First Contact Fallout by Aer-ki Jyr (best non fiction books to read txt) 📕

enemy control the course of events. The gunship was still fighting above them, and he knew it did not have the shields to endure in that matchup. This discussion pause was ensuring aerial superiority for the Zak’de’ron.

Rather than answer with words, the Era’tran summoned up a dual attack, forming a Jumat orb over his head while building a Choratrik inside his mouth and hiding it until the last moment. He then launched the orb up through the tree branches at the drifting transport, followed by firing the plasma beam at the same spot the disruptive energy matrix hit.

He couldn’t aim well with no Pefbar or line of sight, but he had to help the gunship or the Kardopa would rain down support fire and make the land battle one he could not win…or he had to win this quickly before the gunship was destroyed or chased off. Either way, standing and talking was a fool’s errand.

The infantry didn’t hold back once he opened fire, and soon his weak bioshields were being hit from all angles. The Era’tran had to run away to the right, leaving the wounded healer behind as he sprinted through the trees to get himself some cover.

The Pak’lem followed, and was irritatingly able to keep pace. The Era’tran’s legs were so weak it was insulting. A quadruped of that mass should never have been able to match a biped with his stride, even in these trees, but he was. And the infantry was…surprisingly slower. A few kept pace and actually closed with him, but the rest did not, and the Era’tran saw that error immediately.

The jamming fields were still over him, so he couldn’t grab them, but if they had an open shot at him so did he, and when he had the opportunity he turned around suddenly and threw a Jumat wall towards them, knocking down small trees and hurling them backwards when it hit. Some were able to dodge out of the way, some were shielded by the larger trees, but the ones that did get knocked off their feet died moments later when a fiery plasma plume followed and hit them on the ground before they could get back to their feet and move again.

The Era’tran picked off several in this manner, then the others fell back in line as the Pak’lem eased out in front of their formation. Not only that, he was speeding up and nearly on top of the Era’tran, who knew he could not outrun him. As expected the armored quadruped started firing some shots of his own into the Era’tran’s bioshields, which depleted it so much he had to turn and face him.

He did so suddenly, digging his heels into the soil and making long gouges as he reversed course and put most of his remaining bioshields ahead of him. Just beneath he charged another Jumat, and two steps before collision he dropped the shields and released the energy wave that ended up being smaller than he wanted. His psionic strength was failing him as well, but the blow was enough to knock the quadruped off balance just before the Era’tran head butted him.

That hurt, badly, for the Era’tran had no armor and the Pak’lem did, but he did so at a specific angle that forced the Pak’lem’s head down and allowed the Era’tran to roll over his back and bite down on his neck before the lightning unleashed from the psionic spine. He didn’t try to hold on, and got his chest over the hump of his spine so he didn’t take a direct hit, then dug his glowing claws into the Pak’lem’s shoulders and pulled.

Both massive bodies tumbled to the side with the Pak’lem’s neck taking most of the torsion, but his armor was solid and did not break, though his shields were already down. Lightning arcs traveled through the Era’tran’s body, causing him to fall as his legs gave way, but the momentum could not be stopped by it. The Pak’lem rolled upside down, his psionic tissue now pointed into the dirt where the lightning arcs posed no threat to the Era’tran…and the Era’tran now had his legs back and was scurrying over the few meters that separated them to bite into the underside of his neck again.

Not hard, otherwise his teeth would have lost against the armor, but enough for leverage pinning the quadruped to the ground upside down as it tried to kick free. The infantry pelted him with shots he could not fully deflect. His bioshields went down at some point, but he was locked on the kill and digging into the target’s neck with his Saroto’kanse’vam claws while also delivering a point blank plasma blast.

The armor held up fairly well against his claws, but after the Era’tran got through it the flesh underneath gave way at his touch. Knowing that this armor probably had a Kich’a’kat in it, he kept tearing and tearing, ignoring the damage being done to his body by the infantry weapons, but he did manage a reverse Jumat that knocked the infantry back and away from him long enough for him to finish decapitating the Pak’lem.

He cut all the way through the armor on the far side, then tossed the still armored head to his left, using his now active Lachka to propel it like a boulder into two of the infantry as they suddenly stood still helpless under his renewed Ikrid influence. That stopped most of the fighting, but not all, for it seemed some of the attackers had some resistance.

The Era’tran held the others in check, willing himself through the damage being done to his body as he isolated the Bo’ja individually and yanked them off their feet, drawing them to him and clawing them into submission. By the time he was finished he was barely holding onto consciousness. The pain was so great it had blended into a constant numbing, but he