by David Estes
Minnow approached, his rocket launcher fitted to his shoulder. He hadn’t fired it during the skirmish, though he had used the starship’s railguns to pepper the side of Dacre’s star rig. “Turn off your brain for a minute,” he said. “Breathe.”
“My brain doesn’t have an off switch.”
“Fair enough. Then let’s use it to plan our next move. How did you know Dacre would come to this system?”
Vee hadn’t known, not for certain. But she did know she wasn’t doing this for herself. Not anymore, if she ever had been. Nor was she doing this for Miranda, that was for damn certain. She was doing this for the people she knew back on the Arch. Her father. Her daughter. For the first time in her life, she thought perhaps she wasn’t being selfish. She refocused on the present. “I just guessed. He stole a prime magical artifact and then enough pure liquid aura to blow a hole the size of Archimedes in a godstar. But he can’t process all that magical energy on his own. He couldn’t even if he was a Class 6 mage, and there hasn’t been one of those EVER.”
She saw Minnow process the information, his round, dark eyes narrowing as he came to the same conclusion she had a day or so earlier. “He needs a mag-weapon.”
“Not just any mag-weapon,” Vee muttered.
“A big one?” Minnow said.
“Exactly.”
“And the Gremolins have such a weapon?”
“Yeah, and they also have the biggest can of tuna fish in the galaxy,” Frank interjected, licking his chops.
“Can it, furball,” Minnow said.
“Rude,” the cat muttered, twisting one of the glowing ropes to bring the ship around, the bright red godstar coming into view.
“Vee?”
She shrugged. “Frank’s right. Nothing has ever been proven. The Alliance inspectors have been negotiating with them for years. A few times the Grems let them visit, and of course the inspectors didn’t find anything, but…”
“They say their underground system is enormous,” Minnow said. “They could easily have hidden it.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, Dacre always believed they had such a weapon. He talked about it sometimes, how once he was out of the Academy and had been knighted he wanted to prove it. He always said the Grems were more dangerous than the Jackals. At least with the Jackals we knew what they were and what they had. The Grems…they’re still a mystery.”
“That’s good, right?” Minnow said.
“How so?”
“If Dacre is looking for this weapon, he’ll need to get down to Urkusk. He won’t leave the system, at least not right away.”
Vee had had the same thought, but it was only based on her theory, which could be completely wrong. “I hate waiting,” she said.
Minnow laughed. “I know. I’ve been your partner for two years.”
Vee offered a half-smile. “We’ve had a good ride, haven’t we?”
“It’s not over yet.”
“True.”
Comfortable silence followed the word. Minnow settled into a seat, but Vee was too restless to do the same. Instead, she crouched down beside McGee, whose eyes were still closed. “Magic?” she said softly.
“Magic,” the man replied, nodding. His eyes opened slowly, roaming over her face, never stopping. They were a light turquoise color but ringed with both yellow and orange, like no eyes she’d ever seen, even those that were fabricated.
“It’s inside you, isn’t it?” she said. “The aura.”
His eyes stopped, locking on hers, his lips tightening. He nodded. “Magic—out,” he said.
“I don’t understand. What happened to you?”
“War,” he said simply, his eyes once more flitting about, filled with a maniacal gleam.
“The war did this to you?”
He shook his head. “War!” he screamed, causing Vee to flinch back.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.”
The man was rocking back and forth now, staring at his fingertips, which were pulsing with white energy. “Magic,” he said, passing balls of light from hand to hand.
“How do you do that?” she asked. As far as she knew he hadn’t dosed himself with aura. He should be an empty husk. How do you create aura out of nothing? How did I manage to do it before? Am I going to go mad like you?
“Magic,” he said. “Inside. Out.”
Vee breathed deeply, holding back the impatience that arose in her. She hated not knowing things, and there were so many things that fell into that category right now. She changed tact. “My mother once gave you something,” she said.
At that, his expression softened. “Gave. Yes. A gift.”
“Her medal from the war. Why?”
“She knew,” McGee said quietly.
“Knew what?”
Then louder: “She knew. She knew!”
“Knew what? I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
Louder still, his voice rising with each word. “Knew! Knew! KNEW! It broke us. It always broke us!”
“I’m sorry,” Vee said, standing up and backing away. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I just—I miss her. I wanted to know how you knew her.” She could tell her words fell on deaf ears, the man rocking back and forth wildly, muttering under his breath, balls of white magical energy spiraling around him, like moons orbiting a planet.
“Godstars,” Minnow muttered. “He’s lost his damn moonrocks.”
“I don’t know,” Vee murmured, turning away. She settled into a seat, slightly unnerved. She felt tired, the conversation with McGee having drained her more than she expected it to. She settled in and tried to sleep.
Chapter 16
Leave your weapons on board or you’ll be vaporized
Engines two through four are down, General Kukk’uk clicked. The Jackal leader gripped the control ropes tightly between clawed hands as they seemed to try to rip themselves from her grip. The muscles of her scaled arms bulged as she wrestled for control.
On it, another Jackal said, flying out of the control room in a flurry of leather wings.
“Can we make it to Urkusk?” Dacre asked, eyeing the red-tinged planet that seemed so close, though he knew it was still thousands of kilometers away. If they got going in the right direction…at least they could crash-land where they wanted to go anyway. The issue would then become how to repair their rig enough to get the payload to its destination.
The Alliance will track us there, the general said. We need to lay low for a while.
“Then where?” Dacre asked, sliding down the ladder and landing in a crouch. Wait. What? The asteroid field he’d seen earlier was still dead ahead in the view portal. When the general didn’t respond, he said, “We’re not seriously going in there. Are we?”
Again, the general’s silence was his only answer as she adjusted the positioning of the glowing ropes, which had transformed from purple to red and were now beginning to smoke.
Engine one is failing, one of the Jackal engineers said.
The asteroid field rocketed toward them at ever increasing speeds, or so it felt.
Damn damn damn, Dacre thought, his mind spinning. He had to do something. Use the rig’s mag-cannon to destroy the asteroids…something. Just as quickly, he dismissed the foolish notion. There were far too many floating boulders, and anyway, they would only break into a million smaller chunks that would be even more difficult to pilot through. They’d be chewed up and spit out.
He remembered learning about this particular asteroid field back at the Academy. It was famous amongst mages because of the black market that operated somewhere deep within. Coffee’s Alley was known for trading in rare magical artifacts, many of which Dacre knew the Alliance would kill to get their hands on, not unlike the one he’d stolen, the amulet that was hidden on a chain beneath his shirt. In one way, the general’s decision to enter the field was a stroke of genius. In another way, it was suicide. The Alliance wouldn’t even consider steering one of their massive starships into such a place, where dam
age was unavoidable and complete destruction a likelihood. No, the only vessels that would attempt to infiltrate the asteroids would have to be small, their pilots both skilled and missing a moonrock or two.
We can check off at least two of those boxes, Dacre thought, striding back to his jump seat and strapping in. The Jackals had trusted him to fight off the starship, now he had to trust the general’s ability with the control ropes. “Do a good job,” he said.
The Jackal, to his surprise, offered a jagged-toothed grin of sorts. If we’re about to die, detonate the cargo, she clicked. If I’m leaving this universe, I want to take a few million Gremolins with me. Dacre still hadn’t figured out how to tell when a Jackal was joking, or if they even knew the meaning of the word.
I’m hurtling through space on a damaged magic tanker with a bunch of psychopaths, he thought. “Sounds like a plan,” he said.
The asteroid field surrounded them. At the edge, the rocks were small and spread out, but the further they progressed, the larger and tighter-packed the obstacles became. Some were the size of their enormous tanker, while others were a hundred times larger, floating planets that likely created their own gravitational pull.
General Kukk’uk’s concentration was complete as she wrangled the ropes, narrowly avoiding collisions on numerous occasions while Dacre’s knuckles turned white as he gripped his armrests. Smoke was now pouring into the control room, and he was forced to tuck his mouth into his shirt as he coughed.
The first collision was more than a glancing blow, the general piloting the rig around one massive asteroid only to come face to face with another. A scream ripped itself from Dacre’s throat as he instinctively tried to cover his head, a pointless reaction that would’ve been like trying to block a missile with one’s hand.
The general, however, didn’t flinch, deftly twisting one of the ropes and angling the tanker for a rift in the planet-sized hunk of rock, which cast a dark shadow across them.
We’re not going to fit, Dacre thought, alarm bells going off in his mind. One kilometer, five-hundred meters, one-hundred…
Metal shrieked as the jagged sides of the cave raked its claws against the hull of the ship. The viewing field cracked but held as darkness surrounded them.
We’ve been swallowed whole, Dacre thought. The scraping and shrieking stopped as the area beyond the cave mouth widened to reveal a larger space on the inside, illuminated as the rig’s forward lighting automatically came on. A maze of pillars blocked the way forward, but Kukk’uk didn’t attempt to halt their progress, following the widest path she could find.
Something sparkled on the edge of Dacre’s vision, and he turned toward it. A massive crystal caught the light and seemed to absorb it, glowing in the shadows. It was raw and uncut, imbedded in the asteroid’s inner wall. Dacre knew some crystals were worthless, beautiful trinkets with no real practical value. He also knew other gemstones could be infused with concentrated aura serum, storing the substance for centuries, not unlike the ancient amulet he wore around his neck, tucked safely beneath his shirt.
More crystals came into view. Hundreds—no, thousands—speckling the walls and ceiling, shimmering on the stone pillars. If even one percent of one percent were of value…
Dacre shook his head. Almost certainly this place had already been searched and explored from top to bottom with expensive equipment that could identify the ‘right’ kind of crystals.
Suddenly a shape darted out from behind one of the crystals, its body long and narrow, its wings wide and leathery. It was captured by the rig’s headlights, its eyes dark slashes above a long beak filled with needlelike teeth. With a bloodcurdling scream, it swooped toward the rig, slapping against the glass barrier with such force Dacre could hear its neck break. A smear of black blood trailed behind the creature as it slid down and then fell away.
“Ugh. What was that?”
The Ja’al. A distant cousin to the Jackals, Kukk’uk clicked. They are one of only a handful of known creatures whose bodies can survive the pressures and cold of space. Deadly, but stupid. They tend to stick together in packs.
“You think there are more of—
Dacre’s question was cut off as more screams echoed through the cavern, the air filling with the creatures as they swarmed the rig. They pounded against the glass, none of the successors learning from the mistakes of their predecessors. Still, the glass began to crack even more, spiderwebbing outward from the original point of damage.
Soon one entire half of the glass was obscured by a layer of dark blood, some of the Ja’als’ broken bodies still stuck to where their beaks and claws had penetrated the surface. The screaming stopped, along with the flapping of wings. Dead. All dead. Suicide bombers. “Will it hold?” Dacre asked, staring at a whole new row of warning lights that had begun to flash.
Not for long, the general said.
“Awesome.”
Kukk’uk clicked again, drawing Dacre’s attention back to the center of the cracked viewing screen. Just ahead, a break in the wall appeared. Another tunnel, even smaller than the last.
“We won’t fit,” Dacre said.
The general clicked her disagreement. We’ll make it. Maybe.
Dacre didn’t like that last word, not when their payload could flow through a single breach in the tank in mere minutes. Then everything—all the planning, all the risks—would be for nothing. Not to mention how much it would suck to be thrown from the rig into an airless vacuum where his body would likely end up being crushed against stone, crystal, metal, or all three; or, if he was really lucky, incinerated in a massive magical explosion that would take half the asteroid field with it.
“Good luck,” he said, holding his breath.
The Jackal pilot’s movements became smaller, subtler. A gentle shift of one rope. A tiny twist of another. Dacre closed his eyes just as the rig entered the tunnel, shuddering as one side made contact. The shuddering turned to shaking and the shriek of tearing metal, but then—
Dacre’s eyes flashed open as the ship lurched free, the walls so close on each side Dacre could’ve touched them if he reached through the membrane surrounding the mage seat.
“Unbelievable,” he said. “You’re a Hole of a pilot.” Even for a sadistic terrorist war leader, he added in his head.
Thank you, Kukk’uk said as the rig slid from the asteroid and back into open space.
An even larger asteroid appeared. It was odd-looking, bristling with various unnatural features. It’s inhabited, Dacre realized as they approached. A broad landing strip protruded from one side, dual sets of landing lights highlighting several other vessels already docked at the spacefield. Over the field there was a white amorphous halo, like a canopy but without substance. An artificial grav field, Dacre thought. He’d wondered how anyone could live amongst the asteroids. Even on one of the larger, small-planet-sized rocks, the conditions would be approaching zero-G. Every inhabitant would require suits and helmets—well, except the Jackals and other non-air breathers—and a ready supply of O-tanks would need to be imported. It wouldn’t be cheap, especially for a black-market community that thrived on selling, not buying.
“Identify yourself,” a voice demanded through the rig’s comms.
“This is Mung Telemungo of the Infinity Star,” Dacre said. “Requesting docking and safe harbor.” It was a foolish ruse that would immediately be rejected, but Dacre also knew they would be landing on the strip regardless of whether they’d been given the authority to do so. They were out of options.
“That rat bastard has never left the Infinity Star,” the voice said. “Prepare to be blasted from the void.”
“I’m a mage,” Dacre said. “Class 5+.”
“5+? Never heard of such a thing. If you’re an unfriendly, you have some nerve coming here. Alliance?” The word was spoken more as an accusation than a question.
“They kicked me out of the Academy.”
“Then how are you Class 5…+?”
Time to play his trump ca
rd. There was only one thing those who inhabited the Urkusk underbelly cared about:
Vectors.
“I have information. It’s worth a lot.”
“How much?”
“Trillions,” Dacre said.
Silence. The landing strip was nearly upon them, the lights falling into two parallel lines. They burst through the amorphous halo with a loud sucking sound and Dacre felt his ears pop as a double-dose of artificial grav pressed in upon him, leaving him feeling heavy and sluggish. He wondered if he’d been too honest. Throwing around words like “trillions” anywhere else in the galaxy would earn you a round of laughs and rolled eyes. But Dacre was counting on this place being different than the rest of the galaxy. Here, Vectors spoke louder than a Bronzian grinder crushing a field of meteorites. But then why had the owner of the voice gone silent? Was a massive anti-starship beam about to shred their rig in half? But then…
“Let’s talk.”
Dacre released a sharp breath through his lips, almost a laugh. “I don’t want to surprise you, but I have a dozen heavily armed Jackals on board with me.”
A chuckle through the comms. “You think seeing Jackals in these parts is surprising? Think again. Jackals are regulars around here. Over and out.”
Kukk’uk clicked her approval as she maneuvered the control ropes expertly until the rig was positioned exactly between the lines of lights. She clicked a countdown: Five…four…three…two…
One.
The rig touched down with a minor jolt and the general switched off the last remaining engine. With no reverse thrusters, they were already coming in way too hot considering the limited length of the landing strip.
“Are we going to hit that?” Dacre said, staring at the wall of rock approaching at the end of the strip. Other, smaller vessels flashed by on either side as they rushed past, the tires groaning under the strain of the brakes.
