Forged by Battle (WarVerse Book 1)

by Patrick J. Loller

  With her back turned to the door, she slid to the floor. Her horn shuddered beneath her hand when she reached up to rub her head. She released it to pull her knife from its sheath on her back, and once she pulled out the blade, she ran her finger over the edge. As her nerves called out in protest against the cut, and she lost herself in the physical pain and the power of the Shadow, she was able to shut out the voices that screamed loudest in her mind. She allowed herself only a moment's reprieve, however, before slipping the knife, and the Shadow, away.

  Drawing herself off the floor with a grimace, she moved to the sink across the room. She reached out and twisted the handle to fill the basin with chilled water. A sigh escaped her nose as she dipped her hand into the cool water and splashed it across her face. Looking up, she examined herself in the mirror. Again, she wondered how humans could find themselves attracted to such trivial details. If she squinted, she was able to make out the litany of old scars crisscrossing her skin. The green lines barely stood out against the natural blue of her skin. They traced her exposed neck and face, and as she stared at them, she thought of the wounds that had caused them.

  A calm center, a clear mind, the Exile thought, knowing the undercurrent of anger would never leave her mind clear. She sighed again, dipping her hand into the water. She concentrated on her fingers, on the palm of her hand, and on the feeling of the cold water moving across it. She extended her effort, and in a feeling quite unlike any of her other abilities, she willed the water from the basin into a floating ball, creating a rough sphere of rolling liquid that connected to the sink only by a thin thread of water. She looked over the creation, feeling the smallest drop of contentment as her strange power created a swirl of mini currents.

  "What a useless parlor trick," came a voice from behind her. Her concentration wavered and the water splashed down across the porcelain and onto her. The Exile whirled around.

  Standing in the corner beneath a flickering light was a shadowed androgynous figure, its features further obscured by the changing light. Two squinted eyes glowed vibrantly, bright yellow holes that bored into the Exile.

  She shuddered, and cast out her Web to touch the new arrival's mind so that she could communicate with it. She pulled out the knife as she did. Her fingers burned when they touched the obsidian crystal. When the connection was made, a sharp agony coursed through her like lightning and she dropped to a knee. How had the Shadow taken form with so little of her blood?

  "Now there's the proper greeting for your master," it purred. Exile fought the urge to retaliate. Despite the pain both in her mind and arm, Exile again cast out her Web to take a tentative hold on the fringes of the monster's thoughts. There was no AMI unit, of course, but the knife made communication possible. Once contact was made, Exile placed a thought into the connection. The Shadow would hear it in whatever passed for its mind.

  Exile pushed, still grimacing. The longer she stayed connected, the longer it would burn.

  "You have no idea the depth of my power. Soon I will have no need of you, and this partnership will end," the Shadow drawled, its voice undulating.

  Exile allowed some of her anger into the thought; it helped dull the pain of the connection.

  The Shadow's vibrant eyes closed for a moment as the figure stepped further from the corner. Light touched the creature, and a hint of red skin traced with swirling black tattoos blended in and out of the shadows. Smoke rolled up from wherever the light touched, lingering in a growing cloud around the ceiling, further obscuring the room.

  "Do you not require the power I give you? Am I so easy to cast aside? You were cast out from your people. I am your only friend." The Shadow grinned impossibly white pointed teeth.

  Exile threatened.

  "You are but the gatekeeper. The gateway will remain without you," the Shadow said.

  Exile was tempted to be rid of the creature for good, to destroy the link that allowed them to speak, that allowed it to even take shape, but it was right. She had given up everything for that power.

  she asked, then pulled back to relieve the pain.

  "The minds I consumed were terrified of something down on that planet. Something they created."

 

  "They did not know. They only knew it was dangerous, and they were terrified this fleet would find it."

  Exile was growing tired of the Shadow’s games.

  "Because that which terrified them was found, and it is here on this ship." The Shadow's voice dripped with enjoyment. Then it stepped back into the corner of the room and simply stopped existing. The Exile had to blink several times to convince herself that it was actually gone. Once she was sure, she re-sheathed the dagger and took several deep breaths. She needed to find weapons. Hiding wasn't going to cut it.

  Chapter 18

  Johnston

  Johnston stepped into the ready room and looked at the men assembled: the various captains of the other ships in his fleet, all of whom fell under his command. Most of them were not actually present; their likenesses were displayed as holograms in a rough circle around him. The only other physical presence in the room besides his own was Commander McKinley. The captains were all standing when he entered the room, and promptly saluted. Johnston returned the salute, then waved his hand so they could relax.

  "Alright, gentlemen, for those of you who haven't heard the news, the Aberdeen research station has recently fallen under attack from the Verdantun."

  The other captains’ reactions ran the gamut from surprise to anger, and enough of them were slow enough to react that Johnston was sure the information had already made the rounds. Nothing could stop the chiefs’ network.

  "How did this happen?" Captain Fredricks of the Excelsior asked.

  "The facility was built around a portal, with buildings on both the near and far sides. It seems the Verdantun massed a sizeable force against the latter," Johnston answered.

  "Didn't we have forces stationed there?"

  "Was this facility unguarded?"

  "How could the elves get the drop on them?" Several captains tried to speak up at once. Here was the inherent problem with having everyone in their own ships, without the physical presence of the others in the room.

  "The Inferno's own Special Forces Unit was on station to oversee the project, as our ship has a significant stake in their research. They sent a pigeon to alert us of the danger. A nearby element of the second fleet was detached for ground support, but their ground forces are only fitted with human tech. They managed to gain a foothold, but recent intel is that the scientists working there were not killed—they were captured by the Verdantun. This has been confirmed by ground forces."

  The captains started arguing again, each offering their own idea of how to reinforce and rescue the survivors. The conversation moved away from the immediate logistics that Johnston had gathered them to discuss. He cleared his throat, forcing them all to look back at him.

  "We do not have the time to argue over the whys and the hows," he said. "We need to discuss our actions going forward. I have outlined a plan; however, there is more on the table than the rescue of Aberdeen."

  "What information is that?" Fredricks asked, but Johnston had a feeling they all already knew.

  "During the fighting, one of our fighter wings intercepted an unknown energy weapon. One that destroyed several enemy bombers and severely damaged a civilian shuttle. Our sensor techs have analyzed the data and found that the source was far-side technology."

  "Magic?"

  "Out here?"

  "How did intel miss this?"

  "At ease," Johnston called. He was swiftly regretting the meeting. He did not technically need their input. He was an admiral and they were all captains, so the entire
meeting was a formality at best. In the end, the decision and the responsibility would fall to him. It was courteous, however, something he had learned in the British navy, before he had joined the Joint Fleet and been exposed to all the other military cultures, alien included.

  "We do not know the origin of the weapon, but we have our analysts working on it. You all know how unpredictable the portals can be. For all we know, one opened on the planet, unleashed a fire elemental, and then closed again. I think the more likely possibility is that the Separatists have been trying to research or engineer far-side tech for themselves, and that the fire and this weapon are a result of that."

  "If the weapon could damage so many, how do we know we aren't also in danger?" asked Captain Torres of the Pride of Brazil.

  "None of the Merlins have ever displayed that sort of long-range space weaponry," Gregor of the Roosevelt added.

  "We have already moved the fleet to a high orbit. The shuttle was thousands of meters closer to both the planet and moon, and we have no reason to suspect the fleet is in danger."

  "It sounds like you don't know anything," Fredricks said.

  Johnston gave him a level stare. His patience was at an end, and already he could feel the pressure mounting between his eyes. He was close to cutting off the meeting without any of their input. Fredricks was quick to back down, however.

  "That is to say, sir, should we not take a more defensive stance, at least until we know more."

  "Yes, that is what I have called you all here to discuss. We now have two missions, both of sizable importance. The colonists planetside still require assistance. We cannot abandon the forces we have already deployed to assist the relief efforts. We also can't ignore the attacks on Aberdeen. I have outlined the following plan: The Inferno will leave a contingent of fighters behind, and will use the hangar space to transport ground personnel and equipment from the ships that will remain here. We will jump to Aberdeen, secure the research facility, and rescue the colonists."

  Johnston expected them to protest, but the other captains nodded with him.

  "Will you be taking any escorts?" Gregor asked.

  "I do not want to leave this battlegroup in a position where it cannot defend itself. Aberdeen has an orbital weapons station, so the Inferno will be supported in orbit. I intend to only take the military transport ship and possibly two destroyers. These are the logistics I wish to discuss."

  Before the other captains could comment, the power to the hologram shorted out. Immediately, the emergency power kicked in, but the connection was lost.

  The captain keyed his AMI to broadcast.

 

  Johnston held up a hand to his ear to show McKinley he was speaking across the bionet.

  And before he finished speaking, the lights were back on.

  Johnston keyed back an acknowledgment, and then opened a line to medical.

 

  she asked.

 

  she said.

  Johnston had been under the impression she was suffering from minor burns at worst.

 

 

 

  When it rains... Johnston thought.

 

  "Get the other captains back," he told McKinley. "The sooner we are underway the better. When did combat become the easiest part of the job? Those colonists on Aberdeen don't have time for this."

  Chapter 19

  Rodrom

  The world beyond his operating table seemed as distant as Earth to Derek Rodrom as he worked on the alien before him. Like the guard who stood watching, the Verdantun on the table was of the feral tribe. To the untrained eye, it could almost pass as human, but its eyes were too catlike, and its face held one too many angles. Its body was of humanoid shape: two arms, two legs, a torso, and a waist, though the muscles beneath the skin revealed the truth. These minor differences were easily missed, hidden beneath a thick coat of brown- and black-streaked fur.

  Rodrom stooped over the right side of a tree root that served as his table, the Verdantun draped haphazardly atop it. Above them, more roots formed a ceiling, with hard-packed dirt serving as walls, in a space just barely large enough for Rodrom to stand upright in. The “room” had nothing in the way of décor or equipment, and the space where Rodrom kept his tools, as well as the table his wounded lay upon, grew straight out of the ground.

  His gaze was locked onto the shrapnel wounds that peppered the feral's right arm and chest. With unsteady fingers, Rodrom maneuvered a pair of forceps made entirely of wood. He pushed them into the ravaged hole and twisted, attempting to create enough leverage to push past the shattered bone fragments and grasp the metal beneath. Finding purchase, he carefully pulled back, only to reveal a partial fragment that he unceremoniously dropped to the floor.

  Rodrom threw down the bloodied forceps onto the makeshift tray beside him and snarled. Across from him, the guard raised an alien eyebrow in an obviously practiced human gesture, unknowingly igniting Rodrom's fury.

  "How do you expect me to save these soldiers without exposing the injury?" he called, knowing the guard wouldn't comprehend the words. The alien tittered out a string of words in his nonthreatening musical language; Rodrom’s ire was understood, and the guard was threatening him back to work. Not for the first time, Rodrom cursed his inability to connect to the bionet. It would take only moments to download the translator patch he needed to understand and speak the Verdantun tongue—assuming the patch existed. On this side of the portal, he would have no such luck.

  "Lorelei," Rodrom spat back. Although he butchered the name with an English approximation, the guard would understand. In response, the guard revealed pointed teeth in an animalistic growl, and moved through the gap in roots to find the healer who was responsible for Rodrom's conditional work. The other scientists of the captured research facility were imprisoned in a grove at the back of the compound. Rodrom was the only human permitted any freedom, if being made to work could be considered that. Despite their alien nature, the Verdantun had still been able to recognize him as a doctor, and the healers who traveled with the war party had put him to work.

  The research facility where Rodrom had been working for the last six months had been overtaken by hostile forces. An army of Verdantun had appeared without warning, seizing him, his months of research, and the other scientists as well. Joint Fleet had mounted a counter offensive, and fierce battles raged across the planet's surface as ground troops vied for control, but Rodrom remained within the forest camp. He and his colleagues had been captured for nearly two standard months, with no end in sight.

  Crimson blood spilled from the wound where Rodrom had been working. He scrambled to press a handful of leaves onto the wound. Though they looked no different from the kind he saw back on Earth, no terrestrial leaf would bind to a wound the way a Verdatun’s did. The wound was sealed, and whatever shrapnel he couldn't get was still trapped inside.

  The other scientists called the Verdantun by the more common Fleet nickname elves. With their pointed ears and musical language, it wasn't too far of a stretch, b
ut their abilities were what truly set them apart from humanity. The adhesive leaves were the least of their medicine; and some of the advanced things they did seemed impossible to Rodrom.

  If one of the elves placed their hands upon a wounded person and sang, the wounds would knit themselves back together. Of course it was a result of the Verdantun coming from beyond the portals and not truly being a part of humanity's universe, but after seeing a decapitated soldier be brought back to life, it was hard for Rodrom to call it anything but magic. He constantly had to remind himself that what seemed like magic was only technology he couldn't yet comprehend.

  The Verdantun beneath Rodrom shuddered as the doctor probed the other wound with gloveless fingers. The alien felt no pain due to the same magic, and Rodrom had become accustomed to his patient’s irregular twitch, not that it helped the barbaric surgery. In a proper lab he would have access to his equipment, and the AMI unit within his brain would also be able to access the bionet, where he would have all the medical knowledge of generations with a simple thought. He didn't necessarily need the information, as he had enhanced his own mental faculties. But regardless of his own prowess, with such an alien species he had no point of reference, and currently felt more like a med student than a practiced surgeon.

  His painfully naked fingers felt more fragments within the Verdantun's arm, but no amount of careful extraction could remove them through the tiny paths from which they had entered. Rodrom grunted in frustration, once again formulating the argument against the oppressive and detrimental rule of the Verdantuns not to use blades to open their patients’ flesh. When Rodrom had suggested that he might need a scalpel blade, he had been tossed back into the prison pits with the others. At first, he assumed they feared he would use it as a weapon, but to his amazement—and horror—they never used such tools at all. They took the concept of “do no harm” to incredible lengths.