Sidekick by Carl Stubblefield (10 best novels of all time .txt) 📗

unlock had no upgrades, and Aurora held her breath as the two supers were close to the edge of effect around the field. Don’t walk forward, don’t walk forward…

The Dazzle effect faded and the supers retreated closer to the manor, getting back under cover, bracing themselves as they fired at Gus. One directed the other, who moved laterally to get a better shot.

At last, the pulse had reached full charge and Aurora activated it, and she saw the ripple of energy spread out. And slumped back into the chair when the last two attackers collapsed, unconscious.

Basileus hit the console as he watched his mercs get beaten by one guy. Wait. What was that? He scanned the video back and froze the frame. There she was. Aurora slinking in the background, making her way to the manor door while the others were looking upward, focusing on some explosion above.

He knew he should have ended her back at headquarters.

See what being a good little servant gets you? a voice chided.

I wouldn’t have let this happen, another taunted.

Basileus felt a growl in the back of his throat as he stared at the screen. It would have taken so little time to get rid of her. Maybe she had already escaped by then. If his father hadn’t been in such a hurry, he would have seen that she was gone.

Too late to worry about it now, but experience told him if he wasn’t decisive, the same problems came back to haunt him, again and again.

He tried to calm his escalating rage, and quiet the voices. Just get the mission done. Appease your father until you have taken the manor and then Manticorps. Archon will have to hand over the reins after success here. He could hold out just a bit longer. If he could regain the manor, finally he could be free.

He’s forgetting about the girl. Typical.

Basileus’ eyes widened. If Aurora was here, she had to have snuck on board. He called his comms officer. “What’s the status of the burst transmission?”

“We just started it, it’s at about 24%—” came the languid reply.

“Shut it down!”

“Y-yes, sir… transmission aborted. Any data mid-transmission is probably corrupted and will have to be recompiled and sent again,” the tech replied, suddenly attentive.

“They can wait. The relay will be back in position in thirty-six hours. I’ll have something better to report by then, anyway.”

Chapter Twenty

Lay My Claim

Gus slumped to the grass in exhaustion. “Woof to the woof!” He laid there staring at the indifferent clouds. He had dragged the others all onto the manor’s lawn but he felt exhausted. He was grateful that his minimap showed where the downed supers were or he wouldn’t have found the super who had fallen into the branches of a tree. Deciding it would be safer to Leech him while on the ground, Gus pushed and prodded with ether leashes until he could get a grip around the man and drag him down to the ground, then transport him to the lawn.

Congratulations! You have subdued 5 opponents trespassing on privately-owned territory.

5,000 XP (1,000 x 5) awarded for non-lethal methods.

2,500 FP (500 x 5) awarded.

6,200 XP to level 16.

You have (20) stat points to assign.

Gus sat heavily on the ground and hung his head. That was too damn close! And where the hell was Aurora?

He stared at the twenty stat points, feeling like an idiot for not allocating them sooner. At least this encounter made it painfully obvious—he needed much more HP and MP. He dropped ten into Intelligence and the other ten into Constitution, raising each pool by two-hundred points. 840 HP still seemed low for total health with how hard those supers hit.

“Aurora, are you okay?” He sat up in alarm when she didn’t respond. During the heat of battle, he had long since lost track of where she was and what she was doing. He checked his minimap and saw that she was moving in his direction, her green dot the only one left solid, so she was safe.

He got to his feet and limped over to the closest super. Touching him, Gus found three abilities: Absorb, Transfer, and Intermediate Shielding. Gus found that Absorb took up seventy percent of the buffer. Clearing it, he selected Intermediate Shielding, which took roughly sixty percent. Trying to add Transfer pushed the bar far into the red, so he deselected it.

You have chosen to leech Intermediate Shielding (Level 32).

You have chosen to copy and erase skills, are you sure? (Y/N?)

Gus chose yes and Ash spasmed a bit before settling again. Gus attempted Leech again, hoping that he hadn’t wasted two potential abilities. Yes! The other two were still there. Repeating the process, Gus was able to take the other abilities in their entirety, but saw that it also caused a fifty-percent reduction in HP. After taking the third ability, Ash was down to only twenty percent health. Gus made a mental note—if he overdid it, he could see the process being fatal. He made a stretcher underneath the super and pushed Ash towards the door while he moved to the next super.

The two supers heavy with cybernetics were sprawled on the ground, Gus touched the first with the gun. He found Electronic Mind, Aim-Assist, and Coerce. Gus sapped them and while his hand was on the super, he saw his own hybrid-Nth travel down his arm onto the super. Compared to before, the cloud of hybrid-Nth was only a quarter of its former glory. They looked like an ant swarm as they moved down the super’s arm to his connected weapon, and seeped into the cracks of the machinery.

As Gus watched in fascination, Nick explained, “There’s Kroutonium in that weapon; they’re scavenging it.” As the swarm coalesced again and moved back, he could not detect any change in its size. The weapon sputtered and its blue glow winked out, the Kroutonium having been an essential component for it to function. The dull hum disappeared as well.

“I just realized, we’re going