Manifold [An Interstellar Sci-Fi Progression Story with LitRPG Elements]

Betelgeuse blinked away the blood from his eyes. He turned his head to the side and spat out a wad of blood, and then he pushed himself off the ground to his feet.

Before him was Entuban and his section comprising four other persons, including Corporal Venna Tajiran, the woman who had broken her leg during the Battle for Liberation's Reach. Venna had joined Misha in tending to Douglas, and the wound he'd sustained was already colored excessively blue from the ministration of the coagulator. Misha stepped away to let Venna bind it in a tourniquet, as Douglas mouthed weakly about microplastics and the dangers of cancer.

Entuban brought his hand up under Betelgeuse' armpit to support him, but Betelgeuse shrugged his hand away, saying: "Where's the other?"

Alerted to the fact that there might be another tango in the vicinity, Entuban hefted his carbine and snapped his head upward and to the side.

"The other, there's being another one?"

"There were two," Betelgeuse stressed, indicating the porch of the opposite apartment building where a grenade blast had very recently collapsed the balustrade outwards, "the other was behind there."

"Keep your guard up. We need to get into cover," Betelgeuse finished, thumbing backward toward the garbage dump, where Voke, Smit, Rana and Cacliocos had taken up. Their muzzles peeked out the side of the dump's entrance as they trained their muzzles at the apartment buildings opposite.

Entuban mustered the group and ordered them into the cover of the dump, picking up Douglas' body with ease. As the rest made their way into cover, Betelgeuse knelt down before the body of the slain enemy and, taking his combat knife, sliced the suit open to find a White grade Incunabulum kept away in a pouch, the pouch strapped over his left oblique. It was whole, but looked to be in rough shape.

"B.T.!" Betelgeuse heard Voke yell, "hurry the fuck up! You're exposed out there!"

Secreting the artifact inside his own vest, Betelgeuse walked backwards, his head raised and his eyes scanning the rooftops for any sign of the other figure. Blood was still streaming from his broken nose, and he spat, every so often, great gobs of phlegm that left a bloody, sticky trail upon the concrete pavement.

He had barely stepped inside the dump when he was grabbed by the collar of his vest and pulled to the side by Misha. Now ensconced in the dimness, she pushed him down into a sitting position against the the covering wall, to the left of a supine and quietly gaping Douglas.

"Sit! We need to stop the bleeding," she said, as much to herself as to Betelgeuse. Her face was grimy with a mixture of sweat and concrete dust, and her aquiline nose was twitching from the evil odors that suffused the space. Betelgeuse met her eyes and found them to be strikingly gray.

"No plastic up my nose, please," Betelgeuse managed, to which Misha replied: "don't worry. Keep your head raised. I'll stuff it to try and stop the bleeding and the hospital can set it for you shortly."

Betelgeuse nodded. Cacliocos came before him and loomed over them in the gloom, and Betelgeuse could see that his expression was fraught with anxiety.

"Sir, you okay?" Betelgeuse said, his voice muffled by Misha's careful ministrations.

"I… I'm sorry. I don't know… I don't know what came over me."

"Calm yourself, sir. These things happen," Betelgeuse said, attempting to inject as much understanding into his voice as he could. "First thing you need to do is comms for support. Belekov and Von—where are they?"

"They're on their way over now," Cacliocos returned, his voice trembling slightly. "I comms-ed them at the same time as Entuban."

Betelgeuse realized with a start that Cacliocos was seeking his advice—no, his instructions—on the next steps. The officer was in a vulnerable position, mentally speaking, and Betelgeuse found his heart torn. On the one hand, he couldn't help feeling he had an uncommon connection with Cacliocos, on the other, the will that was speaking to him was pushing him to constantly push it, take advantage, exploit...

Betelgeuse suppressed his seething, unruly will with extreme prejudice.

It's like I'm split into two. If I'm not careful, I'm liable to become schizo.

"The other tango might still be around," Betelgeuse began, indicating vaguely behind his shoulder with an outstretched palm. Misha had finished stuffing his nose and stepped away, though Betelgeuse could tell that she was listening closely. "If Belekov and Von are on their way, they might run into him and incur casualties. You must tell them to get into cover ASAP, find a location which permits them a wide view like ours. We can only hope the enemy doesn't ambush them—but you must inform them of the situation and the enemy's capabilities."

Cacliocos' breath hitched. He nodded, lowering himself into a squat and hugging his carbine to his chest. Doing exactly as Betelgeuse advised, Cacliocos got through to Von, and then Belekov, instructing them to cover at the nearest possible location.

Once Cacliocos was done, Betelgeuse continued: "We will still need support. This single enemy is unlikely to pose much of a threat because our vantage affords us a wide view of the street. However, we are still in danger of the riot spilling over from Prilogia and overrunning our position. Once we're caught, it's over…"

"..."

"Comms HQ, coordinate extraction to the nearest hospital—it should be Lent," Betelgeuse finished.

Cacliocos looked uncomfortable.

"What is it?" Betelgeuse asked.

"... Our commanding officer is Colonel Pilix. You remember him. He replaced Colonel Bincollan. They told us he'll lead the reconstituted Jegorich First Brigade moving forward."

Colonel Pilix? The former Lieutenant-Colonel Bentil Pilix? Wasn't that the guy who sold us out to Crowley's failed chasedown op?

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

It appears Crowley took all of the blame, while this Colonel Pilix seems to have done quite well for himself. To earn a promotion on the back of gross negligence—that's terribly good politics.

Regardless, we're not in the position to challenge the decisions of the Saltillan Bureaucracy.

"We don't have a choice, unless you want to risk the journey without an APC. The enemy might still be around, or it might not," Betelgeuse asserted. "The smart decision would be to err on the side of caution."

"... I'll speak to Colonel Pilix," Cacliocos relented, nodding.

Cacliocos comms-ed in on the secure channel, and before ten seconds was up, the call was established.

Betelgeuse raised his hands to touch his broken nose, wincing at the wave of pain that resulted.

"Captain Cacliocos speaking, requesting for APC extraction down between fifty-second and fifty-third Marlowe Street. I repeat, requesting for APC extraction—"

A deep voice replied. The signal crackled and popped from the interference of encryption algorithms, but the disturbances did nothing to detract from that voice's refined power.

"Colonel Pilix here. I read you, Captain. Status?"

"Strength twenty-one of twenty-three. Three casualties. One KIA, two injured, one of the injured still combat-fit. We're currently split up, with three sections at Marlowe and one section each at Hiraeth and Colonnade. I'm with Marlowe, and we require extraction to Lent ASAP."

"I've received reports of a riot that's broken out at the Prilogia. The Police have reported mass casualties—can you advise?"

"I can confirm. I've received the same information from my auxiliary PLPs. But we don't have eyes on any protesters."

"Understood. Repeat your location and confirm that the rioters have not reached."

"We're located at a garbage dump between fifty-second and fifty-third Marlowe. I confirm that there are no protesters in the vicinity."

"Confirm again," Colonel Pilix transmitted, "does your Strength include the Penal Legionnaires? No casualties sustained by them?"

Cacliocos glanced at Betelgeuse. Neither of them could tell why Colonel Pilix was being so insistent about things that didn't matter.

"Two injured are both PLPs," Cacliocos responded. "One combat-fit."

The static pops flared and then receded. Betelgeuse could feel his heartbeat quicken slightly. A powerful suspicion materialized in his gut, and although it sounded ridiculous, he wondered if Pilix was related, somehow, to those figures...

"Noted," Colonel Pilix said finally. "I'll send an APC down to pick you guys up. Sit tight…"

The APC arrived within the next ten minutes. Betelgeuse heard the revving of its engine before he saw that immense chassis accelerating in from outside their view.

Once the APC's back-door slammed opened, they wasted no time in sprinting down towards it and boarding. They found both Belekov's and Von's section already waiting within—the APC had picked them up en route to Marlow, making it a tight squeeze for everyone.

This didn't stop Cacliocos from commanding the APC several meters down to pick up Garcon's body. The Captain laid him down upon the floor of the troop-compartment, instructing Entuban to keep him safe.

Then they were off.

Betelgeuse and Cacliocos settled up near the driver compartment. Their driver and v-com were both Saltillans mustered from the Saltilla Brigades—Private Brown and Corporal Ultris, respectively.

They made good time through the empty streets, the APC trundling down Marlowe, TTDI, Hiraeth and Colonnade without much incident.

"Was there a new Order? Why are the streets so deserted?" Betelgeuse thought out loud as they turned into Lent Street.

"Yes. Home Affairs announced it officially a couple hours ago, around the time that the riot was breaking out," Cacliocos responded, keeping his dark eyes fastened to the windscreen and squinting at every rooftop as if they potentially hid enemies.

The road further up was brimming with military vehicles, and the entrance to Lent Hospital was barricaded and heavily guarded by both PDF and TAF personnel.

As their APC turned into the Lent Hospital barricade, Cacliocos shouted their unit details at the guard unit and explained that they had casualties. They were let through with very little trouble.

The hospital personnel triaged their casualties with practiced efficiency. They sent Garcon's body to the morgue, passing his Ash grade Incunabulum to Cacliocos, and then conveyed Betelgeuse and Douglas up through the lift to the Level 15 lobby marked Moderate Injuries to be attended to.

Douglas was conveyed to the operating room first, the expanding bruise around his arm's stab-wound alerting the attending Medicae to the possibility of internal hemorrhaging underneath the thick coat of coagulate Misha had applied.

And Betelgeuse was told to pinch the soft portion of his nose and to hold it up until they could spare the resources to attend to him. He sat there in the cold for what seemed like a long while, listening to the whispers and occasional-chuckles of the PDF soldiers that were waiting behind him.

One of them had asked Betelgeuse his name, but he didn't respond, absorbed as he was in planning the retrieval of the Incunabula they had hidden somewhere in Marlowe.

The way things were deteriorating in the City, he didn't know if an opportunity would pop up anytime soon.

On the other hand, the simmering violence had caused Incunabula prices to skyrocket. This meant that the payday would be huge.

It took another fifteen minutes—the pain in his crooked nose already starting to ebb away into numbness—before the Medicae ushered him into a makeshift operating theater located behind a plastic curtain at the far side of the lobby.

The churgeon there worked with supernatural speed and skill. Ten mechanical arachnoid arms jutted out of the nape of his neck, assisting the churgeon with setting Betelgeuse' nose and then splinting it with hard plastic materials.

The churgeon himself attended to Betelgeuse' thigh, cutting away the coagulated portions and extracting the bullet from Betelgeuse meat. No anesthetic was administered.

The whole operation was completed under five minutes, and Betelgeuse was slapped on the back and told to proceed to the Rejuvenator station at Level 10. He was issued a ticket permitting him about thirty minutes with the device.

Betelgeuse proceeded there and, despite the fact that the Rejuvenator station was fully utilized when he arrived, secured a spot within 10 minutes. As he sat in the cushioned chair, he found that he had nothing to do but listen to the PA drone on about unity and perseverance...

"... As violence rages on within Saltilla, it is our hope that this voxcast will give you the hope to tide through this dark day. Extremists and terrorists prey on fear—hope is your strength, your salvation. Remember—you aren't alone. Fear has the strength of thousands, but Saltilla has the strength of millions. If you see a neighbor today, tell them how much you've thought about them, wish them well, hug them tightly—*krrshk*"

Static interruption. A different voice filtered through the voxcast, this one female and solemn.

"*krrshk* It is with great sadness and mourning that we announce the passing of Mayor Richard Grimmersby from old age. Mayor Grimmersby was one hundred and twelve years old at the time of his passing. Effective as of twelve-hundred hours today, Saltilla's acting Mayor will be Marshal-in-Saltilla, Phyllis Grimmersby…"