Draconian Imperium, Low Ridge JungleTime: Dawn

  "Second company, hold the line! Everyone else, with me—pull back!" Slade acted on the fatty's advice instantly. This was no time for a slugfest with the Tartarus Legion. The mission objective was Cyril.

  Following Jack's calm order, Lieutenant Colonel Slade made the decision to sacrifice a limb without hesitation. Thirty Juggernaut heavy mechs roared to the front, their thick armor and devastating close-range firepower the only shield that could temporarily hold back the Kongs. The Paladins of Third Company took the opportunity to disengage and fall back.

  Thankfully, the phantom sniper was using his ghostly, precise fire to pin down the Wraith mechs on both flanks. Otherwise, Second Company would never have been able to tie up the enemy's ferocious assault.

  BOOM! Another Wraith was blown apart in a crimson flash of its energy shield.

  Suppressed by Federation electronic warfare, the Tartarus mechs' internal communications were severed. Facing a professional sniper picking them off one by one, the Wraiths could only rely on speed and their transformation abilities to dodge the shots from the shadows. They tried to pinpoint the sniper's location, to tear the hidden hunter apart with their claws, but the Federation marksman had speed rivaling their own. The first energy beam came from the eleven o'clock position, but the second lanced out from one o'clock. Thor's cannon barrel hummed in its cooling cycle. As Jack repositioned, sweat slid down his pudgy cheeks. He gritted his teeth, staring at the HUD. A whole night of fighting had left his throat dry and raw. Three o'clock, five, seven… Son of a bitch! When the hell did he get on my six?! The sniper's trajectory was phantom-like. Blue-white beams flickered through the trees, each shot accompanied by a low-energy thrum that tore through the air and slammed into a Wraith's leg joint in a shower of sparks.

  With the flanking Wraiths pinned by a single sniper and unable to support the central Kongs' breakthrough, the Kong platoon leader, Hakon, grew furious. Without comms, he could only resort to hand signals. Nearly fifteen Kongs broke formation, fanning out to the left and right, while the Wraiths, on his command, converged toward the center, attempting to punch through the Federation mech's defensive line. Hakon's gestures cut through the firelight like the low growl of a beast, his mech's joints whining with the low hum of stressed metal. The surrounding trees swayed in the heat, the air thick with the acrid smell of scorched earth and burnt steel.

  That single gesture, revealing his command intent, immediately made Hakon the priority target in Jack's eyes.

  "Concentrate fire on that command mech! Help me drop its shields!" Every special forces soldier heard the fat staff officer's voice on the regional comms channel.

  The expert who's been holding off the enemy for ten minutes with a long-range energy cannon… is this pasty, fat, sneaky bastard?!

  The Warhounds soldiers desperately tried to shift their fire toward Hakon, but it was too late. Two companies of Wraiths and a platoon of Kongs had already carved through the Federation's defensive formation.

  It was a slaughter. Overwhelming power, unstoppable close-quarters combat, lightning speed, and exquisite coordination—these Tartarus mechs showed the Warhounds special forces an insurmountable gap in skill, a gulf in class they had never imagined in previous battles.

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  "Fall back! Scatter, scatter!" Jack nearly had a stroke when he saw the Warhoundss still trying to group up and organize a formation. The enemy's target wasn't them. If they had just broken formation, their losses would have been minimal. Right now, they were just enraging a pack of wolves in the middle of a kill.

  Too late. The experienced Tartarus mechs had completely sliced the Warhounds unit apart. Like ice cubes melting in hot water, only a dozen mechs on the perimeter of Second Company managed to escape.

  Jack, his sights still locked on Hakon, tried to provoke the swift Kong with a continuous stream of fire, but its unpredictable, sudden stops and changes in direction always allowed it to evade the energy cannon's blasts. Thor's cannon hummed through its cooling cycle. As Jack repositioned, jungle thorns scraped across his armor with a low screech. He panted, gritting his teeth. On the HUD, Hakon's red silhouette closed in like a behemoth, each directional change a mockery of his lock-on.

  As Jack focused all his attention on the Kong, several Wraiths had taken the opportunity to sneak closer. One of them suddenly leaped high from the side, transformed into its beast mode, and dove, its twin claws slashing at Thor's back.

  Jack had just fired a shot that grazed Kong's head. Thor's alarms suddenly blared. His hands were just leaving the sniper controls; he hadn't initiated his subsequent evasion. Jack's heart sank, sweat stinging his eyes.

  In that split second, a faint blue light on Thor's back, near the armor's heat sink, flashed once. [UNREGISTERED_PROTOCOL: NOMAD_V.0.1][CONNECTION: ESTABLISHED][DATA_INJECT: SEED_PACKET (STATUS: LATENT)]NOTE: SURVIVAL_PATTERNS_MATCH... 13.

  Thor's chip flared to life. It executed a series of maneuvers that were nothing like Jack's style—a flawless, algorithmically perfect string of unbelievable, pre-calculated leaps and rolls. Jack's stomach churned. He hadn't even registered what was happening when he heard a massive explosion from behind.

  The Wraith, still in mid-air, had been hit by two high-velocity kinetic slugs that seemed to fall from the sky. It was blown into a pile of scrap that rained down on the forest floor.

  At the same time, a crisp, urgent voice crackled over Thor's encrypted channel: "Loki! This is Blackjack Actual! Your six is clear, you owe me one! I've only got a two-minute window of opportunity. Grab your package and get out, now!"

  It's Nya! Elation surged through Jack, and he shouted, "Nya! How did you get here!"

  The sky was beginning to turn a fish-belly gray. A black shape streaked past overhead. Its engines bled ice-blue plasma trails, leaving two brief scars across the pre-dawn sky before vanishing. It was followed by fifteen identical black fighters—"Nyx"-class—that swept over the Wraiths and Kongs, raining dozens of cluster energy munitions that blossomed among the Tartarus Legion's ranks.

  Seeing this, Slade immediately ordered the remaining Paladins and Juggernauts to fire their plasma cannons to hold back the enemy's advance.

  Jack sighed, stowed his sniper cannon, and prepared to bolt. He patched into Slade's channel. "Take the target and return via the original route. Once you're out of the ravine, head northeast. A special forces regiment from the Sixteenth Armored is there for a rendezvous!" "Yes, sir!" Slade no longer had a shred of doubt in the staff officer's words. "That air support just now… a friend of yours?" "The 13th Independent Night Operations Wing. Major Nya's unit. Now, get moving."

  Slade acknowledged without hesitation and led the remaining Warhoundss and Cyril 's security detail into a retreat.

  …

  The Tartarus Legion's offensive finally stalled under the combined fire from the Nyx fighters and the Federation mechs. Hakon used hand signals to direct a dozen Wraiths to find and kill the sniper who had thrown him into such a humiliating position.

  "Fuck me! All I did was take a few shots from a distance! Why aren't you chasing the fighters? Why send so many guys after me?" Jack cursed under his breath. Thor's outer shell had already morphed into the beast-form of a Wraith. The disguised mech lowered its body, creeping slowly through the dense undergrowth.

  The leftmost Wraith entered the thicket, its body almost brushing against Jack's. With a perverted delicacy, Jack extended Thor's mechanical claw. Click. The power system on the unfortunate Wraith's abdomen was precisely dismantled under Thor's gentle caress.

  As the real Wraith collapsed, the disguised one, having already changed its colors, stood up. The slight sound made the Wraith on the right turn its head, only to see its "comrade" poking its head out from a thicket, looking around.