I Choose the Skills Everyone Else Rejects

The rear doors opened before the transport had fully stopped.

Cade jumped out first.

"Spread out. Watch the ground."

Nate followed Kellan onto the road and moved toward the ditch. Varek took the opposite side with his heavy cutter, while Nima stayed near the rear of the transport to get a clear angle over the others.

Dax moved toward the engine.

Hobb was still climbing out when the vibration changed beneath Nate’s feet.

"Left!"

Everyone moved.

The road burst open beside the transport.

Stone and dirt struck the armour as a creature tore its way to the surface. It was longer than a horse, its body low and protected by grey plates. Six thick limbs pressed against the road. Its mouth opened vertically through most of its narrow head.

Kellan fired twice.

The first round broke against the skull. The second struck beside the jaw and made the creature recoil.

"Grey burrower," Dax shouted. "Adult."

Nate remembered the species from Wasteland classes.

The drawings had not prepared him for the size.

Another tremor passed through the road.

He stepped away just before a smaller burrower erupted from the ditch.

Its jaws closed where his leg had been.

Nima put two darts into its shoulder.

Varek rushed it.

The cutter started with a harsh metallic whine and bit between two of the creature’s plates. Dark blood sprayed across Varek’s jacket.

The burrower twisted hard enough to tear the weapon from his hands.

"Move!"

Varek threw himself aside.

The adult disappeared beneath the road.

For a few seconds, Nate could hear nothing except weapons, breathing and loose stones settling around the damaged transport.

Then something struck the vehicle from below.

The rear end jumped.

Hobb shouted inside.

Nate turned and saw a storage rack lying across his leg.

"Help!"

Cade caught Nate by the shoulder before he climbed back inside.

"Keep your Circuit closed."

"He’s trapped."

"Then use your hands."

Nate climbed into the tilted compartment.

Hobb was pulling at his boot.

"Stop."

"It’s stuck."

"I know. Stop pulling."

Nate got both hands beneath the frame.

Hobb copied him.

"Ready?"

"Yes."

They lifted.

The rack moved a few centimetres.

Hobb dragged his leg back.

Outside, a rifle fired.

Then another.

Nate felt something moving beneath the floor.

"Again."

They pulled harder.

Hobb’s boot cleared the frame.

The floor buckled.

Nate barely got one hand around the side rail before the adult burrower struck from below.

Metal tore apart.

The impact threw Nate through the damaged side of the transport.

He hit the road on his shoulder and rolled.

Hobb landed several metres away.

For a moment, he was moving.

Then the ground opened beneath him.

The burrower came up with its mouth already spread.

"Hobb!"

The jaws closed around his body.

His scream ended before Nate reached his feet.

The creature pulled him toward the hole.

Hobb caught the edge of the road with both hands.

Nate took a step toward him.

Kellan caught the back of his vest.

"Don’t."

Hobb’s fingers dragged through the dirt.

Then he disappeared.

The hole collapsed.

Nate’s terminal vibrated against his chest.

ACTIVE SHARES: 6

He looked at it longer than he should have.

Hobb had been beside him seconds earlier.

Now the mission had already adjusted.

"Nate."

Kellan pulled him back.

The ground between them and the transport was moving again.

Nate drew the field knife he had been issued.

Kellan glanced at it.

"That won’t do much from the front."

"I noticed."

Cade fired into the moving line.

The burrower changed direction underground.

Dax fired ahead of it, forcing the creature to surface before it reached them.

Nima hit the side of its neck.

The adult twisted toward Nate.

Cade saw it too.

"Calder. You can open your Circuit."

Nate looked at him.

"One exchange. Don’t chase it."

Nate opened the loop.

Energy travelled through his body and returned to his Core.

The pathways around his shoulder tightened, but they held.

The burrower charged.

Nate moved sideways.

It followed.

He changed direction again.

The creature stayed with him, its plated head protecting everything he could reach with the knife.

Kellan fired near the jaw.

The round broke against bone.

"Anything useful from that expensive academy?"

Nate kept watching the creature.

"Give me a second."

"I don’t think it will."

The burrower planted one of its front limbs and turned after him.

Nate saw the movement.

The weight.

The moment the creature chose where its body was going.

Posthumous Disciple reacted.

The road disappeared.

Rain hit Nate’s face.

Mud covered his boots.

A horned animal charged toward him through a narrow valley.

He was inside Rovan’s body.

Rovan stepped away from the first charge.

The animal followed.

The memory changed.

This time he moved earlier and tried to pass beside it.

The horn tore through his thigh.

Another attempt.

Rovan waited too long.

The impact threw him through the mud.

Again.

The animal came.

Rovan watched its front leg strike the ground.

Its weight moved forward.

He stepped toward it.

The beast tried to turn.

It could not.

For a fraction of a second, the body had already committed to a movement it could no longer change.

Rovan passed beside the horn and drove his spear into the opening beneath its neck.

The memory ended.

Nate was back on the road.

The burrower was almost on him.

Its front limb came down.

Nate moved.

Toward it.

Kellan shouted behind him.

The creature turned after Nate, but its weight was already travelling through the planted limb.

He slipped beside the skull.

A plate tore through his sleeve.

His first step was right.

The second was not.

His foot landed too far outside and his balance started to break.

Weeks of training corrected the mistake before panic could.

Nate turned with the creature.

The plates beneath its jaw separated.

He drove the knife upward.

The blade entered almost to the handle.

The burrower carried him several metres before he lost his grip and hit the road.

Pain shot through his shoulder.

He rolled onto one knee.

The creature staggered.

Blood poured from beneath its jaw, but it was still moving.

Nate tried to stand.

Kellan reached it first.

He fired into the wound twice.

The burrower collapsed.

Its limbs scraped against the road before finally going still.

Nate stayed where he was for a moment.

His heart was beating too fast.

He could still feel the timing Rovan had shown him.

It had not been a dodge.

Rovan had waited until retreat stopped being necessary.

Cade approached the body.

"What was that?"

"Something from my Root Skill."

Cade crouched beside the wound.

"You knew where the armour would open."

"I knew when to look."

"That answer is going to annoy me."

Nate almost smiled.

The name attached to the memory surfaced a moment later.

"The Killing Step."

Kellan looked down at him.

"You didn’t name that yourself, did you?"

"No."

"Good."

Cade stood.

"You use it again when I tell you to."

Nate closed his Circuit.

The strain around his shoulder became sharper as the energy faded. Body Memory began easing the damaged muscle, but the familiar hunger arrived with it.

He had already learned what happened if he ignored that.

His terminal vibrated.

CONFIRMED KILL CONTRIBUTION: 61%

Nate read the number again.

Varek walked over with blood on his jacket.

"Sixty-one?"

"I opened the throat."

"Kellan finished it."

Kellan checked his own terminal.

"After he put the opening there."

Varek looked at Nate for another second before turning away.

Nate understood the reaction.

Hobb was dead.

His share had disappeared.

The kill reward would be divided later, and Nate had just claimed most of the contribution on one of the largest threats.

He had been in Last Contact for less than a day.

Cade walked toward the place where Hobb had vanished.

One boot remained beside the broken road.

He looked at it briefly.

"Hobb is unrecoverable. We finish the mission."

Nobody objected.

Cade assigned Dax to the abandoned transport and sent Nima to mark the dead burrowers for recovery. Varek went back for his cutter.

Then Cade pointed toward the blood trail entering the forest.

"Rook. Calder. Fifty metres. Find where it goes and come back."

Kellan reloaded.

Nate picked up another knife from the transport.

They entered the trees.

The blood trail was easy to follow.

Branches had been broken along the route, and several trunks carried deep marks where something large had passed between them.

Kellan stopped beside one of the darker stains.

"This is older."

"From the recovery team?"

"Too old."

Nate looked ahead.

The trail curved around the abandoned quarry rather than entering it.

"If the burrowers took them, why avoid the quarry?"

Kellan stood.

"Maybe they didn’t."

A metallic sound came from deeper in the forest.

Three strikes.

Nate stopped.

After a short pause, it came again.

Three strikes.

He remembered the briefing.

Emergency signal.

Someone from the missing patrol was alive.

A voice followed.

"Help!"

Nate moved forward.

Kellan caught his sleeve.

"Fifty metres."

"They’re close."

"That doesn’t mean they’re alone."

The ground trembled.

Nate looked down.

The vibration came from his left.

Then another answered from farther ahead.

A third passed beneath the trees behind them.

Kellan raised his weapon.

The soil began to move in several places at once.

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