by Sky Corbelli
Chapter 42
Tower Defense
It took some doing, but Ezra managed to convince Mat and Sarah to make the hike up to his position. He took a few moments to explain what he'd seen, and was personally rather proud of his calm and rational defense of the fire-kissed he'd spotted.
“How can you possibly be defending him?” Sarah asked in exasperation, sweeping a hand out at the ruined land around them. “Look at this! Fires like this don't just happen, Hawkins. We've been doing this long enough to know that.”
“Well then maybe... I don't know, there must be another fire-kissed in the area or something. But I'm telling you, the one down there didn't do it.”
Mat ran a hand through his short hair, clearly frustrated. “How can you know that, Ezra? I mean, maybe he did it, but people down there just don't know.” He brought his right fist down into his left palm. “I've got it: the people you saw were in cahoots with him, explains everything.”
“Yeah, Mat,” Ezra said, rolling his eyes. “The merchant with a third of his store cut away by what could have been a knife made of fire was probably 'in on it'.”
“The apple could have been like... protection money or something.” Even Mat seemed to realize that it sounded weak.
Sarah threw her hands into the air. “All right Hawkins, fine. It's your show, what's the plan?”
Ezra drummed his fingers against the railgun, thinking as he gazed down at the little town. “We need more information,” he said slowly. “We have to find out exactly what happened here. We're too removed up on this hill, so we can't get a beam on anything to listen in...” He sighed, scanning the remains of the town. Lantern light illuminated it in the growing darkness, the outside edges of the unburnt square swallowed up by the night. A massive bell tower disappeared into the nocturnal gloom. “That church,” Ezra exclaimed. “It's on the edge of where the fire hit. I can't tell for sure from here,” he squinted in the direction of the stone building, “but it almost looks like the whole rear portion was sheared away. I didn't see anyone inside when I scanned for heat sources. If we could sneak in there tonight and set up a spotting point at the top of the tower, we'd be able to do some serious reconnaissance in the morning.” He looked back and forth from Mat to Sarah hopefully.
Mat's head was already shaking. “Not a good idea, man. No way we're hiding the skiff right outside the town, especially when people are bound to be rebuilding tomorrow. If we get found out and have to leave in a hurry, we'd have to hoof it back to wherever we left our ride.”
Sarah was staring intently at the abandoned church. “Hawkins, can you do more than just make pictures with that thing you're always carrying around?”
Ezra blinked at her. “You mean my remote wormhole controller? Of course. I mean, it's a wormhole controller. But without a power supply and a receiving location, the portal will last for about an attosecond. Not very useful.”
Sarah opened her mouth as if to speak, then stopped and grabbed the data pad with the area surveys. “Here,” she said, pointing to a dark, oblong shape, “there's a cavern that should pass right under that church and let out somewhere past those hills over there.” Her head bobbed toward the faint, black outlines in the distance, on the other side of Helena. “We drive the skiff in, sync that wormhole doohickey up with the gravitational stabilizers, and pop up right inside. We can just port back down if things go bad, no harm no foul.”
“What... you... you're actually on board with this?” Mat stuttered, looking at Sarah like she'd just sprouted another head. “Can his controller thing even do that? Ezra, can your thing even do that?”
“Yes, my 'thing' can do that,” Ezra bristled. “I mean, a single port will drain the stabilizers pretty fast.” He shrugged. “Ten seconds of active wormhole time, give or take. Then the skiff's dead.”
Sarah raised her eyebrows at Mat, questioning. “Gah, fine,” Mat grumbled. “Anything to get out of this thundering heat. Move over, Ezra, I'm driving.”
==
“Thought you said your thing was up to this,” Mat drawled. They sat on the skiff, occasional dripping sounds echoing in the cavern around them. “I mean, it's only like five or six meters. We probably could have dug through it in this time.”
Ezra ground his teeth, biting back his first remark. “Yes Mat, why don't you start working on that?” he snapped instead, as he tried to adjust the power input tolerance of the probability matrix. “I'll let you know when I'm done toying with the fabric of reality.” Mat laughed, echoes bouncing the sound weirdly. “That should just about... do it.” Ezra sat back as the controller hummed to life, linked to the skiff's generators via a local net connection Mat had slapped together. “You sure we'll still get power up there?”
Mat's laughter devolved into a derisive snort. “Like a little rock would interfere with a power network grid that I set up. This baby's good for about five klicks in every direction.”
“And now that you're both done stroking your egos, let's get down to business,” Sarah cut in dryly. “Hawkins, here are the coordinates to a spot just outside the church. I'd rather not waste time getting portals stuck in walls, if it's all the same to you.”
Ezra shrugged, giving her a lopsided smile. “Sure.” He keyed in the location. “Okay, everyone in tight, I don't want to make this any bigger than it has to be. And make sure you step off right away; if we drain too much power we'll be walking home.” Mat and Sarah nodded their affirmatives, and he activated the wormhole. The cavern was replaced with a clear night sky, the church looming in front of them, dark and foreboding. The instant they were all clear, Ezra killed the portal and checked his power readings. “Energy for four, maybe five more of those.”
Mat grunted his acknowledgment and they crept into the empty building, weapons drawn. They found a door at one end of the chapel and followed the stairs up to the bell tower without incident.
“This should be a good spot,” Mat murmured, nodding toward the edge. Ezra peeked over, admiring the view. An open-air tavern was just visible at the edge of a lantern's pool of flickering light. “Should get some good gossip down there, especially if we're around to ask the right questions.”
Sarah nodded, pulling out a small pouch of coins. “Or at least if we ask them in the right way.” She jingled the purse meaningfully. “Better get some sleep. I'll take first watch.” Mat and Ezra each claimed a corner of the little tower room, settling down for a night's sleep.
