Fragments Gallery
Reavers: Discovered
Freya wrung her hands as she stared at the display before her. On the screen she watched the battle unfold. Her plan appeared to have worked, so far anyways. The fight was taking place in the south of the arena, while her command post was hidden away in the forests of the north.
However a few minutes ago a pair of her spotters had gone dark; she assumed that the Reavers had found them. That was a bit of a blow since she could no longer track the pilots as well but she was still confident in her plan. The Reavers had not ventured towards the north and so her command center was safe. That meant the Reavers had to try to eliminate all of her soldiers in the field, a task which they had been having little luck with so far.
The blue dots on the screen before her flickered as her soldiers moved, their dots moving around the larger red blocks which marked the Reavers. As long as her cadets had eyes on the Reavers they would show up on her screen.
There were only three Reavers displayed on the screen right now. Of the five that had dropped she knew that one of those had had been disabled. That meant that there were four left. It worried her that only three showed up on her display, that fourth Reaver was the source of her current frustration. Where could it have gone?
"How is squad four doing with their weapons placement?" Freya asked Nereid, "Are they setup?"
"Yes Commander, they just finished their setup," Nereid replied, "However they report that the Reaver they were targeting noticed their energy signature and rabbited. They are asking for orders."
"Tell them to hold position but go low profile," said Freya. On the display that Reaver which the squad had been targeting faded. Now she only had two on her display.
"Commander, one of the Reavers just dropped off the grid," called out Sloth, "I have a squad in pursuit but they can only follow, behind, they can't keep up."
Freya scowled; she needed to know what they were doing. Had they decided the command post was in the north after all? Were they heading up to search?
"Scarecrow! Any luck in hacking their comms? That would useful right about now."
"Sorry Commander," said Scarecrow as he shook his head, "It's proving tough to crack. I'm working on it still, but I'm not sure I'm getting anywhere with it."
"Alright just keep at it, let me know the moment you have something."
"Of course Commander," he replied, his eyes still glued to the screen.
"Viceroy, make sure that the cadets around the command post are alert, we may have visitors soon."
"Understood," Viceroy responded. Immediately he began to contact squad leaders.
Freya nodded to herself and began to pace. The remaining two Reavers had paired up. With the two of them working together they had begun to more effectively cut a path through her cadets. Normally this would have bothered her more but now... now she was too worried that she would soon have two Reavers converging at her position. She didn't have enough forces arrayed around the center for that. She couldn't even call any squads back from the south since the pilots would track them and the Reavers would be led directly back to the command center.
For a similar reason she could not use the two heavy turrets she had reserved for the Command defense; the energy signatures they made as they came online would lead any Reavers in the area directly to them. She could only use the two turrets when she was sure they would not give away her position, such as when she knew the Reavers were already on their way to her. But those turrets took time to come online, and when she was blind like this the Reavers could come across them at any moment without warning. Had the spotter on the spire still been active she would have had no trouble keeping track of the Reavers. However the spotter had been taken out. Now she was in a tricky spot, she needed those Reavers located.
The minutes passed as she worried and waited. She continued to give a few orders to her cadets in the south but she knew the squad commanders knew the plan and their own place in it. She trusted them to use their own judgement in most of their actions and only gave direction as she noticed gaps in their formations.
She was conferring with Sloth at his display when movement through the window caught her eye. She ran over to the glass in time to see two Reavers step clear of the tree line.
They had been discovered.