BLOOD OF BORNEO

Chapter 14: The Assault on the West Sector Gate

           The dawn mist hung low, shrouding the canopies of the ironwood trees that had begun to wither along the outskirts of the West Sector. The air felt heavy, not only because of Borneo’s suffocating humidity, but also because of the ozone stench coming from the high-voltage laser fence surrounding the massive facility owned by The Andalusian Order. Hidden behind the thick ferns, Damang crouched with steady breaths. His bare chest revealed the black Rajah pulsing faintly, emitting a thin violet glow that was almost invisible unless observed carefully.

          “Bara, your position?” Damang whispered into the small transmitter attached to the collar of his robe.

          “Already at the blind spot of the northern watchtower, Commander. I can see the main fiber-optic cable from here. One small explosion, and their communication system will be blind for three minutes,” Bara’s voice crackled through the static. There was a tension he could not hide.

         Sali, standing beside Damang, inspected his bamboo blowpipe. The tips of the darts had been coated with kalas poison, a deadly extract capable of paralyzing a buffalo’s nervous system within seconds. He turned toward Damang, staring into the silver eyes that now reflected the neon glow from the enemy facility.

          “You sure you can endure the pain, Damang? Keeping that Mandau floating while maintaining the Halimun will drain your heart,” Sali asked quietly.

          “Don’t worry about me, Sali. Focus on your task. Once the gate opens, lead the surviving civilians through the evacuation route we agreed on. Don’t wait for me if the situation gets worse,” Damang replied flatly.

          “I don’t like plans that involve you becoming the sacrifice alone,” Sali muttered while slipping another dart into the bamboo tube.

          Damang gave no response. He could feel the low-frequency vibrations of the Harvester machines in the distance. Their pulses felt like needles stabbing into his skull. Through his neural connection, he sensed the Mandau strapped across his back beginning to tremble, as though the metal possessed the same predatory instincts as he did.

          “Ten seconds until the dawn strike,” Damang murmured. “Three... two... one... Now!”

         Puff! Puff!

         The sound of breath expelled from the Dayak guerrillas’ blowpipes shattered the silence. The two guards standing on the balcony of the outermost tower never even had time to scream. The poisoned darts pierced the tiny gaps in the neck guards of their armor that were not protected by titanium plating. They collapsed simultaneously, their bodies stiffening instantly from total neural paralysis.

          “Northern tower clear!” Sali reported briefly.

          Damang rose to his feet. He no longer hid himself. With a single glance, the Mandau on his back shot out of its sheath without being touched. The weapon hovered beside his right shoulder, spinning slowly with a humming sound that vibrated through the air. Damang stepped forward toward the laser gate.

           “Who’s there?! Stop right there!” shouted a Paladin from behind the concrete barricade in front of the gate. The guard raised his short-barreled energy rifle.

Damang kept walking. The red laser sight from the enemy rifle locked onto his chest, yet Damang did not flinch.

           “I said stop, you primitive bastard!” The Paladin pulled the trigger.

           A blue plasma bolt shot toward Damang’s heart. But before the light could touch his skin, Damang’s Flying Mandau moved across with a speed impossible for human eyes to follow.

          Clang!

The plasma bolt split into two and struck the ground beside Damang’s feet. The Paladin guard stared in shock behind his polycarbonate helmet. He had never seen anyone deflect an energy projectile with an ancient blade.

          “What the hell is that?!” another Paladin shouted in panic. “Fire! Kill him now!”

A barrage of plasma fire rained down upon Damang’s position. But Damang activated his Halimun ability. His body became translucent, rippling like a reflection upon water. Every shot passed through empty air where Damang should have been standing.

           Shrring! Shrring! Shrring!

           Damang’s Mandau shot forward like a silver lightning bolt cutting through the darkness of dawn. The blade did not slash recklessly. It pierced the optical sensors on the Paladins’ helmets, severed the air lines at their necks, and sliced through the mechanical joints of their armored legs. In less than five seconds, the three Paladins guarding the front barricade fell into pools of blood. The titanium armor they had been so proud of split apart as though it were nothing more than cheap plastic.

           “The front gate has been breached! We need reinforcements at the West Sector!” the guards’ radio chatter echoed chaotically throughout the area.

          Damang arrived before the massive steel door that served as the main entrance. The door was thirty centimeters thick, built from composite steel designed to withstand artillery blasts.

         “Bara, now it’s your turn,” Damang ordered.

          Inside the control room above the gate, Bara was struggling against a Thorne technician. He managed to knock the technician down with the hilt of his parang. Bara’s fingers danced across the holographic keyboard, entering the decryption codes Isabella had previously provided.

          “Damn it, the codes changed! They’re using dynamic encryption!” Bara shouted through the communicator.

          “How long?!” Damang asked. Around him, additional Paladin units were beginning to arrive from deeper within the facility. They formed a turtle-like formation with interlocking energy shields.

          “Give me thirty seconds! I have to bypass the manual circuits!” Bara replied breathlessly.

           The Paladin units before Damang began advancing. They no longer fired their weapons, instead wielding energy spears capable of extending their striking range. Damang felt the Rajah within his body pulse with heat. Pain began creeping through the nerves in his back, a sign that using the Flying Mandau was beginning to drain his life force.

           “You will never get inside, Jungle Rat,” the voice of a Paladin commander boomed through the speakers of his pitch-black armor. “Do you really think your flying sword can pierce our overlapping energy shields?”

           Damang stared at the rows of shimmering blue shields before him. His silver eyes narrowed. “I don’t need to pierce them. I only need to destroy their foundation.”

          Damang did not direct his Mandau toward the enemy shields. Instead, he slammed his Rajah-covered hand into the asphalt beneath his feet. A powerful wave of electromagnetic vibration surged through the ground.

          Crack!

          The ground beneath the Paladins’ feet fractured and sank ten centimeters deep. Their formation lost balance. The energy shields separated slightly for a fraction of a second.

          “Now!” Damang shouted.

          His Flying Mandau shot toward the tiny opening. The weapon did not slash; instead, it spun like a giant drill. It pierced one shield, ricocheted toward the throat of the Paladin behind it, then continued flying in a deadly zigzag pattern.

           “Argh! My eyes! My optical sensors are destroyed!”

           “Where is he?! I can’t see him on the radar!”

          Chaos erupted among the enemy ranks. Damang moved between them like a ghost. He struck the guards in the solar plexus with his bare hands, now as hard as steel due to the Rajah’s influence. Every punch produced the sound of dented metal. Bloodlust began creeping into Damang’s mind, an ancient whisper urging him to tear apart every life before him.

           “Hold on... control yourself, Damang,” Damang whispered to himself. Cold sweat mixed with blood dripped down from his forehead.

          “Success! The gate is open!” Bara shouted.

          A high-pitched alarm blared as the massive steel gate slowly slid open. Cold vapor from the laboratory’s cooling systems seeped outward, carrying the sharp smell of chemicals and death.

          “Sali, lead the team in! Secure the civilians in the lower detention blocks!” Damang ordered.

           Sali and a group of Dayak warriors emerged from the darkness of the forest. They moved with deadly efficiency, throwing smoke bombs toward the remaining disoriented Paladins. Under the cover of smoke, the guerrillas entered the metallic complex.

          Damang stood before the wide-open gate. He stared into the long, dark corridor where red emergency lights blinked rhythmically. The Rajah on his chest pulsed harder, as though sensing the presence of something immense and evil deep within.

          “Bara, stay in the control room. Monitor every movement from the security units. If you see Vargas or Thorne, notify me immediately,” Damang said.

           “Understood, Commander. But be careful, there’s a massive energy surge being detected from the ritual center. Something is happening to the Heart of the Earth,” Bara warned.

          Damang stepped into the laboratory complex. The sound of his footsteps echoed across the cold metal floor. His Flying Mandau once again hovered beside his head, its blade drenched in blood yet still gleaming sharply beneath the red lights.

         He sensed a clear difference in atmosphere. Outside was the forest, wounded yet still alive. Inside this place, everything felt dead. Black cables crawled across the walls like the veins of some mechanical monster. Damang could feel the horrifying bloodlust from his Rajah responding to the dark energy within the room.

          “You feel it too, don’t you?” a voice whispered beside his ear. It was not Sali or Bara. It was the voice of his Mandau, or perhaps the ancestors trapped within it. “Their blood... give us more...”

          Damang shook his head violently, trying to drive away the whispers. He had to stay focused. His primary goal was to find his father and destroy Thorne’s plan, not become a slaughtering monster that had lost control.

“Commander, there’s an assault unit moving toward your position from Corridor B-4. They’re carrying heavy weapons!” Bara’s voice crackled again.

          Damang stopped at a corridor intersection. Through the metal walls, he could hear the heavy roar of robotic footsteps. Those were not ordinary Paladins. They were automated guard units that no longer possessed any trace of humanity within them.

           “Let them come,” Damang hissed.

His silver eyes gleamed within the darkness of the corridor. He clenched his fist, allowing the Rajah on his arm to shine brightly. The assault on the West Sector Gate was only the beginning. And Damang knew that once he passed through these doors, there would be no returning to the man he once was.

           The automatic doors at the end of the corridor opened with the hiss of hydraulics. Ten guard robots with four legs and twin machine guns mounted on their backs emerged. They immediately locked onto Damang, who stood alone in the middle of the hallway.

          “Elimination of unidentified subject initiated,” the robotic voices echoed coldly.

Damang stared at them without fear. He raised one finger, and the Flying Mandau beside him exploded past the speed of sound, creating a long silver streak across the corridor. The battle within the belly of the West Sector had only just begun, and Damang was the storm that would reduce everything into ruins.

           The corridor instantly filled with sparks, spraying oil, and the roar of shattered machines. Damang continued walking forward, passing the split remains of the destroyed robots. His steps were steady, cold, and deadly. In the distance, he could feel his father’s heartbeat growing weaker, suffocating beneath Thorne’s machines.

           “I’m coming, Father,” Damang murmured softly amid the chaos of steel and blood surrounding him.

           One by one, the corridor lights shattered as he passed, forced apart by the pressure of the aura he could no longer contain. The gate had fallen, and now the predator had entered the wolves’ den.