"Walk me through it, again, please," Crash requested into the comm network.
The transport, meanwhile, was already in the air when Crash's boots hit the ground. The surrounding troops watched it disappear into the battle smoke, crestfallen to not be aboard. Not far away the tree line sizzled and hissed from munitions and smoke, pausing the skirmish. Tank engines idled, punctuated by the clangs of hatches and scattered machine gun fire.
"I'll patch in the nerd," the voice replied.
"I'm already here, fuck off," a woman's voice drawled right after. She did not wait for the apology. "I have commandeered a Matter Machine facility. We are trying to churn out some armor for you. We are marshaling a force to get the core to the spaceport so it can be picked up by the Battle Fleet."
"Which might be awhile," the voice of battlefield command returned, "it's a nightmare up there. You would not believe the amount of ships currently engaged. The number of factions--"
"Enough, fuck." A brief pause to make her point, then the scientist continued, "It's also a nightmare in the city. We have intermittent coms, random attacks by who knows how many different armies, and our own forces are scattered and outnumbered. The only thing we have in our favor is nobody knows you have the core or that you are coming here. Hopefully, we'll have a strong convoy waiting for you and you'll have a much better chance of fighting through the city and getting to the spaceport. With your crew now you'll never make it that deep into the city."
"Get the core to you and you'll save the day, got it."
"If you're trying to make up for battle command that wasn't very good. Just get here. The city is lost, it just doesn't know it yet."
Crash frowned beneath the maw on his visor. He dumped the core onto the dirt. It rumbled unnaturally when it hit the ground and all eyes flashed to it immediately.
"So that's it?" a trooper said when he saw the size of it.
"Enough," an officer barked. "It's fucking glowing like crazy."
Crash nodded. "It needs to get off world."
The trooper pointed in the direction of the transport. "Uh-huh."
"Yeah, yeah, she had to go somewhere else. I'm not in the know."
A trooper hustled up to the conversation. He cradled a softly humming device across his chest.
"I have the inhibitor, sir," the trooper said, fumbling with the it. He twisted it apart and revealed it was two parts.
"This thing on the ground is a core," Crash said, acknowledging that the surrounding troops were clueless to the mission, "and this resourceful man here has an inhibitor. We need to carry the core into the city, but if any of you hold it then it will, eventually, tear your entire being apart and the seams and splatter you over your friends."
A trooper recoiled and the officer took a careful step to the rear.
"I've heard it's gnarly," Crash finished.
The trooper scooped up the core with the inhibitor. It withdrew into the confines of the device with a hiss of disapproval. The glass glowed a bright light blue.
"Walk us through it, sir," Crash said to the officer.
"All right, listen up," the officer said, pulling the rest of the group in. "We don't have enough armor for everyone, and what we do have is hurting. We will dump smoke into the forest and the plain beyond so we can make good time into the city. Once there we will fight towards a Matter Machine center so we can load up into a real convoy and maybe even escape this whole thing."
Crash led the way into the tree line. Not a hundred feet away the trees vanished and miles of open ground opened up before the city promised at least a small chance of survival.
"Let's fucking do it, then," he said, pistols at the ready.
To be continued...
