“What was that?” I ask.
“I left Obsidian.”
My eyes dart to Mika, and she gives me a small nod. “Definitely gquit.”
Dusk opens her mouth, probably to bitch me out for not trusting her, but I silence her with a look. You deserved that.
She turns away and stalks to the railing.
“So!” I say cheerfully, “is she cool?”
Jacinta smiles. “Yeah. She can stay. If she’s good.”
“What’s two?” Mika asks.
“Two?”
“You know.” Astra ticks a finger. “Problem two?”
“Oh. Right. Got so caught up in Sam’s… Can I call you Sam?” She doesn’t wait for my answer, winking my way. “Got so caught up in his ride or die, chase the orcs out of Gondor speech that I almost forgot.”
“Oh, I like her,” Mika grins.
“Of course you do,” I sass. “She made a nerd reference.”
“The problem?” Syl prods with a quelling glance our way.
She’s right. We need to hurry and take off.
“The docking chain,” Jacinta says, “was not just some bullshit I pulled out of my ass to bluff you. It’s down there. And it’s exactly how I like my men; thick, long, and once attached, very difficult to remove.”
“Shit.” I peer over the edge of the deck. “And only Kara has the magic to release it?”
“Yup. I mean, you can brute force break them, but it’s not easy.” Jacinta takes us in. “I doubt any of you have the power to, and if I did, I’d be long gone by now.”
I put my hands to the rail and bow my head. God dammit. After all this, bluffing our way up here, the conversation with Jacinta, Dusk leaving her guild… It was all for nothing? Stuck because of some goddamned chain?
“I can break it,” Dusk says softly.
I turn. “What?”
She meets my gaze, cold and imperious once again. But there’s something else, there, too. I get the impression that her haughtiness isn’t directed at me… It’s just part of who she is. “I can break the chain. If…”
“We give you your powers back,” I finish.
“Not a chance,” Mika says. “No way.”
“I agree. Tactically, this strategy is unwise,” Syl says. “Perhaps sometime in the future, but now? We do not know her.” She unleashes her claws, stretching them close to a foot. “Let me go below. I will see if I can–”
“Cap!” someone shouts from below. The crewman’s voice is high and frightened. “We’ve got company!”
We run to the edge of the deck.
“Soldiers,” Jacinta says, grim. “A lot of them.”
They file from the dock’s gaping mouth, three abreast and at least ten deep. All wear strange, dark armor that shines like plastic. They remind me of Stormtroopers, an impression completed by what look like blaster rifles clutched to their breasts. At their head is one of Kara’s girls, a redhead dressed in ridiculously skimpy lingerie that shows more than it hides. But her hands glow bright orange, and she looks pissed.
“Shit.” My mind races. “If they’ve found us, they’ll send word to Kara.”
“You don’t want that,” Jacinta says. “She’s at least as powerful as Embermane. I’d advise that we get the hell out of here at your earliest convenience.” She considers us. “Figure something out with the chain. Don’t make me regret not dropping you. I’ll go stall.” She vaults to the quarterdeck.
“Ideas?” I ask. “Syl, can you scale the outside of the ship? Try to cut the chain from below?”
Her large eyes blink slowly as she considers. “Yes. But I will be an easy target for the soldiers, and it will be time consuming.”
Below, Jacinta shouts something I can’t make out. Kara’s girl yells something back, demanding.
“Mika… Damn. Without burning a hole in the hull, you can’t hit the chain. And Astra and I are no help.” I grind my teeth.
Jacinta’s tone turns conciliatory.
Kara’s girl yells again, and then twin beams of lights blast from her hands. They smash into some kind of shield that hugs the ship like plastic wrap, and when they hit sparks erupt, blinding. We duck back, but the attack doesn’t penetrate.
“Shit!” Mika swears.
“Yeah,” Jacinta agrees, launching from below and clearing the ladder in a heartbeat. “Stalling’s over. I hope you all have a plan.”
Below, the soldiers level their rifles and start firing. Energy weapons sizzle, lancing toward us like blades of light, and the air suddenly reeks like burnt ozone. The shots fire up, impacting the balloon that hovers silently above us, and for a moment I think we’re screwed. If that thing’s full of gas…
But the energy shield extends upward, too, taking the attacks and turning them. I breathe out for the first time in what feels like forever. “How long will the shielding last?”
“Not long!” Jacinta says merrily. “But I just know you maniacs have thought of something to save my crew and I, because if you haven’t, I’m going to do really, really terrible things to you when we all respawn.”
Mika runs to the edge of the deck closest to the docks, her arms lighting with flame.
“I wouldn’t!” Jacinta calls. “I mean, you can take a few out if you want, but there will be more. And then more. And then you’ll piss off the port guards, and then we’d be proper fucked.”
Mika clenches her fist, clearly aching to let loose on the soldiers below, but finally extinguishes and returns to us. “Then what the hell do we do?”
I look to the others. Their faces are worried and blank.
All but Dusk’s. She watches me like she’s waiting for the inevitable.
Shit. There has to be something we’re not thinking of.
I extend my senses downward, through layers of wood and banded metal, to find the chain. It takes only moments, and when I do, my heart sinks.
“That… Is a big chain,” I say, my words punctuated by blasts against the shielding.
“Sure is!” Jacinta peers over the edge at the soldiers. Kara’s girl sneers and fires at the shielding directly in front of Jacinta’s face. She recoils, rolling her eyes. “Rude!”
In other circumstances, I might be falling a little in love. Again. Jacinta’s nuts, and I can see how she’d be a lot of fun to have around. But at the moment, her strangely cheerful, nonchalant attitude kind of freaks me out.
The firing intensifies. Jacinta’s men cry out in fear and return fire. Apparently, they didn’t get the memo that Jacinta communicated to Mika. Somewhere down on the deck I hear Wick laughing manically and one of the guns firing at a staccato, bizarre rate. I’m sure that it’s him.
A huge dude with a limp vaults onto the deck. “We got like thirty seconds, cap. What’s the plan?”
He’s right. I don’t know much about magic energy shields, but this one seems to be weakening. A lot.
Shit, shit, shit.
I look to Dusk. She watches me calmly, the ghost of a smile on her face. There’s a lot there to decode, a lot I don’t like. Disdain. Disgust. And a hell of a lot of anger.
But I don’t see a lie in her eyes.
“Take us up,” I say. “Astra, give Dusk her power back.”
The outcry is immediate. “Sam, are you nuts?” Mika cries.
“Sam, no,” Astra says. “We can’t trust her.”
“Sam, an hour ago she was fucking gleeful that her big dick mage was about to toast us. You know that,” Mika says.
Syl’s silent, but she watches me closely. Finally, she shrugs. “I do not trust her. But I trust you.”
Dusk is silent during all this. For once. There’s triumph in the lines around her mouth, and it grates at me. Even with all this, she already knows she’s won.
“Do it,” I say. “Astra. We can trust her in this, at least. If we die, she dies.”
Dusk nods. “True.”
Jacinta runs her finger along one of her tattoos. The effect is instant. The ship lifts so abruptly everyone but her and S
yl stumble and brace against the deck. She grins at us. “You’ve got about twenty seconds to figure out all your lover’s drama before the chain tears the bottom out of the ship,” she says. “Hope you get things figured out!”
“I’m not his lover,” Dusk hisses. She looks to the others. “Which makes one of us.”
Jacinta raises an eyebrow. “Interesting.”
Astra gives me a last look before giving in. “I hope you’re right about this.”
So do I.
She reaches out and touches Dusk between the breasts. The mage’s eyes widen as tiny trailers of silver bead at her skin around Astra’s fingertip before absorbing into the AI.
It’s over in seconds.
Dusk cracks her knuckles, makes a few hand gestures. Shadows dance on the deck, and she grins wickedly. “Oh, God. I missed this.”
We watch her warily, and I know I’m not the only one ready to pounce if her shadows get too friendly with our delicate flesh. But after casting us a dismissive glance, she marches to the edge of the deck and glares down at our attackers like they’re insects.
“Dusk, what are you–”
She interrupts me with a complex movement of her fingers.
And then the screams start.
I dash to the edge in time to see at least a dozen soldiers fall with new holes through their faces. Lances of shadow retract from the dock floors and walls, leaving horror movie spurts of blood as the soldier’s bodies hit the deck bonelessly.
The men below cheer, and I can hear Wick retching. Poor kid isn’t cut out for this life.
Kara’s girl manages to raise a shield of energy just before a shadow takes her in the neck, but then another shoots up directly between her legs and stabs into her thigh. It cuts through her entire body, exiting her mouth as she throws her head back in agony. Her scream chokes off as her body writhes, skewered, before the shadow dissipates and she dies.
“Jesus Christ.” I almost feel sorry for them.
Dusk flashes me a bloodthirsty grin. “You have no idea how many times I wanted to do that to you over the last few days.”
I don’t even blink at her threat. “And now?”
“And now I’m going to save our asses. Stand back.”
I do, moving a few steps away as the ship continues its ponderous rise. We must be seconds from disaster. “Hurry.”
Dusk doesn’t respond as she starts her incantation. This time, her delicate lips move soundlessly as she utters her spell, and instead of flicking with her fingers she uses her arms. She throws them out like an orchestra conductor before rotating and locking her elbows. Her voice rises in a singsong cadence of words I can’t understand.
Any second n–
The ship suddenly jolts. I’m thrown from my feet and almost fall over the side as it lists over. Woods screams in protest before bits of it splinter beneath us, and the entire ship groans sickeningly.
End of the chain.
“See you when we respawn!” Jacinta calls. “Better hope I don’t find you!”
“Dusk! Hurry!”
Her eyes are half lidded, and I don’t think she hears me. Her voice raises higher, and she finally shouts a harsh word with no vowels. My body instantly feels like it’s been drenched in rotten oil. At that last, horrible word she throws her hands forward.
A shadow blade the size of a city bus erupts from the dock’s mouth. It spears across the deck, digging a massive furrow in the floor as it comes before disappearing underneath the ship.
Metal screams. A sound like a rock thrown down a metal tube shatters the air, and I throw my hands over my ears and close my eyes against the terrible vibration. The ship shudders under my feet so violently I’m afraid it’s shaking my teeth loose.
Suddenly, something snaps and with a lurch we fling into the air and away from the dock.
Dusk’s shadow disappears and her eyes roll back in her head. She falls and I dive to catch her before she hits the deck.
Below us, a chain of metal links thick enough for a cruise ship, sheared cleanly in half, fall before smashing into the side of the spire. Electricity crackles along its length as it descends, the last bits of the binding spell dissipating.
We cheer as more soldiers swarm the dock, but most of their frantic shots miss us entirely. In moments we’re out of range. The ship has no engines, no propellers that I can see, but it absolutely flies. “Damn!” I say, bracing myself on the railing as I lift Dusk. She’s already regaining consciousness, and as soon as she realizes that I’m holding her she pulls away, using the railing as a brace.
I don’t care. This feels incredible. The wind ruffles my hair and I have to fight the urge to throw my hands out Titanic style. “This thing books!”
“Yep,” Jacinta says, smug. “She’s a beaut. Started saving for her before the purge.”
I want to hug her, I’m so grateful. A few hours ago, we scrambled through the streets of the city, hunted by Obsidian. Now, with wispy clouds streaming past us and with everyone but Dusk hugging each other and laughing, it’s hard not to feel like we’re home free.
I think Jacinta sees something of it in my eyes. She rests her hand on the pommel of her cutlass. “Hey. You’re cute and all, even without the tits, but we just met.”
I raise my hands, and the wind carries away my laugh. “Sorry. Sorry. It’s just… It’s been a rough day.” I catch Mika as she falls into my arms with a giggle. “Or week. Month.”
Jacinta’s grin is shadowed by old sadness. “I think just about everyone can relate, these days.”
Mika kisses my neck, then turns to her. “Thank you, Captain. We would be in rough shape without–”
“Sam!” Wick’s strangled cry floats up from below. “Sam, look out over the port… Starboard… Shit, the left side of the ship! Hurry!”
Panic borne of survival instinct instantly douses the mood and we rush to the side of the ship. Jacinta gets there first, and she pulls out a golden spyglass. She unfolds it to the length of my arm. “Whereabouts! What do you see?”
Wick bounds up to the poop deck, all scrambling claws and panting terror. “Embermane… Coming… Fast!”
“Where?” Jacinta says, voice level. If she’s worried about one of the most powerful players in Lifestream heading toward us like a cruise missile, she doesn’t show it.
“A bit behind,” Wick says. “Sorry, if I can just…” he nudges her spyglass with a paw. “Right about there?”
Jacinta watches for long moments. “Well, he seems to be rather put out.”
My laugh is panicked. “Yeah, he’s a bit miffed at us, for sure.”
Astra’s skin silvers for a moment. “Can we outrun him?”
“Not a chance,” Jacinta says merrily. She lowers the spyglass. “Didn’t expect that the price of passage would be so high when I took you on.”
She hands me the spyglass. It only takes a moment to spot Embermane silhouetted against the buildings below. He’s screaming toward us so fast that he leaves a trail of blue magic in his wake. And behind him… “Shit. Does this thing adjust? Zoom?”
“Sure.” Jacinta’s fingers rotate something midway along the barrel. “Though in about thirty seconds you won’t need this at all.”
“Just wanted to make sure…” Clasped in Embermane’s hand is something it takes me a minute to comprehend. The light of the moon is bright enough to illuminate something long and flesh colored that trails behind him like a kite string. And at the end of it…
A ball. Pink spandex and skin.
Mereta.
I lower the spyglass. “Jacinta, how durable is this ship?”
Mika interrupts. “Why? What did you see?”
“We’re about to get a visit from Mereta, and probably Ajax, too.”
“Damn.” Mika’s hand ignites. “Dusk, can we take them?”
“Not a chance,” she says, and for once, there’s no malice in it. “Even beat to hell, Embermane alone would be… Rough. With those two?” She slumps against the rail. “We’re dead.
”
Syl perches at the edge, watching the mage come. “Sam’s question. How much damage can this vessel sustain?”
“The balloon can take a hell of a beating after the shields drop,” she says. “They’re built tough and have none of the pesky issues zeps had on Earth. It’s all magic based; no combustible gas or flimsy balloon. Which is great, because these things cost an arm and a leg, and if they were shit quality no one would waste the chips.”
“This sounds like a good news bad news thing,” Mika says.
“Yeah, the ship itself?” she says, knocking her heel into the wood below. “Not so much. Which is decidedly inconvenient…”
“Considering that’s what we’re riding on, got it,” I say, rubbing sweat from my forehead. I take another glance in the spyglass, though I barely need it. Embermane’s maybe fifteen seconds behind us. “We need an advantage. Tell me about the shields.”
“They redirect incoming magic and energy,” she says. “They don’t do as well against tangible projectiles like bullets or cannonballs.” She shrugs apologetically. “Hardly anyone uses ‘em and adding in that functionality is expensive.”
“What about outgoing magic?” Mika asks, bouncing a ball of flame from hand to hand. “Can we shoot back?”
“Oh, sure. Be a pretty shit system if you couldn’t,” Jacinta says. “Not like it’ll help much against that guy, though.”
“Have to try something. Not gonna lay down and die, here.” She pulls her hands apart, palms open, and a huge ball of roiling flame forms. She raises it over her head and tosses it like a football.
We watch, hushed, as it tears through the air. It launches behind and down, a perfect throw that beelines for Embermane. It’s so hot the air around it warps, lending the city below a bizarre, shimmering quality.
“Won’t work.” Dusk’s voice is quiet, defeated, and she’s the only one not watching. “It’ll take a lot more than your shit tier magic to take on someone like him.”
I wince as Mika’s flame splashes against Embermane’s shielding where it dissipates harmlessly. He’s close enough now that I can almost see the disdain on his face; he didn’t even bother dodging it. I turn to Dusk, suddenly furious. “What about you, then? Just going to sit there and die? After all this?”
Aspirant 2: A Sci-Fi Harem Adventure Page 47
