by J. J. Green
The mercs began firing. Castiel turned and raised his weapon, aiming it at Darius.
Bryce shot the Dark Mage in the stomach and he doubled over, dropping to his knees then toppling to the floor. He lay still. Bryce ran up to the boy and kicked his body out of the way.
More Dirksen soldiers flooded into the hall from the bay.
“Darius, everyone,” Carina shouted, “start Casting.”
Sable Dirksen was backing away from the fighting, her guard protecting her.
“Don’t Transport the woman in black,” Carina instructed her siblings.
Though removing their leader might encourage the Dirksen soldiers to surrender, if anyone knew where mage documents were it was Sable.
Mercs were falling, hit by close-range fire. It was typical that the Dirksens would have the latest weaponry, which would be effective against the latest armor. But Dirksen troops were falling too, and simply disappearing as the mages Transported them away from the fortress.
They were the lucky ones.
Carina realized Sable was nearing the exit to the lower level. Leaving Bryce to protect the children, she ran around the edge of the room. A pulse round hit her but only obliquely, skittering over her shoulders. She felt a flash of heat then it was gone.
The hiss of pulse fire, thud of boots on stone, clack of weapons on armor, and cries of wounded Dirksen soldiers echoed from the high-vaulted ceiling. The mercs seemed to be winning but it was hard to tell. Carina didn’t know how many enemy soldiers had yet to enter the hall.
One of Sable’s guard had seen Carina coming. The woman turned her focus from the mercs to the approaching threat to the Dirksen leader.
Carina fired on her before she could shoot, hitting her in the face. The soldier fell, her head a mess of smoldering flesh and bone.
Sable’s wide-eyed gaze fixed on Carina. She pushed the back of another of her guards, drawing his attention. He swept around, but as he was about to fire he disappeared, Transported by one of the kids.
Two down, two to go.
The sounds of battle seemed to be lessening.
Another of Sable’s guard disappeared.
The woman began to run to the exit.
Carina switched her weapon to stun and shot the Dirksen leader in the back. Her remaining guard fired on Carina, hitting her thigh. Searing heat erupted from the muscle.
She fired back. Her shot went wide, but a pulse from another direction hit the man’s chest. He collapsed, falling backward onto prone, unconscious Sable Dirksen.
Chapter Forty-One
Carina slid to the floor, the pain from her thigh felling her. Her suit’s medkit kicked into action and she felt the pressure of an air-injector against her skin. An icy sensation spread from the injection site, first dulling then entirely numbing the pain. She exhaled.
The shooting had stopped. What Dirksen soldiers remained were motionless on the floor, either dead or incapacitated. The mercs were walking among them, removing their weapons and checking their statuses.
Carina got to her feet. Her injured leg felt weak but she walked over to Sable Dirksen, who lay face-downward beneath her dead guard.
“You okay, Car?” asked Atoi as she approached.
“Until the anesthetic wears off,” she replied.
“Did you kill her?” Atoi gestured at the prone Dirksen leader.
“No. She’s only stunned. I want to find out what she knows about this place.”
Atoi paused a moment as if listening to a comm. “One of the skimmers either didn’t arrive or left after the battle started,” she said. “Only four are in the bay.”
“Maybe some Dirksen troops decided their leader wasn’t worth fighting for,” sad Carina, thinking she would never have fought for Sable Dirksen either, not after she’d tried to massacre thousands of innocent mages.
“Or they left to wait for reinforcements,” Atoi said.
“I guess there might be more troops on Ostillon,” Carina mused. “That corvette is probably here to take the majority offplanet along with her.”
“Imagine being so scared of reprisals you take a whole platoon with you wherever you go.”
“The Dirksens sure have a lot to answer for. Before they came along Ostillon was doing okay. Now the place is a wasteland. I doubt any Ostillonian would hesitate to slit her throat if they got the chance.”
“We’d better not hang around too long,” Atoi said. “Just in case the Dirksens decide to mount a rescue.”
Carina walked closer to Sable and tried to move the dead soldier off of her.
Seeing Carina’s struggle, Atoi stepped up and helped her roll the corpse away.
Sable appeared to be coming around.
The sound of running feet distracted Carina. A figure in merc’s armor was running across the hall. The person was too small to be a mercenary, however.
After puzzling over it briefly, Carina realized the figure was Castiel.
She’d thought Bryce had killed him—and she hadn’t shed any tears about it.
She lifted her weapon and aimed, but before she could get off a shot the boy had disappeared through an opening.
“Send some people after him, Atoi,” she said. Dammit.
She wished Bryce had removed the thorn that had been stuck in her side for so long. Now she would have to figure out what to do with the little traitor. Again. Had he really imagined the Dirksens would win against the Black Dogs and that Sable Dirksen would be grateful to him?
The boy had even greater delusions of grandeur than his father.
Bryce walked up, the children trailing him.
“I know, I know,” he said, seeing her expression. “I just couldn’t kill a kid.”
“Castiel is bad,” Darius said.
“I hate him so much,” said Oriana.
Sable Dirksen groaned. She tried to turn onto her back and failed.
“Let me help you,” Carina offered sweetly.
She slid her booted foot under the small woman’s torso and flipped her over. Then she rested the end of her rifle’s muzzle against Sable’s forehead.
The Dirksen leader’s eyes narrowed and focused on Carina. Then the woman groaned again, turned her face to one side, and vomited.
“Pleased to meet you too,” Carina said.
“Gross,” said Ferne.
Sable wiped her mouth on her sleeve. “Can I at least sit up?”
Carina eased the pressure of her weapon against Sable’s forehead and gave a nod, though as Sable drew herself into a sitting position, Carina’s weapon was never far from her face.
“You must be Carina Sherrerr,” said Sable.
“My name isn’t your business,” Carina replied, not bothering to correct the woman’s error. “You’re alive for one reason. I’m looking for something here. If you can tell me where it is, maybe I’ll only lock you in one of your cells with the corpse of a prisoner you left to starve. Maybe one of your officers might think to look for you there.”
“You make it sound so inviting,” said Sable. “Perhaps I would rather die than endure that, or help you.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” Carina said simply. “Cowards always cling to life. No matter how many people have to die for them or what dishonorable things they must do. You’ll do anything to live.”
Sable swallowed and her gaze slid from Carina’s to take in the state of things in the hall. Perhaps she was hoping to see some of her soldiers still standing, giving her a chance of reversing the situation in her favor. Or perhaps she was counting them, wondering if some had gotten away and might return to try to rescue her.
Carina thrust her muzzle into Sable’s skull, causing her head to jerk backward. “I’m looking for documents. Ancient papers, or anything else that was here when you arrived.”
Sable hesitated.
“What is it?” Carina demanded. “Tell me!”
“There’s a room,” Sable replied, looking as though she’d tasted bile. “We call it the Star Tower. There might be something in
there.”
“Show me,” Carina ordered.
Atoi hauled the Dirksen clan leader to her feet. “Move fast,” she said, pushing the leader forward.
The woman had no choice but to walk quickly with Atoi’s gun in her back. Carina, Bryce, and the mages followed.
The mercs remained in the hall, tending to their own wounded and corralling the Dirksen wounded who could still walk toward the prisoner cells.
Sable took them up many floors to the very top of the castle. They stepped out of the elevator into a chill breeze and starlit sky. They were inside a tower with arched, glassless windows that looked out over the mountains, their peaks glowing softly in the starlight. Low seating ran around the edge of the room that was topped by an octagonal roof.
“You’ll have to be quick,” said Sable sullenly. “The effect disappears at dawn.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Carina.
“This is hollow.” Sable kicked the solid wall that ran down from the edge of the seating. “I think something’s inside but it’s impossible to open. I guess it’s something to do with stars, but I could never create the right pattern. There are too many possibilities, even for a computer to generate.”
Carina knelt down in front of the panel Sable had kicked. It was hard to see in the minimal light, but she thought she could make out some faint lines. As she peered at them more closely her heart leapt.
It was a Character, though one she didn’t recognize.
She’d been right all along. Mages had lived here! Her ancestors had stood where she was kneeling.
The thought brought a lump to her throat but she had no time to indulge her feelings. The Dirksen woman had said something about having to hurry and star patterns.
However, Sable Dirksen was not a mage.
Carina sipped elixir, closed her eyes, and Cast Unlock. She opened her eyes and touched the Character.
The section beneath the seat didn’t move and the lines around its periphery remained thin.
Carina stood up. “What do you mean about the stars?”
Sable began to lift an arm.
“Hey!” said Atoi.
“Do you want me to show you or not?” Sable asked acidly.
“Let her move,” Carina told her friend.
Sable reached up and tapped the air above her head with a finger. A point of light appeared. Like a tiny star, it hung in the dark space below the tower roof. She touched the air in another place and a second star came to life.
“It only happens at night,” said Sable. “As soon as the sun rises the stars disappear.”
“I know what it is!” said Oriana excitedly. “It’s the Star Map.”
Carina had realized it immediately too but the realization had filled her with dread.
The Star Map was the hardest part of the mages’ meditation ritual. Nai Nai had taught it rigorously, forcing her to draw it on a holoscribe over and over again. If she made one mistake she had to start again from the beginning. As a young child, she’d fallen asleep trying to draw the Star Map correctly and dreamt about being lost in it, unable to find Ma or Ba or her way home.
My way home.
If she could draw the Star Map correctly, it might unlock the door and reveal whatever secrets the mages had stored there, perhaps even the route back to Earth. But only if she could draw it correctly.
How many times had she wondered if the Map had been corrupted over the centuries and generations of mages, passing it on from memory alone?
“Carina,” urged Bryce, “you have to do it quickly.”
Outside the tower, the real stars were beginning to fade in the pre-dawn light.
One hundred star positions, from memory?
Swallowing her fear that she would get it wrong or that the Map she’d learned with so much effort and anguish was incorrect to start with, Carina began.
Instinctively, she swiped away the stars Sable had created, leaving a blank canvas. As always, she began from the center. The central patterns were burned into her mind like the most painful moments of her life. Like the time she finally accepted that her parents were never coming home, and the moment Nai Nai took her last breath.
When the center was complete, she moved to the right quadrant at the rear of the 3D map. Nai Nai had taught her tricks to help her remember. This set of stars looks like a scalobite tail, and they join to this set via a winding trail like a soft noodle.
Carina moved to the next quadrant, conscious of the sky lightening around her. As she worked, old memories of her grandmother surfaced. Moments she’d forgotten.
The old lady had been a fearsome force to reckon with at times but Carina had felt her love like a thick blanket surrounding her and protecting her always.
She started on the third quadrant. These stars were like the spots on a kruekin’s wings, and these were regular like the windows of a three-story house.
Carina had once asked Nai Nai if they would ever live in a three-story house. Her grandmother had replied, “Probably not, but we will always be happy.”
By the time Carina moved on to the fourth and final quadrant, her face was wet and she could barely see what she was doing. She stopped a moment to wipe her eyes.
The edge of the mountain range was turning rosy-red and the Map was beginning to fade.
She hurriedly created the last set of stars.
One here, another here. Five to go. Carina counted them down. She touched the final star to life and fell to her knees, grasping the flat surface under the seat.
The door didn’t open.
She pressed it, then dug her fingernails into the cracks, but it remained firmly closed.
“Never mind,” said Darius. “You tried.”
Carina leapt up. She’d gotten something wrong, she knew it. If she could only remember.
Then she saw it. The final five stars were reversed. She’d created a mirror image of their true position.
She swept her hand through them. Beyond the space that had held the erased stars, she saw a brightness on the horizon that heralded the sun’s approach.
Her hand trembling, Carina re-created the final five stars.
“It’s opening!” shouted Oriana.
But before Carina could turn around to see what lay beyond the door, Sable drove her elbow into Atoi’s stomach. The merc’s armor protected her from actual injury but the distraction gave Sable the chance she needed.
She ripped Atoi’s weapon from her hands and fired at the group of mages.
The pulse hit Darius.
Carina screamed and launched herself at Sable. Atoi was already on the woman, knocking her to the ground and wrestling the weapon from her. Carina knelt on her chest and grabbed Sable’s throat with both hands.
“Don’t kill her,” warned Atoi.
Carina took no notice. Sable was turning purple.
“Car,” barked Atoi. “Let go. We need her.”
With all her strength, Carina squeezed tighter.
“Don’t make me do it, Car.”
Carina felt cold, hard metal against her skull. The red haze that masked her vision began to fade. The noises and sights of her surroundings flooded in.
“He’s still alive,” she heard Oriana say.
Somehow, Carina managed to loosen her grip on Sable Dirksen.
The woman coughed and writhed, trying to get her hands up.
“One of you take whatever’s inside that cubbyhole,” said Atoi. “We have to get back to the shuttle.”
Chapter Forty-Two
“I haven’t heard from Stevenson for a while,” Atoi said as they ran down the castle stairs, “and he isn’t answering comms. The last thing he said was he could see that fifth skimmer that got away. Then nothing.”
Carina could hardly make sense of what the woman was saying. All she could think about was Darius. She was carrying the little boy over her shoulder as they ran.
Darius. Her sweet little brother, who she was supposed to protect and keep safe. And he’d been shot
, right in the stomach, by that Dirksen bitch.
But Carina knew it was her fault. Her fault for taking him into danger.
The armful of documents Ferne was carrying, the treasure Carina had worked so hard and risked so much for, meant nothing compared to Darius’s life. Nothing was worth attaining if it meant she had to lose him.
“Car,” Atoi said. “I need you to keep it together.”
Carina hated her friend right then but she knew she was right.
“The mages can Transport the platoon to the shuttle,” she said.
“I’m worried about that corvette,” Atoi said. “I want to take the bitch with us.” She was gripping Sable Dirksen tightly by her upper arm and part forcing, part dragging her down the stairs.
“No,” said Carina. “The cells.”
She could imagine worse and more suitable fates for the Dirksen leader than starving to death but she didn’t have time to enact them.
“We can use her as a hostage for safe passage out of the system,” countered Atoi.
Through the fog of her rage, misery, and guilt, Carina could see the sense of what Atoi was saying. Without Darius they wouldn’t be able to Cloak the shuttle and sneak past the Dirksen corvette unseen. The shuttle had little in the way of defensive weaponry. It relied on the Duchess for its defense, but the mercs’ starship was currently on the far side of a gas giant.
“All right,” Carina said. “But I want to be the one who kills her when this is done.”
“Just wait until we’re aboard the Duchess,” replied Atoi. “then I certainly won’t stand in your way.”
The mercs were waiting in the great hall. Parthenia was there too. She gasped at the sight of Darius over Carina’s shoulder.
“He’s just hurt,” Oriana assured her sister. “I Cast Heal on him and so did Ferne. We can all carry on Casting it until we get him to the Duchess’s sick bay.”
The girl’s tone sounded hopeful, but Carina knew that Heal wouldn’t prevent death, only forestall it in decreasing increments until the Cast had no effect whatsoever. Only Spirit Mages who could prevent someone from dying and then only at great cost to themselves, usually their own death.
