The Lion's Hunt: Part 8

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PART VIII

The Kurin soldiers spent the following hours on the elevator platform sleeping in shifts, conversing in small groups, and telling tales of battles won and friends lost. Commander Vyuum filled the time in quiet meditation, wondering what life might have been if there were no war. Thoughts lead back to a family left behind for almost all of their children’s lives. Even the youngest of the three would be fully grown now. Etom' regretted not having the opportunity to teach them to hunt. In Etom's absence, the children's training fell to the mate, Kryn'Vyuum. And though their offspring displayed no genuine talent for the hunt during Etom’s brief times with them, neither did Kryn' for that matter. It was still a valuable life skill that every Kurin needed to have.

Doing the math, Etom' realised that even the youngest of their children would have finished their hunting trials by now. They would likely have already been conscripted into the war. It was almost certainly the destiny of the children of the great Commander Etom'Vyuum, Etom' comically thought. The children wouldn't have been allowed to wait the three years of supposed freedom many young Kurin craved. The Vyuum name meant more to the Kurin than the children could possibly understand. The problem was that Etom' wasn't there to teach them such things. Could they at least understand and accept the reasons for a parental absence in such chaotic times? So much of their lives had been missed because of operations like this one. But there was always another mission, always another deployment. And if the Commander survived this one, there would likely be more, but at least Etom' had known companionship. Had had a family. It wasn’t freedom or peace, but they did bring respite from the responsibility of war, and they served as a reminder of what the Kurin was fighting for. What Etom' was fighting for.

Back in the cave, Corporal Lawal wheezed while untangling the cables that had bunched up as they hung from the detonator. There couldn’t be many more explosive charges to find. But the Corporal discovered that most of the charges placed by Lieutenant Rekla’ and the Arms team were connected to the detonators held by Commander Vyuum. They operated on the Commander’s timer and were subject to the same conditions as the charges in two of the three elevator shafts that had explosives lining their walls. Olin’ didn’t have time to reprogram them, meaning the only chance the mission had to be successful was for those charges to be rendered inert. The Corporal wouldn’t know much about it if they went off, but it was a bitter success to find each one and disarmed it. Each disconnected explosive meant one less added to the blast. Only Olin's detonator could trigger the explosives in the third elevator shaft. The soldier simply had to stay to finish the mission.

Just a few miles from the surface, there was still very little light to speak of, but all the soldiers aboard felt the platform begin to decelerate, prompting each of them to prepare themselves as they neared the surface. They checked ammunition and reloaded weapons as Lieutenant Kyuul ensured that every Kurin soldier was ready for whatever awaited them with words of encouragement and prayer for those that needed it. Etom' and Rekla' were decades older than any of the soldiers among them. Training seemed to have been relaxed since their time in boot camp as they had both organised themselves hours before, knowing that this could be the last time they had to be alone with their thoughts. This would be something they would have to address when, if, they made it back home.

Moments later, another suggestion that they were nearing the end of their journey came in the form of a thin sliver of slowly expanding sunlight shining onto the centre of the platform. Even behind their faceplate’s eye slits, they had to squint at the new light that poured over them after spending a full day in near-complete darkness. Years spent on starships and on foreign worlds with air potentially toxic to their species meant that there were few opportunities to experience the direct warmth of a sun. But this sun was as natural to Kurin skin as could be. Etom' wanted to experience it as their ancestors had, so pulled off a gauntlet and pushed a leathery hand into the suns expanding rays. Etom’ wiggled spindly grey fingers in the ray of light and briefly enjoyed the freedom from the armour's complete protection.

The shadow that flashed over their heads could only be a ship, and Etom' quickly slipped the glove back on as the shadow cleared. Etom' gave Lieutenant Kyuul a commanding nod and realised that not a word had been uttered between them in some time. Truth be told, they rarely needed to speak in combat settings. They seemed to instinctively understand each other. It made them an extremely efficient pairing and was why they had been kept together for so long. If it wasn't broken...

Rekla' returned the Commander's nod then began issuing orders to the remaining Kurin warriors. With haste and professionalism, the merged teams took up the best defensive positions available, forming two concentric rings in the middle of the platform, circling its central trolley. Commander Vyuum joined the innermost circle of the formation. In front and a step to the right, Lieutenant Kyuul knelt beside their Kurin comrades. Together, they trained their weapons upwards, targeting unseen enemies that would have the advantage of both numbers and elevation. They were as ready as they could be but might not ever be prepared enough for what they would soon face.

Jets of air pushing through Corporal Lawal’s filters back in the cavern were almost a constant stream now. Large sweat patches seeped through the armour’s skin at the armpits and just below the chest plate. There were only a few more charges for the Corporal to find, but time was ticking away. More than ten hours had passed, and Corporal Lawal was sure the others had reached the surface by now. The detonator had a messy trail of wires leading from its base like a spiderweb. Moving with the device was becoming more awkward with each connection added, slowing the Corporal’s progress. Thankfully, Commander Vyuum had yet to meet an issue deemed critical enough to prematurely set off the explosives. Olin’ still being alive was proof of that. There was still time but not enough to rest. As exhausted as they were, the Corporal pressed on.

Above, a panoramic view of the planet’s pink-orange sky opened up as the sun's rays washed over the Commander and the rest of the team. The whine of countless starships, both Kurin and Surion, filled the air, twisting and turning to outmanoeuvre each other, firing wildly and without restraint. Every Kurin soldier on the platform, Etom' included, lowered their weapons, taking in the spectacle. Rainbow assortments of coloured lasers were fired in every direction as each side's ships strived for the upper hand. An oversized Surion attack vessel waded into the battle, attempting to impose itself on the outcome, but like moths to a flame, almost half the opposing fleet turned on it to quickly bring it down. Consumed by fire, the massive ship burned across the sky close enough that the Kurin team on the platform felt its fire heat the air. Thick smoke trailed as the vessel careened out of view beyond the lip of the elevator shaft, and that was when they saw them.

A hundred guns. A thousand rifles. A more extensive collection of weapons and artillery than they could count in the short time they had had swung over the lip of the elevator shaft, and every one of them was aimed down at the now inadequate feeling Kurin infiltration squad. Etom', Rekla', and each of the Kurin fighters with them maintained formation, but their eyes wandered, overwhelmed by the sheer number of Surions that surrounded them. As if the situation were not perilous enough, twenty meters from the surface, the elevator platform came to an early unnerving stop.

They were limited by options, and it wouldn’t be long before the Kurin ships above were as completely overrun by Surion forces as Commander Vyuum’s team were on the ground. Their timing had been impeccable, though. They were in the skies of Surios just as Etom’ and the team were evacuating the cavern. As the team needed them to be. It had to be the costliest distraction in all of Kurin history, but it had worked. They had bought the Kurin infiltration teams the time they needed to see their mission through by stopping them from being swarmed by Surion soldiers in the cavern, but as Etom’ watched the number of Kurin ships in the sky dwindle, all hope of escape evaporated. Commander Vyuum willed the few ships left to retreat, but with no direct line of communication for them to hear such an order, they never would. They had been set a task, and they would see it through to the end. It was the Kurin way.

The Commander could watch no longer and turned away deflated. Pain flared as the skin around Etom’s old wound, the poem etched on the rear of their shoulder by Rekla’Kyuul, responded to the angular rotation. The Commander didn’t focus on that pain. Instead, Etom’s eyes were drawn to Rekla’s back. Towards the poem embossed on the rear left shoulder of the Lieutenant’s armour. It served as a reminder that there were responsibilities that needed to be met. Responsibilities that the Kurin Council had failed to meet. And responsibilities that were now the Commander’s alone. The lance of pain from the old shoulder wound served as an exclamation point to that reminder.

The Kurin soldiers with Commander Vyuum wouldn't move without command, but there was no order the Commander could give that would see them safely out of the situation, and Etom' knew it. What the Commander could do was end this before the Surion forces had a chance to. Etom' nervously moved a free hand towards the detonator linked to the explosives in the two elevator shafts. However, it might have been safer to remain still as one of the Surion soldiers on the lip of the elevator shaft caught the movement. The sharpshooter rightly read the Commander's movement as an aggressive act, took aim and fired.

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