Assimilated

by Nick Webb

  Weatherly paused, and looked up again. “What?”

  “We can shift to the other side of the planet. It will take the November ships several minutes to determine our position, and at least ten more to catch up to us, and in the meantime our main power is back online, and our weapons, and, POW!” He smacked a fist into his other palm.

  Weatherly shook his head. “Impossible. You can’t shift anywhere in your current gravity well. The nearest place you can grav shift to is another gravity well at least a lightyear away.”

  “No, sir, not impossible, just difficult. It will drain our caps completely. We won’t shift again for another day or more. But we’ll be alive.”

  Weatherly swore under his breath. “Ensign, I don’t have time for any shit here. This is real. We’re dead in a few minutes unless we get main power back.”

  Another series of explosions sounded from the distant hull, as if to underscore his point.

  “Sir, this is my life. I know gravitics more than I know women, which is a very great deal, I assure you. It’ll work.”

  Commander Weatherly jabbed his finger in the direction of the hull, which sounded with more deadly impacts from November Clan weaponry. “Ensign, is this a joke to you? We’re dead in the water. Stop wasting my time. Intra-gravity well shifting is impossible. Done. End of discussion.”

  “No, sir, not the end. That was chapter one of my dissertation. Bernoulli equation number two. Intra-gravity well shifting is not only possibly, but potentially quite easy.”

  Weatherly scanned Bernoulli’s face, as if looking for deception, or ineptitude, or delusions of grandeur—for all the other man knew, Bernoulli had all three. But at least for now the Commander bought it. He tapped the comm. “Captain, I can give you one gravitic shift to the other side of the planet, which will give us all the time we need to recharge weapons batteries. And yes, I can confirm that, regardless of how implausible it sounds.” He looked back at Bernoulli and muttered, “if you’re wrong, we’re all dead anyway, Ensign.”

  “When?” came the Captain’s blustery voice.

  “When?” asked Weatherly.

  “Now,” said Bernoulli.

  “Now, sir,” repeated Weatherly.

  Bernoulli overheard the Captain shout at the navigation station. “Calculate a shift to the other side of the planet, and initiate! Now!”

  Bernoulli ran back to the gravitic console and monitored the emitters. Jefferson stood back and clenched his fists repeatedly as if preparing to be blown up at any moment. Or preparing to pound Bernoulli’s face.

  The emitter’s power level’s spiked. The navigation officer had entered the calculations, and the drive spun to life.

  A flash, and everyone shielded their eyes. The plasma injectors had apparently overloaded, Bernoulli thought, but too late to be worried about that. The drive had all the plasma it needed.

  “Bernoulli, what the hell—” began Commander Weatherly.

  “It’s all right, sir. Look.” He pointed to the capacitor bank indicators. All zero. Drained of every joule of energy.

  Weatherly ran back to his command console. A small crowd of engineers had gathered to see what the Commander was doing. He tapped a few commands into the console, then looked up in amazement.

  “Impossible.”

  “Sir?” Bernoulli grinned.

  Weatherly studied the console, then snapped into action, pointing at the gathered onlookers. “Folks, we’ve got ten minutes to squeeze every last drop of power out of these engines and redirect them to the weapons, or we’re fried. Ensign Bernoulli here, and his second Bernoulli equation have given us a second chance, it appears. We’re on the far side of Peleo, and the enemy has no idea where we are.”

  Bernoulli raised his hand, “Uh, sir, technically it was the sixty first Bernoulli equation. The second one merely set the theoretical framework. The sixty-first was the one we actually used to—”

  “Shut it, Ensign.” Weatherly pointed to the power plant on the rear wall. “Pull one of those other Bernoulli equations out of your ass and fix my fusion drive. Move!”

  He stood at attention. Or, as near to attention as he could. In truth, Alessandro Timoteo Bernoulli could hardly pay attention to one thing more than a few seconds, unless it were a gravitic field equation, or a gorgeous woman. The curves of both gave him a tingle, and at the moment he was focused on those of Commander Takato, who was pinning the medal on his puffed-out chest.

  Several hundred officers, all assembled on the fighter deck, began clapping enthusiastically as Captain Tonks finished his speech and Commander Takato finished pinning the medal and looked up to shake his hand.

  The crowd cheered again. From the end of the line of senior officers facing the crowd, Commander Weatherly called out, “You saved the day with your second Bernoulli equation, Ensign, or your sixty-first, or whatever the hell it was,” the crowd’s clapping and cheering had given way to light laughter. “But you never told us what the first Bernoulli equation was.”

  Ensign Bernoulli turned to Weatherly in delight. “May I?”

  Commander Weatherly waved his hand toward the Captain, who shrugged indifferently. For someone whose ass was just saved by one of his ensigns, he sure didn’t think much of Bernoulli, still.

  He turned back to Commander Takato, who was still shaking his hand. “The first Bernoulli equation. I started to give it to you earlier.”

  He looked at the crowd. In the first row, Ensign Jefferson, his roommate, started urgently shaking his half-bald head, mouthing the words, don’t you dare.

  “And here it is in full. You, plus me, equals ecstasy, baby!”

  The crowd fell into an uncomfortable silence. Commander Takato turned beet red. Bernoulli grinned. Captain Tonks, his loose jowls shaking almost imperceptibly, cleared his throat and turned back to the microphone.

  “Well, uh, thank you, again, uh, Ensign. I’m sure you’ll be quite a, um, valuable officer during this tour of the Indomitable.” He sucked in his massive belly and prepared to dismiss the assembled crowd.

  Bernoulli turned back to Commander Takato, giving her a sly, knowing grin. “You now, I may not have a dickidoo, like our fearless Captain, but I’d be honored if you’d accompany my on our next shore leave.”

  Takato hesitated. “Dickidoo?” She looked at her insignia on her shoulder, thinking he meant the little tassals hanging down, indicating her rank.

  “Yes, my love. His belly is so large, it sticks out more than his dicky do.”

  The crowd started to murmur. Ensign Jefferson put his head into his hands.

  Captain Tonks turned as red as Commander Takato had just moments before, and reached up to hold the microphone close to his mouth.

  “Dismissed.”

  10 years later

  Lieutenant Alessandro Bernoulli leaned back in his chair and tapped the whiteboard, where he’d listed out all one hundred and thirteen Bernoulli equations. “And that, friend, is how I managed to serve in the Imperial fleet for a grand total of two days.” He grinned at the fighter pilot still staring at the chessboard between them. “Not counting my time in the academy, of course. But since I already had the diplomas, and of course due to my incontestably brilliant brain, they let me through in two years.”

  Lieutenant Mercer nodded absentmindedly. “Uh huh. Sure, buddy. Way to get booted for sexual harassment.” His finger brushed up against his remaining rook, hesitated, then withdrew.

  Earlier that day, they’d met in the Phoenix’s mess hall for an early morning game. Mercer had lost so badly that he had impetuously challenged the engineer to another rematch that night, and this time was taking so long with his moves that Bernoulli had managed to list out every single Bernoulli equation on his whiteboard and had started to give the history of each, starting with the Bernoulli equation number one: U + M*I = X^C, baby.

  “And? Did she ever take you up on it?” Mercer asked distantly, as if not fully concentrating on the conversation. He reached back to the rook, and then withdrew his
hand again.

  “Friend. I hope you are kidding. This is Bernoulli equation number five. So simple it requires no mathematical symbols, and still you do not remember?”

  Mercer looked up at the board, towards number five. The only thing next to the number was a small chalk sketch of a little mushroom cloud.

  Bernoulli continued, “Of course she went out with me. Equation number five: Make a big enough first impression, like explosion,” he said, tapping the little sketch with a piece of chalk, “and they will think about you constantly, and will not say no when you ask. Closely related to equation six, which says: He who lives with his balls hanging out gets the most women in the end.” He tapped the number six, beside which was another mushroom cloud, this one upside-down, resembling male genitalia.

  “Hmm… Mm hm… yeah, not sure I believe you, buddy.” was all Mercer could say as he studied the chessboard, and moved the queen three squares to the right.

  “Oh, friend. Oh, friend. Really?” Bernoulli shook his head slowly, clicked his tongue, and stood up. “Well, it was a fun night, but I need to at least get an hour or two of sleep before morning. Bernoulli equation one hundred and fourteen beckons to me,” he said, tapping the blank space beside the number ‘114’ on the chalkboard.

  Mercer grabbed the piece and moved it back. “Wait. My mistake. I meant to move it here.” He pushed it three spaces in the opposite direction.

  Bernoulli kept shaking his head. “Still checkmate. Goodnight, friend.”

  He walked back into his bedroom and the door slid shut behind him.

  “Dammit,” Jake muttered, and stalked from the room. He wasn’t sure if his new friend was full of it or not, but the man could play chess, he’d give him that.

  And now for something completely different! While most of my work is science fiction, I did dabble somewhat in fantasy and hope to return to it someday, especially to this series, the Masks of Terremar. A gift of shadow is a short story set in that world, and precedes the first novel, The Maskmaker’s Apprentice. This series has a very archaic, non-contemporary feel to it, and, frankly, I love it. I can’t wait to write book two (and more) of this series, but for now please enjoy this short, and the snippet from the novel that follows. If you like them, please consider purchasing the complete novel! It’s pretty much a standalone novel, though I will eventually add more books to it.

  A Gift of Shadow

  By Nick Webb

  My mask gives me power. It gives me strength. It gives me courage. Without it, I am exposed. Naked. It is my armor, shield, and robe. It is also my lie—my story. Without it, all around me encounter the pathetic truth: I am not a warrior. I am not draeconis. I do not breathe fire and sail the skies. I am broken, raw, and vulnerable. All my talk of justice only cloaks a lust for vengeance. The ugly truth? Beneath the mask, I am human.

  Tarsha lived alone, they say. Alone and shunned beneath the snow-dusted peaks of the Timorous Mountains. Village chanters from as far away as Ismarya sang her story around their campfires, the flickering light glinting off a tin chanter’s mask as they told the sad tale. A cautionary tale, they warned. For Tarsha was full of pride and arrogance, presuming her place to be above that which the gods had set.

  But to Tarsha, her tale was simply ordinary. Where others saw hubris, she saw necessity. Where the chanters sang of great deeds of strength and courage, she saw only the daily plod of survival and subsistence.

  Her mask was not one for gloating. Its spirits were simple. Humble. They were concerned with ordinary things. Like finding enough food to store up against the harsh winter. Enough for the two of them.

  For Tarsha did not live alone, as the chanters told.

  “Sael, come hither.” She beckoned to the small girl who focused on her small pile of reeds and tak-weed, weaving a makeshift basket to hold the hangra fish she would catch from the gray pool near their thatch-roof hut.

  Tarsha looked her up and down. Small, gangly, almost as physically inconsequential as the spirits of her girl-child mask. Even though she was at least ten seasons old, she had the body of a child half her age. She was a stunted sapling, struggling to grow.

  Neglect and abuse made for poor soil.

  The girl bounded to Tarsha’s side, who was herself a young woman scarcely twice Sael’s tender age. As they differed in age and physicality, their masks also differed. Sael had colored her girl-child mask with charcoal and the green blood of horak fern fronds, lending it an ability to blend in with the earth and vegetation, while Tarsha’s was a brilliant red, white, and bronze mask that almost radiated a heat of its own, catching the eye and caution of all who saw.

  For Tarsha’s mask was not one to ignore. To ignore a draeconis mask was to tempt the gods. To invite folly and ruin.

  “Have you eaten?”

  The girl shook her head. Tarsha could almost see the spirits in her mask avert their gaze, as if hiding. Ashamed.

  “Eat. You need sustenance for the journey.”

  Sael dutifully scurried back to the hut. It was a small thing, simple and unassuming, with walls of thickly woven elmore branches and bundled dry weed for a roof. One could easily miss it in the trees if one was not looking for it.

  That was by design. Soon, spring would come, and they could return to their home in the upper valley of the Timorous Mountains. It was safer there. Away from prying masks and those seeking adventure.

  Seekers, they called themselves. Hunters was a better word. They wanted a trophy. To go down in the chants and songs as heroes who faced unspeakable danger, and lived. Such men were not much better than savages, men who laid aside their honest vocation and support of their children to seek vain glory and worthless status, for even with their trophies these lesser men would never merit the attention of men of high masks. The masks of power do not mix company with lesser masks, no matter the prizes won.

  Such was the way of life.

  But such men were numerous. At this thought, a presence and a shadow darkened her mind. She’d been aware of it for days. Her mask felt it approach. It hid, and moved slowly, deliberately. Crouching and waiting. Crawling deliberately through the dense elmore trees and horak ferns.

  Someone was coming for them.

  She craned her head around, peering through the dense needles and branches surrounding the gray pool and hut. He was there. Somewhere. Hunting them.

  Let him come, she thought, scoffing at the murderous spirits of his mask with her own. She stood up from her cross-legged task of skinning a wild goat she’d caught earlier in the day and stalked back to the hut.

  He has no idea what awaits him.

  My first kill was the most potent. The most raw and primal. He was a young hunter who had heard rumors of the untamed wyvern that had taken up residence in the Timorous Mountains. Draeconis masks, in all their forms, were prized among all men—not to be worn, of course, for men do not become draeconis, but to display above one’s hearth as a trophy. For it gives off its own light and heat, warming one’s home as if by dragon fire. But he was indiscrete, blundering through the trees as loudly as a wild boar, the spirits of his mask blustering their wicked intentions to my ears far sooner than I could see him. And his blood was sweet in my jaws. It coursed down my throat like welcoming fire, warming my belly and enlivening my soul. It was like the sweet nectar of the gods, and soon, I came to depend on it, my body weakening and withering when I was deprived of it.

  “Little one, you must hide again.”

  Sael had been stuffing her meager belongings into a leather satchel, but stopped when Tarsha entered the hut.

  “An evil mask?”

  Tarsha nodded. “A hunter, no doubt.”

  Sael looked up into Tarsha’s mask. Sometimes it unnerved her how perceptive the child was. Somehow, in spite of the neglect and abuse of her early years, the girl had learned how to read the spirits of the masks of those around her. Perhaps it was nothing more than survival—if one could perceive the intentions of those who meant to harm, one could live to suffer anoth
er day.

  “You worry about this one. More so than the others.”

  Tarsha nodded again. “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  Tarsha picked up a ragged leather shirt of Sael’s and folded it. “I know not.” She slipped it into the satchel. “But I know this one is potent. Powerful. More so than any that have come.”

  Sael looked out the small opening in the wall’s branches that served as a window. “Why do we not leave now? Go to our home in the mountains?”

  “We will, child. We will.” Tarsha paused, tempted to lie to the girl, to assure her that they only lingered to await better weather for traveling, or to gather more nuts and dried meat for the journey. But she couldn’t hide the truth from the perceptive spirits of the child’s mask. “But this one is different. I … I need to test myself against him. It’s been so long since….”

  The child nodded in understanding. “Since you’ve made the offering of blood. The justice offering.”

  “Yes.”

  The child phrased it so delicately. So righteously. It almost sounded like something clean and benevolent—a holy offering to the gods.

  In reality, she thirsted for blood. For the fire to spill down her throat and quench the ravaging demand. She called it justice—and it was, for she did not invite the hunters; she did not summon them.

  But she welcomed them. With fire and with death. With justice.

  Her hearing was heightened by the wyvern mask, and she heard a tiny twig break, far away down the hill.

  He was coming.

  “Time to hide, child.”

  Sael nodded, and pulled on a goat skin cloak that she’d altered, attaching branches and needles to the hide. Wearing the cloak, Sael blended in perfectly with the forest. She crept out the door and slipped through the trees up the hill, disappearing even from Tarsha’s keen eyes. Soon, even the girl’s heartbeat seemed to vanish from hearing, leaving Tarsha crouched alone beside the empty tanning rack, the goat still only half-skinned.