch them in that order.” a voice on their windwaker crystals was heard saying.

“What! Who the h.e.l.l is this?”Tubarin angrily said into the crystal.

 “The one who you where staring at a few seconds ago scholar, now if you please fire a few salvos west of your location at the green building, lest you lose the opportunity that is before you!” the voice on the other end replied.

 What followed was a cacophony of enquiries from the rebels in regards to that statement, until a great shout from Ahmaianos silenced the chaos.

“QUIET! Now you said that we would lose the opportunity, opportunity for what?” he asked.

 “For victory of course, also you have four minutes left.” the voice replied nonchalantly, which made everyone’s eyes bug out in amazement.

“Victory!?!Victory against the Empire!”Kalynka said, the words surprising her.

“Why the h.e.l.l should we listen to you!?”Tubarin asked suspiciously.

“You should listen since I’m the one who singlehandedly slaughtered a force you couldn’t even scratch, and If you continue on your current path you will meet your end in annihilation, but if you do as I say you will win, it’s that simple, also you now have three minutes.” the voice replied.

“Who is this guy? What kind of crazy-”

“Start firing!” Tubarin said, but was cut off by Ahmaianos.

“You can’t be serious, Ahmaianos!” he said, stunned at their leaders sudden order.

“What choice do we have, you saw what he did, so just do as he says!” Ahmaianos shouted desperately as they all lined their bows and crossbows and fired the respective volleys.

“Now what? We just wasted what little ammunition we had and made a lot of noise for nothing! That was just-“

“The enemy is moving away from our location!” Tubarin shouted but was stopped by Usanthus, who was looking at the portable farview he was carrying, which depicted the battlefield map.

This course of action surprised everyone, since none expected this turn of events.

“But, but why?” Daiamar said, stunned at what had just happened.

“If you look closely at your position, you will notice that you have just fired over a river, and that the green building s.h.i.+elded any eastern view of your location, that combined with the destruction of the platoon, will make the enemy presume that after destroying it you’ve moved west because of the energy signature.” the voice replied.

“And since there is no direct crossing here and the enemy must think we are on the other side and they’ll move down town to where the bridge is!”Kalynka added, amazed at what just happened.

“We kept our position hidden by making as much noise as possible and led the enemy on a wild goose chase!” Ahmaianos, thought to himself surprised at how obvious the answer was.

“There is no time to waste, you in the red battle armor go to point seven up river and jump at exactly ten minutes from now and not a moment too soon, the rest of you will head to the coordinates I am currently transmitting to your farview, I’ll contact you all with further instructions latter on.” the voice replied, and ended the transmission.

“c.o.c.ky kriffer, isn’t he?” Tubarin said in anger, at the strange voice.

“Do as he says.” Ahmaianos told them, and from his tone you could tell that he was in no mood to argue, he was after all the leader of their group and for the most part he was a casual and easy going one, but he could be very serious and scary when he wanted to be, so they all complied and Kalynka went to her respective point.

“This is deep water and this armor is not calibrated to fight under it, I’ll drown if I jump!”

“What are you doing? If you don’t jump now, you’re friends will all die!” The voice said all of a sudden and to that Kalynka snapped to attention,  the combination of an authoritarian voice that resonated with power behind it and the prospect of losing what was left of her friends made Kalynka loose her hesitation and most of her grasp of basic common sense and so she prepared to jump.

“Oh, Great Catcher preserve me, let my aim be true, my catch be bountiful, its prize be great!” Kalynka mentally said the ancient prayer of her people and then jumped into the water and in another act which was against all common sense and logic; instead of drowning she stopped her submersion at knee depth.

“There is something beneath the surface!” she thought to herself, as she felt that the ground or rather the water below her started to rise and Kalynka realized that she was on a submarine. As the hatch opened and a crew member came out of it to see what was happening, he was immediately slayed by the armored resistance fighter, she then proceeded inside where she finished off the rest of the crew.

“What is this thing doing in the river?”

“The surrounding area does not have train tracks and the roads are too narrow to properly supply the Imperial a.s.sault, so they are relying on the river for logistics, your comrades will be joining you shortly, you can consider what’s inside the submarine a bonus for our future contract, suit up and after that I will contact you with further orders.” the voice said.

“Wait! At least tell me your name; it’s kind of odd to just call you the voice.” Kalynka almost shouted that request to him.

“I’m n.o.body.” he replied and ended the transmission just as the status quo would start to change for this corner of the universe.