Shadow Ops: Control Point so-1

by Myke Cole

  Marty had been busy in their absence, his arms full of mushrooms. A small pile of sampled plants had been gathered on a rock beside him. Now he stood and dashed among the SASS enrollees, clucking over wounds and producing his worn leather pouch.

  Therese paused a moment, then joined him, turning first to Britton. “Nothing I can do for you,” she said, her voice distant, clinical. “You need a Hydromancer, not a Healer.” She walked off, squatting by a young woman with a gash across her face, cupping her cheek and letting her magic knit the wound.

  “Therese…” he called after her. But she ignored him, losing herself in the bustle of her work.

  Later, he thought again. It’s not safe here. You’re in a state park not too far off the beaten path. The SOC still has a Portamancer. They can be here in an instant. How long before you are discovered? Before these people freeze?

  He looked back toward the crowd of enrollees. They squatted, miserable and shivering, muttering in low voices, most looking too shocked to do much. But Britton knew it wouldn’t last long.

  This is your fault. You got them into this. Now, you have to get them out.

  CHAPTER XXXII: A SAFE PLACE

  …of course the muj had that crazy Muslim total prohibition on magic use. So they were reduced to packing all their gear in through those tight Waziristani defiles, little more than goat paths, really. They were counting on the cloud cover screening them from our air-assault teams. But they didn’t count on the Aeromantic support getting the skies cleared up in a matter of minutes.

  — Interview with COL Alexander Keifer, 101st Airborne Division

  Excerpted from Robin Hamdan’s 100 days in the FATA

  Britton stood, stunned. He had done it. He had fled the SOC, he had gotten away. Swift looked up at him, his eyes wide. You’re thinking the same thing. You have no idea what to do either. You were so focused on getting free that you never gave a minute’s thought to what you’d do once you got there.

  But Britton remembered running before. He remembered his world spinning away from him and keeping on regardless. He remembered staring at a hanging pay-phone receiver, smelling like stale beer.

  Baby steps, he thought. The first thing this crew needs is a leader. The crowd continued to mill, shivering.

  Peapod alone seemed to have any presence of mind. She swept her arms upward, and the trees bowed, extending branches to shelter them, keeping off the worst of the wind. Pyre stooped and heaped a pile of stones, running his hands over them until they glowed red-hot, sparking and cracking, warmer and brighter than any wood fire Britton had ever seen. The enrollees shivered around it, arms draped around knees. Britton worried that the light might alert the authorities but figured that the comfort was more needed at the moment. For now, panic had been staved off.

  “Thanks,” Swift managed. “What happened back there, with Scylla?”

  Britton almost told him, then decided to keep it to himself. You can’t afford a fight over that just now. Instead, he ignored the question. He glanced nervously skyward as the sound of a plane thrummed far overhead. Through a gap in Peapod’s shelter of trees, Britton could make out blinking red lights on the wings.

  “Where are we?” Swift asked.

  “Vermont,” Britton said. “State park. I went camping here once.”

  “We can’t stay here,” the Aeromancer said.

  “No, we can’t,” Britton replied.

  “We could head to Mexico,” Pyre piped up, “or Canada.”

  “So we can get rounded up and handed over as part of the reciprocity agreement?” Peapod asked. “Mexico is a damned vassal state.”

  “You got a better idea?” Pyre snapped.

  “Why can’t we just stay here? Or maybe go to some other wilderness? What about Alaska?”

  “We’re not survivalists!” someone in the crowd said.

  “We don’t have to be,” Peapod replied. “We’ve got magic.”

  “That won’t do us any good once the SOC starts hunting for us,” Swift said. “They’re better than we are.”

  “Bet you wish you’d spent a little more time practicing with Salamander when you’d had the chance, eh, No-No boy?” Tsunami groused.

  This is getting out of control, Britton thought. Someone has to lead before things come totally apart.

  “That’s enough,” Britton said, his voice taking on the tone of command he’d used in the army. The group responded to it, looking up at him expectantly. What now?

  Britton felt fingers brush his own and looked down to see Marty at his side, looking wide-eyed at him. “Much angry,” the Goblin said. The others stared at him, and whispers ran through the clearing.

  “Why?” Marty asked, ignoring them. “Why angry?”

  Because I hurt them, Britton thought. I didn’t mean to, but I did. And now I have to make that right, Marty. Now I have to help them. But he didn’t say it. The group needed a commander, and it was not the time to show weakness or remorse. He only looked at Marty, his gaze level. “We have to find a place to go where the SOC can’t find us,” Britton said to Marty, his voice loud and full of confidence he didn’t feel. “That place can’t be in this world. It has to be in the Source, and well away from the FOB. We don’t know what else the SOC knows about the lay of the land there, but they will have a harder time finding and reaching us.” He made a point of not mentioning Billy, whose ability made reaching them no problem at all.

  We’ll just have to stay hidden, then.

  Marty pursed his lips and wiggled his ears as if to say of course. He punched Britton’s chest lightly and nodded. “We Mattab On Sorrah,” he said, tapping his eyelids and bowing. “We always help.”

  “This is my Mattab On Sorrah now,” Britton said. “The army is going to come for us.”

  The Goblin nodded and smiled. “I know.” He leaned in close, smiling and tapping Britton’s chest again. “Safe place.”

  “Yes, Marty, a safe place,” Britton said. “We have to take them there.”

  Marty paused for a moment, thinking. “Remember, bird head?”

  Leering in the torchlight, the striped bird skull, hung on the Goblin fastness where Britton had saved Fitzy’s life and been punished for it, rose in his mind. The Master Suppressor’s voice rose in his mind. You’re paid to be a weapon, not a hero. Remember that. “I remember,” he said to Marty.

  “Go there, I take you safe place.” The Goblin smiled.

  “Man, I really don’t want to go back there,” Britton said. He racked his brain for any image that he could recall well enough to gate to. But the landscape beneath the helicopter had blurred by too fast. The only thing he remembered well enough was FOB Frontier and the fortress. He could take them in some distance from it, but it would have to be in sight.

  “Can’t I take us back somewhere else?”

  Marty shook his head. “If not there, then not know where safe place. Go bird head. Then safe place.

  “Safe place,” Marty repeated, giving his ear-wiggling shrug.

  “This is your tribe? This is with your Mattab On Sorrah?”

  Marty nodded.

  Britton felt his emotions well up at the creature’s quickness to help strangers, but now was not the time to show it. He swallowed hard, hoping no one would notice how much the gesture affected him.

  “Uskar,” Marty said, gently tapping his own eyelids, then Britton’s. “Okay. Okay. Always help. You important.” He smiled gently, then leaned forward and imitated the human gesture, hugging Britton about the waist as best he could. “Important. Everything okay.”

  Britton patted the Goblin’s shoulders as he mastered himself. At last he turned to the remnants of the tribe and spoke, hoping his voice wouldn’t break.

  “Marty knows of a place we can go. Someplace safe in the Source. We’re going to take fifteen minutes to get everyone patched up as best we can, then we’re out of here.”

  “Back to the Source?” Pyre asked. “We just escaped from there!”

  “This is only temp
orary,” Britton said. “Do you honestly think there’s a place in the entire US safe for us? Or in any bordering nation? Besides, I can only gate us places I’ve seen. Or did you propose we walk to wherever we’re going to hide out? I know this isn’t ideal. I’m not offering you an end to running, just another place to run to.”

  “What the hell happened anyway?” one of the enrollees shouted. “How the hell did that Witch get free in the first place?”

  Swift looked frankly at him, arms folded across his chest.

  You’ll have to tell them eventually. If they’re going to follow you, it has to be under honest terms. “That’s my fault,” Britton answered. He paused, letting the stunned silence wash over him. “You want to blame someone, you can blame me.”

  He shouted down the chorus of protests that welled as the group began to grasp the impact of his words. “That’s enough! I’ve been soldiering long enough to know that if we’re going to live through this, it’s going to take discipline and teamwork. You may have done things however the hell you wanted to when you were on the run, but that changed in the SASS, and it’s not going to change back just because you’re free of it. You want to judge me? Judge me later. After we are all safe, after this latest round of running is at an end. I can’t bring the dead back to life. All I can do is save the lives that are remaining. What we need is a safe place, someone to shelter us until we can figure out what you want to do next. Marty can provide that safe place, and I can take us there. It’s the only chance we’ve got, and for it to work, you’re going to have to trust me and let me help you. You may not like it, but it’s the only way.”

  And what do you do once you get to Marty’s tribe? he asked himself. We rest, we get ourselves fed and patched up. Then we make plans. The first thing we need is a place to regroup, rest up, and rearm.

  “What if we stand and fight?” Swift asked, but his eyes showed he already knew the answer to his own question.

  “If you stand against the SOC, you will die, make no mistake,” Britton replied. “You have great heart, but you are too few and too poorly trained. The SOC are professional warriors. They make a study of killing with magic. I have trained with them far beyond the basic exercises you learned in the SASS. I’ve seen what they can do. Bravery isn’t enough. Skill beats will, every time. You’ve learned something of discipline and self-denial in your SASS training. That’ll give you a leg up over the average Selfer, but not nearly enough of a leg up.”

  “Yes, Oscar.” Therese spoke from beside a SASS enrollee with a broken javelin shaft protruding from his thigh. “Get us out of here. Do whatever you have to do to make us safe.” But her eyes were hard. Don’t think there won’t be a reckoning later. Britton nodded, his eyes scanning the group for a challenge. Swift turned away. Wavesign shivered, and Pyre gave a resigned nod.

  “All right,” Britton said. “If we’re going to function as a unit, we need a commander. That’s me unless anyone else thinks they can do a better job.”

  A quick glance around the ranks showed him that nobody thought they could, or if they did, didn’t have the gumption to challenge him. “First things first, many of you need healing and a chance to catch your breath. I’m going to have to gate us in outside a stronghold of creatures like Marty, but who are not friendly to us, and I can’t have wounds or exhaustion slowing us down. Fifteen minutes, then we go.”

  Marty worked tirelessly alongside Therese, enduring his frozen feet in silence until Therese noticed his pained expression. Britton used his pocketknife to cut the bottom third of the parka away, wrapping the fabric around Marty’s feet after Therese used her magic to repair the worst of the frostnip beginning to form on the Goblin’s soles. That had the added advantage of making the parka fit correctly. No longer tripped up by the long coat, Marty was soon moving around more easily.

  Fifteen minutes turned to twenty. Swift waved at the hot air emanating from the fire, sweeping his arms and circulating it through the small shelter of the bent boughs, warming the air to a comfortable temperature. Peapod bent to a small patch of wild onions and strawberries, gesturing until the fruits and vegetables responded to her magic. She gathered armloads of the swollen produce, distributing it among the group.

  Therese leaned against a tree in exhaustion when the group’s wounds were healed, but Marty would not sit still. He scurried about the clearing, lifting his giant feet high to avoid catching the tied-on fabric on roots and rocks. He high-stepped off into the underbrush, his breath hitching in excitement.

  “Marty! What the hell are you doing? Get back here!” Britton called.

  The Goblin stopped suddenly, staring intently.

  “What is he…” Therese asked, but was cut off by a furious squirrel perched on a pine branch directly above Marty’s head. It twitched its tail, chattering in rage at this strange creature invading its territory. Marty stared, wide-eyed and delighted, until Britton grabbed his hand and led him away.

  “Come on, Marty,” Britton said. “I know it’s interesting, but there’s no time for this now. I promise we can go on a hike once we’ve got everything settled.”

  Marty came along reluctantly, making petulant-sounding clucks deep in his throat and straining to look at the squirrel over his shoulder as they went.

  While the rest of them rested, Marty examined the new world with absentminded curiosity. He nearly danced with delight, his ears quivering, pointing at cluster of juniper berries, before gathering them and pressing them into the pockets of his parka.

  “Can eat!” Marty said, racing back to them with a handful of shriveled and frostbitten-looking mushrooms. Britton looked at the Goblin doubtfully.

  “I don’t know, Marty…”

  The Goblin cast a worried eye at Therese. “Must eat,” he said more urgently, then sniffed the mushrooms, wiggling his ears and smacking his lips. “Can eat!”

  “Do you think they’re safe?” Therese asked, raising an eyebrow. “He does have a knack with plants.”

  Britton frowned. “He has a knack for medicinal plants, but these are plants he’s never seen before. He’s in a totally different world. Being hungry is bad, but getting sick right now would be a lot worse. Better not to risk it.”

  He looked at Marty and shook his head. “Sorry, buddy. I think you need to curb your enthusiasm here.”

  The Goblin looked annoyed and began to gesture wildly.

  Britton sighed. “Please, guy. You’re at a ten. We need you at around a four.”

  Therese giggled, and Marty stuffed the mushrooms into his pocket with a resigned wave of his hand.

  A few of the enrollees had sagged against tree trunks in the magically heated air. Britton looked at Therese, sitting Indian style on the ground, her eyes drooping. “We’re exhausted,” Britton said to Swift. “Let’s give everyone a half hour to grab some shut-eye before we move.”

  “You sure that’s safe?” Swift asked.

  “No,” Britton answered, “but it’s probably smarter than blundering back into the Source ready to drop dead. Can you keep the air heated without that fire?”

  Swift nodded, and Britton turned to Wavesign. “Can you get that put out, buddy?”

  Wavesign’s effort was as uncontrolled as ever, but the fire was quickly doused, the rocks splintering further and hissing loudly. Swift quickly dried the damp patch that the young Hydromancer had left. “All right, people,” Britton said. “Grab some shut-eye if you can manage it. We go soon.”

  He slumped alongside Therese and leaned against her shoulder. She didn’t respond, but neither did she push him away.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I tried to do what I thought best…”

  “Later, Oscar,” she said, her voice exhausted. “Later. Let’s get out of here first.”

  He nodded and drowsed, grateful for the smell of her, the soft warmth of her shoulder against his.

  The moon made a sparkling show of the trees and rocks as the enrollees gathered together for warmth. Swift’s heated air made that largely unne
cessary, but Britton knew that the closeness to one another kept the panic at bay. They weren’t alone, and that was a start.

  Britton closed his eyes and listened to the sounds of the night — the frost crackling, insects foraging, Marty making an effort at quiet and failing miserably. The little Goblin was far too excited to rest, and he paced the small enclosure, staring at his surroundings. Britton himself thought he couldn’t sleep, the adrenaline keeping him awake and alert to sounds; turning each frost-snapped twig into the footfalls of an approaching enemy, but fatigue won out in the end.

  He didn’t know how long he dozed, drifting in and out of consciousness against Therese’s shoulder. Fear and pain were momentarily forgotten. Britton sank into the warm glow of her nearness and drifted off to sleep.

  A cold wind brushed his cheek, lifting him from the warm comfort of sleep and Therese nestled against him. The warm air had dissipated, replaced by the reality of winter cold. Britton buried his face in Therese’s hair and clung to the fleeing threads of his slumber. Beyond it lay cold and hardship, and if he could stave it off for just another moment, he would. But the chill breeze blew again, bringing a regular rhythm to his ears, a gentle and familiar pattern that called him to wakefulness. Whup whup whup whup whup.

  Britton shot awake. It was the sound of a helicopter. He reached out his arm and accidentally swatted Marty, who must have crawled to snuggle up against his back. The Goblin stirred weakly, and Britton reached over and pressed a finger to his lips.

  Whup whup whup. The sound grew louder, closer.