Awakening the Lightforged

We could steal something bigger, but we would need to make it seem like something else, otherwise the Imaia would hunt us down. But is that even possible? We would need Last Shadow’s caverns to store it and repair it, but even then, will that be large enough?

C. 7 days, 22 hours since the assassination of rebel leadership

There it is."

Uuchantuu opened her eyes, still concentrating on her measured breathing, and followed Luuhuuta's gesture out the cockpit viewport.

Up ahead, still about two minutes off, an Imaia train had rounded a bend in the craggy hills as it sped poleward.

Flexing her hands, Uuchantuu took the radio.

"Alright teams, remember—we're taking only what we need, nothing else. We need to be in and out before the next checkpoint, and the Imaia isn't likely to send Lightforged or a search team looking for a water car and some ration crates if they think that's all we're after. If they notice missing gembraces, Darkside plants, and rare metals, they'll think we're building up for an attack, and they might have a clue where to start looking. We need to balance the amounts we steal to cover up our intentions.”

They'd be taking some medical supplies and fuel as well, but those should hopefully go unnoticed as well in the quantities they sought.

As the train sped closer, Uuchantuu frowned, wishing they had more ships so they could take more than three transports of supplies. More ships would mean not only more water and rations, but more variety of other resources they could take. The speeder bikes they had waiting concealed near the tracks could each only take a crate, and they were mostly along for support and to pick up anyone that fell off the train during the raid.

If they brought more ships, though, then they would have to steal more fuel or power cores. The palladium cores the Imaia ships ran on were extremely efficient, but the metal was rare, and even small quantities would be missed. There was also the issue of the georaurals needed to power the magnetic field that shielded the pilots and passengers from the resulting radiation.

Uuchantuu peered at the train for a bit longer as they closed in—only eighty-four more seconds—then looked back to the cabin. Her team stood ready, gripping hooks instead of strapped into their seats.

"Ready with the containers?"

Kakengo nodded. "Ready, Squad Leader."

Uuchantuu nodded back, taking a deep breath. She raised the radio again. "Edendo, Muuzuuri, you ready?"

"Ready."

Uuchantuu looked to her pilot. "Luhuuta is in charge in the air. On the ground, team leaders are myself, Araana, and Jaran. Keep comms to a minimum. Radio only when you're finished, or if you need help."

"Affirmative."

Uuchantuu unbuckled herself and rose to join her team.

"Good luck out there," Luuhuuta called. "I'll be ready."

Uuchantuu grabbed the hook closest to the door, meeting the eyes of each of her companions.

You can do this.

The plan was simple enough. Each team would drop on top of a different section of the train. Araana's people would drop to the water car near the end, Jaran's team would retrieve the rations and Darkside plants, and Uuchantuu's team would get the rare metals, fuel cells, and gembraces.

"Coming over the train now," Luuhuuta announced. A moment later, the cabin's door hissed, then slid open, buffeting the inside with a warm wind.

Hand tight around her hook, Uuchantuu leaned toward the door and peered down at the train speeding along below them. It was still a bit too far and moving too fast for them to drop.

"Remember," she yelled down to her team, "don't kill the guards if you don't have to. We don't want to give the Imaia any more reason to hunt us down than necessary."

They nodded, expressions grim, or hidden by masks.

Uuchantuu looked back out the door just as Luuhuuta called. "Better jump soon!"

She was right, the car was barely two meters below the door, and Luuhuuta had the ship moving fast enough to keep pace with it.

I hate this part.

Uuchantuu sucked in a deep breath, then chopped her hand toward the door. "Drop."

She held tight to the hook as Tshala and Akseli rushed past her and leapt down onto the train, landing with thuds barely audible over the wind. Kakengo and Mavnel moved up to the opening with one of the large refuse containers, then heaved it out the door.

Uuchantuu winced even as her teammates caught it down below. The containers weren't too heavy—they were mostly just unwieldy—but doing anything other than sitting or standing on something flying through the air made her nervous.

They repeated the maneuver four more times, then jumped down after the last crate. Uuchantuu swallowed, then forced herself out of the transport. She landed in a crouch on the smooth metal roof of the car, and looked up just in time to see all three transports rising back into the air. To either side of the tracks, the speeders kept pace with the train.

The desert heat settled over her immediately despite the wind created by the train. Uuchantuu took a deep breath, then got behind one of the crates and started pushing toward where the cars met. They had to do this fast. They weren't just racing against the Imaia, but the transports' fuel cells. They burned a lot to make sure they kept up with the trains.

Despite a few close calls, slipping on the smooth metal, Uuchantuu and her team got their crates to the end of the car. They would push down the crates just like they had from the ship to get them inside the cars and switch them out, but Uuchantuu needed to go down first, this time.

She climbed down the ladder with care, keeping one hand gripping a rung when she stepped onto the narrow platform before the door. The heat was worse down here. The light, too. The Imaia used a near-white metal for the outside of their train cars to reflect the light and keep things cool within.

Though the Imaia had both incredible mundane and georaural technology, they loved to use georaurals for as much as they could, including locks, and they kept these on the outside of the cars for easy replenishment of Auroralight.

Taking out a pair of pliers and a screwdriver, Uuchantuu unfastened and removed the housing, then studied the wireframe beneath for a moment. After following the different metals between the glowing biogems, she blinked. She glanced up around the door and tensed at the little nozzles around the frame that pointed toward her.

This is set to spit fire if anything touches the wires.

Uuchantuu took a deep breath and holstered her tools, frowning, then brightened her gemcrest.

She first created a hardlight shield between herself and the door that would funnel any flames off to the side, then made an approximation of pliers out of hardlight and set to work.

Flames blossomed between the door and the shield the second her construct touched the wires, and Uuchantuu jumped, nearly losing concentration. Only years of training under Estingai and Aiteperit let her keep her focus as flames billowed before her. She soon began to sweat—hardlight conducted energy—and it was hard to see the wires behind the flames, but after a few pauses to memorize the layout, she was able to feel her way through the wireframe and bend back the correct wires to disable the device without shutting it down.

Without all of the gems connected, the flames abated, and the greynode-strengthened lock and darklight forcefield behind it failed.

Uuchantuu slid open the door, then put her foot through the opening and brightened her gemcrest. She created a small hardlight bar up where her team could see and spun it in the air. A moment later, Kakengo poked his head over and smiled, then started down the ladder.

Uuchantuu left him and the others to get the crates, while she slipped into the car to find the containers they would be switching out.

She found them with little issue, locating the correct containers by a small marking scratched onto the end of the large Atonga characters labeling the contents and handling instructions, and worked with the others to switch them out with what they'd brought.

They were halfway done when a loud hiss sounded from the other end of the car. Uuchantuu looked up just in time to see two Imaia guards in red and white lightly armored uniforms step into the car, rifles leveled.

"Down!" Uuchantuu barked.

She plugged her ears and brightened her gemcrest.

Even as the Imaia guards fired, a wall of hardlight appeared before Uuchantuu.

She winced as the hardlight cracked, shielding them from the rounds, but brightened her gemcrest even more, strengthening the light as she pushed it toward the guards.

The Imaia soliders wore helmets, but nothing over their faces, so Uuchantuu saw their eyes widen as the wall of golden light advanced. They barely had time to turn before it slammed into them, knocking them back into the now-closed car door.

Grinning, Uuchantuu condensed the hardlight, forming a shell over the two dazed guards.

"Mavnel, now!"

Mavnel's Samjati greynodes granted him prodigious strength rather than the enhanced speed and agility of Natari greynodes, but they still got him to the guards in two seconds. He smacked each of them in the head for good measure, knocking them out before tying them up and shoving them into the corner.

As Mavnel and the others went back to moving the crates, Uuchantuu stood over the guards, just to the side of the doors, and peered out the door's small, tinted window, counting the seconds.

Her team had the smallest load, so they should be done first. Once they had everything loaded onto the transport, she would go to check on the others.

No more guards had appeared on the platform outside her door, so she glanced back to her team. They were almost done switching the containers.

Uuchantuu allowed herself a smile. This could—

"Uuchantuu!" Naruuna's voice crackled over the radio in her helmet. "I think I need some help back here with the water car. We've secured it, but getting it out of here isn't going to be as easy as we thought."

Uuchantuu frowned, then looked back to her team. They'd paused their work, tense, attention on her.

"I'm going to help Naruuna," she said opening the door. "Get everything onto the transport and go. I'll catch a ride on one of the other ships or radio Luuhuuta if I need anything."

They nodded as the door hissed open.

Uuchantuu looked to the guards, then thought of something.

"Move a few more crates to box them in once you're done," she said, turning toward the outer platforms. “Hopefully that will cause a little confusion for the Imaia.”

Uuchantuu didn't wait for an affirmative as she stepped out onto the platform and started climbing the ladder to the roof. Her people may not be trained soldiers, but they knew how to work under pressure, and confusing the Imaia was something they'd all grown good at the past few years.

When she reached the top, Uuchantuu peeked over first, just to be safe.

There were no guards on the roofs, but she could see a few shapes in dark clothing toward the end of the train. Taking a deep breath, Uuchantuu pulled herself up and scrambled over the roof on all fours. She tried as much as she could not to pound on the roof, but she feared slipping and flying off the train much more than alerting a few guards to her presence.

When Uuchantuu got close enough to the figures to make out who they were, she frowned, letting out a sigh.

Of course, it's Araana.

Uuchantuu continued past the woman and grabbed onto the ladder, putting herself between the two cars, then came to a stop. Below her on the platforms, two of Araana's team stood to either side of the door, and another—Naruuna, Uuchantuu guessed—crouched on the platform of the opposite car with another teammate holding her waist. Uuchantuu frowned, realizing something was off about the picture, then blinked.

There's no door.

Uuchantuu looked to Araana, "What's going on?"

"They're using the entire car to store the water," Araana shouted over the rushing wind. "It's just one big tank—not pallets of water jugs like they've done before."

Uuchantuu frowned. They'd known that was a possibility. Usually Imaia had one of each, but—

"You checked the surrounding ones?" Uuchantuu asked.

Araana nodded, waving toward the other cars. "All three of these are water tanks. No doors, just control panels and ports to attach big hoses. We found a few of those in the car two back, but we don't have anything to drain it into."

Uuchantuu bit her lip. "And the refuse containers?"

Araana nodded back in the direction Uuchantuu had come. "Oka'ada's got them balancing on the platforms between the cars where we found the hoses. We already switched out the three that were for the medical supplies, though. Any ideas?"

Before Uuchantuu could think, a loud thud sounded from back the way she'd come. She whipped her head around just in time to see two of the containers Araana's team had brought down fall off the train and fly out over the rocky expanse beside the railway. Uuchantuu winced as it almost hit the speeder that kept pace with the train, but its rider—she couldn't tell if it was Bavlos or Induu at this distance—narrowly dodged the massive projectile and fell back alongside the train, gaining a bit of speed as they raced over the arid, rocky ground.

Uuchantuu looked to Araana, then as one, they pulled themselves up onto the roof of the car and ran across it. When they reached the gap, Uuchantuu saw the open door of the next car, and brightened her gemcrest, leaping before she checked what was beneath her.

She formed a slanted platform with the hardlight and slid down it on her side, one foot out with another plate of hardlight beneath that, into the open doorway.

Her hardlight footshield took an Imaia guard in the head, knocking him to the floor.

Keeping her gemcrest bright, Uuchantuu rolled out of the way as she hit the ground, making way as Araana slid down behind her.

She waited for the thud of her teammate hitting the ground, then whirled and took in the scene.

Oka'ada was pressed against the wall of the opposite car, desperately trying to hold back three Imaia guards, while more rushed at Uuchantuu and Araana from a section of benches farther down past some coiled hoses and other tools that hung on the walls.

"Help him," Uuchantuu barked, turning back toward the inside of the car and throwing up another wall of hardlight. "I've got these ones."

Uuchantuu didn't wait to see if Araana followed her orders before stalking toward the incoming guards on the other side of her hardlight wall.

She counted eight guards coming for her, and all of them carried rifles. That, she should be able to take care of with little issue, but only if none of them were Auroramancers.

Once she was less than a meter away, Uuchantuu reshaped the hardlight to fit the hall down the middle of the car and shoved it toward the guards.

It caught the first two, but the others threw themselves out of the way, and Uuchantuu had to conjure another hardlight wall between them to catch their fire even as she slammed the first two against the back wall.

Can't let them draw this out.

They still needed to figure out what to do with the water.

Gritting her teeth, Uuchantuu took a deep breath, then rushed the guards, gemcrest bright.

She strained with the effort of holding the hardlight as it blocked their gunfire, but once she was inside the back half of the car, Uuchantuu broke up her wall and sent a piece directly for each of the guards.

Two hit and dazed the guards. The others blocked the hardlight with their rifles. That was all Uuchantuu needed.

Forming a hardlight tonfa in each hand, ridged hafts extending out like shields over her forearms, Uuchantuu rushed the closest guard. She used one to shove his rifle aside as he raised it, and slammed the other one into his neck where it met the shoulder. He dropped even as his rifle fired a quick barrage toward one of his companions.

Uuchantuu yanked the rifle from his limp grip and whipped it toward the next guard. The Imaia woman cried out as it hit her in the face, and Uuchantuu followed up by reforming her tonfas and jabbing the ends of both into the guard’s chest. Uuchantuu winced even as she did so, but she knew it was effective, even with the woman's light armor.

A rifle went off behind her and Uuchantuu conjured a hardlight shield just in time to keep a round from ripping through her shoulder. As it was, the impact cracked the hardlight and sent her stumbling forward. She'd definitely have a bruise there later.

Uuchantuu shot the shield straight backward, then whipped around, reassessing her surroundings. Four guards were down, either unconscious or sprawled on the floor, and her shield slammed one against the wall. That left three. One had dropped her rifle and drawn a knife, while another held his rifle like a staff, and the third held her hands up in a fighting guard.

The rifle was the most dangerous.

Uuchantuu threw one of her tonfas at that one, then conjured twin blocks of hardlight as the man ducked. One slammed into his face while the other swept his feet out from under him, whipping him backward. Other sounds of fighting reached her ears then, but Uuchantuu couldn’t focus on that. Not yet.

Dropping into a crouch, Uuchantuu spun and lashed out with a kick as the guard with the knife lunged. She avoided Uuchantuu's kick, but not the edged bar of hardlight

Uuchantuu conjured and swung at her hip. It landed with a crack, and the woman crumpled.

Uuchantuu was about to turn and face the last one, when someone grabbed her by the collar and flung her into the wall.

Uuchantuu hit and fell onto one of the benches with a groan. She didn't think anything was broken, but darkness, she hurt.

Dull thuds sounded from behind, and Uuchantuu shook her head and flared her gemcrest, conjuring a bar of hardlight to send into her assailant's middle.

She heard the thud and the grunt, but when she turned around Uuchantuu found a stocky woman in a lightcover, holding the hardlight at bay. Her posture made Uuchantuu certain the woman wore a snarl beneath her helmet.

Why does it have to be a greyarm?

Setting her jaw, Uuchantuu dismissed the hardlight. The woman stumbled forward and Uuchantuu met her with a kick to the stomach.

It did nothing.

Perke.

Uuchantuu's foot hurt, and the guardswoman snorted as she grabbed for Uuchantuu's ankle.

Panic set in and Uuchantuu shot two hardlight beads at the eye-slit of the woman’s helmet. She cried out, stumbling back as she swatted at them, and Uuchantuu scrambled away. The woman could have thrown her again, or simply crushed Uuchantuu's ankle.

Uuchantuu headed for the opposite end of the car, intending to keep as much distance between her and the greyarm as possible, when something hard slammed into her shoulder.

She fell to the ground, wind knocked out of her.

Desperate, she drew in ragged breaths, trying to get some air to her lungs. Thumps sounded behind her and Uuchantuu pushed herself over to find the Imaia woman looming over her.

Twin thunderclaps split the air. The guard stumbled back.

Uuchantuu cried out at the deafening noise, raising a hand to her ear to check for blood, then blinked as the Imaia woman fell to her knees, face still concealed by her helmet.

Eyes wide, Uuchantuu turned around, pushing herself to her feet. Araana stood behind her, rifle leveled, barrel still smoking. She met Uuchantuu's gaze.

“Perke.”

It was the wrong thing to say and Uuchantuu knew it. She would be the one that had to report this to Estingai.

Araana's expression darkened. “We weren’t supposed to kill anyone if we could avoid it. We couldn’t. That's one less Imaia Auroramancer we have to deal with. You're welcome. Let's get out of here."

Taking a deep breath, Uuchantuu straightened and rushed out of the car with Araana past the fallen guards.

"I'm sorry," Uuchantuu said as they reached Oka'ada, who was tying the guards to the ladder—there were only two, not three, she noticed. "Thank you. I know we've all lost people to the Imaia, but we can't be the monsters they say we are."

Araana rounded on her, expression tight. "Do you have any ideas for the water car? We need that even more than the rations."

Uuchantuu bit her lip. Araana was right. Getting the supplies back to the base was what mattered.

But we can't lose a ship or anyone on this team getting out of here.

Not if she could prevent it.