Daniel rooted around in the Ravager’s body and pulled out a softly glowing Morphic stone. His luck with these things had been pretty good, though not as good as it might appear on the surface. The higher the class an individual was, the greater the chance they would drop a stone. Zeta class enemies with no Psionic capacity had a vanishingly tiny chance to drop a stone, while even those that did have a Capactiy had a very low chance. For example, Daniel’s first major kill, the Sparkhoof on that jungle planet, hadn’t dropped a stone. The chances improved with E class foes who had one Capacity, then got better with E class fighters who had two, then got even better with D class fighters, and so on. The chances were also slightly improved the more Personal Attributes a foe had. All this meant that Beta class foes were all but certain to drop a stone. His odds were even further improved when fighting this particular type of foe.
Of every living creature in the galaxy, the Kharnidd were the most likely to drop a Morphic stone. Daniel hadn’t gotten anything from the Greater Thrall he’d killed while saving Emily, but he’d gotten a stone from nearly every other Kharnidd he’d killed. In exchange, their bodies couldn’t be consumed for the sake of growing stronger, and the Psionic poisoning imparted by the stones was deadlier. The Aeterna had tried to figure out how to process Kharnidd bodies into something edible, with little success. They’d only managed to get by with the Morphic stones thanks to Litradia. Humanity would have to do the same.
Once Daniel had retrieved the Ravager’s stone, he flew up and out of the hole, surveying the damage their fight had caused. The simple fortifications the Pioneers had built had been all but annihilated, their remains scattered around the room as hunks of twisted steel. Unfortunately, the backblast from the finishing move had also decimated the Element 630 extractor, shattering its glass exterior and sending its chrome lid flying. Only the base remained at the edge of the 630 shaft, which Daniel had been careful to avoid when unleashing his ultimate attack. Yet, even the base was in poor condition. The Pioneer turned away from the destruction and landed, dismissing the Makiel protocol and looking at the energy gauge with some dismay, ”Archangel System (???) (Power=19.2%).”
He'd been prepared to use most of his battery in that fight, but seeing the figures was still pretty brutal. Using the Makiel Protocol at max power had been draining, but the Secondary Armaments had been the primary culprits. They’d been the only reason he could fully keep up with the creature, alongside all the power he’d fed into his wings and recovery functions. That didn’t even consider the special function of the Heavenly Armament, in this case, the Heavenly Starfall. The special function consumed 25% of his battery at Delta Class, though the results were considerable. Daniel regretted not using it earlier, as he had wasted quite a lot of battery while trying not to. At first, he’d been unable to, out of fear of killing his friends or other Pioneers in far-off caverns. The real mistake had been in refraining from using Starfall soon after Moravan re-joined the fight. If he’d had the captain evacuate the others immediately, he could have pulled off that finishing maneuver earlier.
Then again, he hadn’t thought of using Starfall that way before the Kharnidd had whipped out the Berserker Serum. The whole fight had happened so fast, and Daniel had been so leery of using the special function due to his fear of causing friendly casualties, that the strategy for his final gambit hadn’t crossed his mind until his back had been pressed against the wall. Literally. Daniel was still getting acquainted with the wide range of functions that the System provided, resulting in a sloppy fight. He resolved to try to end his fights faster in the future. Still, that didn’t mean that he would throw around his superweapon willy-nilly. Its cost was still high, and its power meant that it needed to be used responsibly, lest Daniel become an accidental mass murderer.
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He peered over at the destroyed extractor with some regret. Even with his judicious, overcautious usage of the weapon, he’d still ensured that the Pioneers’ immediate objective had been failed. Daniel liked to think that the defeat of a powerful enemy was worth it, but he could only hope that the higher-ups saw things the same way. One such higher up stepped toward the young Pioneer from the caverns, clapping Daniel on the back as he intoned, “Yeh, did good, kid.”
Captain Moravan surveyed the wreckage alongside Daniel with a thoughtful expression, prosthetic eye contracting slightly as he continued, “Before we evacuated, I extracted what 630 we’d been able to obtain so far. This entire operation wasn’t for nothing.”
He held up a canister, filled with a rubellite gas, before tucking it back into storage, “I’ll take responsibility for the damage, don’t you worry. I gave your plan my stamp of approval at the end of the day.”
The captain cocked his head thoughtfully, reconsidering his words, “That’s assumin’ you even need someone to take responsibility. Killing a B class enemy should earn you a huge commendation and promotion. Several promotions.”
Talk of promotions and rank had Daniel turning his head toward his CO, frowning slightly in thought as he queried, “That reminds me, cap. Why are you still a captain? I thought a high G class fighter was sure to make major, at least.”
Higher grade G class fighters typically made lieutenant colonel or colonel, while some old hands made brigadier or major general. Captains were usually high D class or low G class at worst, yet Moravam had juiced himself into Beta class before rejoining the fight like it was nothing. Either he’d stored up a ton of resources and moved through the class in a hurry, or more likely, he’d already been close to B class to begin with. And yet, he was still so low-ranked. Moravan scratched his chin, looking off into the distance somewhat sheepishly as he answered, “Like I said, my wife would kill me if I made more enemies. ‘More’ is the key term there. Some fellows in high places are happy to see little ol’ Arthur stay a captain and climb no higher. If I’d wanted to make a stink about it, I probably could’ve been promoted. But I’m happy to stick around with these boys.”
He gestured around at the other Pioneers, who were filing back into the room and looking around in awe. Many avoided the two figures carefully, staring at Daniel in particular with a sense of trepidation. His original squad had no such compunction as they gathered around the duo, but even they were looking at Daniel with no small sense of awe. Praxis clasped him on the other shoulder, gazing out at the destruction with a grimly amused expression. He quipped, “Danny, I’m glad you’re on our side.”
“Aye to that,” Reggie said, floating down to them, an amused look in his eyes, “I would’ve flown up to help ye’, if it didn’t look like I’d be turned into itty-bitty pieces just thinkin’ about it.”
Daniel actually had been hit by one of Reggie’s healing orbs after taking some damage, sparing him from having to spend some energy on the armor’s recovery functions. He looked over at the Colare and nodded dryly, saying, “Well, I appreciate the thought. You’ve been plenty helpful so far. For a traffic cone.”
“Glad to see yer wisecracks are as lame as ever, Golden Boy.”
They all shared a warm moment as Moravan stepped away, clearly trying to leave the ‘kids’ to their bonding. The entire company was exhausted from their recent ordeal, but they couldn’t rest just yet. They first took the time to wrap their dead in tarp shrouds, saying their goodbyes and placing the bodies in neat rows on a segregated floor space near the back of the cavern. No one from Daniel’s squad had been lost, but he still empathized with those who needed to bury their comrades. Fortunately, thanks to his and the captain’s intervention, the Pioneers hadn’t lost too many people over the course of their multiple battles. Several had gotten bad cases of Kharnidd poisoning after the recent scuffle, but it was nothing that Daniel’s Manicae Medici couldn’t fix. As the others were handling the bodies, he was primarily focused on healing those who couldn’t be fixed with stimulants, expending a bit more charge but saving at least two dozen soldiers. Daniel grimaced at the thought of fighting the Kharnidd without the System or Litradia. The faster the Empire could get to mass-producing the latter, the better. Fortunately, Daniel didn’t need to use any of the precious red liquid to keep his patients from dying, so he still had nine vials left.
Once that was done, some of them finally got the chance to rest. As Daniel and some of his squad were taking a load off on a makeshift metal bench, they heard Captain Moravan call out, “All right, you lot, time to distribute the loot!”
