Mage Marine Misfits: Book 01

by Derek Wallace

  The Stits flanking her waited for her to walk on her own but were seemingly unfazed when she didn’t. They just grabbed her arms and propelled her along until she was standing by the bed.

  “Please,” she pleaded, her voice and her lips trembled as she stared up at the Stits holding her, looking desperately for a smidgeon of mercy.

  They just pushed her forward so she was bent over the bed. Zorica struggled against their hold but they were stronger than anyone or anything she had ever encountered. Heavy footsteps near the door had her raising her head hopefully. But it was only the infected Stits, standing listlessly just inside the doorway, eyes red and vacant, mouth open and drooling as he stared blankly in front of him. Zorica began to hyperventilate. Were they going to infect her with whatever he had?

  The man-shaped thing gestured to the infected Stits and he walked forward slowly, coming to a stop in front of it.

  The thing pointed at the infected, his nail elongating and then curving into a tube. He stabbed the infected Stits with his nail. The Stits jerked in surprise but then held still again, face still blank. The thing’s nail filled with blood and then he extracted it and glided toward Zorica.

  “No! Please,” Zorica struggled, eyes wide, fixed on the thing’s finger.

  Everyone in the room ignored her as he came closer and closer, and Zorica struggled in earnest, trying to do everything to get away from that finger. As he approached, she tried to astral project in an effort to get to the ingredients she needed to start a fire in this bitch. The thing lifted his hand and then lowered it, and her spirit trying to rise was effectively stopped and returned to her body. Her jaw dropped in shock. She had never seen or heard of anyone able to control the spirit in such a way. What was this thing?

  Then he was beside her, stabbing into her neck with his nail and she wished for oblivion to take her away before she turned into whatever monster this infection caused. Her breath was hitching as tears rolled down her cheeks. The thing stepped away from her, eyes glowing bright crimson from within the impenetrable shadows of its hood.

  Zorica stiffened, feeling the poison coursing through her like a runaway freight train. It was too late for her to do anything about it.

  ∞

  Uzochi pulled them both back to their bodies, reeling from what they’d seen.

  “Can we save her?” Jordan asked, grabbing him as soon as he was back in his own body.

  “Save her? What happened?” Jaime asked urgently, grabbing Uzochi too.

  “What was that thing?” Uzochi asked and shivered.

  “Uzochi!” Jaime and Jordan both yelled. He jerked, turning to face them. “Kamikaze mission. That’s the only way.”

  “What?” Ash stepped forward. “What do you mean kamikaze mission? Why would we do that?”

  “We have to get her back,” Uzochi said.

  “Everybody stand down,” Jaime ordered and everyone turned to face him. “Now, Uzochi, explain yourself.”

  Uzochi tried to explain in as much detail as possible what they’d seen in the mission.

  “So if she’s already infected, why do we have to plan a suicide mission to save her?” AX asked.

  “Because the thing did not mean to kill her,” Jordan said. “That wasn’t his intention.”

  “What was his intention?” Jaime asked, dread pooling in his stomach.

  “He expected something to happen. Something different. I don’t know what though. We would need to go back-”

  “No, we need to go and save her,” Jaime interrupted.

  “But how is she to be saved if she’s infected?” Ash asked.

  Jaime lifted an eyebrow at her. “I thought you were the healer, Ash.”

  Ash shook her head. “I have seen nothing like this before. I would not even know where to start.”

  “Before we debate the merits and demerits of treatment, we have to get her back. There is a quarantine bay on the ship,” Epone pointed out.

  “Okay, so…plan?” Jaime said, stroking his cheek thoughtfully.

  “Kamikaze mission,” Epone repeated.

  “There will be no suicide missions,” Jaime declared.

  “Then what?” Epone asked irritably.

  “We know where they are. We just need a plan for extraction.”

  The room was silent for a long while.

  AX suddenly staggered and his eyes changed. The bright blue of his operating system dimmed, and Dr. Teke’s brown eyes took their place.

  “I might have a notion,” he said.

  “AX?” Jordan said taking a step closer.

  Dr. Teke turned his eyes toward Jordan. “You know it’s not.”

  Jordan nodded. “How?”

  Matthias shrugged. “I think that AX shutting down on the Soulhag ship reset us both. It woke me all the way up and while AX rebooted, he did not completely take me over again.”

  “So you’re…you again?”

  Matthias shrugged. “I am both of us.”

  “Great, a schizophrenic AI-human hybrid,” Jaime said impatiently. “Can we get back to how we are extracting Zorica?”

  “Yes as I was saying, I may have a notion,” Matthias said.

  “Continue,” Epone said stepping closer.

  “Among my many…experiments…was one that would enable one to shape shift,” he said. “We can use that to infiltrate the Stits’ layer.”

  “Like what Epone did by possessing the Soulhag!” Jaime exclaimed.

  “Except for how it’s our own bodies that we would be using,” Ash pointed out.

  “Can we do the possession thing again?” Jaime asked Epone.

  She shook her head. “Last time, I had Zorica’s help.”

  “And this thing we are hunting is no Soulhag,” Uzochi said. “She would not be able to possess anyone undetected.”

  “Are we going to kill it or just grab Zorica and run?” Ash asked.

  “We don’t know how to kill it,” Jordan said.

  “We don’t know what it is,” Jaime added.

  “So we shapeshift into Stits, that maybe gets us in the building. How do we get her out?” Epone asked.

  “We have weapons,” Jordan said, like it should be obvious.

  Jaime wrinkled his nose. “So we just fight our way out and hope for the best? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Unless you have a better plan,” Jordan said with a shrug.

  Jaime sighed. “Okay then, let’s minimize risk okay? Uzochi, I need you to go back and get as much detail as you can. AX, I need you to scan all architectural systems for this planet from absolutely anywhere and see if there are alternative entrances and exits to this bunker. Ash, stock up on any antidotes and healing spells you know, we have to be ready for anything.”

  “What about you? What will you do?” Jordan asked, eyes narrowed.

  “Try to get more info,” Jaime said shortly. The others waited for him to expand on that but he said nothing more.

  “What are you waiting for?” Jaime prompted.

  Epone sighed, stepping forward to make the magic pentagram. Matthias’ eyes went from brown to bright blue as AX came back online. Jaime walked out of the room.

  The others watched him go and then got back to carrying out their tasks.

  ∞

  Jaime decided that he needed to trigger a vision. It was essential that they knew what they were walking into. He had no idea how to do that but he’d been trying to map out a pattern of when the visions occurred to him. One thing he’d noted was that every time he had a vision, it was an occasion of high stress. He couldn’t think of anything more stressful than having Zorica lost to him forever. He shied away from really analyzing why that was, but he was sure he needed to get her back. He needed her to know…that she was important. Important to the team, important to him.

  He closed his eyes, breathing slowly, opening his mind and willing something to manifest.

  For a while, there was nothing but dead a
ir.

  ‘…she’s….the answer…’

  It was very faint; he couldn’t even tell whether it was a man or woman speaking.

  “The answer to what?” he wondered aloud.

  ‘….hybrid…blood…’

  Jaime frowned, trying to put it all together.

  “A hybrid’s blood is the answer?” he asked himself, brow furrowing. “Answer for what?”

  Jaime thought about what Uzochi had said about the vision. They’d infected Zorica possibly with the contagion that had infected the base hospital. If it was some sort of experiment, then they were looking for something. Maybe a reaction with her blood? Zorica was definitely a hybrid. Half human, half Stits; not many people in the known universe could claim that. Zorica could well be a population of one. Perhaps the Stits thought that gave her some immunity?

  But that didn’t make sense because both humans and apparently Stits were infected. Plus the thing that was experimenting on her was neither one nor the other. Could it be the Source of the infection? Could whatever it was be trying to make it even more potent?

  Anything was possible at this point.

  Jaime found that he really didn’t care what the thing wanted to achieve. His principal concern was that it not used Zorica to do it. The rest they could sort out later.

  He walked back into the common room to see Uzochi sitting on the couch, his head in his hands.

  “What happened?” Jaime asked, his heart sinking.

  Uzochi looked up. His eyes were swollen and ringed with red.

  “Oh God, what happened?” Jaime asked, walking over to him. He stopped, looking for Ash.

  “Why aren’t you helping him?” he asked.

  “I have done what I can,” Ash said, turning away shamefacedly.

  Jaime squatted down to face Uzochi. “Tell me what happened.”

  Uzochi simply shook his head. Jordan stepped forward.

  “Uzochi was right. The thing can see into the veil. He sensed us as we tried to spy on them. Attacked us with some psychic acid. It burned Uzochi. He protected me. I don’t think the thing saw me or knew I was there. We got out as fast as we could.”

  Jaime slumped to the floor, feeling discouraged about this plan.

  “We can’t use any psychic skills. No magic. We have to go manual,” AX said.

  “What do we got?” Jaime asked, not looking up.

  “We have Dr. Teke’s shapeshifter spell, and we have blueprints for every cave and foxhole on this planet. We have Jordan’s guns, your laser rifle, and Epone’s mage fire,” AX said.

  “Will it be enough?” Jaime asked, looking up at last.

  “It has to be.”

  “We can do this,” Uzochi said, his voice weak and faint.

  Jaime nodded. If Uzochi could believe, who was he to stand in the way of that?

  “Are you okay? Would you like to sit this one out?”

  “No.” Uzochi got to his feet, staggered before straightening up. “I am coming.”

  “Okay. Let’s get this show on the road. The first step, shapeshifter spells. Next step, steal a planetside vehicle and find the bunker. AX? You have a location for us?”

  “I do. Better yet, I know a back door.”

  “Do we have any way to gauge security?”

  “Not until we’re closer.”

  “Okay then, let’s go.”

  ∞

  Zorica was hallucinating. She knew she was because she could not quite latch onto anything she was seeing. Everything was in her periphery or looked blurred. When she reached out to touch, everything was just out of reach. She seemed to be back in the cave where she was born, and her demon mother was somewhere to her right, carving a deer for dinner. She could smell the blood and excrement from the slaughter but if she turned her head, her mother and the deer disappeared. The smell remained though.

  She remembered this feeling from smoking cannabis with the Nerdians from Stul when she was living on the western moon colony. She took a step and there was a rainbow whirlwind around her, making her dizzy, stopping her forward progress. She didn’t know which way was up and if she was standing, sitting or lying down.

  In the back of her mind was a sense of urgency; a feeling like time was running out. Or that she should be running or hiding; something.

  “He..l..p,” she murmured slowly to herself, trying to lift her hand to her face. She moved, and the room spun around her, confusing her further. How was she supposed to escape if things did not stay where they were?

  There was a disturbance of sound to her periphery and she tried to latch onto that, turn in that direction. If she could just situate herself in the room, she could begin to plan an escape. Even as she thought it, she knew there was no way she was getting out of here without help.

  Chapter Fifteen: Steve McQueen

  The shape shifter spell worked spectacularly. Jaime could not believe how well. He kept looking to his right and doing a double take because he kept forgetting that Epone did not look like herself anymore. She was his teammate and they were taking the front tunnel while Jordan and AX took the back door. Ash and Uzochi were on lookout detail.

  “We are in position,” AX’s voice came through the comm.

  “Do you have eyes on the target?”

  “Negative. Taking out patrols now,” Jordan said, and that was followed by the muted sound of gunshots and then twin heavy thuds followed.

  Jaime and Epone slowed down as they came to the front doorway. There was an electronic lock on the door.

  “AX, do you have the code for the door?” Jaime asked.

  “Yes indeed. However, it is a biometric password so you need to wait for one of them to appear and use their finger.”

  “We look like Stits though, won’t that do?”

  “No, sir. Your DNA is still very much your own.”

  Jaime sighed and hunkered down to wait.

  “Do we have timings of patrols?” he asked.

  “One every fifteen minutes. Remember to take on their appearance once you take them down.”

  Jaime rolled his eyes and fixed himself between a pillar and a post. Epone stood behind him, still as a statue. They didn’t wait long before three guards came walking toward them along the dirt path that lined the bunker. Jaime raised his laser rifle, taking out the first guard while Epone threw a silencing spell so the other two could not raise the alarm. Two shots later and all three guards were down.

  “How do we change shape AX?” Jaime asked.

  “Just get a bit of their DNA, hair, skin, nails, and mix it with the potion. Drink.”

  Jaime sighed. He had been hoping not to have to drink the noxious potion again, but needs must. They pulled a bit of the Stits’ eyebrows off and added it to the drink, downing it in one go.

  “Here goes nothing,” Jaime said, scavenging the Stits for weapons before opening the door and striding in like he owned the place.

  The tunnel was dark as night and disorienting to boot, but he kept his eyes and feet going forward, and soon they had reached the other side where another door awaited. Epone did the honors this time and they entered into a large, lab-like room, cautiously.

  Stits milled about, seemingly busy while Zorica lay on an iron bed in the middle of the room, her eyes closed but still agitated. She was struggling against the restraints that held her, eyes fluttering like she was trying to open them. Nobody took any notice especially since she was locked down with shackles.

  The black lines of illness already veined her neck and arms but she had no monster-like appendages. There was a red light pulsing under her skin, illuminating her like a disco. It was all Jaime could do not to run to her and unstrap her. He lifted his gun, aiming at the first person he saw and pulled the trigger.

  Nothing happened.

  The Stits continued to mill about like Jaime and Epone weren’t even there.

  “It’s a spell,” Epone said. “A glamour.”

  “So…wha
t? She’s not really here?” Jaime asked.

  Epone began to search the ground at their feet, looking for God knew what. She swept her hands from side to side as if trying to touch something that might be invisible.

  She began to murmur under her breath.

  “Aspectus Invisus.”

  The room began to glow with a faint green light.

  “What’s happening?” Jaime whispered.

  “It’s a cloaking spell that is hiding what is really in this room,” Epone whispered back. The green light kept getting brighter and brighter until it was almost blinding.

  “Debilito!” Epone yelled, and suddenly they were in a dark tunnel again.

  ∞

  Jordan put a hand out to stop AX’s forward progress.

  “There’s a glamour here,” he said, giving the hybrid a sidelong glance. His hand lingered on AX’s arm.

  “What do you suggest we do?” AX asked.

  Jordan thought for a minute. “Close your eyes, and hold onto me.”

  AX smirked.

  “Shut up,” Jordan said.

  AX obediently closed his eyes and wrapped his hands around Jordan’s waist. Jordan closed his eyes as well, taking deep breaths, and let his instinct guide him. It was a thin line between using psychic ability and instinct, but he skated just on the right side of it so as not to attract any unwanted attention. He took one step and then another, four senses on high alert. He followed the coppery smell of blood, remembering Uzochi’s vision. It was highly likely that wherever the blood was, Zorica would be too.

  He also kept an ear out for approaching footsteps, any rustling that would indicate guards were near. They were disguised as Stits but that didn’t mean they were free to be as careless as they liked. He thrust a hand out, trailing it against the wall until it touched thin air. He opened his eyes briefly to see that they were surrounded by Karna wolves, nipping at their heels.

  He gasped in fear, immediately scrunching his eyes shut.

  “What is it?” AX asked.

  “Nothing. Don’t open your eyes,” Jordan said as he turned into the corridor that was clearly there, even though he hadn’t seen it when he’d opened his eyes. They walked slowly until they came to a door.

  Jordan took a deep breath.