Nava decided to cut that impulse off. ‘Okay, we have a target. Now we need a plan. We’re going to need transport to get out of here.’
‘I was thinking we’d borrow some from the carpool,’ Nobuyuki said, nodding toward the vehicles at the valley’s mouth. ‘Courtney can fly a contragrav and there look to be a couple of suitable ones over there.’
Nava nodded. ‘We’ll need a distraction if we have to get two injured men from one end of the camp to the other. I’ll provide that.’
‘Good enough,’ Nobuyuki said without a pause. ‘In that case, I’ll take Mitsuko and Courtney down to get Kory and Kyle out.’
‘What about me and Chess?’ Melissa asked.
‘You two will be handling transport.’
‘We’ll make you invisible,’ Nava said. ‘You go down there, find a suitable vehicle, and get into it.’
‘Do you think you can handle that?’ Nobuyuki asked.
‘We’ll do it somehow,’ Melissa replied.
Nava looked out to the valley’s mouth. There were three guard towers watching over the camp, two at each corner of the mouth and one at the back. ‘I’ll take those watchtowers overlooking the parking area down early. Looks like I might get to try my new spell out.’
‘You have a new spell?’ Rochester asked, suddenly very interested.
‘Something I’ve been working on. I combined Magic Bullet with Magic Burst, essentially. It’s a little greedy, but by combining the two, I’ve got a guided missile with a quintessence warhead. I reconfigured it to penetrate armour better too. I have to work it from the schema every time at the moment, but that shouldn’t be a problem if they can’t see me.’
‘Just what kind of distraction do you have planned, Nava?’ Courtney asked.
‘Oh, the easy one. I’m just going to kill as many of them as I can before we leave. That should be a big enough distraction.’
~~~
‘This is the first time in a while that we’ve held hands.’
Melissa glanced back at Rochester. It was a wasted effort, of course, because he was invisible. That was why they were hand-in-hand and crouched in some bushes a hundred metres or so from the vehicle park. ‘I guess it is. Not terribly romantic under the circumstances.’
‘No.’ Pause. ‘So, you and Naomi, huh?’
‘Me and Naomi. I mean, I’m not sure where it’s going. We call each other and send messages. We’ve had… three dates. He’s busy with the ASF and I’m busy with school…’
‘He treats you well? I mean, he’s always seemed rather…’
‘Intimidating? He’s a lot cuter when he wants to be. Or when he gets flustered. He has something in common with you, actually.’
‘Oh?’
‘He gets a lot less confident and imposing when he has to expose his emotions.’
‘I don’t think I’m confident or imposing at any time.’
Melissa smiled, even if he could not see it. ‘You’ve got better.’ Somewhere behind them, something exploded. ‘It’s starting.’ Melissa looked up, waiting for the next detonation. Maybe two hundred metres away, at the southern side of the valley’s mouth, the top of the watchtower was enveloped in a white sphere of light which expanded, brightened, and collapsed in less than a second. ‘Okay, let’s move.’
~~~
Not waiting for the results of her attack on the generator to become clear, Nava turned, raised her SAH-301, and fired her enhanced Magic Burst at the southern watchtower almost a kilometre away. It took nine seconds for the projectile to hit the tower and she was more or less oblivious to her surroundings the whole time. Still, she was invisible and the people she was now surrounded by had not been expecting an attack. The tower’s platform was enveloped in a sphere of pure quintessential energy. The two soldiers in the tower died instantly as skin, muscle, and even bone was torn apart at the subatomic level by raw magic.
Nava did not pause to reflect on their deaths, but she did now check what her first attack had done. The generator was a sealed unit, a small fusion reactor protected by a water jacket, several centimetres of steel, and a magitech radiation barrier. There had to be magicians here to handle the barrier, but then there had to be magicians here to create the illusion hiding the camp. They might be a problem and they might not. Time would tell. Much of the mundane equipment which controlled the reactor and converted the voltages produced within to what was needed without were outside the barrier and the shielding. So, Nava had not attacked the generator as such, risking containment failure and a possible radiation release. Instead, she had destroyed the external equipment and cut power to the camp that way. And she really had destroyed it; there had been an explosion and smoke was pouring from the trailer the gear was in.
So far, so good. There were people starting to run about, grabbing weapons, emerging from the command-and-control vehicle, shouting ineffectual orders… Nava raised her left-hand pistol and fired a normal Magic Burst at the side of the armoured vehicle. The penetrator went right through the armoured side and light blazed out of the open hatch. Then the screams started. Some would be dead, others would be badly injured, but the important thing was that the regiment’s command structure had probably just taken a big hit.
Turning, Nava started for the tents, firing another burst of lethal magic ahead of her.
~~~
Nobuyuki led the way through the camp toward the tents where Kyle and Kory were being held, Mitsuko and Courtney following with the camouflage system on their armour doing its best to conceal them.
They had made it about halfway to their destination – though they were going to have to cover a lot more ground on the way out – and, so far, no one had tried to stop them. That was probably because Nava was raising merry hell somewhere to their right. If you looked that way, you could occasionally see the top of a white sphere appear and then vanish. Once in a while, it was a bigger ball of flame which Nava had to be making up from scratch; they were very big fireballs and Nava was clearly using all of her newly expanded capacity to launch them.
‘She’s practically field artillery,’ Courtney said under her breath. The radio link she had with the others still picked it up.
‘Those Fire Blasts must be close to what a tank cannon produces,’ Mitsuko agreed.
‘A small one,’ Nobuyuki said. ‘Concentrate, ladies.’
‘We’ve reached the vehicles,’ Melissa announced. ‘We’re starting to look for something we can get into.’
‘Acknowledged,’ Nobuyuki replied. Then he took a rapid step forward, his hand rising, fingers straight. Mitsuko was just wondering why when one of the Befreit soldiers stepped around a tent and spotted the man in the shinobi outfit. There was an instant of shock, and that was all Nobuyuki needed. The ninja’s hand almost seemed to slide past the soldier’s neck, but blood sprayed where it passed. The soldier made a choking noise and collapsed onto the grass. He was still breathing, for now, but he would be raising no alarms.
‘That’s an interesting spell,’ Courtney said.
‘Family secret,’ Nobuyuki replied.
‘Good thing Mel isn’t here,’ Mitsuko added as blood began to pool beside the fallen body.
‘Why–’ Melissa began. ‘No, don’t tell me. I’m better off not knowing.’
‘Let’s keep moving,’ Nobuyuki said. ‘The body isn’t obvious, but someone will find it eventually.’ Turning, he started away in the direction of the mercenaries’ tents.
~~~
Nava was listening to the chatter on her radio with half an ear. Most of her attention was on her surroundings and her targets. And her counters. She had two of them and they were keeping track of spell durations. A three-minute counter told her when Active Recovery and Armour needed recasting. A thirty-minute timer told her how long her Invisibility had to run. With all three spells active, she was fairly impervious to whatever the troops threw at her, even if they could work out where she was.
The camp was in utter chaos. Officers were trying to rally troops, but t
hey were facing an unknown enemy who appeared to be able to hit them from all sides with massive firepower. It was an uphill struggle. People were firing at shadows and, more often than not, injuring their fellow fanatics.
She prepared another Fire Blast and launched at a point between two tents. She had been somewhat miffed to discover she did not quite have the capacity for a rank fifty Fire Blast, but her estimate of the explosive force she was generating came to about seven and a half kilos of TNT. Set off among tents which were not fireproof, the results were spectacular. Set off among people, the effects were deadly and more than a little horrific.
‘There! She’s there!’
Nava turned. Maybe twenty metres away, a man was pointing at her: one of the mercenaries. He seemed to be part of a squad; there were nine others with him and they were all carrying versions of the Belgique AR-705 assault rifle which had integral spell carbines. Ten magicians, eight male, two female, and all trained in combat. They represented a more significant threat than the Befreit troops.
Lifting her right hand, Nava aimed at the man who was pointing and launched another Magic Burst. He was wearing a hard clamshell chest plate, but that did not stop the penetrator from passing through. Light blossomed, killing him instantly as his internal organs dissolved. The two men beside him died as their faces were peeled back to the skull beneath. Others took less damage, but the burns would hurt.
Bullets streamed back at Nava. The AR-705 fired 5.45 mm bullets meant to kill unarmoured targets. Six of them hit and flattened against Nava’s Armour spell. Nothing penetrated. She cast again. Both of the women died along with another of the men. Another man passed out, probably from the pain of the burns. That was not going to be good enough for Nava; they all needed to die even if their counterfire was entirely ineffectual. She let loose another Magic Burst.
A grenade bounced across the grass on Nava’s left. Someone had thrown it from behind her, aiming at a target they had only a general area for, based on where the mercs were shooting. It landed some eight metres away, a fragmentation grenade from the design. She dropped sideways, rolling away from the explosion which happened a second later. The blast buffeted her magic barrier, not harming her in the least, and she sent another Magic Burst at the mercs just to make sure, before turning toward the grenadier.
He was, as she had suspected, getting ready to throw another grenade. He was one of the Befreit troops, wearing nothing in the way of armour because he had rushed out, unprepared, to look for whatever was attacking. He stood no chance at all and she watched as his chest vanished into the blast of quintessence.
Two seconds later, his grenade exploded, but by that time Nava was on her way and looking for her next target.
~~~
‘I am going to say we should take this one,’ Rochester said. The one in question was a contragrav transport about the size of a minibus. It was unarmoured, but it had plenty of seats and looked serviceable.
‘Why that one?’ Melissa asked.
‘The door’s open.’
‘That makes things easier. Are you sure you can hack the controls?’
‘Mel…’ Rochester sounded a little affronted.
‘Okay, okay. Better get started. We’ve got about fifteen minutes before the Invisibility spells wear off. I’ll keep watch.’
‘Getting started.’
~~~
‘Go.’
Nobuyuki’s voice came over the radio and Mitsuko fired. Fifteen metres away, a man’s head parted company with his body as her Slice spell, launched from her carbine, bisected his neck. She had, technically, killed people before. She had thrown a Fire Blast into a group of Befreit terrorists knowing that one of them was readying a grenade. It was hard to tell whether her spell or the following explosion had done more damage, but the men had been dead either way. This was different. This time she had been able to see the harm she had done and the inevitable result. She allowed herself a second to consider that before moving.
Courtney did not allow herself the same consideration. She had taken out the other guard on the tent. A little further away, Nobuyuki was dispatching two guards, by hand, solo, but… ninja. Ninja sorcerer, in fact. Courtney was on her feet and bolting for the tent flap almost before her target’s body was hitting the ground. It had taken them five minutes to carefully crawl into firing position and now Courtney could not wait to see who was inside. When she got inside, she came to a sudden stop.
The man inside spoke. ‘What do you want n– Who… Who the hell are you?’ Kyle was looking out of one eye; the right one was purple and swollen closed. There were bruises along his jaw and cheekbones. Blood was clogging one nostril and his nose was out of shape, suggesting a break. Being naked from the waist up, the bruises across his stomach were obvious and large. Reaching up, Courtney unlocked her helmet and lifted it off her head. ‘Courtney? What are you– Am I hallucinating? Wait… That’s Nava?’ He nodded his head backward in the general direction of where the explosions could be heard every so often. He could do little else because he was cuffed to a pole in the middle of the tent.
Courtney bit back a sob. ‘Yes. Yes, that’s Nava. Who else?’
‘It’s true,’ Mitsuko said, following Courtney into the tent. ‘The cavalry has arrived.’ Pause. ‘Maybe that should be the artillery.’ Her eyes scanned over Kyle and she forced herself to sound business-like. ‘Courtney, you can unlock those cuffs, right? I’m sure Kyle would like to be out of them.’
‘Right,’ Courtney said, circling around to Kyle’s back.
‘I have Kory,’ Nobuyuki said over the radio. ‘He can walk, but that’s about it. They’ve been injecting him with Down.’
‘Damn,’ Mitsuko muttered. ‘Have they been using Down on you, Kyle?’
‘Uh, yeah, I think that’s what it was,’ Kyle replied. ‘I feel like I’m drunk. Except without the pleasant, uh, aspects. Is that you, Suki?’
‘The same,’ Mitsuko replied, frowning. Down was a drug given to magicians to suppress their ability to cast spells. Effectively, it caused confusion which made it harder to cast; usually, someone injected with the stuff was entirely unable to work a spell for several hours. The confusion also made interrogation easier, which was why it was the control method of choice when you needed to question a magician. If you just wanted to stop them casting, you gave them a sedative or put them in a suppression field.
There was a click and Kyle moved his arms from behind him, rubbing at his wrists.
‘Can you stand?’ Courtney asked.
‘If you’ve got a way out of here,’ Kyle replied, ‘I’ll crawl there if I have to.’ Having said that, he climbed to his feet a little laboriously. ‘I can stand. How are we getting out?’
‘Mel and Chess are securing our transport,’ Mitsuko replied. ‘We’re stealing one of their contragravs.’
‘Mel and…’ Kyle shook his head. ‘Gang’s all here, huh?’
‘They volunteered,’ Courtney replied. ‘They volunteered to come save a friend.’
‘What about Kory? Uh, First Lieutenant Kory Greyling, I mean.’
‘Nobuyuki’s taking care of him. Let’s go before someone realises Nava is just the distraction.’
Somewhere in the near distance, something exploded. ‘That’s just a distraction?’ Kyle asked.
Mitsuko shrugged. ‘Well, you know Nava. Once she gets started…’
~~~
Nava’s senses followed her enhanced Magic Burst through a phalanx of troops to the man at the back who was about to fire a man-portable missile in her direction. Roughly in her direction. Maybe she should have let him do it and watched the carnage. Instead, she hit him in the chest just as he fired. Her target and a few people around him vanished almost entirely. The missile was caught in the blast and its engine sputtered and died about ten metres from its launcher. And then it exploded. Messy.
From the radio chatter, the others had located Kyle and Kory, but it was going to take a while to get them to the vehicle. Maybe fifteen minutes or
so. Nava allowed herself an inward smile, not allowing it out even though no one could have possibly seen it. She had another fifteen to twenty minutes to work with before she was going to have to retreat. How many of them could she take out in that sort of time? Only one way to find out…
~~~
‘Done,’ Rochester said. ‘With only a ketcom portable interface and wireless comms.’
‘You’re a genius, Chess,’ Melissa said.
‘I wouldn’t say that…’ Rochester preened a little anyway. ‘Actually, the security on this thing is pitiful. If you didn’t know what you were doing, I’d imagine it would present a challenge, but I do know what I’m doing.’
‘Misspent youth? You never did say why you learned to crack computer systems.’
‘It was a reaction to bullying. You know the theory that bullies are cowards and they’ll back down if you fight back?’
‘I’ve heard it said.’
‘Well, me fighting back with my fists was never going to work. I found that securing blackmail material by hacking into their personal computer systems worked just as well. Possibly better.’
‘That’s nasty. I’m a little impressed. I’d never have thought of that. Then again, I was never bullied.’
‘Never?’
Melissa shook her head, though she was still invisible and he could not see it. ‘I just avoided anything which might cause me to be. I think some of the girls in my class wanted to bully the shy girl, but the shy girl would vanish before they got the chance. I’ve never been good at confrontation.’
‘Isn’t confrontation precisely what we’re doing here?’
‘Hm. Maybe I’ve got better…’
~~~
It was slow-going. Neither Kyle nor Kory could move at anything more than a brisk walk. There was the added complication of remaining hidden as they made their way around the edge of the valley.
Nobuyuki was in the lead, with Courtney and Mitsuko helping the two injured men behind him. There were frequent pauses as they waited for soldiers to move away. It seemed as though the Befreit commander was starting to gain more control over his troops. The better ones were starting to search the camp for signs of further intrusion.
Freedom, Humanity, and Other Delusions (Death's Handmaiden Book 3) Page 22
