Mission Pack 3: Missions 9-12 (Black Ocean Mission Pack)

by J. S. Morin

  In hours of meandering, he had encountered no resistance, and sightings of locals grew scarce. “I suppose these fine folks haven’t had a lot of guests, let alone enemies. If these were humans, they’d have chosen sides and fought each other, but there isn’t even a blasted police force to warm up on. I don’t like the idea of facing Devraa without a nice little warm-up.”

  As Mort walked, he mapped in his head. He began to develop a layout of the city, and it was radial in design, even if the streets all met at right angles. Features like ponds, parks, and fountains were set in an arc that appeared concentric with the pillars that supported the city’s defensive wall. It was damnably inhuman of them, making the whole city on a cold, scientific shape. City planners were artists with a practical bent, not ruthlessly math-minded scientists. At least, human ones were. But these things—or whatever had built this city—weren’t human. It was a dangerous conceit to imagine human thoughts into those banana-T heads of theirs.

  Mort changed his tactics and made a beeline for the center of the city. If this place had been built by trigonometrists, so be it. Mort would seek Devraa at the pointy spot when the compass dug into the paper.

  As he walked, Mort hummed some idiotic song from Carl’s repertoire. It had gotten stuck there shortly after knocking down the pillar and bringing down the energy field that had hemmed in the city. The lyric that kept looping in his head was about walls coming tumbling down. Technically it had only been a pillar that tumbled—possibly a tower—and the wall had more or less just dissipated. But none of the ancient musicians had written catchy tunes about walls dispersing into nothingness, so Mort was stuck with what he had.

  Truth be told, Mort was slightly in awe of the alien city. His penchant for nomenclature had bubbled over with the idea of calling the place Eden. It was a lush, green, vibrant place that seemed foreign to the idea of an outside world existing. But the analogy, if carried to its logical conclusion, would have cast Mort in a rather unfavorable role. But the name stuck despite Mort’s best efforts to evict it. After his initial observations about its remoteness, seeming innocence, and idyllic scenery, he couldn’t supplant it with any better name. So he was stuck with calling it Eden, and Mort got to be the serpent.

  Here and there along his route, Mort would still encounter a stray banana-face and send it screaming and scurrying to be anywhere else. For such an obviously cowardly people, they hadn’t put together much of a civic warning system. Surely there must have been geological or meteorological events that warranted mass panic and the accompanying warnings of what to do to survive. Wouldn’t Mort fall under a similar clause?

  Up ahead, Mort saw a dome rise beyond the building tops. Checking his bearings, he surmised that it marked the center of the city—probably a palace or a sports stadium or something along those lines. Assuming he could keep tabs on it as he navigated, it would be an easy landmark to zero in on.

  Mort stopped.

  Ahead of him in the street, rounding the corner from a distant intersection, was a banana-faced alien who didn’t run away. This one was dressed in flowing robes of red and white, trimmed in gold embroidery. It held its arms outstretched. “So, intruder, you come to defile my city? I am Devraa, and you will perish for your folly.”

  Devraa had spoken the ancient language that predated humanity. It took a special talent to speak it, but all thinking creatures understood it on an instinctive level. It was nice to know that these pathetic wretches were Devraa’s own kind and not some race he had enslaved. Mort had begun to worry that he was in for a total surprise when he finally met the would-be deity. But this was just another twiggy gray alien, except this one had a spine—although he technically wasn’t sure whether they as a species were vertebrates or invertebrates.

  Mort forced a fake smile. “Pleased to meet you. Won’t you guess my name?”

  Devraa managed a very human sneer with his little end-of-banana mouth. “According to my followers, you are Mordecai The Brown. You are a meddler, a vandal, and a criminal.”

  Mort spat on the flagstone streets of Devraa’s city. “I may be a meddler and a criminal, but I had nothing to do with sacking Rome. But that’s neither tea nor biscuits. You know why I’m here.”

  “You are an agent of wanton destruction. Your people are vermin, seeking to have all for themselves and leaving none for their brethren. You are here to destroy all I have worked to create, all I have protected, all that I love.”

  Mort scratched at his chin. “Nope. Mostly just here to see you dead, you charlatan. You might be able to delude those poor, meat-brained slabs of muscle who worship you, but you’ll never convince me you’re a god. Now, I suppose it’s only sporting of me to offer you a chance to surrender peacefully, let those hapless puppets of yours go free, and walk away with your head and body still connected. But just between you and me, I’ve never had anyone take that offer.”

  “Offer? You call that a bargain? This is my sanctum. A world away, you can wreak havoc from beyond my reach. But you made a dire error in coming here. And even if I believed you could contest against me, I would not give up my way of life without a fight. For centuries, we’ve lived on scraps and scrapings gleaned from the child moon. My followers’ offerings give us meat and fruit. They craft us new clothing and furnishings. They play us music. I’ll not go back to exile once more.”

  Mort puzzled through what Devraa was saying. The alien surely thought him a dead man and was telling more than he ought to. It reminded Mort of a satirical holovid called How (Not) to Kill an Intruder. Clarence Banks played a self-proclaimed emperor of an entire world, and the story played out as he frittered it away making every mistake imaginable short of strangling himself with an improperly knotted necktie. But since Devraa was likely immune to the holographic arts of humans and laaku, Mort felt inclined to play along.

  “Don’t tell me you’re the aggrieved party here. You’re just some two-bit interloper who stumbled onto an inhabitable moon that’s sucked onto its neighbor like a leech.”

  Devraa’s eyes, which had gleamed a fish-eyed black a mere heartbeat before, flared red. “Interloper? You dare accuse your god of trespass on his own domain? My people made you! You are nothing but what we chose you to be.”

  Well, this was certainly an interesting opinion. “And here I was just thinking you were impersonating a god. Now come to find out you’re capital ‘G’ God? Funny, but you looked different in the picture books, and if we’re molded in your image, someone needed more time in pottery class. Though I must say, I’m glad I don’t look like some cobbled-together accident of bananas and bendy straws.”

  Devraa raised a hand with a dramatic flourish, and a flood of fire poured down the street in Mort’s direction. For a blink’s span, a smile twitched at the corner of Mort’s lips. Maybe this wasn’t going to be sport hunting after all.

  This fire has nothing to do with me. Bugger off with it.

  The universe shuddered and obeyed. The flames that looked unstoppable from Devraa’s end of the street petered out to a warm breeze by the time they reached Mort. As Mort sauntered toward the impostor god, the fires dried up closer and closer to where they originated. Mort’s sneakers scuffed the soot from the fire’s aftermath where it had briefly reigned. Seeing him approach unharmed, Devraa withdrew, still pouring forth flame, perhaps in a vain attempt to wear down Mort’s defenses.

  Mort glanced overhead, then pointed his staff at the cloud-darkened skies above. Those things packing a storm? They better be. Whatever lightning they’ve got stored up, send ‘em in the direction of that delusional, fire-spewing banana over there. Now!

  The skies opened fire. Lightning crackled from the unhallowed heavens above. One after another, bolts crashed down, each veering at the last moment before they reached Devraa. The buildings on both sides of the street took the pounding, scorched by the lightning and splitting under the concussive force of thunder. Mort snarled in frustration.

  That wasn’t what I meant, and you know it!

&n
bsp; But the universe wasn’t taking sides, at least not yet. Each of them, wizard and godling, had a pocket of influence the other couldn’t penetrate. This was why the great wizards of old, the true disciples of Merlin, so rarely fought one another directly. Tricks, traps, and intermediaries settled disputes with more finality if handled with deftness. But Mort had an alternate solution—less elegant, but potentially just as final. He considered the spindly alien creature and the solid oak staff in his own hands. As he envisioned splattering that smug, banana-face of Devraa’s, he stalked forward and told the universe to mind its own damn business for a few minutes.

  Devraa backed away slowly, still testing his magic against Mort’s defenses. He tried fire yet again and then a torrent of wind, but each dispersed in proximity to Mort. But as his fighting retreat lost ground in the face of Mort’s steady advance, the impostor god turned to run. The sight of a would-be deity hiking up his ceremonial robes to run the city streets like an Oxford freshman during pledge week was enough to bring Mort a chuckle despite the circumstances.

  “I’m not finished with you yet,” Mort shouted after him. Taking back his earlier suggestion that the universe remain impartial, he suggested to a pair of buildings farther down the street that they were each small moons in their own right. They had important names cooked up by scientists, orbits of their very own, and—most importantly—an awful lot of gravity for such small structures. The two newly anointed moons grumbled in their foundations. The tired old gravity of the Little Brother moon was nothing when compared to the mutual attraction of two building-moons separated by the mere width of a street. With a lurch and crumbling of stone, the two tore themselves loose and collided in a shower of rock. When Mort rescinded the suggestion of moonhood seconds later, the rubble collapsed into a formidable barrier blocking Devraa’s escape.

  Of course, Mort hadn’t expected an alien deity with his robes tucked under his armpits to be such an adept climber. Though certainly slowed by the barrier, Devraa continued his escape in mountain-goat style. Mort quickened his pace but couldn’t get to the rubble before Devraa was beyond the reach of a lethal staff bludgeoning. A terse suggestion that the rubble evacuate his path was met with a blank, uncomprehending stare from the universe. Devraa was devoting his efforts to opposing Mort’s magic.

  There were two options. The first was to find an alternate way around to head Devraa off in a city he must know like the back of his thin, knuckly hand. Knowing nothing of the surprisingly spry creature’s physical limitations, Mort couldn’t imagine finding an advantage that way. The second option involved climbing right up after him. Mort might lose some ground, but he wouldn’t lose track and let Devraa find any weapons, allies, or hidey-holes that could be around.

  Mort tried hurriedly to wriggle out of his robe, but it was an unwieldy garment at the best of times. Now, Mort was flustered, impatient, and trying to juggle his staff—which he dared not let go. So in a fit of pique and frustration, he added a bit of magic and tore the robe to shreds. A wizard in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt might not look the part, but what did Devraa know when soup came to nuts? For all he knew, this was a human wizard’s best ass-kicking garb, his Murder Day best, so to speak.

  Never the athlete at the best of times, Mort clambered up the rubble on all fours, staff still in hand. “If I slip and make an ass of myself, you’re not hearing the end of it,” he grumbled.

  By the time Mort had reached the summit of the pile, Devraa was sliding off the last loose chunk of wall and onto the street on the far side. The deity’s destination was clear: the giant sphere that, from more distant vantages, Mort had taken to be a dome. A sinking feeling bled into his stomach as jigsaw pieces tumbled to the floor, falling eerily into place to form a completed puzzle.

  That thing was a gravity stone.

  The sphere had to have been a quarter mile in diameter. It was likely responsible for the local gravity matching Ithaca’s so precisely. Moreover, it was surely the means by which Little Brother tagged along so perfectly in Ithaca’s wake. Mort had heard of luxury star-liners with gravity stones as large as twenty feet in diameter. The ruins of the Odysseus contained an intact stone they’d measured as eighteen. A stone that size was likely cable of affecting the entire lunar system. But most important of all, a wizard could siphon off a small portion of that power to use as a weapon, and Devraa had a head start.

  Abandoning caution, Mort careened down the far slope of the rubble, jumping down and hopping across treacherous gaps. On one landing, his sneakers couldn’t gain traction on the dusty surface, and his feet slid out from under him. Mort’s staff clattered free as his arms pinwheeled in vain for balance. One moment of pain, grunting, and swearing was all Mort allowed himself. Clutching his lower back where it had struck a slab of whitish rock, he levered himself to his feet.

  The staff had landed a few feet away but in the wrong direction. There was a moment’s hesitation where Mort could see Devraa out of the corner of his eye, in a bandy-legged sprint for Little Brother’s gravity stone. Speed or power? Mort backtracked to where his staff hand fallen and tugged it loose from the crevice it had tried to wedge itself into. No soldier would rush off to battle unarmed, and while Mort didn’t like the idea of losing any more ground on Devraa, he liked the prospect of leaving behind his only weapon even less.

  Resuming his run, Mort gritted his teeth at each step. His back hurt. It wasn’t the typical morning grousing he did at the ravages of middle age. He’d done something down there in the standing-upright muscles that would need bed rest and a good, stiff drink once this was all over. If it had even been a fair footrace between him and Devraa, the alien was now surely the quicker of the two.

  Mid step, Mort stumbled, using the staff to catch himself and go to one knee. Despite his rather stern insistence that he was the same Mort as ever, something had convinced him that he was a good deal heavier than he’d been the moment before. He swore. Mort used words that made his spleen clench and his back teeth try to twist themselves out of their sockets. Gravity was fine. Mort was fine. And any universe that said otherwise was going to find itself tied in a broom closet and fed Snakki Bars from now till eternity. Gradually, the pressure eased and Mort was able to resume his progress toward the center of Eden.

  Every step was a tiny bit harder than the one before. But that was the way of gravity and so many other forms of magic. They grew stronger near the source.

  Mort came within sight of Devraa. The sphere was supported by massive, angled pillars that held it off the ground. The godling was standing beneath the stone, reaching up to press a hand against the surface. “You are an insect. Die, human!”

  The gravitational effect redoubled its efforts to force Mort to the ground. Each step, wrenched at Mort’s back like a mad chiropractor. But he kept his feet moving. Just a few more steps.

  “You know… you… you alien, you… about five… steps… from now… you’re going… to regret… ever hearing… of humans.” With a final lurch, Mort used his staff to push off as he stretched out. The blood rushed from his fingers as the gravity fought back. He grew dizzy. With a final grunt, he made contact with the stone.

  “NO!” Devraa shouted.

  “You’re mine, fucker.”

  In an instant, the excess gravity vanished. The dizziness and most of the aching faded. The gravity stone had two masters now, sharing control. If there was one thing Mort had plenty of practice at as a ship’s wizard, it was manual astral drops. But if there were two, the second would certainly have been gravity manipulation. Able to stand comfortably upright—barring a bruised latissimus dorsi—Mort pressed his palm against the cool white surface of the stone and felt it warm with the heat of his hand.

  “So, a stalemate,” Devraa groused. The godling had both hands pressed overhead against the stone. Those black eyes stared at Mort, unblinking. Mort hadn’t the foggiest notion if blinking was even a thing for whatever species Devraa was.

  Mort considered dragging his hand along the stone�
�s underside as he closed the distance and whacking Devraa repeatedly with the staff he’d taken so much care to bring along. But one-handed, he wasn’t sure how much damage he could manage with it. He wasn’t Mriy with her azrin physiology or Tanny, pumped so full of scientific alchemy that she was barely human herself. He was an aging couch-wizard who did most of his heavy lifting with his imagination—an imagination preoccupied with trying to squish Devraa to the size of a peach pit.

  With both of them grasping hold of the same weapon, there was little chance of either gaining an advantage. What Devraa tried to inflict upon Mort, Mort countered with equal force. The reverse held true as well. What Mort needed was a backup plan. With his enemy both within spitting distance and completely beyond his reach to harm, he struck up a new negotiation with the gravity stone as a conversation piece.

  Hey, how about we take this moon out for a spin? It’s been orbiting that nameless ball of gas forever. Let’s blow this orbit and go see the galaxy. I’ve been around. I can show this moon all the best planetary systems. Maybe get it set up with a nice Earth-like somewhere. Nice view. More visitors. It’s about time this moon got out and mingled.

  Devraa’s eyes glowed purple. “What are you doing? You fool! Stop that this instant!”

  Just as Mort was feeling the lurch as Little Brother edged free of its orbital path, an opposing force grabbed it and held it back. A constant, subtle pressure vanished, no longer pestering Mort to implode under his own inconceivable density. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, renewing his arguments in favor of going joyriding with a gravity-stone-powered moon.