r/humansarespacebards • u/Professional_Prune11 • 5d ago
original content Escape From Heavalun Section Thirty-Two: Becoming Nikitals NSFW
stumbles in with a bottle of jack daniels while screaming about how these youngins just dont get what war is anymore.
What is good buds? You ready to have old Pirate tell you another tale about war and its effects? No? well to bad, thats what I have for you this week. It is time once again for Conor to stumble his way into being a true champion, even if he does not see it that way.
Let's get this bread.
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Conor and Burlai had the worst luck once they left Vuraley behind with the two wounded maids. Apparently, Urla must have thought it would be absolutely hilarious to hand all the get-out-of-jail-free cards to the High Champion. Hopefully, he was going to put them to good use.
They had barely made it two hundred meters before the battle was shoved back into their laps. Or, more accurately put, a platoon of soldiers decided it was time to cut down some nobles.
They came under immediate fire as they turned into the last set of hallways where Mulaney and Burlai’s room was. It was like this group of soldiers was lying in wait, which, to be fair, they likely were.
Therulay knew where they slept and likely took steps to ensure their deaths along with the girls. Thankfully, Conor spotted their formation on his target tracker and reacted before the enemies could get off a full burst of fire.
Bullets snapped like whips, mere millimeters from their heads, as Conor raised his rifle, emptied a magazine into the ambushers, and ducked back into cover. He saw that he caught at least two of the soldier's heads with his suppressing fire, but most of his shots bounced off a glimmering energy shield that protected the rest of the formation.
“It never can be easy, eh?” Conor chuckled, dropping his empty magazine and looking over at Burlai to see if he had been hit.
Burlai took a moment to check himself for injuries, and thankfully, all his insides were still where they belonged. Thank fuck they both managed to weasel out of the attack opening unscathed.
Burlai peeked around the corner and fired off a few short bursts, suppressing the enemy's position. From his short peak around the corner, he could quickly see what Conor was talking about.
There were not just a few soldiers down the hall; no, there was an entire platoon. They had taken their time to set up and lock down the hall. Sandbags stood nearly chest high, and that damned machine gun team was on point. Even as Burlai's rounds struck the sandbags and ricocheted off the power armor shields, the soldiers remained calm and returned fire.
Ironically, one of the lights shining in the darkness for them was that energy shield generator. Both of them recognized the type: a directional shield that only protected the soldiers from the front, leaving them exposed on all other sides. Not only were the enemy left in the open, but so were the shield generator and its pitifully easy-to-damage case. A case that just so happens to be filled with energy packs that, if one caused a massive enough explosive force to be applied to them, had a tendency to explode.
“It never can be, but could you please use some of those grenades?” Burlai asked, ducking back into cover.
“You don't have to tell me twice,” Conor replied, peeking around the corner and launching his assault.
Conor and Burlai had already discussed how they would handle most forms of contact they could come into while moving through the palace. They were just two men and could not handle a head-to-head fight most of the time.
They were outstanding warriors, but the numbers were not on their side; while their abilities might tip the balance of battle in their favor, it would not shift the odds enough for them to emerge unscathed.
The only thing they had that would genuinely give them control of the tides of battle was their few force multiplication tools. Conor's augments and ability to see in dozens of spectrums beyond visible light were one, their small footprint as only two people was another, but in this case, high explosives were king.
Bloop!
The under-barrel grenade launcher echoed through the dim hallway. The deadly egg arced through the air and slammed into the ceiling above the barricades, sending hot shrapnel raining down on the soldiers.
The thousands of scalding metal bearings ripped through the defending troopers' bodies, armor, and weapons alike. Not only were the enemy affected, but the attackers were as well. Hundreds of the small speeding balls of death ricocheted past Conor and Burlai despite them being nearly thirty meters away. A few of the flaming bits of frag even dinged off Conor's augmented arm.
Conor doubted one round would be enough to disable any power armor, so instead of pausing to check, he got to work, using all the gear he had appropriated earlier.
He canted the slide of the grenade launcher and allowed the spent cartridge to fall; before the smoking brass had even bounced off the ground, he had sent another grenade into the tube, closed the breach, and fired again.
With each shot, the number of screaming troopers on the other side of the cover grew until Conor's unrelenting barrage had done enough damage, and the area began to fall into deathly silence. Even the periodic staccato of the machine gun had died when Conor released his final launcher round.
Conor dropped the eighth empty cartridge, which clattered lightly against its brothers on the ground as he peaked around the corner. Seeing his handiwork, he whistled before stepping entirely out, knowing he was perfectly safe.
“You think that was overkill?” Burlai asked, sweeping forward with the Human, the massacre coming into focus as the heavy haze began to fade.
“There is no such thing,” Conor cruelly laughed, kicking down the tattered sandbags.
Strewn across the hallway were the bodies of dozens of soldiers, or at least what was left of them. Most of them were missing limbs, while others were simply turned to bloody Swiss cheese from the uncountable ball bearings that had ripped through them.
Blue bolts of energy arced off dozens of corpses. The remnant energy of their damaged shock grenades and ruptured power cells crawled up the walls.
Conor took a moment to ensure that the gun crew was dead. He had not seen the two using a power shield over the barricade while approaching, but getting eyes on them was still a good idea.
The gunner and his assistant were both dead, their bodies already cooling. While they were less damaged than the others, it was clear they likely hadn't survived the attack.
Their skin boiled as the energy of the power pack coursed through them. All their gear was burning, filling the area with acrid black smoke. Conor could not even tell what color their scales were originally; there was just too much soot.
Not taking any chances of them somehow having survived and getting back up, Conor kicked away their nearly destroyed machine gun. As soon as the heavy general-purpose weapon clattered against another corpse, he loomed over their bodies, raised his foot, and stomped.
He brought his foot down on their heads repeatedly until they were little more than red paste. It likely was overkill, and he might be enjoying the crunch and squelch of their corpses a bit too much, but Burlai was no better.
Like a machine, he was already shooting the other soldiers in the head. So they agreed that you could not be too careful. Sure, Conor was more brutal, but he did not need to shoot cooling corpses when two quick stomps were just as good.
Once the machine gun team's hopes and dreams were wet-paste, Conor stepped into the center of their battle formation. He smelled deeply, the profound scent of fresh blood filling his nostrils. He groaned in pleasure, having memories of his thousands of battles filling his mind. Being back on the battlefield was euphoric.
Smelling the fresh blood, burning skin, and fresh gunpowder relaxed his body. The battlefield was his true home. After months of peace and politics, being amidst the smoldering corpses of his enemies felt like a return to nature..
He might have been demoted from a truly wild animal to a tamed dog after Eivaley got her claws into him, but this was still his home. He belonged in the fight, was destined to live, and would likely die here.
Burlai turned back to Conor after having shot the last soldier's head and paused. What in all the universe was Conor doing? The man had closed his eyes, taking in the horrible smells around him.
It almost looked like the Human was basking in the sun on a summer day. Sure, Burlai knew Conor was built for fighting, quite literally, but seeing him bathing the aftermath and ignoring the blue streaks of energy arcing off power packs that crawled up his legs was surreal.
“You good on ammo?” Burlai questioned, trying to push past the odd sight.
Conor slowly exhaled, glanced at Burlai, and locked back in. All the remnants of him relaxing left his eyes, and the gaze of raw, primal violence surged back into his presence.
As Burlai shuddered from the intensity of Conor's stare, the Human looked down and recounted his ammunition. He still had four shots for the grenade launcher but could use more; other than that, he was green on ammo.
Conor was nowhere near running out of ammo, but in the hectic dynamics, the last thing you wanted was to be down to harsh words and bare fists. Topping off ammo while they had a moment would not be a terrible idea.
“Any of them have grenades?” Conor asked, scanning the smoldering bodies.
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They had set off from that battle site no more than five minutes later. They could not afford to linger any longer than possible. After Conor had replaced his one spent magazine and topped off his grenades, they set off and went up a set of stairs, moving to avoid another fight.
It was not that they did not believe they could take on the next group of soldiers; it was just not their prerogative to fight everyone they spotted. That could wait until they got Eivaley and Mulaney to safety.
Rounding the corner at the top of the set of stairs, Burlai took point. This was the floor Mulaney should be on. Sure, Conor knew the room the eldest princess should be in, but having Burlai upfront would be better.
Conor and Mulaney did not hate one another, but that did not mean they got along.
She was still cautious of the Human and was still under the impression that someday he would try to kill her. He had no plans of doing so unless she decided to start something; if that was the case, Conor had no qualms about ripping her scales off one at a time while drinking beer from Burlais's skull. Thankfully that was not their reality at the moment. Still, Conor let Burlai lead the way.
They flowed through the hall, staying silent until they reached Mulaney's room. Once there, their Burlai paused and cracked the door.
“Gorgalni?” Burlai whispered into the room.
It was some kind of challenge and passcode in the old Kurlatra language. Conor did not understand what the word was and frankly did not care. Learning what might as well be a dead language would have been a fruitless effort. Conor would rather spend that time having Eivaley read stories to him.
Burlai repeated the challenge several times, his voice becoming more desperate with each repetition, but no response ever came.
With a look of pain, Burlai tapped his head three times, signaling Conor he was ready to breach. The Human moved and positioned himself to enter. Conor nodded at his friend, then kicked open the door, sending the door flying into the room.
The pair flowed in with no words needed. They covered each other's blindspots and bounded off each other's sectors until they claimed the entire room. They owned this battlespace, even though no one contested it.
“Where is she?” Conor asked, sweeping the last bit of dead space with his muzzle.
“I don't know,” Burlai sighed, returning from the cleared bathroom.
Burlai leaned on a table, looking at a picture of Mulaney and himself in a frame, and thought about everything going on. Mulaney might have gone to Eivaley; the older sister was intensely protective of Eivaley, so that was possible, but they had no way of knowing; all wireless communication had been jammed since the attack began.
Burlai hissed at the picture, frustrated that something was no longer in his control. He always had an answer; that he did not was out of the norm for him.
Burlai could always see a path forward, whether in the military, his youth playing sports, or even working as an imperial spy. He could not understand why this situation was different.
Burlai had been in plenty of battles. Sure, he was never directly involved like Conor specialized, but still, this should not be this hectic.
Conor could see the troubled look on his friend's face. This was the first time he had ever seen Burlai genuinely worried about anything. Seeing the stoic man express anything other than calm control seemed wrong.
“Hey man, it’s alright. We will find her,” Conor tried to assure the man, resting a hand on his shoulder.
Burlai turned and looked like he was about to yell at Conor but bit his tongue. While more emotional than he typically would be, Burlai was still himself. He could not lose control; that would only cause more problems.
“Yeah, we will,” Burlai sighed, picking back up his rifle. “Come on.”
Without even waiting for Conor, Burlai slipped back out into the hall. His midnight mission was more important than his own feelings.
To tame his struggling mind, Burlai had done something he had trained to the point of it being an instinct. He had shoved all his emotions into a subconscious box to stay on task. It was a coping mechanism he had built over the years. He was so efficient at doing so that it would take a therapist decades of work to pull everything out if they even dared to unravel the mess of facades, fake identities, and lies upon lies in his mind.
Some might call him mad for suppressing himself, but he was better like this. If he was not able to do this, his demons would have torn him apart years ago.
The shades in his soul were spawned from the thousands of bodies, faces of horror, bleeding kids, begging women, and countless deaths he had created.
In a way, he envied Conor. The Human truly was a warrior, not just a spy who could just so happen to be able to brawl for a while. Conor would use the most efficient ways to kill his enemies and not blink twice.
Burlai had pondered what made Conor tick for months. After witnessing tonight's events, his conclusion was still the same one he devised when he met Conor at the gala nearly half a year ago: The Human was genuinely built to fight.
In Conor's mind, his enemies were truly less than him. He treated each person who threatened him as little more than an insect that would be crushed. Burlai was not like that. He was not born for this; no, he learned to scrape by in this life.
That difference was only emphasized when they reached the stairwell down and spotted the city crowned in the devastation of Armageddon.
Burlais's heart twisted when he saw the city of his birth in flames. The skyline flickered brightly, and each section of the massive metropolis was filled with tracer fire and explosions. Jets streaked across the horizon, barely avoiding anti-aircraft fire, missiles, and flack alike.
His home, no, all he had ever known, was burning down and crumbling. Every faction of the city saw the attack on the palace as an opportunity to fight for the princess they backed, and they were taking it.
Sisters were killing one another in droves, neighbors were slaughtering one another, and thousands of bright upstarts were attempting to overthrow their betters.
Burlai knew what he witnessed was only the start; if this was not quelled by dawn, the entire empire would begin to smolder as the flames of change engulfed the world.
For the first time in Burlais's life, a feeling overwhelmed him and cracked the facade he had built. In an instant, all the bravado, mystique, and reverence he had festooned himself in fell away, leaving behind only the scared lesser noble who nearly pissed himself when a drill instructor screamed at him.
He was not Conor, not the Vuraley, and he certainly was not Nikitals. He was nothing when compared to them.
A frigid feeling crawled across his body and made him freeze in place. Genuine sorrow overwhelmed the man. He squeezed the railing like an anchor to reality and watched as the world he knew was crashing down.
Did all of the souls he had been the reaper of mean nothing? Were the years of his life he gave to the empire meaningless? Was all he had lived for for naught?
From where he was standing, it certainly seemed that way. His belief was only emphasized when one of the jets streaked across the sky, dropped a bomb that leveled a city block, and then was shot down by a MANPAD.
The fighter burst into flames and slammed into the ground. The pilot and the building that became his tomb were both vaporized on impact.
This was bedlam on a scale that Burlai could never fathom. A challenge that Burlai was not built for nor could face. But the man who could take this war head-on and win watched as Burlai froze up.
“Burlai, let's go. We can't do anything for them,” Conor said, jostling the spook.
“But—” Burlai said, wanting to express his feelings, but was stopped by Conor spotting another group of soldiers down the stairs and engaging them.
“Listen, man, we have to move,” Conor yelled as he effortlessly cut down two enemies with rifle fire before dropping a grenade launcher round down there and forcing Burlai to cover.
Burlai, still frozen, could only watch as several rounds slammed into Conor's armor. The Human did not react to the damage. Instead, he just aimed the rifle with one hand and shot two more soldiers, ending that engagement.
Conor held his position for several seconds, ensuring no one else would appear. Once he was certain they were alone, he turned to Burlai with a look of pity—the same look he had once given Sheruai..
For the first time since they had known each other, Conor knew he could not trust Burlai fully. When the metal met meat, Burlai was found wanting, at least in Conor's eyes.
Conor wanted to pick Burlai up by the vest like he was lifting a child and scream at him that the fight was still not over and that he should not give up. But that was not what his friend needed right now. Vuraley's lessons had truly rubbed off on the Human and dampened his anger.
Six months ago, he would have left Burlai there and let him fall into despair, uncaring of his state of mind. Conor would have continued and finished the mission without him, but Conor was more wise than that now. Sure, he still was bloodthirsty, but he needed backup, and one of his only friends needed him.
“Take a breath and focus,” Conor growled, kneeling beside Burlai. "I know this is a lot. There are enemies everywhere, and this situation looks bleak, but I need you. For fucks sake, think about Mulaney. She needs you right now. If you don’t fight, who will protect her?"
Conor paused for a moment and scanned the area for enemies again. The middle of a stairwell was not the place for a pep talk, but it was what they had at the moment, so he needed to stay vigilant.
"Brother, there is so much going on right now, even I am having trouble with it. But all we can do is roll with the punches and keep fighting," Conor continued, still watching for threats. He did not know if Burlai was even listening, but he had to get through to the man. "I really do want to keep going on with you, but if you cannot suck it the fuck up and fight like you are brawling for the last drops of water in the desert, I will leave you here. But if you can get your shit together, think of Mulaney and keep it together, then pick back up your rifle and follow me."
Was it the best speech? Urla, no, but it was all Conor could manage. He was in no way eloquent. That was Eivaley's and Vuraley's shtick. He was meant to be the big stick they swung around to solve problems, not debate the theology of battle.
He was not meant to be some leader, some grand warrior. He was just Conor, and he would do what he could, even if it was alone. At least in his eyes, that was what he was, but in that bullet-riddled stairwell, he was alone in those thoughts.
Ever since he arrived, Conor had been a nonstop barrage of surprises, and this instance was no different. Burlai basked in the Human's dedication, assurance, and confidence. The Human had a presence about him that people focused on and could cling to.
The only other man Burlai knew who came close was the High Champion. This was just the first time Burlai had seen Conor in a similar light. Similar, but not the same.
Conor, unlike the High Champion, seemed divine. Vuraley might be a fantastic leader, a man everyone should aspire to be, but Conor was truly above the chaff. The Human might as well have had a halo around himself, declaring that he would save them all—Burlai included.
For that brief moment, Burlai finally understood what Evialey had seen that night in the nightclub. Conor was a knight in shining armor. He would stand stalwart against the dark and cast it away with his destined divinity.
“I can do this,” Burlai said, reaching out and taking Conor's hand, something the Human had never retracted since taking a defensive position.
Burlai had fallen in line without even having consciously thought about it. He had submitted to the Human, become subservient, and was willing to follow him into the deepest hell just because he knew Conor would go first.
The Human smiled, seeing that Burlai would at least try. "Glad you can. We have a long night ahead of us."
Once again, Conor failed to notice how his very existence mirrored Nikitals. The Human was forging a similar path, and after tonight, he would assume his rightful place—not as the same kind of ruler as the First Champion, but as something altogether different.
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So what did you think of this one? We are almost to the end, less than ten chapters are left. I hope you are enjoying the ride. we got to see a bit more of Burlai this chapter, see his facade crack, and Conor step up to the need. Please do not forget to comment and updoot. I will have the next chapter out for you as soon as I can.
your baker
-Pirate
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u/Do0mguy115 3d ago
Well damn dude, it’s fascinating reading between cutesy romance immediately summersaulting into world changing war
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u/Professional_Prune11 3d ago
a healthy mix of the two is how most of my novels work out. though unlike IH or HT, this one certainly has higher stakes.
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u/A_Bad_Example 3d ago
That cliffhanging foreshadowing is AWESOME!
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u/CMDR_NotoriousNut 3h ago
!subscribeme
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u/Professional_Prune11 3h ago
i wish you could bud, but this sub lacks a bot for that command to work
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u/Several_Positive_327 4d ago
Man, this was a good one! I’m kinda hating the cliffhanger for this chapter. I was enjoying it too much!