by J. N. Chaney
Kira cursed. One ahead of them was about to cut them off from the trail forward. She snapped out two more shots and missed with one, but the other struck home and made the thing stagger sideways. Gillis’s railer snapped behind her. This was, she realized, a road to nowhere; if they tried to make a stand here, in the open, they’d be overrun. She smacked Gillis’s shoulder and shouted again.
“I said let’s go!” Kira bellowed, already lunging into motion.
They’d have to run the only direction they could, perpendicular to their intended path, which meant down into lowland they hadn’t traversed yet. Kira could only desperately hope they could find something, some configuration of rocks or fallen trees or anything that would give them enough cover to go firm and defend themselves.
They had less than one railer mag each.
She ran, Gillis pounding along behind her. But she’d only taken three paces before another of the monstrous things erupted from the bush ahead of her.
Kira spun around. “Back to back. We’re surrounded.” Her tone was calmer than she expected, years of training beginning to weigh despite their desperate straits.
He turned and covered a one-eighty arc, Kira covering the rest of the circle. She knew it verged on hopeless; the only thing they had going for them was that none of these things had deployed ranged weapons yet and seemed determined just to get in close.
Which was a whole different flavor of horrifying all on its own.
Kira and Gillis pumped out deliberate shots, counting their rounds as they did.
. . . eighteen . . . SNAP . . . seventeen . . . SNAP . . .
Two more of the things went down, crippled. Others closed in. Kira cursed their machine nature; all of her fearsome powers as a Joiner were useless with no minds to influence. Thorn had been right; Joining just wasn’t in the same league as ’casting when it came to applying force.
She drew her focus back to the battle at hand. There was still a chance, even without Joining. If they ran out of targets before they ran out of rounds, they might—
. . . thirteen . . . SNAP . . .
“Kira!”
Gillis had cried out as one of the slithering tentacles closed around his leg. Kira turned, all too aware that yet another of the damned things was closing in on her, and shot the one clutching at Gillis. Two shots, and it flopped to the ground, expelling a spray of gases and fluid from one of the bullet holes. As Gillis fought to pull his leg free, Kira spun back around to find one of the constructs almost within reach, writhing tentacles about to wrap around and smother her.
But the construct abruptly shot up into the air five meters, then plummeted down and slammed into the ground with a massive bang. At the same time, a fierce jet of flame, like a blowtorch, sliced into another of their attackers. A tentacle dropped off with a heavy clunk, the tip curling in spastic memory. Another came on, but Kira saw Rainer and Riley at the edge of the clearing. Rainer reached out a hand, made a fist, and, true to her powers as a Hammer, lifted and slammed the construct against the ground again with a ceaseless rhythm that rendered the alien weapon into so much scrap.
Kira took advantage of the momentary confusion to pump railer shots into more of the things. It bought them a respite and, more importantly, a path out of the clearing. Gillis, now free, lunged to his feet and ran, Kira at his side. They made it to Rainer and Riley; together, the four of them plunged back into the undergrowth. Ten meters in, they stopped to catch their breath.
“You guys okay?” Rainer asked.
“Aside from being scared shitless, yeah,” Kira gasped. She glanced at her railer. “I’m down to—shit. Six rounds.”
“Seven here,” Gillis put in.
“We’ve each fired about a dozen,” Riley put in. “We’ve been ’casting otherwise.” She heard him suck in a breath behind his faceplate. She couldn’t see his eyes but could well imagine them, wide as portholes, probably just like hers. “But I’m nearly tapped out,” he went on.
“Starting to feel it here, too,” Rainer said. “What the hell are these things? Where did they come from?”
“Could this be part of the exercise?” Gillis asked. “I mean, making it as realistic as possible and all that?”
“If it is, I’m going to personally kick asses—hell, Fielder, even Narvez, I don’t care.” But then she remembered that abbreviated comm message, the scream from the enemy force that was abruptly cut off, and shook her head. “But, no. This is the squids. There’s nothing like this in our tech, and sure as hell not in our training drones,” Rainer said.
“Why, though? What are they doing here—?” Gillis started, but he never got to finish. An untold number of the tentacled constructs suddenly appeared all around them, quickly closing.
The next few minutes, maybe seconds, were a blur of shouts, railer shots, and more of Riley’s flame and Rainer’s telekinesis. But it wasn’t enough. Kira saw the railer ripped out of Gillis’s hands; more tentacles swarmed and engulfed him. Riley went next, bursts of flame erupting in the bush around them as he was yanked off the ground. Rainer shouted something at her, about the same instant that the action on Kira’s railer locked in the open position, her mag empty. And then Rainer was gone.
Kira lashed out with the railer, trying to pistol whip the thing that suddenly loomed over her, blotting out the stars. She felt a solid hit, metal on metal, then a sinuous pressure as the tentacles wrapped around her arms, her legs, her torso, and she was being lifted—
Kira howled in rage as she was carried off into the night, head snapped back in a brutal movement as the construct holding her accelerated to wild speeds. She tried to scream and failed as a tentacle crushed her jaw together, and the landscape became nothing more than a smear of light.
9
Thorn strolled through the Arboretum, satisfaction humming through him that he’d been able to save it, and the rest of Code Gauntlet, from destruction. Touching leaves as he walked, each step sank into the long grass, cool under his bare feet. Unerring, he walked—ambled, really—to the place he’d last spoken to Kira, standing in the grass, admiring the park, and seeing her face in a fugitive memory that felt as real as if she’d been standing there.
Day. Or—night. Because it was dark. Strangely dark, in fact. The Arboretum was normally kept lit, its day cycle specifically tailored to maximize its benefit for the many plant species it contained. During quiet hours, the lights were dimmed, but never to less than twilight levels of cozy gloom. The plants didn’t seem to mind, and it meant that people with odd duty-shifts could come here any time to enjoy the tranquility of the place.
But this was dark. And darkness made him think of the witchport, and the war out there, so he stopped and looked around in mild confusion. A movement to his left drew his attention, and there was Kira, sitting in the grass, a picnic lunch laid out on a blue cloth. There was wine, and fruit, and the unimaginably expensive cheese made from actual milk, and even bread that didn’t look like it had been mixed with sawdust.
“Kira?” he asked softly. “When did you get back?”
She smiled at him but said nothing.
Thorn walked toward her. He saw that Kira was wearing a stealth suit. With a tactical harness. What? Why?
“Kira, what the hell’s going on? How long have you been here? And why are you dressed like that?”
Kira, still smiling, opened her mouth to speak—
And screamed, a shrill, piteous scream of endless pain, the sound vibrating in Thorn’s teeth and bones and even setting the hair on his neck at attention. It was an animal’s shriek of loss and fear, primal in every sense, and Thorn reeled back, feet slipping in the cool grass that was now slick with something—dew, he thought, then he smelled the tang of copper and knew it was blood, an ocean of it running wild through lawns. The blood stained Kira’s suit, her hand dripping as she continued to shriek, but she offered him an apple with her left hand, the fruit gripped so hard it began to weep in her pallid, tight fingers.
He was frozen in plac
e, the blood like glue and holding him to watch her as she howled forever, a sound that would not—could not—end because of the pain and rage
Thorn thrashed around, trying to break free—
“Lieutenant!”
He turned toward the voice but kept flailing around.
“Lieutenant Sellers, stop! Shit—can I get a hand over here?”
His arms and legs were bound, immobile, and now something pressed him down, an oppressive weight, leaving him helpless.
You need to wake up, Stellers. You’re dreaming.
The voice, smooth and powerful, sliced through the panic chewing away at his reason. It made him hesitate.
I’m—what?
“I said you’re dreaming,” the same voice replied, but this time he heard it as it was speaking almost in his ear. “You were asleep. So you’re dreaming. But now it’s time to wake up. Open your eyes.”
He did.
Thorn lay in a bed, surrounded by white. Everything was a sterile white. Bedclothes, walls, ceiling, all white.
A hospital.
He turned to the nearest face, an uncertain oval of skin that began to gain details as he took shuddering breaths and fought, fought hard, to lean back in the sheets, now slick with his sweat. Other faces hovered around the bed. He recognized some. Maybe.
“Where—”
“Are you?” a different face said. “That’s always the first question, and good to hear. Means they’re probably on the mend.”
The first face gained details, and he knew her.
“Densmore?”
She smiled wryly. “That’s Captain Densmore to you, Specialist.”
One of the others—a doctor, and he recognized her, the Base Surgeon at Code Gauntlet—leaned closer, holding a small light. She flashed it into Thorn’s eyes, then away, apparently watching his pupils respond. As she did, she said, “What’s your name?”
“Uh . . . Thorn.”
“Rank?”
“Specialist. Maybe Lieutenant?”
“In?”
“The ON. Orbital Navy.”
“Service number?”
“Uh—N83179—uh. Shit. I think it ends 24, but it might be 42.”
“Who won the ON racquetball championship seven years ago?”
Thorn blinked. “What?”
The doctor grinned and straightened. “Just messing with you. For the record, it was me.” She stuck her hands in the pockets of her white smock. “The last big hurdle was him waking up with his cognitive facilities intact. He’s done that. All his other tests check out, so—” She shrugged. “We can discharge him by the end of the day.”
The enigmatic woman named Densmore, who was a Starcaster herself and obviously an agent of whatever the most secretive, spooky part of the ON was called, nodded. “Thank you, doctor.”
“Thank you for not letting him vaporize the infirmary.”
Thorn looked from one to the other. “Ma’am—er, Ma’ams, I’m right here, you know. You don’t need to talk about me like I’m not.” He looked at Densmore. “What’s this about me vaporizing things?”
“The good Doctor here asked me to help out, since your cortisol levels, or something like that, suggested you were starting the process of waking up. Everyone was afraid you might be disoriented when you did. And disoriented Starcasters can do a lot of damage.”
Thorn glanced past her. “Is that why they’re here?”
He looked at a pair of ON Security, standing with weapons drawn just a few meters away. One of them was the squat, unibrowed Petty Officer who’d confronted him in the gym after his magical altercation with Kira. Densmore gave a slight shrug.
“Call them plan B, in case I couldn’t contain any unintended ’casting you might have done while waking up.” She nodded at the Security detail, and they holstered their weapons.
“Would’ve been a shame to have to have blown your head off, sir,” the Petty Officer said, a twinkle in his eye.
“Yeah, you seem really broken up at the prospect.”
The man grinned and saluted, then they left. As they did, they dodged around someone Thorn recognized entering the infirmary.
“Mol? Holy crap, did everyone I know come here to see me wake up?”
Mol grinned. “Nope, I was her ride.” She jerked a thumb at Densmore.
“I happened to be aboard your old ship, the Apollo, when word came in. About you, and your achievements, let’s say,” Densmore said. “Captain Samuels assigned her to fly me here to Code Gauntlet.” She lifted a brow, a smile playing at her lips. “We may have broken some, ah, suggested velocity limits in order to get here on time. Or in less time.”
Thorn lay back on the pillow, flickers of puzzlement and holes in what he knew had begun coalescing into questions. Code Gauntlet obviously hadn’t been replaced by a glowing impact crater, so his deflection of the massive Nyctus rock had apparently worked. But he remembered nothing after that. What had happened? How long had he been out? Why had Densmore been aboard the Apollo, and close enough to the FOB that she could get word—
“I was coming to see you anyway,” Densmore said, answering his question before he could say it. “The Apollo was already slated for a duty rotation here, so I hitched a ride. Wyant’s Gyrfalcon was just that much faster.”
“Trixie wanted me to keep her updated on how you were doing,” Mol said. “She says hello, by the way.”
Thorn smiled at that. Trixie, the AI that ran Mol’s Gyrfalcon fighter, had more personality than a lot of people he’d known, and seemingly a little more all the time. But he turned back to Densmore.
“You once told me, ma’am, that if I intruded into your mind again, you’d kick my ass. All due respect, but that’s a two-way street.”
Densmore chuckled. “I wasn’t intruding anywhere. I knew what you were thinking because it’s just what I’d be thinking—what the hell’s she doing here?”
“Well, yeah. You were coming to see me. Why?”
“Checking in.” She glanced back at Mol. “After you two waged your little magical campaign against the Nyctus a few months back, it became pretty clear that we really had to keep a close watch on you.”
He gave a slow nod. After proving himself with three devastating magical attacks on the Nyctus, while flying with Mol and Kira, Densmore had given him an extensive target list and pretty much free reign to engage them however he chose. He’d gotten about halfway through the list, with results ranging from almost getting his butt kicked to yet more spectacular successes, but it had been enough to kickstart the ON’s campaign that drove the squids back to their current line.
It had also given him and Mol a lot of war stories to tell, except they couldn’t tell any of them to anyone, because a thick onerous blanket of security classifications had been draped over it all.
And then, with nothing but a few thank you messages from various Fleet Admirals, he’d been unceremoniously reassigned to the Hecate, and here he was.
“It really is good to see you, Mol,” he said.
“It’s good to be seen,” she replied, flashing her infectious grin as she shot back the hoary old one-liner. “It’s also good to be in the presence of an actual hero. Nice after so many losses.”
Thorn sat up. “Me? Hell, no. I don’t want to die, and I really hate losing to the squids.”
“You invented a new field of magic while you were at it,” Densmore said.
Thorn gave her a puzzled look. “New? I don’t think so. It was always there, and—field?”
“The reason you collapsed after you deflected that rock from Code Gauntlet.” Densmore looked back at the Doctor and other medical personnel hovering nearby. “May we have a moment, please?”
The doctor gave a wry smile. “Not a problem. You’d be surprised how many classified conversations occur with bedridden patients in here.”
Thorn raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Nah, not really. But I know the score when it comes to security stuff,” she said, gesturing for the othe
r medics to withdraw her. “Believe me, when I don’t need to know, I don’t want to know.” She pointed at a panel built into the bed. “You need me, just push the big red button.”
When they were gone, Densmore turned back to Thorn. Mol hovered nearby, apparently cleared to listen on whatever was about to be said. Thorn also noticed she’d fallen into the role of lookout, keeping a wary gaze scanning around the infirmary for potential interlopers.
“Tell me,” Densmore said. “What do you remember?”
“Well, everything, right up until I don’t.”
“So you remember everything you did, everything that led up to deflecting that rock? And everything you did to cause it to deflect?”
Thorn noticed the humps of his feet under the bedclothes. They looked distant, and maybe a bit small. Finally, he spoke, sorting memory into something more cohesive than a collection of searing images. “I . . . remember my plan. My idea, and then the way we put it in play. There are a lot of moving parts, but it’s nothing new. I just assembled the tools we had, and—you saw, Captain. We have this skill. I think.”
Densmore quirked her lip in a thin smile. “Granted. And that’s why, as soon as we can after you’re out of here, I want to do a deep dive into your mind and try to glean as much about what you did as possible. I need a list of these tools as you say. About the magical field, that’s something entirely different. And, to some people in the ON, scary as hell.”
Thorn sat up a little more. “All due respect, ma’am, but what the hell is going on? What’s this about a new field of magic?”
“As near as we can tell, you didn’t just curve space, or whatever it was you did. Or you did, but that’s not really the important part of it.” Her dark gaze suddenly bored into Thorn’s. “You actually altered reality. Somehow, some way, you disconnected the reality encompassing yourself, the Hecate, and that rock, from”—she gestured around— “well, this one. You created a new, temporary reality, where an Alcubierre drive works differently. Instead of warping space into a bubble for FTL travel, in this isolated little reality you created, an Alcubierre bends space-time.”
