Lost Numbers

Terran tales

May 27, 2025

(Art By Miguel Iglesias)

Terran-Tuesday is here, my fellow Terrans!

Most of you already know that James Esparza R. H. Snow and my black armored self are having our inspirational indie stream today Tuesday evenings. You can find the previous episodes here,on James’s youtube page.

Enjoy and do not forget to join us on our stream!

Index: Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 6

Chapter 5

Soldierly math

Avern’a or alien, it mattered not who slumbered inside the stasis pods, for they would all share one doom. Some have traveled for many light years, asleep inside their time slowing capsules to weather a long trip. Taken in their slumber, they’d awake on a Jaern table or altar, their flesh cut and organs extracted. Others were sold on distant slave markets after some slaving band kidnapped them from their homeworld. Their race, culture, and DNA did not matter to the Jaern or whomever had enslaved them, only the fact that these sentients were easy and cheap to procure...

Number 815165 and the Jaern swordsman measured one another, looking for a gap in their defenses. While the child soldier had already made his grim choice, his trained peripheral vision peeked through the transparent stasis pod lids. A forest of twisted faces, crying eyes and shouting mouths frozen agape, some wore masks of rage, but most of terror. This sleeping cargo was largely children and young adults, whom the enemy considered tender food.

Confident in his victory, the Jaern swordsman made his faceplate transparent. Scarred, his vile mug was nearly void of any emotion except calm, when he swallowed his saliva – “Delicacy, I aim to savor you.”

According to their culture, a warrior who protected the Pack’s food was given first picks. Those who attacked with intent to free the captives also belonged to the guard and, in many cases, were eaten there and then, on the bloody battlefield. Fame, warm entrails and choice cuts of the meat was what most Jaern earned, yet the savvy among them coveted powerful gene-grafts and entry into the evolved hunter cast.

Time slowed down to a painful crawl.

Carelessly, at first glance, the hunter had slightly lowered his wide shield, leaving a small opening for the boy to shoot at. If he was stupid enough and took the bait, thinking that a hit at the neck might give him a clean kill, he would most probably fail. Such an opening was but a clever tactic, which this experienced Jaern warrior had successfully used and probably more than a few times. His enemy made a calculated guess, measured him aptly, and employed the combat devilry of his cannibalistic kin.

The Avern’a people, they too had their battle tricks.

Neither could maneuver since there were stasis pods stacked everywhere, bar that single corridor in the middle. During his early soldiering, the child soldier saw many of his brothers die. Later, he witnessed and himself partook in the doom of many Jaern hunters. The boy killed enough of them to know how their insidious minds worked and learned their tactics. Not to outfight but outthink was the primary Avern’a strategy, and Number 815165 had already chosen a path.

Instead of taking the bait and probably hitting the thick shield made of armor grade alloy, he’d shoot where his enemy least expected. To give him that rather enticing opening, his opponent angled his body a bit to the right side. Elbows and knees were protected with armor mesh on the inside and a flexible, angled plate on the outside, so the user would move freely. By turning, his enemy had unwittingly showed the side of his left elbow and this is where he’d shoot.

Since he had replaced his beamgun’s aging heatsink with a brand new Terr’aan-made one, the child soldier could fire overcharged shots without blowing himself up. Even if he did not sever the arm from the elbow down, the hunter would suffer a wound and hopefully, lower his shield. Thanks to that heatsink, Number 815165 could reload his weapon with the spare power pack and, fire another overcharged beam.

Only then, his gun would truly aim at the neck...

They made their move nearly at the same split second.

The Jaern intended to use his exoskeleton and as soon as the child soldier fired his beamgun, leap at him. Then, he’d swipe with his vibroblade and hit him either in the stomach, shoulders, legs, or arms. Not to kill, but incapacitate and with its vibro-cell deactivated, smack him with the flat part of the sword.

The Avern’a made sure to feint first. He’d level the beamgun high, as if he took the bait. Just as the Jaern’s upper body moved, a powerful particle-beam hit his left elbow. If the hunter wore a lighter armored suit, the overcharged beam would’ve blasted his entire hand to bits, plating or no plating. Though the armor saved him from being maimed, from terrible pain, it could not.

A roar of anguish echoed across the cargo hold and the Jaern dropped his shield. Yet this was a warrior of skill and in the next couple of seconds, he swiftly charged the Avern’a. What was a loss of limb and pain before coveted status, the glory of the hunt, and becoming evolved?! Powered by muscles of technology and flesh, the blade swirled through the gloomy air. As he moved, the mighty Jaern warrior caused a minor sonic boom, so strong were his legs and speedy his footwork!

Number 815165 exhaled, the sound of his muffled breath conquered by the metallic clangor of his enemy. His legs did not move a single inch, but his arms, hands, and fingers, deftly operated his rifle. Deadly calm, the boy reloaded his venerable beamgun with the same power pack he just looted from the dead Jaern. Aim corrected and, from extreme point-blank range, he fired a star-second before the enemy blade hit him.

Smacked in the shoulder, the boy heard and felt the snap of bone.

Blasted straight through the neck, the charred Jaern head flew over and landed behind the Avern’a soldier. Nevertheless, the already dead warrior kept moving. His limp body nearly crushed Number 815165 into the floor-plating, even though he attempted to duck and roll away. Teeth gritting, the child soldier did everything in his power to forget this pain. It was impossible for a boy to lift so much flesh and metal, yet there was another way. Wriggling furiously so he could unsheathe and activate his own vibroblade, he proceeded to cut his way through the armored corpse.

It was that or oblivion...

Many times he lost consciousness, yet as soon as his trained mind awoke, he braved on. Eventually, the boy crawled out of the gory mess of sawed off armored Jaern limbs and, leaving a bloody trail behind him, limped inside the transport’s cockpit. His mental training commanded the body to look for a first aid station or a pilot’s survival pack. Indeed, there were two boxes underneath the pilot seats and in one, he found a regenerative medication Once more he fainted, his arm twisted and broken bones causing internal bleeding, he could risk using a Jaern-made medspray or suffer the pain.

As he held the alien concoction and calculated the chance it could kill instead of heal him, Number 815165 received another message.

“Sirius Three actual, I repeat, Sirius Three actual! Planetary assault in progress. The enemy has deployed a unit of evolved hunters and they are approaching your position! Immediately relocate the vessel to these coordinates by use of its autopilot. Overwatch will cover you as you lift off. The captives must be protected until our forces on the ground prevail.”

His PDA received a much larger data-pack, which could’ve only been possible if whoever had sent it, did so from a spacecraft’s mainframe. Moreover, the child soldier could not miss certain cues and words that his commander employed, like “planetary assault” for example. Then again, he fainted a number of times already and had an internal hemorrhage. It was entirely possible that his brain translated certain words just as his subconsciousness wanted.

Nevertheless, now he had no choice but inject himself with the alien medication. To minimize the risk he used half instead of the entire dose and in the next half minute, the cockpit echoed with his screams and the loud pop of regenerating bones. Pain intensified since this medspray was not truly compatible with Avern’a physiology, his broken bones only partially regenerated. The internal bleeding was also seemingly under control, and Number 815165 immediately proceeded to follow his new orders.

He connected the PDA to the starship’s command console, uploaded the new coordinates into its autopilot and strapped himself in the seat. His shoulder had not fully healed and since the bones regenerated at an angle, every motion caused the child soldier more pain. It was entirely possible that a rapid motion could tear open whatever blood vessels had barely healed. Others in his place would probably suffer doubt, their mind and spirit never honed by constant warfare and the brutal survival lessons of life-saving battle like his own.

Avern’a math was simple – one life mattered the most when he saved many.

There were no ifs or whatnots, only do or do not.

The sensors displayed obstructions on the landing area, including three Jaern who attempted to aim heavier beamguns and prevent the vessel’s escape. His screens also showed a dozen of hunters who’d just rushed out from the bunker and readied themselves to leap at the stolen spacecraft with their integrated engines. He couldn’t just wait for that Overwatch to save him and reached for the turret weapon controls. The Blain GHK was lightly armed and he swiveled all four turrets, showering every single Jaern he could aim at with a barrage of particle-beams.

He missed most, but those he did hit turned into charred flesh and pools of metal. The rest met the same fate which this vessel’s guard suffered earlier. Exploding violently, their limbs flying in all directions, such a brutal end was more than a deterrent. The remaining hunters dared not brave the open and remained underground. Taking potshots at the transport ship from afar would not be nearly enough to prevent its escape.

Rumbling around him, the starship slowly lifted up, its engines bellowing spears of hot plasma. Thank the Universe those Terr’aans had someone good with computers and supplied him with data-packs, hacking algos, and stolen sec-codes. Number 815165 was a regular, an Avern’a soldier with accurate aim capable of braving pain, living on a bite of food and a few droplets of water for days, but a pilot or a master hacker, he was not.

Screeching and quaking, the starcraft swiveled on its stubby atmo wings, navigated by its autopilot onto a course which led it towards the nearby canyon. Windblades his people called it. Since ages past, massive battles were fought there because it was the main route which led to the capital city of Avern’a Prime, Tron city. Though the child soldier never went there, his loresinger told him a little bit about the canyon.

He knew about its many ruined bunkers and military bases, some built by benevolent Milicorps and merc companies who came to aid his kin. Littered with the ruined hulks of giant mechs and molten skeletons of once mighty tanks, if Avern’a bunkers were underground tombs, the giant ravine was an open graveyard. Yet, it would appear that whoever programmed the nav-points had other goals in mind since the captured transport flew towards a landing spot at the very mouth of Windblades canyon.

What happened then, the boy did not care. He’d lived long enough, longer than most of his peers and unalived plenty of Jaern. If he had to die so these captives could live, all was well. If, by some miracle, his life was to continue, then he’d walk the same path until he could walk no more.

Breathing heavily, he reached for his last power pack and, using his left hand, reloaded the gun. He was a soldier and a soldier would never eat or lay to sleep without getting ready to fight first. For when you relaxed, there always was some enemy who did not. His job was to make sure that the people are safe and, if their capture was imminent, Number 815165 would spare them the torturous awakening in a Jaern mouth.

With a shaking hand he produced his half-eaten protein bar and shoved it in his mouth. Yet before the boy even began to chew, he swiveled the pilot chair around and aimed his rifle at the cockpit’s door. Meek, naive sentients would label his thought process paranoia, yet that word meant nothing to an Avern’a. He devoured the treat, finger on the trigger button, as he kept the beamgun leveled with his awfully healed right arm.

Minutes later, his eyes slowly closing, he did not see a stasis pod open. There in the deepest part of the transport’s hold, the Huntsmaster slithered into the shadow. He’d hid inside a pod, its stasis field deactivated, for the entire duration of this fight. Though he could’ve assisted his subordinate, orders came from not just anyone but the Jaern Mother Superior herself!

The time for their last hunt on this planet had come. Every single Avern’a, to the last man, woman, and child, they all had to be taken, processed, loaded into whatever transport available and then ferried up onto the Jaern motherships in orbit. Of course, this included the tender food now sitting in the cockpit...