Forgotten Ruin by Jason Anspach & Nick Cole

Author:Jason Anspach & Nick Cole
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Science Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, Post-Apocalyptic, Military, Time Travel
ISBN: 9781949731491
Publisher: WarGate Books
Published: 2021-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty-Four

Yeah. It was pretty freaky at first to hear everyone in the scout team’s thoughts. But quickly we got it sorted and then it was kind of cool after that. It wasn’t like hearing each other’s exact thoughts. But you could tell whose gear was rubbing them raw or who needed to piss. Sergeant Hardt found out about his nickname and was none too pleased with that. He also found out who hated him. Which was pretty much everyone. Big surprise. He replied with, “I hate all of you twice as much as what you think you call hate.”

The promise of severe retribution at a later date was unspoken, but understood. Thankfully I was just a guest in the scout section. Hopefully I would avoid the doom of white line drills whenever we got the next break from running for our lives and shooting everything.

Hardt did hear me snort. It just escaped as I marveled at the Kurtz levels of contempt he was able to muster. So even if I did escape retribution, I was pretty sure Sergeant Kurtz would be informed and asked to PT me appropriately and extensively once we didn’t need to fight, or run, for our lives again. But that was all down the road. We might all get killed before that. So I had that going for me.

Once we got it all settled on how to communicate with our new Elven Mind Meld Last of Autumn whammied us with, we got back underway with our new incredible night-vision toy. The elf called it “Moon Vision.”

Hearing each other’s thoughts quickly demonstrated its tactical benefit in that you received a weird sort of background noise of the senses of anyone you were communicating with via thoughts. In other words, you could see in your mind’s eye, while still using your new regular awesome vision, exactly what the other person you were thinking at was seeing. And hearing. And of course thinking. For scouts working with subvocal throat mikes, this was awesome.

And it came in handy pretty quickly.

During their route recon, Sergeant Hardt and the point spotted a patrol of orcs who’d been following the crevices between the hills. They’d come up the gully we were just about to make a linear crossing of. We had company, and we all saw it ourselves as we watched a kind of fantastic replay of Sergeant Hardt’s memory. There were eight orcs filing along the gully, trying to get ahead of us and cut us off with an ambush. Skirmisher types. Leather armor, horns, hunting bows. Small daggers. They ran like a pack of wolves, loping after unseen prey. There was something tribal and primal about them, and it was both fascinating and disturbing to watch. At least it was for me. Instantly every other Ranger’s thoughts, via Elven Mind Meld, centered on killing them. Badly.

These orcs were even uglier in the awesomeness of Moon Vision. There was a tall stand of willowy trees down there in the gully between the two foothills, and the orcs had gone into its dark clutch and hadn’t come out.

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