by Allan Cole
But Igor didn’t have his shooting orders. The authority to take this most final of all actions was not his. He waited, moist breath clouding the vidmask.
He properly kept his mind blank. He was a tense, vibrating weapon ready to be unleashed.
Igor didn’t wonder that the long peace in the Frontier Zone had been violated. If asked, he’d say it only figured that those sneaky devil Amers would pull such a trick— violating all laws of warfare, plus the shaky truce that had been in affect for so many years.
It didn’t matter to those murderous Amer bastards this was a Danger Declined Zone, declared so by solemn men in sober clothes.
A voice barked, “Dolgov, what’s happening?”
Shivers ran up Igor’s spine. It was the Wizard-in-Chief!
“An Amer destroyer, Master,” Igor replied, “pretending to be a cruise liner.”
“Stand by. I’ll try to stop him first.”
A moment of relief. Mixed with disappointment. He was ready to shoot, dammit! But no, caution first. Let the Wizard-in-Chief deal with it.
The wizard would call upon the Engine Devil. Igor knew those creatures of the cold death of Uttermost Space were protected with the hardest and most solid spells. If any being could stop the Amers it was their Engine Devil.
As the master wizard and the Engine Devil conferred, Igor continued to monitor the enemy destroyer. Now he could see it really was a civilian liner. But it had the armor and weapons and intelligence gear of a Class A destroyer.
The ship’s interiors had been gutted to make way for the most modern of hyper engines. And there was a young Engine Devil ready and fresh on first watch.
Igor knew all his observations were being shared by the devils in the weapons room. They’d be outraged at such a long delay. Their fiendish blood would be aboil with the desire to kill, kill, kill.
“Dolgov!” The wizard again.
“Yes, Master.”
“No luck.”
A breath of hesitation, then:
“You must shoot!”
Igor almost slammed his palm on the fat red fire button. Training held him back. He was the shooting officer. In such circumstances the shooting officer must be certain.
Commander Rusinov’s voice crackled in his ears.
“Dolgov! We can’t stop it!”
“Give the order, sir. I must have the order.”
And they came fast and harsh:
“Shoot, dammit, shoot!”
“Yes, sir. Shooting procedure in operation sir.
“Weapons room. All systems in order. Target in range.
“Launch!”
Igor depressed the firing button and…
“… At last,” Chyvaist grumbled, “we get to go.”
And in the strange stilled time of the weapons room Igor heard the long hiss of the firing tubes, the sound of it hanging in the air like a slow-burning fuse.
Then the missile slid out, sleepy, just waking up, but waking up grumpy and mean and now it wanted a target.
Searching, searching…
* * *
The moment Igor slapped the button he nearly shit his pants.
But then euphoria caught him as all the data rushed in. Raw signals, shouted voices, the smell of magic and the mental echo of fiendish personalities.
It was fantastic!
This was Igor’s first real combat launch. All the simulator training and polygon shooting was replaced in a heady rush by real experience.
The missile containing Chyvaist sped toward its target.
A small team of goblins fed the engine, stoking it with hot spells. And Chyvaist himself— curled in a red globe in the very middle of the warhead— was honing in on the enemy ship. His senses penetrated the spells shielding the ship.
Igor flash/caught Chyvaist’s observations and was surprised.
The ship seemed too weak for a destroyer.
But was that part of its disguise?
He shuddered as Chyvaist’s evil and hissing voice crawled into his mind like a poisonous worm.
“Hey boss! I’m on target! Goblins ejecting!… Done!… Yeah, I’m up on ’em!…
“Okay, now… now…
A pause and then Chyvaist’s “voice” came, so calm, and so… cruel…
“Done, boss.”
Then:
“Uh, boss.
“Boss?
“Big fecal OOPS, here.”
“What?”
“Uh, I don’t know… but I think we’re in some deep ass, Boss. Real deep!”
More static…
“Uh, Boss?… Boss?
“You there?”
Igor couldn’t answer.
The DeathSpirit’s message had come through loud and clear.
Igor was crying.
CHAPTER FOUR
Old Scratch was in big trouble.
Something was happening all around his ship. And those miserable softskins were sleeping. Couldn’t they see? Couldn’t they hear? Couldn’t they feel the sticky web they’d just entered?
A deathly cold web. So cold even he, Old Scratch, was frightened. He continued his work, but… Was that someone calling him?
Nonsense.
Halluces again.
But then…
What?!…
What’s this?
The voice of a DeathSpirit? Howling and roaring of a Goblin team? Voices of confusion: The missile!… Turn right!… Right, by damn! Right! No! Too late!… Too late!… And… Damn!, there’s civilians aboard that ship!
Tearing his very soul and body, Old Scratch clawed for all his power and hurled the liner to the side.
He roared in pain, already understanding all was lost, but still trying to save those damned softskins!
Frightened dwarves, goblins and brownies cried in panic… and in that same moment the missile reached its target.
In the missile hundreds of thousands of hungry ghosts, tortured with bitter desire, rushed forward, devouring all wizardry, dissolving every bit of magic shielding the ship.
Then the high-explosive heart of the warhead burst through and flame waves roamed the chambers and corridors.
* * *
Billy was asleep.
But his dreams had turned grim and he was uneasy.
A sudden sense of cruelty roughed his senses and he shot up in bed.
He felt It coming for him! A beast rushing down with slavering jaws.
Instinct took over and as he threw up his hands he hurled a hard spell!
His first spell.
But potent.
And then… boom!
Billy closed his eyes. Fire scorching and hammering all around.
And he shouted, “Lupe!”
* * *
The explosion broke the liner into three parts.
Cold talons ripped at Old Scratch’s heart. Black blood covered his sight. Nothing to do… all was lost. His pain and despair made him forget his own approaching death.
Poor Scratch. He couldn’t do anything to save his ship. The missile’s WarSpell was too strong.
Maybe— if he was given the chance— he’d complain to the Ruling Spirit.
This was intolerable. Too damned much!
First, who in the hells was responsible for that damned DeathSpirit? The whole breed was dangerously irresponsible. Something had to be done about them. Everyone knew DeathSpirits were a race noted for refusing to speak to their enemies until the day of the Great Judgment.
Second, this spirit (with a disgustingly evil name, which could not be said aloud by a well-respected Engine Devil for fear of soiling his tongue) was REALLY, REALLY eager to kill.
It wasn’t right, Old Scratch thought.
And then, wham! The explosion reached critical and triggered an ultrafast extrapolation of the PlasmaFeeders. Overheated substances rushed over the fiendish crew.
Tob was the first to die.
Others followed immediately.
Along with all the softskins they despised so much. But it hurt Ol
d Scratch. Hurt him most deeply. It was his duty to protect those despised ones.
Then he felt a small bit of brightness prickle his weary soul. Somewhere out there one of the softskins had survived.
But who? And how?
* * *
Billy couldn’t have answered the question himself. How could it be that he was the only human to survive the tragedy of HolidayOne?
He had the numb memory of his last actions in the cabin. He’d thrown up his hands like a shield just as the flame waves had reached the door. And in that moment a desperate desire for life made him reach out— a jumble of words, images, thoughts.
He wanted to be safe. To live. To breathe. To hear his heartbeat. Nothing more.
“Lupe!” he shouted, and in his shout he knew she was gone. More terrible still, so were his grandparents.
And he ran, ran, ran…
Ran to a place, ran to a time until he found himself quite whole and unhurt and floating in space over the bursting liner.
* * *
Old Scratch was finally forced to abandon his engines— his ship.
In the final moment, trying to save anybody— never mind if they be fiend or human— he cast a spell of reversion. Pouring the vortex of burning flame into the black hungry mouths of his engines.
He couldn’t have done it earlier— he had to wait until the attacking flame was near enough. Unfortunately for his crew “near enough” meant their deaths.
Scratch tried to save them, but in the end he couldn’t do it and the “near enough” spell saved his life.
But he didn’t want to live!
Shame, bitter shame fouled his soul. His ship, his passengers, his crew, all gone.
If he’d had a choice he would have chosen to die along with his crew and all those wormy softskins.
But, O Mother Destiny! That damned spell saved Old Scratch against his will.
The spell he cast worked quite well without the will of its master. And like Billy, Scratch was thrown into the burning space. Flame tongues licked his red skin— then… suddenly he forgot about the pain.
His senses were overwhelmed by a terrible vision.
But was it halluces?
Or was it real?
He wasn’t sure, but it seemed to him that somewhere near— somewhere… quite… near, but not in the same Void— something great, something enormous lurked.
That form, that entity stretched… O Mother Destiny, it stretched beyond the beyond! The entity was all, it was nothing, it was everything, it was… like being able to see Darkness.
What he saw, or imagined he saw, was a creature of intolerable might and power— such might, such power that even Old Scratch had never experienced such a thing.
But here it was at hand. It was… Ah, please, not so near… because Scratch suddenly knew this Thing, this Being could easily tear him to pieces with a single glance of its hoary eyes.
That was enough for him. He tried not to look but those terrible eyes started to turn… he felt the creature’s every movement… nearer and nearer… no way to escape…
And then he lost consciousness.
* * *
Igor was tragically conscious.
Between shoot and hit— like thought and action— there is slow-collapsing shadow. There are many Cancel/Abort stops along the way.
But those points pass quickly and then all of a sudden the DeathSpirit is saying “Uh, boss?” and there are no more in betweens.
No place to cancel.
Nowhere to stop but the end of all ends.
In the very last moment he saw it all, saw a vision more savage than any nightmare. He saw the cabins filled with innocent people. Saw their faces, some awake and knowing, some asleep and saved from that final horror.
Although it was impossible, Igor believed he could hear their desperate cries echoing in Uttermost Space.
Then all was cold, silent Void.
Except the mocking voice of Chyvaist, who didn’t give a big stooping DeathSpirit fart if it was a mistake or not. The fewer softskins the better.
And if anybody objected they could take it up with his Shop Steward, because this had been a “shoot and no cancel” operation from the beginning.
“Direct hit, boss!” he gloated. “Nice work. Pity it was a wrong’un or there’d be bonuses for everybody.”
Then all around him Igor heard a victorious roar sound through the Borodino’s Command Center.
It rang from chamber to chamber, through the com center, the on watch mess and the lavs and finally into the Hall Of Magic where Carvaserin was smiling his Master Wizard’s smile, watching the enemy ship’s final blazing gasp, thinking he’d won a great victory over the Amers.
And Igor realized he was the only human in the space fortress who knew what had happened.
He tore off his helmet. The autoreturn swooped the thing up and away, taking all hope with it.
Igor stared blindly at his warboard. His heart was racing, his body poured sweat as if trying to flush away sin.
And he thought:
What have I done?
What have we done?
Curse us all. Curse us all forever.
CHAPTER FIVE
The alarm clock roared mercilessly at six-forty. It was an expensive mechanical toy. “Mechanics only,” the advert had guaranteed.
It was the only reason she’d bought it. As a clock it was nearly worthless. It gained an hour a day, forcing the owner to do sophisticated calculations when she set the alarm.
A sleepy voice addressed the clock. “Ummm… Just a little bit more… Ummm…”
A thick blanket was immediately yanked over the pretty head of golden hair that spread wildly over the pillow. The space next to the woman was empty and had been so for several years.
The clock roared again. Not “rang”, but “roared” with a harsh mechanical voice guaranteed (again according to the advert prose) “to raise the dead from their coffins like the Trumpets Of Judgment Day.”
The owner, Tanya Lawson, sometimes thought the sales pitch hadn’t been that much of an exaggeration. Now was one such moment.
Damn, damn, and double damn! Gotta get up. On your feet, woman! Up… Up… But, it’s such a beautiful dream, and… I don’t wanna…
As if sensing the revolt, the clock roared a third time.
Tanya groaned and threw the blanket aside. She untangled the fingers of her lazier but happier twinself, thinking, Can’t help it, sister mine. Duty calls. There’s worlds to be saved, crime to be hammered to its knees and ferocious bosses to face. Bosses who made their feelings plain to tardy officers of the United Worlds Police.
She reached out, slender fingers uncurling— and clicked on the remote control button. It was labeled “dawn”— the word spelled out in black ink on a small piece of paper and stuck to the button with adhesive tape.
There was a mechanical hum and the curtains drew away. The gray beams of morning crawled into the room, mixing with the light cast by Tanya’s lamps.
They were real lamps and the low yellow light they cast came from ancient filaments glowing in vacuum bulbs. The bulbs were powered with good old fashioned electricity. Never mind the electricity came from a PowerGenerator in the basement. And that generator was totally magical.
The point was, Tanya loved those damned lamps and didn’t begrudge all the LT’s she’d paid for them.
Tanya liked a good breakfast and so as soon as the “dawn” button was pressed a tiny automatic kitchenette went to work for her: Coffee dripping, bacon frying, eggs poaching, toast toasting. Once again, each object was mechanical and electrical, performing its function without use of magic.
It was Tanya’s habit to eat well in the morning because it was frequently the last real meal she’d enjoy before the day was done. When a criminal mess hit the fan at United Worlds Police Headquarters the hours got very long indeed.
To the envy of male and female colleagues alike, Tanya had a healthy appetite and could eat when she wanted and how much
she wanted with little fear. She was slender and strong and quick and she kept her muscles and stamina trained to their peak. On one wall of her apartment were a pair of rapiers. Below was a set of boxing gloves.
Her entire apartment was filled with primitive electronics, mostly from hundreds of years ago. For that reason everything was very expensive. To hell with the expense! It made Tanya feel… well, comfortable, dammit.
Actually, it was more than just a matter of comfort. Tanya was border-line phobic when it came to supernatural creatures. The homes and apartments of her friends, relatives, and UWP colleagues were filled with magical servants— Brownies, Dwarves, Goblins, Peaceful Spirits, and on and on. All enslaved in the machinery it took to make a modern, work-free home.
Not Tanya. She’d paid and overpaid for obsolete mechanical devices— and their repair manuals as well— with one purpose in mind. And that was to make her home off limits to all Supernatural Beings.
Most of the mechanical devices supposedly hailed from the last decade or of the Twentieth Century— a little over a thousand years before. A few were dated a little later— the youngest had been manufactured in 2004.
It was during that period that momentous events— whose origins and causes were obscure— changed human kind forever.
Things made by hand, or in factories, were abandoned in favor of a new technology entirely based on sorcery and magical creatures.
And so Tanya was a throwback. A woman out of her time who believed deep in her heart and soul that she would have been more comfortable— and certainly much happier— in that bygone Twentieth Century era. When science and art were limited only by the speed of light and human imagination.
Although Tanya had made her home a refuge from magic, she couldn’t avoid such things at her office.
At UWP headquarters there was so much magic buzzing in the air her teeth were always clenched. The place was full of powerful mages casting spells within its walls.
In the modern, sorcery driven world of the 30th Century, Tanya’s aversion to magic was a most definite oddity.
Oddity number two was that she was a rather powerful sorceress herself.
Although she hated to admit it, when forced she could cast a spell nearly as fast as a full wizard— humans who could use thought images instead of chants to make their spells.
