Zedaris ran, dodging the intermittent rounds of bullets fired by his captured drone K2 as it chased after him. At the same time, he kept an eye on its communication logs and tracked the positions of the rest of the members of its squad. He was careful to always keep a physical barrier between himself and the sniper, preventing it from getting a clear shot.

As he had hoped, this cat and mouse act had fooled the drones' AI. The leader of the squad transmitted an order to K2, instructing it to direct him closer to the edge of the caldera while it and the other gunner moved in to pincer him from the sides.

‘Perfect…’

Zed followed along with them until they were nearly in place, then sprung the trap early. Pretending to trip on a loose rock, he tumbled out of the cover of a large boulder and right into the line of sight of the sniper. Sensing an opportunity, the squad leader and the gunner surged forward out of cover while the sniper took the shot. Slamming his hand onto the ground, Zed neatly halted his momentum and flipped upright, making the bullet miss him and bury itself ineffectually into the ground.

Whirling around, he pointed towards the sniper and shot off a streak of white fire that slammed into it and blasted it apart. At the same time, K2 swung its muzzle around and opened fire on the unsuspecting gunnery drone. The hapless machine didn’t stand a chance. The hail of bullets ripped through two of its propellers and it spiralled down and crashed onto the ground in a trail of smoke.

The drone leader, though, surprised Zed. He had expected it to capitalize on the ‘opening’ he had left when he turned his back to it to take out the sniper. He had even readied a deflection ward and was prepared to leap aside when it opened fire. Instead, the drone just turned around and escaped at full speed.

Taken aback, Zed stared for a moment, then quickly recovered and gave chase. ‘Oh no you don’t you cowardly lump of metal,’ he cursed internally. ‘If I don’t get you, I can't complete my quest.’

That and letting it escape would mean that it could carry information about him back to its master. When he had hijacked K2, he had gained a complete understanding of its structure. These drones were autonomous patrol units. They were programmed to reconnoitre a fixed region and eliminate any unauthorized lifeforms they found within it. They stored all the data they gathered from their cameras in an onboard storage chip. Once their week-long mission was over, they would return back to their home base for repair and recharging. There they would hand over the data for analysis and the chips would be formatted, readying them for another run.

This meant that the drone squad had discovered him by luck. Not deliberately. No local powers were aware of him yet and Zed wanted to keep it that way.

Taking a running start, Zed jumped explosively off the edge of the caldera with the help of his skills, shattering the rock beneath his feet and sending a cloud of dirt and rubble careening down the slope of the volcano.

He arced through the air, stretching his hand out towards the fleeing drone to get as close as possible. Unfortunately, the drone was faster than him in the air and stayed out of reach of his Override skill. Gravity exerted its pull on him and Zed began falling back to the ground.

It was a good thing he had backup.

The soft hum of rotors filled the air as K2 caught up to him. Having ditched its gun, it was currently lighter and faster than the other drone. Manoeuvring midair, Zed landed feet first onto its chassis.

You have allocated one free Field point to the Force skill. Force has levelled up!

Force (Lv. 4): Alter the magnitude and direction of vectors by 15%. Cost: 80. Duration: 8 hrs.

Field: 180/400

Using it as a springboard, he jumped again, boosting himself with the improved version of the Force skill. His figure blurred as he shot towards the fleeing drone like a bullet.

Sensing his approach, the drone’s gun swivelled backwards to face him. It wasn’t a machinegun or a sniper rifle, it was a single barrel gun with a rather large bore. It fired, sending a large, metallic slug hurtling towards him.

Zed quickly threw up a deflection ward in its path.

Halfway to him, the slug fell apart, releasing a metallic net that expanded in the air. Caught totally off guard, it was all he could do to keep one arm free as the net wrapped around him, trussing him up tightly. The deflection ward had been designed to redirect projectiles. It was useless against an expansive object like the net.

The drone discarded its gun, activated its optical camouflage, and fled in a burst of speed.

Zed plummeted out of the air like a stone. Catching up to him in time, K2 managed to manoeuvre its chassis below him and break his fall. Even with Zed doing his best to reduce his weight, the drone struggled to stabilize its flight with such an unbalanced load hanging off it. It staggered drunkenly down through the air and deposited him onto the slope of the volcano beneath.

Using his free arm to roll himself onto his back, Zed accessed K2’s logs and obtained the coordinates of the fleeing drone. Pointing at an apparently empty spot in the sky, his flames flared a blinding white as he sent a bolt of fire streaking across the intervening distance. It slammed into the drone, blasting it apart in an explosion of burning metal.

Exhausted, he let his arm flop back onto the ground. His flames grew dim as he burnt through the last of his reserves of magnesium.

‘Well, that was exciting,’ he thought drily, ‘and dumb.’

So many things could have gone wrong. Especially at the end there.

If the drone had managed to snare both his arms with the net, he wouldn't have been able to free himself without burning through his entire stock of magnesium. Subsequently, he wouldn't have enough for the firebolt he had used to shoot it down. If its AI had been intelligent enough to shut down its comm link to K2, he wouldn't have been able to locate it. And if it had been even a little bit faster, it would have escaped as it had been nearing the very edge of his range by the time he managed to get his bearings, shape his Thermal Field, and lock onto it.

It was a miracle it hadn’t gotten away.

Zed had committed the cardinal sin of any soldier; he had underestimated his enemy. Looking at the unranked grading of K2’s AI, he had assumed that the squad wouldn't be that hard to outwit. And that had come back to bite him in the rear. The drone leader had been significantly more intelligent and adaptable than the rest. Which, when he thought about it, was logical. The leader had to coordinate all the other drones; it being more capable was just common sense.

His second mistake had been giving in to his greed. He had taken stupid risks to try and capture the drone leader rather than just shoot it out of the sky. It had resulted in it nearly fleeing and exposing him to the natives. If that had happened, it wouldn't have taken long for his location to become known to an enemy Keeper, or several. Against those war veterans, a new recruit like him wouldn't stand a chance. His greed had nearly cost him his life.

Quest complete! Seek and Destroy!

Reward: Title – Legion of One: Field +2, Macro level +1.

Macro has been unlocked!

Macro (Lv. 1): Records a set of actions and repeats them automatically on command. Two additional slots per level.

At least he had completed the quest. The reward was as substantial as always. Two free points and a skill upgrade. It was slightly worse than the reward for the previous quest, but he supposed it was because this was just something generated from a random encounter while the previous one was a prerequisite quest for a Keeper.

Lying there on the ground, still trussed up like a chicken, Zed vented some hot air. Mistakes had been made…a lot of mistakes. But there was no point in dwelling on them. He would learn from them, improve, and strive to never make them again.

But first, he had to get free of this accursed net.

Status: Zedaris Whiteflame

Authority: 80/100 [1]

Field: 180/400 [3]

Data:

o Appraise (2)

o Override (1)

o Calculate (1)

Kinetic:

o Force (4)

o Acoustic

o Thermal (4)

Electromagnetic:

o Magnetic

o Electric

o Photonic

System:

o Quest (1)

o Assistance (1)

o Macro (1)

Material:

o Molecular

o Atomic (1)

o Nuclear

Dimensional:

o Gravitational

o Spatial

o Temporal