Just as the team reached the extraction point, Jack came to talk to Freya, “Good job back there, but we’re in a lot of trouble. There are incoming fast-moving craft in this direction. They’re going to reach us before The Hog gets here. I need you to run interference to give use time. The incoming craft should be marked on your combat goggles.”
Freya nodded and put on her combat goggles. She saw an overview of the area, like looking down onto a table map. Their position was marked in red, The Hog was at a distance moving in very fast, but some yellow icons representing the enemy crafts were coming in very fast and low. Freya pulled on one of her earth inscriptions on her body to multiplate rock. Around them several boulders raised into the air and were crushed into small hand size stones. The rest of the team were open mouthed, considering the power requirement that Freya was expending. In an instant, thousands of stones rushed into the sky, on an intercepting course with the enemy crafts. Freya used farseeing vision to monitor the trajectory of the stones and guided them to their targets. From her view point behind the stones, she saw the first few stones hit the shield of the craft and bounce off, repelled. This soon ended as hundreds of stones hit each craft shield’s, producing a fireball as each craft disintegrated.
The farseeing woman started to talk to Jack about what had just happen. Jack had a look of shock on his face and looked at Freya with amazement. But just swallowed and said, “Good job.”
The Hog arrived before anything else could cause any trouble, and all the members of the group were aboard in a minute. As everybody was strapping in The Hog took off and moved across the ground at high speed. On the way back to the base, everybody started to relax. Everybody came over to Freya, and congratulated her on a job well done, and chatted to her like a friend. It now seemed that the team had accepted her, which made a little girl very happy.
Chapter 7 The Rescue
It was the day that Freya got back from the mercenary mission that she decided to act her age. The first thing she wanted to do was to go to the adventure park again. This park was full of wooden structure used to hold slide and rope swings. She ordered a self-driving vehicle for the day, but not an escorting body guard. She was very confident that she would be safe. Arriving at the adventure park, Freya went straight to the junior play area. After a while, Racheal appeared and started to play with her. Racheal seem to be excited about something, and eventually told Freya that she was having a birthday party tomorrow. She handed over a special invitation for Freya to come at twelve o'clock during the day for the start of the party. Freya thanked her in her enthusiastically and said she would come to the birthday party.
After playing a bit, Freya said goodbye to Racheal and left the adventure park. In the magical vehicle, Freya took on the persona of Marple Green and went to the university campus. On arriving at reception, she was greeted by Beck and a new receptionist.
Beck greeted her in a cheery voice, “It’s nice to see you back Ms. Green. There are several new hires that I want you to meet. This way if you please.”
Beck took Freya around the office and the labs and introduced her to her new staff, some of them were the technical research staff that Brian had employed; while the others were on the business management side. Freya was struck with glowing first impressions. When she had finished, she went into the lab to where Brian was doing experimental work.
Freya walked over to Brian, who appeared to be in the middle of a complicated review. “How goes the development of the crystal matrix?”
Brian mumbled in a distracted voice as he stared at some images of crystal structures. “We are just getting started, but the initial results are promising. I’ve managed to increase the energy particulate density structure, but it is still only by a small amount.”
Freya examined some of the crystals Brian had produced with a scanner and agreed that there had been an improvement of the energy particle density.
The next hour was spent talking over plans for the future and hiring more staff to increase the pace of Brian’s experimental program. Afterwards, Freya went into her own lab to work on some of her own inscription projects.
The next day, Freya arrived at Racheal’s house with Alice the bodyguard. Racheal didn’t live to far from Freya, but her house was less spectacular than the one Freya had leased for a year. At the door they were met by a house keeper. Freya showed her the invitation for the party, as she bobbed up and down with excitement. Freya was guided in while Alice was asked to wait outside. Alice was already accustomed with this normal practice when visiting the houses of the wealthy.
Freya was led inside to a large living room where the group of girls were playing with different new toys. Racheal introduced Freya to her other friends, and they all continued playing excitedly. Watching over them were a group of women, who Freya thought must be the mothers of the girls.
One of the women, holding a wine glass, turned to watch them play. “Who’s the new little girl?”
A woman who looked like Racheal’s mother replied, “Her names Freya. All I know about her is that she lives in the large expensive house in the hills. She does have a bodyguard and lives in the house so it must mean that her parents are well off.”
As Freya listened in, she wondered about how social status worked. Based what she was hearing, it was the properties you lived in, which acted as a sign of the amount of money you had. At this age the other girls did not seem to care, and Racheal was a good friend. The rest of the party was full of cakes and presents.
--
Since Racheal’s birthday party, it had been about a year. By this time Freya had accomplished a lot. As a mercenary soldier Freya had been on about twenty different missions. During each of the missions, she arranged with one of the specialists to give her training in their areas of expertise. For these trainings, she gave them her power crystal earrings for the mission. As Freya, did not need the extra money, the additional training was much more valuable. Freya now had average levels of skill in close quarter combat with hand magic and stun weapons; farseeing combat control and searching; this was interacting with the farseeing equipment to produce a combat operational map; and lastly medical treatments in combat situations.
At the moment, Freya was entering her offices on the university campus. The offices and labs were full now as Freya was just about to launch her first increased power crystal storage device. Brian and Freya had significantly increased the crystal matrix magical density in each device. This had allowed a hundred-fold increase in energy storage with their new crystals. The whole company had been working hard for the launch of the product onto the market. Freya, however, was more interested in some unusual crystalline properties that she and Brian had discovered during the experimental work. She was just on her way to talk to him, entering the lab full of large machinery for studying the structure of the crystals. The lab had the standard look of a university lab, cluttered with books and papers across any free table top.
Brian was sitting with a group of people discussing something as Freya walked in. He acknowledged her with a nod of his head but carried on. “So, what we are seeing, from the results is that in our highest energy crystals, we are getting some unusual signals being emitted.”
Another member of the discussion group spoke up, “It all depends on the input signal, for different phase variances the output signals are different. It also depends on the energy state of the crystal.”
Brian nodded and then the team started to discuss plans for the future experiment. When they had finished, Brian turned to Freya, “I’m glad that you are letting us continue on this line of inquiry. Most companies would not want to look into something so blue-sky.”
Freya acknowledged that notion in a serious tone, “We need to pursue every opportunity that comes up. So, keep going. How are you going for the other project?”
Brian smiled, “It’s mostly done. I have a prototype for you to study, and it should be able to withstand the full power flow of one of the new high energy crystals.
It’s a massive amount of energy to use all at once though.”
Freya took the prototype inscription, which would be able to handle and channel all her energy at once. This would enhance the full use of the reserve of powerful magic energy in her body, as she would be able to direct it into this inscription, in conjunction with an existing inscription to get the desired effect. This would enable her to use the full power available to her from either her body or any storage she had on her. She was planning to test this out in the next mercenary operation she undertook.
For the rest of the day in the office, Freya made sure everything was ready for the high energy crystal product launch. Freya planned to keep a low profile during this event and had employed a public relations manager to run the show. All in all, she was happy with the way things were going at the moment. Freya’s largest problem now was the lack of headway she had made into the investigation for the attack on her parents. She was at a loss of what to do in the situation.
In the evening, she went over to Racheal’s house to be a small six-year old. While her other personas acted like she was an adult, she still was a little girl and needed the emotional time with friends who could be around the real her. As Freya arrived at the house, Racheal’s mother, Sarah answered the door.
Sarah, said to Freya,” Hi Freya, how’s your mother doing?”
Freya had been using her Marple Green, persona as her mother. This was necessary as Sarah had wanted to meet her mother as the two little girls spent more time together. The persona of Marple Green had met up with Sarah, which was a weird experience for Freya, but it had all gone well. Sarah had been interested in what Marple did for work, as was pleased to find out that she owned and ran a research company out of the university campus. Now she was always trying to find out more information about Marple from Freya.
Freya said in a small voice, “She very busy at the moment, something big is going on at work.”
Sarah looked thoughtful but said, “Racheal is in her room waiting for you. You better go back there.”
Freya just nodded shyly and went back to be with her friend.
Later, Freya was leaving Racheal’s house, by walking to her hired vehicle. Suddenly out of the darkness, a stun bolt hit Freya in the back. If she had been a normal little girl, she would have been knocked out immediately, but as she had inscriptions all over her body, one of the protection inscriptions flashed on her skin under her clothes. This allowed her magical shield to absorb the energy of the stun. As Freya was confident she could handle any situation, she dropped to the ground as if she was unconscious. To the attacker, she appeared as a small limp form of a eight-year old.
A large vehicle rushed over, and Freya felt herself being placed into the vehicle. She was roughly strapped into a stretcher, as the vehicle pulled up into the sky.
Freya heard voices around her murmuring. After a short while a man’s gruff voice spoke, “That wasn't too hard.”
A woman’s voice came from the darkness and retorted, “What do you expect from a six-year-old? A full scale fight?”
The man grunted in response and then all went quiet for a while. Freya was able to use her farseeing skills and inscriptions to map out the area around her. She was high above the ground going fast out of the city. In the vehicle with her were five people, one of them the piloting, and the rest with weapons, marking them to be mercenaries, all in black uniforms. The uniforms were the same style as people who had attacked the institute, about a year ago. This made Freya excited that she may have a lead at last. For the next few hours, Freya lay still while the vehicle travelled a large distance. From her farseeing map, she was able to tell that she was entering an area that was controlled by another faction.
From the small bits of conversation, Freya found out that she was being taken to be examined in a research facility. Somehow the group had linked her to the institution, but were unsure, and need to confirm her identity. The vehicle was now coming to land at the facility grounds. As the magical flying vehicle touched the landing area, Freya threw a large amount of power into two shields: one around the whole facility, that would stop anything coming in or out; the second shield was around her body to provide an added layer of protection. Having not immediately noticed the shield around Freya’s body, they started to carry the stretcher in to the large main building of the facility. All the buildings in the facility were close together, with short pathways in between the buildings. Each of the buildings were heavily built, made out of large blocks of stone, with small windows. It was more like a military base than a research facility. Freya’s stretcher was taken through a large steel door and into a big open area, and down a corridor that led off it. She was finally placed inside a room with medical scanning equipment but was still tied to the stretcher. Presumably the kidnappers thought she would be secure to leave alone. When they had closed the door and locked it, Freya broke her bonds and stood up from the stretcher, changing to her persona of Annie Creed, the combat specialist.
With her new stature and long black hair in a braid, she was sufficiently disguised for the trouble she would cause. The first thing she needed to do was produce a farseeing combat map of the facility. Freya used her farseeing training to map out the facility in her mind. There were a couple of hundred people spread over all the building. Most of them were asleep, as it was late at night. What Freya needed most of all was information, and time to find it. She decided her plan of attack was to disable everybody in the facility. She planned a route that would take her around the building, disabling the guards as she went.
As the door of the room she had been put into was locked. Freya created a force wedge between the door and the frame, inserting power into the inscriptions. As she forced the door inwards away from the frame, the crumpled door fell down with a large crash. Freya was quickly out of the room running down the corridor to her first targets. First were five people in a lounge room. As Freya reached the room all five were alert with magic at the ready. On noticing Freya, they immediately blasted her with several different magical effects. To their apparent dismay, Freya’s energized shield took the energy of the magic and absorbed it. Freya answered the attack with her own magical stunning spheres of energy. Each of the magical attacks washed over the target’s bodies and overcame any magical protection they had in their clothing. As she left the room behind, five bodies were on the floor with energy still arcing from them.
Keeping mobile, she ran with increased speed to her next target location. It was in another building that seemed to be the accommodation complex for the facility. As she burst in the front door to a reception area, she quickly stunned three guards that were sitting around. Like the first five they crumpled to the ground. With her farseeing vision, Freya mapped out hundreds of single rooms, and some apartments with people sleeping. Freya had never previously imagined what she was about to try to do, but she thought that it would be possible with the abundance of power available to her. Slowly, Freya formed a hemispherical sphere surrounding her body. This was not a shield but was waves of stunning power expanding around her covering an ever-expanding volume. As Freya channelled the energy into her inscriptions on her body, they increased as the hemispherical sphere got bigger. Soon it was starting to pass through the walls and ceiling, entering the rooms around her. As the wave of energy engulfed each person, their bodies started to shake as they arched electricity. The wave of energy finally covered the whole accommodation building in a few short minutes. Now there were hundreds of people, fully stunned in their beds. And when most people inside the facility were stunned, Freya moved onto what looked like the control centre.
As she ran out of the accommodation building a blast of fire hit her shield. The shield flared amber as it tried to absorb the energy, and Freya felt some of the heat radiation from the fire blast. Instantly she increased, her power input and the shield around her body, after drawing on some energy from her crystals, stabilized as it went transparent again. Estimating where the fire blast emanated from, Fr
eya retaliated with a rod of magical force being projected at hypersonic velocities. The rod destroyed the second level wall of the control building on her side. Flying off the ground with force control of the air, Freya jumped up into the hole she had created. Inside were three bodies, smashed against the wall. It looked like they had been pooling their power, into a large magical inscription on the floor. Moving over the rubble, Freya moved into a large corridor. As she had no time for subtlety, she started force blasting all the walls and door as she walked down the corridor. Anybody that was able to emerge from the rooms was quickly overcome with a large stun ball of energy. After clearing the top level, Freya descended the stairs to the lower level. The only people left in the building were now in a secure central control room. The doors were all locked and shielded from magic. Freya backed off a distance and started to send wave after wave of high energy plasma consciously into the door shield. After a few seconds, they turned bright red, which only encouraged Freya to increase her power output. After a flash of bright white light, the shields failed. Within a fraction of a second, Freya sent a meter diameter energy sphere to stun everybody, which easily overwhelmed the people in the control room.
Suddenly, Freya heard a magical vehicle outside take to the air. As she ran outside, her shield surrounding the facility flared with energy. In the distance Freya could see the explosion of a small vehicle crashed against her shield. As the burning debris rained down, Freya ran to the last building. From her farseeing map, this had the layout of a small prison. She could detect many cells with people inside. Even with all the chaos of the evening, there were only two guards in defensive positions. Freya quickly sent out a wave of electrical stun energy that gradually overcame the guards. With the exception of the prisoners, Freya was now the only conscious person within her shield barrier around the facility. Now it was time to find out some answers.
The Inscribed Angle Page 6
