Shadow Ops: Fortress Frontier-ARC (pdf conv.)

by Myke Cole

  Britton doubled over, retching. When he’d finally gotten control of himself, he jogged out through the front gate and called to the others. “It’s clear.”

  They rose, but he waved them back. “You don’t want to go in there.”

  “Why not?” Therese asked.

  “Looks like Scylla got there first. It’s . . . messy. There’s nothing to salvage. No one left alive.”

  “No one left alive?” Downer asked. “Who was . . .”

  “It was a goblin outpost,” Britton said, “for the Defender clans attacking the base. They must have not given her a very warm welcome when she came through.”

  Therese took a step forward, and Britton put a hand on her shoulder. She shrugged it off immediately. “Therese,” he said, “it stinks so bad, I practically puked. I swear, if there was anything you could do, I would tell you.”

  She relaxed. “Can you tell which way she went?”

  “The trail continues on beyond the encampment.” He looked up at the waning light. “I don’t want to be traveling by night out here. It’s safer if we spend the night in the forest back on the Home Plane. It’s getting dark there, too.

  “The . . . remains of the goblins. They’re still . . . fresh.” He shuddered. “She can’t have come through here too long ago.”

  “We should press on,” Downer said. “Maybe if we haul ass, we can catch her.”

  Britton shook his head. “No way. I’ve flown on night-vision equipment, and it’s hard enough with that. With just flashlights? We’d just wind up breaking our ankles or running into something unhappy to see us.”

  “Or worse, happy to see us,” Truelove added.

  Britton nodded. “Scylla can’t see in the dark either. She’s got to be as exhausted as we are. She needs rest. So do we. Remember, we can’t just catch her, we have to be able to beat her. We can’t do that blind and at the limit of our reserves. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Let’s do this right.”

  Truelove didn’t look convinced at all. Therese looked uncertain.

  Only Downer appeared confident.

  Britton knew the cost fear could have on combat effectiveness.

  He stepped back to address all of them. “I understand what Scylla has done is horrifying. Her magic seems . . . well . . . magical, but it is a scientific reality with limits. Scylla is a Negramancer. That power manipulates decay. It doesn’t make her more powerful than four SOC-trained Sorcerers. Scylla can also manipulate fear. But that’s clever acting and a strong personality, not magic. And it only works if you let it. She’s dangerous enough without scaring the crap out of you. Don’t let her.”

  They gated back to the bowl of frozen rose moss, still deserted and now cast in a darkness that rendered the night noises sinister; every frost-snapped twig or windblown leaf transformed into the footfalls of an approaching enemy. Britton wouldn’t permit a fire, but they cooked instant noodles over a covered camp stove and slept in the sleeping bags and tent he’d pilfered from the sporting goods store.

  He volunteered to stand the first watch. After Truelove relieved him, he crawled into the tent to find Therese stretched out beside Downer, her body heat lending warmth to the younger girl. Britton zipped into his sleeping bag and lay beside her.

  Therese’s hair, uneven and broken from the fight with Wavesign, rested on the camp pillow, filling him with longing. She was so close, so warm.

  He sighed quietly, but the action filled his nose with the smell of her hair. Before he knew what he was doing, he reached out a hand tentatively, and let his fingertips slide across it. Even now, in the dark, back to him, she was so beautiful.

  She stirred. He jerked his hand back and froze, feeling creepy. But she slid back into him nestling against his bulk, her hair brushing his face and her warmth enveloping him. He didn’t move, terrified she was still sleeping, desperately not wanting to wake her.

  She grunted, reaching backward and grabbing his arm, pulling forward until it was draped over her.

  “Just to keep warm,” she said softly.

  “Yeah,” he answered, his voice thick. “Just to keep warm.”

  Despite his exhaustion, Britton barely slept all night, drowning in the smell of Therese’s hair and the closeness of her, almost crying out when Truelove finally nudged her awake and she took her turn at watch.

  Neither of them spoke when Britton roused them after eight hours, the sky still dark around them. After they had breakfasted in silence and buried their trash, he opened a gate, putting them back on Scylla’s trail, the withered edges of the grass guiding them on.

  Truelove raised his arms, and the entourage of dead shambled into view, their gray skins tinged with frost. Some of them had been nibbled on during the night by the local fauna, but overall, they were whole. Britton still swallowed his gorge at the sight of them, and even Truelove looked uncomfortable at so many in one place. But they were one more thing they had to throw against Scylla should they meet her. Downer called up her air elementals again, the strong breeze providing ample fuel for the spell.

  The encroaching winter gave the Source air a crisp, metallic bite that would have been pleasant if it weren’t so cold, but it still carried the curdled-egg stink of the aftermath of Scylla’s passage.

  With the sun beginning to brighten the horizon and shroud the unfamiliar constellations of the Source from view, they pushed on.

  They came across the helicopter as the sun began to crest, and the day came on in earnest. It was a Blackhawk, nose down in the frozen ground, tail boom crumpled over an accordioned cabin. The cockpit was flattened, the nose practically inverted.

  The engine and rotors were gone, the metal simply rusted away to nothing from the cabin upward. Britton pointed. “She rotted off the rotors and let it drop out of the sky.”

  Purple stains, still slick, dotted the ground outside the crushed cabin. “And killed the team on board as they crawled from the wreckage. Jesus. Those must have been some hard operators to crawl away from that.”

  He moved to the cockpit, then froze. He hung his head. “Oh, hell. Oh, that fucking bitch.”

  “What?” Therese asked. “What is it?”

  He pointed at the shattered windscreen, the hands still streaked with dried blood trying to pull themselves through it, gone gray with rigor mortis.

  “She left the pilots alive. They were crushed in there, probably broke every bone in their body, bleeding out. Maybe choking to death on the smoke. But she left them.”

  Therese lifted a hand to her mouth. Britton could feel the current of her magic reach forward, then recoil. Physiomancers could only manipulate living flesh, and there was none of that to be found here.

  He turned to her. “Still want to give her a chance to join us?”

  Without waiting for an answer, he moved down the trail.

  “Bring them,” he called to Truelove, gesturing at the pilots behind the shattered windscreen.

  “Are you serious?” Truelove called back.

  “We’re practically on top of Scylla now.” Britton answered.

  “They died to serve. Let them serve a little longer. It’s the closest thing to revenge we can give them.”

  But Scylla’s trail grew colder as they went, the wet-looking patches left by the aftereffects of her magic beginning to dry.

  Somehow, she had begun to gain on them. Britton grimaced and put on speed. They kept on for another two hours as the sky fully lightened, and the landscape came to life around them. The night had been unusually cold, and the ground twinkled with fresh frost. It sparkled in the sun, transforming the landscape into a spray of crystal green, but it made footing treacherous as the ground sloped downward and their boots slid with each step. This was made harder by a grove of tall trees, which forced them to descend at an angle as the decline increased.

  After a while, Britton found himself crab-stepping sideways, sliding every other pace as the edges of his boot soles failed to find purchase on the slick surface of thawing frost. Therese stumbled, and
he put out a hand to steady her. Truelove and Downer latched on to her, and they descended in a human chain.

  The elementals fanned out in front of them, blowing air back toward them, trying to help them stay upright with no success.

  Britton heard a thump, and one of the zombies, less sure-footed than his human master, flopped on its face and slid past them, tobogganing on its stomach before coming to stop and trying to rise, slipping as it strove to mimic Truelove’s careful descent.

  A moment later, Britton felt his own feet going out from under him, and he sat down hard, his tailbone reporting the impact, and began to slide downhill. Therese scrambled for balance for a moment and pulled where he had pushed, clinging to Truelove, who clung to Downer. All of them went down in a heap, flying down the hill and slamming into Britton. They wound up in a tangle of arms and legs at the bottom, laughing hysterically.

  Britton hissed. “Secure that. We are too close for this crap; Scylla could be anywhere around here.” The mirth dried on the others’ faces and they turned sullen looks on him. God, he thought. I must sound like Fitzy. But that didn’t make him wrong.

  He was willing to be a killjoy if it meant keeping them safe. They could laugh all they wanted once they’d dealt with her.

  “Come on,” he whispered. “We just made a lot of noise here. We need to get off the X.”

  He stood, then froze.

  The slick, putrid sheen of the grass marched in a narrow lane around the copse of trees, so fresh that it dripped. The wind blew toward them, bringing the faintest hint of what might have been muttering from off in the distance. With the wind toward them, Britton could hope that whatever was making that noise hadn’t heard them.

  “Hold here,” he whispered. He pointed to himself, then to the trail of slime. Once again, he gate-hopped back to the Home Plane, then opened another gate farther out on the freshly cleared trail, just high enough for him to low crawl through.

  Once through, he lay facedown in the tall grass, slowly inching himself up onto his elbows, raising his head for a clearer look.

  From his new vantage point, he could see beyond the edge of the copse of trees, to where the strip of bare ground continued in long patches mostly freed of frost by the risen sun.

  Four sleek, black, horned things stood astride the strip. They stood between eight and twelve feet high, dagger claws hanging at their sides. White grins showed teeth as long and sharp as knives, the only contrast to the unbroken, liquid darkness of their bodies.

  The “Mountain Gods,” the Gahe of the Apache. Britton, with all of Shadow Coven at his side, had barely managed to defeat one before. Here were four.

  One of them was missing an arm. In its stead was a tiny rope of black sinuous flesh, twining uselessly from a stump of a shoulder. It pulsed, oozing slowly. Britton’s stomach fell. The fight at Mescalero flashed through his mind, his gate slicing upward as the Gahe’s frozen touch spread through his torso, slicing through its shoulder, sending the arm spinning in a cloud of black smoke.

  He recognized the creature instantly, he had fought it before, and it had nearly finished him.

  The four Gahe stood tensely, shoulders hunched, clustered around a woman. Her black hair was cut in a severe bob, the points sharp-looking.

  Her eyes were dark, remorseless.

  Scylla was none the worse for wear. He skin was still pale and smooth, her face still wise and beautiful. She’d traded her prison jumpsuit for thicker, warmer goblin leathers, but her boots were the same. Army-issue, black and mud-spattered.

  A cloud of black smoke drifted behind the Gahe, the grass beneath it frozen solid gray. That’s their blood, Britton thought.

  That freezing smoke. She must have killed one of them.

  Pulses of shimmering air passed from the Gahe, clustering about Scylla’s head. “Come now,” she said to them. “Do you really want this fight?”

  The creatures growled and inched forward, and Scylla gave ground slightly, raising her hands. More shimmering pulses moved between the Gahe and her. “Really, now?” Scylla responded to their silent communication. “Maybe so, but I assure you. I’ll take a few more of you with me.”

  The Gahe flashed across the ground, spreading out to surround her. Scylla crouched, bared her teeth.

  Britton had seen enough. He opened another low gate and scrambled through it, then opened another gate back to his com-panions. He motioned them through, and they came, standing in the bowl of rose moss. “It’s her, she’s just around those trees.”

  They were silent. Truelove’s eyes went wide.

  “She’s in the middle of some kind of standoff with the Gahe. You remember them? The Apache Mountain Gods?”

  Truelove and Downer had been with him on the mission where they’d faced the one and severed its arm, but Therese had only ever seen them in training videos before. “I remember them,” she said. “They’re monsters. The Apache worship them.”

  Britton turned to her. “Truelove, Downer, and I have fought them before. They’re fast. They move by short-teleporting. One second they’re five feet away and the next they’re on top of you.

  Their touch will freeze you, and they bleed smoke that’s just as cold. We’re talking hypothermia in minutes. You got all that?”

  Therese nodded, her confusion and fear vanishing as her training took hold. “Got it. Same plan?”

  Britton nodded. “Those things are doing us a favor. If we’re going to get her, now is the best time, while she’s distracted. We head back, collect Truelove’s corpses and rush her. Ignore the Gahe. They’re not our fight. We take her down and get the hell out of there. Everyone square?”

  Truelove’s voice was tinged with panic. “Can’t you just gate in next to her and take her out?”

  Britton shook his head. “And risk getting cut off alone? If she takes me down, you’re all stranded. Bad idea. We go as a unit. Your corpses and Downer’s elementals up front. She’ll be pinned between our expendable element and the Gahe. Safest course.”

  “We’re wasting time,” Downer said.

  Britton nodded and gated them back to their original position.

  Truelove raised the line of corpses, fallen flat in their absence, and they moved around the edge of the copse, where Scylla whirled to face them. The Gahe stood behind her. Whatever differences they’d had with Scylla, they appeared to be reconciled.

  Chapter X

  Quarry

  We’ve impressed ourselves upon magic, tried to shoehorn it into human limitations. We’ve given it taxonomy, ontology, category. But it’s the nature of magic to ignore all that. It’s not interested in making us comfortable. It doesn’t care what we think is a “school” or which element we think it controls. Magic is wild and new and free. The idea of “schools” is an inadequate way to get our heads around a force that we’re only beginning to understand. Magic can do many things that we can only dream of. We’re chipping at the tip of an iceberg that runs very deep and very, very wide below the surface.

  —Professor Andre Sinnawa

  “The Magic Behind the Magic”

  Journal of Modern Arcana

  “Hello, Oscar,” Scylla said. “You’re just in time to meet my new friends.” She gestured to the settling cloud of freezing black smoke. “We’ve just come to a mutually beneficial understanding.”

  The Gahe shrieked, the one-armed one’s shoulders hunching, its recognition of Britton written clearly across its posture.

  Britton reached out for Scylla’s current. He felt it immediately, strong and rich, and wrapped his own around it, rolling it back.

  Scylla cocked an eyebrow at him, smiling. She rolled her shoulders and without a hint of effort, pierced his Suppression, his own current roaring back into him and hers surging through, unimpeded.

  Britton cursed and threw open a gate.

  Downer sent her elementals streaking toward Scylla, simultaneously drawing her pistol and squeezing off a round. The Gahe crouched. They stuttered forward until they screened Scylla,
their position shifting like poorly advancing film, one second in one place, one second the next. Their shrieks went silent, and Britton saw the air shimmer between them, accompanied by a low thrumming. Downer’s bullet disappeared into one of their dark bodies, swallowed as surely as if it had been fired into the cold void of space.

  Britton sent the gate skimming across the ground at Scylla.

  The Gahe stutter-flashed out of the way, shrieking. Scylla reached forward and Suppressed Britton’s own current effortlessly, and Britton’s gate vanished long before reaching her.

  Downer’s elementals raced toward the Gahe. One of the Gahe swept its clawed hand through one of them, only to be caught in the elemental’s whirling funnel and tossed aside.

  Another Gahe pulsed away from them, stuttering its position from side to side as they pursued. The remaining two Gahe howled again, then pulsed silent communication to Scylla.

  Scylla smiled. “You know one another? I don’t know if that’s more surprising than your showing up at all.”

  Truelove gestured, and the corpses shambled toward her as quickly as they could, leaving parts of themselves on the frozen grass in their urgency. Scylla dropped her Suppression of Britton as the corpses closed on her. Therese and Downer pulled in behind the zombies, and Britton stepped out on their flank, opening another gate, hovering over his hand.