by Scott Baron
Rika felt the massive shift in the spell holding back the water, the loss of a caster placing all of the weight firmly on her shoulders. She cried out, digging deep and casting as hard as she could, the world going red, then browning out around her.
She had to hold on to the spell. It was all that mattered, no matter what happened. And then, as she felt her mind stretched to the limit, her body suddenly became light, as if it were floating. Flying. Moving without her input or control.
Rika was vaguely aware of the sound of rushing water as her magic hold finally gave way, followed by the sound of the emergency seals slamming shut, closing off the breached section of loop tube from the rest of the network.
Miraculously, she was not drowning.
With great effort, she opened her eyes. A warm face was looking down on her. The sub’s captain, she realized. A groan caught her attention. Rika turned her head to the side and saw Ripley sprawled out beside her in the cramped interior of the loop tube car. The cyborgs had saved them.
She turned her gaze back to the woman studying her as she lay on the floor.
“You did good,” she said, smiling down on the exhausted woman. “Now rest.”
Rika didn’t need to be told twice. She finally let go, her eyes slipping shut as she drifted off into welcome unconsciousness.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Bawb had been moved from his partitioned area into the general holding space for Captain Sindall’s captives, and it was not a pleasant sight. All but Tim, the cyborg their magic would not work on, were blankly staring at the ceiling, human and Chithiid alike.
One by one, they’d been taken away and experimented upon, and one by one they had come back released from stasis, but mentally altered in some way.
Bawb assumed this was a ploy to get him to cooperate with the Tslavar captain’s efforts to gain intel on the planet they were hoping to subjugate. What he failed to take into consideration was that while the captive Wampeh indeed cared about some of the denizens of this planet, none of them were here.
As an assassin with a particularly bloody past, while he would rather not see the innocents aboard the ship slain needlessly, he also did not truly care, and would gladly allow their sacrifice rather than give in to Captain Sindall’s pressure. But as of yet, none had been killed, though that could change at any moment.
Further insulating him from worry was the fact that all but one of the people he actually did care about––the one who was undoubtedly still protected by the brutal spell-traps he had left in place––were unaffected by the Tslavar stasis spell. And judging by the smell of Zomoki flames he had noticed earlier, they were coming for him.
“You really think your friends are going to find us?” Tim asked.
Bawb turned to look at the cyborg. Now that they were not separated by the partition, he could look him in the eye as they spoke. “You are a mechanical man, Tim. Can you not smell the scent of fire still lingering in the air?”
“I just assumed it was smoke from the fighting.”
“Oh, that it is,” Bawb said with a grin. “And that smoke came from a friend of mine. What your kind would call a dragon.”
Tim’s expression shifted to one of surprise, but not the shock he might have shown just a day earlier. Magic was a thing, he had discovered first-hand, and apparently, so were dragons.
“So, this dragon friend of yours. She’s the one who attacked the ship?”
“Yes.”
“And is that why they seem so shorthanded now?”
Bawb smiled brightly. “Oh, yes. That other scent in the air? That is burnt Tslavar flesh.”
“That’s disgusting, Bawb.”
“They are our enemies, Tim. They have taken us hostage, harmed innocents, and attacked my friends. A quick death by incineration is far more generous than the fate they would receive by my hands.”
Tim cast a funny look at his pale compatriot. “You’re a kind of violent guy, Bawb.”
“You do not know the half of it,” he said, once again pulling at his restraints, hoping for an inch of slack for him to leverage to his advantage. At the moment, however, no such luck was to be found.
“You really think you can escape?” Tim asked.
“I’ve freed myself from more difficult imprisonment than this,” Bawb said. “Though I do try to make it a point to not become captured in the first place. At least, not without it being intentional.”
“Why would you intentionally be captured?”
“It can be...useful,” he said with a knowing grin.
“Freedom isn’t so bad, either,” Tim replied, shifting in his restraints, trying, as Bawb had, to release himself.
But just like the Wampeh, he was bound fast. The effort did, however, cause a fresh trickle of blood to run from his back, dripping to the floor beside him.
“You are injured,” Bawb said. “When did this occur?”
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Tim replied. “I turned off my peripheral sensor units when they started cutting into me.”
“They were attempting to break you with torture? But surely they quickly discovered your true nature beneath that flesh exterior.”
“You’d have thought, but they were digging around for a while back there. I guess I’m unlike anything they’d ever seen before, so they wanted to take a better look.”
This concerned Bawb. If they could figure out a weakness in the mechanical men’s makeup, then he and his friends’ entire force of cyborgs could become compromised, unable to be of further assistance. He just hoped their inner workings were beyond the skill set of their captors.
“What do you think they’re doing to them, Bawb?” Tim asked, glancing at the vacant stares of the captives strapped down all around them.
“I cannot say for certain. But this does seem somewhat familiar.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. But I’ve never seen it achieved in a rapid manner. Normally, it takes some time to properly hold sway.”
“Hold sway? Over what? What are you talking about?”
“My apologies. I sometimes forget you and I are able to communicate, but our frame of reference is worlds apart,” Bawb said. “What I speak of is a form of mind cleansing.”
“Brainwashing?”
“Ah, so your world has something similar.”
“Well, sort of. We possess the technology to manipulate minds, but it is typically used to implant new information, like training for a job, or learning a new language.”
“Which you would not need if you but had a proper translation spell.”
Tim flashed an amused smile. “Well, we didn’t have magic on our world until you arrived,” he noted. “So you can’t fault us for working with what we have.”
“A valid point,” Bawb conceded. “But all of that aside, this still does not answer the most pressing question in regards to our fellow prisoners.”
“And what is that?”
Bawb studied each of the captive’s blank faces a moment, searching for something, anything that might give him an answer. But none were to be found.
“The question,” he finally said, “is, what exactly are the Tslavars planning to do with them if they do manage to alter their minds?”
Tim looked at his new friend, then scanned the vacant stares of the other prisoners, hoping to perhaps find a clue. But just as the Wampeh had discovered, there were none to be had. Whatever the Tslavars had in mind, it would remain their secret.
Chapter Forty
Being a coastal region, hyperbaric medicine had been greatly advanced in Southern California. The diving industry had seen a boom in its heyday, and with a massive naval base toward the southern tip, men and women were constantly challenging the depths of the Pacific.
Unfortunately, every so often, the ocean would win. The bends, nitrogen narcosis, pulmonary embolisms, were all infrequent, but nevertheless deadly, risks that came along with the thrill of exploration.
While the industry had died off––literally, when the
war eradicated the population––the know-how was still a well-respected part of modern medicine, despite the cellular regeneration and replacement capabilities the AI medbots now possessed. But sometimes a simple, old-school treatment would do the trick better than anything so invasive.
In Charlie and Leila’s case, a quick hour spent in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber breathing pure O2 at a few times normal pressure had set them right in no time. The high concentration of oxygen permeating their cells at pressure not only relieved any residual discomfort and grogginess from their ordeal aboard the downed sub, but had also wiped away aches and pains they’d not even noticed they were sporting.
Once they had emerged, sharp and recovered, they immediately hit the debriefing room to go over what had happened with the others. Captain Watkins had wisely taken the sub’s core data storage with her during the rescue, providing Cal and the other AIs an opportunity to thoroughly review the parts of the engagement they hadn’t been able to properly monitor from the surface.
“What do we know about this ship?” Charlie asked, getting right to business as he and Leila sank down into the comfort of one of the command center’s couches together, leaning into one another.
The ordeal had brought them near death, and now, in the brief hours afterwards, the couple had instinctively gravitated toward one another. A residual subconscious tell of just how close they had actually come to meeting their end.
“We are tracking it as best we can,” Cal informed them. “Ara had indicated that the great depths had muted even her magic, rendering the ship untrackable.”
“Well, shit.”
“But it would seem the ship is now once more near the surface. She picked up the scent just an hour ago.”
“Good. Because I want to kick those bastards out of the water and off our planet,” Ripley said. “After we rescue Bawb, of course.”
“Which is probably going to be a little bit tougher than we originally thought. They seemed to have been quite adept at blocking our weapons’ fire.”
“Yeah, that’s going to be an issue.” Rika said. “But first and foremost, we need to figure out where they’re going next. Cal, you said Ara is tracking them again?”
“Yes, Rika. Traces of their craft indicate it is currently traveling beneath the surface just off the shore of Long Beach.”
“Why Long Beach?” Rika asked. “I mean, I suppose if they’re snatching people to experiment on, it doesn’t really matter where they’re getting them from, but I thought it was just a quiet little beach town.”
“And you would be correct. However, in addition to the small civilian population, there is also a long-vacant munitions depot there. We have one of our AI brothers overseeing it, of course, but otherwise, the facility is mothballed.”
“So, what’s the big deal, then?” Charlie asked.
“It housed nuclear weapons, Charlie. And while we have slowly been tracking down and either storing, or decommissioning, these remnants around the globe, it has not been a top priority, as they were deemed safely locked away.”
“Until an alien invasion landed.”
“Yes, that did rather change things.”
“We can’t be sure they’re even interested in those weapons,” Leila noted. “I mean, they are from my galaxy. And despite their hostile intentions, that doesn’t seem like something they would even know about. I know I had no clue about these massively destructive weapons on your world until you told me about them. And these Tslavar invaders don’t have the benefit of a cooperative intelligence filling them in.”
“Good point. And from what we’ve seen, they haven’t taken anyone with an inkling about the planet’s military stores,” Rika noted. “More likely than not, they’re just snatching convenient targets along the coastline. I’m sure after their run-in with Ara, they’ll be wanting to stay as close to the water as possible.”
It was a logical point. The odds of these invaders, unfamiliar as they were with the intricacies of modern Earth technology and weapons suddenly targeting the most destructive munitions on the planet were slim. But whatever their goals, they were proving to be a far more difficult opponent than anticipated. And the team would be well-served to remember that.
“Their magic is strong,” Rika said. “Of course, we already knew that, but they’ve got a modification of some defensive spells that seems to be able to pretty effectively block our gunfire.”
“Yeah, that bit kind of sucked,” Charlie agreed. “The principles are the same as stopping magic attacks that launch debris, only now they are ramped up to stop ultrasonic rounds fired from guns. And if they can block those, we’re kind of left at a disadvantage.”
“You could always upgrade to more modern arms,” Cal noted. “I understand the wish to use a type of projectile they were previously proven ill-equipped to defend against, but it seems they’ve adapted to that tactic, leaving the firearm option an inefficient one at best.”
“Nat’s cannons seemed to make a dent in their defenses,” Rika noted.
“Yes, but that was simply due to the sheer caliber and velocity of their rounds. And it is utterly impractical to carry anything near that size as a portable weapon. They were designed to take down airships and stop ground transport.”
“So we’re shit out of luck,” Charlie grumbled. “Just great.”
“You’re not out of luck, Charlie. You just need to adapt. There are plenty of arms stored in my local munitions depot that I would wager the invaders are not yet adept at defending against.”
“What kind of guns are we talking about here, Cal?”
“The pulse weapon kind. And plasma weapons.”
“Pulse weapons? And plasma? Like what the cutter uses?” Rika asked.
“No, those just fire these little balls of plasma,” Ripley said. “A few ships have them. And pulse rifles are pretty common. My dad takes me shooting sometimes just for fun.”
“Teaching a kid to blast things with pulse rifles is fun?” Rika said with an incredulous chuckle.
“Well, yeah. Doesn’t it sound fun to you?” she shot back with a healthy serving of snark.
Rika had to admit, she probably would have gotten a kick out of it when she was a teen as well. Of course, in her case, she had been taken out and taught to fly by her father since she was big enough to reach the controls.
“So will these pulse and plasma weapons impact the magical defenses in a different enough way that they’ll pass through? Like the bullets did when we first used your guns while we were fleeing the Council of Twenty?” Leila asked.
“I don’t know for sure,” Charlie replied. “But it beats what we have now, so I can’t see the harm in trying. If not, we’re going to have to resort to close-quarters combat again.” He looked at Rika and nudged Leila with his elbow. “Speaking of which, I didn’t tell you, but you two were pretty impressive back there. You fight well together.”
The women shared a glance and a smile. “Thanks, Charlie,” Rika said. “Leila’s a really fast learner.”
“And you’re a good teacher,” she replied.
“I saw it from above,” Ripley chimed in. “That was pretty badass. You guys have got to teach me those moves some time.”
“Speaking of teaching,” Charlie interjected, “it looked a hell of a lot like you were casting a force spell down on the sea floor. When exactly did you learn magic? We weren’t down there that long.”
“Neuro-stim,” Ripley said.
“Neuro what?”
“It’s a bit of tech they hadn’t gotten around to showing us yet, Charlie,” Rika explained. “It’s a sort of slow-feed learning tool, apparently designed to let space crews download useful skills while in stasis on long flights.”
“Huh, clever. So they’d arrive with a new skill set already in place, eh? We should play around with this thing. Could be useful.”
“You catch on quick, Charlie. And yes, it allows for the implanting of knowledge while the user is in stasis. However, I should also mention that
a typical neuro-stim cycle takes months, if not years. There are layers upon layers of safeties in place, designed to prevent damage to a user’s mind.”
“But Ripley had zero magic skill just the other day,” Leila said. “This wasn’t done over months.”
“No, it was not. However, Ara provided the knowledge for only a pair of very specific spells. This allowed myself and the other AIs to focus our attentions on modifying the neuro-stim stream in a manner that implanted the skills in a greatly expedited manner. It was still somewhat dangerous, but with the relatively small size of the data packet, we felt it was manageable.”
“Magic is easy?”
“Not easy, per se. But the data itself is not a terribly complex mixture of information, like learning to pilot a ship or speak a new language, for example. From what I’ve seen, spells––and the means to cast them––are relatively simple. Quite arcane, but otherwise straightforward.”
“And it’s totally kickass!” Ripley chirped. “Me and Rika, we were overlapping spells, and it was like, all, wham! And then the water pushed back, and we kept doing it until we reached the sub. It was so cool! I can’t wait to learn more!”
Charlie looked at Ripley as she bounced gleefully in her chair with a goofy, enthused grin.
“Great. We’ve turned the kid into a wizard,” he said with a chuckling sigh. “Her folks are gonna kill me.”
Chapter Forty-One
The fabrication facilities in several major cities were fired up and running with only a few hours’ notice, thanks to their extremely competent AI systems, and small ships were trickling in, one by one.
“How’s the retrofitting going, Rika?” Charlie asked.
“Cal and his AI buddies have tracked down a handful of AI-run ships they think will be capable of handling the firepower,” she replied. “Not all of them were designed to fly with the recoil of a pulse cannon, of course, so those that can’t handle an actual firefight are going to fly cover for us, acting as additional eyes in the sky.”
