Out of Space

UNS Singapore, Command Bridge

Captain Blake and the other command staff stood around the tactical display table, glancing either at the map on the table or the display screens, displaying UAV overhead video feeds or the direct feeds from the Hundred and First Arcane Tactics and Intervention, Claymore One teams' helmet-mounted cameras. The display from the helmet-mounted cameras was choppy as the signal was poor due to the canopy of signal blocking trees, despite the transmitter tower Claymore One had installed in the forest canopy top, beforehand.

Everyone' eyes were bloodshot as they waited and drank cups of decaf the whole night, watching the displays and waiting for reports of the mission to come in. Yet hours had past yet there was nothing and most of the command staff had retired to rest when the call came in that the target has been sighted.

Now everyone crowded around the displays, watching the screens. "The Necromancer appeared to be heavily escorted this time by his minions." Commander Ford asked, "Should we call it off or wait for another opportunity?"

"Tell Claymore One to hold their position and stay on the target," Blake answered. "Leave it to their tactical decision, of aborting or continuing."

-----

"-on your own tactical discretion," The voice spoke into Specialist Sergeant Tyrier's comms. He cursed, thinking what a great way to deny all involvement in this shit. Looking at his tablet, he nudged Squad One and Squad Threes towards Squad Two's position. Placing Squad Three as a blocking force to cover the possible retreating route of the Target while Squad One was assigned to support Squad Two.

Tyrier peeked out of his cover and tried to see if he can spot the group of Orcs in the distance, but the clustered tree trunks prevented line of sight. "Squad Two, what's the tactical situation on your site? Over."

A whisper came back from the comms, "Heavy escort, at least a dozen Orcs, four mages of unknown magical capabilities and our Target. Over."

"Heading?" Tyrier asked back, looking at the digital map in his tablet, as he looked at the icons of his team get into position slowly to avoid detection.

"Target appears to be heading to Cemetery Site B." Came back the response. "They will arrive within 15 minutes."

"Squad One and Three, you heard that?" Tyrier comms over the all unit channel, "You got less than 15 minutes to get to position."

Clicks and taps replied Tyrier over the comms as Squad One and Three acknowledged the order by tapping their mics. Tyrier glanced around, making sure no one is around and quickly pulled the smart camo netting away and rolling it up, storing it back into his pouch, before unbuckling the carabiner and slithered down the tree trunk. He did a quick stretch of his body and legs, removing the kinks from staying in the same position away.

He ghosted his way around the trees in the fastest possible speed, without attracting any attention from the rowdy patrolling Orcs and found a nice vantage point within some massive tree roots. Tyrier braced his M2 carbine against the tree roots and spotted movement between the trees. Good, the Target is heading towards where they had set up the traps the night before.

"Squad One in position," A low panting voice sounded from the comms in Tyrier's helmet. "We got movement here, eyes on the Target."

"Squad Three?" Tyrier asked, "Are you ready?"

"Negative," Squad Three's in charge replied, "We got too many patrols here, we need more time to get to position."

Damn, Tyrier thought, should I order the team to stand down or go ahead, he pondered. He looked up from his hiding spot to see half the group of the Orcs had entered into the clearing, "Squad Three!" He hissed.

"Almost there!" The reply came back, as the entire Orc contingent is now inside the clearing, standing well within the kill zone of the claymores. "... Here!"

"Loke! Take the shot!" Tyrier whispered urgently into his mike. "Take it!" And prayed.

-----

Specialist Private Loke laid comfortably on top of the broad moss covered tree branch. His smart camo netting covering his whole body, up till the large bulky silencer for his M3 Magekiller. The thick and 40 cm long black matt coated silencer peeked out from the edge of his netting, if not for the bipod, Loke might not be able to properly aim and fire his weapon.

He zeroed his scope to within 100 meters in this engagement, disregarding wind and everything else since the sniping distance is practically almost in knife range. He used a 4x magnification scope instead of the standard 6x or even 10x scopes as it would give him too much tunnel vision, preventing him from shooting or spotting other enemies in the close distance.

Hearing the background chatter of Squad Three's race against time to reach their blocking position, Loke kept his crosshair slightly aimed away in front of the hooded target. He believed that if aimed directly at the Target, it might sense or felt it.

As the whole group entered the clearing, Squad Three finally reported they are in position and Loke heard Specialist Sergeant Tyrier whispered his name, "Take the shot! Take it!"

Loke swung the scope directly over the Target and without hesitation nor pause and squeezed the trigger. The muffled boom of the heavy weapon and the escaping gun smoke instantly covered Loke's view, and he could only rely on his partner Hitsu to report the results of his shot. He quickly worked the bolt, sending the large .50 caliber empty cartridge spinning away down to the forest floor.

-----

Hitsu raised to a crouch slowly, balanced properly on the tree branch and readied his M2 Magespitter as he heard the order came in from Tyrier to take the shot. Less than a second, a thump and a cloud of dirty smoke appeared in the upper tree trunk where Loke had hidden, and Hitsu quickly looked at the Target, seeing the Target flew back from the impact of the anti-material round.

"Good hit," Hitsu whispered in excitement in all team comms. "Target down!"

"Wait and hold position," Tyrier ordered. He had unfastened his binoculars and peered at the crowd surrounding the fallen Necromancer. "Ensure target is dead, we need to behead the target!"

"No movement from the Target from my side," Squad Two reported, "But the Orcs are getting restless."

"Take them all out, make sure no one escapes!" Tyrier ordered again, as he observed the actions of the Orcs.

"Roger!" And several soft pops and smoke clouds appeared around the clearing as Squad One and Squad Two engaged the Orcs and less than ten minutes, the clearing was filled with dead bodies.

"Squad One, go, make sure none is alive!" Tyrier directed his men to advance into the clearing.

Squad Two emerged from the undergrowth, their boots barely making any sound in the forest floor. The two elves entered in a tactical formation, side by side, each covering their firing arcs and sector. They headed straight to the Target, ignoring the rest as they focused on their main objective.

Specialist Lance Corporal Young approached the target body cautiously, he looked at his partner who nodded, covering him from the side and Young took a step forward before giving the body a double tap to the head, just in case.

As the two bullets smacked into the hooded figure's head, Young suddenly felt a chill down his spine, "It's not dead yet!" And fired another three rounds into the head. The hooded figure suddenly twisted away and stood up in an unnatural way, staring at Young from within the darkness of its hood.

Young and his partner fired into the center of mass of the Target, seeing the hooded figure jerked backward as their bullets hammered at it. "Die! You son of a bitch!" Young cursed, as he emptied an entire magazine of 30 rounds directly into Necromancer's body.

"Fall back! Tyrier yelled at Squad One, who heeded his order and retreated, firing as they went. A muffled thump echoed between the trees, and another .50 caliber round slammed into the Target, causing it to flop backward. "Hit it with everything you got!"

Squad One and Squad Two opened fired, their silenced weapons popping and thumping away in the clearing. Tyrier also fired at the Target, seeing it jerk and dance with the impacts of the bullets, Suddenly the dead Orcs stood up, forming a meat shield around the Necromancer, causing chunks of meat and dark red blood to splat all over the clearing.

"His magical defensive spells must be weakening!" Someone yelled in the team channel, "It's using the dead to recover!"

"Fark!" Tyrier cursed again, by now the racket made by the silenced weapons and the gun smoke raising from the clearing should have alerted even the dumbest Orc. "Go loud!"

Hitsu hearing the order, quickly dropped his M2 on its sling and reached to his back, ripping out his pump action shotgun. In its, five round magazine tube was loaded with experimental explosive shells. Each shell was packed with a hollowed slug, with as much black powder that can be compressed and packed into it with dozens of ball bearings surrounding the black powder charge. A pair of wafer-thin disks, carved with a fire igniting rune, sits on the tapered nose of the slug.

When the explosive slug impacts any hard surface, the twin rune wafers will collapse together and a flame will be ignited like an impact fuse, causing the compressed black powder charge to explode and throwing ball bearings out in a hemisphere effect, killing or maiming any creature within a five-meter radius.

Hitsu aimed at the corpse wall and fired, just as Specialist Private Altied from Squad One also drew out his shotgun and fired, a second later. The resulting explosion tore the Orc bodies into unidentified meat chunks and offal. The second explosive slug, a second behind exploded inside the barrier of the dead when it impacted against something, immediately causing the corpse wall to collapse inwardly.

An unearthly cry erupted from the small mound of bodies, and the Necromancer emerged out, its robes frayed and holed from gunfire, its hood was torn off. A feminine elvish face with lifeless eyes and covered with sanity causing tattoos could be seen. The shotgunners emptied their magazine tubes at the Necromancer, frailing the figure with hundreds of ball bearings and shrouding it in explosions of smoke.

"We got incoming from the Orc Camp!" Squad There yelled in the comms. "Engaging!"

"Squad Three, keep them out of our backs while we kill the Necromancer!" Tyrier ordered, replacing his spent magazine with a fresh magazine. He raised his left hand out, his fingers forming a seal like gesture and two small blue-white magical circles appeared before his hand. He started chanting, forming the spell circle and casting a bolt of lightning directing into the smoke covered figure, inciting another unearthly cry.

"Why won't this thing die!" Hitsu cried out, as he reloaded his shotgun with more explosive shells. The Necromancer leaped out of the smoke and charged directly at Altied from Squad One, who dove out of the way and raising on one knee, dropping his empty shotgun and quick drawing his M2 and fired into the side of the Necromancer, causing it to flinch.

"DIE MUTHA FUCKER DIE!" Altied screamed at the creature, its feminine elf face and lifeless eyes showing no expression except for the mouth opened wide. Catching a glimpse of the chaotic tattoos on the Necromancer's face, Altied screamed again, as he felt his mind itch, his ears hearing strange and chaotic whispers.

"Don't look at it!" Tyrier shouted as he charged into the clearing, and fired his M2 at the back of the Necromancer. Dark splatters of ichor burst out and wisps of smoke erupted from the blood splats on the ground as it corroded what it touched.

Altied's buddy, Specialist Lance Corporal Young charged over and tackled him away from the deadly swipe of the Nercomancer's claw-like nails, as Altied was transfixed to the rune tattoos on the Nercomancer's face, his mouth starting to drool.

The Necromancer opened its mouth and gave a scream, it's intended victim having snatched away from its grasp. Suddenly it toppled backward again, as a .50 caliber round blew its left shoulder away, sending a huge spray of smoking ichor across half the clearing.

"Back!" Tyrier reached Altied and Young's side, helping to drag Altied out of the clearing. They managed to get Altied away, who slowly recovered his senses. "Hit the explosives!" Tyrier shouted at Hitsu, who quickly pulled out the detonator, giving it a few cranks, creating an electric current and squeezed the detonate trigger.

The daisy-chained black powder claymore mines facing the inside of the clearing detonated as one, eight mines each throwing 700 3.2mm steel balls, at a velocity of 1,018 m/s. The Necromancer struggled to its feet and cursed, just as 5,600 steel balls ripped through the entire clearing.

"SOFT SKINS! YOU WILL BE PART OF MY AR-"