He awoke face down in the dirt bombarded by a symphony of pain and sound. Inside his skull, his ears rang like the clattering of a cathedral churchbell muffling all other sounds besides the thump of his own heart and the hissing rush of his own wheezing breath.
The wind had been knocked from him at some point, and he was only just beginning to recover.
The ache in his back told him as much.
He pushed himself from the dirt in a haze, rising to his hands and knees upon the scorched and blackened earth. His ears still rang, but through the ground, he could sense the thunder of battle, the intermittent thud of artillery fire followed by the distant rumble as it struck. His head swam and churned as he slowly lifted his head toward the carnage that surrounded him: mounds of bodies piled waist-high in some cases eyes open and staring in death, bodies twisted in unnatural ways that never would have been allowed by a living body. Smoke hung like a gauzy curtain upon the air, and sparse battlefield fires lit the horizon in a hellish orange glow.
Suit operational capacity at 53%
Atmospheric containment breached.
It was the smell that hit him next, slamming into his nose like a tidal wave of putrid rot, thick with the aftertaste of copper and iron. The smell crawled its way up and into his nose, clawing through his sinuses where it buried itself deep inside his skull. Adam fought back the hazy need to wretch as the smell of spilled viscera rose past the tang of iron.
His HUD blinked at him.
Behind the haze of confusion, pain, and narcotic stupor, he looked down at his hands where they rested upon artillery-blackened earth.
Hazy memories began to return.
Kazna
The artillery fire.
Slowly coming to his senses, Adam raised his head further, desperately examining the ground and.... Found Kier Lindsay first. He lay on his back both legs.... Gone. For a horrible moment, Adam thought he was dead, but as he watched, Lindsay groaned and rolled onto his side. His heart hammered hard in his chest until he realized.
Lindsay had already been missing both of his legs.
The prosthetics must have been blown off during the barrage.
The rest of him should be okay.
His head turned in a swivel to face the rest of the battlefield, and as quickly as his hope had risen, it fell back into despair.
Jane lay some distance away. Like Lindsay and himself, she had been caught in the artillery fire... but she hadn't been so lucky. She lay on the ground, half of her armor split open like the shell of an egg to reveal her face, charred and blackened.
Even from here, Adam knew
She was dead.
Tears threatened at the corners of his eyes, welling in his vision and blurring the battlefield before him. He shook his head violently, shaking away the tears, one of which traced a gentle path down his jaw before terminating somewhere inside his suit.
Where was Kazna, where was that evil bitch, he was going to tear her limb from limb!
Fealty was the first to notice, highlighting a trail of orange blood, spattering a pathway over the cracked earth, and up and over a hill, vanishing out of sight.
Adam staggered to his feet, almost losing his balance, but instead of falling over, a hard hand gripped him by the shoulder to steady him. Adam turned his head, making eye contact with King James, who stood at his back. Behind the clear front of his visor, the man's face was grim. Blood that could only have belonged to his queen Xanthia stained his hands.
"They took her, Kazna. They came and they helped her over the rise. She's not dead but you did a number on her."
As they spoke, Sunny and the others appeared over a nearby hillock relief evident upon seeing Adam standing. Sunny raced over and ducked under Adam's arm, holding him upright.
Ramirez, Kanan, Dzara, Lanus,Celex, and Krill were also there not to mention Conn, who Adam could sense in the back of his head somewhere on the battlefield directing what remained of the starborn troops to telepathically disrupt the pilots of enemy artillery and aircraft. Ignoring their little group, Krill jogged past to kneel next to Lindsay, talking to him quietly and out of range from Adam's still-ringing ears.
"Where did they take her?" Adam demanded.
Lanus was the next to speak, "She has been taken by a group of elite Void Drev warriors and withdrawn back across the battlefield towards the Necritorium." He tilted his head to one side, listening to something the rest of them could not hear, "Adham is sending help. We must reach her before she makes it to the Necritorium."
"Why's that." Ramirez asked.
Lanus turned to give him a grim look, "Orbital analysis suggests that the Necritorium is almost at full power. We have less than ninety minutes to get there and disrupt the discharge."
Adam felt the blood drain from his face.
Ninety minutes.
He had gone to movies that had lasted longer than ninety minutes
"Well, then what the shit are we all doing standing around here gabbing like idiots." Celex said, "We should get moving, NOW!"
Adam was right about ready to agree when their conversation was interrupted by the sudden appearance of a void tank rolling over the horizon. Together they all turned and leveled their weapons ready to start collectively firing on the vehicle, but just as they were about to start, the hatch at the top opened, and a glowing white and gold warrior leaned out from the top waving a hand at them.
Adam took a deep breath of relief, and Kanan made a happy sort of chirping noise, not uncommon for Drev, "My dear you have never looked more Ravishing."
Nechal smiled past the visor of her helmet, "Time enough for flattery later, everyone get on!"
Adam wasn't entirely sure the tank could withstand the weight of that many people, even with Celex flying instead of riding, but still, all of them managed to pile on, the tank bristling like an overly armed porcupine.
Behind them, a swarm of soldiers with medical crosses on their upper arms swarmed in, dragging Lindsay back up the length of the battlefield and, hopefully, out of harm's way.
Below him, the tank's engines growled, groaned, but then roared, and they were off, bouncing across the ground at surprising speed. Adam gripped tightly to his handle as they roared over a nearby hill, cresting the rise just high enough to give him a wider sense of the battlefield before them.
It was all carnage.
The neat lines of war had dissolved away into chaos, spreading out in all directions like a spilled puddle of blood. Warriors fought against each other in tight groups, some men sequestered themselves in foxholes. Large contingencies of soldiers surrounded artillery batteries in an attempt to stave off Maker's incursion.
Beyond that, the Necotorium sat on the horizon, golden light funneling downward in a great sweeping wave, lighting the battlefield from behind in a sharp, golden glow. Their tank sped up, engines growling. Soldiers dived out of their way.
Krill ducked with a shout as a rapid burst of bullets tore into the metal around him.
Adam snarled and retrieved his rifled from his back. He hooked his foot under one of the tanks armored panels and steadied himself against the tank's uneven movement, leaning out and firing a rapid burst of rounds at their attacker, who went down under his careful placement.
Their speed continued t increase, and with every increase, the ride grew bumpier.
Adam shook and bounced, dropping to his knee as he feared he would be flung off and left behind.
Sunny gripped his arm.
Celex rode before them, wind whipping through his hair.
And like that, they bypassed a good portion of the battl, Nechal maneuvering the tank with such deftness, they avoided the worst pockets of conflict and ran over anyone too stupid to get out of their way. Before them, the Necritorium was growing against the horizon. Adam was beginning to believe that maybe they would make it in time.
"Careful Nechal, they know we are coming!" Lanus shouted.
He didn't need to, he could have just communicated with her telepathically, but his shout was just as much a warning to them as it was to her. Inside his head, Adam has flashed a brief image.
All air-to-ground and ground-to-ground gunships and artillery batteries turning their way.
Almost as soon as the warning was given, the first artillery fire impacted.
It was a bit behind and to their right, but still, it jolted them sharply to one side so violently that Krill lost his grip and pitched sideways.
Together Adam and Sunny lunged after him, Adam gripping him by the shoulder armor, and Sunny digging her fingers into a plate on his back. Krill's arms flailed for a brief moment before he was dragged back onto the tank.
More artillery fire.
Their tank rocked.
Adam and Sunny pinned themselves, and krill against the Tank's cold metal.
Celex flew before them hands glowing with golden energy as he blasted anything that came too close, only just able to deflect some before they could hit their mark. Engines roared, artillery roared, what seemed like hundreds a second as they raced across the ground.
All around them earth erupted upwards, the concussive blasts feeling like physical blows against the outside of his body. He held on, screaming as the Necrotorium grew closer, visible only at intervals through walls of smoke and dust choking the air.
Every second more came.
Less than four hundred yars to go, the gates of the Necritorium were that close.
Adam felt Celex's fear, could see several projectiles, and their predicted trajectory.
On target.
Celex shouted.
They screamed.
And then the Maker lifted his hands, conjuring a solid bubble of flaming golden light just in time.
The eruption was spectacular.
The ground around them imploded and then erupted outward.
The tank was forced into the ground and then propelled into the air, flipping once.
Adam was sent flying.