Chapter 6

6.

"What do you mean the other landing craft is lost?" Ambrozy asked the Major with a tense voice. The Major rubbed his chin. "The scanning equipment must have been malfunctioning and the ship landed on an iffy spot or the pilot made a mistake of some sort. Impossible to know until – or even if – we find it." They had just landed on Dolustea and the other smaller spaceship that had left with them from the imperial starcraft was missing. All the men had been on one ship – not counting the other pilot with two mechanics - and whatever equipment had not fit with them was on the other one. The missing ship did not answer any calls and it did not show up on the radar. If it wouldn't show up there would be no tanks, no howitzer, no armored personnel carriers and almost half of the robots would be gone, too. The good news was that they still had the mining equipment needed to start the operation and the rations, medical supplies and manpower needed was safe too, but if, for some reason, there really would rise a need for more firepower, they really could be in trouble. The ship they had landed with had not yet left and the starcraft was still near the planet's orbit, since everybody was waiting on the Major's decision whether he wanted to continue the mission or abort it. "Ah, to hell with it." he said. "We'll be fine. We'll get more gear once the starcraft comes back to get the first shipment of the menicite. We have the blaster rifles, shield generators and we can use the explosions meant for the mining as weapons if we get in a pickle. I don't want to waste time and we have all the equipment we need to survive and complete the task. Let's go." The landing craft went back to the starcraft that then jumped back into hyperspace. Yuri wondered if this had not been a rash decision. Did they really know what was waiting for them on this unknown planet?

They realized that they either weren't exactly where they were supposed to be. The menicite spot was still a few kilometers away and they didn't have enough vehicles so most of the people had to walk. The weather on Dolustea was awful: the ground was covered in sleet and heavy, watery snow fell from the sky steadily, and even though it wasn't that cold it felt like it because of the humidity. Here and there stood a pathetic, runty tree, otherwise it was open to all direction, slight hills rising from the ground all over. Yuri really was happy to have the jumpsuit that the imperial soldiers used, since it was heated and it could dry itself, the battery was located on the chest. They had given him a full exoskeleton, with the armored plates and all, but the Yuri had turned the motor on it to a minimum since he wanted to feel the physical strain on his muscles. Once they got moving he felt better about the situation.

They shortly arrived at the spot and the engineers started their work. It would take a while before they could get their calculations done so the rest of the group started to make a camp. They would need to rough it out since a lot of the things they would have needed to make themselves really comfortable had been on the other landing craft but Yuri thought that it really didn't seem like much of a problem. The sleeping bags could withstand a blizzard and they put up tarps to protect themselves from the wind. The mining vehicles were put in a circle around the camp, some shield generators were placed in between them and they could be activated in an emergency and the field kitchen was set up. Soon a delicious smell of food was in the air and it was getting darker. Some fires were lit in the camp and one soldier had somehow managed to bring a guitar with him, which he started to strum on when their day was almost done and everybody was waiting for dinner. The Major proposed what songs the soldier should play and then he laughed heartily when the soldier's performance wasn't exactly spot on. "I've been teaching you how to wage war so apparently it falls on me to teach you to play too! Give it here!" the Major said and showed how it was done, displaying clear musical talent when he played the songs he had wished, then taking suggestions from the audience of what they wanted to hear. The hot food tasted very good after a long day in the cold. Sentries were placed on the tops of the mining vehicles, each getting radars and binoculars that could see in the dark. A drone was sent to the air so it could see farther still. Most of the men went to sleep, others chatted by the fire until the late hours.

Yuri couldn't really sleep and he turned and tussled in his sleeping bag. Then he heard one of the soldiers call from the top of the mining vehicle that was behind him. "Major! Are you still awake? Come take a look at this!" The Major was dozing by the fire and he shook his head and climbed on top of the vehicle. Yuri curiously wanted to hear what this was about and he left his sleeping bag and went on top of the vehicle too. The guard tapped on the radar screen and the monitor that showed the camera on the drone, then pointed with his hand to the west. The Major looked through the binoculars. "Riders, huh? There is a village or a small city of the aboriginals near here, so most likely they are from there and now they are curious. It really shouldn't be a problem since this place is as primitive as can be, if they get defiant and throw rocks at us, we shoot a few with our blasters and that'll be that. Keep an eye on them but don't get your panties in a twist. This job will be tedious but otherwise it's going to be smooth sailing." he said and he tapped the guard on his back encouragingly. Yuri couldn't see the riders but on some level he could feel that someone was there looking at them. He stayed up for a while before he went back to sleep.

In the morning they got breakfast and the engineers went back to work. The sky was as gray as yesterday and there wasn't much to be done until the actual mining would start. Everybody lazily waited for noon and lunch. At about eleven AM a guard called at the major again. "They're back, Major! A bunch of them actually! I think they are trying to establish some dominance on us." The Major got up and closed the bottle he had been drinking from. "All right men, ready your rifles! We're gonna fry some of them if they get too close. Take cover behind vehicles, move it!" he ordered and everybody scrambled for their weapons and ran into positions. "They are coming in pretty fast, Major..." the same soldier called but he couldn't finish what he was about to say. A blast from an energy weapon hit him hard and the man came flying down from the vehicle's roof, clearly as dead as a rock. "The shields! Get those running, on the double!" the Major yelled, but he wouldn't have needed to say so since the soldiers responsible for the shields dashed to turn them on. Others shot with their rifles as much as they could and Yuri was shooting too. Some of the riders and animals they hit fell but Yuri wondered if he was seeing right since he thought that some were hit by the blue rays of their weapons but they didn't seem faced. Once the shields popped up, a lot of the shooting stopped since you couldn't fire through it, only in the gaps between two shields were spots where you could shoot. The riders almost immediately turned back once they saw the shields and the soldiers that could still shoot dropped two of them as they routed. Soon they were not visible anymore. "Help the wounded!" the Major yelled, but the only one that had been hit at all was the guard that now was dead. Ambrozy, Yuri and the soldiers looked at the body, and it was clear it had not been a rock that had hit him. The poor man's face was mostly gone and burned, black flesh could be stared back from the helmet. Everyone was grim, and as the Major came to look at the body he was stone faced as well.

"From now on everybody keeps the visors of their helmets down at all times. You, you and you come with me, we'll go see the raiders that we shot." the Major said, pointing at three soldiers on his right. "We'll come too." Ambrozy said, and the Major nodded and left the camp with the three men. Ambrozy and Yuri followed. "The visor isn't going to help much if we are going to get hit with heavy weapons like that." Ambrozy whispered to Yuri once they were out of the other's earshot. "That kind of a blast lingers and it seeps through the joints of the armor. If you get hit squarely to the chest or the back you'll probably be fine but when it's near your shoulders, elbows, knees and the neck it burns through where the protection is the weakest and then causes damage to the person. How the hell these supposed primitives have weapons like that is a good question. This is supposed to be the first time they see extraterrestrials. That can't be true."

The bodies of the riders indicated this as well. The animals they had been riding were ugly as hell, tall two legged creatures that had two bulgy eyes without eyelids and you couldn't see where their chins started since under their throats were strands and strands of hanging flesh. Once the helmets of the riders were removed it was clear that they were just normal humans: with a change of clothing they could have been anyone on Llapus. What was worrying were the weapons and the armor they were carrying: The rifles seemed almost homemade, crude things that seemed like they could backfire at any second and the battery on the guns was dangerously exposed, but it was clear that they packed a punch. The armor seemed strangely like a knock-off imperial armor: the design was off and they didn't have all the parts or the exoskeleton, but now Yuri understood why he had thought that the riders had been hit but they hadn't reacted to it. The Major looked at them with a serious look on his face, then he ordered the soldiers and Amrozy and Yuri to come closer. "You don't say a word about these bodies to the others, you understand? They don't need the discouragement." All of them answered dutifully "Yes, sir" and then they went back to the camp. The fallen guard was given a quick funeral, then the preparations for the mining continued. "The next time those savages come around, the shields go up instantly and we start shooting, is that understood?" the Major said. Nobody played the guitar in the evening.

For two days they were left alone, but it was clear that the Major was having second doubts. What other advanced weapons these locals could have if they possessed blasters and high-grade armor? Would they really be okay with just shields and rifles? Yuri had been really skeptical of the Major's decision to start the mission anyway without the heavier weaponry. On Llapus there were the androids but not even counting that, there definitely were various manners of vicious beasts and animals that could not be dealt with standard firepower. The Herd had usually left the imperial soldiers alone since their route went so close to the capital but the other tribes took the chance if they could and they really could give the empire a run for its money if chose to do so. They even had found a way to disturb the communications so the soldiers could not call for help and afterwards they made the incident look like an animal attack or an accident, so when the officials tried to find out what had happened they often did not even suspect the nomad tribes. No matter how backwards the aboriginals here were supposed to be – and they obviously weren't – they could prove to be surprisingly crafty, especially if their opponent's fell to hubris and wishful thinking. Who knows when was the last time the Major had seen action and how good he really was at it? But Yuri had survived all those years on Llapus so why not here too.

Three days went by and now the excavation had started, a couple of the mining vehicles were in use so the ring around the camp was a bit looser and the robots were being calibrated, but then the drone in the sky started to beep that it was detecting movement. The video feed showed the riders coming their way once again and the shields were put up, but Yuri noticed from the screen as he hurried past it that some of the animals were carrying something that had not been with them the last two times. The good thing was the blasters the expedition appeared to be longer range that what the aboriginals had. The soldiers dropped a few immediately when the riders were within the range and their charge stopped and they turned back, but Yuri noticed that most of the riders had stayed back and not attacked at all. Then the ones that were running away reversed their direction yet again, coming straight towards the expedition, seemingly taunting the soldiers to shoot before they dashed towards the safety. Yuri realized that the aboriginals were measuring the distance of the soldier's rifles and the same thought seemed to have occurred to other soldiers as well, who glanced worryingly at the Major, who looked taut. After a while the riders stopped their probing and they dismounted, starting to unload some of their animals. The Major grabbed the binoculars and moved the drone closer to the riders, looking in turn at the video feed and then through the binoculars.

One of the soldiers couldn't keep his mouth shut. "What are they up to, Major?" It seemed that the Major didn't want to answer, but he didn't want to agitate his men either by being too secretive. "They've got some sort of another weapon with them, big metal boxes. Apparently they can't be used from backs of those animals." Several tense minutes went by as the expedition could only wait passively at what was going to happen. Then loud explosions echoed in the cold and projectiles of bright green light flew into the air towards the camp. They hit the ground about a hundred meters in front of the expeditions and as they blew up the air around them crackled from electricity. "Mortars! We have to advance and take them out or otherwise we are toast! Team One, Two and Three, go! Regular infantry tactics!" the Major yelled, and the men sprung to action. While others provided covering fire, some soldiers sprinted full speed towards the riders while a couple of the shields on the back and sides of the camp were deactivated and the shield bearers ran after the assaulting soldiers. Once they would stop and hit the ground to take cover and fire, the shield bearer would turn on the energy field where they were and a small outpost could be established for the troops. The shield would not be made as big and the soldiers could shoot more safely from behind it. The riders had not understood how fast a man in an exoskeleton could run and it was their turn to be taken by surprise: suddenly the imperials were in their face and there was very little they could take cover behind. Once the shield bearers caught up with them and a protected position was established, the riders didn't have the tools to deal with them. After a shootout that was strongly in the favor of the imperials, the aboriginals could only leave their precious mortars behind and run for good. The animals they had shrieked terribly as they died and the riders who lost their mounts had to get away with their own two feet, becoming easy targets for the soldiers to pick. After a while the shooting died out and Major's radio became alive. "All done, Major. What do you want us to do next?" The Major pressed a button on the communicator before answering. "Stay put, I'll send some guys to pick up the mortars." Soon a few men jogged to the scene with hoversleds, picked up the weapons and came back with the shield bearers and the infantrymen in tow. They were greeted with applause and pats on the back, having shown what the imperial forces were made of. Nobody had died and nobody was injured, while the enemy had lost dozens of men and their weapons to boot, but everybody realized how unbelievably lucky they had been that the riders had not found the correct distance for their mortars immediately. Otherwise this whole battle could have turned into a complete disaster and everybody knew it. They were happy for the victory and for having avenged their fallen comrade, but they now realized how precarious their situation was on Dolustea.

They started to cook dinner and everybody ate greedily once the food was done. The Major had kept to himself all this time, fiddling with the controls of the drone and staring at the screen intently. Once most people were done with the dinner he walked to the middle of the camp and addressed the men. "Everybody, gather around. I have an important announcement." Everybody except the sentries on top of the mining vehicles dropped what they were doing and came to stand or sit around the fire. It was snowing again but the wind had died down.

"This mission has already had its setbacks and we are facing unprecedented dangers and difficulties. Nobody here is so stupid that they don't realize how close we were to a total catastrophe." the Major said. The men around him stayed quiet, listening carefully to what was to come next. "The enemy is not going to leave us alone and after their defeat here today, they are going to be even more hell-bent on taking us out. We can have small groups of few men with shield bearers patrolling around the camp to engage the enemy before they get too close, but the next time they come they are going to bring even more different kinds of weapons and all the men they can. Of this I am certain." he continued. Some men nodded in the audience. "I don't want to sit passively here and take my chances like that. That is not what the empire is about. We are not going to be left alone before we have dealt with this problem permanently. The mining operation cannot advance." The Major pointed with his hand to the west. "Thirty kilometers that way lies an aboriginal village. It is surrounded by a wooden palisade, something you would have seen as boys in the history class. Whatever they have there is going to be breathing on our backs very soon anyway. I say you reap what you sow: we are going to take that village." After the words had sunk in, some of the soldiers started clapping and whistling. If they were suddenly supposed to fight a war they were going to win it. Yuri thought that it was smarter to be proactive too. "We will leave in the morning. The mining will have to be suspended. Start making the preparations right away."

The next day the expedition was leaving and everything had been packed. The spot they had been in was clear of snow since it all had melted away and in the middle of it some of the ground had been moved away, but that was that. New flakes lazily floated down from the sky but once they hit the ground, they turned translucent and disappeared. The whole planet seemed dead and dreary in a way that the lush Llapus never was, not even in the great plains. The humid and vaguely cold air was hard to breathe.

Some squads with shield bearers walked on the sides of the expedition a few dozen meters away, and the drone's video feed was constantly monitored, as the machine flew high over their heads and observed their surroundings. Indeed, it did notice movement after two hours of marching but the riders this time were not here to attack, as they kept their distance and they were in such small numbers that they could not oppose the expedition. "They are going to get really happy once it sinks in that we are going to attack their home. I'm sure they would have attacked us ferociously already if they wouldn't have had the bad experience of the last fight." Ambrozy said to Yuri. It took almost the whole day to arrive at their destination as the expedition advanced very carefully, but now they saw a village a few kilometers away. It really did look like something from the distant past, a wooden wall surrounding puny primitive buildings, some of them made from stone, most of them not. The village represented what the expedition was supposed to have faced on Dolustea, instead of the advanced weaponry that was causing so many problems for them. "All right, so this is what we are going to do." the Major said when he had halted the expedition. "We don't have the howitzer or the tanks so we can't do this the simple way, but we do have the mining vehicles. They will dig a tunnel under the palisade and we'll set up explosives there, then blow up the damn thing. There's no reason to risk it with a direct assault. After their wall is gone, we'll storm in. It's going to be a proper bang, so enjoy the show, people." The Major had a sheen in his eyes that had not been there before and he seemed to stand taller out of sheer excitement. It seemed that he had joined the officer corps for a reason back in the day, but that spark had been buried for one reason or another during the years, and now it was peeking through yet again.

The men were kept spread and the vehicles running, and the idea was to be mobile and not centered in one spot in case the mortars would appear again. The explosions they had generated the last time hadn't been that big and the men in their exoskeletons were nimble and quick enough to get out of the way if they just had the space to move, and the vehicles had just as much chance to dodge shots like that if the drivers were skilled enough and didn't panic, especially since you could see the balls of bright green energy with a naked eye. It would be crucial that the squads protecting the expedition's outer ring would be able to hold their own and not suffer too many losses, since the riders were very mobile too and they could very well flank the expedition if it needed to focus its fighting men on one side only. There were tall and steep rock formations in the area and it was used to close off one side so that the soldiers would not need to cover a complete three hundred and sixty degrees around the camp. The mining vehicles and robots started to dig in the center of them, their backs against the rock formation. There was no chance to have a proper meal, so everybody just munched on the snacks in the military rations as they stood around and were ready to fight back at any given moment. Yuri was surprised how much good gear could lessen the general misery of such a potentially perilous situation situation they found themselves in: He had not been cold as they had been marching because of the exercise and now that they had stopped, the warming function of the jumpsuit under the armor kicked in and all the sweat in his thoroughly wet clothes evaporated and steam was rising from the joints of his and everybody else's armor, and soon he was completely warm from his toes to his head and completely comfortable. One of the men had told him that if there was a situation where the imperial soldiers would have been needed to stay hidden, the heating function of the jumpsuit would be turned off and then many of the pampered soldiers complained like children. Two men ran from person to person and delivered bags of snacks and hot water that everybody took into their personal thermos, and Yuri felt like he was on a picnic as he stuffed his face with peanuts, dried berries, crackers, protein bars and dried meat with a full thermos of instant coffee.

But it was clear that the aboriginals were not going to let them be. An alarm was sounded and Yuri and everyone else had to stuff their food into their pockets and the men on the side where the attack was coming from went to meet their enemy. Yuri remained behind a mining vehicle and a shield bearer since he was not familiar with fighting in a military unit and he felt that he would just be in the way, so he could just watch what was happening in the distance as he peeked from behind the vehicle. It seemed that the riders were determined to break through, maybe through sheer desperation as their home was now threatened, but they did not have an answer to the shields that protected the infantrymen that picked them out one by one, but they did not back down. Some of the men from the other sides of the camp were ordered to help deter the riders, but most of them were kept in their positions in case that the enemy tried to lure everybody on one front. Twenty minutes went by, then thirty, then forty, but the enemy was just stuck and there seemed to be very little of anything they could do, and Yuri wondered if it really had just guessed their plan correctly and now they didn't know what else to do.

"Mortars!" someone yelled, and Yuri turned his gaze towards the sky to see where the attack might be coming from, ready to move out of the way. There really were spots of green light traveling over them, coming from the right side of the camp, but they were so high up that there was no way that they would land anywhere near the imperial soldiers. The shots had come from the woods and it seemed that the riders with the mortars had tried to be as sneaky as possible to place their weapons there, but for some reason they had completely botched their calculations completely and they all seemed to be basically aimed at one spot far behind the camp and they posed no danger to the expedition whatsoever. After two volleys of mortar shots their attack ceased, since the imperial soldiers had apparently driven the enemy away. "Shit, Major!" the man monitoring the drone feed yelled, and Yuri could hear him as he was very close to the Major's position. "The drone was shot down! They couldn't hit the broad side of a barn but they managed to drop the one tiny drone flying that high above us. I'm sorry Major, but that was the only one we had, the rest were in the other landing craft." the soldier said in a rueful voice, but the Major consoled him. "The battle is going well, we'll manage without one. We'll just have to keep our eyes peeled." It did not take long for the fighting to cease since the riders had seen the missed mortar shots, and they retreated. "It's over, Major. They're running away." the radio crackled, and the Major seemed pleased. "Send the wounded back here and have the squads come a little closer to the camp. Good work." Nobody had died but six men were seriously injured and they screamed pitifully as they were dragged to the medics and only ceased when they were injected with painkillers. "It doesn't seem like they are evacuating their village so it is very much a possibility that there will be one last push before we get the explosives in place. Stay alert, men." the Major said to the men and the medics distributed stimulants among the men. It was dark now and the night was coming. The engineers said that the palisades would be down around three in the morning. Everybody needed to be ready for that, but Yuri looked at the pills in his hand with suspicion. "It's alright, just take it. They were designed for situations like this. It is notoriously difficult to constantly stay on your toes, especially after heated battles like this." Ambrozy said to him. Yuri frowned but he gulped the pills down with a sip of instant coffee, and in a few minutes he felt like the king of the world. It was no wonder that the young officers abused the drugs they had access to.

The night felt long since all the light had gone out so early, and all the sentries were equipped with night vision goggles, something that usually was a standard part of every imperial soldier's kit, but, again, most of them had been on the lost landing craft. The squads patrolling the outer circle were given the most of them and a tarp was set up to cover the tunnel the mining vehicles were digging and light was allowed there, but everybody else had to make do with their own eyes. The digging, of course, made tremendous noise, but it was better to not give the enemy an advantage with the whole center of the camp being illuminated. The deeper the robots got, the less you could hear them, and after a point it was almost total silence on their part. Yuri could hear others coughing several meters away from him and the crackling of the ice under their boots as they walked or shifted their weight around, as the wet slush of the day had turned into jagged, hard shapes of ice on the ground when the temperature had dropped significantly. The men had not been ordered to stay quiet per se, but standing there in almost complete darkness and knowing that they might be attacked once more before it was their turn to storm the gates when the explosives would go off was keeping everybody on the edge. Despite all the help technology gave to them, the warmness of the jumpsuit, the energy from the stimulants, the strength of the exoskeleton, you could not deny the primal nature of it all and the anxious sighs of the soldiers around Yuri betrayed their inner struggle to keep themselves together, some from fear, others from excitement. Yuri realized that he had managed to stay calm in the past by usually pretending to be an outsider in the situation, something that he often actually was, but as a pariah he had no stake in the game and he could bolt when it all fell to chaos, and he was very good at building back up from the absolute bottom, and as the very basic needs of food, water and shelter were on the forefront, he had immense skill in satisfying those bare necessities in desperate conditions and then, Yuri realized, he had been his most content. Now, on Dolustea, he didn't quite know what was what. He had jumped on what Ambrozy had been saying, knowing that possibly he was doing so on his peril, but everything was perilous in general so it didn't really matter, and as much the ceremony of them becoming brothers was a sham, Yuri had a connection to the young man, a connection to his goal. No matter what happened, he would have to take care of him and, if it all came to naught and Ambrozy would meet his end, Yuri felt that he should not stop. There would be more of those who would try to accomplish his goal and Yuri should find them and help them, where and when and how he did not know, but the thought of not doing that, not putting one foot ahead of the other, felt dark and empty.

As for now, Yuri could only melt into his thoughts, into what he could hear and smell and feel, as his eyes viewed nothing in the cold dark and there was nothing else to do but to wait. But soon he felt uneasy, like something was creeping up on him, and the worst thing in the world to do was to stand here. He realized that the source of his anxiety was the giant rock formation behind him, the steep and unclimbable stone wall, and in a peculiar way he knew that there was movement there even though his eyes could not tell him so. Without thinking Yuri ran to the tarp that covered the tunnel and started to pull on it to rip it off, but it was already happening: something dropped into the middle of the camp and there was a thud and a suffocated scream, and as the light underneath the tarp was suddenly released, Yuri could see a soldier struggling and dying under an assailant with a blade deep in in his throat, and as the light hit the eyes of the figures standing next to the dying man and his killer, Yuri could only see the flicker of the sharp steel as they dashed towards the nearest soldiers around them. "It's the enemy! Fight back!" Yuri yelled, and as the blaster rifle he was carrying was too big and awkward for melee like this, Yuri tossed it aside and pulled the ceremonial sword out that he had been keeping with him and in flash it went through the side of a rider that was stabbing a soldier he had caught off guard. The camp erupted into a complete chaos and men were running to and fro, but all the light had been aimed to the hole of the tunnel and it did not clear up what was happening around it and only shadows could be seen flailing about further from the hole. Yuri pulled the blade out and he ran deeper into the darkness and put all his weight into a backhanded strike that he just knew he would hit even though he could not see and he felt the strike connect and the blade sunk into the flesh of his opponent who bellowed from pain. Yuri stepped to his right to get away from the weapon hand of his enemy and pushed the man's body to get his own sword free, and he felt the man collapse and flail into the air with his blade in vain as he fell, but Yuri was already running before he hit the ground. Shots crackled into the night from all sides and the blue light of the energy blasts seemed unreal, and some of the quicker drivers of the mining vehicles had put their lights on. Yuri hit his next opponent with a downward slash but the man stepped backwards and blocked his attack with his own weapon, and Yuri saw to others run to his opponents aid. Yuri sidestepped to his right to get all his enemies in the same line so they would be in the way of each other, and the first one's attack he parried before he jabbed the man into the throat with the tip of his sword and he get backing up as the man fell and the two others had to jump over their fallen companion. The next one Yuri cut sideways on his stomach as the man lifted his weapon and turning in his toes Yuri got him in the back of his head too as Yuri stepped on his left and turned on his heels. He barely managed to block the third one's attack and there was no room to move away so they grappled in the dark, slipping on the ice and blaster shots hit the side of a mining vehicle near them. Yuri's enemy lost his balance and Yuri capitulated on it by smashing him against another vehicle just behind the man and he got his sword on his throat. Suddenly a huge explosion shook the ground and on the right of them in the distance a giant fireball rose to the sky, and Yuri knew the palisade was done for as he cut his opponent's throat open without him being able to do anything about it.