Chapter 2

"Good Lord... what the hell happened?" Paul managed to mumble as he slowly sat up, seeing a small squadron of Imperium soldiers hovering around him.

"Sir, you're going to be just fine. Please don't move though; our medical officer is attempting to discover whether or not you're seriously injured."

The voice had emanated from a short male officer that was a foot feet behind a soldier with a medical pack. Paul squinted at them through the fog that still hovered around his senses.

"I remember getting blasted by someone..." Paul started.

"Erm," the officer interrupted, looking slightly nervous, "I am afraid that blast came from me sir. My squad here was sent out to find you when you had not returned by the ETA. We were afraid you had failed your assassination mission, and that Tarlas was still alive. So, when we came upon what looked all the world to us like two naked Supernus officers finishing up an, err... act of love, we decided we would take them out and continue looking for you. Luckily, my blast only clipped you in the shoulder, but it was full power, so I imagine it did some damage. I then of course saw that it was you, so I called off the attack, and, well, that's how we wound up in this situation."

Remembering the state he was in when he got hit, Paul glanced down to see if he was dressed, and was gratified to discover that someone had supplied and dressed him in a new uniform before he had become conscious.

"Well," Paul said as he stood up, "Tarlas is dead, so obviously, my mission was a success. I also managed to recover our undercover operative, as you may have noticed. Now can we get the hell out of here before the Supernus come and investigate an energy discharge they must have detected?"

The officer nodded, and they all took to the skies, as it was a little late for any attempt at a smooth exit. Before they had even risen twenty meters into the air, a Supernus squadron was upon them. There were fourteen enemy soldiers, the lead two packing four-shot rocket launchers on their shoulders. Performing a quick mental head count, Paul realized they were severely outgunned. They only had eight soldiers, with nothing more than their various mental powers to protect them.

Paul blasted the first two incoming missiles out of the air with a burst of telekinetic energy.

"Quick, I know you're all Telekinetics, but are any of you Telepathics or some other type of Mentalist?" Paul asked this hurriedly, as another two missiles came streaking towards them.

Two of the six from the squadron mentally "pinged" him to indicate that they were Telepathics, as all of them opened fire with light bursts of telekinetic flak energy. The missiles were destroyed by the energy flak, and the fourteen Guardsmen swerved, loosing a little ground to avoid the incoming mental micro-projectiles.

One of the other members of the squadron flew up to Paul's side, and notified Paul that he was a Teleformist; a Mentalist that could convert mental energy into matter.

"Can you form a barrier of one inch thick glass in front of the Guardsmen? They might think it's just an illusion we've formed to slow them down. If we're lucky, they'll plow right into it."

The Teleformist merely nodded, and formed the barrier. Unfortunately, this took so much of his energy that he began falling, so that Paul had to grab him to keep him aloft. But it worked. The four in the front of the formation of Guardsmen barreled straight into the barrier, and were cut to ribbons by the breaking glass. With only ten Guardsmen left, Paul figured the odds were a little bit more in their favor now.

"Okay, everyone!" Paul shouted. "Fire, full bursts!"

All at once, the eight of them came to a full halt, swiveling around and unleashing massive waves of mental energy. Paul targeted two at once, dividing his power in half. He made them precise enough that it didn't matter though; the waves condensed themselves to the size of needle points and flew through his two targets' carotid arteries. They both fell without any further struggle. Lauren managed to utterly vaporize her target, and the squadron took out four Guardsmen. The three that were left all formed one last attack together, then took off, covered by the flare of the blast as it struck the collective mental shield of the eight Imperium soldiers.

"Let's get a move on already, before they send reinforcements." Paul commanded.

All of them quickly flew off at maximum speed, the Teleformist able to fly on his own several minutes later.

Imperium Headquarters, One Hour Later

"So, Tarlas is dead, right Mr. Erickson?" General Thomas queried him.

"Yes, sir," Paul responded wearily, "why was I sent to assassinate him anyway?"

"Well, because you were the best man for the job," the General answered him, "and because you were the only one suicidal enough to attempt it."

"That's not what I meant. Why was he so special?"

"Oh." The General thought for a second. "Well... I suppose you're of high enough security clearance for upper-level intelligence data... what are your rankings?"

Paul cited off his various ranks robotically. "Captain, U.S. Mentalist forces, specifically, squadron zeta, currently on indefinite assignment to aid Imperium forces. Second Tier level officer, Imperium Special Operations Division. Fourth Tier level officer, Imperium Intelligence Division. Tactical advisor, First Tier, to General Brahms. General Imperium rank: Second Tier level officer."

The General raised an eyebrow. "Quite a rank listing you have there, son. You probably have more authority than I do in certain divisions."