Trap

The mood in the desert buggy remained somber all through the rest of the squad's journey.

'We're here.' Yoselin cleared her throat and pulled to a stop. Ahead was what seemed like a rocky enclave with hills of brownish red rock.

On top of one of the hills was a huge metal construct like a tripod, occasionally flashing with red light. With how large it was, it was impossible to miss it.

Rebels clad in grey and brown combat suits surrounded it, busily tinkering with the tripod legs and other equipment Luther had never seen before.

Naz though, gritted his teeth in rage. 'Bastards! Don't tell me they want to mine here too?!'

Luther turned to Naz and asked, 'Is that some form of mining equipment?'

In response Naz nodded solemnly. 'It's called a Seeker. Just like its name, it's used to search for energy mines or places with high concentration of aether.'

It was clear as day that the rebels were preparing to mine energy again.

Probably, their sensory devices had alerted them that there was an aether mine or energy mine nearby.

What Luther didn't understand though was why despite knowing they were being hunted by the army, they were brazenly searching for energy mines.

It was as if they didn't care at all!

'Do they value profits that much over their lives or are they just plain stupid? We've cleared like seven of their camps already and killed thousands of rebels but more of these idiots keep showing up!' Qana frowned.

These rebels were really impudent!

Naz cracked his knuckles though. 'Saves us the time of hunting them down one by one. Squad, you know what to do. Attack!'

This time Luther didn't wait behind.

He directly raised his power to the Fourth Gate and charged, right behind Fubar and Naz who were in the lead.

Fubar was already airborne, his electromagnetic sniper rifle aimed at the Seeker device on the hill.

The brownish red earth directly propelled Yoselin forward, along with her host of earth spikes.

Qana's hair was already at erect attention, ready to riddle enemies with holes. With her scimitar above her head, she dashed forward.

Contrary to Luther's expectation, the rebels didn't panic like they had done in the previous assault.

In fact, it was as if they were waiting for them!

'What's going on?' Luther questioned inwardly even as he arrived at the nearest rebel, whose face was obscured behind a gray mask and goggles.

Even then, Luther could sense the rebel's emotions through his cell activity; he was gloating!

At that moment, there was a sharp humming sound, accompanied almost immediately by the thundering of Fubar's electromagnetic sniper rifle

The Seeker suddenly fired a red laser beam!

Luther's jaw dropped and he halted in his tracks as he saw Fubar disappear in a wave of red laser light.

When the laser beam disappeared, a smoking figure lifelessly fell from the sky and crashed into one of the hills below.

Naz's eyes turned red. 'Fubar!' he roared.

The squad had made an erroneous miscalculation; that was no sensory device or Seeker but rather a war machine capable of firing lasers!

Qana's eyes widened and she began to retreat yelling, 'It's a trap!'

Unfortunately, it was too late.

Hundreds of muzzles extended out of the head of the tripod war machine and simultaneously fired red laser beams indiscriminately, hosing down the whole area.

'Do they want to kill us so badly that they're killing their own people too?!' Luther's eyes widened in horror.

A red wave swept past him, instantly turning him into ashes.

[YOU DIED.]

...

When Luther opened his eyes, he was in a dark space and blood red letters looked back at him, as if mocking him.

'I died just like that? It was a trap! They wiped out the whole squad!' Luther sighed.

He couldn't help but admit that his confidence had taken a blow.

After that first assault which had been so easy for the squad, he had quickly grown complacent, just like everyone else in his squad.

It wasn't his fault, after all this was his first time in a military outfit and besides, his squad didn't find it necessary to make plans.

They had assumed that the rebels were incapable of retaliating, just cannon fodder waiting to be destroyed.

This could be seen from how the captain, Naz, initiated attacks without any battle plan; the squad just charged into rebel camps without even scouting the terrain!

Their blind confidence and arrogance had been their undoing.

The squad considered themselves as a well-trained part of an army, unlike the mesh of riffraff rebels who were bound by only their greed, having no discipline.

Despite that, the rebels had proven that they weren't just going to fall over and die obediently.

And as a result, everyone in the Crimson Scorpion squad died in the trap.

'We were too complacent… I mean, no matter how weak the enemy was, we should have made appropriate plans to deal with them,' Luther sighed.

If the rest of the squads in the Scorpion battalion acted like the Crimson Scorpion squad, then they were jumping into traps which would lead them straight to their deaths.

Luther thought for a moment and realized that was most probably the case.

Naz complained of how the Scorpion battalion was always short on healing pills and why healers were treasured by all the squads in the army.

'The most likely reason for the frequent shortage of healing pills is that the rest of the squads are reckless, just like the Crimson Scorpion squad… but aren't they supposed to be well trained?' Luther mused.

Recklessness wasn't a behavior you would normally associate with military personnel.

Why then was the Scorpion battalion and the Red Desert Army acting like that?

Were they fielding ordinary citizens in the army without training them to be discipline?

Luther shook his head. 'No… I remember Naz saying I was one of the best recruits in the training camp… this means they are well trained.'

Now that he thought about it, apart from recklessness, there was also bloodlust too.

The squad always made sure to slaughter the rebels in the most brutal way possible; impaling them on spikes, hacking them to pieces, tearing off body parts.

They fought like they had a vendetta against the rebels, as if the rebels had killed their parents!

Luther's eyes quickly brightened as he finally understood why the soldiers were so reckless.

'What the rebels are doing is akin to killing the mother of everyone on planet Trivasun! The soldiers hate and disdain them so much that they attack any rebel they see recklessly!'

Knowing how the rebels were leading the planet to another apocalypse, the soldiers definitely hated them to the core.

And as the rebels were comprised of undisciplined, probably untrained folk, the soldiers looked down on them.

If they kept such an attitude, they would definitely suffer heavy losses!

[DO YOU WANT TO RESTART THE MISSION?]

Without hesitation, Luther responded, 'yes!'

It was time to turn the tables!